Loose Powder

I don’t know too much about the Korean brand, Lioele, but when I saw some of their products in a shop in Flushing, I had to get something! I picked this eyeshadow stick in 05 Gold, since I’ve been looking for an all over color to double as a base.

The cap shows the color of the eyeshadow and it’s true to shade. The shadow twists up and the cap snaps on securely.

The application wasn’t exactly smooth, but it blends out easily enough. It does work as a nice base for eye shadow, but I would definitely use  a primer to help  keep it from creasing and to extend wear time. The first photo below shows the eye shadow by itself. Next to it are two powders shadows on their own and then on top of the Lioele shadow.

It does work nice as a color that enhances other shadows and I can still use it on its own with an eye primer.

I believe I paid $6 for this, which was a good buy and I’ve used it several times since purchasing. If I see these again, I would probably buy more in other colors!

While visiting some family friends a couple months ago in Flushing, NY, I stopped into a small beauty supply store and found a selection of NYX palettes for $6 each! I picked up this one in Aquamarine.

The inside of the compact has a mirror and a double-ended sponge tip applicator. I never use the applicators included in palettes as they are usually cheap quality brushes or sponges.

The colors are fairly pigmented, but you should definitely use a base or a primer to prevent creasing and fading. You can see from the swatch in the third photo that without primer, the color on skin looks just as good as what’s in the palette.

Overall, I think this is a great palette and I’d love to get a couple more.

NYX Trio eye shadow palettes are available at Cherry Culture, Ulta and wherever NYX products are sold. Each palette retails for $8.

Hey, guys! I’m still on the hunt for a mascara that I really like and next on my list is Maybelline’s Great Lash Lots of Lashes Mascara. I purchased this product in the non-waterproof blackest black.

The first thing you’ll notice is the teardrop shaped brush, which took some getting used to. I didn’t think it made application easier, but it did an okay job separating lashes and not sticking them together.

The formula is a bit wet, but wasn’t messy to apply. Actually, the wetness of the mascara meant that blinking got some product on my lower lashes which was convenient!

Here are some before and after photos:

While I wouldn’t say this mascara dramatically increases length or volume, this Lots of Lashes does add a nice bit of length and a little volume. It’s a good look for daytime or when I was something a bit more than my natural eyelashes.

Wear time on this was good. After 9 hours, there was no flaking nor did it leave black circles under my eyes. Once dry, my lashes did feel a bit crunchy. Removal was easy with my Philosophy Release Me makeup remover, but soap and water works just as well!

Maybelline Great Lash Lots of Lashes mascara is available where Maybelline products are sold. I paid $4.50 for this tube at Target.

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!

Yeah, I’m still on the hunt for a mascara I like that adds length and volume to my lashes! If that wasn’t enough, I’m also looking for something with fewer chemicals so when I saw this NatureLuxe Mascara, I had to give it a try!

CoverGirl describes this as a mousse mascara and says they have exchanged traditional synthetic polymers for natural beeswax to give your lashes volume. This mascara is also meant to be removed easily with soap and water.

Like some mascaras, this one is packaged with the product in a capped tube and the brush next to it so you can see what the brush looks like. I’m a fan of these fine bristled plastic-y brushes as they seem to work best with my lashes.

I applied this mascara to lashes that I curled with my heated eyelash curler. It was pretty easy to apply but was a little messy – the formula was wet, but not runny. It does add volume, but some of it is just from sticking the lashes together. I don’t think I got any noticeable length and the result is a little… chunky. At the end of the day, I had some flaking which wasn’t terrible, but was annoying.

Here are some before and after photos:

The heaviness of the formula (probably from the beeswax) weighs down the curl a little bit, but doesn’t totally flatten my eyelashes to their usual straight down position.

It’s an okay mascara, but I don’t love it. I’ve used it a few more times since originally trying it with similar results, though the third time the formula had dried a little and was a little less goopy to work with but still wasn’t anything that impressed me.

Please keep in mind that mascaras work differently on different people. What doesn’t work for me might work great for you!

NatureLuxe Mascara is available wherever you find CoverGirl products. Price will vary, but I paid $7.99 for this at Target.

I got this sample size of Stila‘s Forever Your Curl mascara with a Sephora order a couple months back.

It’s a very tiny tube, but certainly good for traveling. I wouldn’t have purchased a full size of this without trying, so the sample was great to get.

The brush has very short bristles – almost as short as the plastic type brushes I like. I found the formula rather dry, though that meant it didn’t weight down my curled lashes and also didn’t leave globs of mascara in them.

Here are a few before and after sets:

The results are pretty subtle… I might as well not be wearing mascara at all. It definitely doesn’t give me noticeable length or volume. It did hold the curl better than some other mascaras, but i think that’s due to the drier formula that doesn’t weight the lashes down.

This is not a waterproof mascara, so it was easy to wash off with soap & water or eye makeup remover.

There was no flaking with this mascara and it wore all right, but the lackluster results are not worth $22 in my opinion. The mascara hunt continues!

Hey, guys! Here’s a super-quick review of Essence Stays On and On and On! mascara. I picked this up at Ulta for $3.99. The tube advertises a smudge and smear-proof mascara that adds volume but is easy removed with warm water.

The brush has shorter bristles than most of the mascaras I’ve tried so far. The formula is also rather dry.  Because I had so much trouble getting the mascara on, it ended up being a little messy, which you’ll see in the photos since I didn’t clean it up that well.

There is noticeable volume and some length, but I found the application a little clumpy. I think it works all right for a $4 mascara, but it certainly isn’t one of my favorites.

I haven’t decided if I’m going to use the rest of the tube, but it seems to dry out more with each subsequent use. Not a good thing!

With my fantastically stubborn eyelashes, traditional eyelash curlers don’t work for me. If I can get them to curl at all, it never holds and the lashes got right back to pointing straight down.

I recently saw a review by Eki for a heated eyelash curler. At first, it sounded a bit scary to be putting a heating element that close to your eye! Looking at other reviews, the girls seemed to have both eyeballs intact, so it was probably fine right?

The Panasonic Heated Eyelash Curler (model EH2351AC) had good reviews and for $10, it was a great deal!

I liked the form factor of this design, as opposed to some of the other ones I’ve seen that were more like a thin mascara tube. There is a simple on/off switch and the cap functions as a safety measure – with it on, the curler will be in the off position.

The head of the lash curler is a plastic comb with a flat top and teeth  on the sides. It also functions as a cover for the heating element underneath. DO NOT use the lash curler without the cover – you’ll definitely burn yourself and those heating elements get very hot! The third picture shows the indicator on the back of the head – when the tool gets hot, it will turn pink.

It did take a couple uses before I was used to using this and I’m not going to lie – I did kind of poke myself accidentally with the teeth. Thankfully, I wasn’t really injured nor did I burn myself. However, it definitely made me treat this thing carefully while learning to use it!

There are a few tutorials on youtube that might be able to help, so do a search for those.

Here are my before and after photos; sorry the before photo is so dark!

I really like that this looks more like a natural curl than the harsh angular crimp you get with a traditional curler. Without applying mascara, the curl does stay for several hours. Once I apply mascara, however, the curl falls a little almost immediately (depending on how heavy/wet the mascara is). It’s okay, though, since my lashes don’t go back to their normal state, which is to point straight down.

The best technique to use when curling your lashes is to hold the curler at the base of your lashes and press a little for a few seconds, then slide it up the lash to the tip and to the tips, and hold for a few seconds. Brushing a heated curler through does nothing – much like curling your hair.

Depending on the mascara, you can use the heated lash curler after your mascara is dry. This technique works really well with mascaras like imju Fiberwig and blinc. I’ve also tried it with Buxom mascara and it smooths out the lumps but the heat will melt the mascara a bit and remove some.

The heated eyelash curler runs on a single AA battery. I’ve been using it every other day for the last month and the battery is still good. The first couple times you use it, it will heat up very quickly and get very hot. Be careful! Each subsequent time, it will take a little longer for it to reach full temperature, but so far it’s still been quick – a minute or less. I haven’t tried using a rechargeable battery in this yet.

This is definitely the best tool investment I have made! If you have trouble with curling your lashes, be sure to check out a tool like this.

Hello again! Here’s a quick look at the Wet n Wild Comfort Zone Color Icon palette.

I’ve seen this particular set reviewed on a lot of blogs and i was interested in the definer color on the right side of the palette – it’s a close dupe to the darker color in the BareMinerals Ready2.0 The Vision palette.

The Wet N Wild palette has been difficult to locate at the usual drug stores, but I found a stack of them at Ulta! At $4.99, how could I pass it up?

The one frustrating thing is that these palettes never have names for the individual colors. It’s not a huge thing, but it’s a little annoying! Anyway, the colors apply very smoothly and have good pigmentation.

I mostly bought this palette for the color in the top right of the third picture above. It’s a dark maroon/brown with a teal/aqua shimmer. Love it! Here are some swatches in direct and indirect sunlight:

This is a nice palette, especially for the price. The colors are easily workable for day and night looks.

While I don’t have many makeup palettes, I’ve really loved the Kat Von D palettes I’ve gotten from Sephora. Even though the cream shadows in this palettes are never my favorite (they dry out too quickly), the high pigmentation in these shadows is great. It’s even better when I can snag one on sale – this one was $14 on sale at Sephora.com.

Angeles is a brown and teal color palette with a cream shadow that has a blue/green shimmer. The white palette has various rosary crosses in black ink on the top and the plastic itself is rubberized. Like previous palettes, there’s a mirror on the inside of the lid and two small, double-ended brushes are included.

There is a bit of overlap with these colors and some others I have, but having them all in the same palette makes it easy to pack for a trip. It’s nice having a neutral brown set with teals and blues I can either combine with the neutrals or use on their own for a bolder look.

Morphine is the cream shadow. Out of the box, it’s a bit difficult to work with and I don’t imagine it’ll get much better as it ages. Thankfully, the rest of the shadows are soft and blend easily. Here are some more swatches under direct sunlight and indirect sunlight.

Overall, I’m definitely happy with this palette and have used it several times since purchasing it. It’s worth the $35 retail price, but at $14 it was definitely a steal!

Kat Von D products are available at Sephora.