Loose Powder

I don’t usually wear pink polishes, especially not sheer ones, so I’m not sure what I was thinking when I picked up Bali Mist by Sinful Colors. Oh, I know! “It’s pretty and iridescent!”

This is two coats with a clear top coat. There was a bit of bubbling you can see on my thumb and I’m not sure if it’s from shaking (I usually roll the bottle, though) or the heat or the brushing. Anyway, I did like the color – it’s very pretty – but it was just too sheer for how I was feeling. So… a couple days later I topped it with a coat of Nfu-Oh #51.

Ah, much better! Look at those holo flakies. Love. Them.

Sinful Colors are available from Walgreens and you can buy Nfu-Oh polish at Fabuloustreet.com. Both Sinful Colors and Nfu-Oh are toluene and DBP free.

Since becoming more active with outdoor activities, I have been looking for an alternative foundation that was sweat resistant, protected my skin, and had a light tint that smoothed out my blemishes like a foundation. Because I could not use just any kind of moisturizer, I had to find one that had all of the above in addition to being oil free, hypoallergenic, non-comedogenic, and paraben free.

I hit the jackpot when I found Physicians Formula’s New Healthy Wear Tinted Moisturizer. It contained everything I was looking for and it was SPF 50 since most makeup with SPF protection tends to stop at SPF 15. Though recently there have been higher SPF cosmetics being produced.

SPF 15 is sufficient protection for your skin. A higher Sun Protection Factor (SPF) number only means that your skin is protected longer. The number basically says that your skin is protected x times longer from burning than without sunscreen. So I tend to like higher SPF products because I have a bad habit of not reapplying sunscreen in a timely fashion.

I usually use one or two pumps of the moisturizer, and the coverage of this tinted moisturizer is quite decent and it is like having a light weight liquid foundation on. Though I have to admit, this tinted moisturizer does make my skin a bit oily, but I usually dust my face with a mineral veil to control oil and shine on my face.

I have gone hiking and snowboarding for hours using this tinted moisturizer as my main facial sun protection and it does its job. After hours of sweating and exposure to the hot sun, my face remains burn free. Of course, I don’t suggest you go hiking for 13 hours without a hat or other supplemental sun protection.

I use this tinted moisturizer as an alternate foundation for my face when I know I will be outdoors, swimming, or sweating. I highly recommend this product if you are looking for a cheaper tinted moisturizer that gives you coverage and protects your face from the damaging rays of the sun.

Last month Stila introduced their special $10 Stila Girl Travel Palettes. It was the first in a series of five to be released one a month until December.

The first one is called Road to Radiance Across the U.S.A. The cardboard palette has a mirror on the inside of the lid and contains four eye shadows and a convertible color.

The theme for this palette seems to be pink & lilac:

Four Eye Shadows:
- Snow Bunny (shimmery champagne)
- Southern Belle (mauve)
- Valley Girl (pink)
- City Chick (alloy)

Convertible Color:
- Hibiscus

The pigments are light a bit light, so I had to build up the color a bit. Eye primer did help and they’d probably be a bit darker if applied wet. Also, I’m not sure if this is the same formulation as their regular shadows, but the application felt a bit chalky (there is talc in the ingredients list). I didn’t use the convertible color much but I’m not a huge fan of cream blushes and it felt a bit drying on my lips. I do like the darkest color eyeshadow and Snow Bunny makes a nice highlighter/accent.

Overall, I’m not sure if I would purchase this again. The shadows are not as pigmented as I would like and I don’t have a need for the convertible color. I might get one of the three remaining yet-to-be-released palettes depending on the shadow colors, though, so I guess I didn’t dislike this enough to not buy any more!

This is less a review and more a post on a look I put together for my trip out to Seattle this month. I wanted something fun and funky, but easy to remove with ELF’s polish remover pads. I also wanted something that wouldn’t look awful when it chipped — meaning no bold, solid colors.

I started off with two coats of Love Letters by China Glaze:

Next, I used BundleMonster fauxnad plate BM20 with Rimmel‘s Lasting Finish Pro in Violet Metal:

And then I used BundleMonster fauxnad plate BM17 with e.l.f. polish in black for a fancy french tip and Bundlemonster BM08 for with the same black polish for an accent:

In the last picture, I’ve applied a coat of Nutra Nail High Gloss Top Coat.

My konad is a little messy in some places, but I like the look overall.  I actually can’t wait to try a full nail application of Rimmel’s Violet Metal – check out that purple flash you get when the light hits it just right!

I’m hoping this mani will last me most of the week before I have to take it off.

Sorry it’s been so long since my last review! I’ve got quite a few lined up, though, so look for those in the coming weeks.

First up is a review of a neutral colors Stila palette called The It Girl Palette. I purchased this from their site last month for $10, which I thought was a great deal for three large shadow pans. It should be noted that these are a little bit smaller than their individual shadow pans, but if you’re looking to try out some Stila shades, this would be a great way to jump in.

The palette itself is a nice black plastic, not cardboard like many of Stila’s other palettes. There is no mirror on the inside of the lid, but that didn’t really matter to me.

The shades you get are Lamé (gold shimmer), Chloe (bronze shimmer), and Stila’s award winning shade, Kitten (nude pink shimmer).

These eyeshadows are formulated without parabens. Here are the ingredients as listed on the site:

ingredients: talc, zinc stearate, dimethicone, ethylhexyl palmitate, mineral oil\paraffinum liquidum\huile minerale, tocopheryl acetate, lauroyl lysine, caprylyl glycol, hexylene glycol, silica, boron nitride, magnesium carbonate, nylon-12, phenoxyethanol, calcium sodium borosilicate, may contain [+/- ] mica,  titanium dioxide (ci 77891), iron oxides (ci 77491, ci 77492, ci 77499), aluminum powder (ci 77000) , bismuth oxychloride (ci 77163), blue 1 lake (ci 42090), carmine (ci 75470), chromium hydroxide green (ci 77289), chromium oxide greens (ci 77288), ferric ferrocyanide (ci 77510),  manganese violet (ci 77742), ultramarines (ci 77007),yellow 5 lake (ci 19140) <iln c91027>

I do love these colors and find them very wearable. However, without any kind of eye primer, the wear with these was very short for me – a few hours at best. With a primer, though, they are great! I’ve been wearing Kitten on the inner corner, Chloe in the middle, and then an accent color (purple or aqua) on the outer corner. Sometimes I’ll blend with Lame for a nice gold shimmer.

Overall, I think this palette is a quite nice for the price. If you’re at Stila’s site looking at other items, add this to your cart!