Thursday, March 31, 2011

Donna Michelle Foundation

The donna MICHELLE (<- that is how they write the name so no it's not a typo) Make Up Foundation in Light 1. Oh boy. I'm going to come right out and say I don't like it at all. I tried to use this product up, maybe mix it with my moisturizer, but no. This foundation has no...NO... coverage at all. It also leaves my skin feeling oily which is nothing I want, and caused me to break out. So basically, I won't be recommending this at all. If I wanted to get a moisturizer, I'd buy one. But when I buy a foundation I want some sort of coverage. So for all of you that this product works (I have no idea how it would though) power to you, but I won't be repurchasing this product ever.

Thursday, March 24, 2011

MAX Factor and L.A. Colors Single


I was in the Dollar Tree near my hometown and just wandering through the makeup aisle because sometimes something catches my eye. It was actually a slightly disappointing day, until I came across this tucked away bin on the lower shelf, and lo and behold. There were several nice shades of eyeshadow singles. Now I was a little skeptical, because the last few shadows I bought were not good at all. But I feel like this was a little treasure trove I found.

The first MAX Factor eyeshadow I got was in the color buff. Now I had never used MAX Factor, so I was going into this blind. This shadow I bought because I had either pinks or whites, but no real nude colors. This was surprisingly lovely shade. It is a peachy toned shadow with light pink and gold shimmer. The best way I can describe it is, it looks like someone took a pearl and ground it up into this shadow. I love it!

The next shade from MAX Factor I got was burbon, which is a medium brown with golden shimmer in it. It has a good amount of pigmentation and I would definitly pair the buff and this one together for a nice natural look. Both come in 3.5 packages and clear tops so you can see what you got. They are not bulky and I have come to love this brand, and will continue to buy them if my Dollar Tree still has them.

The next two shadows are from L.A. Colors, and are a part of the mineral eyeshadow line. The first shade I got was gold, and when I swatched it, I was a little disappointed. It is not really a strong gold color, but it still holds its own. I would probably use this as an all over color during the summer.

The Second L.A. Colors mineral eyeshadow was in black and I have to say, I was surprised. This black has silver shimmer, but its not a strong shimmer, just enough to pick up light. The pigmentation on this is awesome. It is SO much better than the black I had in my NYC Mod Quad.

My one line rundown: Both eyeshadows are pretty great and I would really go out and grab them if I saw them. Check your Dollar Store!

Sunday, March 20, 2011

A Few Thoughts Inspired by My Tin Pan Project

So I am almost done with my Tin Pan Project, which for those who don't know what it is, it's basically a buying ban until you complete a certain number of products. I have chosen the magic number of 20 for my project, and it rather inspired me a little to just sit back and write this blog post. As much as we love to buy more products and test out the next best thing, it came to my attention during my project how long it really does take for us to go through our products. It doesn't really matter if it is a dollar or 20 dollars, some things take a darn long time to finish out. Let's take my NYC Mod Quad in Far Out Fawns (basically a trio of a light pink, gold, and brown eyeshadow with a cream liner <- totally could have done without that liner mine was all dried out when I bought it), I've been using that for my everyday eye look because it goes best with my casual wear. I am STILL not done with it, and I have used it everyday (literally EVERYday for about the last two months) and I still have enough product that it frustrates me. Don't get me wrong, this sleek, little case did it's job perfectly, and took up very little space. But I have such a backup of the same colors that I just want this one done and off the list so I can continue on with completion of other products.

The Tin Pan Project has also given me a chance to grow. Now when I say that, I mean that I did not know the difference between a good pigment and okay, or a good liner or a poor one. I always took it as "beauty hurts" and "practice makes perfect" (that last one only stands if the product is halfway decent) but now I've really had a chance to figure out what I really like about certain palletes, what I really want to buy, or how to use certain products. It also makes me look back at other products through, perhaps a more critical eye and really think about how my money will be spent.

There is something about makeup that makes us walk a little taller, and feel that much more beautiful. I will be blunt and honest about myself....I put on weight, and that makes me frustrated because I can't fit into certain outfits that I could. (hence my insistance that my wardrobe stays and I get back into fitting into it) But the makeup community has really opened my eyes to how I can use products to not cover me up, but bring a little attention to less problem areas. I really have to thank emilynoel83 and MakeupGeekTV because they have really gotten me and my makeup ability to where it is. These two women are so spunky, and joyful to watch! From them, I have learned the most basic things like primers, or crease shades, or how to make myself look more awake, how to use blush and not look like a clown. It really hit home when I had a classmate of mine one day, out of the blue, tell me that she loved how I did my makeup each day, and how it just was so cool that I could blend colors, and do what she thought was cool stuff. That was just an awesome day.

So while yes, this isn't a beauty review, I still have to say that beauty is in fact about learning about ourselves, and learning to love those little things. To just stop freaking out about imperfections and love who we are, because my own journey has proven that I need to love myself, all of myself before I take time for the outside.

Till Next Time!
Ema

Sunday, March 13, 2011

ELF Cream Liner Vs. WetnWild Liner

Hey everyone!

So I am a HUGE fan of cream eyeliners. I remember falling in love with AVON Cream Liner, but sadly it disappeared (funny how that happens) and I went without for a while. Drugstores didn't carry it and by the time I came around to AVON again, it was no longer in stock :(. It wasn't until I came to the beauty community on youtube and came across emilynoel83 who got me interested in the ELF brand. (if you don't know her, she's the sweetest and most honest guru out there that I have come across. I have bought several products because of her reviews and have LOVED) I don't have a Target in my area, nor for the next 15 miles, so I had never heard of this brand. So during Christmastime I went ahead and ordered from them, and bought myself a cream eyeliner in coffee. (review on this below) I was recently in my Harmon's Discount Beauty Store, when I saw that WetnWild came out with a cream eyeliner! I had heard that their formulas improved greatly, and was excited especially since it was a lovely eggplant shade.

So now the review.

ELF Cream Eyeliner in Coffee
This product is a great amount of payoff. It's nice and thick, and very manageable, even for a person like me who can't use liquid liner for her life. This product comes from the studio line, so it is $3 for a 4.7gram container and a brush. It's nice packaging except a little bulky. I have been using it daily since January and still have so much of this product left. It comes basically full to the top and the bottom half is clear so you can have an idea of how much you really have left. Overall an AMAZING find and deal. They come in several shades like deep blue, purple, copper, gunmetal, ivory, coffee, black and I believe one or two other colors. It has great staying power and washes off easily. My only suggestion for any cream liner, don't use on the waterline!

WetnWild Cream Liner in Eggplant
I saw this product and was thrilled, because the hype from the beauty community was how awesome WNW had become and how they reformulated so much. I guess they didn't redo anything with this product. I believe this is a newer product because I hadn't seen it around. It cost me $3.99 and also came with a small brush, but was only 3.8 grams. It's similar to ELF with a clear bottom, but its got a very weird aspect of packaging. The purple comes up to the full top, looking like the eyeliner had melted, been tossed around, and then re-hardened. It was purple all the way up to the top, and when i tried to scratch it off of the sides, it wouldn't come off at all. The payoff of color is also poor, its a liquidy consistency and when smudged in, almost disappears. My product also has a strange sent to it that's not particularly pleasant.

Overview:
In the end I will be repurchasing the ELF cream liner. I feel like I got much more of a payoff, nicer product, and spent a tiny bit less for it. With tax at my Harmon's I could have still bought an extra $1 ELF product instead of an off-smelling eye product. Skip the Wet N Wild cream liner and wait until they work out the kinks in this product.

Happy Shopping!
Ema

Wednesday, March 9, 2011

A Little Rant From A Frustrating Day

Oh wow, two posts in a day...I never thought I would do that, but I figured that it would be a good idea to vent a little bit before I got started on my own homework assignments. I was looking forward to doing a mini haul post especially since I had been on one of my favorite brands website several times this week creating a list of things that the brand had on their main page advertising a "buy one get one half off" promotion at the CVS. Now what brand am I speaking of?

New York Color, or better known as NYC.

It's a great brand, with lots of fun combinations that usually turn out awesome *there are a few misses but I guess why those were discontinued*. I was SO looking forward to this sale, and had set time aside from my day to make sure I had time to go to my CVS. When I arrived there, there was no typical yellow "buy one get one half off" sticker or tag. Other brands had them, but not NYC. So at first I thought it was my own CVS at fault since it has been known to be a little slow on the uptakes. So I went to the one two towns over from me, and AGAIN! no sale on these products. I asked the young woman at the front counter and she had no idea about this. So I even went to the CVS that is near my college, which is 40 minutes away. Still....no sale. I checked on the website and there is no date for this promo to start or end. o.0???? Frankly, I'm a little frustrated about this. I wrote an email to the company, and it will be interesting to hear back from them, but it's one of those "awwwwww but but but I was looking forward to this!!" *sigh*

My second upsetting (<- is that a word?) was on my hunt for a lipstick. As you can tell, I don't really want to spend 7 - 9 dollars on a lipstick, and frankly I can't afford that at the moment. But trying to find a nice shade is much more difficult than I thought it would be. I am a fair toned girl think Slavic (aka Polish) with blonde/ light brown hair. I tend to get a red splotch easily (I blush very easily too) and I'd say I have a warmer toned face. That said, I am a neutrals girl. I like my nice browns, or a little green thrown in. I don't wear the bright pinks, reds, or lime green eyeshadow (bless you all who have that confidence and ability) but my hunt has been for a nice few popular shades of lipstick. Nothing too shimmery, nothing to dark, nothing that makes me look like death, just a more polished color, and something I can wear to my dates in the city or nights out with the girls. Apparently that is a tall order. What I have been finding is colors that are just so drying, or shiny, or looks beautiful in the tube and on the tester, but just don't make me look polished at all. *augh* Will I ever find that lipstick? Or must I finally get over the my extreme need to subtle? I am on this quest, and I hope that I can soon find one and not have to keep doling out to find that shade.


Keeping on my "shade" rant....WHY ARE THE COLOR SWATCHES ALMOST NEVER THE ACCURATE COLOR???? I get to that point where I wonder if I am the crazy one and don't really see how they match? How is a nice rosy pink lipstick swatched and created into a bright pink display piece, or the opposite way? oooooh makeup, I love you but you leave me wondering things sometimes.

Okay rant is over haha :) Thanks for reading this. If you have any suggestions or comments or helpful hints for me let me know!

xoxo
Ema

My Holy Grail Product: Benefit Lemon Aid


So we all have that Holy Grail Product. You know that one that if you run out of, you won't be able to get to the store fast enough to replenish? For some it's a higher end product, that special splurge or holiday gift, for others it is as simple as a favorite discount nail polish in an awesome shade.

My own personal Holy Grail, I-will-cry-when-it's-all-gone product is Benefit's Lemon Aid. For those who are not familiar with this product, its an eye primer with yellow corrective tint to cover any redness on your eyelid. It's tacky, its thick enough to cover but not make you look dead, easy to wash off, yet stays on all day. A little goes a long way with this product, and the best way to apply would be with your fingertips so the heat melts it into your eyelid. I have had the same container of this product for about three years, and have still at least half of it left (although for the last 3 months I have started to really use it daily). It does not crease on me, and really does last through LONG days at work and in class. You can wear it with or without makeup, and if you chose to go without the makeup, this primer just brightens the eye area making it look like your wide awake.

The only downside to this product is that it retails for $20. I suppose that's not REALLY a lot in comparison to other high end primers and for the quality, but it's still a product that I'm letting family members know that I'd like to get. The newer product has a new label design but hey, it's still the amount of product!! A lot of revamps of products skimp a little to make a cool design or new package, but not Benefit it's the same size. So while this doesn't really run under the "drugstore finds", the amount of money spent on this really shows its worth with each application :)
Happy Shopping!
Ema

Sunday, March 6, 2011

I Tried To Love You...But It's Just Not Working Out

Augh, I'm sure I'm not the only one who has had to deal with products that they saw from the same brand they have enjoyed from the past or just heard raived about by friends and makeup gurus, only to purchase and find out that it's NOTHING like you were hoping it to be. So you try to accept that maybe it's just you, and that you need to work with it because of course makeup doesn't work the exact same way each time. But then you come to that point when you hide the products in the back of your drawer hoping to just forget about it. Weeks turn into months, and you finally reach that point where you have to face the facts.
This product didn't and point blank won't work. You wasted money on what you thought would be amazing.

Hey, trust me your not alone!!We have all been there, and I'm sure you (my awesome reader) are sitting here nodding thinking of those particular products, be then nice and on sale...or on the more bitter side...expensive and what was counted as a splurge. (ouch, my sympathies)

Let face it, I'm a college girl and buying high brand makeup is a major luxury that is reserved for holiday or birthday wishes (or if I could finally win a youtube giveaway! *wishful thinking*).
So this post (okay yeah you are probably okay girl this is rambling BUT I'm getting to my point) is about a few of my own products that I got that I was really kinda sad about and my reasons why (also a few prices if I remember them) Enjoy and let me know how they worked for you!


1. Wet N Wild Idol Eyes (in Pixie and Graphite)
Ooooooh I remember this purchase. It was one of my first buys into makeup. It was cheap and I thought I was so cool, even though I had NO idea what I was looking for or going to do with it. I don't even know if they make these anymore! But it's a creme eyeshadow put into a thick pencil (think of NYX jumbo pencils for a more popular reference). It's a great idea,but where they went wrong: you try to smudge it in, and the product disappears. Seriously, like vanishing act. I sit there and try to figure out what to do with this because I'm reluctant to toss it yet. I figure I can use Pixie which is a golden beige color as a highlight, but it is not even creamy enough to hold powder shadows! On the site it says "long wearing and easy blending" Yeah... bout that. Maybe it's the newer formula, but mine didn't wear longer than the 30 seconds before I tried to blend.
Cost: $1.99 - yeah, it's cheap. But I'd rather have spent it on something else.


2. donna MICHELLE Makeup Foundation (Light 1)
Okay I'll preface this with, my local dollar store sells a lot of makeup, sometimes more wellkno
wn items and other times "no brand". My friend and I were in the dollar store when I mentioned I needed some foundation but didn't want to spend a large amount. My friend said that I HAD to try this one out, and for a buck I thought "Okay, if she is raving about it,
it must be gr
eat." Wrong. It comes out looking like regular foundation, but once I put it on my skin, it disappeared. Not like it covered or cleared up any blotchy spaces but just *poof* gone. No color. Nada. I guess that's what I get for buying this, but I am still trying to figure out how it worked so well for my friend. (scratch head moment). I suppose I can just use it mixed with my moisturizer and my loose powder foundation?
Cost: $1.00 - I know I know, one buck I'm gonna complain? Yes a little.


3. Freeman Feeling Beautiful Facial Peel-Off Mask, Cucumber
So I'm really sad about this product. I had seen a youtube guru praise this thing an
d I was just SO ready and excited to go out and purchase this product. It's like a clear gel (reminds me of Elmer's clear/light b
lue glue) that you put all over your face and it's claiming to "clarify and renew skin". I don't really know, but I just don't see it doing anything for me at all. I bought two of these at a CVS BOGO half off sale. I really do wish I could go back and return them, cause I use them and peel them off, and my skin doesn't feel any different. I tested it once to see if it would pick up on foundation powder, and it barely picked up any of the product. I have oily skin, and I feel like it left my face with an off texture. I also noticed breakouts (but I'm still narrowing down cause I started to use a few different products) which is not something I would expect from a "clarifying" product.
Cost: $4.99 regularly priced - Could've bought a Clean and Clear product instead.


4. N.Y.C. Mod Quad (in Peace-ful Pastels)
I love N.Y.C. and owned the Far-Out Fawns Quad which was actually pretty decent for the price I got that one at. But this one...Oh this one. It starts out with nice colors that I can imagine would be adorable to use on V-Day makeup look, or even for a more subtle smoky look. Where it goes wrong, there is almost no pigment. I use primer for my eyelids, and then put on the product. I packed it on, and then I started to blend. Bad Idea. It smudged all together in such a way that I looked like I had a black eye. (I can navigate myself around different colors/ trios of eye shadows rather well, fyi haha) Then this "cream liner" was totally dried out. I chipped it out with a box cutter cause it had NO use. The colors were really chalky, and I was really sad w
ith that quality :(.
Cost: $3.99


5. L.A. Colors 6 Color Metallic Eyeshadow (in Eye Candy)
Another one of those "I love the line but this product is a MISS". Maybe it's just me, but I bought this lil palette so I could add some fun colors that I don't normally see into my look. It's a discontinued product, and has been for a very lo
ng time. When I run my fingertip over the color you get this bright
metal color, but once put on the eyelid, it was really sheer! And once I blended a little bit, the color got very muddied, and all ended up looking the same...shimmer. Instead of being called "eye candy" it's more of a "pastel easter basket" palette.
Cost: $1 - $3 this maybe the one product I will end up tossing completely :(

Well these are my misses as of right now. I will continue to review my times with more products. Let me know how your experiences have been, or if you have any requests for similar products! :)

xoxo Ema

P.S. For some reason my blog didn't want to let me upload the last two photos but I will get onto that really soon!