Good afternoon my darlings. Today is one of those cold and rainy days that just feels blah. I did start out my morning with a bit of exercise in the sun room. Although I do feel bad calling it a sun room on days like today. There simply isn’t any sun. I do had the tiniest of green peeking through the dirt in my greenhouse seedling beds.
My green house is in the sunroom. It is essentially a plastic book case with a fitted plastic fain coat on it. the green shoots coming up can’t actually be called seedlings but the tiny green dots on the black soil just make me happy. Which was especially nice as I was relatively chilly before i started my work out. It warmed me up, and then I chilled back down again. Cold rainy days just sort of have that effect on me.
It might account for why I chose some makeup products that are usually in my summer staples list. I thought it was because I just wanted a low key makeup day, but as I look at them some of the products really are summer staples. Let’s take a look.
when I went to the site to get the link I found Purlisse has a BOGO sale going on right now. Not sure how long it will last but it is well worth stocking up
Today I wanted something simple and kind of low key. I also wanted to set out the shimmer from the bareMinerals palette so I added the red tone just to try it out. I honestly would have been happy with just the single natural brown look, but I like how the shimmer came out.
While the elf is a great winter primer due to the moisture factor (and is in general a good primer) the Elf Sheer Slick, Purlisse BB Cream and Real Her face palette are all summer staples for me. The Purlisse just blends beautifully into my skin. I have the shade light Medium in the matte formula (which I like better than the pink radiant one) and while the shade is perfect for me all summer long it also works really well for me now. I am currently as pale as I ever get and the the BB cream still worked beautifully for me. Plus it is so lightweight that it feels like it isn’t even there. It is a light coverage, but that was what i wanted today. It takes down redness and uneven skin tones but looks very natural on the skin.
The ultimate glow getter I used so much this summer that I am now seeing the outline of pan through both the blush and bronzer. It looks like the pans can come out of the palette and can be replaced. I am going to have to see if that is a possibility because I really enjoy this palette. The bronzer comes on strong with a dark line on the skin but blends in beautifully with even the most low key makeup look. And this blush works well as just a hint of color or more if you want. I like that it can be blended down or built up. It is a light pink though so in general I don’t build it up, but blend it for just a healthy low key kind of look. The blendability of this palette is why I reach for it so often. I think I put it away at the end of the summer because it was starting to show pan. I felt I used it so much that I wanted to give other products a try. And then I forgot about it. It is a fine line between trying out new things and forgetting about your faves.
Speaking of faves, I ended up this makeup look with the elf sheer slick. In the summer time it is my go to lip look. I used it so much this past summer that I went through an entire tube and had to replace it. And now the replacement looks a little worn. It is a light wash of color, which is nice. I think the reason that I reach for it so often is that it is vitamin E infused which makes my lips feel super moisturized and nourished. It is a sheer wash of color with benefits. I’m sure I will use this up and then repurchase it again. It is a good product to use in the winter, but I really seem to gravitate towards it in the summer. I think I actually picked it up out of habit when I picked up the Purlisse. Honestly, I’m glad I did. I may have been going for a low key look today, but using some products that I normally only reserve for summer use sort of made me feel a little bit better about the cold and dreary day.
Welcome to the July Empties. I have to say, it looks like a full basket this month. Admittedly, that may be because of the shampoo bottles and trial sizes. So let’s clear the large shampoo bottles out of the way first shall we?
First up, is my general standard for shampoo and conditioner. If you ever wonder what it is I compare products to, this is it.It is the Suave Professionals rosemary and mint. The scent is perfect for a post workout pick me up as it smells amazingly fresh and clean.
This is one of my standard drug store favorites. With my hair I generally find that I have to switch up shampoos periodically to keep my hair loving them. This is one that gets rotated in frequently. In fact it is the one that I actually compare other shampoos to. I don’t mind paying extra for good hair products, but they have to work. So whenever I pick up a pricy shampoo and conditioner to try out, I ask myself does this work as well as the Suave? So even though this is leaving, it will be repurchased again and again in the future.
Slightly pricier shampoo that I recently ran out of is the Love Beauty and Planet Coconut water and Mimosa Flower shampoo and conditioner. This set is designed for body and strength for fine hair, but I find it works really well on my hair as well. My hair is on the thicker side, but I still liked it.
It gave my hair great body and shine. I did find that I still had to use a leave in conditioner after wards. I think that might be because my hair is not fine. I also found that this worked best if I didn’t use it every wash. If I used it every wash, it tended to not do as well. I found that it worked best for me if I kept this as my once a week shampoo and conditioner, using Suave the rest of the week.
I don’t know if there was some sort of build up with the products that Suave cleared out. But for a once a week wash, I did really like this set. Plus, using them only once a week offset the higher cost by making them last longer. I would definitely consider buying these again, but next time I might look for something in their line designed for thicker hair and see if I had the same issues with it. I initially bought this because I saw volume on the label and that is generally my go to for product claims. Either way, I like the brand and will continue to purchase from them in the future.
Sticking with hair for the moment, I have two empty dry shampoos this month. One is the full sized COLAB dry shampoo that came in a Glossy Box and the other is a trial size of amika perk up. I liked both but for different reasons.
Let’s talk about the colab first. It claims to have oil absorbing without the white residue. It has white residue. I have dark hair, it showed white on my hair. Personally, I don’t mind as I generally find that the ones that show the white tend to work the best. With this dry shampoo I found that it worked best if I sprayed it on my hair just before bed and then brushed it out in the morning. Doing that, it worked really well. It absorbed any excess oil and left my hair looking clean. It is a very good, and very cost effective product. I think the full sized bottle was under $6.
With the amika perk up, it left a lot more white, but if I brushed it out right after application it left my hair amazingly soft and shiny (in a healthy non greasy way). If I tried to spray at night and leave it, the product got weirdly clumpy and my scalp itched. It is a dry shampoo to use when you need to run out somewhere, not an overnight product. To be honest, while I would consider buying this again it would probably be in the travel size that I could keep in my purse rather than the full sized to keep in the bathroom. The Klorane is still my go to dry shampoo, neither of these replaced it, but this really is good on the go, just remember there is a LOT of white added to dark hair with this product. So both dry shampoos were good, but in different ways.
This month my empties bin features several make up items. For primers I have the Benefit Pore Professional Pearl and the Kaja Blur Drop. Technically speaking the Kaja is not empty but it is leaving my world so I thought I would include it.
It was one of those products that I just didn’t like and never want to use again. It may work for someone else, but it did not do well with my skin at all. The one friend I generally trade products with as we tend to have almost opposite skin needs, said she tried it and hated it to, so alas it is going in the bin.
The Porefessional Pearl Primer from Benefit on the other hand, I loved and will be getting again. I have one more sample size of this in my collection and once I use it up, I will be purchasing the full sized tube.
This month I also used up a sample size of the Purlisse Perfect Glow BB Cream. I tried it, loved it and luckily have a full sized version waiting in my drawer. I am trying to resist opening it until I have used up at least one product, but it is hard to resist. That is one of the best BB creams I have tried.
On the opposite end of the spectrum was the Pur 4-in-1 love your selfie longwear foundation and concealer. I did not like this product and will not be repurchasing it. Luckily it was only a sample size because it it were full sized I would feel bad about getting rid of it.
Makeup item this month was the Brow Contour Pro from Benefit. While I enjoyed the benefit brow priducts, I believe in the future I will purchase the Precisely my brow instead of this one. I just am not a fan of the multiple products in one pen. It felt like I didn’t get enough of the one product I wanted which was the brow pencil. I used up my shade rather quickly and then had to work to use up the other products before I felt comfortable letting it go. So it is is a good product, just not in a form I particularly care for.
This month I used the Speak Deodorant Cream that came in one of my Petit Vour Boxes. I liked the product and felt it worked well and considering how hot this summer has been it put any deodorant product to the test.
It worked well but I really didn’t like the cream aspect of it. I absolutely hated digging out the cream and rubbing it into my arm pits. Luckily, when I posted my review, a rep from the company actually messaged me letting me know that soon they were going to be coming out with a stick version. Sometime this year was the plan, I’m not certain how recent events have affected their time line, but I will be paying attention. I will keep my eyes peeled for that one to try out.
If it weren’t for the application, I would purchase this product. If they make this into a stick form and it performs the same way I will purchase it. I would not purchase the cream form again because as good as it is, I know I would not use it. If that doesn’t bother you and you are looking for a natural deodorant, then you might want to check this one out. Or wait for the stick version.
I had issues with the naked cosmetics lib scrub. I think that somehow it wasn’t mixed properly as the product looked separated. One section was dry sugar like granules and one was just oil. I tried stirring to blend, but it never quite worked for me. I don’t know if I just got a bad batch or what, but as much as I love lip scrubs, I have to give this one a pass.
As we continue with scrubs, the B Kind face scrub is one that I will be picking up. I received this in a Petit Vour box, tried it and loved it. I noticed a slightly waxy residue on my skin afterwards so I always used it as step one in my face wash routine rather than as a stand alone product, but it is very gentle and my skin felt amazing afterwards. If you are looking for vegan cruelty free skin care, this should be one you put on the list to try. As you can probably tell from the picture, I squeezed every drop of this product from the tube.
There is one toner in my empties bin this month and it is the Martian mattifying melting water gel toner from Sunday Riley. It was an interesting product to use and on the days where I felt super greasy it worked really well to reduce the oil on my face and reduce break outs. I couldn’t use it every day because it was too drying, but every once in a while it really did the trick on my breakouts. While I wouldn’t mind keeping it around, sadly I believe it has been discontinued.
Next I have two products from the brand Avette. Prior to this I tried a couple of their sheet masks and found them generally okay but nothing to really seek out. The first Avette product is the water Flash Coconut Water Cream and the other is the Fresh Clean Coconut Mild Foam Cleanser.
The Coconut water cream was okay, but not the best moisturizer I’ve used. I didn’t do a full review on it because the sample tube barely held enough product for three days of use. While that’s not a lot of time to see how skin care performs, I found that the overly faux coconut scent gave me a bit of a headache. Because of this I was not inclined to seek out a full sized version of the product. I’m not normally bothered by scents, but this one got to me.
It wasn’t as strong as the mild foam cleanser though. It was so faux coconut scented that it smelled super perfume-y. And it didn’t really wash away very cleanly. It left a residue on my skin that I didn’t care for. I know I said the B Kind scrub also left a residue but for me, the foaming cleanser is the last step of my face wash system. I start with either a cleansing balm or an oil to remove makeup, every couple of nights I’ll add an exfoliant and then I finish with a foaming cleanser before moisturizing. Having the foaming cleanser leave a residue was not good. Although really, it was the scent that got me. I didn’t care for the way the product worked but I absolutely hated the scent. To be honest I can’t recommend either of these products.
I will however recommend the two Volition Products in my empties bin this month. The Volition Celery Green Clean was an excellent day cream. I had to use a night cream a couple of times a week after days when I spent a long time outside, but it was a wonderfully light cream over all and I will definitely be picking up another jar.
I have to say as an aside, it is super satisfying to see an empty skin care jar. It just makes me feel like I’ve taken care of my skin. And speaking of jars, this one is nice heavy glass with a screw top lid so I will be soaking off the label and reusing the jar. It is only in the empties bin so I wouldn’t forget to mention it now that it is empty. It won’t be thrown away though.
As for the Volition luminizing shield in SPF 50, I ordered a second one as soon as this tube started feeling a little light. The replacement is actually due in this afternoon according to shipping so I won’t have long to go without this. It is an excellent light weight sunscreen that sits beautifully under my makeup. I cannot recommend this highly enough. It is now a summer staple. It has also become the product I compare other sunscreens to. From here on out it will be, is this sunscreen as good as Volition?
And that my darlings are all of the empties from July.
I would like to give an additional mention of one sheet mask I tried this month that I really think is worth mentioning. While I do a Face Mask Friday posts, I often apply sheet masks throughout the week. Some are good, some are bad and some do nothing that is actually noticable.
This was one of the good ones. It is the beaut green Firming Collagen Essence mask. It came in one of my FaceTory subscriptions and it was a good enough sheet mask that not only does it bear mentioning, but I have put it on my list to reorder.
My skin felt excellent after using it and I could actually feel a slight tightening in my skin. This is one of those masks I would definitely consider buying a large pack of and giving a full continued use test to see if there are any longer term results. With this mask it felt good enough on the skin that I actually think there might be some noticeable results. Perhaps that will be a future skin care test.
For now I will sign off and end this rather long post. I will take the Volition Celery Green cream jar out of the empties bin and set it aside to soak off the label so it can be put to another use. The I will divide the rest of the products into trash and recycling bins as appropriate. Then the empty bin will go back into the bathroom ready and waiting for August’s empties.
I think this is the third week running for this setting spray. So by now, you know I like it. The Laura Geller is a really good product and it has a light coconut water scent that is excellent for the summer. I have to say my favorite part about this spray (other than the fact that it works well) is the mister. It is a nice fine mist that never drops splotches. While it will make a return to the makeup bag in future weeks, for now I will be sending it back to the dressing table and rotating in my I Heart Revolution setting spray.
My returning BB Cream Perfect Glow from Purlisse and this week’s Primer, The Pore Professional in Pearl
Also returning this week was the Purlisse Perfect Glow BB Cream. I used a sample size last week and still had enough product in the tube for a second week. The above link will take you to the full review. I really enjoyed this BB cream and am very glad I have a full sized bottle in my dressing table. Opening it will wait until I have cleared out a few products, but I am looking forward to using it again. This sample tube is finally empty and will make it to my empties bin. So farewell for now sweet BB Cream.
Next week I am going to try a little something fun with my foundation. I recently ordered a couple of items from Jouer and they provide two samples with each purchase. My samples are small foil packets containing samples of Jouer’s High Coverage Cream Foundation in Medium and a sample of their liquid concealers. I don’t think that there is enough product to make it through the week so I think I am going to use and review what product there is and then pick whichever previously used foundation appeals to me for the rest of the week. I think if the foil packets go into my dressing table they will be lost and so even if there isn’t enough for a full review I can at least share my first impressions with you.
Plus it gives me a chance to use my new foundation brush. My old one was desperately needing to retire to that old makeup brush heaven so I ordered the 999 Master blender from Bdellium tools to replace it. As the Purlisse BB cream applied better with a sponge the new brush has just been sitting there, gleaming at me with its newness and all I could do was look at it.
It is awfully pretty. And next week I am going to choose products that let me use it. And yes I took a picture of it for you here because I know it will never look this pristine again.
Because this week’s Purlisee BB Cream was a repeat, I did separate reviews of both the Too Faced Cocoa Contour and the Tarteist Pro eyeshadow palettes. Those links will take you to the reviews. I really liked the Tarteist Pro and the shades I could use of the Cocoa Contour.
Brow Contour Pro from Benefit as well as the Sugar crush lipstick and the TreStique lip glaze
Also returning this week was the Brow Contour Pro Eyebrow pencil. It’s the one with multiple products. I know I’ve mentioned it many times, but I like all of the products contained in the pencil, I just really like them to be in separate products rather than the all in one.
My plan was to keep it until I either used it up or received another eyebrow product in a subscription box to try out. (Spoiler alert it looks like there is an Illamasqua eyebrow pencil coming in IPSY later this month) And I have stuck to that. I am now out of the lighter brown shade of pencil and getting really low on my highlighter. So this week, I will be using the darker shade and the rest of the highlighter. I’ll see where I am at the end of next week. So stay tuned for that update.
My primer this week was also from Benefit Cosmetics. I used the Pore Professional Pearl primer. And yes it is a sample size. I really like this primer, it gives a nice glow to the skin, especially under a matte foundation. It glides on smoothly, fills pores and makes my skin feel like silk. Even with the luminosity of the Volition Sunscreen on my face under my makeup, the glow was not too much. It is a very mild pearl that just adds a little dimension to matte foundation.
I actually like it better than the regular Pore Professional. Don’t get me wrong, I like that one too, but it does come in second to the Pearl, at least with me. However I have to admit, I have never owned a full sized version of this primer. Quite a few years ago I received a sample of this primer for some reason. I think I might have purchased the regular pore primer around the time this was first released and it was given as a promotional sample then (like I said it was years ago). I really liked it and through various other sample with purchase purchases I ended up with quite a collection of the sample sizes. So I put them in a little bowl and told myself that once I worked through all of the samples I could buy a full sized bottle.
The first issue with that plan is that you really don’t need to use a lot of this product. A little bit will cover your face. And adding more actually makes it less effective as too much may make your foundation slide off. So using it sparingly is actually the best way to use this product. My second hiccup in my use up the samples plan was that any time I came close to finishing out my samples new ones seemed to appear.
It was like magic.
Or sample selection if you insist on looking behind the curtain to see the secret to the magic trick.
However I had this open tube of Pore Professional Pearl Primer and one small unopened sample. This opened tube had just enough primer to get me through the week. It is now empty and my sample collection is down to one unopened tube of The Pore Professional Pearl Primer. For now I will save it for when I am doing more than sitting at my computer all day. Or until I need a pick me up, because it really does make me feel pretty when I wear it. I do have a full size of the regular Porefessional in my dressing table and I think next week it will be rotated in to see some use. I really do like it, Pearl is just a smidge better.
The Becca Pink Haze stayed in my makeup bag this week. It is a loose powder that I really enjoy using. I love wearing it alone for just a light healthy glow to the skin. In fact paired with just the Porefessional Pearl Primer gives me a fantastic no makeup summer look.
My only issue with this powder is that it does get a little messy. There is no regulator on the powder and it comes through the holes super easily. It has the tendency to scatter pink dust over things. I’m willing to over look that because I really like the product, but I’m ready for a break from the pink haze covering portions of my sink. So back to the dressing table it goes, to be used again in a few weeks.
My blush this week was the Ciate London marbled light blush in the shade Halo. It is the perfect shade for me in the summer time. The tone is deep enough for my current level of tan and while it is pigmented it doesn’t go on like clown circles. It is a buildable formula that is easily blended into my look. I really liked using it this week and in fact I liked it so much that I am going to be using it for a second week. It is staying in the Makeup bag for another week.
The Wander Beauty Mile High Club mascara is one I’ve used before. Since mascaras have a short shelf life, I only like to keep a few open at a time and cycle through them using as much product as possible before good hygiene and product labels claim they should be disposed of.
You may recall that this wasn’t one of my favorite mascaras. There is nothing wrong with it. It is a decent , serviceable mascara. It doesn’t peel or flake. It also doesn’t give me much extra volume or length. I’ll keep it in rotation and I will use it until it is either used up or expired, but I will not be purchasing this again. Most Wander Beauty products I really like, their Glow up oil, for example, is fantastic and well worth keeping around. But this mascara is just…serviceable. And this week, it served. Now it returns to the dressing table until it is pressed into service again.
One of my first time using products this week was the treStique concealer. Like all of their products, it looks kind of like a crayon. I found it interesting to use.
The crayon like end of the product is very pointy, or it was at the start of the week. It is less pointy now. I found this really good for applying under my eyes. The cushion blended on the other side of the pencil wasn’t useful for blending the under eye area (although it was useful elsewhere) and I found it easier just to use my fingers under my eyes.
The product does need to warm up a little or it tends to pull at the skin. I found that if I spot corrected my face before using this under my eyes it was warm enough not to pull by the time I got to my under eyes. So just have a strategy if using. I will say spot correcting is where this product shines. Its shape allows you to precisely place product and to use very little. Using less, helped with a seamless blending so I didn’t see a big splotch of corrected skin. With spot correcting the blending tip actually came in really handy. It is small and pointed and much more precise than my makeup sponge. If for nothing else, I would keep this product around solely for covering blemishes. Given that stress keeps me breaking out, it will see a lot of use this summer.
As an aside, usually I use my concealer as eyelid primer for my shadows. This is not the product for that. It is too stiff and pointy to use on eyelids. This is, as the name states, a conceal and correct and that is the job it does and does well. It is not an eyelid primer.
There was a second treStique product in my makeup bag this week.From my set of mini lip glazes from TreStique (pictured above with the the Brow Contour Pro), I kept one in my bag this week. I kept the shade Shell Beach Sheer. It is a mostly sheer gloss with just slightly pink tones so it is one of those my lips but better products. I used it a lot this week and will be keeping it around for the upcoming week.
As far as lips go, I did put my Sugar rust Sugar Coat liquid lip in the shade Sprinkle in my bag this week. I did not use it so I’ll put it back in the bag for next week. I also forgot completely about using the lip liners so they too will just return to the bag this week and hopefully be used.
The reason I didn’t use it was that my Jouer order came in and I couldn’t resist using the liquid lip I ordered. It is in the shade Clove and I absolutely adored it.
It went on smoothly and dried down fairly quickly. It wasn’t too dry on my lips but it didn’t leave smudges on everything. While it felt completely dry to the touch of a finger tip, it felt a little sticky when I rolled my lips together. I think that little stickiness is why it didn’t feel too dry. It wasn’t completely weightless but it wasn’t heavy on the lips. Unless I pressed my lips together, I didn’t notice it.
It also stayed in place all day. In fact I had a swatch on my hand that didn’t budge or smear or anything. When I went to take a shower I washed my hair and noticed it still hadn’t budged. I keep makeup remover oil in the shower so I can take my make up off in the shower and to get the lipstick off I had to put the oil on the swatch and rub it in.
So once in place and dried, this lipstick isn’t going anywhere. Normally I am not one for metallic lipsticks, but I have to say I really liked this one. I am also partial to darker lipsticks. I try to use the lighter shades in the summer, hence the many glosses that have been appearing in my Make up bag, but I will always be drawn to the darker shades. I will however be putting it to the side for now. Along with the Sugar crush and the TreStique this week I may be adding an additional lip product so I have three to choose from.
So that was this week’s makeup bag. I’ll be doing a lot of rotating this week so there will be fewer repeats next week. And who knows, if this month’s subscription boxes end up being makeup heavy, I may end up with even few repeats later in the month.
Next week’s bag will see the return of Sugar Crush and Trestique in the lip department, along with Benefit in the form of my eyebrow pencil. Benefit will also be the primer I am going to use. I’ll be trying out the Jouer foundation foil packet for a first impression and bringing back the Ciate London Blush. There will be other products filling in the blank spots between, but you will just have to tune in next week to see what they are as well as what I think of them. I’ll see you later this afternoon for the Friday Face mask, but until then, have an excellent Friday.
This week’s bag was a pretty good selection of products I’ve used before and ones I hadn’t. There were even a couple of things I liked, but hadn’t used in a while because I forgot I had them products. I’m very glad some of them made it out of the drawer this week.
First up was the Purlisse Perfect Glow BB Cream with SPF 30. I used this as my foundation this week. I layered it on top of my SPF 50 Volition Sunscreen all week so I felt extra protected. I really enjoyed this and even though I do have an unopened full size in the dressing table, I went for the sample size. This week I ended up using about half of the sample tube and I liked it enough to just keep the Purlisse Perfect Glow BB Cream out for another week so I can use the trial size up completely.
So next week there will be no foundation reviews since it is a repeat. However at the bottom of this post I will be listing next week’s products. If there is something in there you’d like to see a more in depth review of with an individual post instead, let me know. (of course if there are products from other weeks you want more information on you can let me know that too. There will be more repeat weeks with foundation as I try to use up my summer shades.)
The AutoBalm Pic Perf Shadow palette provided my eyeshadow this week and the review was a bit rocky. It surprised me because I really like The Balms shadows. I anticipated loving this which is why I chose it after my not so great palette last week. But it was not my favorite. The palette was really hard to open and while the mattes were great the color selection was not. The above link is to my full review of the palette.
There were two repeats in my make up bag this week. The first was the Laura Geller Spackle Mist Restore Coconut water. I really love the spray on this product. It really is a fine mist that doesn’t splotch out on to your face. It also smells like coconut water instead of coconut candy which I appreciate. Oh yeah, it also works really well at setting my makeup. It is staying around for a third week.
The second repeat is also staying around and that is the Brow Contour Pro from Benefit. It will actually be in my bag until I use it up. While all of the products in it are good, I really prefer the individual products. However all of the products are growing on me. Benefit is my go-to for brow products but I tend to limit myself to the pencil. I recently found out I like powder brow products so I might try that as well from Benefit. I also am really liking the Highlighter in this multi-product brow pen.
I think I would actually purchase it separately as well. I’m, holding off repurchasing my favorite Precisely my Brow pencil from Benefit until this is gone, but I suspect I will be ordering several products when I do place an order. I know they are running a sale right now so it is hard to resist reordering, but I know once I do, I won’t use this pen and I don’t want to waste product. I wouldn’t purchase this item again, but I would purchase all of the products encased in it separately.
This week’s primer was an old favorite that I recently repurchased. It is the No Pore blem Primer from touch in Sol. It is weightless on the skin, blends in like a dream and leaves my skin feeling like silk. I like the slight pink tone as it doesn’t add darkness to my skin. It actually disappears and covers all my pores. It is excellent if you are doing a light makeup look.
I had two powders this week. One loose and one pressed. The loose powder was the Becca Pink Haze. It is hands down one of my favorite Becca Products and once of my favorite loose powders. It looks really pink in the jar. Like scary pink. It isn’t that pink on the skin.
It just gives a light healthy looking glow to the skin. It is one of my favorite summertime products because I can just use primer and the Becca Pink Haze as a super quick makeup look. Because it gives a light flush I don’t need any other face products. If you just want to look a little livelier when running to the grocery store, the primer and Pink Haze are a good combo. Put the powder on when the primer is still moist and not set and it locks the powder in place so it doesn’t get all over your mask. Then just hit it with some mascara and boom, you are out of the door.
The second powder I used was the Zeesea pressed powder from the British Museum Collection. (Incidentally, I do have a coupon code for Zeesea products its MSMIMSY for 10% off if anyone is interested in checking them out.) I’ll admit, I bought it for the packaging. The packaging is gorgeous. I figured that even if I ended up not liking the product then I could just use it as a compact in my purse since it has such a nice mirror. It turns out the powder is pretty good. Having liked it so much I went back, thinking that since the eyeshadow palette was equally pretty I might try their formula, but I think The British Museum Collection has been discontinued.
I’m going to keep looking and I really hope they bring it back (seriously they had lipsticks carved with hieroglyphics too and I am kicking myself for not picking one up immediately). They do have A Picasso themed collection that looks equally beautiful though and a nature themed one as well. So I may branch out. I’ve only tried their powder, which is a really good pressed powder, but all their packaging is stunning.
But we must move on.
Specifically to the Shaina B Miami blush and highlighter palette. There are four products. I liked the blush in the shade Brickell. It was a nice blush. Very pigmented so even a light tap with a brush put a lot of pigment on the skin. I used my fabulous looking pressed powder to tone down the blush most of the week. I didn’t care for any other product in the palette.
Rosa was still highly pigmented, just not my shade and I really didn’t get on with the highlighters. You can apply them and they look highly pigmented but f you touch them in an attempt to blend, they disappear. I was not a fan. I will be passing this palette on to a friend of mine after sanitizing it, but it will not be staying in my makeup rotation.
One thing that will be staying in my makeup rotation is the sample sized Nars bronzer in the shade Laguna. It was fantasticly pigmented and super easy to blend. As it is a small sample it generally falls to the bottom of the drawer. It’s dark packaging conceals it from view. I need to find some place to put it where I will use it. Partially because I really like it and partially because I refuse to buy the full size until I’ve used up the sample. And I really want to buy the full size. I loved the way I could go either super low key by blending it out or go super dramatic if I felt like it. It is a very versatile bronzer I really like having around.
Returning from the dressing table this week was the Elf Camo Concealer. It is an excellent concealer. However, I was interrupted one morning as I was getting ready (My neighbor has a large tree that is apparently rotting and it chose this week to split down the middle and slam a large section of tree across the road in a very dramatic way. It was pretty early so I got to see a lot of my neighbor’s pajamas and dressing gowns. It was an event.) In all the fuss my concealer was left open and I didn’t notice it until the following morning. It is now unusable. My one consolation is that there wasn’t a lot of product left in it and it was getting kind of old. So it is being transferred to the empties bin and at some point will be repurchased.
The mascara in this week’s makeup bag was the Rimmel Scandaleyes Wow Wings. I really like the winged shape of the brush as it lets me flair out the lashes on the outside coroners better. It needs two coats to look its best. However you should really let one coat settle before applying the second. If you don’t it tends to get a little clumpy. So if you apply, then move on to lips, then return for a second coat all is fine. The mascara stayed on me all day with no flaking and I really liked it. It was a mess when I tried to use it for my lower lashes. The winged brush is fantastic for upper lashes, not so great for lower lashes. Still it is a nice product and I am happy to keep it around.
While we are talking about eyes, This week I used the Maybelline Master precise ink liner. I thought it was black when I picked it up. It is a gunmetal metallic. That came as a bit of a surprise the first morning I used it. Color aside though, this is a fantastic liner. It is as precise as its name implies, it doesn’t seep into the fine lines of my eyelids and once in place it stays there until I take it off. I may have to look into other colors of this because it was a surprisingly good product.
Finally my darlings we reach the lips. My gloss this week was the So Juicy Plumping gloss from Colourpop. Usually I apply it to my lips before going out then once it has done it’s plumping wonders I remove it and put on whatever product I am wearing out of the house. This week, I just used it as my gloss and my lips looked nice and juicy. It is a little on the sticky side, but still nice to wear. Especially as I wore it over the Il Makiage lip pencil in the shade Vintage. The lip liner gives fabulous color for a your lips but better look but when worn on its own s really drying on the lips, it is after all a liner not a lipstick. With the Colourpop over it I really enjoyed it and didn’t feel like my lips were too dry. So that was definitely a good combo for me. Although I really need to relocate my pencil sharpener to the makeup bag so I don’t have to start an impromptu morning search.
Also in this week’s bag was a set of mini lip glazes from TreStique. There are four of them and they are a sheer wash of color ranging from light pink to the darker English rose. This set seems tailor made for summer. They feel like a really good lip balm when you apply them to your lips. They aren’t greasy or heavy at all and I tended to forget I was wearing them. Don’t expect high pigment, because that is not their lane. They are a light wash of pigment and they stick to that lane of traffic all the way. I think I might keep one of them in the makeup bag next week but not all four. That way I still have one to use as a light tint but I am still giving other products a chance.
And that was this week’s makeup bag, the good, the not so great and the utterly fabulous.
Next week will see the return of the Purlisse Perfect Glow BB Cream, the Laura Geller Spackle Mist, the Benefit brow contour pro and one of the TreStique lip glazes. I think I am going to be bringing back the Pink Haze from Becca as well.
Joining these items will be the Tarteist Pro Palette, the Too Faced Cocoa Contour palette,two Bodyography lip liners, a sugar coat liquid lipstick, a TreStique concealer, Porefessional pearl primer, and a Ciate Marbled light blush. Returning from the dressing table will be the wet ‘n wild liquid megaliner and the Wander Beauty Mile High Club Mascara. Personally, I think that sounds like a fun mix. Have a good Friday and I’ll see you back here for the Friday face Mask this afternoon.
The Purlisse Perfect Glow BB Cream, both the smaple size I am currently using and the unopened full sized bottle for comparison
Spending a lot of time at home lately has caused me to do a lot of spring cleaning and reorganizing. I’m sure I am not alone in this. I think a lot of people decided similar things if conversations with friends about which Goodwill is currently accepting donations and the plethora of Youtube declutter videos are any indication.
In my attempt to organize the chaos, I found that I accumulated quite a few sample sized products. I rotated all of the open ones to the front of my dressing table and did my best to work through most of them, clearing out the no longer good products and finally using up the last of a few fabulous products I for some reason I appeared to be hoarding.
“I know there is only one, possibly two uses left in this liquid lipstick sample from smashbox, but I’m going to hold on to it in case of an emergency.”
This appears to be my subconscious thinking. I’m not entirely certain what sort of emergency I would actually react to with a twenty to thirty minute rummage through the contents of my catch all makeup drawer to find a sample size lipstick of any variety (although I really did like the lipstick and will be purchasing a full sized version once I clear out some space by using up older lipsticks).
I ended up rotating the almost empty sample into my makeup bag, using it up and making note of the shade color and brand in my reorder notebook before I chucked it out. And yes I have a reorder notebook. I mark things down, especially lipstick shades, so I remember which I liked (mostly because I am the queen of ordering the wrong shade of lipstick). I also have a section of things I’ve heard of but haven’t tried yet in my notebook. Because there are so many things out there that I want to try.
Mixed in with these half opened products I had several unopened sample sizes of BB and CC cream as well as some foundation samples. I put them all in a box, shook the box up and selected one at random. The one I chose to try this past week was the Purlisse Perfect Glw BB Cream with SPF 30.
And as soon as I chose it for my weekly makeup bag, my Boxycharm box arrived with a full sized version of the product inside.
Like magic.
This is actually more product than I needed to cover my face. About half that proved to be what I needed
I decided to go ahead and use the sample size and save the full sized one. I figured if I didn’t like it then I would only waste the little sample rather than the large one . That way I could always pass the unopened full size to someone else.
I have to say, I’m keeping the full sized version.
But I’m going to leave it sealed until I work through some of the other open products. So it is still less wasteful.
This was the first makeup item I have tried from Purlisse. I actually had to check on that because Purlisse has been a frequent visitor to my vanity and for a while I was certain I’d seen it before.
When I looked through my notes though, it was all skin care. Almost all of which I really liked. The serum wasn’t my favorite, but all of the moisturizers I have tried, I would order again. Their specialty seems to be the ability to work with your skin in an unstable climate.
You know, as soon as I wrote that I thought, apocalyptic skincare.
I didn’t mean pack it for the end of days, I meant like spring and fall temperature and humidity shifting.
(Although now I have a 1950’s style atomic bomb style commercial playing in my head – Hi there Mrs. Smith, Packing for the Apocalypse are we? Well don’t forget to pack your apocalyptic skin care. You’ll just love the radiation blocking capacity and that new fresh scent! – For those following along its a black and white cartoon with a movie tone narrator voice over. Just so you get the full picture. Cause I’d hate for you to get confused.)
Okay back to the actual Purlisse Perfect Glow BB Cream.
Bare skin
And while most of you are thinking I should just get to the BB Cream, these were the thoughts going through my head when I picked the BB cream up. I wondered if it would have the same flexibility, shall we say, as seem to be built into their moisturizers. But lets see what they have to say about it.
According to the Purlisse website…
Complexion perfection for a gorgeous matte meets dewy finish! Your multi-tasking beauty balm that glides on like a tinted moisturizer with all the age-defying, coverage, sunscreen benefits of a foundation and BB cream! It’s perfect for getting that Instagram- filtered version of yourself, featuring our exclusive Asian Herb extracts complex.
For normal or dry skin types, wear over Purlisse moisturizers. For oily skin, wear alone. For extra coverage, wear under foundation.
As we are in summer, I thought a lighter BB cream might be a good idea. I especially wanted something lighter because I added the new layer of sunscreen to my daily routine. (I am completely in love with the Volition sunscreen) I did use the Purlisse Perfect Glow one day without the sunscreen so that I could gauge the difference both with and without the Volition Sunscreen. The Volition sunscreen didn’t have issues with this or any other product I tried it with. The Purlisse did really well for my skin either way.
Just sunscreen and foundation
It is a very light coverage, but it is coverage. I’ve tried some BB creams that either covered nothing and were therefore pointless or tried too hard and were too heavy, thus defeating the purpose of the product. This BB Cream covered my skin enough to make me feel confident in my skin, but was the perfect summer skin almost bare look.
Because I think I have larger pores, I still used a primer with this BB Cream. I was fine without the primer, but I really preferred the look of my skin with the primer underneath. I don’t think that is the fault of the cream, I think that is my personal preference.
I will say that applying it really does need a makeup sponge. The brush just wasn’t a good idea as it just sort of streaked it across the face and using my hands just ended up applying too much product.
Start of the day
To apply I just put a little dab on my hand, dipped the damp sponge into the product and then dabbed on my face, blending as I went. I started in areas where I have a couple of healing eruptions and then worked out from there so that the red spots received a little more product but my skin looked evenly balanced. It is a light enough product that it feels weightless and it doesn’t settle into any lines or cause issues.
The Purlisse BB Cream comes in eleven different shades. The shade I am using for my summer tanned skin is light medium. There are two shades lighter on the scale pictured on their chart.
end of the day
This gives me a little wiggle room should I want to pick up another tube once the summer wanes. It’s nice to know that, but truthfully, I almost never reach for BB creams in the winter. For me they always seem like a summer product. I have friends who wear them year round, but I really tend to forget about them once the weather turns. Although in all honesty, I’ve never found a BB cream I liked as much as I like this one. So possibly, I will try it after the weather turns. I just have to adjust my summer only mindset.
Because I’m using a sample sized tube of product, I ended up using a substantial portion of it this week. But I didn’t use it all. So I am going to go ahead and give it a second week in my makeup bag to use up the sample tube and remove it from my dressing table drawer. I suspect if it returns to the drawer it will sink into darkness only reappearing as it shuffles zombie like from the depths, its remaining product of no use. So it is better to use it now.
I still have the full bottle in the regular size so I’m sure it will make an appearance again later in the summer, but this way I won’t have half a tube lingering forgotten and alone in the drawer.
This means that next week, I will be skipping the foundation review since it will be a repeat. I’ll be sure to add something else to the makeup bag to take its place in the reviews though. There is always either something new I’ll be delighted to talk about or an old favorite I can tell stories about. If any of you see anything in the makeup bag you want to hear more about let me know, I can always break it out for a seperate review. I’ll be choosing next week’s bag tonight so that I can post a picture with this week’s post.
Ms. Mimsy Reviews 