Crème -Revlon - ColorStay Whipped Creme Makeup
Lomelindi 12/31/2012 9:50:00 AM
THE GOOD: This foundation has awesome coverage and staying power. I've taken it through very cold and very hot days, and it didn't fade or melt off my oily skin. It doesn't dry as matte or powdery as the original Revlon Colorstay oily line looks, although it's not dewy, either. It is still high coverage and can look slightly mask-like if you don't blend it out well enough, so if that's not your cup of tea, I'd skip this foundation. (This stuff is awesome against acne scars or redness in general!) The heavy glass tub packaging is both beautiful and annoying because you have to scoop the foundation out of the tub with a spatula or your finger. An easy solution is to get a cheap airless pump and transfer the foundation into it. The formula feels more like a gel than "whipped", which I like! It applies easily with fingers, brushes and a sponge, although my favorite is a damp Beauty Blender. THE BAD: If you have strong yellow or warm undertones, there will not be a good match for you in this line. I am very warm NC25/30 (Golden Beige is a decent but not-quite-warm-enough shade for me in the original Colorstay Oily/Combo line) and the closest I can get in the Whipped line is Medium Beige, which starts out too light on my skin and oxidizes orange. I've tried mixing it with various other foundations and it still makes all of them look orange by the end of the day, which is not flattering. I'll have to stray back to the oily/combo liquid Colorstay because the color selection in this line just annoys me. Also, I THINK this breaks me out in cystic acne after a few times of use. I don't break out from the original Colorstay, although I've heard of people having the vice versa experience (breaking out from the original Colorstay but not breaking out from the whipped version). As always, YMMV - your skin may like this formula better than mine.
3 out of 3 people found this review helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Yes No
Eye Makeup Remover -Trader Joe's - Spa 100% Pure Jojoba Oil
Lomelindi 12/10/2012 10:27:00 AM
The price and quality of the Trade Joes jojoba oil is fantastic because it only costs a few dollars for a decently big bottle. (Before you buy, look out for any cloudiness at the bottom of the bottle. I'm not sure why, but 1-2 of my bottles have been cloudy at the bottom and it worries me that it's fungal growth. It could be something with how its treated or packaged though, since all my bottles are new and sealed!) I started using this oil in the winter because my oily skin needs a bit more moisturization but can't tolerate thick lotions very well. This oil is great for holding moisture to the face and softening the skin, although it's VERY easy to use too much. The best method I've found is to mix 1-2 drops of this oil with a pump of my normal lotion (either Neutrogena Body Lotion or Cerave Lotion) and rub it into my skin. If used alone (or if you use too much), this oil can be a bit hard to spread and sits on my skin for hours. However, it spreads very easily when mixed in with lotion, and it absorbs much quicker when used this way. You need less than you think you need! I don't recommend more than 3 drops for your face unless you want to look like a disco ball. I am taking off a lippie 'cause the Trader Joes packaging sucks. It's very hard to just get a single drop out of the bottle, because it tends to just pour out too much. I'm going to pour out some of this oil into a dropper bottle so hopefully it'll solve that problem. EDIT: I am acne-prone and clog-prone, and this oil (technically a wax) does not break me out. Always patch test anyhow before use. YMMV.
2 out of 2 people found this review helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Yes No
Lipstick -Revlon - Super Lustrous Matte in Smoked Peach 013
Lomelindi 12/4/2012 2:18:00 PM
This is a really strange lipstick. It goes on a smidge streaky but you can help that by tapping the bullet on your lips or applying with your fingers / lip brush. The color is more of an orange-leaning nude than anything else, but it suits my warm NC25/30 skin just fine. (I imagine that this shade might look quite strange on a cooler person.) Lik the other Superlustrous lipsticks, the packaging is sturdy and the price is great. 30 minutes later, I noticed that it sank into every crease in my lips. The strange, glossy-finish made it look infinitely worse, and it just looked like I didn't know how to apply lipstick or something similar. I might try and tackle this color some other time using a lip primer and/or a lip pencil underneath to see if that improves its finish, but honestly, I don't think this color is worth the effort. There are better peach lipsticks out there, like Revlon Colorburst in Peach (much better formula!).
2 out of 2 people found this review helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Yes No
Lip Treatments -Blistex - Lip Medex 
Lomelindi 12/4/2012 1:34:00 PM
This is a classic for a reason! After wandering around and trying balms by Revlon, Burt's Bees, Charmex, Chapstick, etc., I ALWAYS come back to this balm. It just plain WORKS. I can apply a thin layer to my very chapped or "hard" (i.e. dry but not yet chapped) lips and it'll sink in immediately. It'll also give me that lovely cool, tingling sensation to let me know that it's working. It'll soften up skin enough that I can exfoliate after a few minutes if I have flakes of skin that I want to get rid of. Nothing else on the market is nearly as effective as this product. The best part is that it's both cheap and sold EVERYWHERE, so it's not hard to find! I do wish that this specific product came in a pressed tube packaging so I don't have to dip in my finger, but considering I've gone through 3 tubs of this and still go back for more, I clearly don't mind that much.
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Blush -Urban Decay - Crush
Lomelindi 11/29/2012 2:15:00 PM
This was the first cream blush that I could get to stay / work on me! First, the texture is really interesting. It's almost like a gel in solid form rather than a sticky cream. Also, it's super pigmented, so you only need one swipe on one finger to cover an entire cheek. Application was fairly easy, I just pat it on my cheek in circles with my fingers and add a little more if I need to. It gives me the perfect, youthful pop of color without going overboard. The color is a bright warm pink, MUCH more wearable than it looks in the pan (it's not fuschia or orange, don't worry). It may pull more pink on cooler skin tones and more coral on warmer ones. One of my favorite uses for this blush is to apply a sheer wash of it on my cheeks and then add POWDER blush on top. It makes the color of the powder blush pop and also makes both colors last much longer, so my cheeks are still pinky after 12-14 hrs at work. Wonderful product and by far my favorite out of this line. I am taking off a lippie because it's prone to accumulating hair and dust, so it looks a little gross after a while.
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Palettes -LORAC - PRO Palette
Lomelindi 11/23/2012 1:15:00 PM
I like but don't absolutely love this product. That being said, it is a great overall product for those of us who like toned-down, soft looks. It's NOT a replacement for UD Naked 1, which has much more rich, shimmery tones. As always, Lorac's e/s are very soft and blendable. At first, I was disappointed at how small each square e/s is, but each color is richly pigmented so you only need a tiny bit of each when you use them. The packaging is lovely, it's light, thin (perhaps half the thickness of the UD Naked palettes) and made of durable plastic, so it fits nicely against the side of a bag if you need to travel with it. I like that it's not fuzzy or rubbery like other palettes, so it doesn't get dirty as easily and is easy to wipe down. The color range is well-balanced with good light, medium and dark shades, although I think there's at least 4 different browns in this palette so it leans sliiiightly warm. I love some of the shades more than others. The mattes (top row) are my favorite because they are buttery and well-pigmented without being OVERLY pigmented. The most unique color has to be the "Mauve" e/s because it's a beautiful, light, plummy color. The shimmers (bottom row) range from shimmery to satin-finish, which suits me because I like understated colors that don't look like a glitterfest. However, am taking off a lippie because despite the great color range, the 4-6 lightest shades tend to look the same on my NC25/30 skin. I think this palette suits fairer skin types more because you can use ALL the colors and get them to show up true to the pan shade, whereas if you're medium-skinned or darker, you may only get good use out of 2/3 or 1/2 of the palette. EDIT: Bumped this up to 5 stars. Traveling with this palette was a dream because of the packaging's thiness, and I recently fell in love with the dark purple shade. It's an AWESOME smokey and/or crease color.
4 out of 4 people found this review helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Yes No
Polishes -OPI - Casino Royale
Lomelindi 11/23/2012 11:25:00 AM
This is the purple creme from the 2012 LE winter collection "Skyfall" from OPI. I thought I would ADORE this polish because it looks so beautiful and glossy in swatches, but I am unsure how I feel about it now that I actually have it on my hands. First, the color was (to me) a disappointment. In swatches, this looked like it was going to be a rich, dark plum, but in person, it had strong brown undertones. It pulls almost dark burgandy under indoor lighting. I'm sure girls who are into vamps will like this polish regardless, but I wanted the plum to be stronger and richer in color. The much-raved-about formula drove me NUTS. Yes, this polish was very pigmented but it's also prone to flooding or 'wandering' from the edge of the brush, so one application takes a lot of cleaning-up afterwards. The fact that it's so dark means that it's quite obvious when your 2nd coat doesn't line up with your first (noticeable color gradient). The finish is supposed to be super glossy on its own, but to me, it just looked average glossy - it actually lost its lustre pretty quickly after you wash your hands / apply lotion / wash dishes, etc., so I'd still use a top coat. Overall, the formula was annoying and I thought the color would be better, but this is a lovely creme polish for those who are crazy about vamps and/or purples. I will not repurchase myself, I think I'll try to find a more vibrant plum shade with a better formula.
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Yes No
Polishes -China Glaze - Luxe and Lush
Lomelindi 11/23/2012 9:16:00 AM
LOOOOOVE. Can't say enough about how absurdly beautiful this flakie polish is. The flakes are large and irregular shaped, and they're opalescent so they change colors depending on the light and what polish you have underneath them. (I don't see the point in wearing this polish alone because it's so sheer by itself, it's meant to be worn over something!) I've only tried wearing it over dark plums and reds so far, and the result is very autumn-y, like crushed leaves on top. The formula is great. It's a little thick but the payoff is densely-packed flakes, so you only need 1-2 layers to get good coverage across one nail. It dries rapidly. I do have to take off a lippie for how hard some of the flakes are. Some will hang off the tip of your nail and you have to move rapidly to push them back on to your polish before they dry. If you don't, they'll be hanging off your nail forever and it'll feel like you have a tiny claw or something. Since this polish is LE, I would snap this up ASAP. I got two bottles on a whim so I always had a spare. It's so beautiful and fantastic for layering, so I think it's very worth the money! (Plus it's going for $3-ish or something on eBay and Amazon.)
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Yes No
Moisturizers -Alpha Hydrox - 10% Enhanced Cream
Lomelindi 11/21/2012 2:50:00 PM
I don't say this often, but this may be a miracle product in a tub! I was breaking out for a month straight from my new retinol creams because one of the fillters was clogging my pores, so I wanted something that could exfoliate my skin without making the acne worse. (Also, anti-aging benefits are a bonus.) I tried this cream on a whim and was amazed to find that it worked! In a week, all of my painful clogged pores and cystic acne had cleared up and the red scars were fading rapidly. My skin was noticeably brighter, too, and I could see a vast improvement in how my skin looked before and after just a few days of this product. I wore this cream every night before going to sleep, and used a retinol product around my eyes since the instructions specified not to use this cream in that area. There was a mild tingling sensation a few seconds after I applied this cream for the first time, although I didn't notice it after 2-3 times. It sank in rapidly and left a matte finish, so I added some moisturizer on top to seal it in. Unlike with retinol products, I didn't go through a purging period, so this didn't make my acne worse and didn't cause any peeling or flaking. The major con about this product is that it REEKS (as other reviewers have already noted). It's like a sharp, pungent version of Elmer's glue. For people who are sensitive to fragrance or smells in general, I'd look elsewhere for another AHA product!
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Yes No
Polishes -Essie - It's Genius
Lomelindi 11/20/2012 1:14:00 PM
Not my favorite polish ever, but I can't find anything wrong with it aside from the fact that I barely reach for it. The formula is fantastic, one of the best from Essie that I've seen - it's thin but not runny, and the consistency is a bit like a jelly polish. The color is a shimmery, medium-deep eggplant violet with a semi-jelly finish, although it's opaque in 2 coats. (When you tilt your fingers, it will look noticeably darker out of the light and noticeably more violet in the light.) In the bottle, the color seems to have a gold glitter duochrome, but this is pretty much invisible on my fingers and gives the purple more of a muted look. Personally, I wish the purple was a bit more vibrant, but the dense amount of shimmer in it does it make very pretty both indoors and outdoors. Thankfully, it's not a very "loud" polish so I feel safe wearing this to work. For those of you with extensive collections of violet or purple polishes may want to skip this one since it's not the most interesting or unique polish out there.
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Nails -Wet 'n' Wild - FastDry - Party of Five Glitters
Lomelindi 11/20/2012 1:00:00 PM
FANTASTIC, beautiful, cheap product. This is a glitter polish with small red hex glitter, small blue hex glitter, med-large blue hex glitter, med-large red hex glitter and large mirror-like/silver hex glitter in a clear base. (The silver hex glitters seem to be the largest.) It's great for layering over a polish to give it noticeable oomph or for layering in between a jelly polish to give it a candy-like sprinkle appearance. Considering the super cheap price, this is a very versatile and handy polish to have on hand for those of us that are obsessed with layering. (I don't think you can ever reach full opacity with this polish unless you're patient enough to apply 6+ coats). The density of the glittier is mediocre, which is why I'm taking off a lippie - you might have to dab your brush in place to get a nice sprinkling of all the glitters on your nail, which is doable but annoying.
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Treatments -Neutrogena - Healthy Skin Anti-Wrinkle Cream
Lomelindi 11/20/2012 12:53:00 PM
PROS: I like the hydration of this cream - it wasn't too heavy on my oily skin but it gave enough moisture that I could use it alone at night. There was no noticeable smell and it soaked in quickly, leaving my skin soft and hydrated without leaving a sheen. The squeeze-y tube is fantastic, it's easy to work with and allows you to get out every last bit of product. The retinol caused flaking and purging after my first week of use, but that went away after a few days so it wasn't nearly as bad as I expected, seeing that this is my first retinol product. CONS: After about a month of use, I started breaking out badly over my forehead, cheeks and chin. This lasted for about 3 weeks before I figured out that it was a filler in this product that was probably causing it. I stopped use for about a week and the breakout finally subsided, so now I have to reserve this product for use around my eyes only. I've now switched to AHA's, which irritate my skin a lot less and help the acne rather than make it worse. If you have really sensitive or clog-prone skin, I'd be careful with this product!
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Polishes -Sinful - Midnight Blue
Lomelindi 11/10/2012 2:12:00 PM
PROS: This color is STUNNING. It's an intense, shimmery royal blue that looks like liquid on my fingers. The formula is self-leveling and streak-free, and the color is so opaque that you can get away with using just one thick coat if you're in a rush. (I use two coats out of habit.) It dries rapidly even with a thick layer, so it's a great polish if you don't have a lot of time to work on your mani. CONS: The formula is a little on the thick side, which is great for opacity but causes flooding around the edges of your nails if you're not careful. I ALWAYS need to clean up my edges with a Q-tip dipped in nail polish remover for this polish. It also seems to wear rapidly from the tips of my nails, which looks obvious because it's a dark color. Also, I think it stains more than most colors, because my nails still look a bit blue after I remover this polish even when I use a base coat underneath. Overall, I'm not a huge fan of the formula, but it could be worse.
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Yes No
Concealers -Maybelline - Instant Age Rewind Eraser Dark Circles
Lomelindi 11/9/2012 4:41:00 PM
I don't get the hype. First, the good stuff. The sponge tip is weird, but workable, so I won't complain too much about the package. I like the formula, it's not too runny and not too thick, although it does take a long time to come out of the sponge. The color selection is decent, although I only bought Neutralizer because I figured it'd both brighten and hide my undereye area. (I have fairly grey-blue undereye circles and would've preferred a warmer neutralizer rather than one that is so pink, but oh well.) The product does dry matte after I gently smooth it out under my eyes with my fingerpad, but I do set it anyways. However, regardless of the colors, this creased on me after a long day at work, while my other undereye concealers (MAC Studio Finish, etc.) do not. I could wear it for a few hours, sure, but for those of us with long work days or spend the good part of our day away from home, I can't spend time worrying about my undereye concealer consistently creasing on me. I tossed this after a few tries. It's a decent product if you need to throw it on in a hurry, but it's a light (read: sheer) concealer at best and doesn't seem to stay well under my eyes.
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Blush -Ben Nye - Contour No 1
Lomelindi 10/22/2012 1:31:00 PM
Hands down, this product is WORTH IT. It's affordable, easy to find (theater stores or online ordering) and most of it all, it works really, really well. First, the packaging is about the same size as Ben Nye's blushes, so it's not too big (the pan is about 2 inches across) and is eeasy to travel with. The color is a neutral medium brown which is neither orange-y nor bronze-y as some contour powders can be. It works great for my NC25-30 skin and looks very natural, unlike if I try to use brown eyeshadow or some other product to contour. This powder is SUPER pigmented so use a light hand or a skunk brush to apply it! To get a soft, natural shadow instead of a long streak of color, take most of it off on the back of your hand before you apply it to your face. It can be built up easily for more dramatic looks (helpful for Halloween!) but I find that it's VERY easy to go overboard, so just be careful with how much you use.
2 out of 2 people found this review helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Yes No