Mascara Reviews! Maybelline Turbo Volume Express, Canmake Gokubuto, Kiss Me Heroine Long and Curl

While I was in Hong Kong during April, I stopped by Sasa to pick up some mascara since I had to look "dolled up" for an party with my friend. My previous mascara I threw out, since I didn't think I needed to wear makeup at all during my travel (all I had was concealer). 

In Hong Kong, I picked up a lot of face masks, skincare, and the two mascaras that I will blog about here.

Please keep in mind that all the mascaras I use are waterproof. They are the only type that will hold my curl.  

The first thing I picked up was Canmake's Gokubuto mascara. 

I only chose this because I heard that Canmake makes really good cheap makeup products. While I, unfortunately, didn't pick up any other makeup items by Canmake, I decided to choose this because mascara is VERY important to Japanese girls. 

My opinion: I didn't like it at all. Doesn't hold a curl and it smudges. The product gunks up on the brush so defining my lashes made it difficult, I had to clean the wand with a paper towel several times. Even after I cleaned it, the product quickly began to stick to the wand.

The only way I continued to use this by layering it over waterproof mascaras. 

When I realized that the Gokubuto mascara was horrendous, I went back to Sasa and bought the Kiss Me Heroine, Long & Curl mascara. I've heard fabulous things about the Kiss Me series, and I was not disappointed! 

My Opinion: Holds a curl, does not smudge, defines my lashes, it was amazing!

The wand is great, the product barely gets on the wand, and it's super flexible making it easy to reach the upper and lower lashes. 

I recommend this, and if I was to ever get a Japanese mascara again, it would be from the Kiss Me series! :)

After I came back from my Asia adventure, I returned to using my Maybelline Turbo Volume mascara. I love trying all the Maybelline mascaras because they are amazing. After my previous mascara post where I tried the Maybelline Colossal mascara, I wanted to try all of the Maybelline mascaras!

My opinion: As expected! Maybelline makes fantastic waterproof mascaras. Defined my lashes, kept a curl, and it didn't smudge! The wand is very simplistic, but it was still extremely easy to reach all of my upper and lower lashes. 

If I was to choose though, the colossal is my favourite Maybelline mascara though. This one isn't bad, but the colossal made my lashes look much better. I would still recommend this though. 

Right now I am on my second tube of the Kiss Me Heroine, Long & Curl mascara. It is amazing, I wish I had yet ANOTHER tube of it. 

Next on my mascara posts is the sample tube of Benefit's They're Real! I have also been using a non-waterproof version of L'oreal's lashblast volume. Basically, I don't like it. It does add a lot of volume to my lashes, but it doesn't hold my curl. Probably because it isn't waterproof. :( 

What mascaras does everyone like? I would love some recommendations! Right now I have more Maybelline mascaras to get through since I bought some during a sale at Shoppers. 

Review: Dry Dove Shampoo

Today's post is going to be an extremely short review of the 'new' Dove dry shampoo. I write new in quotations because I am aware that it has been out for quite a while, however it's still fairly new in Dove's product line.

Overview of my hair type, I have curly hair that is oily at the roots and has rather dry ends. I usually wash it everyday because by the second day my scalp gets itchy and I can't stand how oily it makes my hair. 

Unfortunately I do not have a picture of my own bottle, since I threw it out. This was my first dry shampoo, I was shopping at a Shoppers Drug Mart and I wanted to spend over $75 to earn a certain number of points. As it was approaching finals soon, I decided to pick one up to try out!

I was so excited, it retailed for $6.50 when I bought it, however I got a $1 off coupon so I got it for $5.50. For the price, I thought it was worth it when I bought it, since I compared it with other brands before choosing this. 

I managed to try it out a month later, since I had put it in a drawer and forgot about it. My first use, it was good, it didn't leave a streak in my hair, no white cast, and my hair appeared less oily. I went back to use it 3 days later to find the can completely empty. The product had leaked out!! 

After being so angry that I spent $5.50 on a product that only gave me ONE spray, I emailed Dove Canada and complained. 

I really want to commend Dove Canada with their response, they were extremely kind, fast and prompt in replying to my email and interested in finding out what went wrong with my product. After giving them my address, code on the dry shampoo, and where I bought it, they emailed me back saying that they were sending me a complimentary coupon.

A few weeks later, I received a coupon for any free product (worth up to $7.49) and coupons off the brand 'simple' skincare products.

Sadly I have no intentions of buying 'simple' products, although I have a coupon. Also the free product coupon did cover my costs of buying the dry shampoo, so I am satisfied.

Overall, I'm disappointed in the product. Not sure if I will repurchase it, but I will try other dry shampoos. However I am satisfied with Dove Canada's response.

Garnier BB Cream review

Hello hello!

Long time no blog!

I do believe that my main reason for not blogging is the amount of work that goes into it, and my camera isn't the best. Therefore I don't even really try when it comes to photographing anything.

However! I recently discovered a new setting on my camera that takes amazing close up photos of products! I never read manuals, therefore whenever I tried this setting before I didn't understand how it worked. Now that I've discovered it, it's like I'm in a whole new world now!

Back to blogging! :)

I received a sample of the new Garnier BB cream in light, I wanted to buy this because of all of the rave reviews of Asian BB creams, but seeing as one tube of this was priced around $17 - $19 here in Canada, I wasn't willing to pay that amount. 

Soon after I think I saw on Garnier Canada's facebook page that they were giving out samples. Hooray! I signed up, it came in the mail, a couple of days later I tried it and found it extremely greasy. I already have oily skin, so it felt extremely gross, even AFTER I powdered the heck out of my face. 

I scrapped the rest into a small sample jar because I wanted to try it one more time, and when I took it out the other day I saw this:

Ew. If you can't really see in photos, there's a pool of oil surrounding the actual product. I found that extremely disgusting, THAT'S how much oil is in the product itself!! Wow.

None the less I will use up whatever is left in the sample jar, but I probably won't repurchase. I have rather problematic skin at the moment, so coverage is nowhere near what I am looking for, and actually I couldn't even see a difference in coverage after my first layer. And even after the first layer I didn't want to pile this product on anymore.

Final Verdict: Extremely oily, would not purchase. 

Next I want to try the BB cream by Marcelle, and some Asian BB Creams!  

Revlon Lip Butters!

Where I work, we only get Revlon products. Mind you, not everything, but for the most part we occasionally get new releases. 

The beginning of this month, we received a display of 24, 2 of each colours so here are the 12 colours that we had!

 From Left to Right:

Pink Truffle, Sugar Lollipop, Brown Sugar, Cotton Candy, Berry Smoothie, Cupcake, Gumdrop, Lollipop, Strawberry Shortcake, Sugar Plum, Sweet Tart, Creme Brulee 

The four testers, and colours I tried

In the end, out of the 4 I swatched I liked berry smoothie and pink truffle the best. In the end I picked up pink truffle because I don't have a lip product that's a similar colour. 

But then rexall was having a buy one get one free on lip products, and I realized that it'd be cheaper to get them from there than buying it from work! 

Once I got to my store though, there was really nothing left. I ended up picking up berry smoothie (because I really did like the colour) and raspberry pie.

I don't have pictures of raspberry pie, I'm sure you can find them on other blogs. Truth be told it's a VERY bold colour, not something I could pull off on a regular basis. But I do enjoy sheering it out and topping it off with a balm or something.

Thoughts: 

Personally, I'm not TOO much of a fan. I know the hype was insane, and these are more moisturizing than a regular lipstick, but after a couple of hours it dries out my lips like no other. 

Aside from the somewhat drying formula, I do like the sheen it gives my lips. A glossy finish, but without the gloss! I personally don't like extremely glossy lips, so I was pleased with the fact that it wasn't extremely "shiny" on my lips. 

The product is also extremely soft! You would have to be very careful to not leave it in a warm place, or apply it very hard. It will crush, break, and smush all over the container. 

Overall: I like the product, I would prefer to buy this over regular lipsticks as I can quickly reapply without using gloss. It has a variety of colours, and seeing as I'm not a much of a lip product person, so it's perfect for simplistic me. 

Family Friends♥

This will be a rather lengthy post. Lots and lots of pictures~!

As the title might suggest, a couple of weeks ago I was driving my Aunt to Wal-mart, and then out of nowhere my aunt goes: Oh yeah, so my friend received this gift with purchase, she doesn't want it so here.

Aww yeahh! I mean who doesn't love freebies? Regardless of whether they are samples or not, I love trying out new products!

To my surprise, the first thing I tried to do was figure out what company it was from. I looked at the logo on the zipper and it said: "EL".

ESTEE LAUDER?

Yes! These are my first products EVER from Estee Lauder, so I was really excited to try these out!

And now onto the pictures:

The cute bag that everything came in.

All the contents of the bag.

From left to right, I received a smaller bag, Sumptuous Bold Volume lifting mascara, lipstick in 161 Pink Parfait, double wear stay-in place eye pencil in coffee, Pure colour eyeshadow palette and mirror (it's a pretty big mirror!).

From Left to right: 01 Pink Colour, 13 Pale moon, 23 Berry Ice, 07 Smokey

My camera definitely washed out the colours, they are actually MUCH more darker in real life, especially the purple and brown. Not sure why they turned out so light!

I haven't actually worn any of the colours - since I have so many other eyeshadows to go through - but I I swatched them and they are pretty sheer. They are buildable, but like any other eyeshadow the more you build on, it gets really chalky. 

The lipstick! I'm not going to lie, I am definitely not a lip person. My lips get dry, crack easily without any lip balm, and everything seems to wear off on my lips in an hour or two and I forget to reapply. 

THIS however, I love. The colour is such a beautiful light pink, it does have a bit of a sheen to it, but I believe that is what makes it really pretty. 

Swatched

It does apply a little sheer, but that is fine for me since I don't like a bold lip (ever) anyway. 

It also has a slight fragrance, I can't put my finger on what it smells like, but I honestly don't even mind. 

As for the mascara and eyeliner pencil, I haven't tried them yet. I will probably try the mascara soon because the one I currently have is drying up (Maybelline Falsies in black drama), and I love layering mascaras! I'm pretty sure this one won't hold my curl either, but I'll give it a shot on it's own and then layered. The pencil though, I want to try to finish up my other pencils before I try this one. Review to come later! 

But overall I'm really happy, I love getting free makeup samples. My mom's friend actually gave me some clinique samples as well. I have yet to try them all, but I love trying new makeup and skincare samples. :)