Crème -Graftobian - High-Definition Glamour Color Creme Foundation
andreapirlosnose 9/29/2012 8:49:00 PM
O, Graftobian-HD-Glamour-Color-Creme. As beautiful as thou art impractical. I apply it with my fingers and whilst messy and time-consuming, the result is the dictionary definition of sublime. When decorated with this stuff, my nice-but-unspectacular skin would put a mass-produced Mattel doll to shame. A mass-produced Mattel doll with a huge-bottomed glow worm radiating within its plastic cranium. By way of evidence, I uploaded a picture of myself sporting my Graftobian to the pic gallery for this product - it's the gauzy one of a dark-haired female in red lipstick... that'd be me. And this was on a BAD SKIN DAY. If I could wear this stuff every day, I would. If I could somehow have it fastened to my skin tattoo-like until the day I'm boxed up and crammed six feet into the dirt (or boxed up and toasted... yet to decide), I would. The trouble is, I can't. I mean obviously the latter of those two scenarios is out. But if you love it so much, I hear you say, then why can't you wear it everyday? I'll tell you why. Because 'transfer' does not even begin to cover what happens when a finger, piece of fabric, sheet of paper, lock of hair, pane of bus window glass or indeed anything else under the sun comes into contact with your face when you're wearing this stuff. This isn't a foundation that takes centuries to dry after you put it on... it just NEVER dries. It's as simple as that. Its consistency is paint-like upon first application and paint-like until the moment you soap it off at the end of the day. The irony of all this is bitter; cloaks your face in a veil of iridescent perfection, making you infinitely more confident and infinitely more attractive. And simultaneously renders you incapable of acting upon this (and I'm not just talking sex, kissing is out too) because your partner of choice will emerge absolutely covered in Graftobian themselves. I'm reminded of a recent fling with a co-worker that begun on a day upon which I was wearing this and when he (olive-skinned Italian) parted ways with me (mixed race, but paler than printer paper) post-shenanigans, he was oblivious that he was swaggering up the street with hideous ivory blotches all over his pretty face like a rabbit with myxomatosis. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the comedy element of the moment, but let's face it... that shit ain't practical. And it's about as waterproof as it is transferproof. I got caught out in the rain wearing it last year and unfortunately was wearing a dark green jumper. I wouldn't have noticed anything was amiss for some time had my sisters not asked me why I had 'milk all down my chest'. So there we are. Them's the facts. It's gorgeous. It comes in a refreshingly huge and inclusive spectrum of colours. It doesn't feel thick or grimy on my skin. It doesn't break me out in spots. Its application process is simple. It looks as radiant in real life as it does in photographs (for which I'm led to believe it was originally designed). But it really does begin and end as a photographic foundation because unless you either go about your day wearing an enormous glass bubble/helmet on your head, or live a life so sedentary that you can guarantee that you won't sweat a single droplet and that your face will never come into contact with a single atom of either solid, liquid or gas - then you are destined for disappointment. And a very stripy face. Primer and/or powder will make a minor difference... but only very minor. This is a product designed for minutes of wear... in which you sit in front of a Canon 5D and smile loftily into the lens. And that, I am truly and earnestly sorry to say, is it. It is the soulmate of the camera and the arch nemesis of anything remotely resembling, y'know, 'life'. Would I buy it again? Well... I hate kids as much as the next person who sides with Miss Trunchbull whenever they sit down to watch Matilda, but there remains a possibility that one day in the dim and distant future I will have progeny, for whom old photographs of their mother will presumably be available. And I want them to look upon those photographs and see that once upon a time, Mama was a corker. So you can bet your ass I'll be buying this stuff again.
44 out of 53 people found this review helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Yes No
Mascara -Max Factor - 2000 Calorie Mascara
andreapirlosnose 7/30/2012 11:36:00 AM
Good little mascara. Nothing special, but it does the job. Pros are that it adds decent length to the lashes (nothing spectacular, but definitely not at the 'lamentable and pathetic' end of the mascara scale either) and enough volume that your eyes appear made-up without being obviously caked. I don't think I've ever worn more than two coats of mascara and generally I only wear one, but two coats of this stuff isn't particularly crispy and isn't at all clumpy. At least not on my lashes - and I do think that one's lash shape/density/etc does have a lot to do with how a mascara performs. It also holds a curl well - I have naturally curly lashes so I dunno how it holds up on eyelash curlered lashes, but my guess would be well. There are a couple of cons: if it gets in your eye, IT STINGS LIKE HELLFIRE. You have been warned. It also isn't entirely smudgeproof and it isn't blessed with extreme stamina; it does tend to fade a bit by the end of the day. I find if I've been out in hot weather (or cold weather if the air's humid, which here in England it pretty much always is), or have been sweating at all, I'll have a little mascara 'ghost' underneath my eyes and the lashes themselves will be dramatically less coated and made-up-looking than they were when the mascara was freshly applied. And if you cry or go out in the rain or have a cup of gravy tipped in your face during a rehearsal by a classmate who forgot to put his cup of gravy down before he leaned across you to pick up his script (and yes I speak from bitter experience on all fronts), then forget about it. This baby ain't sticking around. But hey - it doesn't claim to be waterproof so I can't really knock it. And I'm pretty low maintenance when it comes to mascaras in general, so a simple, unpretentious old chestnut like 2000 Calorie suits me just fine.
4 out of 4 people found this review helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Yes No
Moisturizers -Unlisted Brand - Embryolisse
andreapirlosnose 7/30/2012 8:35:00 AM
Definitely agree with the 'good but not magical' sentiment below me. This is a decent, sturdy, simple moisturiser that smells nice, feels nice and is absolutely A-ok if your skin isn't too troublesome and all you want is a little straightforward quenching after your cleansing. My skin is dry but prone to the odd breakout (usually hormonal, natch) and/or tiny patch of eczema every now and again, and this cream didn't cause me to break out in pimples or a rash, but it didn't work any miracles as far as improving the look of my nice-but-not-astoundingly-perfect skin was concerned. I had run out of my holy grail (the Frankincense Nourishing Cream from Neal's Yard) and the Embryolisse that I stealthily nicked from my little sister's bedside shelf tided me over nicely until I was able to cobble together enough pennies to replace my Neal's Yard. As an aside, the Embryolisse also doubles as a good cream cleanser if you're in a pinch - my skin has definitely felt cleaner after using other cleansers, but this didn't leave a film. And it definitely did take my makeup RIGHT off. It's more than passable as a cleanser as well as a moisturiser.
One thing I will say - unless you have the driest, dustiest skin in all the galaxy, this is a no-no under any kind of moisturising, sheen-giving, glow-imparting makeup. I'm thinking this might have something to do with the mineral oil content. It would probably be great under quite a heavy matte foundation but I found that when I used Embryolisse under my 'not a tinted moisturiser, not yet a foundation' By Terry Sheer Expert, even in moderation, I looked oily as a wok within 20 minutes.
7 out of 7 people found this review helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Yes No
Shampoo -Unlisted Brand - MooGoo - Milk Shampoo
andreapirlosnose 7/20/2012 4:21:00 PM
This is a really gorgeous shampoo. My scalp is as dry as the Serengeti and prone to eczema ever since using a L'Oreal semi-permanent dye 6 or 7 years ago that gave me weeping dermatitis, and I dye my curly (and naturally blonde) hair black-brown on a monthly basis. So a hell of a lot of shampoos really don't cut it for me, even ones that profess to be 'gentle'. I did give the co-washing stuff a whirl but it just seemed to make my hair lank, and my curls took on that strangely formless, droopy, unkempt-looking quality most notably sported by the female members of the Westboro Baptist Church, so I ended up back on the shampoo train again. I tried endless shampoos, including ones free of all SLS-type agents, and every single one seemed to dry my poor traumatised scalp out like crazy. For a good 3 years now my hair has been coming out in alarmingly thick clumps every time I wash and frankly it amazes me on a bi-weekly basis that I'm not completely bald. Until I stumbled upon this beauty. Lo and behold, I can actually go without conditioner now. When I wash with this stuff, my hair feels... buttery, is the only word for it. Thick and glossy and yummy. And it doesn't dry my scalp at all! Not even slightly! The smell is sublime: accurately described by a reviewer below me as being like vanilla milkshake - good call! And as trivial as this is, (I mean who gives a shit what shampoo looks like?) it's ever so aesthetically pleasing as well. All creamy and shimmery. Despite comprehensive lack of SLS and chemicals and what have you, it lathers like a dream into a thick, decadent foam and you can use a little smidgen or an enormous dollop and still get the same soft, clean, whipped cream-like hair. Two big enthusiastic thumbs up from yours truly. It's more than worth the infuriatingly long wait (and postage expense) to have it shipped over from the other side of the planet. I don't ever envisage using another shampoo. I mean, I admit I'm fairly low maintenance when it comes to cosmetics etc (translation: arrogant tosser who believes they're too naturally hot to bother making any effort) but to feel confident that I'll never bother to hunt down a replacement? I think that's quite an accolade.
3 out of 3 people found this review helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Yes No