Guest post: Perfume Collection Part II (my sister's collection)

Hi everyone!

I've mentioned a few times that I have a twin sister.  We're very close and do a lot of things together.  We also share a lot of things like clothes, shoes, bags etc and also perfume!  So continuing on from my previous perfume collection post, I thought I'd do a quick review of the perfumes in her collection as well.

L-R: Moschino Couture (back); Cacharel Scarlett (front); DKNY Delicious Night (top); Viktor and Rolf Flowerbomb (bottom); Gucci Envy Me (back); Salvador Dali Purple Lips (front); Juicy Couture Viva La Juicy; Cacharel Liberté; YSL Young Sexy Lovely (top); DKNY Be Delicious Fresh Blossom (bottom); DKNY Be Delicious (top); DKNY Delicious Candy Apples Sweet Caramel (bottom)

I've already reviewed Flowerbomb, Viva La Juicy and Young Sexy Lovely in my original perfume collection post so I won't repeat myself!  Feel free to read back over the original post if you are interested in my thoughts on these fragrances.

As you can see, my sister is quite fond of the DKNY Delicious fragrances.  In fact, if I recall correctly, Be Delicious (the original one) was her first real "grown up" perfume, a Christmas present from our parents a few years ago.  So I guess I should start with these.

Be Delicious is a nice light fragrance with a very fruity note to it.  It's quite crisp and fresh so it's perfect for hot Summer days when you want a fragrance that is not too heavy.

She describes Fresh Blossom as one of her favourites.  It is more floral than the original with a strong scent of rose, but still very light and great for everyday wear as well.

Delicious Night is a much spicier, heavier fragrance which is great for night-time wear.

Finally, Candy Apples Sweet Caramel is a warmer version of the original with notes of vanilla and caramel.  This is quite sweet, but still light enough for everyday wear.

She also has a few Cacharel perfumes.  I know most people probably think of Anais Anais (and their grandma!!) when they think of Cacharel, but Liberté and Scarlett are much younger fragrances suited for younger ladies and they are certainly very affordable.

Liberté is quite floral and citrus-y to begin with but dries on the skin to reveal soft vanilla and patchouli undertones.  Light enough for everyday wear.

Scarlett is an interesting fragrance, combining fruity orange blossom and woody sandalwood for a great everyday perfume.  The bottle of Scarlett is gorgeous too!  I'm told this was a steal for only $16!!

Purple Lips by Salvador Dali opens with a strong scent of violet and dries with notes of sandalwood and musk.  This is a more wintery fragrance but still light enough for everyday wear.

Gucci Envy Me is a nice sweet, floral which is suited for day wear in Summer.  I think the bottle design of this is really cute too!

Finally, we have Moschino Couture, which is quite a heavy, spicy fragrance with strong hints of vanilla and bergamot.  She recommends this for daywear in Winter time.

Sometimes, the thing I love most about perfumes is the bottle design....so here are a few from my sister's collection.

Cacharel Liberte; Gucci Envy Me

Cacharel Scarlett; YSL Young Sexy Lovely (limited edition bottle design)

DKNY Candy Apples Sweet Caramel; Salvador Dali Purple Lips

Hope this is interesting for some of you, thanks for reading!

Project 20 Pan items 6 - 9

Hi everyone,

In the past few weeks I have finished off a few more items for my Project 20 Pan.

Covergirl Olay Primer, Ralph Lauren Romance Perfume, Maybelline Coversitck Concealer and The Body Shop Touche Lumiere Concealer

Covergirl Olay Primer - this is a silicone based primer and gives a good matte surface for your makeup.  I really liked this and will repurchase after P20P is over, however, priced at around $25, this is one of the pricier "drugstore" primers so I would tend to wait until this goes on sale.  Also, this primer is good for absorbing oil from your skin throughout the day to prevent your foundation from sliding off, however it was not the most moisturing of products (I use a moisturiser underneath) so I would probably not recommend this for people with dry skin.  Don't be alarmed by the opaque, completely white colour of this, it blends in nicely and won't make you look like a geisha!

Ralph Lauren Romance Perfume - I gave my thoughts on this in my Perfume Collection post so I won't bore you by repeating myself!

Maybelline Coverstick Concealer - this product was ok, nothing special but does what it is supposed to do.  Sometimes I like to use a cream concealer (as opposed to liquid) on days when I have more to hide (e.g. pimples, very dark undereye circles etc).  I like the idea of a stick as I think it is probably a little more hygenic than a pot that you stick your finger in everyday.

The Body Shop Touche Lumiere - I like to think of this as a rip-off of Touche Eclat (which I purchased earlier this year, but am yet to try out).  It's a liquid undereye concealer in one of those automatic twisty brush type contraptions.  This has a peachy orange tone which is good for cancelling out the blue/purple tones of undereye circles, which I often have.  I'm still searching for the perfect thing to cover them and I have my eye on a few products from Benefit, once P20P is done...although I think the perfect solution would probably be to get more sleep, but I don't have time for this!  Touche Lumiere has good pigmentation and covers discolouration quite well.  As far as I'm aware, this product has been discontinued.

I'm now almost halfway though, how exciting!!  I have been tempted a few times, but so far I have managed to resist.  A few items thus far have been skincare, perfume and lip balm.  It was part of my original plan to include these, however I think I will add a clause to my Project 20 Pan.  As I think that makeup items are really what I have too much of, I have decided that as part of the 20 items which I use up, a minimum of 10 items must be makeup items.

Thanks for reading!!

Favourite Lip Products

Hello everyone!

Today I'll be sharing with you some of my favourite lip products!  I'm honestly not a big wearer of lipstick, I just don't really like the feeling of having something sticky on my lips.  Plus I hate having to reapply it all the time.  Having said that, I have made an effort this year to try to appreciate lip products more and use them more often in my daily routine.  I do use lip balm obsessively though, haha!

So here are my favourite products:

Lipglosses and lipsticks:

Revlon Super Lustrous Lipglosses and Revlon Colourburst Lipsticks

Tinted Lip Balms/"Sheer" Lip colours:

Revlon Beyond Protective Liptint, The Body Shop Sheer Lip Colours and Nivea Hydro Care Lip Balm

Thoughts and swatches:

Revlon Super Lustrous Lipglosses - I generally don't wear gloss as I just don't like the sticky feeling, however these are not too bad.  They are quite pigmented so you only need a thin layer and they don't have that awful grainy feeling that some glosses do.  Glossy Rose is a deep pink with gold shimmer, Peach Petal is a a light peachy pink creme.

Left: Glossy Rose; Right: Peach Petal

Revlon Colourburst Lipsticks - there was a lot of hype surrounding these when they were first released and I think it is well deserved.  They have a nice texture, glide on smoothly and evenly and come in a good range of colours.  They are at the pricier end of "drugstore" lipsticks, but if you can get them on a buy one get one free deal they are good value.  Smooth Nude is a creamy nude colour which I like to use to town down the natural pigmentation of my lips without getting that "concealer lips" look.  Blush, for me, is a nice "my lips but better" colour - a neutral pink with a hint of frost.  Mauve is a purply blue toned pink.  This is about as extreme as I go with lip colours (I've never been able to rock a bright red lip).  If I wear Mauve, I would tend to keep the rest of my face fairly plain.  Peach is a nice bright coraly pink which will be perfect for summer.

Left to right: Smooth Nude, Mauve, Blush, Peach

Top to bottom: Smooth Nude, Mauve, Blush, Peach

Peach looks quite orange swatched on the skin, I think it looks nicer on the lips.  It goes nicely with the Super Lustrous Lipgloss in Peach Petal.

Revlon Colourburst Lipstick in Peach

Revlon Colourburst Lipstick in Peach with Revlon Super Lustrous Lipgloss in Peach Petal over the top

Revlon Colourburst Lipstick in Mauve

Tinted Lip Balms:

Revlon Beyond Natural Protective Liptint - these are discontinued which is a shame because I think they are really nice.  A moisturising lip balm with a sheer colour pigmentation and light berry fragrance.  These are perfect for days when you don't want a sticky feeling on your lips or would prefer a light wash of colour without that heavy "lipstick" look.  They are also SPF 15+!  I bought these at Priceline on sale for $5 each after they were discontinued but you may still be able to find them on eBay or similar.

Left to right: Revlon Beyond Natural Protective Liptint in Pink, Rosy, Nude and Berry

Top to bottom: Revlon Beyond Natural Protective Liptint in Pink, Rosy, Nude and Berry

Revlon Beyond Natural Protective Liptint in Nude

Revlon Beyond Natural Protective Liptint in Berry

As you can see from the lip swatches, these are quite sheer, but you can build the colour if you prefer a more solid colour.

The Body Shop Sheer Lipcolours - these are also discontinued, I think they have been replaced by the new Delipscious Sheer Lip Shines, which I will probably look into when my spending ban finishes.  The sheer lip colours are, like the Revlon Liptints, great for getting a nice sheer wash of colour and a bit of shine onto your lips without the stickyness and heaviness of lipstick.  They also have a berry scent.  I'm not sure of the names of these colours, but the numbers are 01, 02 and 04.  They do look quite dark in the tube (especially 04) but as you'll see in the swatches, the colour goes on quite sheer so they can still give quite a natural look, or be built up for a more dramatic look as you prefer.  I also sometimes wear these like a gloss over lipstick as they do have quite a nice shine to them.

The Body Shop Sheer Lip Colours in 01, 02 and 04

Top to bottom: 01, 02, 04

This is 04 swatched on the lips - as you can see, it's not as dark as it looks in the tube.

The Body Shop Sheer Lip Colour in 04

And finally, I threw in my HG lip balm Nivea Hydro Care just because I love it so much haha! No swatch of this because it's just ordinary old lip balm.

Thanks for reading! Let me know in the comments section what your favourite lip products are!

Project 20 Pan items 4 + 5

The fourth and fifth items I have used up for my project 20 pan were a Covergirl pressed powder and a Body Shop Body Butter.

No. 4 & 5 empties.

As I’ve mentioned I’m a uni student on a pretty tight budget so I tend to purchase most of my makeup items from places like Target, Priceline etc.  A major downside of this is that the range of shades is usually quite limited (compared to some department store brands), especially for a fair skinned person like me.  This Covergirl pressed powder is one of the only powders thus far that I have found at Priceline that comes in a shade light enough.  I think Maybelline used to have a shade in the DreamMatte powder that was really light but I haven’t been able to find it recently so perhaps it was discontinued.  I also have a Bourjois mineral pressed powder to try out as well, which looks promising.  Apart from being a good match for my skin tone, I found the Covergirl powder to be really neither here nor there.  I just use it for setting my liquid foundation.  My major criticism is the smell – it’s really heavily fragranced, but an “old lady makeup” smell, if you know what I mean.  I’ve noticed the packaging of this has changed since I bought it so perhaps they have changed the formula as well and gotten rid of the smell– I hope so, because I will probably repurchase this after P20P is finished.

The Body Shop Body Butter was in the flavour (or fragrance, seeing as you’re not supposed to eat them!) Brazil Nut.  I used this as a hand cream as it was quite a small tub and would probably last very long if I used it over my whole body.  I actually quite like this kind of container for a hand cream as I can just chuck it in my handbag without worrying about a tube exploding or leaking all over the inside of my bag, which has happened to me before, and it is such a mess to clean up!  It is really moisturising and leaves my hands nice and smooth.  I have problems with dry skin on my hands due to using alcohol based hand sanitisers at work, which are very drying, but this really does the trick!  The other thing which I really like about this product is the smell – it’s a sweet, nutty fragrance which is nice and subtle and not overpowering – there is nothing worse than using a overwhelmingly fragranced hand cream which completely overpowers the perfume you are wearing.  I plan on purchasing another Body Shop Body Butter to replace this once I’ve finished the Palmer’s cream that I have moved onto, but I think I might try one of the other fragrances just for a change.  Let me know if you have any recommendations!

Thanks for reading!

Eyelid Primer Swatches

Hello everyone!
Today, I've swatched a few different eyeshadow bases, including two of the NYX ones (in skin tone and white).

Natural light, no flash

Flash

Left to right (or top to bottom): Almay Bright Eyes Eye Base/Concealer; MAC Shadestick in Beige-ing; NYX Jumbo Pencils in Pots and Pans,Cottage Cheese and Black Bean; Art Deco Eyeshadow Base; NYX Eyeshadow Bases in Skin Tone and  White.

The Almay one is alright as a concealer but I don't really use it as a lid primer.  I'm also not a fan of the applicator (one of those squeezy brush type arrangements), I just find it to be really messy and I always squeeze really hard because nothing's coming out and then you end up squeezing half the tube out at once.  Wouldn't really recommend.

I use the MAC Shadestick a lot, however it does have shimmer so if you are going for a matte look, I wouldn't recommend this one.  I do find this does crease a little as well, towards the end of the day.  I only use this as a base (i.e. set with a powder shadow), not on it's own as on it's own it creases like crazy!

NYX Jumbo pencils - similar to the MAC Shadestick, but a creamier consistency.  These come in a lot of different colours too and are great for putting under coloured shadows if ou want a really intense colour.

I use the Art Deco base a lot as well, however it does have a slight shimmer, as you can see in the photos.  My main criticism of this one is the smell - it's smells like men's perfume (weird!!) but the smell does wear off once you blend it out (i.e. you won't smell like a man all day).  I think it's mainly if you smell it in the little pot.

NYX bases - the skin tone base is VERY dark as you can see, compared to my pale skin, but I think it blends out well and once I put a shadow over the top it doesn't really bother me.  These have a similar consistency to a cream concealer type product.  I find they wear very well and (apart from the Jumbo pencils) are probably the most affordable option.

I purchased all of my NYX things on eBay.  Art Deco is available from some pharmacies and hair/beauty salons in Australia, here is the link to their Australian website: Art Deco Stockists in Australia

Hope this is helpful to some people!

Burt's Bees Sun Protecting Lip Balm

I received this a while ago when Burt's Bees had a promotion that if you signed up to their mailing list you got a free lip balm.  I wasn't that impressed to begin with as it had an odd grainy texture (similar to the Nivea Light Kiss balm I referred to previously).  I also had a bit of an accident which resulted in the end becoming all smooshed.

It did feel quite moisturing though and it is nicely scented (passionfruit!! yummy!!) so I decided to see if I could fix the grainy texture by remelting it.  It seems to have worked.  Obviously as this balm is in tube form, you need a suitable container to melt it in.  I just washed out the empty pot from the Nivea balm I have just finished.

Hmm, not sure why this is sideways....

It is only SPF 8 though, so I will probably switch to something with a higher SPF in Summer.

Project 20 Pan

My interest in makeup and perfume is relatively recent (last 2-3 years) and I have amassed a reasonable collection in this amount of time.  I’d rather not think about how much I’ve spent haha!  I think in the beginning I was very “noob” about it and tended to go for quantity rather than quality.  Also, as I was very new to makeup, I tended to buy a lot of different brands just to try them out.  Now, I’d rather narrow down my collection to a smaller amount of products which I really enjoy using and use on a regular basis.  Also, I think my tastes, especially in eye makeup, have changed.  I used to wear a lot of colour and now I’m much more into more natural looks.  So some of the products which I have now don’t really suit me any more.  I’ll still probably purchase mostly “drugstore” brands (e.g. Revlon, Maybelline, Covergirl etc) as I’m still at uni and on a very limited budget, but I would like to save up for a few “splurge” type purchases as well.  Also, being in Australia, even brands like L’Oreal and Revlon get expensive (relative to my teeny-tiny uni student income).  “High end” brands (department store brands like MAC etc.) are just hideously expensive (unless purchased over the net – hooray strong Aussie dollar!)

I’ve gotten rid of a lot of things through the Vogue Forum Free for All thread (I like the idea of things I don’t want finding a new home rather than me just throwing them in the bin).  Perhaps the next time I do a cull I will do some kind of blog give away.

As a way for me to curb my spending on makeup, and also use up some products that have been lying around for a long time, I’ve decided to undertake Project 20 Pan (inspired by the Project 10 Pan, which I believe was coined by lollipop26 but has since been repeated in some shape or form by just about every beauty blogger).  So I am committing to not buying any new products until I have used up 20 items which are currently in my collection.  I’ve decided that the items may include makeup, perfume, nail polish and skincare, but not things like shampoo/conditioner, soap and face wipes etc (as I have seen on some blogs....seriously, what next? Toilet paper??)  The only exceptions will be if I completely run out of something (I think I may possibly run out of lip balm, but that’s not a very expensive item anyway).

I’m hoping that as well as helping to downsize my collection, this spending ban might also help me curb my addiction to buying new things (and save a bit of $$ as well).

So, after all that, what have I used up so far?

1.  Natio Ageless Brightening Eyecream

2. Vera Wang Princess Perfume

3. Nivea Light Kiss lip balm

My thoughts on these products:

Natio Eyecream – I really liked this and will probably re-purchase after I’ve finished P20P.  It has tiny light reflecting particles, kind of like glitter, but not actually glitter.  So it gives a kind of radiant look without making you look like a disco ball.

Princess Perfume – I love this perfume.  I bought it in a 30ml to use as my “handbag perfume” and I get a lot of compliments on it.  I bought a 100ml as a backup and am going to try to decant it into the 30ml bottle so I can keep it in my handbag (I don’t fancy lugging around a 100ml bottle of perfume in my handbag).  I would really recommend this fragrance, and best of all, it’s pretty cheap!  If you can get it on sale (at Priceline or My Chemist etc.) it’s usually around $30 or 30ml or $50 for 50ml.

Nivea Light Kiss – as I mentioned in the tag questionnaire, I didn’t really like this.  I think I bought it because it was on special at Priceline for like $1 or something.  Anyway, I’m not a huge fan of pot lip balms as I think they’re not very hygienic and you always get balm under your fingernails – gross!  Also, this seemed to separate after a few days of using it and had these funny little grains (of wax, I think) in it.  Remelting in the microwave fixed it, but I had to keep remelting it every week or so.  I definitely wouldn’t be repurchasing this (I think it might even be discontinued anyway).

The empties:

I cut the Natio Eyecream tube in half to get the dregs out of it - this is a great idea for making any products in tubes last a little bit longer.  I usually find I can get at least another week's worth of use out of things by cutting them open. 

Phew, that was a long post.  Thanks for reading (if anyone made it all the way to the end haha!)