Monday, March 23, 2015

Empties: March 23, 2015



Almay Smart Shade perfect & correct primer

Claims:
Instantly smoothes and color corrects skin. Lavender to even out and brighten skin tone. Green to reduce redness.

Experience: 

This did not smooth out my skin, although my skin is pretty smooth to begin with. As to the color correcting, definitely did not do that. If anything the application of this product left my skin slight pinker most days, and never more even or brighter.

Would I buy again?

No, I was so happy when this finally emptied I did a little dance in my chair.

e.l.f. Makeup Mist & Set

The first setting spray I ever tried. Did it help keep my makeup in place all day? Not really sure, I don't actually think it did, but for me it was more about adding another step to the process of applying makeup. For me, the more steps I can add to my skin care and makeup application, the happier I am because the process is very relaxing for me. This may be because there are days when I cannot even use my hands so when I am able I want to do as much as possible. It could also be because none of these things are truly necessary to live and so it feels like a luxury when I do them for myself, which makes me think that even if I didn't have my health problems, I would still be into creating the most involved skin care and makeup routine possible.

Would I buy this again?
Probably, though I would want to transfer the contents into a bottle with a better spray on it because this one didn't work half the time.

On to mascaras, these were used over the course of at least one year, each mascara got three months of use, roughly. These were originally intended to be reviewed, but things happened, my spreadsheet was lost when the laptop died

Kirkland Borghese Advanced Lash Defining Mascara in Black

The main thing I remember about this mascara, which I am not even sure you can buy anymore, is that I was surprised just how light it was in application. I like natural looking mascaras, I mainly use them to tint my lashes black, I have fairly long lashes and plenty of them so I don't need mascaras to add to the appearance. This mascara really only did tint the lashes black and did absolutely nothing else. I cannot remember how it did with moisture.

Wet N Wild Mega Protein Mascara in C137

First let me state that I love Wet n Wild, I own a large percentage of their permanent makeup line, and if possible, I would like to own the rest of it. The rest except for the mascaras. I have several of these because my husband found eye shadow trios packed with mascaras during one of there limited edition runs and he bought all of the twin packs, because it was like getting one thing free. I have put all of the backup mascaras of this into the night makeup bag. The main reason for this, I have watery eyes. They water from allergies, they water because I am super sappy and movies and tv shows make me cry sometimes, they water when I laugh, they water a lot. In fact, it is not usual for me to find salt building up on the outer corners of my eyes over the course of the day without me even realizing my eyes have been watering. This mascara, while having no claim of being water proof, would run down my face at even the slightest bit of moisture. It was also a very wet formula and stayed that way for the entire time I was using it. In fact, I just opened it again to see if it ever dried out, and it is still very wet.

Physicians Formula Organic Wear 100% Natural Origin Mascara in Black Organics

I remember vaguely liking how this looked, but I don't remember loving it. I think it also had a problem with running regularly down my face.

Wet N Wild Mega Wear Mascara in C136

This mascara had the same problem as the Mega Protein Mascara, although this formula is a little drier. By the time I finished this one I actually told my mom never to buy Wet N Wild mascara. This one didn't quite get the full three months but I have no problem stoping its use now because it only had 7 more days to go before I ended the test of it. I also didn't like it because the mascara had a strange smell even though it was a new tube.

Wrap up of the mascaras: 

I am seriously considering that I may have to only use water proof mascaras because my eyes water so much. But before I start investing in those, I must work through all of the ones I currently have. So far my favorite is an e.l.f. mascara that had both a regular and waterproof end to it. I only ever used the regular side and it never ran with the one exception of when I watched a super sappy movie that made me cry for a couple hours. The mascara that I will be testing for the next six months, because the little symbol on it has a 6 is the Mary Kay Lash Love Mascara in Black because I was given the sample to use today and I don't like having two mascaras open at the same time. First impressions were good, although I was only able to wear it for a couple hours because I had to take a nap shortly after the Mary Kay consultant left because my brain was trying to shut down.

Wednesday, March 11, 2015

Never Used: 03/11/2015

Normally when a makeup product ends up not being used it is because I either waited too long to use and it expired or I ended up being allergic to it. In this case I just couldn't get into it in the first place.



While rearranging some eye shadows today I was randomly opening things to swatch them because that is just something I do whenever I am looking at my makeup and when I tried to open the e.l.f. eye shadow duo in black licorice it didn't budge. Now I do have shoulder pain currently going on and my fingers are not always cooperative, but I did feel like this was unusually tight for a screw on lid on an e.l.f. eye shadow duo, because I have several from this line and normally I can open them with no problem so long as my fingers are working well.

So I sat the duo aside to let my husband try since he is better at opening things like that and might have tools to help it open. Well, he tried pliers, screwdrivers, needle nose pliers, pipe wrench, and then banged it a little too hard and broke the light grey shadow. Once the first shadow was broken he took a hammer to it to try and figure out why it would not open, which broke the darker grey shadow, which resulted in the mess you see in the picture above. Since these were not particularly unique colors I told him it wasn't a big deal because I have more grey shadows, I even have more grey shadows from e.l.f. My husband did feel bad about breaking the shadows and I am sure if I asked him to he would replace it, but I am not going to because as I said, I have more grey eye shadows.

Tuesday, March 3, 2015

Keep In Mind: February 2015

Kirkland's Angled Liner/Spoolie brush



This brush was in a kit Costco occasionally sells but not consistently so I am not sure if it is currently available. What I use this brush for is to fill in my eyebrows. In the past I primarily used an e.l.f. flat liner brush to fill in my brows, but one day all of those brushes were dirty and so I picked up this one to use and found that it did a better job of making my eye brows look more natural/not too dark as they would on occasion get when using the e.l.f. brush. I generally just use the angled liner side as I have a separate spoolie brush I use to brush out my brows because I always forget this brush has a spoolie built into as well. Other than occasionally going outside of my brow line because of my coordination issues, not because of the brush itself, I feel like this brush give me better control and applying brow powder over the e.l.f. brush and I wanted to remind myself to continue using it.

I know there was something I wanted to post about that didn't work well for me, but I cannot remember what it was right now; hopefully I will remember by next month.