Loose Powder

The theme for January’s Birchbox is Clarity and to help us start the year off, this box includes some lovely samples!

My box for this month included:

• Origins Checks and Balances Frothy Face Wash – multi-tasking cleanser for combination skin
• Stila Smudge Stick Waterproof Eye Liner – in peacock
• VMV Hypoallergenics Re-Everything Face-Hand-Body Lotion
• Juicy Couture Viva La Juicy fragrance
• Extra: Larabar mini bar
• Extra: Birchbox logo magnet

I’ll be reviewing the Stila Smudge Stick in a future review once I’ve had some more time to use it.

Larabars are great snack bars to have when you’re out and about. I usually keep one of these or a Luna bar in my purse so I have something when my blood sugar gets low.

The Origins Checks & Balances cleanser has a very fresh scent and leaves my face feeling clean without drying it out.

Overall, this was another great Birchbox! Can’t wait to see what I get next month!

At the end of October, BareMinerals gave away a free, full sized Big & Bright Eyeliner if you brought in a coupon to your local Bare Escentuals boutique. I haven’t had a great experience with BareMineral’s previous eyeliners, but for free I figured I would try it out.

My choices were Granite and Midnight – dark olive green and navy, respectively. I wasn’t sure which to pick and the girl at the counter suggested I go with the Granite. Sure, why not, I thought!

Once home, I opened up the box and discovered that Granite is a very dark olive/brown that makes a great every day eyeliner!

It’s a twist up-type eyeliner, which I love because i hate sharpening pencils. The other end of the eyeliner has a sharpener and a smudge tip (which I forgot to photograph). Usually with these sorts of eyeliners, I find I don’t use the sharpener unless the tip breaks since the way I use of the liner kind of makes it self-sharpening.

The eyeliner is very smooth and there is very little tugging while applying to my lower lash line. I did try this on the waterline and while there was no irritation, it didn’t last more than a few blinks before it was gone. This is not a waterproof eyeliner, nor was it designed for the waterline, so that result wasn’t exactly surprising.

After 4 or 5 hours, there was noticeable fading. I don’t think you will be able to wear this eyeliner all day without a touch up. On the plus side, I didn’t notice the eyeliner sliding down my face like I had with previous BareMineral eyeliners. I had some gathering in the outer corner of my eyes, but was easily wiped away with a fingertip. Removal is easy with regular makeup remover.

Overall, I really like this eyeliner and will definitely keep using it for casual day looks and less dramatic night looks.

BareMinerals Big & Bright eyeliner costs $14 and is available at Sephora and Bare Escentuals boutiques.

For the longest time, I’ve been after an eyeliner that stays on the lower waterline without either disappearing or turning into a raccoon-eyed mess. I went out with a friend a few weeks ago and noticed that the eyeliner she used seemed to stay on perfectly without any smearing or smudging. She was using the BareMinerals Big & Bright Eyeliner.

I headed to the Sephora  in JC Penny’s to check out the eyeliner and a sales associate recommended the Buxom Insider Eyeliner to me instead. These $14.00 eyeliners are exclusive to Sephora and are specifically developed for wear on the lower lash line.

I purchased the eyeliner in Black Jade, a charcoal color that’s almost black. Opening the pencil once I got home, the tip was broken. Well, no big deal, I thought, and used the included sharpener to resharpen the tip. Yeah, that didn’t work. The really soft tip got stuck in the sharpener and broke off. I think next time I sharpen it, I’ll put it in the freezer first.

The liner is very, very soft and glides onto the waterline easily with no tugging. It’s difficult to get a thin line, but you can get an even coat in one stroke.

At first, I couldn’t decide if I liked the liner. It doesn’t really stay that well on the waterline and disappears in about an hour. However, I just took this liner with me on a trip out of town and after that long period of testing, I kind of love it!

Yes, it still disappears from my actual waterline, but if I line my eyes in the lower lash line as well and set the area with an eye shadow, it does stay on all day! Of course, the waterline faded away in a couple hours, but the rest of the line stayed pretty well. And even though some of the liner went away during the day, it didn’t smear down my eyes like eyeliners usually do. Removal is easy with standard eye makeup remover and a cotton swab or round.

This eyeliner performed much better than any I have tried before and I will certainly be purchasing another and maybe more in other colors!

Buxom Insider Eyeliner is available exclusively at Sephora. There are 10 shades available for $14.00 each.

This past August, I went to Woodbury Commons to spend a Lululemon gift certificate and discovered that they had opened a BareMinerals Outlet. I had to stop in and see what they had, of course!

There weren’t too many things I wanted to – the last time I used BareMinerals eyes hadows, my eyes always itched like crazy. The company has some great colors, though, so i was hoping to try some new products and see if I still had that reaction. for under $10, I found the Liner Shadow Compact Quad II!

The  compact comes with fours colors of loose powder and a small brush. There’s also a mirror on the inside of the lid.

The third photo above shows the four colors and their names.

• Aquamarine – teal blue with slight shimmer
• Coffee Bean – brown with a slight red
• Firefly – light copper with a slight shimmer
• Retro – dark brown

Here’s a swatch I made using a web brush:

Colors from left to right: Retro, Firefly, Coffee Bean, Aquamarine

I do like the colors, but when applied dry, they’re very light. I’d definitely have to use a sticky primer like Fyrinnae Pixie Epoxy or apply the shadows with a wet brush. I haven’t used them used them often enough to see if I get any sort of allergic reaction, but at least I will be able to wear them occasionally.

The design of the compact looks great, but I think those lids are going to get pretty mess if you kept this in your purse or bag. There are also two wells that you can use to mix the powder with water, which is convenient, but will probably also be annoying to keep clean. The included brush is okay for drawing wider lines, but I’d probably use a different brush for finer lines.

Overall, I like the teal and copper shadows, but haven’t really like using powder shadows for eyeliner. Still, it was an in expensive way to try BareMinerals eye shadows again. Personally, I wasn’t that impressed, so I won’t be buying more eye shadows from this company.

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!

After reading Saucebox’s review about gel liners I decided I should give it a try. Being a fan of Physicians Formula’s cosmetics I decided to pick, up their gel cream liner for brown eyes.

The brown eyes gel creamliner comes with three colors: brown, purple, and black. The three colors come in three separate stackable containers that stick together or can come apart if you only want to carry around one color. The set also comes with a liner brush. The brush could be a bit on the thick side, but I found it a good size since I need a thicker line for my monolids.

The colors in the set complement brown eyes very well. I did not think that I would use the purple color liner much, but the color of the purple is a dark purple and works very well as a liner if you want bold color that isn’t black or brown.

I’ve always had been a pencil liner girl, since I have horrible hand coordination when it comes to using liquid eyeliner. It always turns into a disaster.  But gel liners are the best comprise for someone, like me, who is horrible in drawing a straight line without it smearing the liquid all over her eye lids.

Gel liners give you the bold lines of a liquid eyeliner without the mess, and I love it.

This gel cream liner goes on very smooth and does not smear or crease. It also lasts all day with a primer. Lastly, the gel liner cleans off very easily. There is no need to scrub your eyelids raw to remove this.

I may be disappointed Physicians Forumlas mascaras, but their Gel Liner has definitely not disappoint. However, they might be a bit on the prices side since the containers are a bit small, but then again you do get a sample of three colors that you can mix and match for the look that you want.

Who doesn’t want longer eye lashes? Right now there are a ton of prescription and over the counter lash growth serums, but a lot of them seem to have really scary side effects (like changing your eye color) or are packaged with mascara that makes my eyes itch!

Early this year, Physicians Formula launched their Eye Booster 2-in-1 Lash Boosting Eyeliner and Serum. I was definitely interested in trying this out as the formula is free of fragrance and parabens. The Try Me Free promotion in January made this an easy purchase!

First up, here’s a look at the packaging.

I like the easy to open packaging as well as the sleek design of the eyeliner pen. The top snaps on securely and after 4 months of use, the pen hasn’t dried up and still draws a great line.

The tip of the pen is actually a brush, rather than a felt tip, with a nice length I found easy to draw lines with. You can get varying thickness in line with the brush, including a very fine line if you wanted.

So as an eyeliner, I really like this pen and would buy it again once it runs out. However, how did it work as a lash growth serum? Here are two photos I took about a month apart. Unfortunately, I didn’t get a photo of my lashes before I started in January.

It’s very minimal, but you can definitely see some lash growth! Okay, so it’s not very noticeable and I didn’t get nearly close to the results advertised on the box, but I’m still impressed that it worked at all with no irritation.

The eyeliner is paraben free, although I am not sure what all of them are, so they might still be a bit dubious. In any case, here are the ingredients as listed on the company’s website:

WATER. ETHYLHEXYL ACRYLATE/METHYL METHACRYLATE COPOLYMER. BUTYLENE GLYCOL. SD ALCOHOL 40. BEHENETH-30. AMMONIUM ACRYLATES/METHYL STYRENE/STYRENE COPOLYMER. GLYCERIN. MYRISTOYL PENTAPEPTIDE-17. 1,2-HEXANEDIOL. ACRYLATES/OCTYLACRYLAMIDE COPOLYMER. CAPRYLYL GLYCOL. ETHYLHEXYLGLYCERIN. PENTYLENE GLYCOL. POLYGLYCERYL-3 DISILOXANE DIMETHICONE. PHENOXYETHANOL. SODIUM HYDROXIDE. DISODIUM EDTA. BLACK 2.

Overall, I enjoyed using this product as a liquid eyeliner and the lash boosting properties are just a bonus. I’ve used it fairly frequently over the last 4 months (3 or 4 times a week) and haven’t run out yet, but when I do, I will probably pick up another.

I use eye pencils as eyeliner for years, and it never occurred to me that sharpeners made a difference because aren’t eye pencils are just pencils with softer tips? With this mentality, I’ve been using a cheap Wet ‘n’ Wild sharpener I got for $0.99. Generally, the sharpener worked… to an extent. But at the time, I was using cheap eyeliner pencils that cost no more than a dollar or two. So if the tips kept breaking and the sharpeners chewed the pencils like a wood chuck, I didn’t really care. But now that I am actually investing money and purchasing better eyeliners, such as, Urban Decay’s 24/7 Glide-on eye pencils, I did not want to have half of my eye pencil eaten up by a faulty sharpener, especially at $17 an eye pencil.

This review is for three sharpeners that I have in my makeup bag, and does price really make a difference in sharpeners?

Wet ‘n’ Wild

I got this sharpener a long time ago. I think the sharpeners that Wet ‘n’ Wild puts out now are silver in color, and I don’t know if they have improved their product or not, but after using this one. I’m not tempted to try even if it is only a couple bucks. However, this is a dual sharpener and has a sharpener for the jumbo eye pencil as well.

This sharpener did its job. It sharpened my eye pencils, but it sharpened the pencils like a regular No. 2 pencil. We’ve all experience the sharpened pencil where one side is the lead and the other is side a wood point, and just when you thought you had about half a centimeter of lead left, you find that you can’t write normally anymore and you have to start writing at a ridiculously odd angle because the sharpener does not sharpen evenly around the pencil.

Now this is a problem for eye pencils because when you’re lining your eyes and reach near the end of the tip, the wood strip at the end can scratch your eyelids, and I’ve done this a bunch of times when I didn’t pay attention to the bluntness of my eye pencils. Believe me, it hurts!

In addition to getting scratched eyelids, this sharpener has a tendency to break the tips while sharpening, and this happened quite often. So often that I would give up and only half sharpen the pencil enough to give me enough of a point to line my eyes, but that problem still led to my eyelids getting scratched. I can’t win!

Maybe Wet ‘n’ Wild has changed the blade in their silver sharpeners, but I won’t be trying it anytime soon unless I get it for free, then maybe I’ll give it a go.

ELF Sharpener

I actually forgot I had this sharpener. I received this sharpener through the ELF “Get the Look” set and just tossed it into my makeup bag and never looked back until now. In fact, I have three of these sharpeners.

Since ELF sells these sharpeners at about $1.00, I assumed they were as bad as the Wet ‘n’ Wild one I have, but since I had them, I thought I’d try them out. These ELF sharpeners are a hit or miss. The first sharpener I grabbed was bad. It did not sharpen at all. I stuck the pencil into the sharpener and twisted and twisted and nothing happened. I even tried pressing the pencil closer to the blade thinking if it “caught” it would start sharpening. No luck. Just as I was about to write off these sharpeners, I remembered I had another one in my bag and tried that one out.

This sharpener looked exactly like the one I just tried, but instead it sharpened my eye pencil like a breeze. It didn’t get stuck, didn’t break the tip, or make a big mess. In fact, I was able to sharpen my eye pencil to a pretty sharp point without any breakage. Also it didn’t sharpen the pencil like a No. 2 pencil, so no scratchy eyelids.

I also tried the third sharpener I had, and that one worked fine as well. So if you want a cheap sharpener, the ELF sharpener is good… if you get one that works. 2 out of 3, I guess those odds are too bad. Another downside is that this sharpener only has one size, so if you have a jumbo eye pencil you’re going to need another sharpener. However, ELF does have a Dual pencil sharpener for sale that comes with two sharpeners for $1.00, which is a great deal. Apparently the ones I have were the “bonus” sharpeners.

Urban Decay: Grind House

After a couple weeks of watching my Urban Decay eye pencils get mutilated, I bit the bullet and bought Grind House. I figured that Urban Decay must make a sharpener that is made for their eye pencils, and they did.

I have never been happier with a sharpener than with Grind House. With just a few twists, my blunt eye pencils were sharp again without any breakage or wooden points to scratch my eyelids. Grind House is basically a sharpener with a built in container to hold the pencil shavings so you don’t have to be standing over a trash can to sharpen your eye pencils. But be warned that the cap is not very tight and can come off if it is being tossed around in your makeup bag or purse, so I recommend emptying the container of shavings before putting it away to prevent shavings littering your bag.

I also like that Grind House comes with two sizes, so my regular eye pencils are covered and so are my jumbo pencils. But I have noticed that for the jumbo pencil side of the sharpener, the plastic point stopper prevents my jumbo pencil from getting too sharp. I would like my jumbo pencils a bit sharper, but this is not a huge problem for me.

At $9 a pop, Grind House is expensive, but it is worth it. Also it has a very interesting design on the cap that includes a butterfly, a heart, a flower, a worm or caterpillar, a skull, and a gun. A perfect design that goes with the Urban Decay brand.

So basically, there are cheap sharpeners that work as well as expensive sharpeners, but just beware “you get what you give”.

I don’t think Urban Decay still sells the “Super Stash” set for their 24/7 Glide-on eye pencils anymore, but you can still find them on ebay for $40-$50, though I don’t think this set is worth those prices on ebay.

I have always preferred using pencil liners over liquid liners because the few times I have tried to used liquid liner, it always ended up a disaster, but I recently discovered the beauty of gel liners, but that’s for another review. I like using pencil liners because I feel that I have better control, and if I make a mistake, it isn’t as catastrophic as with a liquid liner. The problem with most cheap liners is that they either crease or don’t last the whole day and end up giving me raccoon eyes.

A couple friends had told me about how Urban Decay has the best eye pencils, but being on a budget, I wasn’t sure about spending $17 on an eye pencil. After probably wasting that amount or more by trying out various cheaper brands, I finally broke down and decided give Urban Decay a try. Now I had another dilemma. What color should I try? All the colors in Urban Decay are bold and colorful, and I wanted to try a lot of them if not all. Since I could not decide on which colors, I decided to get the Super Stash which had nine different colors and mini sized. So if I didn’t like a color, I wouldn’t have a lot of it left over, but if I loved the color, I was going to have to spring for the regular sized pencil.

The Super Stash comes with nine colors. Colors from left to right: Zero, Oil Slick (black and glitter), Corrupt (brown and glitter), Eldorado, Graffiti, Binge, Ransom, Rockstar, and Stash.

I tend to stick to boring colors like black, brown and the occasional dark purple, but after getting this set, my favorite colors have been Binge (Navy) and Ransom (Iridescent purple). I did not think I would care for the green (Graffiti) and gold (Eldorado), but the colors are so bold and pretty that I have tried them out and love them. Every color in this set is great for any occasion.

Now the colors are fantastic, but how do they wear? Urban Decay’s 24/7 glide-on eye pencil goes on very smoothly and bold. You don’t need many strokes to get a nice good bold lining. With primer the eyeliner will last all day. Without primer the eyeliner will still last all day, but there will be minor creasing. Also this liner would survive my toughest workouts where I feel like am showering in sweat.

Another example of its water resistance was when I was cleaning the swatches off my arm, I had just put my arm under the faucet and the water just ran right over the colors without any smears or smudges. The liners with sparkles did lose a couple flakes, but that’s expected. I actually had to use a waterproof makeup remover to successfully clean the patches from my arm. So the eyeliner is definitely water resistant as advertised.

Colors from left to right: Zero, Oil Slick (black and glitter), Corrupt (brown and glitter), Eldorado, Graffiti, Binge, Ransom, Rockstar, and Stash.

For the swatches, I went over them twice with the pencils, since just having one layer was not enough for the camera to capture the colors. All the colors have a little shimmer to them. Corrupt has glitter, but they aren’t showing up in the picture. Also Zero (black) is darker than in the picture. My favorite color in this set is Ransom. At the time I only thought it was a regular purple color, but I was pleasantly surprised to see that it was an iridescent purple with a hint of blue. This was a combination of two colors I love! Needless to say, I’ve been using this one a lot.

Now I did mention that these pencils are “mini” sized, and when I say “mini” I mean mini. I knew they were small when I bought them, but I had underestimated the smallness when I received these in the mail. These pencils are 0.02 oz or 0.5g. When it is just numbers, it is hard to imagine the size. So I decided to measure the pencil with a ruler, and they measure only about 2.75 inches. Basically they can, literally, fit in the palm of your hand. Because of the smallness of each pencil, this set is a bit on the expensive side, but it is a good set to try if you want to play with the different colors.

After purchasing this set, I was wondering if I spent too much for eyeliner, but after using these liners for about a month. I have no regrets, and I’ve even purchase a couple more sets with some new colors that aren’t “mini” sized.

I discovered the MAC counter at Macy’s around 5 years ago – I got sucked in by the pretty, vibrant colors like a crow drawn to gold. My first few purchases were eye shadows, which I loved, and at some point I decided to give their eyeliners a shot. I’d tried a zillion different eyeliner pencils over the years, none of which I was super happy with. They were either too thick & I had trouble making a nice concise line, or they were hard and scraped on my lid when I tried putting it on, and the few liquid liners I tried were a disaster. I’d pretty much given up. I started with one of their Powerpoint Eye Pencils, which I was somewhat happy with, but didn’t use too much. On the advice of a friend, I then picked up one of the Eye Kohl pencils, which I was assured was soft, went on nicely, and also lasted all day.

Well - found my holy grail eyeliner! Until I try something I like better, this is my all-time favorite eyeliner ever. I started with the color Rosemary & Thyme, which is a shimmery green/gold and loved that. My next color was Teddy, which I’m reviewing here - a nice, coppery brown. The pencils are soft enough to apply really smoothly and usually evenly without clumps, and when sharpened to a nice point they go on very concisely. On top of going on nicely, it also stays on nicely – I can wear this all day and at the end of the day, it will look almost as good as when I put it on. I got a sharpener from MAC (probably could’ve found one cheaper, but…) and sharpen it probably every 2x that I use it; it sharpens pretty well and doesn’t usually break or get peely or anything.

Teddy is a great color. I’d tried mostly purple or black eyeliner previous to discovering these pencils and I figured I should branch out a little. It’s a soft coppery brown that I wear with tan/neutral, brown, pink, etc. shades of shadows. You can also shade the color up your lid a little to add to your shadow – the pencil’s soft enough that is smudges and blends well.

(Pic – left, just bottom lid lined – right, bottom & top lids lined with Orglamix mineral eye shadow in hot chocolate. Yes, I was too lazy to do both eyes up for the photos. )

At $14.50 they aren’t cheap, but for me it’s worth every penny. All in all, these are fantastic eyeliners for me and I will be continuing to buy them.