Birchbox August 2014

Birchbox is a monthly subscription box service. For $10 a month, they will send you 4-5 'Beauty and Lifestyle' samples. 

They also have a points system, which is the best I've seen. 100 points = $10 to spend in the Birchbox shop. Earn 1 point for every dollar you spend (monthly boxes don't count, except for the first one) and they offer a lot of promo codes to get extra points. You can also earn 10 points for each review of your monthly samples. That's like getting $4-5 back each month! You also get 50 points for each person who signs up through your referral. If you would like to try Birchbox, please consider using my link: https://www.birchbox.com/invite/pdwbx

This month's theme: Lighten Up

This month Birchbox did something new and started adding fun adjectives to the shipping labels. Some girls have said they've gotten "The Dazzling" "The Awesome" "The Brilliant"... I like mine. I never would expect anyone to call me Vivacious, which makes it even better I think.

I love this box. I've been a little underwhelmed lately. Not angry or anything about my samples, I just saw some other samples that people got that I would've liked better, but this box is awesome! I'll tell you right now: the amika, the Cailyn and the Harvey Prince products all smell amazing!

amika Perk Up Dry Shampoo: ($21 for 5.3 oz) Whatever "Sea Buckthorn Berry" is... it smells so good! I have a couple bottles of dry shampoo that I need to get through, which has been tough because I just got the Klorane last month but this is definitely something I will consider buying.

Marcelle BB Cream Golden Glow: ($27 for 1.6 oz) The color seems a little dark, and I don't especially like to "glow": oily skin + glow = mess. But I really enjoyed my Marcelle Serum last month. I tried it over the weekend and I think it worked pretty well. It has a nice color and finish - I always put a powder over - and didn't seem to break me out. This also doesn't have any SPF like the other BB creams I have, so that's a pretty big 'con'. I won't be buying a full size, but I love having travel sizes of this stuff for when I do go away for the weekend.

Harvey Prince Ageless Body Cream: ($26 for 12 oz) I'm usually not a fan of pink grapefruit scents but somehow mixed with the vanilla, it smells really nice. This is the 3rd Harvey Prince product Birchbox has sent me and I love it! I haven't used it enough to attest to the moisturizing power, but really... it has shea butter. It can't not be good :)

Cailyn Cosmetics Dizzolv'It Makeup Melt Cleansing Balm: ($36 for 100ml) I have to tell you, this is the best smelling makeup remover I've ever had. It says it uses papaya enzymes so maybe that's the smell? Not sure but I love it! It looks like a lip balm in the container, but you're supposed to scoop out a quarter sized amount to rub on your face. Then it turns into an oil and all of your makeup is swept up in the oil to be washed away. What? Oil on your face?! Yes. I have oily skin and this didn't scare me, because you wash it off. It also claims to be moisturizing too. Maybe it is, but the first time I used it, I used a different cleanser after to make sure all the oil was gone so any moisture was gone too. I always moisturize after I wash my face anyway because it gets dry and tight. I will be buying the full size, but maybe not right this moment. I'm waiting for a good Birchbox promo to come along... but I'm officially a cleansing balm convert.

theBalm Cosmetics Stainiac in Beauty Queen: ($17 for 0.3 fl oz) This is the sample I got to choose this month. I've been wanting to try the Stainiac since I started getting my Birchbox, and almost bought it a couple times but never pulled the trigger. I'm so glad I got to try it now! The formula is more gel-like than other stains (you can see the little peak of product on the wand) so it all stays together. The top swatch is right after applying (in dim bedroom lighting. I was just so excited I had to try it right away) and the next picture is after I wiped it off maybe 5 minutes later. There is a definite stain. I really like it for my cheeks. It's very buildable and at first I didn't put enough on. I figured a few dots would be good enough but I wanted a little more color. I think I could probably wipe it on my cheeks in a line and blend out for the right amount. As for lips, it doesn't apply very evenly. I had to blend and add more to get the right color and "sameness" throughout. It did seem a little drying, so I put a lip gloss over it. After eating a granola bar and drinking some juice on my commute, I think it stayed put. It was later when I was about to eat something else that I was biting at my dry lips and wiping the gloss off that it all came off. There was a faint line of color still around the edges of my lips, but that was easily fixed with a bit of tinted moisturizer. I will try it on my lips again with just some lip balm on top. Overall, I love it because it is so easy to travel with and I just love stains!

Ipsy Glam Bag August 2014

Each month, subscribers will receive a beautiful Glam Bag with deluxe samples and full-sized beauty products. Members can watch and play along with the stylists with the same products that they are using. All for only $10 a month. 

When you sign up, you take a "beauty quiz" to let them know what you like. I guess Ipsy is kind of a social network-type beauty website, but I don't do all of that. There's also some sort of points system that I haven't quite figured out. You get 10 points for each review, but you usually need 1000 points to get some kind of bonus product, of which they only have 3 to choose from at a time. There are points for referrals too, but I don't badger my friends into signing up. If you would like to sign up, please consider using my referral link: http://www.ipsy.com/r/4q7r

This month's theme: Beauty Schooled

School is back in session (I can tell... LA traffic has gotten much worse! :p) so the theme this month is Beauty Schooled. I dunno... I don't think the items ever really fit in with the theme, just the bag. Speaking of...

I didn't think I would like this bag when I was seeing people's pictures online, but I really do. The problem with the rectangular ipsy bags that we've been getting, is that they're too small to actually be a makeup bag for me. They've all been flat and smaller. Since this one is round, it can hold a lot more products, and it's longer than the usual bags, which means mascara and eyeliners fit better. Yay! The only thing I don't like about this bag is that it kind of smells like a pool raft... that synthetic plastic smell. At least it seems waterproof then right?

Urban Decay Perversion Mascara: I was so excited to get this product! Everyone got either this or a purple eyeliner, and I'm allergic to all the purple eyeliners I've used lately. I really like this formula. I don't think it's quite "Bigger. Blacker. Badder." or whatever their tagline is, but it's nice. The brush is nice and fluffy and the formula is thick, but not clumpy. It's good enough for now, but I don't think I'll be buying the full size.

Jersey Shore Sun Mongongo Lip Conditioner in Mandarin Green Orange Ginger: Very smooth and moisturizing. Interesting flavor that I actually really like. Orange ginger is not something I expected on my lips, but I like ginger. I have so many lip conditioners though! Guess I'll just have to put this into rotation.

J. Cat Beauty Flying Solo Eye Shadow in Half Naked: I love pale shimmery eyeshadow. And this is no exception. It looks more orange in the pot but is a very nice shimmer, almost highlight, color. The design of the package is really cool too. They've put an applicator underneath the color with a small mirror for ease when traveling. The mirror is too small to work really well, and the plastic hinge is very cheap, but they're thinking and I like that.

Dr. Brandt Pores No More Pore Refiner: This is actually a duplicate from a previous Birchbox. I did like it, but I hardly use primers anymore since I finally found a couple BB creams that work for me. I might have to revisit it for days when I just want to use powder.

Klorane Dry Shampoo with Oat Milk: This is also a duplicate item from Birchbox, from last month actually! But I guess you can never have too many dry shampoos. Especially because I just read a beauty hack that says you can spray your feet with dry shampoo before wearing flats and they'll stay dry! I don't know how well that works, but we'll see when I decide to stop wearing sandals.

Tarte Colored Clay Tinted Brow Gel

Eyebrows - the things I ignored for so long but have recently come to realize they really put your whole face together. But, I'm not skilled enough, nor do I have enough time to fill in my brows with a pencil, so I found tinted brow gels. I started with Benefit's Gimme Brow which had a smaller brush, but it started getting clumpy after a month. So I tried Lancome's tinted brow gel, but the wand is pretty big and sometimes deposits too much color. Then I heard about Tarte's new Amazonian Colored Clay Tinted Brow Gel. I figured I'd give it a try.

This product comes in 3 colors and has a teeny tiny brush. So far.... it's just ok. It does give a very natural look, but doesn't quite fill in the sparseness of the tails of my brows. If I had thicker eyebrows (not that mine are super thin, but I have fine hair naturally) this product would probably be perfect. I love the teeny brush though! It's perfect for brows. The problem is that it doesn't hold too much product being that tiny, so I end up having to dip it in the container several times for each eyebrow. 

I still really like Benefit's Gimme Brow, but I don't want to pay $21 if it's just going to clump after a month of using daily. So I'll stick with this Tarte product until something else comes along.

Maybelline Dream Lumi Touch

Back to work at the office. I'm a PA for a network show so I had the summer off, but now we've started up again! I usually work about 7am to 6pm so I started looking for something to brighten up my face mid-afternoon. I knew I wanted some sort of liquid highlighter, preferably a pen style for easy travel. After looking at a lot of different options - I also wanted it cheap - I settled on the Maybelline Dream Lumi Touch Highlighting Concealer in Radiant.

The color Radiant is a little bit pinker than the others, which is why I like it so much. 

As a concealer itself, the coverage is lighter than I would like. I have some pretty dark circles so I've been buying more expensive concealers. But as an afternoon pick-me-up, this is perfect.

I've also used it in the mornings if I feel my concealer isn't hiding as much as I want it to. I've been drawing an inverted triangle (pointy side down) across the darkest parts of my dark circles (not all the way up to my lids) then down to blend out and it seems to smooth everything out. I also start to get a little redness showing through on my cheeks midday, and this completely erases it. I can't believe how much more awake this makes me!

I do have a couple suggestions: I had a problem trying to get the product to come out the second or third time I used it. I had to click about half as many times as I did the first time just to get the product to the tip. Since then, I've been storing it lid side down and haven't had another problem. It doesn't leak out into the cap either. I also usually click a couple times, then brush it onto the back of my hand to get rid of any excess and dab it on from there. I used a sponge to blend it out the first few times, but I've started to notice that my fingers work a lot better. I think it needs to be warmed up a little bit.

There isn't much in the tube, and I think it was $7.99, but you don't need very much each time. I actually like this so much, I'm probably going to buy another one so I can keep one at work and one with my makeup at home.

Benefit Posietint and High Beam

Curse you sample section next to the registers at Ulta! This was just sitting there, taunting me. I've actually always wanted to try Benefit's Posietint and HighBeam though. I love my Benetint and was interested in what the creamier formulas would be like.

The top picture is how creamy they are when first applied. The bottom picture is the product smoothed out a bit. The Posietint really does stain if you don't work with it fast enough!

I don't really like the Posietint on my cheeks as much. It just never seems to give me the color I want, always too sheer. I didn't think I would like the pinkiness (is that a word? Is now!) of the color, but after using it, I really do. Once I do find the right amount of color, it looks pretty natural, like a just-got-in-from-10-degree-wind-chill flush (oh believe me... I know what a negative 40 degree wind chill flush looks like too, it's not fun.) On my lips though, is where I love it! It takes a couple layers to get the color I want, but it will stay on there. Very nice pink color that I'm not used to but I like a lot.

I also love the HighBeam! I've been using it every day so far on my cheekbones and under my eyebrows. It just gives a nice glow when you turn your head. Once it's sheered out, it seems to set to a powder finish. I've rubbed my cheek before and my finger comes away a bit sparkly, which I didn't think would happen with a liquid.

If you're curious about either of these products, this is the perfect package for you. The samples sizes have a lot of product in them and one full size bottle of just one of these is $30! Save yourself some money and get these two for $13.

bareMinerals 5 in 1 BB Cream Eyeshadow

I received a sample of the bareMinerals 5 in 1 BB Cream Eyeshadow in my July Ipsy Glam Bag in the shade Divine Wine. I really liked the formula so I went out to buy something that would hopefully be a little more of an everyday color. I bought Blushing Pink.

Sample size (left) vs full size (right)

The sample and the full size came with the same applicator. It's not quite a doe-foot, because it seems to be fluffy on 2 sides and more flat on 2 sides. The application is very easy, but I prefer to use a brush with it. I usually swipe on 2 lines of color on my eyelid, then quickly blend out with a brush. If I want the color a little darker, I'll wait until I've done the other eye, then go back and add one or two more swipes and blend again.

The 5 in 1 is supposed to be: long-wearing color, primer, brightening, smooths line, and protects with SPF 15. I can attest to the fact that this will not come off. It doesn't ever crease on me, and lasts all day! Even when I swatched it on my hand, it wouldn't budge after it dried. I really like that this has an SPF of 15 too. So few eye products have SPF, even though it's one of the most sensitive areas of the face, and somewhere where you probably never put sunscreen.

I'm a little disappointed in the color - I was hoping the pink would be more pink, but on my skin it just sort of blends in. I hope bareMinerals will come out with some bolder colors soon because I don't just use this as a primer, but an actual colored shadow.

Maybelline Instant Age Rewind Eraser Dark Circles

Ok, I've been wanting to try this concealer for a while, so I finally read some more reviews and decided to buy it.

The Maybelline Instant Age Rewind Eraser Dark Circles comes in a small tube with a spongy applicator tip. Lots of people are concerned with the cleanliness of the sponge tip - I'm not one of them. Maybelline claims that it's coated with some sort of antimicrobial something to keep it clean. I never thought about stuff like that until I started reading reviews. Maybe that's the Midwest farm girl in me? Not afraid to get dirty walking in the corn field, or the scenic painter who doesn't care how much soy or latex paint is on my skin. *shrug* Maybe I should be more concerned, but I'm just not.

The first time, you have to twist about 10 times to get any product to show... and I mean twist 10 full turns, not just 10 clicks. When you barely start to see something come up, you can slow down to just a couple clicks. For me, I have to do about half a turn each time I use it. (I like to use a good amount.) I decided to get the color "Light". They do have 2 corrector colors too - one more pink and one more yellow. I probably could've benefitted from either of those, but all I really wanted was a simple concealer.

I usually dot the product on and swipe it around a bit, but I still use my beauty blender to really blend the edges. Overall, I really like this product. It doesn't cover as well as some of my higher end concealers, but it is quick and travels really well. I like to use it on the weekends where I might just be going out shopping or to a movie, when I don't need a full face of makeup. If you're not plagued with super dark circles like me, this would probably be perfect for you!