February 2014 Favourites

March 3, 2014Favourites, MiscellaneousBourjois, CoverGirl, Fortune Cookie Soap, MAC, Make Up For Ever, Urban DecayChelle

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Unfortunately, I didn’t have a whole lot of favourite beauty products this month. While looking through my stash and glancing over the makeup looks I’d done in the last month, there really weren’t a lot of repeat products. There were a few though, so I thought I’d share them with you.

CoverGirl “CC Cream” and Bourjois Healthy Mix Serum

I’ve come to the realization that my face is not as pale as I used to think it is. (I say this every time, but my face is darker than the underside of my arm where I’ve swatched these foundations (above), so don’t use that to judge whether or not they match my face.) I was using Bourjois’ Healthy Mix Serum in 51 Light Vanilla a lot and I started to notice that it was making me look deathly pale. I decided that looking like I’d constantly seen a ghost wasn’t a good thing, and opted to mix it with one of my darker foundations which happens to be Covergirl‘s “CC Cream” in 110 Classic Ivory (which you’ll also see labeled as Tone Rehab 2 in 1). While both foundations smell nice on their own, I prefer the fruity scent of the Bourjois, however the fruity scent gets eaten up by the scent of the Covergirl one (not a bad thing, just disappointing!). Anyway, moving on. I like how they even out to create a better colour for my winter skin tone and they feel really nice combined. No cake face or ghost face either!

As if you need to see more of this palette right? I’ll make it quick! I’m not even a neutral person and yet I love this sucker. I took UD‘s Naked palette with me on vacation to Ottawa this past month and every time I take it somewhere, I remember just how much I love it.

This is my second tube of MAC‘s Viva Glam Cyndi lipstick. It’s no longer available, but back when I got it, I picked up a second tube immediately out of fear that this would no longer be available. And sure enough, this isn’t in the regular Viva Glam line anymore! The colour is a beautiful light raspberry with a lustre finish. Since Cyndi is a lustre, it doesn’t have the best lasting power so use a lip liner to extend the longevity of it.

Make Up For Ever – Aqualiner in 13 Black

Okay, this isn’t technically a favourite, but I did wear it for probably half the days of the month so there’s obviously SOMETHING I like about it.

Allow me to explain.

MUFE‘s Aqualiner has a felt tip (boo) but is utterly waterproof (yay!). This stuff will NOT budge if you get water anywhere near it. But that’s its only redeeming factor. It dries to a very dark black, but it also has a shiny texture which unfortunately seems to pick up every eyeshadow I put on my lid. The end result is a muted liner that no longer looks black but rather green, or silver, or blue, or *whatever* eyeshadow colour I happened to wear that day. It drives me CRAZY! I need to go back to matte black liners because they don’t seem to pick up the shadow on my lids like the shiny ones do.

The OTHER problem is this one:

Two weeks into owning this liner, the blasted filter got itself stuck in the cap! As the arrow on the left shows, that bumpy part is not supposed to be stuck on the cap, it’s supposed to be on the top of the tube! I’ve pulled it off and put it back on the tube multiple times but it’s super messy and annoying, and no matter what, it still gets itself stuck back in the cap the next time I use it. So at the end of all this, the only redeeming factor this liner has is that it’s waterproof. I wish I’d returned it, but I did wear it a lot in the last month simply because I need something waterproof for the winter months and MAC‘s Blacktrack just couldn’t deliver. If you know of a matte black, waterproof gel or liquid liner, please let me know!

Fortune Cookie Soap – Marshmallow Dreams Cuticle Cream

I received my first Fortune Cookie Soap box midway through February (review/haul on that coming on Wednesday) and loved the pants out of that box. I’m posting the cuticle cream not so much because of the product inside, but primarily for the smell. FCS‘ Marshmallow Dreams scent smells, as they say, like marshmallow fluff (so basically sugar) and I love how sugary-gooey it smells. Unfortunately, it seems that FCS has run out of every product they have in this scent already (within a week!) and I’m unsure if they’ll add more back to the site since every product says “SOLD OUT”. For now, this cuticle butter will last me a while since a little goes an extremely long way.

So not a whole lot, but enough to have had some fun with.

Fitness Friday – Family Day Weekend

February 28, 2014FitnessCross-country Skiing, Garmin, SnowboardingChelle

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Over the Family Day weekend, I headed up to Ottawa to get in some much needed snowboarding. Since my ridiculous illness lasted an entire week over Christmas, I wasn’t able to get in any downhill excitement. It had been a few years since I’d been able to get out snowboarding so I was really starting to crave it.

Plus, you know, Ottawa looked like this:

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Yes, those are about 6 foot tall fences separating backyards where the backyard itself is filled about two to three feet high of snow.

Since I was a little kid, my dad had taught us (my brother and I) to ski. Over the years I slowly became bored of skiing. I was proficient, although I never progressed past just “going fast” down a hill while occasionally venturing amongst the trees for a few jumps. In my twenties, I was introduced to snowboarding by an ex of mine. With a single 30 minute lesson at Camp Fortune in Ottawa, I went snowboarding in the Swiss/French Alps with my friends. It was insane to take such a leap but it was exhilarating and I love that I did that with such little experience under my belt.

I’m not an amazing snowboarder. I don’t tend to go faster than 40 km/h (as I found out with my Garmin!), my idea of going off a jump is to barely take a little hop over a tiny snow mound and I barely know what the heck to do when my speed picks up too quickly other than just turn into a side slip.

But I love it. I really love it.

After years and years of skiing, snowboarding is a breath of fresh air. It just feels exciting! It’s nice to be doing something different and new. Since I’m still not completely comfortable with snowboarding, it gives me an added sense of exhilaration.

I also know next to nothing about snowboarding gear, but I love mine. As with my clothing, I tend to steer towards white and the board, boots and bindings are no exception. The bottom of the board is actually not completely painted over, so you can see the wood right through the bottom which I think looks really cool.

Sometimes I just disappear into the actual side of the hill wearing so much white…

So anyway, back to the snowboarding. My dad and I got out twice, once to Vorlage and once to Edelweiss (both just over in Quebec). It’s funny how memories are. When I was younger, these hills felt so big. But going up them now? I can’t believe how small they feel!

Edelweiss, while slightly bigger than Vorlage, has never been my favourite hill, but it’s relatively nearby so we made one trip out there. In high school, this was the mountain the ski club used, so it’s one I was seriously over-exposed to. It has longer slope lengths than Vorlage though, so the runs tend to be a bit longer which is quite nice.

However, I really liked Vorlage and that’s the one I remember liking from when I was in my teens. No to mention, the place was totally and completely dead! We had that hill practically to ourselves and it was wonderful.

Zoomed in shot so you can see the bottom of the board (and my ridiculous face)

I wore my Garmin 220 for the second time we hit the slopes, just to see what kind of speed I get up to and how many calories snowboarding actually burns. And while the calorie burn isn’t particularly high, it was definitely fun to see how fast I get up to in the breakdown (topped out around 39.2 km/h).

Garmin map readout for snowboarding at Edelweiss

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Aside from the snowboarding, I also got out for a bout of cross-country skiing. Now, I haven’t been cross country skiing since I was probably about 15 years old so I had to pick up a full set of new gear. I was also slightly worried about how good I’d even be since I barely remember the motion of pulling your heels up on a pair of skis. One note about the gear… since WHEN have they made cross-country skiing boots feels like you’ve put your feet in a pile of pillows? These boots were so comfortable that they were an absolute pleasure to wear!

I was only intending to get out there for about an hour, but somehow an hour turned into roughly three hours. We ended up on the trail for the Loppet which was happening that weekend, but thankfully didn’t ski the whole darn thing (50k). We did, however, cover about 15k which is pretty crazy to me.

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So what are my thoughts on cross country skiing now? Well, I’m faster than I thought I was going to be (bonus) but I ski slower than I run! According to my Garmin data (can you tell I love this thing?) we covered 15.3k in two hours and forty minutes, which is an average page of 5.8 km/h, but I run about 10 km/h. I honestly expected that skiing, given that you have slipey-slidey things attached to your feet, would mean you moved at a much faster pace.

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It’s definitely a pretty solitary sport – there’s no one really to talk to as you do it since the tracks are decidedly single file. I don’t like it as much as running, but that may be because I feel like I’m getting nowhere fast on a pair of these skis! It’s certainly one hell of a workout though since the Garmin clocked me in around almost 1000 calories burned for the time we spent out there.

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So while I liked the experience of cross-country skiing again, it’s definitely not as exhilarating as snowboarding. It’s a shame that Toronto doesn’t have more access to proper ski slopes like Ottawa does so I really only get my fix in when I visit my parents during the winter (or go on a snowy vacation!). I was really happy to get out there again and looking forward to when I get another chance, although it likely won’t be until next year!

What I Bought This Month – February 2014 Haul

February 26, 2014HaulsLush, MAC, SephoraChelle

Not a whole load of items this month, but still some serious goodies in here!

Spending ban be damned, I was going to have this blush! This stunner (Petal Power) is from MAC‘s A Fantasy of Flowers collection for Spring 2014. It’s one of their mineralize blushes which tends to mean slightly less colour payoff in my books, so I’ll just have to pack this one on. A lot of pictures online of this blush seem to vary in shades and tons, and mine varies from everyone’s as well. I see Petal Power as a coral blush with a golden sheen – It’s not quite rose gold because it’s got too much orange in it.

The next few items were presents from a wonderful friend but I’ve looked up the prices just in case anyone is interested.

Bath Bombs: Space Girl ($5.25 USD) & Lord of Misrule ($5.95 USD)

I don’t usually buy bath bombs from Lush for myself since I find them rather expensive, so receiving them as gifts feel pretty sepcial! The one on the left is Space Girl and I’ve already used this one up – I had thought it was going to be purple, but when it hit the water, the pinky-red bit at the top exploded and turned the bath water dark pink. Lush indicates that this one smells like grapefruit but I can’t say I noticed a ton of grapefruit smell. The green one is Lord of Misrule and I think it was a Halloween special. Lush says it smells of patchouli and black pepper.

Sephora – Color Reveal Balm in Unique Pink ($13 USD)

Now this is really cool. Like one of those pseudo-mood changing rings of yester-year, this balm changes colour based on the heat of your skin. I barely own anything by Sephora‘s own brand so this was really neat to try out. Unique Pink goes on the lips slick and smooth (Sephora says it has a honey flavour, but it smelled generic “sweet” to me)and feels just like any other balm. At first it’ll look like a very pale-tinted pink lip balm (see the bottom right shot of my hand, the swatch on the left is what it looks like right after application) but eventually it turns pinker and pinker (swatch on the right was about five minutes after it had been applied). After multiple applications throughout the day, it eventually made my lips hot pink and definitely stained them which just made it look all the more natural. One thing I will say though is that this has a tendency to bleed outside the liplines over the course of multiple hours, so try not to apply it too often to minimize this.

Sephora – Full Action Extreme Effect Mascara in Purple ($15 USD)

This is AWESOME. I have always wanted to pick up a coloured mascara but could never bring myself to spend the money on something I wouldn’t wear as regularly as black. Once again, this is Sephora‘s own brand and the colour is a beautiful vibrant purple. As my eyelashes are naturally quite pale due to my blonde hair, this shows up exceptionally well on them (I took a few shots but none of them were clear unfortunately).

That’s it for the month of February. You can thank my wonderful friend for getting me a whole stash of stuff otherwise this post would’ve been only that MAC blush! As I’ll be visiting the US mid-March, next month’s haul is going to be an absolute motherload of stuff.

What’s On My Face – Volume 11

February 24, 2014Makeup, TutorialsBourjois, Cargo, Illamasqua, L'Oreal, Laura Mercier, MAC, Make Up For Ever, Makeup Geek, MUA, Physicians Formula, Revlon, Tarte, Urban DecayChelle

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I hadn’t used MAC‘s Club in a really long time, and when I do, I tend to use it just in the crease which honestly doesn’t really show off just how awesome the shade is. So I decided to try something different and use it all over the lid.

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Eyes: Primed with Urban Decay Primer Potion in Original (this is the day when this primer suddenly stopped working on me and this entire eye look ended up a creased mess by the end of the day!), then:

MAC Club all over the entire lid right up and over the crease.
Makeup Geek Creme Brulee at the top of the crease to blend out the edges of Club.

MAC Brule was used to highlight the brow with L’Oreal Voluminous Carbon Black on my lashes.

Rest of the Face

Foundation: MUA Matte in Shade 1 Soft Sand
Concealer: MAC Select Cover-up in NW20
Bronzer: Physicians Formula Bronze Booster in Light/Medium
Blush: Cargo Medocino
Lips: Revlon Just Bitten Balm + Stain in Twilight

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My eye makeup matched my shirt. That’s pretty much the only logic I applied here!

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Eyes: NARS Pro Primer eye primer, then:

MAC Crystal Avalanche all over the lid.
MAC Print in the outer corner.
Makeup Geek Creme Brulee to blend out the upper crease.

MAC Brule to highlight the brow and L’Oreal Voluminous Carbon Black on my upper and lower lashes. Make Up For Ever Aqualiner in 13 Black to create the wing.

Rest of the Face

Foundation: Revlon Colorstay (Combination/Oily) in Buff
Bronzer: Revlon Photoready in Bronzed & Chic
Concealer: MAC Select Cover-up in NW20
Blush: MAC Warm Soul
Lips: Revlon Fire and Ice

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Although I tend to think of the Laura Mercier Artist 2 palette as predominantly purple, there are a lot of neutral shades in there that need recognition too!

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Eyes: Urban Decay Primer Potion in Eden all over the lid, then:

(all Laura Mercier) Sparkling Dew all over the lid.
Bamboo through the crease.
Truffle to darker up the outer corner.

MAC Brule on the browbone, Make Up For Ever Aqualiner in 13 Black for the winged linger and L’Oreal Voluminous Carbon Black mascara on my upper lashes.

Rest of the Face

Foundation: Bourjois Healthy Mix Serum in Shade 51 Light Vanilla
Bronzer: Physicians Formula Bronze Booster in Light/Medium
Blush: Illamasqua Hussy
Lips: MAC Russian Red lipstick with Brick lip pencil

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This one showed up decently in pictures, but I can’t say I really liked the end result. The blue shade (Illamasqua‘s Imagine) was sheer, powdery, patchy and just flat out miserable to apply. It needed a insane amount of layers AND it faded throughout the day.

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Eyes: NARS Pro Prime all over the lids, then:

Urban Decay Virgin on the inner two-thirds of the lid.
Urban Decay Gunmetal in sort of an angular stripe at the outer corner.
Illamasqua Imagine at the outer corner and blended into the crease.

Urban Decay Virgin to highlight the brow, Make Up Forever Aqua Liner in 13 Black for the wing and Too Faced Better Than Sex mascara on my upper lashes.

Rest of the Face

Foundation: none
Bronzer: Tarte Park Ave. Princess
Blush: Tarte Crave
Lips: nothing

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Super quick one while I was on vacation.

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Eyes: NARS Pro Prime all over the lid, then:

(all Urban Decay) Sin all over the lid.
Creep in the outer corner.

Virgin to highlight the brow and Too Faced Better Than Sex mascara on my lashes.

Rest of the Face

Foundation: nothing
Bronzer: Tarte Park Ave. Princess
Blush: Tarte Crave
Lips: nothing

Ipsy – February 2014 Glam Bag

February 21, 2014HaulsIpsy, J. Cat Beauty, Pop Beauty, Skyn Iceland, Tini Beauty, ZoyaChelle

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Time for Ipsy‘s February glam bag! Gotta say, not keen on the super pink (and rather bland, I might add) bag, but to each their own. As a new subscriber though, I have to wonder what the heck does one do with all of the bags that you end up accumulating every month?

I haven’t tried these J. Cat eyelashes yet because I really only wear false lashes maybe once a month. They do, however, look very similar to the Ardell 102 Demis that I wear so I’ll be happy to try these out.

They look a tad bit thiner than the Ardells, but that’s fine by me as I’m not overly fussy in the fake eyelashes department.

Pop Beauty – Plump Pout in Fuchsia Freesia (4g for $7.50, full size is $16 for 8.5g)

There’s no doubt this is a beautiful colour. Pop Beauty‘s Fuchsia Freesia is a very vibrant fuchsia (duh) that goes on the lips fairly opaque. Unfortunately the lasting powder is on parr with other lipglosses and for that reason I’m just not that drawn to it. I haven’t got the patience to be fiddling around with my gloss every damn hour during the workday.

Pop Beauty – Plump Pout in Fuchsia Freesia

As you can see from the shot, it really is gorgeous. I just wish it stayed that way! The top right shot is right after I’d applied it. The bottom right is after an hour of wear time. It’s almost completely rubbed off and I wasn’t even eating or drinking anything! Way too high maintenance for me. I’ll end up bringing it to work and leaving it there for those days where I forget to pack a lipstick or something. It does have a weird burnt cinnamon/plastic taste and smell to it too, but not as bad as some things I’ve worn.

Tini Beauty Eyetini Cordial Cream Shadow + Base In One in Violette $18

I didn’t have much hopes for a cream shadow that I had to apply with a wand applicator, but this one surprised me. Tini Beauty is a company I’m completely unfamiliar with, so $18 for a cream shadow seems kind of steep. It is, however, quite beautiful on the eyes.

Tini Beauty Eyetini Cordial Cream Shadow + Base In One in Violette

The product does indicate that it has a built in primer, but since I always wear primer I can’t let you know how this holds up by itself. Shot on the left is the Eyetini alone over NARS‘ primer. And the shot on the right has MAC‘s Blackberry blended into the crease with nothing over the Eyetini itself. The texture of this product is very smooth on application (I even used the built in applicator and didn’t bother with another brush!), but it does dry to a very paper-like texture. It’s not necessarily bad, it’s just a bit odd. It feels a bit similar to a Maybelline Color Tattoo in that sense. When I wore this eye look, I didn’t put anything over the Eyetini and it wore for a solid 14 hours. I experienced minor creasing and a very slight bit of bunching/flaking. Overall though, two thumbs up on this product!

Face masks don’t really make my heart go pitter-patter, but it was in the bag (and apparently I’d filled out my profile to indicate I wanted masks… go figure) so I may as well give it a shot.Skyn Iceland‘s Fresh Start Mask did… nothing. Sure, it made my skin really uncomfortably hot in an oh-my-god-I-want-to-scratch-it-off kind of way, but did it actually really DO anything for me? Not that I can see.

I used it once a week as the instructions indicated (I got two uses out of the foil packets), and mixed them how they said to (“blue” clay first, then the gooey gel one on top”). And uh yeah. I did a face mask. It didn’t make my skin worse, or better. /shrug

I was eager to try Zoya for the first time! I have a friend who swears by them but I’d never owned a bottle before. Zoya describes Dot as a full coverage pink-petal cream.

Well.
No.

No, it is not full coverage. Or opaque. Have a look:

Aside from my painted cuticles and the random cat hair, you can see that it took four coats before I got opaque, streak-free colour. That’s without a base coat or top coat too. I don’t know about you, but if I have to apply six coats of nail polish to my nails, that stuff is never going to dry and it ends up going all mushy. Definitely not pleased with this one. For those people it does work for, this is at least part of Zoya‘s Spring 2014 collection so it’s a very recently released shade.

Ipsy February 2014 Breakdown

J. Cat Beauty Eyelashes – $3.99 USD (full size)
Pop Beauty Plump Pout in Fuchsia Freesia – 4g for $7.50 (full size is $16 for 8.5g)
Tini Beauty Eyetini Cordial Cream Shadow + Base In One in Violette – $18 (full size)
Skyn Iceland Fresh Start Mask – $6.50 (full size is 6 masks for $39 USD)
Zoya Dot Nail Polish – $9 (full size)

BOX TOTAL: $44.99

My Thoughts

It’s funny… while writing and editing this review, I can see that I was pretty displeased with a lot of these products. However, my lasting impression from the bag isn’t a bad one. I was happy to try out the stuff that was new to me, and even though it didn’t work out, or I didn’t notice much of a difference in my skin (looking at you Fresh Start Mask), I was still happy to give these products a shot.

The only real hit for me out of this bag was the cream shadow (love it) and I hope to like the eyelashes when I get around to trying them out.