Archive for the ‘Beauty Reviews’ Category:
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.
I recently purchased a Sedu hair styling tool, after I’ve heard so much hype about the Babyliss and Sedu hair dryers, I decided between the two and went with (the more expensive, unfortunately), Sedu hair dryer. I figured if I was going to spend $60-70 on a dryer, why not spend the extra money from there and buy something that I had complete confidence in as beign a good product.
Like a good beauty connesseur, I researched the Sedu dryer a lot, and found that this particular one, the Sedu Turbo Ionic Dryer, had gotten nothing but rave reviews by its users. In particular, people who used it said that they were amazed by how quickly their hair dried and how much additional shine the Sedu dryer seemed to give to their hair.
And they were absolutely right. Not only does my hair dry in what seems like half the time it used to, but it is noticeably smoother, instead of coming out looking like a dry haystack, which my hair is known to do right after blow dry. Now I’m not so reticent to wash my hair, since I know I can get it to look shiny and healthy after blowing it dry rather than dried out and dull, which was how my other dryers, even the other ionic ones I’ve purchased from beauty supply stores, had left my hair.
I’m not sure what Sedu does differently from other ceramic and ionic dryers, but it is clearly a superior product, and in my opinion, is worth the price I paid for it. Sedu flat irons also have a great reputation, and unfortunately I did not buy one, instead I tried to get something cheaper (see my previous review), and went with a higher end Conair, which I’m not happy with.
All in all, I can see why Sedu hair care products are all in the rage with the Hollywood crew, they really are a superior product that gives salon types of finishes. For more reviews on Sedu products, see Sedu Reviews.
I got this cool stuff as a Christmas gift from a friend who knows I’m all about lip plumpers and lip gloss. Here’s the indications for this Clinique intensive lip care product : “Delivers immediate and long-term results,Minimize the fine line, wrinkles and sun damage,Provides the lip area a smoother & firmer look”.
I started using the Clinique All About Lips product at night now, just as a moisturizing and soothing treatment just before bed so my lips would be softer and more conditioned overnight.
It comes in a small pump, like a moisturizer, so don’t expect it to be in your typical lip-stuff application container. This is probably the one thing I would change about it actually, but that’s just personal, since I like to apply lip stuff either with a wand or be able to glide it on in a lipstick form. You just pump a tiny amount out on your finger, and swipe it on the lips.
It feels good going on, and it definitely hydrates the lips, as I have not had any flakiness problems since I started using it, and I usually have issues with my lips flaking off and peeling in the winter at least a couple times a week. I have noticed that it does help to immediately minimize the fine lines in the lips and “plump” them out right away. Overall, I’d say this is a great lip conditioner, especially for when your lips need a little TLC, and especially also for night time, when you don’t necessarily want to slick on anything goopy of glossy.
I’ve decided (for the fun of it), to compile my top five Chirstmas Beauty Wishlist. Keep in mind, for a beauty product junkie such as myself, this list probably doesn’t even scrape the tip of the iceberg!
I’ll admit it, when it comes to the latest in beauty, skin care, and my personal favorite, hair care and lip plumping, I can’t get enough! So, without further ado, here is my top five Christmas wishlist items for this holiday season. I haven’t actually asked for any of these yet, but I’m definitely going to buy them myself soon after the holiday season, perhaps with some gift money, who knows!
1.) Sedu Flat Iron and Hair Dryer – ‘Cause all this research I’ve done on the Sedu hair styling tools has made me feen for the celebrity favorite line, and I’ve read nothing but good reviews on their stuff.
2.) Lip Fusion XL and Cushy Lips - Because I’ve been reading about these newer Lip Fusion products and the newcomer Cushy Lips, which is a more concentrated, serious version of the original lip pumper, and even though it’s about ten bucks more than the already kind of expensive lip plumper, I’m curious to see what it can do as far as long term natural lip plumping.
3.) Revitol Newer Skin Care Anti Aging Line – This anti aging and anti wrinkle line of skincare has tempted me to toss aside my Strivectin and give it a try.
4.) Additional Lypossage Treatments – Since my first 6 week round seemed to have smoothed out a lot of dimples, but not quite really done the job I need it to, I’m thinking about treating myself (not anytime soon though, it’s expensive) to another six week round of the cellulite reduction treatments, to see if I can achieve an even smoother appearance in my cellulite on my target areas of hips and buttocks.
5.) Several more pigments in the L’Oreal HIP line of hyper pigmented eyeshadows and other makeups. I have one of the colors in the eyeshadow, a duo that is brownish/green and I really love it, so I want to try out the blues and purple, and greys since they’re as brightly colored as jewels, and don’t fade easily.
I picked up a reasonable lip liner yesterday at CVS pharmacy. It’s a cheaper brand of makeup called Prestige, and I figured I’d give it a try, since it was only about $5 for a lip lining pencil that had shine in it also.
I’m not a fan of lip liners usually, but I like the nude color I got and thought it would go well with my skin tone, plus I liked the idea that it was a glossy liner, not a matte liner, and thought I could use it as an allover lipgloss/stick instead of just a liner. I tried it on not too long ago, and I think I like it.
I can’t tell if it’s going to be longwearing or not (probably not), but I love the color, which is called Honeysuckle, and I do like the hint of shine it gives, along with the subtle color, which probably would look good on most skin tones because it’s so neutral.
Bottom line of Prestige Lightshine Sheer Gloss Lip Liner : I like it, and for $5, what the heck.
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