I did a video tutorial using this THEFACESHOP Lesson 03 Artist Touch Shadow in Peach Fantasia a while back, but never got around to swatching it. So here you go!
The product featured in this post was sent to me for consideration.
Although I’ve played around a little with THEFACESHOP‘s makeup, I’d never had an opportunity to try their skincare products out before now. THEFACESHOP‘s White Seed range is intended to brighten your skin – removing dullness and boosting radiance.
The White Seed Brightening Toner is a “translucent, brightening toner helps brighten the skin and clear away dullness without leaving a sticky residue.”
The White Seed Brightening Serum is a “smooth, brightening serum effectively penetrates into skin, giving it a boost of radiance and brightness.
Both products contain “a compound of brightening ingredients (White Lupin Seed, which contains a natural brightening substance, and White Daisy Flower extract, which helps reducing dullness) makes skin look bright and clear. This White Seed Complex is formulated without 7 additives: parabens, tar colorant, animal-sourced ingredients, mineral oil, talc, polyacrylamide, paraffin.”
In general, I’m quite skeptical of toners because more often than not they’re an added step that doesn’t always give me any kind of results. (I’ve even read multiple articles over the years that indicate they’re not actually doing much of anything.) However, a lot of people use them as an extra step in their routine and I know for me, the only time I’ve experienced a toner doing its job was when it removed itchiness on my face (seriously). I’ve gone off on a tangent here, but bear with me! So suffice to say, I’m incredibly skeptical about toners. However, I did *actually* notice brightening of my skin when I was using this in conjunction with the Brightening Serum. As my skin starts to tan in the summer, I can often be left with a slightly dull looking face just from the added pigment not looking as bright as “normal” for me. I was honestly a little bit shocked when I woke up the morning after having used this for the first time and found that face did indeed look brighter. I can’t explain it, as I definitely do not know the science behind the ingredients, but I did SEE a difference and for me that’s really, really rare with skincare. Added bonuses: pump top, lovely clean scent and it comes with a pump guard that you can pop on top of the lid in case you’re travelling with these items!
Now, the other side worth mentioning is that I don’t feel that the Brightening Serum was hydrating enough for me. It may say serum on the bottle, but it has the consistency of a normal moisturizer and not oil-based as I had expected. (Is it just me? Doesn’t serum imply oil?) I did find I was having to use an oil at night to keep my skin hydrated, even during the summer when I’m producing far more oil. Just something to keep in mind if you’re going to pick this up!
Let me know if you’ve tried these products out by THEFACESHOP, or any other skincare by them!
The products featured in this post were sent to me for review.
I recently did a video on my first impressions of some products by THEFACESHOP and this Oil Control Water Cushion foundation was one of the items that intrigued me the most so I thought I’d do a full post and go a little more indepth on this particular foundation.
Cushion foundations are slowly becoming more and more mainstream as people get used to the concept. Essentially, the foundation comes in a compact that contains a sponge pre-soakedwith foundation. It does contain less than your average foundation bottle as this comes with 0.5 ounces of product versus the usual one ounce.
However, the added convenience of this foundation is found in the way that it is packaged. It’s not exactly easy to carry a big ole bottle of foundation around with you for touchups, but this compact Water Cushion packaging means you get your foundation and makeup pad all in one. The packaging also feels incredibly solid and secure, so you needn’t worry about busting a bottle or cracking the lid.
The little makeup pad sits on top of the compact that opens up to reveal the foundation sponge inside. You don’t remove this sponge – instead you dab the makeup pad on top of the sponge and then apply it to your face. This does provide excellent coverage, but I found the process a little too slow for my liking. Instead, I opted to dab my makeup brush into the sponge and then apply it directly to my face. This resulted in a much more sheer coverage of product on my face however, so just be aware of that.
The sponge comes presoaked with 0.5 ounces of foundation. It isn’t runny and it doesn’t risk leaking everywhere which makes this perfect for travelling or being on the go. The shade pictured above is Apricot Beige and I was really concerned it wouldn’t be a good match for me since the product does look awfully orange. I was totally wrong:
Apricot Beige is a PERFECT match for my skin colour. I would say it has medium coverage because it covered up most of my spotty redness (nose and cheek areas), but it still let my freckles peek through. This is the kind of coverage I go for, so I was really, really enjoying it. Also worth noting: the foundation itself has a really lovely scent. It’s not overpowering, but it’s definitely a fresh, clean scent that made it appealing to apply to my face!
I loved experiencing a new kind of foundation, and THEFACESHOP definitely delivered with their Oil Control Water Cushion. Wear time was solid for me throughout an entire work day (approximately 7:30 am till 5 pm), although I did notice it sinking a little bit into my overly expressive forehead lines. My only other complaint is that I feel the price point is a bit disjointed considering how much product you get. This foundation retails for $39 CAD on their web site, and yet it only contains half of the traditional amount of foundation you would expect in a bottle (maybe this is typical for cushion foundations? Please tell me!). That being said, the packaging is so lovely and makes it incredibly easy to carry around with you, which makes up for some of the lack of product.
In general, the Oil Control Water Cushion foundation is a solid choice if you’re looking to try out cushion foundations. The texture, scent and wear time were all excellent and I really enjoyed wearing this foundation.
The product featured in this review was sent to me for consideration.
Monthly haul time! Enjoy. 🙂
Let’s start off with the only item I actually BOUGHT this month! Inglot‘s Duraline was a must have for me since my Inglot red gel liner turned gloppy on me. Duraline will soften up gel liners that have gone a little bit stale (or any other cream product). I’ve put off buying it for a while now, but when my red gel liner died, I knew it was time to invest. 🙂
So, that may have been the only item I bought this month, but I am very, very lucky to have a ton of beauty blogging friend in Toronto and we do swaps every few months. It gives me a chance to get rid of product that don’t work for me, and pick up ones that could potentially be love at first sight. So here’s the goodies I got from a swap:
I realize these are empty Inglot palettes, but I am SO excited for that! I love Inglot‘s system of palettes, and I think the packaging is beautiful, but it annoys me to buy packaging every time I go to buy shadows. Now I’ve got three empty palettes I can fill with beautiful colours!
I do not need shower gel. At all. And yet, I always grab for it when I see it at a swap. Why? Maybe because I always considered shower gel as so unnecessarily expensive in stores that I really don’t want to pay for it again any time soon. I love shower gel, and this smells wonderful, but it’s gone to the back of my “to use” pile of shower gels. I’m sure I’ll get to it… at some point. lol
One of my favourite YouTubers (StrwberrySweet – mostly does Project Pans) panned one of these Josie Maran Argan Infinity Creamy Lip & Cheek Oil relatively recently, and I wanted to see what they were all about. My initial reaction is that I’m not super keen on the scent of them, but that it wore well and looked good!
This Boscia Intensifying Moisture Pack + is sitting in my medicine cabinet and while I’m writing this up I realize I haven’t even got a clue as to whether this is a facial cleanser or a moisturizer. Heh.
I’ve harped on about my problems with eyeshadow primers before so I won’t bore you with the details other than to say I love trying new ones. Benefit‘s Air Patrol is adorable looking and I’m excited to see how this one holds up!
I love Aveeno‘s skincare products and I’ve been using them for the last… 14 years. Eek. Anyway, I haven’t tried out their Fresh Essentials range so I’m looking forward to using this one.
More shower gel! I got sucked in by the scent of Vitabath‘s Sweet Pink Peppermint – it’s more of a Christmasy scent, so I’ll probably bust it out in November.
MWAHAHAHAH!!!!! The Body Shop‘s Satsuma scent has been one of my favourite scents throughout my entire life and yet… my husband doesn’t like the scent of it. I haven’t repurchased it since I used my last big tub up of the body butter… but now I have another one. 😀
NYC‘s Liquid Liner has been touted as one of the best matte black liquid liners at the drugstore and I hadn’t gotten around to picking it up! Initial reaction: DEFINITELY matte, DEFINITELY black… but I’m not in love with the way the tip of the brush is cut. Hmmm… maybe I’ll just cut it myself.
No one wanted this Misslyn nail polish in 756… which was great for me since I wear this kind of silver disco polish on my toenails 24/7 so picked this one up since I’ve never tried a Misslyn polish before.
I know NOTHING about this B Kamins brand… but the body lotion says “Maple” on it. It, however, smells nothing like maple, so I was totally duped. 😐
/GASP
I couldn’t believe someone brought this to the swap. I had lusted over this Galaxy Chic palette years ago when BH Cosmetics released it, but never bought it because like everything else in the makeup world… you become so inundated with products you end up buying some, and not others. The colours, the marbling, the names of the colours… everything about this palette makes me so, SO happy. I’ve used it twice now and love the shadows. Not a matte in sight though, so it’s not a standalone palette.
A new mascara for me to try out: The Maybelline Lash Sensational. I’ve still got a lot of mascara left in my currently opened tubes, so it’ll be a while before I bust into this one.
I’m not too familiar with Etude House‘s makeup, so I was excited to see a few items by them. This is essentially one of those matte lipstick crayons. I like it, but I don’t love it.
Not tried this one yet… this is by Etude House as well and I think it’s just for lips.. but may be for cheeks as well. It’s still sitting in my “To Use” pile!
Oh wow. Okay… I had heard about Coloured Rained via NikkieTutorials on YouTube, but never bought any. BUT THIS IS AMAZING! IT’s nowhere near as drying as the Colour Pop liquid lipsticks – instead this one is so much more comfortable on me lips. I may need more…
Unfortunately, Clio‘s Lipnicure was a straight “into the garbage” item. It applied patchily and then just really poorly. To the point where I removed it mid-day at work and it was a disaster to remove. I threw it straight into the trash. 🙁
This one astonished me. Too Faced‘s Loganberry La Creme lipstick was discontinued about a year ago and I was never able to get my hands on it. Imagine my surprise that someone would want to get rid of it! YESSSS!
A face mask via THEFACESHOP. This’ll be my first time using anything by THEFACESHOP.
A brow kit from Annabelle that has turned out to be wayyy too dark for me, but it has worked when I need to darken up my eyebrows to look more like someone else (see my The 100 Wanheda/Clarke tutorial).
Another Annabelle brow product! Brow Show is light enough for me so this has actually been working out and it’s really easy to use. Not enjoying the huge size of the pencil, but the product is nice!
And we’re done! I’m doing pretty well conserving my money for IMATS New York, and these swaps are definitely helping me to keep products rotating in and out of my collection1