My Beauty Space : Product Reviews, Tips and Experiences

OK, so this isn’t actually me that this review is from, but from my boyfriend, who just bought the new Vaseline for Men.  It’s a lotion that is supposedly formulated more tailored for men’s skin and the unique problems and characteristics that  man’s skin has.  For example, did you know that men naturally  have tougher, thicker skin than women do?  It’s true!  That doesn’t necessarily mean they’ll age a whole lot better in the face than women, but sometimes it does explain the number of men who outnumber the women who look much younger than their age.

My boyfriend is almost thirty years old, and doesn’t realy have a wrinkle to count on his young face yet, but he does get dry and irritated a lot, especially where his goatee is.  He is prone to getting splotches of red around that area, and his skin gets abnormally dry in the winter months when humidity is hard to come by unless you take a steam shower. 

Vaseline for Men is in a large dispenser, sort of like a woman’s body cream would be. This just goes to show that men don’t need all the fancy, smaller packing for something to work.  It’s also very reasonable, considering this product will probably last him two years if he continues to only use it on his face.  It only costs around six dollars. 

He says that he likes it, it’s definitely doing the job it needs to and is keeping the red spotchies away while soothing his skin after he shaves without irritation bumps, so it was a good buy. 

Let me begin this review of Lash Blast by Cover Girl, a new mascara that they have apparently spent loads of money on advertising with Drew Barrymore as their spokesperson, that I am still and will always be a die hard user of L’Oreal’s Lash Out mascara.  That said, I wanted to buy this mascara and try it out because I have to admit I was intrigued by the commercials and thought that maybe it might finally bump me onto something new as far as mascara was concerned at least. 

Now, the first thing I noticed about Lash Blast was that it is in a ridiculously large tube.  That I do not like, because the wand part that you hold with your hand is so big that I find it difficult to work with.  Then again, to be fair, I’ve used Lash Out for so long that I’m used to it’s slender, ribbed wand and find that to be easier to use.  Some people may find the larger wand grasp fine, and even prefer it though.  The packaging for Lash Blast is also pretty flashy and I have to hand it to them for marketing here, it does get your attention when you’re browsing down the makeup aisle!

Now, onto the review of how this mascara actually works.  Lash Blast has a large lash wand too, the part with the brush is much thicker in diameter than most mascaras, and I think that’s part of the design to get more plumping power, so I recognize the effort.  It also does have several small bristles which helps lend to the thickening, lengthening and separating aspect of mascara application that makes it look good and makes you lashes really stand out.  Another good point for this mascara!

Althought the brush design may be good, I felt like I had to apply this many times over each time I used it (I used it about five times so far, accounting for the fact that mascara usually requires some loosening up when you first buy it, just like Lash Out does too, you have to give it time to build up on your brush in other words).  

I didn’t like the fact that the formula didn’t seem to want to adhere to my lashes very well and that I had to keep wiggling it up the base of my lashes several times to even get any kind of definition.  Therein lies the problem with Lash Blast - I think it’s the actual formula that is sort of weak on this product, not the package design or brush.  All in all, you can get defined lashes by using it, it’s just time consuming if you’re impatient.  I still am a staunch follower of L’Oreal! 

I had purchased a 60% acid peel a few weeks ago, by Skin Laboratories, who seems to be the biggest offering agent of at home, clinical strength acid peels for the face and decolletage area (if indicated).  I chose to purchase the one that blends both glycolic acid and lactic acid because I wanted some of the strength of the glycolic, but not all of it, and I wanted the lactic acid because it is good for people who have had acne for their scars, and it is a bit more gentle than the glycolic, although some think not as effective overall because it does not slough as much skin off.

The formula I bought is 25% glycolic and 35% lactic acid.  It is a small bottle, about 1 fluid ounce of product, but a little bit goes a long way and I expect to get at least 10 to fifteen peels out of this small bottle since only a thin layer is needed to do the job.  The indications in the directions are to put the product on, using a brush or perhaps some other instrument like a cotton ball.  I chose to use a makeup brush that I never used because it allowed me to more precisely target where it needed to go.

You are only supposed to leave these peels on for about 3 minutes and possibly less if you have particularly sensitive skin. Believe me, even three minutes can be a bit challenging at first because after you apply the peel , it does begin to burn a bit, and it even tingles and starts to itch a bit after it’s been on there for a minute.  The first time I had trouble leaving it on, but was determined to get the most out of it, although this was directly in conflict with the directions since you are supposed to rinse it off if you feel a lot of discomfort.  I don’t recommend what I did, but I was fine.

Before applying the peel, they also instruct you to first wash your face and also use a toner, I’m assuming to remove all surface gunk, oil and debris so the peel has maximum effect.  I did this and allowed my face to completely dry before brushing on the peel.  I am now on my third week of applying the glycolic and lactic acid peel, and I think it is lightening my age spots and scars slightly although I think it will take quite a few more to make a big difference.

I did happen to break out with two huge zits on my nose, and I think this was because my pores were clearing out from the lactic acid.  I’ve noticed that my nose blackheads have diminished greatly, as in I can’t really see them any more.  I will continue to use this for the amount of time indicated, which is 5 weeks on and one week off, and let you know about the results a little later.  So far, so good, and it’s only about $20 for the bottle, which is nothing compared to what an in office peel will cost you.

We recently went on a trip to an all day amusement park affair, and I forgot my self tanner, which I really needed because I would be wearing shorts or cut off pants (capris), and my legs were as white as a ghost.  So, we stopped at the local store and I ended up picking out a gradual self tanner after much debate, since they didn’t really have many full-on self tanners there, so I really had to choose from one of the ones that are displayed year-round since we are coming up on fall here in Ohio, which narrowed it down to the slew of gradual self tanners that have come out from the makers of moisturizers.

I ended up deciding on a Nivea product, because I do like the Nivea line of moisturizers, and thought that since I know they have a high quality moisturizing line and even some decent cellulite treatment products, how could I really go wrong with their gradual self tanner?  So I settled on one called Sun-Kissed Firming Moisturizer, which is both a firming agent as well as a touch of self tanner in it, for a gradually worked on glow.  I bought the self tanner that was made for those with “medium to dark skin”, although I am fair skinned, since I wanted quicker, darker results that would be overnight almost or maybe two nights since I didn’t have much time for my self tan to develop.

The Nivea tanner comes in an 8.4 oz container, and runs about six bucks which isn’t half bad at all cost wise.  The consistency of the product is very watery in my opinion, so if you try it, you’re gonna want to make sure you don’t squeeze too hard or too much product will come out and you’ll have to distribute it over more surface area than you thought to get it to sink in without wasting it. 

There is a faint smell of DHA to it (the chemical that causes the darkening of the skin in self tanners), but nothing too offensive.  It rubs in right away, so you have to be careful not to over do it in some areas since it absorbs very quickly.  I found that I over did it on my feet, which I had already applied moisturizer to as a prevention measure against it getting too dark down there sincce the drier areas do tend to darken more easily, but I still got a darkening there that didn’t quite look right. 

As far as the smell when you are wearing it, it’s not too bad once the DHA activates, although you can smell a faint smell again when it activates.  The Ginkgo extract is a nice touch for a shimmery and firming quality added to the cream, and you won’t find me complaining about any product that adds firmness while also creating a nice self tan. 

The color was to be expected, pretty much the same as any self tanner, only much lighter since the DHA concentration wasn’t too heavy.  Overall, this isn’t a bad choice for a gradual self tanner, just don’t expect a huge change in color - it does still take time, even if you buy a shade darker than your natural skin tone, which is what I did. 

It’s a double review today!  I wanted to quickly review two hair products that I have recently used, one of which I have actually used before a few years ago and really liked and just recently repurchased and tried again still with high marks for performance, L’Oreal Color Vive Dry Defense 3 Minute Treatment, which is an uber-emollient and thick conditioner for those of us that color our hair, which quite often is anyone over the age of 35 or so since this is when we ladies tend to start noticing grey hairs.  For me, I was 32 when I noticed my first real grey hair.

I love L’Oreal hair care products, and usually theirs is the only home hair color I will buy and use because I think most other hair color products are inferior, but that’s just my opinion and personal taste.  The Color Vive 3 Minute Dry Defense Treatment is excellent for both right after you color, or also for the weeks following because it is so moisturizing and rich, but also because it contains a UV filter which helps to prevent against your color fading from the sun’s rays, one of the primary culprits of your hair color getting dull before it should.

It comes in a generous 6 oz. tube which lasts a long time because it is so rich and thick that only a small amount needs to be used at a time.  I remember the first time I used it I was amazed at how slippery it made the bottom of my shower because of it’s emollience, so be careful because it does make the shower floor very slick when using it.  It makes your hair so moisturized that you can comb right through it with no problem because it instantly detangles. 

I do notice a lot more shine after i use it to, and it seems to be manageable.  Now mind you, I have a thicker and more coarse hair texture, so this may not be the best product choice for those of you with thin or wispy hair because it may actually weight it down and be too moisturizing.

Now, for the review of Natural Instincts Hair Color by Clairol, which is not usually a hair care product line that I recommend.  However, I think they have a good thing in their Natural Instincts line, which is a non-permanent hair color that lasts several weeks, but does not permanently color the hairs on your head. 

It doesn’t contain ammonia, so while it is still slightly irritating to the scalp and still requires a little beating up of the hair to color it, it’s not quite as bad as those other permanent ones that have all the ammonia and other harsh ingredients in them so that they can be more permanent.  And honestly, I think it lasts quite a while, in fact, almost as long as the permanent ones, as long as you don’t wash your hair every day, like I don’t. 

It comes with an awesome after color conditioner that is better than L’Oreal’s after color conditioner in my opinion.  It imparts a great shine and makes your hair super manageable, so their conditioner is one of the biggest reasons to buy the color kit, because it really sets the color off nicely by making it stand out a lot more.  I bought the medium golden brown shade because I stay away from any browns with even a tad bit of ashiness to them, since I think this often washes a person out. 

Well, I have two for one reviews now, since some products are just very simple and you can only go on so much about their subtle nuances like smell, feel and effectiveness.  The first product I’m reviewing today is a simple but great moisturizer. 

I’m going to start off by saying though, that I think this moisturizer is better for winter than summer because of it’s high emollience.  I’d prefer a lighter one for the summer, but St. Ive’s 24 Hour Moisture cream is truly a great moisturizer, and it really does moisturize you for a long time, not just immediately evaporating as you feel some others do.

24 Hour Moisture is a thicker cream with an ingredient called “Hydratein” which they developed to supposedly retain moisture even longer than traditional emollient ingredients that are found in skin moisturizers.  It’s so moisturizing that when you first apply it, you have an almost dewey glow from the product, which is nice.  The scent is very light and clean, and there appears to be no artificial coloring as it is just a white cream, which is always good. 

St. Ives has been around forever with their skin care products and reasonably priced, if not cheap, hair care products.  I never cared for their hair care products, but some of the moisturizers they make do work well and are very reasonably priced.  Other ingredients in this value moisturizer are pure swiss glacial water, various swiss botanicals, and the hydratein complex.  Like many other moisturizers, the first ingredient listed is water.

The second product I am reviewing is a deodorant. Not exactly beauty related, but certainly hygeine and health related!  This one is a natural deodorant, which is the only kind I use now unless I’m planning on doing an extremely stressful activity that day or have a big meeting I have to run at work and don’t want sweat marks or odors, since aluminum deodorants tend to be better at absorbing odors and wetness.

Nature’s Gate is a great organic beauty and toiletry company that uses certified organic botanicals in it’s products and focuses on making chemical free, healthy alternatives.  The one I tried is the formula with Tee Tree and Blue Cypress, both of which are supposed to be excellent astringents. 

This deodorant worked very well on me, as I did not notice any odors when wearing it, and it seemed to also reasonably control my perspiration.  It did not however work on my boyfriend.  I love the clean, earthy scent, and the stick costs $4.90 at a natural foods store and has already lasted me a month (since the boyfriend’s not using it).  I’ll be buying this line of natural deodorants again, just may try a different formula to mix it up a bit. 

So I just got two new L’Oreal HIP (High Intensity Pigment) eyeshadows.  High intensity pigment is just another word for super charged with intense, super saturated color.  It means that it is of a higher quality than the less expensive, normally pigmented makeups that have color that is not as deep or intense, and also happens to not last as long as deeply pigmented cosmetics. 

Often times what you are paying more for is the pigment in a given makeup, say lipstick or eyeshadow or any other makeup that relies on color of some sort to give it character. 

As an over the counter, cheaper brand of makeup, L’Oreal definitely wins my vote hands down for superiority over the other brands, and I’d have to say that Revlon is a close second.  I’ve never been a fan of Maybelline or Cover Girl, because I feel their makeup wears off too quickly and tends to contain irritating additives.  At least for my skin, maybe not for everyone else’s. 

I bought two new L’Oreal HIP eyeshadow duos, one in a rich forest green coupled with a deep suede color, and another a deep but brighter blue (almost a turquoise tint to it), paired with a deep cocoa brown, almost a mix between a grey charcoal and brown rather than a warm brown with red tones, if you can picture what I’m talking about. 

I aboslutely LOVE both of them.  The blue and suede pairing is perfect for when I want to add a bit of drama and focus to the eyes, and the green is intense without being obnoxious, and very earthy looking and bohemian, so it goes well with a lot of my earthier colored, light summer clothes because it pairs well with natural looks and muted makeup. 

The color is super saturated, and deeply colors the eyes from the first brush stroke, so much that you have to really focus on not putting too much on your makeup brush when applying it so you don’t get too much on the eyes and end up with a smudge of darkness in one area. 

Not only does it look fantastic, it really does last noticeably longer than regular eyeshadow does, and it looks ten times richer, more “expensive” on your eyes.  The cost is a bit higher, but nothing I’d say is cost prohibitive at all.  Because you need so little, the length of time it lasts over regular eyeshadow probably pays for itself anyways. 

I just purchased Revlon Colorstay eyeshadow in a quad that has 3 very nice shades of brown, taupe and nudes in it, and I really like the specific colors they chose for this palette I bought.  One thing I really like about both the Revlon and the L’Oreal store brands is that they pick the colors I love, tending toward the more earthy colors, and both of them seeming to have richer, deeper pigments than their major competitors, brands like Maybelline and Cover Girl, both of which I’m not a huge fan of.

The Revlon Colorstay eyeshadow quad palettes were very reasonably priced, at about six bucks for four small strips of color, and they came in quite a few choices of colors, including greens, purples and my favorite of course, brown. In fact, brown was the most popular color they had, and they had two other palettes that were warm browns and taupes and nudes besides mine, so I liked that they offered several different shades of brown.

The Revlon shadow came with two small flimsy sponge applicators, of which I always throw away whenever I get these with any eyeshadow set, since I never use them and instead use my eyeshadow brush.  I like the color and the depth of it, but I do have to say, it takes quite a few swipes of the brush to get the right amount of color saturation, and you do have to keep swiping your brush on the eyeshadow and then on the eyes to get the right amount of color, but this is how I actually prefer to apply my eyeshadow, since I tend to overdue it if I’m using a heavily pigmented color.

I like the control of being able to apply it in layers, so then I don’t end up with a dark smudgy streak right away, especially if I’m going for a more casual daytime eyeshadow look instead of a dark and dramatic smokey look which I usually reserve for night. 

The color lasted pretty well, but it was nothing spectacular.  I work close to eleven hour days at my job, and I must say, you’d probably have to reapply this stuff if you had a date or something after ten hours, but I find that is true with most eyeshadows.  In contrast, it was not like some of the other shadows I’ve warn where they wear off in mere hours and look like you’re wearing nothing.  For the price, I’d say they’re a good buy, and they come in really fantastic colors, especially if you happen to love browns, like me. 

I just saw my cousing over Easter, and commented to her that her skin looks great.  She’s 35 years old, and I thought her skin looked as if it were glowing, and it also looked as if her lines had faded. 

She said she had been using a skin care system called Obagi, and was using it under a dermatologist’s care in combination with Retin-A, which is not only and acne medication for topical use, but also was widely touted as the next best thing in anti aging topical skin care just ten years ago, but unfortunately has faded into the hundreds of other ” newer, better” anti aging skin care products that seem to be creeping into the market as an alarming pace over the past few years.

Retin-A is known for its exfoliation properties, and the speeding up of skin cell turnover, which is why it is recommended for both acne cases as well as for patients who are looking for age-sign reducing topical products.  Only side effect with Retin-A though, at least years ago when I was put on it, was that it made my skin peel horribly and also made it dry so bad that it had developed painful cracking and bleeding in some areas. 

This was years ago, when I was prescribed the product for my acne, and I personally think the concentration my dermatologist put me on was too strong, and my skin was so sensitive at the time, as well as my other skin care products too drying to be used in conjunction with  something that is known to dry the skin out in some cases as well as to speed skin cell turnover which can lead to flaking and peeling in some cases. 

I looked a little into the Obagi line, and it’s certainly high end, and may be considered high cost for some, but my cousing did get good results when she combined it with the Retin-A, so Obagi may be a very good, clinical quality skin care product if you’re thinking about agressively treating aging signs topically with a newer regimen for anti aging and wrinkle skincare. 

I recently bought some new shades of eyeliner online (much needed, I’m growing tired of my good old brown and black eyeliner colors), and I came across a beauty brand name that I had never tried called Lord & Berry.  I bought a couple of the eyeliners, one in a color called Forest and another in a color called Bronze. 

They are regular “stick” style eyeliners, which is actually what I prefer, since I’ve had bad luck with roll-up eyeliners and others that don’t sharpen.  I like to be able to control the way my eyeliner comes out, and it always seemed easier to do when I could control the amount of sharpness of the tip of the color, so that I could also control the thickness of the line, depending on whether I was going for a lighter, daytime look, or a more dramatic, heavily lined evening look. 

So, nonetheless, the Lord & Berry was reviewed well by other users as a nice eyeliner that went on smooth and stayed pretty well, and at only $5 a pop, I figured what the hey.  So, here’s my review :

I’ve used both the colors, the Forest color, which is a deep, rich green, and I love it.  It gives me a slightly exotic eye look, and is just enough off of black that you can notice it’s not black you’re wearing, but can’t quite pinpoint what color it actually is, only that it gives a slightly more dramatic, colorful flare, especially when paired with a warm brown eyeshadow. 

The Bronze color, I’m not as fond of.  It’s not really the color I don’t like, as much as it seems like for some reason the bronze color seems to be crumbling when I sharpen it, and it almost seems to be dried out a little.  It does not go on as smoothly as the Forest green color, since it is harder to manipulate and doesn’t glide as smoothly.  But the Forest green, I will definitely buy again.