Loose Powder

My December Birchbox arrived last week, but I’ve only just had the chance to take photos of the contents. This month’s theme is the holidays, of course, and the usually pink outer box had festive white snowflakes! Inside the box, the plum tissue paper was replaced with one that is white with very fine pearlescent glitter. Very pretty!

So very pretty! Definitely saving the tissue to reuse for gifting. Inside the box were five items that should all be fun to try out:

• Benefit Cosmetics, The POREfessional
• Harvey Prince Ageless (Perfume)
• Jouer Moisturizing Lip Gloss in Birchbox Pink
• Orofluido Beauty Elixir hair treatment
• Extra: Showstoppers Designer Fashion Tape
• Extra: EBoost Orange Natural Energy Booster

I haven’t used these products yet, but the Jouer samples I’ve gotten in my Birchboxes have all been great. The fashion tape could come in handy… if I ever wear a fancy dress that would need them, of course!

The Harvey Prince perfume is a light, fruity scent with notes of pink grapefruit, pomegranate, mango, and jasmine. I also love that these luxe perfume samples are now tiny sprayers instead of the traditional stopper tops which could get everywhere when you try to open them.

I don’t usually drink any of those energy boosting solutions, but perhaps I should give this a try as I’ve been feeling kind of run down lately.

Not super-wowed by this month’s box, but I’m still loving the monthly box of treats so I’m keeping my Birchbox subscription!

Last month, the special Tarte for True Blood items arrived in Sephora stores. This exclusive, limited edition collection includes a palette, cheek stain, and LipSurgence lip tint. As much as I loved the packaging for the palette, I didn’t like any of the eyeshadow colors, so I just got the cheek stain and lip tint.

I like Tarte products because they contain fewer chemicals than other high end cosmetics. These two items are formulated without parabens, synthetic fragrances, phthalates, or triclosan. The LipSurgence also notes on its package that it is free of mineral oil, petrolatum, and sodium lauryl sulfate.

I really like the solid packaging on these products. The cheek stain has a twist on top and you push the bottom up to expose more product. The LipSurgence pencil has a cap that fits securely and you twist the bottom to get more product – no sharpener needed. It doesn’t seem like these colors have any names except for “True Blood.”

The True Blood LipSurgence Lip Tint is a muted matte red with slight iridescence. I didn’t find it to be particularly moisturizing and the scent was a little like waxy mint. It lasts a few hours for me if not eating or drinking, but I don’t feel like it left a noticeable stain.

The True Blood Natural Cheek Stain leaves a sheer wash of red for a healthy flush… and a whole lot of gold glitter. I love the color of the stain, but since I end up layering it, there’s a fair bit of gold glitter that also gets left on my face. Not a fan! I did notice that if I applied the stain with my fingers, there was less glitter transfer.

Here are some swatches and a photo of me wearing both products:

These products are my first tarte Lipsurgence and cheek stain items. I like them both and would definitely buy more from these lines in the future.

The cheek stain retails for $30 and the LipSurgence retails for $24. Tarte for True Blood products are available on Tarte’s website and exclusively at Sephora.

I hadn’t heard of Jordana Cosmetics until I was scouring KMart for inexpensive lip glosses. I was, of course, rather skeptical of them – what else could I think about a $1.99 lip gloss? When I was at the KMart, though, they were buy one get one free, so why not give them a try?

Lip Out Loud Super Shiny Glosses come in 15 colors in several finishes, all named with texting shorthand. The first two I picked were TTYL and ASAP.

The glosses I picked both have visible duochrome glitter and are both rather sheer. These glosses also have a fruity flavor and smell that reminds me of a watermelon Jolly Rancher. At first, I wasn’t at all liking that, but having used these glosses for a while, I don’t mind anymore.

The applicator is an extended doe foot soft applicator. In the swatches, ASAP is on top and TTYL is on the bottom.

These glosses are great! They last a few hours and aren’t very sticky.  The price is also good and the packaging is decent quality thick plastic tube.

Jordana Cosmetics are available online at their website, KMart, and grocery stores.

While on the hunt for inexpensive lip glosses that don’t dry out my lips, I decided to try out New York Color’s Liquid Lipshine Gloss. They’re pretty affordable at $2.50 each and are available at Target and most drug stores.

The first two colors I picked to try are Nude York City and Honey on the Hudson.

In the swatch picture, Honey on the Hudson is on top and Nude York City is on the bottom.

The glosses are stickier than most other glosses I’ve used. There’s also a very heavy vanilla scent that I’m not particularly fond of. The applicator is a long spongy end and more flexible than the normal doe tip.

I found the wear to be about average. I don’t think it helped to keep my lips from drying – which is a big feature I want from gloss. In fact, after a couple days of wear, my lips started peeling. Gross. So, while these are inexpensive, they didn’t really work for me, I don’t like the scent, and I won’t be buying more.

The Korres glosses are already my favorite type of lip gloss, so I’ve been wanting to try their Raspberry Liquid Lipsticks for a while.

I ordered this set from Sephora.com a couple months ago when they had Korres items on sale. The three colors in the set are Soft Pink (13), Berry (28), and Red (56) and each tube is 3.5mL.

The  Korres liquid lipsticks are free of parabens, sulfates, synthetic fragrances, phthalates, GMOs, and triclosan. It has raspberry and pomegranate extracts that are supposed to help smooth lip lines and protect against free-radical  damage.

The wand has a standard doe foot applicator, which works fine for me. The liquid lipstick is highly pigmented cream and spreads nicely. It has about the same wear as a lip gloss, but because it goes on so pigmented, it is more noticeable as it fades. It doesn’t dry my lips and they do feel soft even after the lipstick is gone.

Here are swatches in both shade and bright sunlight:

From left to right, the colors are Soft Pink, Berry, and Red. You can apply them sparingly to get a little color or apply heavier for more vivid color.

I do like the liquid lipsticks, but I think they’re a bit more pigmented for my taste so I will probably stick with the Korres glosses.

Korres Liquid Lipstick is $22 for a 3.5mL tube and they are available exclusively at Sephora.

After seeing lots of posts on other blogs about NYX Jumbo Lip Pencils, I finally purchased some from Cherry Culture last month. There are about 30 colors in the line and I had some difficulty locating swatches and picking colors for my first few pencils.

 I settled on three colors: 716 – Pink Brown, 729 – Chestnut, and 703 – Pink Nude.

Closer look at the tips and swatches:

Unfortunately, all the colors I picked are too light for me. The Chestnut is wearable, but all of them were too frosty and made my lips look way to light. I do like the formula, however – the pencils are very creamy and have the same wear as a non-staining lipstick.

The pencils can be sharpened with a large eye pencil sharpener – I picked one up from Cherry Culture along with my order for like $3, but any one should do. At first, I was confused by the plastic-looking pencils and couldn’t figure out if it would work in a sharpener. Not to worry – it’s only a thin plastic coating and there’s very soft wood underneath that’s easily sharpened.

I do like these pencils, but I think I’ll have to pick up some darker colors before I can really use them regularly.

NYX Jumbo Lip Pencils retail for $4.50 and are available at the NYX website, Cherry Culture, and Ulta.

Here’s a quick look at my latest Vintage Sister order. I was a bit late to the party for this batch, but I picked up a couple things from the new Spring line as well as one of the new Cocoa Shop balm.

From the Spring collection, I bought Pineapple Tangerine and Cherry Berry. I also got a Strawberry Lip Licker and a Chocolate Mint balm tube from the Cocoa Shop line. I’m pretty excited that they’re starting to make balms in tubes!

Vintage Sister is probably my favorite line of lip balms. They are very moisturizing, but if I don’t reapply right away, my lips don’t feel like they’re drying out like they do with other balms.

The ingredients as listed on the website are as follows: Glycine Soja Oil (soybean oil), Cera Alba (Beeswax), Helianthus Annus (Sunflower) Seed Oil, Theobroma Cacao (Cocoa) Seed Butter, Butyrospermum Parkii (Shea Butter) Fruit, Tocopherol Acetate (Vitamin E), Natural Additive (as sweetener), Color, and Flavor.

I don’t think I’ve ever made it to the bottom of a tin, but I love buying the new flavors and I keep the tins all over the house and in my purse. Hopefully they’ll be making more balms in tubes as I kind of dislike sticking a finger in the tin when I want to apply the balm.

You can order Vintage Sister products from their website. The tins are $3.95 each and the tubes are $3.50.

Lately I’ve been using the Covergirl Lip Perfection lipsticks, which are great, but the  bolder colors do bleed and feather. The first product I went for to help solve this was Too Faced‘s Borderline Smoothing, Anti-Feathering Lip Pencil.

These lip pencils are paraben and mineral oil free, which was the main reason I wanted to try them. The colorless formula also meant i could just get the one liner pencil and not one to match every lipstick color.

I’m not sure if you can see it in the above photo, but there is a line of the lip liner right below that bright highlight on the back of my hand. It’s a matte line right below that highlight.

I think this product works great and I use it to line my lips before putting on any bold lip color. Depending on the lip stick, this might not stop all bleeding (especially with very bold reds), but it does reduce it enough for it not to matter that much to me.

I love the Tokidoki brand and the cosmetic display at Sephora has been a draw for ages, but I haven’t really picked up anything as I thought they were a bit pricey. These new lip balm stains, however, are only $9 each!

Originally, i went in to my local Sephora to get the orange stain – Donutella. Unfortunately, that shade was sold out, but the sales associate helped me out and I tried on Pink Martini. I thought it was going to be too pink, it actually looked really nice! So, I got it, of course.

The stain is a light magenta and the color is more subtle than the tube suggests. I think the staining power is not as good as the Stainiac stains by TheBalm, and certainly less staining than the CoverGirl LipPerfections I’ve been trying.

As a balm, it works okay, however the design of the tube makes it kind of annoying to use, actually. The balm moves in the tube and I think if I used it too much it might break off. So, I’ve been using a lip brush to apply it to save on wear.

Otherwise, I love this balm stain and will try and get Donutella when it’s back in stock!

Lipsticks have never been my favorite sort of lip product. They never last, the color transfers everywhere, and I find they usually dry out my lips.

Covergirl has new lip color line out called LipPerfection, boasting long lasting color with a moisturizing formula that will supposedly smooth and soften lips in 7 days. Well, that is a big claim for a drugstore product.

Here are the ingredients. Half of them are “natural” and the rest are chemicals and parabens, which I wish they could get rid of in lip color.

Ricinus Communis (Castor) Seed Oil, Isopropyl Isostearate, Ethylhexyl Hydroxystearate, Acetylated Lanolin, Ozokerite, Euphorbia Cerifera (Candelilla) Wax / Cire De Candelilla, Paraffin, Copernicia Cerifera (Carnauba) Wax / Cire De Carnauba, Cetyl Alcohol, Cetyl Lactate, Fragrance / Parfum, Ascorbyl Palmitate, Tocopheryl Acetate, Butyrospermum Parkii (Shea) Butter, Silk Powder / Poudre De Soie, Maltodextrin, Camellia Sinensis Leaf Extract, Persea Gratissima (Avocado) Oil, Propylparaben, Cocos Nucifera (Coconut) Oil, Aloe Barbadensis Leaf Extract, Hydrogenated Vegetable Oil, Retinyl Palmitate, Mica. May Contain/Peut Contenir: Orange 5, Iron Oxides, Lauroyl Lysine, Titanium Dioxide, Red 27, Blue 1 Lake, Red 6 Lake, Red 7 Lake, Yellow 5 Lake, Yellow 6 Lake, Carmine

Walgreens was running a buy one get on 50% off, so I picked up a few colors to try. I like the design of the tubes and that you can see the color in a swatch at the end of it. I also think the color at the end of it pretty close to the color of the actual lipstick.

There are over 40 shades for you to choose from, so there is probably something there for everyone! Honestly, I stood looking at the display for quite awhile trying to decide what colors i wanted to start with. Ultimately, I went with two neutrals (Delish & Captivate) and two bolder colors (Fairytale & Rapture).

From left to right, the swatches are Delish, Captivate, Fairytale, and Rapture. I like Delish, but find it a little pale on the lips. Captive is a nice brown which I wear often. Fairytale is a bright pink, almost fuchsia. Rapture is a light coral with a bit of frost.

Captivate and Delish I can apply directly from the tube, but Fairytale and Rapture were very bold and I ended up using a lip brush to control the application of color. If I’m in a hurry, I dab a bit on my lips and then spread it with my finger. I get a nice wash of color that way without it looking too much like clown makeup on me. I did find that the colors feathered a bit, so you’ll want to use some kind of anti-feathering lip liner.

As far as staying power, there is the typical transfer on to drink ware and if you touch you lips, but there is definitely a staining aspect with this lipstick, particularly with Fairytale and Rapture. Even after the lipstick has been wiped off, there is still pigmentation on my lips and I required makeup remover to get most of it off.

Now for the moisturizing claims. After about two weeks of use, I can say that LipPerfection didn’t drastically improve the condition of my lips, but for once a lipstick didn’t dry out my lips. I had the color on for hours and wasn’t searching for a balm or a gloss.

Overall, I like the product and would buy a few other colors to try, probably some other neutrals or brown.

Covergirl LipPerfection retails for about $7.99 and are available at Walgreens, Walmart, Target, CVS, and anywhere you can find other Covergirl products.