One Note: Wet n Wild No Neutral Ground

For the week of April 26th, 2015, I tried out the Wet n Wild limited edition eye shadow palette No Neutral Ground (34210) twice. I do not think this is available anywhere anymore; mine was purchased at the Dollar Tree a while ago. On What's New Wednesday I used the white middle highlight shadow, the brown middle lid shadow, and the brown left crease/definer shadow, essentially as suggested on the back of the palette. On Second Try Saturday I used the yellow right highlight shadow, the green right lid shadow, and the green right crease/definer shadow, again, essentially as suggested on the back of the palette. For the eye shadow primer I used the Wet n Wild Fergie Take On The Day Eye Shadow Primer in CA027 For My Primas. The below were the results as far as application and wear time were concerned.

Wednesday: 

The shimmers in the middle highlight shadow do transfer to the brow bone, though they also transfer to the face, even after tapping off any excess product from the brush. The shimmers/glitters were not so dense that they were apparent on the brow bone unless I looked for them.

The middle lid shadow was darker than I would normally use for all over the lid, but it did apply and blend well. The color appeared as in the pan and the more subtle sheen/shimmer was not obvious on the lid once applied and blended. I would use this color again, though probably as a crease shadow with another lid color from a different palette or single.

The bottle left shadow is much darker than I would normally use and was very pigmented. It was also really hard to blend. I used one dip of the tip of the brush in the pan and one tap to each outer crease and that was more than enough for both eye lids. I spent at least 10 minutes blending the crease color in and it may have been longer when I thought back to how long it took to complete just the eye portion of the makeup that day. I also used it as a shadow liner and here it was much easier to get on and look the way I wanted, though it did have a lot of fallout to the lower lash line area even though I was applying to the upper lash line, which made the eye look extra smokey looking for me. I ended up cleaning up the lower lash line as eye products in that area tend to make the skin there painful.

The wear time on this lasted all day, at least 8 hours, probably more, it still had not creased when I went to wash it off at the end of the day.

Not an eye look I would normally wear out of the house as it was much more intense than more normal eye shadow look, but if I had only used the bottom left shadow as a liner, I probably would have been more comfortable with the look and my arms might not have hurt so much.

Second Try Saturday

The right highlight shadow was a bit confusing for me to use because it was yellow and while in some places I could see the yellow, in others, I could not, so it was a little patchy in its application. A different brush may have helped this. It also had a problem with the shimmers/glitter in the pan getting everywhere on my face, even when tapping off the excess, but again, a different brush might have helped this.

The middle right lid shadow applied very easily and blended well, actually it blended a little too well as I got it much higher in the crease than I meant to just through trying to blend the line. The color, even with all the blending, remained consistent and did appear as in the pan. This was also a bit dark for my normal lid shadow choice, but that is the point of trying to push myself with trying these.

The bottom right shadow did not creat much contrast with the middle right lid color and so ended up getting lost in the crease and along the lash line. This shadow also applied and blended easily, only it would have worked better with a lighter lid color which is how I will use it next time. I did end up applying a cream brown liner over the top of the bottom right shadow that was along the lash line which helped to give more contrast and definition to the lash line. This one did not appear to have as much fallout as its brown counter-part.

Again the wear time was good, at least 8 hours, and I did not see any creasing prior to washing my face.

This was also not an eye look I would normally wear out of the house and I am not sure I ever got used to seeing myself look that way, but that was not at the fault of the shadows.

Thoughts on the palette: 

The highlight shadows are going to take some work to figure out how best to use them as I wasn't that happy with either of the two I used and I am not that optimistic about how the pink will work out. I am wondering if used on top of a cream shadow base on the lid, or at the very least, the inner lid, if that could be nice as they didn't really give enough color on their own to be used as a lid color normally, but too much color for my tastes to be used as a brow bone color, particularly in the case of the yellow one. The three middle shadows are ones I am looking forward to using and I have high hopes for the purple as the other two worked so well. As to the bottom two, the dark brown will most likely only be used as a liner, and the green will probably not be used again with the green lid shadow, but perhaps the brown lid shadow as it did blend well.

One of the things I appreciate about this palette is that the purple and brown shadows look like they would play nice together and the green and brown shadows look like they would play nice together when used in looks, so you do not have to just use the coordinating rows. If I can get the top highlight shadows to work for me it will increase the variety of eye shadow looks I can get from this immensely, though it will probably be a while before I try this again.

Keep In Mind: April 2015

This month's Keep in Mind is not a makeup item or tool, though it is helping me to use my makeup more. It is a schedule. Not a hard schedule that I have to do, but suggestions for each day of the week. Not every day involves application of makeup, but having some direction does seem to be helping me to actually apply makeup just about daily.

The idea for this was actually spawned by nail polish. I have a lot of nail polish, I only use a handful of the actual polishes and rarely do nail art, primarily because I have no skill in art in general. I wanted to come up with something to help me remember to just do manicures and pedicures every week and for some reason I always wanted to make them a Monday thing but always forgot to do them on Mondays so then I wouldn't do them for the rest of the week. My husband and I were already trying to remember to do facials every Friday and having a hard time with getting the day right and I was trying to figure out if there was a weekly calendar big enough that we would see it and remember it. So I thought if I was already writing in Facials on Friday I could also add manicures on Monday. But then I felt that the rest of the days of the week needed things as well to help me use my makeup more and to try and push myself to use more makeup than just what I would normally gravitate towards.

The schedule for the week: 

Mani Monday 

With a pedicure or I would forget to do them.

I made little construction paper tabs in each of the color families that I have nail polish for, which is all of them, to remind me to use a different type of color each week until I make it through the whole rotation. Polishes used are then moves into a container until I have used all of the polishes I have for that color family, then they go back to the container for that color nail polish to pull from again. Only one color counts per week, so while I used red and orange last week I only counted the red and this week I used pink and green, but only counted the pink.

Turn it Off Tuesday 

Offline for the whole day, a challenge set by my husband because even when I am having a migraine I try to spend time online. This actually wasn't that hard the first Tuesday attempted and is to help me try and find ways to occupy my time that won't aggravate my migraines. 

What's New Wednesday 

I have to try something new, either eye shadow, blush, or lip stick, or something I don't remember using because I know some of it is probably going to fall into that category.

I made a list with each makeup item on little tabs (pulling from a pile with my eyes closed) of makeup that I could not remember ever using or was still sealed. Once I use the makeup I remove the tab it is listed on and tack it to the space next to Second Try Saturday to help me remember to use it again.

Thoughts on Thursday 

Work on writing reviews to post, this way I might get something posted once a week.

I hand write my notes for reviews when I am testing things, the problem that tends to occur is that I forget to ever type them up and post them. So now I have them each individually tacked next to the day for Thursday and the goal is to get one written up each week. More would be nice, but last week's took so much out of me to just do one write up for a lip stick I am no expecting more than one.

Friday Facials 

The day of the week I exfoliate and my husband and I both do masks.

We both try to take care of our skin and it is nice to be able to do this together.

Second Try Saturday 

Reuse the thing from Wednesday, suggested by my husband because usually one use is not enough to form an opinion on something. Once something has been used twice, provided I remembered to write thoughts about it, it may get posted on the review blog, eventually. At this point I have a backlog of things to post about, but that is okay because it takes me while to review things.

Sunday Funday 

Use something bright, either eye shadow or lip product, made extra challenging because it is also chat with parents day. Whenever I chat with my parents or have a day with a good chance of leaving the house I try to do more simple makeup, not less makeup, just generally do not use bold or stronger colors. I am trying to break that tendency with this challenge for myself. I like the bolder, brighter colors, I just do not generally feel comfortable wearing them out of the house.

So far it has been working and I have managed to keep up with the schedule for the limited time I have been using it. As I said, it is not a hard schedule, if I have a day where I just cannot get out of bed, or deal with light, or move, I am not going to beat myself up over missing the day. This is more to give me ideas on what to do for each day because I am not good at coming up with ideas on my own.

Empties: May 1, 2015

This was a good month for me as far as makeup usage went and it was even more exciting because I used up two higher end samples, something that is very hard for me to do. I have a hard time with using up high end anything because replacing it is not generally an option, so being able to get myself to use something, even a sample, enough to use it up is kind of a big deal to me and will also make my husband happy because it lets him know that I might actually use some of the higher end makeup he paid for.

Benefit Hello Flawless Oxygen Wow Foundation sample in "Cheers to me" Champagne

When I was given this sample a while ago I was not sure what to do with it because it is several shades darker than I am. At first I tried using it as something of a contour around the perimeter of my face the way I saw some people on YouTube using their foundations that where darker than their current skin tone. Then I started mixing it into my foundation that was the right shade for me, just not very good at sticking around on the skin. This seemed to work better for me and allowed me to use more of it at once.

I do have a bottle of this in the correct shade, although now it seems it might be a little dark for me, but still, close enough that I think if I blend it down the neck enough no one would notice. This foundation doesn't really cover much, though when used with the matching primer it would cover a good bit more as the primer makes even the weakest of pigmented foundations look at least medium coverage, if not full coverage. But used by itself, the redness of my cheeks always shows through. One of these days I will try the foundation with the matching powder and see if that makes a difference. One other strike against this foundation for me is how quickly it sets. Because of my joint and muscle pain I am not always able to work quickly with the foundation and sometimes working with the foundation causes the joint and muscle pain and this foundation is one of those foundations that sets almost as soon as it touches the skin and so you have to work very quickly with it and in small sections of the face so that you do not end up with splotchy looking foundation.

Benefit Stay Don't Stay Sample in light/medium

I am not sure if this started not working for me because it was drying out or because my eye lids were too oily those days, but it did not hold the eye shadow as long as I expected it to the last couple times I used it as an eye shadow primer, so I end up just using it as an under eye primer for my concealer, because my concealer needs all the help it can get. As an under eye primer it did seem to help the concealer last longer and it also helped cover up some of the darkness of my under eye area.

Review: Colormates Lip Stick and Lip Liner Duo in Cinnamon

This lip stick and lip liner duo from Colormates was purchased at Dollar Tree for $1.

The lip liner is again much darker than the lip stick it comes with, though in this case, it is creamier than the previous pair reviewed. It is still drier than the lip stick itself, but more comfortable to wear on the lip alone.

The lip stick is again not fully opaque, but does give a larger amount of color that blends with whatever color is underneath it. With the lip liner provided it becomes a darker red, which with a pink lip liner it becomes a lighter red/brighter red.

The wear time of the lip stick/lip liner duo was good for my needs. While some color transferred onto a straw while drinking, there was still plenty of color left behind to look as it did when applied. It also survived blowing my nose, though again, some transfer to the tissue. After about four hours it did eventually start to feel dry, but it still looked okay. The only reason it was removed and reapplied was due to the dryness it was beginning to give.

Note about use with alternate liner: When used with the supplied liner it never transferred to the teeth. When used with a Max Factor liner, which is much creamier than the liner provided, it kept getting on my teeth.

Review: Colormates Lipstick & Lip Liner Duo

This lip stick and lip liner duo from Colormates was purchased at Dollar Tree for $1; it did not have a color name sticker on it anywhere I could find.

This was a lip stick I did not have high hopes for from when I had used it in the past. I remembered it as very frosty and sinking into the lines in my lips; turns out only part of that memory was accurate. The liner that comes with this lip stick is a completely different color from the lip stick itself and that turned out to be a positive because it gave me the idea to try it with different lip liners to see how the color transformed.

The liner itself is very dry and does not apply well over lip balm if you use one as a primer for your lips. It really needed to be applied directly to the lips in order to have any chance to adhere. When I tried the lip liner with a lip balm over the top, it did alright as it does give a good amount of color, but really needs something to help moisturize the lips as it is so very dry. 

The lip stick is very moisturizing so when applied over the very dry liner, no lip balm is needed. The lip stick is not completely opaque in color, but does give its color to the lip liner which results in ending up with a pink that is slightly more red and slightly deeper than the pink in the tube. This allows for some variations in the way the lip stick appears depending on what liner you use with it, something I like, as I often find myself wishing for a shade slightly different from the ones I have in lip stick form. When I first applied the lip stick, it did sink into the lines in my lips, but quickly smoothed out once I rubbed my lips together.

The wear time on this duo was good, it survived from when applied after first meal until second meal, which is as long as I typically wear any lip product. It survived drinking with a straw and blowing my nose a couple of times. Some color would transfer to the straw or tissue, but when I would check my lip stick afterwards the color still appeared the same and fully cover the lips. I could not recommend eating with this lip stick on, but that is not something I do with any lip stick. One thing I noticed with this lip stick/lip liner duo was that the lip stick stayed in place much better with this dry lip liner provided than it did with other lip liners. This also occurred with the other lip stick from this brand I tried. When worn with the lip liner provided I never had a problem with lip stick getting on my teeth. When I used a lip liner from another brand that was not as drying, the lip stick got on my teeth. This is something to consider when deciding what lip liners might work best for it. If you have drier liners already that you do not like to use, they may work better with the Colormates lip sticks duo to the moisture content provided by the lip stick itself.

Keep In Mind: March 2015

M.A.C. Charged Water and Rimmel Fix & Perfect Pro 002

Between these two products, my face products have been lasting a lot longer on the skin. They both individually improve the staying time of my foundation, highlighter, blush, and bronzer. When used together the staying time is even greater.

I was a little disappointed in the Charged Water packaging as the top broke after only a handful of uses and I found the mist generated by the nozzle was not very fine. We ended up getting a travel sized spray bottle from Walgreens that has a very fine mist to it, so I am much happier with the distribution of the product from the new bottle. 

When I use the Charged water, I generally try to remember to use it before moisturizer and after the last step in my makeup that involves a powder, this also seems to yield the best results for length of wear of the face products.

Empties: April 04, 2015

I just had an empties, but I didn't want to wait another month to post these.

Lotta Luv Lip Balm for Jelly Belly

I love the smell of this and primarily use it as a primer for lip stick. The consistency of it is kind of thick and that seems to help some of the softer lip sticks that tend to melt into the wrinkles of my lips to stay looking smoother in color.

I have about a dozen of these waiting to be used because once I told my husband it was helping some of my lip sticks work better he went a little nuts buying as many as he could find. 

Wet n Wild Mega Slicks Lip Gloss in 579A  Seedless Watermelon

This is a lip gloss that was only shown recently in the daily makeup, even though it was used two to three times a week since it was originally purchased.  This was a my car lip gloss, meaning the lip gloss that was left in the car so that if I forgot to bring my purse, I had something that wouldn't melt that I could apply in place of lip balm. It served its purpose well. Not sure what I am going to replace it with yet as I have lots of lip glosses, I just have to figure out which one is most likely to survive in a car all summer.

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.

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.

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.