Topbox November 2014

One set of exams done...that means back to blogging! I have been very happy with Topbox recently, and this month was no exception. Briefly, Topbox is a Toronto-based subscription service, you get about 4-5 products each month for $12+tax. Even if here and there pops in products I don't like or will never use, I don't mind it because usually the other products are very useful (and more than worth the $12), or it allowed me to know what to stay away from in the future. Overall, highly recommended!

I have been choosing the bag options recently as I had collected too many of those tubes.

 

 First up, uniqOne all in one hair treatment, can be used wet or dry. Honestly these "all in one" products are confusing to me. I much prefer separate for different purposes (ie. shampoo and conditioner separetely rather than 2-in-1). To me, all-in-one means not particularly good at either or...but will see, I imagine I will just use this like a hair oil.

Next is Benefit Stay Flawless primer. I've heard lots of good things about this, and it's neat being in stick form instead of liquid/cream like every other primer I've used. The instruction say not to blend it in at first and let it blend with the makeup. This will be interesting... will update this post after I've tried it out.

 

Eyeko Mascara! I have been wanting to try this brand for a long time, now's finally the chance! Happy happy happy...

 

Lastly, Elizabeth Arden Flawless Future serum. EA products have always been solid for me, so expecting this will probably be too. 

 

Here's the stash, overall looking forward to trying all these!

What did you get in your box this month? Please share links to your posts!

Real Techniques Lip Brush Review

Since the Chapman sisters from Pixiwoo came out with the real Techniques brushes, I have been head over heels in love with their larger powder and blush brush (so much so I have bought backups...). Never have I felt brushes so full and soft, with no shedding, and at around $10 each, really there is nothing bad to say about them!

I was looking a better lip brush recently, so decided to try more of this amazing lineup.

The real Techniques lip brush retails for $7.99 from FTBBeauty. It is synthetic and appears similarly mixed black and grey-white hairs as the other face brushes I have.

Just like the others, it's soft and doesn't shed. It's also a very good size for my lips, which are on the thin side.  My Annabelle concealer brush I was using as a lip brush, became for me a tad big overtime (though on someone with bigger/more luscious lips it's awesome!).

The only downside, is this cap. Obviously this was meant to be a travel brush you can cap off, however the cap is VERY loose. Very little jiggling can loosen it and it will fall off. Can you imagine...it would be very annoying if this happened inside your makeup bag (imagine smeared lipstick inside your bag, never mind possibly ruining your brush-head having it jammed against the bag, ugh).

So this thing just sits on my bathroom counter to be used at home only, which is fine with me, though I will keep looking for a good travel lip brush.

Have you tried this? Let me know what you think of it or if you recommend any good travel lip brushes!

Marc Jacobs Highliner Gel Crayon #54 (Brown with shimmer) review and swatches

one swipe

I don't have a lot of high-end liners, so was excited to see this in Sephora's 100pts perks. It did not disappoint! Brown is brown, easy to use and natural, but THIS brown is special with it's shimmer.

It glides on fairly easily, with a bit of tugging but is a well-pigmented line in 1-2 swipes on my lids. It stays all day, and I only experienced a small amount of smudging on my lower lids at the end of the night. For me that is pretty good as a lot of liners smudge a lot or very quickly on me. Perhaps one day I will find a HG liner that doesn't do this... (I thought I found this with the Julep gel liner but it dried out so quickly that it was HG for only 3 uses...can't have a HG product that only lasts 3 uses...)

Here's a bare-eye swatch with only a bit of mascara. If you draw a very thin line right on the lashline, it gives the most natural yet a barely-there "lit" look due to the shimmers.

I've loving it!

Empties - October 2014

Yup it's November...and right on time it snowed in Toronto on Nov 1. It's time to say good-bye to lighter fall jackets and hello to sweaters and parkas...and also that time to for spit-fire reviews on what I used up this month, a much happier event than winter-coming!

 Bare Escentuals bareVitamins skin rev-er upper: I got this a couple of years ago when I first started using BM and found it again recently so tried to use it up. It really didn't make a difference to my skin or makeup application and I didn't care for the smell, ended up just using it as a body lotion to finish it up. 
Re-buy? Nope...

 Elizabeth Arden Beautiful Color Mascara: a very natural defining mascara. No "oomph" if you're looking for something more dramatic, cuz it's opposite of that. Doesn't smudge. Overall solid product
Rebuy? maybe...after I use up all my deluxe mascara samples (when will it end...)

 Benefit they're Real! push-up liner: I'm cheating, this isn't even empty, I just can't deal with it anymore! I've heard if one "practiced" more this will wow me, but after multiple trials, I'm done with this stiff and difficult-to-use product (which is also a nightmare to remove, dang I want waterproof not "permanent"). Goodbye and will never repurchase. See original review here.

 "Magical Eyeliner" - waterproof liquid liner: got this for $2 at Daiso. It's super shiny, and although is technically waterproof, if I scratched my eye bits would come off. All it was good for was to practice winged liner.
Re-buy: nope

Clarins Gentle Foaming Cleanser: this is a deluxe sample so only got a few uses out of it. From what I could tell so far, it's not a bad product but nothing special about it. It didn't make my skin worse or better and was fine for removing light makeup.
Re-buy: probably not, it's not a bad product but there's better out there.



Have you tried any of these? Let me know what you thought of them, or tell me how many deluxe mascara samples you have in your stash :)

DIY Nighttime Facial Moisturizer / "Essence"

A little while ago I ran out of nighttime moisturizer suddenly and realized I didn't have any backup in my stash, AHHH!  What does a girl do in this case...I could have ran to the drugstore that night and grabbed something but drugstore moisturizers have never worked well for me. I remembered, that a couple of years ago I had played around with water and glycerin as a moisturizer and didn't think too much of it, but since it was all I had on hand given the "oh no!" moment, I decided to play with it some more and add a couple more ingredients. 

Water and glycerin combination used as a moisturizer is a very old DIY beauty trick. If you look at most of your store-bought moisturizers, their first two ingredients are often just that: water and glycerin. Glycerin acts like a barrier that holds moisture in your skin, so with the water and glycerin together, you effectively moisturize your skin with the water, which is then held in by the glycerin (without it the water would just evaporate and take more moisture from your skin with it as it goes). I decided to add a couple more good-for-your-skin oils to the mix just to last the night and go buy another moisturizer ASAP.

I didn't actually go buy another moisturizer though... because the result of the DIY blew me away! It worked so darn well and made my skin look so good I kept on using it... it's been about 2 months now and I have to say my skin has actually been much better for it (I continue to be shocked by this). My hubby is vegan and had been long warning me about the chemicals and preservatives in my skincare but I never listened to him. This has really made me rethink what I'm putting on my face every day. 

Let's go through the super simple "recipe" first, then I'll talk more about what changes it made to my skin.

Ingredients: distilled water, glycerin, [vitamin E oil, jojoba oil] 

                        [the oils can be changed to other types depending on your skin]

I use a small disposable bottle, but you could use any container you like.

First fill about 3/4 with the distilled water.

Then add in small amount of glycerin (approx 1:10 - 1:8 ratio with the water, we'll talk about adjusting after)

Then add in your oils of choice, I made mine approximately 1:10 ratio.

Close the cap and shake. It will separate of course. When I use it, I shake it well and pour out a small amount into my palm. Then I rub my hands together and pat it onto my face after cleansing/toner (much like a facial essence).

This does give a slick kind of feeling to the skin due to the glycerin, which is why I only recommend this for night time use. I have not used this under makeup so have no idea how it would perform in the daytime, but best to use your SPF moisturizer in the daytime anyhow for sun protection.

If the slick feeling is too much for you, try to lower the amount of glycerin you use (more glycerin, more slicky-ness).

So what have I noticed in the last 2 months... I seriously have not had any breakouts...NONE... Now I normally don't get much anyhow, but every month with hormones I do get patches of small acne on my forehead and occasionally on my chin. I have not had any of that since! I also get a lot of redness and flushing (probably also hormone related), and that has significantly decreased too.

Another area of significant change is dry patches. I got tons of dry patches... I've tried many brands of department store moisturizers but none completely got rid of those patches (even with daily exfoliation). Apparently, many of the alcohols and other solvents used in the commercial moisturizers can dry your skin out even more! Currently, a couple of major patches of struggle are gone entirely, what's left is significantly improved.

I have to say, as much as I love to buy and try new products, this is one thing that has made me think that I may not buy another nighttime moisturizer again... this has no preservatives, no weird chemicals that we are not quite sure what it does...   only thing is you have to remake it every 2-3 weeks (no preservatives right).

Another benefit is custom adjusting. I know my skin will get drier and drier as the weather gets colder, so what I plan to do is increase the glycerin slightly and increase the oil content more so. I will update down the road how that works out.

One more benefit...this is super cheap... The giant bottle of glycerin is like $5. The oils cost more but I use so little in the mix that they'll last a long time.

So have I convinced you? Have an open mind and give it a try yourself! What works for my skin of course may not work for yours. You also have to be careful with certain oils that may actually clog pores (ie. coconut). Do experiment a bit though, and see if you can find a combo that works for you. You can then save that money to spend on better daytime sun protection or just fun cosmetics in general :)

Let me know if you try this and if it works for you! Share with me also any DIY skincare that you make :)

If interested in more DIY, check out the following archive posts: DIY tinted lip balm, DIY avocado face mask, DIY lip scrub

Topbox October 2014

I'm late with my Topbox this month since it arrived while I was away in NYC, but boy was I impressed by this month's stash!

 

Here's the card to start...

 

I didn't know what this was at first... It looked like a Sharpie! It smelled chemically but it actually works well as you will see later...

 

 The Estee Lauder eye cream is the most expensive part of this box, and with how little I use, this tub will last me a long time! This product alone made this box happy for me :)

I had never tried anything from the Balm before, and this tiny little card stock product for lips or cheeks was interesting. 

 

I'm liking the photos...

 I like the product a lot actually. It does feel like a "jelly"! Goes on very naturally and blends smoothly on the cheeks. Nothing feels sticky, and doesn't leave annoying stain spots like some cheek cream/liquids can.

I was also impressed it worked on my lips! I usually find these cheek+lip products only work on the cheeks for me, and are either too drying on the lips or aren't pigmented enough or something feels odd about the formula. This one however goes on smoothly without stickiness just like on the face, however gives the prettiest hint of color on the lips. It doesn't look like I wore any lip product at all, just sweet natural rosy lips! 

swatched with 1 swipe

half gone! I used the magic pen from Prestige above

Lastly a sweet citrusy smelling scrub, smells nothing like blueberries. It says can be used for body or face.

 

 Lots of what looks like sugar particles, very scrubby indeed! I decided will only try this on body and not face, as it looks too rough... and I'm glad I did. The scrub is difficult to get out of the tub, and comes out feeling like oily sugar particles. I used it while wet, the sugar though is initially rough dissolved away quickly. It left my skin feeling very oily though, which is a feeling I didn't like. I imagine it might be good for my skin since it's not drying it out, but just don't like the slick feeling.

Here's the stash, I'm super happy with this. Go Topbox! For $12/mo + tax, super worth it to try different products, and bonus if they turn out to be awesome!

What was in your box this month?

Benjabelle Daisy Brush Tree Review

Where have I been... I only saw this on FTB not too long ago and ordered it cuz it looked like it could change my brush-drying life. It has apparently been around for awhile, but as usual, I'm slow on the uptake! So here's a slow-poke's review of this game-changer product (I don't say that about many things).

It comes nicely in flat pieces, yay easy storage!

How the base snaps into the top

And it stands! Proud of my construction skills here...

Here goes sticking in my wet brushes

Brush guards (the mesh over the bristles) are optional but I prefer them.

Oh Benjabelle...where have you been all those days and nights my brushes were left lying horizontally taking up counter space and possibly with water seeping into the precious ferrules (yes this happens even when brushes are horizontal, just less). This not only takes up less space, it lets my brushes dry completely with bristles down, hence water will go down and won't seep anywhere except into the air. The cherry on top is that it's decorative too! 

This is the "daisy" which is the smallest one. There is a much bigger one for those of you MUAs with multiple brush sets or junkies with tons of brushes. You can buy this from FTB; oh and yes, it comes in pink too....

Do you have any special contraptions you use to dry your brushes?