Loose Powder

Up until recently, I’d been using either a St. Ives body wash or Neutrogena’s Body Clear body wash, since once in a while I get little breakouts on my back & shoulders The St. Ives I was using was their Oatmeal & Shea body wash, and I wasn’t super impressed with it. Always on the lookout for different and more natural options for skin & body care, I decided about a month ago to try a Burt’s Bees body wash. I had some reservations – I recently tried sample sizes of some of their shampoo & conditioner, and was sad to discover I hated it in every possible way. It smelled awful, didn’t lather in my hair well, and didn’t rinse out of my hair clean, so I didn’t feel like it had been washed. But I took the plunge and bought a bottle of their Naturally Nourishing Milk & Shea Butter body wash.

One of the things that drew me to this was a) I didn’t hate the smell, and b) the ingredient list looked short and uncomplicated as compared to most other body washes you look at. It doesn’t smell wonderful, but it doesn’t smell bad – it smells natural, if that makes any sense. It’s kind of sweet, but also smells like powdered milk, which is an ingredient. It’s much nicer smelling than the Grapefruit & Sugar Beet shampoo and conditioner I tried, which for some reason I really, really hated. Regarding the content, the only ingredients of any real concern toxics-wise is the ‘fragrance’ (according to Skin Deep), which is of concern because the actual contents of the ‘fragrance’ are not declared, so some can be eye or other irritants to some people. Skin Deep rates this product as a 4 on a scale from 1-10, making it only a ‘moderate hazard’. It looks good to me – better than what I’ve been using.

On to the actual performance of the body wash. When I tried it for the first time, I didn’t like how thin it is. It has about the consistency of a beaten egg and isn’t viscous or gel-like at all. I felt like I had to put a lot on my wash cloth to make it lather up. That said, when I did get an appropriate amount on my wash cloth & added a little water, it lathered up decently. I was also worried that it wouldn’t rinse off cleanly – I like that “squeaky” feeling of rinsing off soap & knowing I’m clean. This rinses off very cleanly! After washing with it my skin feels pretty moisturized, and not dry or tight at all. During the summer with humidity my skin doesn’t really get dry at all, so I’ll have to see how this performs in the cooler weather when my skin gets wicked dry, but I’m really liking this body wash for now!

I’d definitely recommend checking this out. It’s probably good for sensitive skin because of the lack of toxic crap ingredients, and it didn’t dry out my usually dry skin, and it doesn’t smell terrible. The bottle is lasting longer than I thought it would, even though I use a little extra to get the amount of lather that I like. Overall a great product from Burt’s!

Stila is a brand that I’ve always looked at in Sephora, but never purchased any products from. I found the price a bit high, I guess. However, there are a few products on the Stila site that are very affordable! One of these is their Charmed Eye Shadow Palette.

Description from the site: Adorned with authentic Indian bindis, this palette features four highly-pigmented new shadow shades all infused with genuine 24kt gold. Long revered for its skin revitalizing properties, this luxurious metal helps minimize the appearance of fine lines and creates a rich, shimmering effect.

There are four colors in this palette: coppery gold, warm gold, teal, and black/burgundy, all with a gold shimmer.

The palette itself is constructed of paper, but it seems rather sturdy.

I find the shadows very smooth and easily picked up with a brush. Here are some swatches:

From left: teal, black/burgundy, copper, warm gold.

The colors were easy to work with and blend, but they weren’t as pigmented as I was hoping. It might have been the e.l.f. mineral eye primer, though. I will have to try it again with Pixie Epoxie to see.

I used the warm gold all over my eyelids and above the crease first, then added the teal on my eye lid and blended it in. I used the black/burgundy on the outer corner to darken it a bit. Then I used a black gel eyeliner to finish my eyes.

To finish this look, I am wearing Fyrinnae Glow Blush in Enchant, Stainiac Lip Stain in Beauty Queen, and Korres gloss in Fuchsia.

It’s a great little palette and the four colors you get are good for every day wear or going out. Overall, I think this was a good purchase for the price.

This was one of the polishes I got from Zoya during their Polish Exchange. I only just got to try it and it might be one of my favorite Zoya polishes!

Charla is a pretty aqua blue with a silvery/teal shimmer in sunlight and a green with gold shimmer in incandescent light. It took two coats to get bottle color.

The polish looks like it’s a glitter, but it’s all shimmer and very smooth. I love it as a summer color! Now I want to get the other polishes in the Sparkle Collection, especially Mimi, Ivanka, and Nidhi.

After about a week, there is little tip wear, but I have been adding top coat about every two or three days. I think that is helping to extend the life of my manicures.

Zoya polishes are free of toluene, camphor, formaldehyde, and dibutyl phthalate (DBP) and are vegan friendly.

Slate blue polish is amazingly difficult to find. Thankfully, Sally Hansen has one for an affordable price: Gray By Gray.

This polish had the same separation/mixing problem that I had with Fairy Teal, but thankfully it didn’t have the staining problem. I was able to get bottle color in two coats and just some edge wear after five days.

The Konad design is BundleMonster plate B21 with e.l.f. polish in black.

Here are some bonus Konad looks I did for friends:

The first is from Konad plate m24. Jessie had already painted her nails that hot pink and applied a clear top coat. Bardi Party wanted the fish bones from BundleMonster plate bm04 on her middle fingers only. They were applied on a clean nail with a top coat over it after stamping.

This is a brown and teal eye look I threw on before heading out one Saturday.

Before starting, I’ve applied my primer (tarte Clean Slate) and BareMinerals matte foundation, then applied Fyrinnae’s Pixie Epoxie on my eyelids.

I used Fyrinnae‘s Cookie Dough on the inner corners and as a highlight and Species 8472 on my eyelid. For the outer corner and crease I used Aromaleigh‘s Rocks! Sonic shadow in moonagedaydream. I finished off the look with black gel eyeliner from The All Natural Face.

For blush, I’m using Fyrinnae’s Glow Blush in Enrapture and their lip lustre in Romantique.

Speaking of Aromaleigh… I’m sure the news has spread by now that Aromaleigh will be closing. I have no idea what the circumstances are of this, but you can read Kristen’s announcement here. They are discounted all remaining stock and you can use the coupon code ADIEU35 to get 35% off any products through August 10, 2010.

While searching for a slate blue, I came across Sally Hansen‘s Complete Salon Manicure in Fairy Teal. This polish is a lovely teal cream and I just had to try it!

Love. This. Color. Applied two coats for bottle color and it dried pretty quickly.

Unfortunately… these polishes don’t have the metal ball bearings inside to help mix the polish, and boy could this use it. All three colors I bought (Fairy Teal, Gray by Gray, and Plum’s the Word) had a bit of separating and it was a pain to get them mixed back together without the balls.

Another huge negative of this particular color is that it stains like crazy. Even using Zoya’s Remove+ polish remover, taking this polish off left stains on my nails and on my fingers. It was a mess! That fact alone will probably have me thinking twice before I apply it again; very disappointing.

After four days with no noticeable chipping (just some edge wear), I decided I wanted to keep the polish on, but kick it up a bit with a top coat. I went to Sinful Colors‘ Nail Junkie.

I think Nail Junkie adds a fun bit of aqua & holo sparkle and was able to extend this manicure another three days with little effort.

When I purchased Parlez-Vous OPI, I also ordered a bottle of OPI’s Do You Lilac It? which looked like a similar but more saturated purple.

This color is a very pretty, bright, pastel purple. It took two coats to get the coverage I wanted. With a top coat, there was minimal chipping after 5 days of wear.

For this manicure, I used e.l.f. polish in black to stamp on some stars from the Bundle Monster fauxnad plates.

Do You Lilac It? is a fun color for summer, but between the two, Parlez-Vous OPI is my favorite.