Review: Body Shop Seaweed Clarifying Night Treatment

Hello all, in a recent effort to combat getting less sleep I was on the look out for something to give my skin a bit of a boost and was originally eying the Vitamin E serum at the body shop but after a bit of discussion about my skin type with the sales assistant I decided to pick up the seaweed clarifying night treatment instead which is designed for combination/oily skin. I was quite excited about trying it as it smells and feels brilliant.

The product is a very lightweight liquid gel and you only need a small amount to cover your entire face and neck, once applied  you can either rub it in or pat it down (which I found works better). It has a slight cooling effect and you face feels very clean and fresh after application.

It comes in a clear pump which lets you easily control hoe much you use and also the clear strip on the side easily lets you know how much you have left, i'm honestly surprised how much I have gone through so quickly despite using a very small amount. It smells slightly salty, but mostly fresh and a bit like cucumber.

I enjoy applying this product as it makes my face feel so fresh and calm but as for results I have seen no difference, the product is supposed to help mattify your skin and control oil production which as far as I can tell it doesn't do. My face would still get quite shiny after a few hours of makeup, no more or less then before I started using it and it really had no other effects that would make me want to repurchase it. I'm quite disappointed as I really was expecting more from this product. Once I finish it up I think I will try Enzymion from Lush as it seems quite promising in the oil control department.

Any recommendations? What's your favorite night treatment/moisturizer?

Review: Too Faced Chocolate Bar Palette

Hail all, today I would like you to meet the new love in my life, which was presented to me as a congrats on the new job present from my other love, as you can see in the pic above the presents included some Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream, and some Elder Scrolls key-rings. Seriously though the real star here is the Too Faced Chocolate Bar Pallette, and if you want to skip all the text then just know it's amazing.

This palette hasn't been on my radar at all, mostly because I try not spend too much time lusting over things that I can't afford but then within the course of a week I suddenly hit a flood of advertisements and gushing statements from fellow bloggers. So I thought I might pick it up if it was still in stock and asked my partner to put my name down for it while I was at work. Instead he came home with it :)

This is only my second "serious" palette (the other being the Naked 2) and I could not be more pleased with it, only one color is really similar and the variation of matte shades makes this an amazing choice for making work appropriate looks. Plus on top of everything it smells amazing, like hot coco powder rather then a chocolate bar. Plus the eyeshadow actually contain coco powder which which is awesome.

The palette comes in a lovely quilt print cardboard box and includes a small pamphlet about some

example looks you could try, I actually found this quite useful as to begin with I was a bit intimidated by this palette and had no clue where to start. Besides maybe having it framed and putting it on my wall instead.

The palette includes 16 shades, with 6 of those being mattes (salted caramel, white chocolate, semi-sweet, milk chocolate, strawberry bon-bon and triple fudge), it makes the palette incredibly versatile in terms of creating safe work looks or going all bling for more special occasions and days of.

I've tried all of them since I got it so I feel like it's a good time to share some thoughts with you, besides my first use I have always used this with the Too Faced Shadow Insurance Primer which is all super amazing and will be reviewed shorty as well. Every shade is super pigmented and blends well with the matte's being a little bit more difficult to use but they are still the best I have tried. One of my favorite parts about this palette is that the most used shaded (the two highlights, Champagne Truffle & Milk Chocolate) are bigger so your less likley to use them up so much faster then the rest of the shades, in addition the inclusion of unique and unexpected shades like maroon, violet and pink is an awesome idea and makes the palette much more fun.

Gilded Ganache: A dark brown, somewhat olive toned with gold shimmer. This one is a little bit harder then most of the others.

Salted Caramel: A light brown, slightly orange toned brown matte with lovely smooth texture.

Hazelnut: A warm bronze/copper with golden shimmer.

Haute Chocolate: A dark slightly taupe brown with warm shimmer.

Semi-Sweet: A dark slightly taupe matte with a hint of red. The texture on this one wasn't as amazing as some of the other mattes.

Creme Brulee: A golden super shimmer.Very similar to UD's halfbaked.

Marzipan: A pink/cream toned shimmer with amazing pigmentation and smooth application, one of my favorite shades.

White Chocolate: A creamy beige-milky matte that is super smooth and has a lovely soft texture.

Milk Chocolate: A medium, taupe/brown satin matte with quite good texture.

Strawberry Bon-Bon: A light baby pink matte, a little chalky.It's very pale so a white base might be needed to make this stand out more.

Cherry Cordial: A deep burgundy with silver toned shimmer. 

Triple Fudge: A dark brown matte, this was probably the most pigmented of the mattes.

Amaretto: A light Burgundy/Copper shimmer with absolutely amazing pigmentation.

Champaign Truffle: A cool toned pink shimmer.

Candied Violet: A violet shimmer,with lighter lavender shimmer, it was the least pigmented shimmer in the palette, but is an awesome color for a fun smoky eye.

Black Forest Truffle: A dark burgundy with a hint of purple and gold shimmer. A little bit hard in texture.

What's you favorite eyeshadow palette?

Review: Illamasqua Speckled Nail Polish

Hey all, today I though I would show you Illamasqua's Speckled nail polishes in Fragile (blue) and Mottle (green). I may have discussed these before as they have been on my lust list for quite some time but I could never really justify, however Myer currently has them on sale for $5, so no second thoughts there. 

I just love these so much, I think they are gorgeous, all the speckled eye shadows are the same sort of idea; matte black glitter in small hexagonal and tiny circles in a color base; in this case Fragile is the milky blue base and Mottle is the the mint green base, There are 3 others, a peachy/pink, a lavender shade, and a brown/mustard type shade that was the inspiration for this set of nailpolishes. All of these were from their Imperfect collection, which celebrates beauty found in unlikely places and the beauty found in things that some people might see as flaws. Personally I think that's a lovely idea.

The actual application brush is nothing special, you most standard regular brush, no pro wide brush to be found here, which is fine with me although it is a little unusual as I can't recall I picked up a polish with this or of old fashioned brush. The polish is opaque in two coats and you don;t need a color base for this to show up, what is amazing is the wear on this. I have never tried any other Illamasqua polishes but if these are anything to go by then I would happily swap out everything in my collection for these, what I mean is the swatch below is 4 days old! There is no chipping, there is only the tiniest amount of tip wear. This is amazing, it is with a top coat but I'm still completely impressed!

Have you tried and Illamasqua polish? What's your longest lasting polish?

Review: Lime Crime Velvetine in Suedeberry & Wicked

Hello all, today we will be looking at the Lime Crime Velvetines which I've been wanting to try since spotting then in Melbourne last year and them being completely sold out. Afterwards I kind if forgot about them until I was recently doing some research on eye primers and hearing some good things about the Lime Crime primer i was reminded of these. In addition i found out a place in Perth actually stocks these, as I wasn't keen on having to wait for an on line order, so I went on down to the store and picked up the original Suede-berry and the brand new released Wicked.

These are matte velvet-feel stains that apply much like a gloss but then dry down matte. They are packaged in these lovely frosty plastic base with a metal and embossed lid which holds the doe foot applicator.When you open them they smell very similar to the NYX butter gloss; a kind if creamy vanilla/custard scent. If your a big fan of matte's then this is a great product for you, they are very long lasting and have amazing color pay off, all the shades are very intense; red velvet (a dark blue based red), suede-berry(a bright red coral), pink velvet (a bright bubble gum pink), wicked (a very dark slightly brown red), salem (a red toned brown), and black velvet (an actual black matte). 

Wicked, Salem and Black Velvet were only released this month, and honestly the black velvet was crazy amazing but I just couldn't think of a single way to wear it.

As you can see these start of as very liquid stains and then dry down to a intense matte finish that actually does feel a bit like velvet when you touch it. I find that they dry quite quickly, probably around 30-45 sec so you do need to be quite confident in your application. You don't need a large amount to cover the entire lip as it's incredibly pigmented, however if you do misplace some product then it's fine to go over the product again as it does not wipe the previous application as can sometimes occur with matte products.

They are not as drying as most matte products, but probably more drying the Revlon matte balm which i reviewed recently, they do however have the common issue of drawing a lot of attention to any problems your lips are suffering; lip scrub and lip balm are a must to prep for using this product but I think you will find the results are worth it. The process I recommend is lip scrub, apply balm maybe 10 minutes before you want to use this product, wipe off the balm and then apply this carefully.

Suede-berry is the color that's been around the longest (along with red velvet) and is probably the most wearable of the Velveteen shades, the formula is a little thinner then Wicked so it will sometimes require a second swipe of product. It's an awesome color and a really fun way to rock a bright lip. This picture was taken while it was still drying down a bit.

Wicked is not quite as scary as it looked on some of the advertisements, but it is quite a bit goth and it does make you look quite vampy. But it is an awesome color and the formula only requires one application to give you complete coverage. This picture was taken after it had dried down completely.

Have you tried these? Would you try a matte black lippy?

Review: MUA Matte Perfect Primer

Hey all, I picked this up a while ago but I only just got around to using it enough recently  to make a review worthwhile. I tend to have oily/combination skin and anything that promises more matte skin is high on list of things i like in my makeup. This is the MUA Matte Perfect Primer, and it's silicon based so it applies incredibly smoothly and does a decent job of mattifying whatever foundation you put on top it, though it's not spectacular at doing so.

It comes in a small 15ml tube so it won't last a long time, it's a flesh tones, gritty looking but perfectly smooth silicon gel that smells a bit like sunscreen but it's not really noticeable on the skin. I used this all through my first week at work hoping it would so as it promises but I found it  didn't keep up, although it says "oil control" right on the label this little guy really didn't have the chops for it. It's fine for regular days when all you want is a better canvas for your foundation but not for anything more extreme then that. Save your money.

Beauty Blogger Tag

An easy one for today, I was recently tagged by the lovley Gemma from Lady Sapphire Blog. It's been a while since I did a tag and this seemed fun :)

1. Name a beauty routine you rarely do.

I rarely do anything with my hair, I'm just a complete newb when it comes to that sort of thing. Everything I try never goes that well, or it just does nothing. I recently tried curling my hair and withing an hour it was all back to straight. I'm just clueless.

2. Is washing your makeup brushes something you do regularly?

It was until last month I ran out of my natural shampoo that i used for cleaning them and I haven't found anything to replace them with but I'm keeping an eye out for anything that might work, if you have suggestions please let me know!
3. How long will you last with chipped nail varnish?

Probably until I get home and then maybe a few minutes (however long it takes to kick of my shoes and get the acetone out)
4. How long do you put off buying/replacing a beauty or nail polish product even if you need it (i.e. top coat, foundation, etc)?
I'll usually purchase something in preparation when I start getting low on something, my two weakness being blush and foundation which I will commonly buy even when I have no need of either one.
5. What is your worst beauty habit? 

Buying too many foundations and blushes that end up being put in a drawer and not used for ages until i remember about them (if I'm lucky). I really hate having stacks of unused products, it's especially difficult when I have replaced the product with something really good and don't really want to change. A great example is my Illamasqua Katie blush, I buy other blushes but in my heart of hearts don't really want to use anything else.

6. Name something non beauty related that you put off all the time?

Folding, I hate folding. I have piles of clothes lying around because my partner hates it too. I don't mind other house chores, just folding seems to endless and because we live in a tiny apartment it's really noticeable.
7. When going out somewhere do you leave getting ready to the last minute or not?

Not usually, depending on what's going of if i have the time then I will start getting ready about an hour before I need to leave because otherwise I get a bit anxious about what to wear or what products to use. for a night out I really like having the time to consider my options.

8. Can you commit to spending bans?

I've never tried, but that's because I largely suspect that I couldn't. Having said that I don't feel like I splurge very often, It's very rare for me to spend over $25/fortnight and anything high end is a real departure for me. If it's something I really want (like my hourglass blush or the naked pallete) I will save up for it.

9. How organized are your makeup and nail polish collections?

I have a small space to work with so it;s very organized but if I had more more space I could organize things much better.

10. What is the longest time you have gone without writing a blog post?

I like my blog posts to be organic and I feel like if i'm not feeling it, then no one reading is going to enjoy their experience so sometimes i'll do a post a day otherwise I might go two weeks without anything but I've never gone longer then that.

I tag you all!

To participate in the Beauty Bloggers Tag you must-
* State that this tag was created by The Beau Bow.
* Tag some more beauty bloggers.
* Title this as I’ve done to show what the tag is about.

Review: Maybelline Super Stay 24hr lipstick

Hey all, hope you have a day off today like I do! Today I wanted to show you the Maybelline Super Stay 24hr lipstick. I picked this up in the hope that it would last me through the work day as my mum was a huge fan of it and it's basically the only lip product she buys, and it was the lipstick she used to wear while she worked at a restaurant. So I had high hopes.

It's a double ended tube containing a creamy lipstick on one side and a balm on the other end, The colors are all fairly neutral and it's relativity easy to find one that works for you, as all of them (except maybe the red?) are very work safe. It applies very creamy and soft, your then supposed to wait for it to set then apply they clear balm on top.

It works really well, as long as you are careful and put in a bit of extra effort, because it sets relatively quickly you want to make sure your application is done well, this isn't one you will be able to use on the bus to work.

In addition you want to remember to apply this balm (not other balms) and perhaps more importantly remember to reapply this balm over the day.

If you forget to reapply it will dry out your lips out something fierce, and it will not look good. However if you can do this it will last at least 12 hours and maybe longer as i usually take it off when i get home so i won't comment. The best part is that unless your eating super greasy food the lipstick will not come of while eating or drinking throughout the day and is very very slow to fade. 

Like i said if your lazy then it will dry out your lips and you will find the color peels of along with your lips which is painful and unattractive but a little effort goes a long way, and if your looking for something to lastthe whole day then this is a great contender. Happy Holidays!

Have you tried a long lasting lipstick? What's your favorite?

New Job Haul

Hey all, sorry for the slow posts recently, new job in combination with a computer glitch that deleted all my blog information meant hat it was a bit more difficult for me to get anything up. The issue is still being fixed and it might take a little while to completely fix it. However I did have a chance to pick up a few (okay more then a few) bits and pieces many of which were driven by me new job and new found makeup needs, so let me share!

I picked up:

Elder Scrolls Online (map edition) - I really enjoyed Skyrim and I'm totally looking forward to playing this on my days off. So far it's been a bit of a difficulty in logging in and dealing with server crashes but I'm still hopeful.

Essence gel-look top coat - On the day I got my first pay check i immediately placed an order for some Illamasqua nail polishes that have been on my mind for ages but for whatever reason suddenly went on special, also with working longer hours with lots of computer clicking I really need my nail polish to last better then it does with no top coat so i figured i would give this one a try.

Essence purple sugar nail polish - I've been seeing this color a lot of blogs and youtube videos but  couldn't recall what the name of the polish was ( Pretty sure it was from Essie) but it's a beautiful color anyway (plus it's color of the year) and it lasts really well, I was able to wear it for three days without chipping and only a tiny bit of tip wear.

Essence all about nude eyeshadow palette - I picked this up because I saw the new collection and got really excited but nothing else really struck me as being too amazing except the blush but I realized that I love my Illamasqua Katie and Hourglass Ethereal glow too much to bother with almost anything else. It's not anything tooo amazing but it's nice enough and has some nice transition tones.

Too Faced Chocolate Bar Palette - This was actually a congratulation on new job present from my amazing boyfriend, and I've been using it everyday since. I love it to death and adore the combination of matte and shimmery shades. It smells amazing and has incredible lasting power. Full review coming soon.

Too Faced Shadow Insurance (original) - I discovered in my first week at work that my eyeshadows were doing terribly at lasting through the whole day, and regular bases (maybelline eye tattoo and Illamasqua hollow) were only doing a so-so job of keeping the longevity of my eyeshadows. They did a great job at improving the color but my eyeshadow woulds crease and slip (not attractive). I choose this one since I was so in love with my Chocolate Bar pallet that i though brand to brand would work better together and it's a pretty well thought of primer.

e.l.f blending brush - Since I no longer have as much free time to clean my brushes I decided to add an additional two brushes and though these would make an interesting comparisons to some of my other brushes. 

e.l.f eyeshadow brush - I choose these two as they get the most attention on American blogs despite not being as cheap as they are over there ($1) while here they are ($3) they are still much cheaper then what other brands are offering.

Maybelline Super Stat 24hr Lipstick in Timeless Rose - Another thing i discovered in my first week of work is that my super moisturizing lipsticks were no good at lasting a day of work, and my mum swears by these so I figured it would be a good shot. So far so good though it an be drying if your not careful about using the balm side of it regularly.

Rimmel Scandal Eyes in 005 Nude,001 Black, and 004 Taupe - With less time to get ready in the morning and a limited time to get ready in these have been a great time saver and the fact that they are waterproof and super easy to use have been amazing. Really happy with these, wish I had found them before.

Nivea Lip Butter in Raspberry Rose - I loved the other two of these i have (macademia and caramel) but this one is by far my favorite, it's scent is much more subtle and seems much more hydrating then the others although that might just be because i'm more prone to use it as I love the smell so much.

Body Shop Seaweed Clarifying night treatment - Needing more sleep now but getting much less of it was threatening to wreck havoc on my skin, I needed something easy to use at the end of the night that wouldn't have any issues with my cleanser. This seems okay so far, i like how light it feels and absiors quickly but i haven't seen any amazing results as yet. 

Illamasqua nail polis in Fragile and Mottle - Ah I have wanted these for a long time, ever since i saw then in Melbourne last year but wasn't quite willing to pay $23/28 when there was so many new things to try. Also if you want to pick up some of these babies, Myer is selling them atm for $5 each!

Review Garnier Cleansing Water

This has been gaining rapid popularity in the beauty community, and I admit i fell for it too. The day I picked it up I was considering buying the Bioderma Miscellar Water, except this was double the size and half the price so it was a very easy decision.

Since then I have been using it everyday to remove my makeup before having a shower and I've been quite impressed, this is the first Miscellar water I have ever tried and I think it's a great product, it's very easy to use and works well on waterproof and regular makeup. By holding it over my eyes for a few seconds even hard to remove eyeliner and mascara come of with no rubbing, and it also doesn't irritate the skin or my eyes.

I previously used the Lush 9 to 5 cleansing cream and I do like it but it can, especially on warm days feel a little heavy, where as this feels very light and refreshing. It really does feel just like regular water but somehow makes all my makeup melt off. I will be repurchasing this as my make up remover of choice for the next foreseeable future.

Review Lush Bubblegum Lip Scrub

I received this from my partner as part of a Valentines day present and I really love it, I had a minty one years before but the sugar was so big and ended up being quite painful to actually use. The bubblegum however, or over the years the formula has changed, is much nicer, it's very finely ground so it feels super smooth and doesn't hurt at all.

Since starting work I bought a Maybelline 24hr Superstay which is great t actually staying on all day but isn't generally very kind to dry or cracked lips and this goes a long way toward making that look good, and look clean and neat.

I know sugar scrubs are easy to make yourself, but with the small size of the sugar grains and the lovely smell I would probably repurchase this just because it smells awesome and is much easier then anything I could make at home.