Daily Makeup Box

I have a small stash compared to others (although my family thinks it's huge and rather wasteful), but I have a small box that carries the makeup that I grab for on a frequent basis.

 The container, as you can see, is a thin cardboard box that I found in a big pocky package holding smaller pocky bags. Hard to explain, but I saw that this box was the perfect size and I decided to keep it. To make it a bit more sturdy, I taped the sides and... well, the whole box to make it sturdy. 

Now onto the products!

Hard Candy glamoflauge, I bought this because of all the rave reviews but it's a little too dark for my undereyes. I still use it for undereyes and spots because the coverage is amazing.

Mascaras, I am using the NYC volumizing show time as a base and then overtop use a sample of Clinique's high impact mascara. I really wish the Clinique mascara was waterproof (or at least hold a curl) because it makes my lashes look amazing. 

I got the Physicians Formula eyeliner and eye booster liquid eyeliner because there was a rebate for it to try it free last year. I decided to jump on that opportunity because free eyeliner, why not! I got it in the colour brown and I absolutely love this eyeliner. Thin felt tip, opaque and made applying eyeliner feel like a breeze! Can't say much for the eyelash booster portion of this, but it already ran out so once I go through my other eyeliners, it's a definite repurchase!

Lorac's behind the scenes eye primer, sadly I bought a set just for this eye primer (since Lorac isn't readily available in Canada), and I was disappointed. Urban Decay primer potion didn't work well for my eyelids, I figured this would be the next best thing. Nope, and not a repurchase from me.

Last is a Clinique pencil liner in 04 black coffee. I received this from a family friend, because it was part of a gift with purchase and they don't want the makeup, just the skincare items. Ah well, it works like any other pencil liner. I do however like the cap it came with, and will reuse that with all of my pencil liners in the future.

And last but not least my tweezerman tweezers, nothing special there, they work just fine.

Eye products next! Sephora eyeshadow that I received free as a birthday gift. I actually don't use this often at all, beside that in the white container is whatever is left of the taupe shade in the Wet and Wild silent treatment trio (it fell on my bathroom floor and only the taupe shade broke). A Rimmel eyeshadow in black, but it is really sheer and applies like a light charcoal so I use it for my brows. Elf cream liner in black, it dried up so I used some eyedrops to revive it but once again, I don't use this often (I prefer pencil, it's faster and easy to draw on). 

Ardell eyelash glue, nothing special but I won't be using this again and would rather try a Japanese brand or maybe the duo brand in the future. 

Last but not least my only cream shadows, Revlon in black magic. I don't use this as often as I want, but my lids are so oily that these crease within an hour without a primer. With a primer, maybe three hours. Definitely going to use whatever I can and then toss it.

NYC loose powder in translucent, for the price you get a lot! I'm going to have a hard time using this up, it works alright, I don't see it making a HUGE difference! L'oreal mineral foundation, I don't really care for it. Same goes for the blush beside it, and then a sample of blush from coastal scents.

NYC blushable cream sticks, I don't use this too often too but will try to because for some reason, I have a backup of this.

Three most commonly used eyeshadow palettes

Left to right, Laura Mercier in sandstone. Estee lauder palette and a Elizabeth Arden palette.
I absolutely love the Laura Mercier shadow, I got this in my luxe box and was extremely happy with the box. Amazing and easy wash of colour that brightens up above my eye easily, lots of product and small packaging.

As you can tell from the picture above, I used up the pink shade in the Estee Lauder palette, not my favourite colour but I managed to use it everyday for a few months. 

The Elizabeth Arden palette is extremely old, I actually found this in my mom's room. She doesn't use eyeshadow, and I fell in love with the browns in the palette, so I took it. The pink is extremely sheer, so I only use the brown colours.

My only lip product, Maybelline baby lips. I received this as a prize from a giveaway, and I must say it smells really nice! It adds a nice bit of colour too, but I can't say I like it very much. Mainly because I am a lip chap junkie, I reapply as much as possible throughout the day. Because of that the pigmentation on this builds up and turns into a really unflattering colour with my skintone. But for a sheer wash, works fine!

Another longer post! I am on a role. 

So what do you use on a daily basis? Around the same - or even more - than my little box of products??

Mascara galore!

As stated in my previous post, I am a mascara junkie. I absolutely love mascara! Fortunately I have been blessed with fairly long lashes (for an Asian girl) and I find that my eyes really stand out when I have mascara on. 

Rexall usually has a 50% mascara sale once (or twice?) every year, I usually take that time to try out new mascaras, as well as stock up on old favourites. 

As mascaras can range from $4 - $15 in Canada, I really like taking advantage of this sale because each mascara will usually end up being around $2 - $5 each. I definitely can't pass up a sale like that!

I decided to review the mascaras that I have been using since I bought them in October/November.

Side note, the Lorac one is actually from a Sephora Lorac kit I bought back a while ago but became interested in using the eye primer.

NOTE: All of them are waterproof except for the Lorac one. I find only waterproof mascara holds a curl.

Top to Bottom: Maybelline Colossal Volume, Revlon Grow Luscious Plumping, Revlon Grow Luscious, Lorac Special Effects and Prestige Lash Matrix.

 Starting off with Lorac special effects, my only mascara that is not waterproof. Half mascara and half mascara primer, I was quite excited to try this because I've never tried a mascara primer.

 If I had naturally curly lashes, I'd love this mascara! However I just have long flat lashes, it lengthens it nicely but that's about it. 

Top: Primer side, Bottom: Mascara side

Close-up of the bristles on the wand (same type of bristles on the primer end)

Altogether

 Overall it's a nice product, but not for me. I do really like the primer side though, when I used it under other waterproof mascaras, my lashes looked gorgeous. I will definitely look for another good primer to use on the special occasions where I don't want to apply falsies. 

Prestige Lash Matrix, as it says on the tube: Length, Lift, Volume mascara. Sadly I can't say too much about this mascara because it was pretty much dried up by the time I opened it. I can't remember but I think I might have opened it once and took a look at it when I first bought it... but as I said I can't remember. 

All the dried up product gunked on the brush, yuck. 

I do have to say though when I tried it the few times, it was nothing special. That and it has a REALLY strong fragrance. I'm used to smelling chemical like mascaras, but this one... smelled really nice. But if you're sensitive to fragrances, you probably don't want to apply this near your eyes... at all. 

My FAVOURITE of the bunch! In the past I tried Maybelline's Falsies (in black drama waterproof), It didn't really stand out for me and while it made my lashes look nice, nothing amazing. This mascara however... AMAZING!!

 The brush is nice, covers all my lashes, volume and lengthens it just enough. Not to mention my lashes stay curled all day long. Best of all, NO SMUDGING! I have had so many smudging problems with my old mascaras, that when I tried this and there was no smudging, I fell in love! This is a definite repurchase for me.

SUPER close up of the bristles

 Next up are the Revlon ones!

 I decided to try both because eyelash growth serum? Yes please!

Needless to say, both flake, didn't notice a difference in length and they dried up really fast. 

Grow Luscious

Grow Luscious Plumping

Top: Plumping
Bottom: Original

 Final verdict: Even though I wouldn't repurchase either, I did find better results with the original formula. Mainly because of the brush, it worked a lot better to get into the inner and outer corner of my eyes to reach every lash. Something to note is that both of these flake horribly. If your a contact lens wearer, there were times where it would just flake into my eyes and cause temporary pain.  

Last but not least, NYC Show time.

I bought this because my HG for a while was the Cover Girl mascara professional in the blue tube (I think) and I thought this would be similar. I would've continued using the Cover Girl brand, but it started smudging under my eyes so I stopped using it; even though it gave my lashes an amazing look. I thought this would be similar, as it was cheap and looked about the same.

I think the brush is what made it fail on my lashes. Didn't coat my lashes, and in the end didn't do anything for my lashes. It gave my eyes an extremely natural look, it didn't even seem like I had mascara on! But that isn't my preferred look, if I use mascara I want major definition of my lashes. I ended up mainly using this under other mascaras because it was somewhat waterproof, but again it didn't even hold a curl so in the end a waste of money.

Phew, long post! 

If anyone has a HG mascara please share! I love trying drugstore mascaras, with the occasional high end mascara that I get as a sample. I love mascara! Who else does to?! :)

Review: Rimmel Match Perfection Concealer

A while back I bought this concealer when Rexall had a 50% off face products sale, I decided to take advantage of that and buy a variety of concealers and a foundation.

I LOVE blush, mascara, and concealer. I have quite a bit of them that I still have to test, and this one has to be one of my favourites!

For the record, I have rather dark circles. Thanks to both genetics and school, my undereye circles stand out when I don't wear makeup. Also most of the time, I can leave my house without foundation or mascara, but I never try to leave without concealer under my eyes. As I wear big framed glasses, without concealer my undereyes stand out. I also have a couple of fine lines that I believe are from genetics, or because when I was younger I didn't care too much about my skin. 

Price wise, it ranges from $4 - $8 in Canada, but with 50% off it was around $2/$3? I can't remember because I bought it a long time ago, but I do remember that it was really cheap.

Coverage wise it was ok, it gave me a very natural look as it didn't completely cover my undereye circles. I had to use a tiny pea size amount to cover both of my undereyes.

My main complaint is with the packaging. Looking at the squeeze tube with the brush I figured it couldn't be too bad; fairly sanitary, easy to use, and small enough that it's portable so I can touch up on the go. For the first 2 or 3 months I was using it, it worked fine.

However a month ago this happened:

The cap is so dirty :(

I guess it got squished by other products in my bag, and too much product was squeezed out!

Zoom in of the brush tip

Even before this explosion of product, I could never 'squeeze' out the perfect amount. It'd either be too much, or too little that I had to squeeze out more and then it would be too much. There was never a perfect medium when I was using this tube.

It doesn't contain a shimmer or anything (not that I notice), but after blending it in it has a nice sheen and my eyes do look brighter!

For the highlighter use of this, I have not used this product for that purpose yet, nor do I plan to, so I can't say for sure how effective it is. But since I have extremely oily skin, most of the time nothing ever lasts on my face, I never notice how long it has been since my face has eaten whatever is on my face. 

Colour match wise it is ok, when I bought this I had a choice of 3 colours, and I'm not too sure if they expanded the range of colours since then, but even then it was still hard to choose a 'correct' colour. The packaging isn't see through, therefore it's hard to determine how much product you actually have left. 

Overall, since I have other concealers that I've tried and have given me an extremely naturally look, I don't think I'd repurchase this again. Even though it's really cheap, it tastes a lot of work layering it to cover my dark circles so that they aren't still showing.

If anyone has any HG concealers or has any favourite ones please let me know! I'm trying the drugstore ones now (I have a Revlon and Maybelline one left to try), but I am completely open to higher end brands.
I am eyeing the Bobbi Brown one because of all the hype, and I also want to give a Giorgio Armani one because I've heard that it does not settle into fine lines.