Tag: makeup

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Beauty

Love/ Hate: ARTDECO Pure Minerals Pore Refining Primer

artdeco pore refining face primer

Let’s premise this by saying that it’s quite possible that my tube is just hella old. When I used it for the first time, the liquid coming out of it was clear, and during the second use it started showing some colour, which means that the product is separating. When left untouched for a couple of days, it does the same thing.

Unfortunately, one can never be too sure of the age and the quality – and in some cases origins as well – of products bought through local retailers.

The texture and the feel of the skin with this primer are bloody amazing. It doesn’t alter the skin’s appearance on its own, but I can’t remember the last time my skin felt as smooth as it feels after applying this primer.

I’d also go as far as to say that Pure Minerals improves skin quality with continuous use. It really is hydrating.

It applies evenly and doesn’t require a lot of product for one application. Both the downside and the plus are, it’s transparent. So I can never be too sure if I covered all parts of the face with it.

The packaging is a squeeze tube with a thin nozzle. It’s more or less convenient when there’s a lot of product left to go through, but it will be a bit of a pain further down the road. I’ve already started to store it vertically.

While not scentless, ARTDECO Pure Minerals Pore Refining Primer has a very light scent that reminds me a bit of L’Eau par Kenzo.

Seeing as it smooths out the skin, the foundation application with it is a breeze, including my nose, where I really struggle to apply foundation evenly due to pores.

So with all the good points of this primer, why doth thou hateth it, Alex?

Well.

It doesn’t prolong the life of my make-up one single bit. My foundation starts to wear off about three hours after I apply it – much like it would without a primer.

I have oily skin, but if yours is on the dry side, I think you will love this product.

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Beauty

OFRA Liquid Lipsticks.

During my Lip Monthly subscription (I have unsubscribed a little over half a year ago) I received three OFRA liquid lipsticks. Ever since receiving Laguna Beach, I’d squeal a bit if I saw one in the bag. Here’s a little overview of the three shades I own.

Laguna Beach

My most worn out of the bunch, and probably one of the absolute favourites in my lipstick collection. It’s a nude that’s neither too brown, nor too pink. Sits well on the lips, doesn’t highlight any dry areas, applies like a dream, and wears off nicely. I would wear it day in, day out, but I like sprucing things up a bit with different colours – plus yeah, I’m ‘saving’ it. You can see me wearing it in the photo below (also my current profile pic, heh).

IMG_20160206_171817

Mina

This is a really intense dark wine colour. It’s pigmented and applies evenly, but does require a bit more work than the Laguna Beach above (duh). The thing I like about OFRA liquid lipsticks is that you can easily work with the transparency of these. I’ve worn it both as an intense dark plum, and as a bit of an evenly looking wine stain. Add gloss over, and it almost looks like natural but really intense lip pigment.

New Orleans

Simultaneously my favourite and least favourite out of the bunch. The colour is amazing, and as with the Mina above, you can either wear it as an intense purple, or tone it down a notch and use it as a stain under a gloss (and I’ve a matching gloss too – Medusa’s Make-up Shout, unavailable on their website it seems). However, the formula in my product seems faulty. It’s patchy and dry – not drying, but dry. Working with it is a bit like trying to apply poster paint evenly on your lips. Since the other two I’ve got don’t have such problems, I think that my tube of New Orleans OFRA liquid lipstick is just really old.

ofra liquid lipsticks

Top to bottom: Mina, New Orleans, Laguna Beach. As you can see in the picture, the New Orleans tube has its sticker applied the other way round, compared to Mina and Laguna Beach.

ofra liquid lipsticks swatches

Swatched: Laguna Beach, New Orleans, Mina.

ofra liquid lipsticks applicator

Doe-foot applicators of OFRA Liquid Lipsticks.

I wholeheartedly recommend this lipstick range. If you haven’t yet tried OFRA, you really should.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vBcfaXXWscA

Kayla Hagey has done a great swatch video of 32 shades of OFRA Liquid Lipsticks. Damn, I want a couple more.

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Categories
Beauty

Oriflame Pure Colour Lipsticks

oriflame pure colour lipstick tubes

The lipsticks come in cheap packaging – a black bullet with a transparent cap. The upside of that is you can see the colours pretty easily. The downside is, it’s quite fragile and doesn’t look the least bit impressive. Strangely, I don’t mind the look of it, but over the time the cap weakens and tends to come loose.

The scent is, I figure, generic lipstick scent. It’s not particularly offensive, but nothing to be pleased with either.

The formula of the product is medium to light coverage creme with sheen. The lightest lipsticks in the range appear on the lips more like tinted balms than anything else. Nearly all of these have some fine shimmer in them.

oriflame pure colour lipstick swatches

Swatched, one swipe, left to right: Bright Red (26271), Soft Coral (26269), and Radiant Red (21153). It applies even on the hand, but streakier on the lips.

Although Pure Colour Oriflame lipsticks are moderately creamy, they are very drying on the lips. The application tends to be streaky, the colour clings to dry patches on the lips.

The staying power of these lipsticks is weak. They wear relatively well if you don’t eat or drink anything, but they don’t wear off prettily.

They do not feather, however, and if your lips are hydrated, then the staining is minimal. (To each their own, but I dislike it when the colour stains.)

oriflame pure colour

This line of Oriflame lipsticks comes in a rather wide colour range – or should I say, tone range. The ones I have are, left to right: Bright Red (26271), Soft Coral (26269), and Radiant Red (21153).

Pure Colour lipsticks are the least expensive lipsticks in the Oriflame make-up range. When on offer in my country, they retail for as little as $1.5 US.

I would recommend this range if you are experimenting with colours. Oriflame Pure Colour lipsticks are very affordable, and even if you find the shade unsuitable, it would not break the bank.

oriflame pure colour bright red soft coral radiant red

Since taking these pictures I have passed on the reds, and only kept the Soft Coral (26269).

(I am an Oriflame consultant in my country. Products bought with my own money.)

Categories
Beauty

Oriflame Marbleised Eyeshadow and Eyebrow Kit.

I was putting on some quick make-up several days ago, and it occurred to me that most of my selected products were by Oriflame, and being used for the first time. So I thought, hey, why not lengthen the application time by some twenty minutes by taking photos of all the products!? Sounds like good blogger fun!!

So here it is.

giordani gold marbleised eyeshadow

Giordani Gold Venetian Affair Marbleised Eye Shadow in Starry Nights 24153

I have been meaning to try marbleised/ baked eye shadows for literally years. This particular Oriflame one has been on my mind for many months. Finally it appeared heavily discounted in a leaflet, and I totes decided to buy it.

I love the idea of purple eye shadows. Purple is one of my favourite colours, and I like to think that this shade flatters the colour of my eyes. However, depending on light and particular shade of purple, I usually end up looking very dead while wearing it. As you will see below.

This particular purple shadow has a lot of warmth to it, and much more red undertones than I had thought it would have whilst looking at it in the catalogue. But as you can see in the product photo above, it just photographs this way in the pot.

There’s rather a lot of glitter in this thing. I was expecting a bit of shimmer, but I was expecting a bit less.

The shadow comes with the default spongey applicator in tow. I know that as a beauty enthusiast I am supposed to scorn them, but to be honest I use them often enough to be happy about a free one.

The shadow is pigmented, goes on smoothly, and blends well. Compared to other Oriflame shadows, it’s one of the best.

Unfortunately, I can’t commend it for staying power. Five hours in, it creased a lot, and on the left eye it pretty much disappeared (apart from where it gathered in the crease).

oriflame brow kit

Oriflame Beauty Eyebrow Kit

I want to write a full review of this product soon, with swatches etc., but for now let me just say: Ye dark haired folk do not be fooled by how light the darker shade is. I was like, yeeahhhh, that’s too light, lemme grab just a bit more – and bam, I had a coal-smudged brow on my face and lots of blending to do.

So far, I’m pleased. The kit comes with two small angle brushes, one with black bristles and one with white – presumably to distinguish between shade and wax one? The bristles are firm, and the tips are significantly wider than the angle brush I already have in my set. If your brows are on the thin side, you may want to use a finer tool for more precision, but I actually enjoyed using the wider one. I wish they were full size!

(All products purchased with my own money. I’m an Oriflame consultant in my country, ergo I get a distributor discount. No one is sponsoring this post. All opinions are mine.)

Categories
Beauty

VERYME JUST BB BLISS BALM.

I wanted to group this together with other recent make-up disappointments, but then decided that if I review it separately, search engines will have a better chance of picking up keywords for it, and you’ll have a better chance of reading my opinion before deciding to purchase this BB cream.

VeryMe Just BB Bliss Balm

The first thing I noticed about this product was its scent. It’s harsh, considering the fact it’s a BB cream — therefore you’ll be applying it around your nose and mouth. Its texture is on the greasy side. My first impression was that it was a bit like Garnier in that regard, except Garnier felt smoother.

The good thing about this product, in my case, is its colour. It’s pretty light.

veryme bb cream

The packaging is cute, mostly due to the use of one of my absolute favourite colours.

oriflame veryme bb cream

It’s also pretty functional — an upside down tube with a thin nozzle, which makes it easy to measure out as much of the product as you need.

oriflame veryme bb cream packaging

It’s also got SPF 12. But seeing how it applies it’s a desirable but useless add-on. Also, after all the three minutes it’s been on my face, it didn’t break me out.

This is also where all the positive things about it end for me.

I first tried applying it on a badly washed off powder. I used a brush. It didn’t really work. I blamed it on my laziness, quickly fixed a face, and ran out the door.

Then I tried applying it over my moisturiser (another Oriflame product). It glided off my face in these little … pellets. It didn’t even stick to my face for the most part — nearly all of it remained on my hands in an abundance of greasy rolls. I sighed, blamed it on moisturiser (the Optimals one I was using claims to be mattifying, and these types of creams can do this to a foundation), once more cleaned my face, applied some powder, and ran out the door.

This time, the third time, I decided to apply this to a clean face. After all, BB creams promise to be moisturising. My outing wasn’t to be long, and this BB cream has SPF12 in it, so I decided to just go with it.

The result is below.

veryme bb cream application

I don’t think it needs any words, but I’ll add some. As you can see it stuck into my pores. Under my eyes closer to my temples, where my skin tends to be dry, it stuck in weird rash-looking patches. It didn’t cover a bit of a break-out on my chin. It looks downright weird and streaky on my cheeks. As with all the other times, the majority of it remained on my hands.

In a fit of rage, I told my brother to take a picture of my mug because my hands were still dirty. This is literally less than two minutes after the application.

Despite this cream being so hard to apply, it’s also very hard to remove. I washed my face, then I used make-up remover, and then toner — and I could still smell it and see bits of it around my nose.

I love Oriflame — after all, this is why I applied to be their distributor — I trust their cosmetics — and I am eager to blame this complete disappointment on me, but this just ain’t working. I would’ve thought that perhaps it’s because I have a wrong skin type for this product. Some BB creams work better for greasy skin, others for dry skin. VeryMe, though, is targeted at teenagers, who tend to have oily skin in their hormonal majority.

tl;dr: I love the idea of this product – it’s light, it has SPF – but unfortunately I cannot recommend this to anyone. It’s fairly cheap, but for me this was just a complete waste of money.

I used: Oriflame VeryMe BB Cream SPF 12 in Extra Light 30496.