Once you’ve been in the beauty world for a while, you start to get a little bit jaded. The variety of colours start to blur together, so then companies try to impress you with new packaging. When that doesn’t work, they try to emboss their products (and so far that packaging technique is working extremely well!). So when a product makes me gasp in excitement, you know it’s got something going for it.
Laura Geller Baked Gelato Vivid Swirl Blush in Guava
I mean… do I even really need to say much about this blush? The Laura GellerBaked Gelato Vivid Swirl Blush in Guava (there’s a name and a half) is just so damn beautiful to look at. The colour. The pattern. The shape. Gah. (Although Ulta’s web site did a dang good job of making this shade look seriously unimpressive. Seriously, go here and click on Guava. Like wtf is that shade??)
Laura Geller Baked Gelato Vivid Swirl Blush in Guava – swatch
And then you swatch it and it’s everything I hoped and dreamed for, and really, what more could you ask for in the most beautiful blush ever created? /swoon
Wearing Guava
No word of a lie, I get even more excited every time I put this on my cheeks. I used it in my Too Faced Chocolate Bon Bons tutorial and I mentioned it again in my March Favourites. And now I’ve got this post on it. Is it overkill for a single blush? I sure as hell don’t think so!
For those of you wanting more than just an ode to a stunning blush, here are the basics: this wears all work day on me (7:30 am to 5 pm), the colour is luminescent and pigmented. It’s also easy to blend, which makes me love it all the more. My next time at Ulta, I am definitely picking up Plumberry(and again, don’t let Ulta’s web site fool you, the shade is nothing like that one either!) because I am so not over this formula any time soon!
The Laura GellerBaked Gelato Vivid Swirl Blushes can be purchased on Ulta.com for $26 USD each (and you should really, REALLY go get one!).
Brand new products from BECCA aways fill me with excitement (currently itching to get my hands on the new blushes, but they haven’t been in a store near me yet!!) and the Aqua Luminous Perfecting Foundation was no different!
BECCA Aqua Luminous Perfecting Foundation
BECCA‘s Aqua Luminous Perfecting Foundation claims it is “a light, buildable, liquid foundation that imparts subtle luminosity with a weightless feel”. It comes in a beautiful frosted glass bottle with a metal lid. It’s compact and sleek – all things I love!
BECCA Aqua Luminous Perfecting Foundation
The foundation is dispensed by a dropper type system. When you twist the lid off the foundation, the top pops up and helps you pump out product into the dropper. When you close the bottle up, the popped top then closes down to make it flush with the rest of the cap. It’s actually a really neat system.
BECCA Aqua Luminous Perfecting Foundation has a dropper dispensing systemBECCA Aqua Luminous Perfecting Foundation in Fair and Light
The dropper is as one would expect, although I would say that with a full bottle of foundation, I really only ever manage to get the dropper half full. I usually need about two of these to cover my full face. Side note: this is a VERY liquid foundation, make sure you shake the bottle up very well before using it!
When the Aqua Luminous Perfecting foundation first launched, there wasn’t a ton of shades, so I opted to try out Fair and Light. I thought that Fair would be a bit too pale for me, but that actually turned out to be totally incorrect. They’ve since added more shades to their range and I think Porcelain would be a better match for my winter skintone. (They’ve also added more dark shades as well!)
BECCA Aqua Luminous Perfecting Foundation in Fair and Light – swatches
You can see Fair and Light swatched above. They are significantly darker than I was expecting for shades with that name and they do lean quite warm. And yet… I don’t know what it is about my face… because somehow it oddly all manages to balance out:
Side by side comparison
I really wasn’t expecting Fair to be the colour match that it ended up being, but it works well on my skin! You can also see just how radiant it makes my skin too! That is some fairly ethereal glow going on there!
I do have a few thoughts on this foundation though, so bear with me.
The Bad
I find this applies a little bit strangely to my skin. I’ve mentioned in the past that my nose has problems getting foundation to adhere to it, and I found this foundation kind of balled up and stuck to dry patches around my nose. Very strange. It also sunk into the lines on my forehead.
The foundation range was really small when BECCA first launched them, but in the month or so I’ve been wearing this foundation to test it out, they’ve actually added more shades to their range. I still think the foundation range is too small (there’s about 10 shades), but they ARE working to adding more which is a bonus.
This isn’t a long wearing foundation (nor does it claim to be) and those with oily skin may struggle with the luminosity inherent in this foundation making them look a bit greasy.
The foundation looks “healthy”. I know that’s a strange description, but there’s a glowing luminosity to it that can only be described as “healthy”.
It does feel like a lightweight foundation on the skin (as they described) so I was really glad that that claim was totally accurate.
The colour match, although it looked strange in the swatch, actually worked out a lot better than I thought it would. (So if you’re nervous about colour matching, definitely get a sample from Sephora and try it out first!)
I would say this is medium to full coverage with a single application. I was impressed and surprised how much it covered up my freckles!
Final Thoughts
I think this is a foundation you’re going to have to decide for yourself if you’re going to love it based on what I said above. I was astonished with just how many people commented on the appearance of my skin while I was wearing it though! If you’ve tried this foundation, I would love to hear what you thought about it!
Kat Von D Lock-It Color Correcting Eyeshadow Primer
While my face may be on the dry side of things, I struggle with super freaking oily eyelids. If you’ve seen any of my makeup tutorials on my YouTube channel, you’ll often see me applying two separate eyeshadow primers to make sure my eyeshadow doesn’t crease on me throughout the day. Long gone are the days of using a single eyeshadow primer (although the Maybelline Master Prime gives me *almost* creaseless perfection!) for me it seems!
Kat Von D Lock-It Color Correcting Eyeshadow Primer
That being said, I am ALWAYS happy to try a new one out! Kat Von D recently released her Lock-It Color Correcting Eyeshadow Primer in a whopping five shades. You may think five shades is nothing, but have you ever stopped to consider that eyeshadow primers are (for the most part) quite clear? Most of them offer little to no coverage for our veiny eyelids which is a struggle for people who enjoy wearing paler eyeshadow shades but also have a lot of veins and discolouration on their eyelids that they want to cover. The five shades range from fair to deep and I think it’s actually an impressive array considering that this is “only” an eyeshadow primer! (For example, there are brands out there that ONLY have four shades of foundation! Looking at you Joe Fresh!)
Kat Von D Lock-It Color Correcting Eyeshadow Primer with twist up
The brand indicates that the “formula color corrects your specific skintone to neutralize lids so that you can show off super-saturated, true color payoff.” It also comes in a nifty twist up stick for easy application.
Also comes with a sharpener!
It does come with a sharpener on the opposite end, but I can’t imagine why you’d need to sharpen this product – it’s not like precise lines are needed to cover your eyes. Regardless, it’s there if you need it!
Kat Von D Lock-It Color Correcting Eyeshadow Primer in Fair
The shade Fair is quite brightening on my skin and a tad bit pinker. I will point out the formula is on the dry side of things, so I end up applying the Lock-It primer by first running it on my eyelids, then blending it out with a finger to help warm up and spread the product out.
Time lapse on a day that it held up for me
I know people like comparisons, so here we go! The shot on the left is from 7:30 am before I went to work, and the short on the right is when I got home at 5:00 pm. It looks flawless doesn’t it? There is no creasing whatsoever, and the colours are just as vibrant as ever (except for maybe my transition shade). However… this photo kind of annoyed me, because this is not an accurate reflection of how the primer always behaved. Sometimes I had severe creasing on my lids, and sometimes I didn’t. It was almost impossible to tell which days my eyeshadow would crease and which days it wouldn’t. I actually took the above time lapse photos to show you how much it could crease on me, but instead that very same day my eyeshadows stayed intact. *throws hands up in the air*
Final Thoughts
The Kat Von DLock-It Color Correcting Eyeshadow Primer worked for me… sometimes. And that’s not a claim I’m overly comfortable with. If I can’t rely on my primer to work 100% of the time, then I’m going to double up on primers because I am not going to risk having my eyeshadow crease on me while I’m out. (Doubled up, this worked just fine for me!)
I love that Kat Von D offers five different shades to create a blank canvas on a wide variety of skintones. I think that’s especially important because it highlights the fact that companies are finally realizing there isn’t a one colour fits all for beauty products, and that’s extremely encouraging.
If you’re someone that doesn’t struggle with greasepit eyelids, I think this is a perfectly satisfactory eyeshadow primer that creates a blank canvas that makes your eyeshadows pop. But if you’re like me, and you need something more like super glue for your eyelids, I don’t think this is a primer you can wear on its own. That being said, I have blogger friends that this worked far better on, so please check out Swatch and Review and Workaday Beauty‘s posts on this primer!
Maybelline, like any drug store brand, has put out a lot of mascaras over the years. I’ve tried a few of them, but I’ve never come to the point of falling in love with any of them… until now.
Maybelline Lash Sensational Luscious Full Fan Effect mascara
The new MaybellineLash Sensational Luscious Full Fan Effect mascara (WHAT THE HELL – long enough name???) was sitting at the back of my stash of products to “get to” and it was only once I’d finished my beloved Make Up For Ever Smoky Stretch that I finally reached for this one. And funnily enough, this mascara shares a lot of similar properties with the far more expensive MUFE one.
The Maybelline Lash Sensational Luscious Full Fan Effect mascara brush is plastic and tapered.
The brush is made of plastic, which I know will turn some people off right away, but honestly, it’s worth it to try new things sometimes! I used to hate plastic wands myself but I’ve come around! It starts larger and comes to a more tapered point. The bristles are spaced out enough to allow a lot of product to collect into the crevices of the wand.
The first thing I noticed, and that I’ve continued to notice now that I’ve been using it for over a month, is that this one hell of a wet formula. Probably the wettest one I have ever tried. It also hasn’t dried out yet and it’s already a half and a month later and it’s performing exactly the same as when I opened it. I *love* wet formula mascaras so this is an enormous bonus for me.
Bare lashes versus one coat versus two coats
And that’s how it plays out on my lashes. I’m a one coat mascara kind of person and this mascara delivers right away. I honestly don’t see much of a difference between one and two coats… maybe a slight increase in volume at the roots? For me, this really beefed up the size of my lashes and made them enormous. I do love the way it fans out my lashes and I’m honestly okay with the little amount of clumping there is because there’s enough lashes that are fanned out to make it look both defining and volumizing, which isn’t something I get to experience often (usually I get one or the other).
Final Thoughts
The MaybellineLash Sensational Full Fan Effect mascara is giving my higher end MUFE mascara a solid run for the money. I’m at the point where I’m starting to build my Sephora VIB sale event list (I’m writing this in March btw, in case the sale has already happened!) and I’m half wondering if I should even bother getting it because I’m so freaking in love with this Maybelline one. (I’m a little surprised at myself for even typing that out quite frankly.)
I love the super wet formula. I love that it doesn’t flake as badly as most mascaras do on me (nothing is perfect however, I will get a flake or two throughout the work day). I love how voluminous it makes my lashes and I LOVE that it’s not a break the bank kind of product. Well done Maybelline. Well done!
Note: I think this is called the MaybellineLash Sensational Luscious with Oil Blend in the US.
The Maybelline Lash Sensational Luscious mascara can be purchased on ulta.com for $8.99 USD.
Clinique keeps adding more and more beautiful shades and textures to their Pop lineup and it always excites me to see what new they’ve come up with next! Say hello the Pop Lacquers!
Clinique Pop Lacquer Lip Colour + Primer
Clinique describes their Pop Lacquers as “a luscious pop of liquid, high-shine colour in one, full-coverage coat. Luxurious yet lightweight formula with built-in primer glides on effortlessly, wears for up to six hours”. Sadly, I kind of struggled with these.
Clinique Pop Lacquer Lip Colour + Primer applicator
My first complant is that the applicator isn’t the usual doe-foot, and instead it’s more like a lightbulb shape. It’s round the entire way around which seems to really facilitate poor application. I ended up with streaks and too much product pushed out to the edges of my lip line (so it kind of gave me that lip liner look…).
When I finally did get the lip product on right, it definitely didn’t wear anywhere near six hours and instead started to fade off within about an hour. Even worse was that after only an hour I had intense lip line bleed out around the edges of my lips. And it’s not like I had been talking either when I noticed this. I had been sitting at my desk for the last hour, sipping water from a straw so as not to disturb the lip colour and I might’ve answered my phone once. If that’s what happened from such little activity, I absolutely cannot trust this to last me if I’m out having drinks – I would end up with this all over my face!
Clinique Pop Lacquer swatches in Happy Pop, Sweetie Pop, Love Pop and Peace Pop
The colours, if you can make the formula work, are lovely however! They are intensely bright and beautiful to behold. These are definitely a tacky gloss and I found them very reminiscent of MAC’s lip glasses.
Wearing Happy Pop
Happy Pop is a gorgeous vibrant mandarin orange.
Wearing Sweetie Pop
Sweetie Pop is a vibrant pink that’s bordering on neon.
Wearing Love Pop
Love Pop is a muted mauve/pink with a bit of shimmer. The shimmer is not actually apparent on the lips though!
Wearing Peace Pop
Peace Pop is an intense purple with hints of red.
Final Thoughts
Sadly, although I was really excited to try out the CliniquePop Lacquers, they just didn’t work out for me. The very short wear time/fading off combined with the lip line bleed out make it impossible for me to wear these without constantly glancing in a mirror. Although my face shots above show a decent looking lip product, the reality is that those were taken in quick succession and were only worn momentarily (you can make any product look good for a brief moment in time!). In practice, they just didn’t hold up for me. 🙁 That being said, my friend Zoë over at Writing Whimsy had a better experience with these, so please be sure to check out her post!
