This is hands down the most exciting holiday launch for 2018 for me, so I was so happy to snap it up. (I ended up ordering it from ULTA because the Canadian Sephora launch was slightly delayed, but it’s now available on both sites.)
Too Faced Gingerbread Spice
With a light, sweet scent that isn’t overpowering, the Gingerbread Spice palette brings a lot of the seasonal warm tones to life amongst an array of deep shimmers. I’ll have a full review coming to my YouTube channel in the coming weeks, but for now, please enjoy the swatches!
Too Faced Gingerbread Spice Swatches
Too Faced – Powdered SugarToo Faced – Spiked EggnogToo Faced – GumdropToo Faced – GingerbreadToo Faced – Warm & ToastyToo Faced – Ooo Burn!Too Faced – Frost Bite Me!Too Faced – Lookie At My CookieToo Faced – Spice Is NiceToo Faced – Oh Snap!Too Faced – Bake It ‘Til You Make ItToo Faced – Spice Of LifeToo Faced – Sugar DaddyToo Faced – Figgy PuddingToo Faced – Hot ToddyToo Faced – Reindeer PawsToo Faced – Gingerbread LatteToo Faced – Spiced Rum
I’ve tried a lot of Live Clean products in the last few years, and I think it’s safe to say that their Argan Oil range is the one that works the best for me all across the board!
Moroccan Argan Oil, which is famed for its high concentrations of natural Vitamin E and rich in essential fatty acids and antioxidants, is at the heart of the range, alongside organic botanicals of Grape Seed and Olive Oils that help protect the skin’s moisture barrier. Combine all of that with the wonderful scent – which isn’t too heavily argan oil scented, because I’m not actually a fan of the scent of pure argan oil! – and you’ve got yourself a killer product. The shampoo and conditioner in this range work the best on my hair out of all of Live Clean‘s shampoos and conditioners that I’ve tried. And although it’s not in this post, I use the leave in conditioner every day too!
And sometimes it’s nice just pairing all your scents together knowing that they all match, you know? Combining the body wash, with the lotion and using the hand soap in our guest bathroom means I end up smelling pretty consistently good throughout the day!
Not only are the products good, but the people at Live Clean are also incredible to work with, and offered to giveaway a set of these products to one of my Canadian readers as well! (And psst, the company was founded here in Canada 11 years ago and continues to be manufactured and developed here!)
One lucky person will win:
Live Clean Argan Oil Repenishing Body Wash
Live Clean Argan Oil Replenishing Body Lotion
Live Clean Exotic Nectar Argan Oil Replenishing Shampoo and Conditioner
Lie Clean Exotic Nectar Argan Oil Liquid Hand Soap
Giveaway Rules
This giveaway is open to Canadians only.
This giveaway starts on September 29, 2018 and runs for one week.
One winner will receive the prize pack pictured and described above.
Please be aware that all entries will be double checked to ensure fairness.
Once the winner has been contacted, they will have 48 hours to provide me with their mailing address. If the winner fails to respond within that time frame, I will pick another winner. (And so on.)
Get excited! Revlon has released a highlighter quad that isn’t varying shades of champagne, but rather (almost) all the colours of the rainbow! Say hello to the Galaxy Dream Holographic Highlighting Palette – potentially Revlon‘s most unique launch yet!
I’ve been raving on about unique highlighters for a few years now. I fell in love with the Kat Von D Alchemist Holographic palette, as well as the Anastasia Beverly Hills Moonchild palette long ago, and while a few drug store brands have launched singles of unique shades, there’s never been a palette (that I can think of). And now Revlon has finally done it! And frankly, while I love Revlon, they were NOT the brand I was expecting to put out a palette like this!
The Galaxy Dream palette is a four-pan pressed-powder compact containing 0.5 oz/14.4 grams of product (which is more than double what comes in the KVD palette by the way). The prices varies wildly – $19.99 CAD at Shoppers Drug Mart or $7.49 USD at ULTA. The conversion rate isn’t great between Canada and the US (come on guys, our dollar isn’t THAT bad – eesh!), but coming in at $20 for four large pans is actually a fairly decent price for the drugstore.
Of course, I must point out that while the Galaxy Dream palette is labelled “Holographic”, it really isn’t. These are fun, colourfully tinted highlighted but none of the shades reflect the entire rainbow spectrum and therefore cannot be called “holographic”.
Swatched out you can see that each shade provides a bit of iridescent sheen – with the silver shade clearly having the most pigment.
Revlon Galaxy Dream Holographic Highlighting Palette – Face Swatches
Wearing the pink shade
The pink imbued my cheeks with a pink-leaning-fuchsia hue that I hadn’t expected. I thought it would be a hair more peach given the swatch, so I was pleasantly shocked when I saw just how strong it went on my cheeks. I noticed right away that the texture of the powder is much different than other colourful highlighters I’ve used in the past. It’s more of a satin finish – almost as if I’m buffing a matte colourful highlighter on to my face. I was astonished with just how much I liked this kind of satin/matte but colourful highlighter aspect.
Wearing the green shade
Sadly, I really struggled to photograph the green highlighter. In person the colour of the green is very obvious – I was continuously surprised at just how much I noticed it (in a good way!). But in the shots I got of it it comes across far more silvery-yellow which is sad because I promise you it’s REALLY green IRL.
Wearing the purple shade
And another beautiful shade! The purple shade was absolutely another stunner. Such a gorgeous surreal, sort of fairy-esque glow to it. It matched so well with my eyeshadow too!
Wearing the silver shade
The silver shade was the one I was the most nervous to wear and yet it turned out to be equally gorgeous! I had been nervous to put this on my cheekbones because the swatch looked like straight up silver eyeshadow and I did not want to be wearing that at all. Come to find out that the bulk of the silver pigment actually gets buffed away as you brush this on to your cheekbones, leaving behind a beautiful ethereal white-silver glow. This shade definitely surprised me the most – it’s freaking gorgeous!
Final Thoughts
I was truly surprised at how well the RevlonGalaxy Dreams palette played out on my cheeks. My only complaint is that the pink and the purple shade are a little too similar and I would’ve preferred a blue over one of those shades… but that’s it, because this palette is freaking fantastic! The colours are beautiful, the pigmentation is *really* good, and, what I found to be the most interesting… it’s a softer kind of highlighter. The other colourful highlighters I’ve used in the past somehow seem to have a bit of a shimmery quality to them, which I hadn’t really noticed until I started using this palette. This one is more of a softer hue. I don’t want to say dull, as the colours are certainly NOT dull, but it’s more of a “lit from within” colour than it is a loud, aggressive one (more specifically – the pink and purple are like this). I initially thought I wouldn’t like that after I applied the pink on day one, but I was so taken with how transformative the more satin-like quality of the powder was in comparison to ones I’d used in the past that it made me fall head over heels for this palette.
Revlon‘s Galaxy Dreams palette is really a winner. I love that it’s something fun and unique from a brand that usually sticks to the safe side of things. I *love* this palette!
Too Faced recently added seven new lipstick shades to their Peach Kiss lineup (see my video on them here), and with that launch they threw in some lip care saviours: a peach lip balm and a scrub!
The Peach Lip Scrub is as you would expect: a sugar scrub with a peach scent. What I didn’t expect was how much oil is in this base. There’s plenty of granules of sugar in the scrub, but it’s also jam packed with oil which means you need a lot less product than you may initially think. I made the mistake of grabbing one big heckin’ scoop with my finger the first time I used this, and quickly realized while spreading it over my lips that I had grabbed wayyyyy too much. This is quite a blessing with lip scrubs though – I don’t like to feel like I’m using glob after glob and potentially wasting the product (and your money). So use a little, because it goes a LONG way.
I was left with soft lips that had quite an oily feeling afterwards. Not oily in a bad way either – in the way where you kind of wonder if you even need to apply lip balm because there’s already so much moisture on your lips! Interestingly, I found the smell was not similar to their Peaches & Cream range, but more in line with the Sweet Peach scent (although not as strong).
Too Faced Peaches & Cream – Peach Lip Balm
If you’re not satisfied with the moisture from the Peach Lip Scrub, then you can follow it up with the equally deliciously scented Peach Mega Moisture Lip Balm. This has more of your traditional artificial peach lip balm scent – you know the one, we all had a lip balm like this at one point or another! The texture is quite smooth and glides on the lip easily without being a goopy mess, but you have to break the top layer seal first. There’s like a thicker coating on the top of the product, and once you break through that you’re left with soft, supple balm that’s easy to apply.
In practice, this is more of a daytime lip balm for me as I prefer something much, much heavier at night. The texture of this is thick enough to be grippy on the lips for a little bit of longevity, but fundamentally it’s too thin to be a lip mask used overnight. I have used it multiple times overnight however – and I was left with soft lips in the morning, but I found that it sank in completely every time. While some people may like that, I like a much thicker balm for overnight and prefer when there’s still a little bit lingering on my lips when I wake up the next morning. For me, this is a “keep at my desk” lip balm for easy application throughout the day.
