What I Bought This Month – May 2016
Another month passes, and another crop of beauty products ends up in my collection!
A while ago, my friend Sara sent me a trio of items from Laura Geller because she knew I was lusting over the Guava blush. That same trio was also for sale with the shade Plumberry alongside a different lip gloss and a different shade of Spackle. Natalie was at Nordstrom Rack in the US telling me about all of these deals and I demanded she pick one up for me! I was supposed to pay her for it but she keeps insisting it’s a present! <3 Those vivid swirl blushes though… holy heck man. So freaking gorgeous.
Next up are some swap items that a bunch of us Canadian Beauty Bloggers did the night before Gen Beauty! I really, really love the scent that Mary Kay used in their “Into The Garden” spring collection, so I snapped up the foot scrub, the fizzy foot balls (which I really just use as a bath bomb) and the soaps all in the same scent!
My love for silver glitter polish with rainbow holographic bits knows no bounds (they’re my year round toe nailpolish colour of choice) and no one wanted these, so now they’re mine! 😀
I’m also eternally in love with The Body Shop‘s different shower gels and creams and it seems us bloggers have far too much of them! So I got a few varied products in Satsuma, Shea Butter and Coconut!
I also snagged some minis of the Frosted Plum scent which I hadn’t gotten around to picking up during the holidays. I love these little ones for travel.
I know the Too Faced Love palette doesn’t really have great reviews, but since I’ve become quite the collector of Too Faced products, I wanted this one regardless (there’s a reason why I didn’t spend my own money on it though…). I’ve photographed and swatched it for an upcoming Swatch Sunday and holy heck guys… so much shimmer. Almost too much really. This palette is definitely one of my least favourites by the brand… but hey, every brand has their dud product!
I always come out of these swaps with an incredible amount of body products and face cleaners. No one wanted the Biore Baking Soda Pore Cleanser, so it came home with me. Since I don’t have skin that reacts to hardly anything at all, I can pretty much gobble up all the cleansers and creams that don’t work for other people!
My friend Natalie had received this Too Faced Born This Way foundation in a shade that didn’t work for her (Porcelain) so she offered to give it to me. I was SO excited – I had never used this foundation at the time and I kept hearing everyone rave about it. And now that I’ve use it, I get the hype! I also posted a full review of this foundation this past month, and you can check that out here.
Another gift from a friend! This time Zoe mailed me the Smashbox Be Legendary lipstick in the shade LA Sunset. Like most bloggers, we all get to review a ton of things, and while we may like the formula, we often acknowledge that a particular shade isn’t quite for us. Zoe felt this was more a “me” shade (doesn’t hurt that I was cooing over it!) and sent it on over. I wore it this past week and loved the crap out of it. You really cannot go wrong with these Smashbox lipsticks – the formula is so comfortable and the shades are beautiful!
And finally, the one item I actually ended up buying this month… the BECCA Shimmering Skin Perfector Luminous Blush in Snapdragon. I was so excited by this blush that I actually already got my review of it up last week! Snapdragon is the kind of coral shade that I want on my cheeks all summer long. Love, love, love!
Of course… Gen Beauty also happened in May! So if you’d like to see what I also picked up there, you can see that in this video:
Swatch Sunday: Wet n Wild – Art in the Streets
A few years back now (I wanted to say months, but it has DEFINITELY been longer than that), Wet n Wild switches up their six pan palettes to this current five pan configuration. I’ve got the Art in the Streets quint for swatching!
(Sidenote, this swatched decently – except for the purple – but this REALLY benefits from a solid white base on your eyes. Keep that in mind if you’re picking this one up.)
Wet n Wild Art in the Streets Swatches
Haircare: Sun Bum Beach Formula (Sea Spray & 3 in 1 Leave In)
Summer is already hitting Toronto in full force (seriously guys… it’s 28C right now with a humidex of “feels like” 36C – it’s pretty freaking hot out there) and it’s time to dive into more summer fun loving products!
The Sun Bum Beach Formula 3 in 1 Leave In “protects, detangles and conditions your hair while enhancing and restoring its natural body”. It is “enriched with Coconut Oil, Banana Pulp and Peel, Banana Leaf, Quinoa Protein and Sunflower Seed Oil”.
I use the 3 in 1 Leave In primarily as a detangler and “hair softener”. I say hair softener because I recently fried a large section of my hair in Iceland (thank you defective flat iron…) and it’s been crispy as all get out. I spray the Sun Bum 3 in 1 Leave In on my wet hair after I’ve towel dried it and it helps to soften up that chunk of dead, dried out hair as well as help ease any of the tangles I have. Although my hair is much shorter right now than it usually is, I still notice a difference when I run my brush through it. The formula is lightweight, smells amazing (like coconut and tanning lotion, but not overpowering!) and does the job – what more could you want?
But the real winner out of these two products is Sun Bum‘s Sea Spray. Sea Spray “protects your hair from the elements while giving it extra body, waves and texture for that beachy windswept look”.
The Sea Spray comes enriched with Hawaiian Black Lava Sea Salt, Sea Kelp and Seaweed (thankfully doesn’t smell like any of those!). The smell is just like the leave in conditioner – coconut, tanning oil goodness.
The spray nozzle dispenses just the RIGHT amount of product per section of hair in one squirt and covers the area evenly. (Worth mentioning because if you’ve ever had a bad spray nozzle, you know how hellish they can be.) It also has a very handy locking mechanism that’s essentially a tab that you push in and out of the lock position. It’s quite sturdy, so I wouldn’t worry about having it break in your beach bag and leaking everywhere!
So I told you I loved this product, and here’s why:
BAM! Look at that HAIR! That is air dried hair! I gave my hair a good dousing of the Sea Spray (about 10-15 squirts, I’d say) and then randomly twisted sections of my hair while it was air drying.
Generally, my hair dries pretty straight and slightly poofy. The Sea Spray helped to hold the poofy sections in place and gave them a nice curl or wave, depending on the section. It’s so gorgeously beachy, summery and just flat out gorgeous. My own hair is making me swoon!
I am so ridiculously impressed with the Sea Spray – it’s my newest number one hair care product. And it’s not like this is even a hard hairstyle to do! Literally air dry and twist your hair every now and then while it’s drying. It REALLY doesn’t get any more simple than that! Love, love, LOVE!
In Canada, Sun Bum Beach Formula Hair Care can be purchased at select specialty stores across Canada as of March 2016 and is sold at Shoppers Drug Mart this summer (2016).
For those in the USA, the Sun Bum Sea Spray can be purchased for $14.99 USD on ulta.com and the 3 in 1 Leave In Treatment can be purchased for $14.99 (also on ulta.com).
The products featured in this post were sent to me for review.
Too Faced Born This Way Foundation + Concealer (Review & Swatches)
As a rabid lover of all things Too Faced, I have no idea why it took me so long to get around to trying the Born This Way foundation. But hey, I’m trying it now! This review is going to cover the existing Born This Way foundation, as well as the brand new Born This Way concealer which I picked up at Gen Beauty!
The Born This Way foundation has an “undetectable medium-to-full coverage foundation” and contains your standard 30 ml/1 fluid ounce of product. There are 18 shades in the range: from Snow to Mahogany.
As per the packaging, Born This Way is infused with:
- Coconut Water to delicately replenish skin’s moisture levels
- Alpine Rose to brighten skin’s appearance and promote elasticity
- Hyaluronic Acid for a smoother, more youthful appearance
It blissfully comes with a pump that dispenses an appropriate amount of product. I use roughly two pumps to cover my entire face, but I could probably get away with only a pump and a half. The shade I have (which I think matches me PERFECTLY) is Porcelain and it’s intended to be for “fair with neutral-to-pink undertones”. (Sidenote: Natalie of Ivory Avenue passed on this shade to me because it didn’t suit her. Thank you!!) I would argue and say I’m more warm than cool toned, and I do feel like this foundation shade veers more towards the yellow side of things. I’m definitely not complaining though because it’s a perfect match for me, but it is something to be aware of if you’re trying to match your undertone. The foundation has a luminous finish that works well on my dry to normal skin.
Like the foundation, the Born This Way Naturally Radiant Concealer also contains coconut water, alpine rose and hyaluronic acid. It comes in 10 shades ranging from Very Fair to Deep.
The tube is slick and emulates the foundation packaging. It comes with your standard doefoot applicator to evenly distribute product onto your face. I would say it’s neither too thin, nor too thick in consistency. It’s somewhere right in the middle.
As you can see from the swatches above, the Light shade of the concealer matches quite well with the Porcelain foundation. I feel the concealer is a hint more pink, but once it’s all blended out onto the skin the two shades meld perfectly together.
On the left is my non-foundation face and on the right I’m wearing the Porcelain foundation with some of the Light concealer underneath my eyes.
There is ZERO editing done to this shot. You can see a hint of my freckles coming through the foundation, but if you compare it to the shot above without any foundation on, you’ll see that it covered up a heck of a lot of them. (By the way, I do love my freckles, I’m just trying to indicate how well this foundation can cover up “discolourations”.)
Because of the luminous finish of the foundation, I really do feel like this ACTUALLY looks like my skin in person. It doesn’t look cakey, or makeupy – it just looks like my face. And that’s not something I can usually say about foundation because generally there is SOME aspect of visibility of the product in your skin. This product seems to melt into my skin while not settling into fine lines. I have no idea how they’ve done it, but it’s wonderful!
Here’s a closer look at my eye where I’ve applied the concealer. You can see I’ve got some fine lines, but the product hasn’t sunk into them. I am exceptionally prone to “crepey” looking undereyes if I apply anything under them. I see a faint hint of that towards my inner tearduct, but nowhere near as much as I usually see. The concealer has also covered my broken blood vessel (the slightly darker spot in the center) which is incredible since that thing is RED (to the point where people actually tell me I somehow got lipstick under my eye!).
Final Thoughts
Born This Way foundation: Guys… I mean… I’d heard the hype.. but until you EXPERIENCE this foundation… you just don’t know. YOU DON’T KNOW. The Born This Way foundation is INCREDIBLE. It gives my skin a gorgeous luminous finish and it covered ever aspect of my face evenly and effectively. This foundation is actually starting to rival my Bourjois Healthy Mix Serum foundation for most loved and I truly didn’t think that was ever going to be possible. This was one of those products that I put on my face and I was just KNEW it was a match made in heaven. There is no aspect of this product that I don’t love: the bottle is beautiful to look at and solid to hold. The pump is perfection. It even applies spectacularly to my face – especially on my nose which has always been a problem area for me! I am in *love* with this foundation!
Born This Way concealer: Much like the foundation, the concealer is also a winner which is something I didn’t expect to say either since I’ve had a LOT of problems with concealers over the years. Although concealer is not a product I use daily, it’s good to know that this sucker can cover up things if need be. I used it primarily on my undereye area and I experienced very, very minimal creasing after 6+ hours (without setting it so I could fully test it out). Please note that the Born This Way concealer is launching on June 15, 2016 – I just got an early sample via Gen Beauty.
The Too Faced Born This Way foundation can be purchased on sephora.ca for $49 CAD or on sephora.com for $39 USD.
The Too Faced Born This Way concealer can be purchased on sephora.ca for $32 CAD or on sephora.com for $28 USD.