Loose Powder

I bought the Neutrogena Wave Sonic a while back when it was on sale at Target. I don’t remember the price I paid, but it is listing for about $14.99 right now.

The Wave Sonic is advertised to be 50x better than ordinary cleansing, which might be true since most of us have the usual routine of rubbing on foaming cleanser on our faces and patting it dry with a microfiber towel.

I’ve never used the Neutrogena Wave, but instead of vibrating, the Wave Sonic has a spinning head that has two speeds. To change speeds on the cleanser, you only have to press the second button with the swirly symbol below the power button.

In order to use the Wave Sonic you have to have the Deep Clean foaming pads which are securely gripped onto the head of the cleanser with a rough surface. There are two kinds of foaming pads: the “original” and the “gentle exfoliating pads”. I’ve only used the “original”, and I feel that the “original” pad gives a gentle enough exfoliation when used against my face. If I manage to try the exfoliating pads, I may write a comparison between the two types.

The Wave Sonic is very easy to use: put on the foam pad, rinse under water, turn on, and rub it over your face. After you’re done, you just toss the used foam pad, and rinse under water to clean off the excess foam. Note: The top attachment head can easily be popped off for cleaning, and the cleanser is battery operated and water resistant, so it can be used in the shower.

The spinning head lathers up easily and can work up a good foam, but it may take a moment for the foam to develop. Warning: make sure all strands of hair are away from your face, because some stray strands may get caught in the spinning head. Also the soap that generates from the pad stings when it sneaks into your eyes, and it doesn’t taste pretty either.

After using the Sonic Wave for a couple weeks once daily, my skin does feel smoother and cleaner. It did not get rid of all my acne or blemishes, but that wasn’t the intention of the Wave Sonic cleanser.

My main gripe with this cleanser is that if you use this daily, the foam pad cleanser can run out quite quickly since they are only one time use. You can get refill packs of 30 pads for about $5, but the cost can add up over time. You don’t really need this cleanser if you have a good face cleansing routine already, but it is fun to use once and a while.

Beauty Army is a brand new sample box subscription service that launched on January 1st. I was lucky enough to be one of the first wave of people who managed to sign up during that first hectic day of us beauty junkies crushing the web servers.

For $12 per month, Beauty Army allows you to select up to 6 samples from a slightly larger list. I think it’s great that you can pick what you want to try and also that some months you can just pick 3 or 4, which is great if you’ve already got a bunch of samples you’re not going to use.

I was surprised at the size of the box that arrived! The outside mailing box is custom printed with “Beauty Army” printed in a band around the box. The samples are packed in a hinged black box that is spot glossed with various text.

Inside, the samples are wrapped loosely in pink tissue. If there was one criticism I would give, it would be to wrap the items a bit more securely since a few of them were floating around loose in the box. The notecard on the inside is printed on a lovely canvas textured card. Nice touch!

Here are some photos of the samples I picked:

For my first box, I chose Sun FX Body Wash, Shea Terra Organics Rose Hips Black Soap Facial Cleanser, Strivectin Get Even Brightening Serum, Boo Boo Coverup, and MyFace Cosmetics Blingtone Eyeshadow in Morocco. I also had picked the Cellceuticals Neocell skin treatment, but it somehow didn’t get photographed!

The eyeshadow is a creamy metallic pressed shadow. It’s a very light and would be good for a highlight color. Here’s a swatch:

The rose hips black soap was the first thing I tried. It’s a really great gentle exfoliating soap that left my skin very smooth. I would definitely purchase a full bottle of this one the sample runs out.

The next item that I really loved was the Boo Boo Cover-up. It’s meant to be used over scratches and wounds (not open wounds) since the natural ingredients help heal the injury. I tried this on a blemish that was on my chin and worked great! Best concealer product I have right now and I will certainly be buying a full sized tube of this.

I’m also using the Strivectin Brightening Serum, but it’ll be a few weeks before I can tell if it’s made any difference evening out my complexion.

Overall, I’m very happy with Beauty Army and look forward to choosing my samples next month!

The theme for this month’s Birchbox is Beauty Innovations. I’ve read a few reviews on other blogs where people seemed a bit disappointed with this month’s selection and while every box can’t be a winner, I was pretty pleased with what I got.

I do admit that this month’s box wasn’t as amazing as the last three I’d gotten, but there are still things to like in it!

My box included:

• blinc eyeliner
• Carol’s Daughter Monoi Repairing Hair Mask
• Pangea Organics Cleanser for Combination to Oily Skin
• Wei Tibetan Chrysanthemum Correcting Eye Treatment Pads
• Extra: Twistband hair tie

I just opened the box so I haven’t had a chance to try everything out yet. I’m really looking forward to trying to blinc eyeliner – they make a fiberwig mascara and have created an eyeliner with the same type of formulation. I also love Pangea products, so I’m keen to try their cleanser.

The Monoi hair mask is a new product from Carol’s Daughter. It’s paraben, mineral oil, and petroleum free, which is great. Looking forward to trying this the next time my hair is feeling a little fried.

Now, the thing people seemed the most disappointed by – the Twistband hair tie. I actually am a fan of this hair tie! It doesn’t leave a deep crease in my hair, doesn’t snag when I pull it out. Because of it’s made of an elastic ribbon, it looks much nicer on my wrist than a regular hair tie. I’d certainly buy more of these!

Here’s a closer look at the items in my box:

I’m still loving my Birchbox subscription and I can’t wait for next month’s box!

Birchbox is a subscription service. For $10 a month, you get a box filled with large sample sizes from various beauty brands. Reuse the sturdy boxes for gifts or to hold whatever you want!

Last month I reviewed Holika Holika’s white egg soap. I liked it a lot, but I wanted to try their Green Tea Egg Soap! While the original soap is for tightening skin, the green tea soap is for controlling excess sebum (oil) and moisturizing.

I found the green tea egg soap on eBay for a good price. It included two soaps in a little egg carton.

The eggs are individually wrapped and each is about the size of a small chicken egg. This soap definitely doesn’t leave my skin as dry as the white egg soap and I’ll probably keep using this one instead of the original white one.

As for my other white egg soap – my mom has started using it and likes it a lot!

I never used to bother washing my face at night to get all the makeup off. Really awful, I know, but just using mineral foundation and minimal mineral shadow, I didn’t think it was that big of a deal…and I was being lazy. However, in the last year I’ve revamped my night time routine to include various facial cleansers (still looking for one I like) and a wash cloth.

One of the products I’ve been using comes courtesy of my very good friend, Saff, sent to me all the way from South Korea: Holika Holika Egg Soap!

Two soaps come in this cute box, made from recycled paper. It looks just like a small egg carton.

Each egg comes individually shrink wrapped. The egg soaps are about the size of a small chicken egg and have a nice, light scent. There are a few types of these eggs and the white ones are supposed to tighten pores and make skin sleek.

I’m not really sure how often I am supposed to use this soap, but when I use this soap as a final cleanser after my make-up removers, it does look like my pores are smaller and my skin looks clearer.

I think each soap will last a while since it takes very little to get a lot of lather to wash your face with. Basically, what I do is just wet my hands and rub the egg for a second and then rub my hands together until I get enough lather to massage on my face. I leave it for a minute and then use a wash cloth to wipe my face clean. You’re supposed to also be able to use it as a mask by leaving it on your face for ten minutes before rinsing off, but I haven’t tried that yet.

Overall, I really like these egg soaps and gladly include them in my cleansing regimen.

ELF’s Makeup Remover Cleansing Cloths are great for traveling, since they are pretty much all you need to remove your makeup at the end of the day. Another plus is that these remover cloths also remove waterproof makeup and it is not oily.

These cloths are a good size at 7’ x 7’ (18cm x 18 cm). The pre-moistened cloths are very soft and great as you wipe it over your skin. Additionally, there is a nice light scent. When I wipe my eyelids with these cloths, it does not irritate or scratch my skin. Also the aloe extract added into the formula also keeps my skin smooth and soft. I also like that these cloths can be rinsed in water, so you can use it to towel dry or clean any excess makeup or dirt you missed during your first wipe through.

However, there is alcohol in these wipes, so if your skin is sensitive to alcohol, be warned. Aside from that, I recommend these cleansing cloths due to its handiness and effective makeup removing formula as well as its soft cloths.

After a referral from Cyn, I have become an Eyes Lips Face (ELF) fan mainly because their products are good and at great prices. Additionally, they always have great coupon deals on their website. So much so that sometimes it feels like they are spamming your inbox.

As a result of the excess amount of coupons they send out, I discovered the ELF Professional Eye Makeup Remover Pads. Since they were only $1, I thought I’d give it a try. The small round container contains 18 single use pads, and it is advertised as fragrance free. The only fragrance that I can detect is a light soap cleanser scent.

Each cotton pad is pretty thin, but each pad is soaked in cleanser and one pad is more than enough to clean off heavy makeup on one eye. I’ve tried using one pad for two eyes with heavy dark eye makeup, and the pad takes off quite a bit of the makeup, but you still end up having streaks of color residue around the eyes and might need another pad anyway. I recommend using one pad for each eye if you have on heavy eye makeup. However, you can get away with using one pad for both eyes if you have lighter eye makeup on.

The remover does pretty decently in removing waterproof mascara and waterproof eyeliner, but there are some waterproof mascara that are a bit tougher to remove, but I found that if I leave the pad on the area a little longer before wiping, it will be able to remove more of the mascara.

Another positive for these eye makeup remover pads are that they do not leave an oily residue around the eye that other removers leave behind. After wiping off my eye makeup, my eye area feels very clean and fresh.

Even though this only costs $1, for 18 single use pads, it can become expensive especially if you are one to use heavy eye makeup, which means that this container would only last you a little over a week.  However, I think these remover pads would be great for traveling because it’s small and compact and not a liquid (no more spills!). Also these pads also eliminate the need to search for a cotton pad or tissue to use with your liquid removers, so that’s one less thing to carry in your makeup bag when you travel.

Pros: small and compact, no liquid, not oily, cleans off waterproof makeup well, great for travel

Cons: Only contains 18 single use pads

Everyone knows someone who knows someone who sells Mary Kay. It’s the more expensive Avon. Plus, well, to be real, those who sell MK get a bigger commission, and they know and love the product they sell. I actually ran into a convention of MK reps in an airport and after an eye-opening conversation, discovered that they do indeed still give out the pink Cadillacs, and that amused me. I actually don’t sell MK myself (though I am thinking about it – have been for awhile), so this review has the benefit of being unbiased in that I’m not linking everything back to my sales page.

Predominantly, the things I get from MK are skin care products. Their Velocity line has the medicated acne-treatment skin care, but I’m not a huge fan when I can use a combination of Clean & Clear and St. Ives products to get the same result. However, I do enjoy and utilise their TimeWise line of skin care products.

TimeWise is their anti-aging line, and while I wasn’t too concerned with those products at 19, I started trying a few of them anyway and in general, despite my excessive sun exposure, I’m seeing a fewer tiny lines and discolorations than others my age (which would be 26, while we’re disclosing to prove the usefulness of a product). My favorite is their TimeWise Moisturizer (for oily/combination skin) - it’s a very light moisturizer that you’re supposed to use day and night, but I never put anything on my face at night – that’s when my pores get to breathe. I’ve used over-the-counter moisturizers that feel greasy and make me break out, but this is the first one that’s passed all the tests. Oil of Olay is generally a recommended moisturizer because they are department-store quality (think the gals at Macy’s who are hawking brand names few can realistically afford) at over-the-counter prices. In my experience, even their formula for oily/combination skin made me break out a little. Your skin changes as your hormones change and you age, so this could very well no longer be the case, but at 19/20/21, I still had very angry skin, and Oil of Olay was not cutting it. I simply have not gone back and retried it, I’ve  become an MK brand whore, as it were. I use a very tiny amount and it goes a long way, so my single 3 fl. oz. is worth the money to me ($22). 

MK Oil-Free Eye Makeup Remover: As Cyn already showed us, there are plenty of options for eye makeup removal. Since we’re talking Mary Kay, I thought I’d share my one of my favorite products, which is a fantastic eye makeup remover. It’s oil-free, and gentle on the skin in the eye area. Another plus, I accidentally poked myself in the eye with a Q-Tip removing eyeliner with the product, and I only suffered a poke in the eye, not a situation that required EMERGENCY EYE WASH from one of those goggle-sinks. So it seems to be gentle enough you can be a klutz and not blind yourself. Well, unless you poke yourself really hard with that Q-Tip. That could do some damage. ANYWAY, back to the product. It looks like it should be oily, because it separates in the bottle, but wonderfully, it’s not. I shake up the bottle, and drip the product (which is about the consistency of water) onto a Q-Tip for eyeliner and most eyeshadow removal. For mascara (even waterproof! I almost don’t want to know what magic is in this stuff – I just know it won’t give me cancer and isn’t tested on animals, so that’s enough for me right now) and sometimes with eyeshadow where I’ve done more than a quick swath with my Victoria Secret EyeShadow Wand, I use a cotton pad. You don’t need a lot of product, and while it doesn’t leave any residue behind, I do usually wash my face afterwards just in case anything is left behind. The big plus here? You just gently wipe. No scrubbing, no rubbing, just a gentle swish and it takes off everything I’ve thrown at it so far. Easily, simply, without irritation, residue, or hassle. Aside from the moisturizer, this has quickly become a favorite product now that I have to be all girly-professional for work.

 Satin Lips Set: I’ll admit up front, I hate that the balm no longer comes in a little pot. I kept my little pot, and tend to buy it in the tube, squeeze it all into the little pot, and stick it in the fridge to set it before I use it. Through some weird magic of chemistry (yes, it IS magic…leave me alone), it doesn’t go back to being all gooey unless it gets REALLY warm. At which point, back into the fridge overnight it goes! But back to the usefulness aspect of this duet. Wearing a lot of chapstick in general, inevitably you’ll get dead skin on your lips. Most of it comes off with a good regular scrub, but sometimes I just want to do this with my lips – and most facial scrubs are going to be a little harsher than you want on your lips. This isn’t called a scrub for that reason – it’s a buffing agent. It removes dead skin cells with a gentle, tiny-beaded (okay, so I’m going to do it anyway) scrub. After washing it off and patting your lips dry, putting on the balm is fantastic. It sinks right into your lips and, I know this might be funny to say, but it makes my lips feel refreshed. Even though there isn’t a minty tingle I usually associate with the word “refreshed”. And did I mention soft? I actually really like touching my lips after this process. I use the balm more often than the buffing agent, but I’ve found that if there is a build-up of dead skin cells on your lips it doesn’t absorb as well and can feel a bit waxy sitting on top of your lips. I don’t use this exclusively – more like when I’m feelin’ sassy. It has no scent, flavor, or color, and doesn’t in general play well with others (the no-smear lipstick from MK lives up to its name, but smeared when I put the balm on top…curious?), but is a useful product to keep your lips healthy.

Next time I’ll sing the praises of varying makeup products themselves, but these three are products that I keep myself supplied with on a regular basis and still haven’t gone out of style for me seven years after I bought my first “dose”.

I was asked to compare & review some of the cleansers I have used for eye makeup removal. Until recently, I haven’t used many difficult to remove items like mascara and eyeliner so my regular facial cleansers and a wash cloth seemed to work just fine.

However, once I began using eye primers (like Pixie Epoxy), mascara, and heavy eyeliner for smokey looks, I quickly discovered that the normal cleansers weren’t going to be effective. Sure, they worked — it just required a bit more scrubbing, which might be fine on other parts of your face, but around the eye? Not so much.

In this article, I’m going to talk about three products: Philosophy’s Purity Made Simple Foaming Cleanser, Philosophy’s Just Release Me Eye Makeup Remover, and Burt’s Bees Orange Essence Facial Cleanser.

You might be thinking it isn’t fair to compare one eye makeup remover against two face cleansers. Well, why not? Some people suggest using sunflower oil and that certainly isn’t a cleanser!

To start with, I picked several eye products: e.l.f. mineral eyeliner w/powdered eye shadow on top, e.l.f. waterproof eyeliner, NYC liquid eyeliner, Wet N Wild liquid liner, e.l.f. sugar kiss glitter liner, and NYC waterproof mascara.

And made four sets of lines on my arm with each product. I used Tarte Clean Slate primer underneath and let everything for about 3 hours.

My method for each product will be the same: I’ll use a q-tip with the product and some water. At the top of the test patch, I’ll use minimal pressure when rubbing on the product. Below that on the same patch, I’ll use a bit of scrubbing pressure, which you probably wouldn’t use on your eyelid. Then rinse with water and see what happens!

Now for the results!

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