Sunday 2 February 2014

Review: Battle of the lip crayons

You may have been living under a rock if you aren't aware about the current trend of lip crayons. These products are definitely the latest craze on the beauty market, and I am no exception to all the beauty lovers that are getting their hands on these products.

I am aware that there are countless brands that are producing these products; Clinique, Bourjois, Jordana, Covergirl, Laura Mercier - the list could go on forever. Like many full time uni students, I am beauty obsessed on a budget. While I would love to own some of the higher end lip crayons, today I have five different brands available from the 'drugstore' that I am going to compare. I'll try to keep it short with a few descriptions about each brands product.

My current collection



Revlon Just Bitten Kissable Balm Stains


L-R: Honey, Cherish, Darling, Lovesick, Adore & Rendezvous
Swatches L-R in same order as above photo
About Just Bitten Kissable Balm Stains:
  • Seem to be the most hyped up lip crayons on the market
  • A sheer but buildable glossy product that leaves a stain once the gloss wears off
  • Wear time for gloss is about 2 hours, but the stain lasts for about 6 hours in my experience
  • Available in 12 colours
  • Has a minty scent to it, which I unfortunately don't like, but it's not offputting and can't be smelled once applied
  • Retailed at $17.95AUD


Boe Beauty 'Jumbo Lips'


L-R: Boudoir Pink, Better Bare, Knockout Red, Unknown colour name (doesn't have a label) & Manic Pink

L-R swatches in above order
About:
  • Exclusive to Big W at $2AUD
  • A relatively pigmented gloss that has a slight stain 
  • Minimal wear time: 2+ hours
  • Available in 5 colours (all of which are pictured above)
  • Packaging is reasonable and has a silver bottom to twist product like the Revlon crayons. Lid isn't very secure though.
  • Perhaps a slight synthetic smell, but no real scent to it
  • Lip crayon itself is quite flimsy, and I unfortunately had the tip break off my favourite one, 'Manic Pink' (swatch is on the right in photo, was very messy to apply)
Blurry photo of the clean break through the tip of the product

Models Prefer 'Moisture Lust Glossy Lip Tint'

L-R: Black Cherry, Raspberry Ripple, Marshmallow & Toffee Fudge


Swatches L-R same as above order

Also experienced breakage with the MP crayon :(
About: 
  • Is a 'lip tint', so they are quite sheer and add coloured, glossy sheen to the lip
  • Packaging is literally identical to the Boe beauty crayons
  • Exclusive to Priceline; I bought these in 2x packs for $5, making them $2.50AUD each
  • Crayon itself is not as wide as the packaging, meaning the product slides from side to side as you apply it. This combined with the fact that you need to press down to build up the colour unfortunately resulted in a breakage of one of them. Haha, maybe I'm just too rough with these lip crayons! 
  • A very feint synthetic scent to them (virtually non-existent)
  • Wear time is at most about 2-3 hours

Face of Australia Glossy Lip Crayon

L-R: Berry Brulee, Raspberry Coulis & Pie La Mode



About:

  • A relatively pigmented glossy sheen
  • Retails for $4.95 at Priceline
  • Weartime is decent, 3+ hours and wears off evenly
  • Favourite is definitely Berry Brulee - a bright purple/plum colour
  • Packaging is sturdy and much better than the Boe and Models Prefer packaging
  • Very nice vanilla scent



Designer Brands Chubby Lip Crayon

410 Doll Face



About:
  • I only own one of these lip crayons, so this is based on the one colour I own
  • This formula is more like a creamy lipstick that dries semi-matte, unlike all of the other crayons above that are sheer buildable glosses
  • Extremely pigmented and only need one or two swipes on the lip
  • Much thinner and longer than all of the other brands, but still contains the typical silver twist up bottom
  • No detectable scent
  • Retails for $8AUD

Overall opinions

While I do love a standard lipstick, these are a fun new lip product that I'm really enjoying. I think the classic rules applies in this case: 'You get what you pay for'. 
My favourite are definitely the Revlon Balm Stains, as they provide a nice glossy, pigmented lip but wear off evenly and leave a nice stain. The Designer Brands lip crayon is really nice and bright and looks like a regular lipstick on the lips. The Boe beauty products are easy to wear and are are quite pigmented for the price, but are cheap quality. I am not a huge fan of the Models Prefer crayons, but are still easy to wear if I am just going out for a couple of hours and am not concerned about wear time. The Face of Australia crayons are super glossy and pigmented and I've really been loving those.

I will definitely be on the hunt for some more of these from various brands.

What are your favourite lip crayons? Thanks for reading! 

Friday 24 January 2014

Kmart Haul: Cosmetics sale

Hello everyone! I do apologise for my absence, I'm seriously lacking consistency in this whole 'blogging' thing. It's still totally new to me.

If you weren't already aware, I love Kmart. I mean I seriously LOVE Kmart. There is one right near my house, so I honestly visit Kmart about 2-3 times a week. I have scored so many shoes, handbags, accessories, clothes and cosmetics for as little as $1. 

Today I walked into Kmart, as I do, walked around the store for a while and before leaving I decided to check out the cosmetics. I don't often buy cosmetics in Kmart as the stands are always empty and often full price. Today however, I actually had a lame moment where my heart started racing. There were $5 and $2 pricetags EVERYWHERE. It didn't take me too long to fill up my shopping basket with a few cheap goodies. I will warn possible buyers though:  The stands were very empty with not much left, but like any good bargain hunter, I quickly got my hands on some really cheap steals.

All of the goodies that I picked up

The Rimmel products I hauled
Majority of the Rimmel products were on clearance. However, I found that only certain shades were on sale. I am not sure if this is just because they haven't marked down everything else, but some shades were scanning at sale price, yet others were full price. For examply, they had all of their foundations on sale for $5, but the shade I wanted wasn't marked down. The receipt didn't print the RRP prices, only the price I bought them for. I will include the sale price in parenthesis next to the product.Here is what I got:

Rimmel Scandaleyes Waterproof Kohl Eyeliner in 'Taupe' ($2)  - I absolutely adore these kohl liners for my waterline. I bought a couple when Chemist Warehouse were having their 50% off sale (making them $5) but they were out of stock of Taupe. You can imagine my excitement when I scored this for $2.

Rimmel Sexy Curves Mascara in 'Black' ($5) - Never tried this mascara, but I love mascaras that curve so I thought I'd give it a go.

Rimmel Lasting Finish Nail Polish in 'Lively Lilac' ($2)  - I have also never tried these nail polishes because I never thought they looked worthy of their full retail price of $6, but for $2 I decided to give this a go. The display had heaps of Rimmel nail polishes left, so if I like this I may go back and get more tomorrow.

Rimmel Lasting Finish Matte Lipstick by Kate Moss in '103' ($5) - I have never tried any of the lipsticks from the Matte collection, but I own a few of the regular Kate Moss Rimmel lipsticks and love them. The bad thing about the cosmetics department in Kmart is that there are no testers, as all of the cosmetics are in packages hanging up on a silver rod thingy. I was unsure of which colour to get but I grabbed 103 which appears to be a medium pinkish-berry colour. 


Cosmetics from various brands
Covergirl Lash Blast Mascara in 'Black Brown' ($5) - I have also never tried this mascara, but for $5 I couldn't resist. Ideally I would have preferred black, but they only had this colour. 

Face of Australia Budge Proof Eyeshadows in 'Violet Rays', 'Poison Ivy' and 'Midnight Sky' ($2 each) - I haven't even heard any reviews about these, but if they aren't fantastic then they only set me back $2 each! They look like a cheap version of the Maybelline color tattoos, as they are a metallic cream shadow in a little glass pot. I actually just found this post about a comparison between the two products if you're interested: http://bubblesandblush.wordpress.com/2013/08/31/review-face-of-australia-budge-proof-eyeshadows/
The three that I purchased are a deep emerald green, a dark violet/taupe colour and a very dark midnight blue colour. I will do a review on these when I try them out and get some use out of them. These retail for around $6 I believe, so if you're looking for a cheap alternative to the Maybelline shadows then these could be for you. 

Face of Australia Glossy Lip Crayon in 'Pie a la Mode' ($2) - These lip crayons are relatively recent for the Face of Australia collection and I own the purple shade in 'Berry Brulee' which I absolutely love. The shade that I purchased today was the last one left, but I would have purchased all of the other shades if they had have been there. Pie a la Mode is a dark nude colour. They do retail for the very affordable price of $4.95 at Priceline though, so I may pick a few more up.

Face of Australia Lip Quench SPF30+  lipstick in 'Mocha Latte' ($2) - This was also the only shade left out of the range. I would most likely have picked up a few more as they were only $2 and contain jojoba oil and shea butter which appeals to me. This is a nude brown type colour.

BYS  18 colour eyeshadow palette in '01 Neutral Charm' ($2) - I think it is a pretty common fact in the beauty world that BYS is a crap brand. I mean, they do have some good products that I use often, but I normally steer clear of their nail polishes, foundations and eyeshadows. However, this palette was only $2 for 18 gorgeous neutral shades. There are warm bronzes, golds, roses, olive greens and deep mauve colours. As expected, they are all shimmer eyeshadows but I'll enjoy playing around with these and using them for some different looks.

BYS Longwear Lipstick in 'In Love' ($2) - I have a few BYS lipsticks that I am not a huge fan of, but I have found that the lipsticks in the longer tubes (as opposed to the regular short tubes) wear a lot better than the rest of the BYS range. This is a nice everyday medium pink.

Maybelline Colorsensational Lipstick in 'Juicy Bubblegum' ($5) -There wasn't a lot of the Maybelline range on sale, but a few of the Colorsensational lipsticks were. I absolutely love this line of lipsticks and was so shocked that they were only $5, as these retail for $16.95. In hindsight, I probably should have picked up some more of these but I was in a rush. 


Although this isn't actually makeup, a lot of their skincare and hygiene type products were also on sale, so I just grabbed a couple of items.

Kmart Brand Coconut and Lemongrass body wash ($2) - I think this only retailed for $5 to begin with but it is a very large 750ml size body wash. Lemongrass is my favourite scent so I decided to try this out.

Kmart Brand Frangipani and Passionfruit Hand Cream ($1) - I also believe this retails for only $3 but seeing as this was only $1 I had to try this out. Passionfruit is my favourite fruit so I'm looking forward to seeing how this smells.



So there we have it, my bag of goodies I purchased from Kmart. I will have a lot of fun taking all of this stuff out of it's packaging and swatching it all. I love a good bargain! Let me know in the comments below if you liked this haul and if you manage to grab any good bargains during this Kmart sale. 

Until next time :)

Monday 6 January 2014

Target Haul!

I have been spending way too much money lately. It's a bit concerning when I'm spending more money than I'm earning - woops!

Today I went into Target and was pleasantly surprised when I saw that they had 30% off all Essence products, which is good considering how cheap they are already! They also had all of their Ulta3 nail polishes for $1. I already have around 90 Ulta3 polishes and consider myself a bit of a collector, so I couldn't resist. Just when I was walking out of the cosmetics section my Mum picked up a Revlon gift pack that was reduced to clear at $14, and when I saw that I had it had the Just Bitten Kissable Balm Stain in the much raved about shade 'Honey', my heart fluttered and I did not let that baby go.

Here is what I picked up:





Revlon Gift Set in 'Dazzling Pink'

As mentioned, this set was only $14. This was sitting on a random shelf with no price tag on the shelf; it only had the orange price sticker on it. I'm not quite sure how much this retailed for before it was reduced.

This set contains:
Colorburst Lip Butter in 'Sweet Tart' - This is a gorgeous berry pink type shade. It is very girly with no shimmer. I love this!
Nail Enamel in 'Sparkling #261' - This is a very dense pink glitter polish in a clear base. This pink is really different. It's like a dusty rose type colour, like no other glitter I own.
Just Bitten Kissable Balm Stain in 'Honey' - I cannot even express to you how excited I was to see that this pack contained this shade. This has been on my wish list for so long and I was most likely going to pick it up for around $9 in Chemist Warehouse's current 50% off sale. You can imagine my shock when I saw it in a gift pack with other products for only $14! This balm stain alone retails for $17.95 full price so this was an absolute steal.
Lipstick Case - I would have bought the set if it just came with the other three products, so this was a bonus. It is a cute little zip up case with black floral-type embroidery on it. This will be good to keep a few lipsticks in my handband to avoid any accidents with lids coming off and destroying everything in my bag (which has happened to me a few times before!)


New additions to my Ulta3 collection
From left to right:
Disco fever - This is a red glitter polish in a clear base. This would have come in handy for Christmas time! Oh well, there's always next Christmas...
Stardust - A sheer metallic pale pink with tiny gold glitter
Poppy - A frosty metallic pale pink. I don't normally gravitate to shades like Poppy and Stardust mentioned above as my Nan wears these shades but they are a good addition to my growing Ulta3 collection
Plum Violet -  A deep berry pink/plum colour. This is a creme polish with no shimmer which I absolutely love

Essence products
I couldn't resist trying a few new products from Essence seeing as they were 30% off.
Nightclub glamour-to-go eyeshadow in '03 dance-til-dawn' - This palette has eight different shimmer colours, with mauve hued and smoky coloured eyeshadows.
Kajal pencil in '22 Taupe Me' -  Simple matte taupe eye pencil
Lipliner in '07 Cute Pink' - Rosy coloured pink lipliner
Stays no matter what eye pencil in '02 Stunning Brown' - Dark brown matte eye pencil. I swatched this on my hand it won't budge!


Left to right: Wear Berries, Coral Calling and All About Cupcake
Lipsticks are an absolute obsession of mine at the moment and I highly intend getting some more Essence lipsticks. They have really impressed me so far.

Long lasting lipstick in '09 Wear Berries' - This colour is so stunning. It's a purple toned berry lipstick.
Long lasting lipstick is '01 Coral Calling' - A true orange toned coral. In love with orange/coral lipsticks recently and this is just perfect!
Essence Lipstick in '53 All About Cupcake' -  This is a classic 'my lips but better shade'. Really subtle, neutral pink colour. Love it.


So there we have it, my Target haul! Hope you enjoyed it. I'll be back with more hauls soon :)

Saturday 4 January 2014

Review and swatches: lol (lots of love) cosmetics



Today I have decided to do a review of the very inexpensive cosmetics brand called 'lol' (lots of love). This brand is available at Kmart stores across Australia and you can visit their own website here. They have a wide variety of products across categories of eyes, lips, face and nails. The entire range is retailed for $2.

As we all know, makeup products are very expensive in Australia. I would say the majority of us would be apprehensive to try products from a brand that only costs $2. I expected the quality to be crap, but after I tried one of the eyeshadow palettes I gradually purchased some more products and was pleasantly surprised. There is a huge variety of products available but I am just going to share the few that I own with you. Warning: This may be a lengthy review!

My haul: Lipsticks, face powder, blush duo, eyeshadow palettes and a glitter eyeshadow creme palette.

Eyeshadows

The first product that I tried from lol is their 6 x rotational eyeshadow palette. I was so impressed with the quality and pigmentation of the product that I went on to buy another four in different colours. There are six available, but the blue hued one didn't appeal to me so I did not purchase it. 

'So Rosemantic' in packaging, up close and swatches


Smoky palette in 'Black Betty'

Pigmentation of these are fantastic
Warm toned palette in 'How Now'

In love with the pigmentation and glow of this palette
 
Green hued 'Splash that Cash'

Splash that Cash has such stunning shades


Purple hues in 'Power to the Purple'

So pigmented, but shades are slightly more similar than in other palettes

Overall, I am utterly in love with these shadow palettes. My favourite is definitely the olive toned 'Splash that Cash'. I am a redhead and my favourite colour is green, and I find these shades compliment my skin and my hair. My second favourite is the gorgeous gold toned palette in 'How Now'. I am really loving the warm toned earthy coloured shadows at the moment and these are exceptional. I do love a good smoky eye, so "Black Betty" is great. I don't often wear bright coloured shadows but it is a cheap way to experiment with the pink and purple hued shadows. I absolutely adore the deeper dusty rose colour in the top left of the 'So Rosemantic' palette, and I have also been loving the pale violet shimmer from 'Power to the Purple'.
These palettes have such a buttery smooth formula which was so unexpected. Most cheap palettes are chalky, not very pigmented and have a lot of fall out. These are just so smooth and longwearing and are my favourite product for a $2 buy. I should mention that the applicator that these come with is decent as well. It is not one of those typical flimsy sponge ones; it is made out of a more dense sponge that is a lot easier to work with. Unfortunately there are no matte shades in these palettes so I often need to consult other palettes if I want a matte shade to make an eye look, but that doesn't bother me. I'd rather have the six different shimmer colours. I can't speak highly enough of these and definitely recommend giving one a go.

Glitter Eye Creme

As a rule, I don't use these type of products. Seeing as this was only $2, I decided to give it a go. There are 3 different palettes available, but I purchased the more 'neutral' coloured one in 'Starry Night'

'Starry Night' contains a silver, gunmetal, black, holographic silver, gold and brown glitter creme

Apologies for poor swatching! From top to bottom: Silver, gunmetal, black, holographic, gold and brown

Blurred closeup to show the different colours in the holographic type shadow

Although I don't own any other glitter creme shadows to compare this product with, my first impressions are that these are good for the money, but I won't use them often. My favourite is definitely the white/silver holographic one on the bottom left. It is SO shimmery and eyecatching. The black one is awful, as when it is applied to the eyes, the simmer does not translate and it appears as if there is little black dots all over your lid. I found that these do not apply well with an applicator as they bunch up and are hard to spread out, so I just lightly dab these on with my finger. These are a fun product, but I will most likely only use them when I am dressing up and want a glam look.

Lipsticks

At first, I only purchased one of lol's lipsticks. I was impressed, so I ended up getting 5 more. There is a total of 10 different shades in their lipstick range. 


The six different lippies that I own

From left to right: Sweet Disposition, Social Butterfly, Think Pink, I Wanna Be A Princess, Kiss Kiss & Paint the Town
I only just noticed that the order in the above photos is the not the same. Disregard that order and see caption for colour names. I am also apologising for the bad quality lip swatches you are about to see; I am using my iPhone camera and my lips are in bad shape at the moment.

Sweet disposition: A frosty nude peach 

Social Butterfly: Matte cool toned pink

Think Pink: A blue toned  shimmer pink/lilac that has a slight duochrome in real life

I Wanna Be A Princess: A semi-matte hot fuschia

Kiss Kiss: A darker shimmery fuschia berry colour

Paint the Town: A shiny bright red



Light swatches. L-R: Sweet disposition, Social Butterfly, Think Pink, I Wanna Be a Princess, Kiss Kiss & Paint the Town

Once again, for $2 these lipsticks are amazing. Admittedly, the quality and formula varies between the shades but they are all decent quality. My favourite is definitely the gorgeous 'Think Pink'. This was the first shade that I bought and what encouraged me to try the other shades. It is such a unique colour and adds a vibrant pop of colour to the lips. 'Social Butterfly' is my second favourite, as it is another great different colour. 'I Wanna Be a Princess' is a very bright fun colour and I like the formula. 'Paint the Town' is hard to wear - the colour is stunning but the formula is very slippery and takes a while to dry. It can be very messy to apply and is high maintenence. Sweet Disposition is a great colour but the combination of the nude colour and the frosty finish means this one really shows every crack and line in the lips. Kiss Kiss is a nice frosty fuschia, but unfortunately I am not really into frosty shimmer lipsticks. The wear time for these is relatively short, which was to be expected. I'd say they last for about two hours or so without needing a touch up. Final say: I love most of these lipsticks and would recommend Think Pink and Social Butterfly.

Blush Duo

I am relatively new to world of blush but this one has impressed me. There are two combinations available, and I have the duo in 'Chateau Rose'.

This duo has peachy/rosey type hues

These blushes are surprisingly pigmented in this light swatch
Although I am no expert on the topic of blush, to me these are definitely worth the money. The colours are gorgeous and add a natural flush to the cheeks. These last on me for most of the day and I really like them. The brush that comes with the duo is utter crap and does not work, so I just use a regular blush face brush with these. I definitely recommend these.

Face Powder

As a general rule, cheap cosmetic companies can never seem to get face products (liquid foundation, powder and concealer) quite right. I picked up this face powder as I was interested to see how it would perform. This powder comes in three shades: light, medium and dark. I obviously picked up the light one. Curse you pale redhead skin!

This powder is a decent size! There is no applicator included

Swatch on my finger

To be honest, this is my least used product out of all of the lol cosmetics that I own. I don't have a strong opinion on this one - it's not good but it's not necessarily bad either. It's kind of just 'meh'. It doesn't provide much coverage, but works okay as a setting powder for my liquid foundation. It's slightly chalky, but not too dry like I expected it to be. I wouldn't recommend this, but if you're interested to try it out then go ahead. Maybe it will work better for you than it did for me.


Conclusion

I have been incredibly impressed with this line of cosmetics. Most cheap brands such as BYS are generally crap and bad quality. I don't think I'd try their liquid foundation, mascaras or lip glosses but majority of the products I have from this company are fantastic for the price. The standout is 100% their eyeshadows. They have just absolutely wowed me with the formula and pigmentation.

Pros
  • Affordable
  • Easily accessible at Kmart stores
  • Eyeshadows are incredible quality
  • Large range of products over most beauty categories (eyes, lips, face, nails)
  • Large range of colours in most products
  • Unique and on trend colours (especially in lipsticks and eyeshadows)
  • Cheap way to experiment with new products
Cons
  • Quality can be inconsistent across products
  • Some products do not have great longevity
  • Packaging looks cheap

Hopefully that provided you with an insight to the lol brand and persuaded you to try out some new products. Please comment down below with any thoughts or any ideas about what sort of posts you would like to see from me in the future. Thanks for reading!

Thursday 2 January 2014

Soul Pattinson sample bag!

I went shopping today (and bought far too many things which I eventually blog) and I picked up two Ulta3 nail polishes that were in a bargain bin for $1 each. Not that needed any more, I already own about 90 Ulta3 polishes - woops!


Ulta3 nail polishes in 'Party Shoes' and 'Tahiti'
I can't get that stupid price tag off - it's been stuck down with sticky tape and let's be honest, I gave up trying. Party Shoes is a gorgeous mid-toned pink and Tahiti is a really fluorescent orange that just won't translate on camera.

When I was at the register, the girl serving me gave me a bag of samples as they were "trying to get rid of them". I was quite surprised and happy because I'm always up for trying new things.


Sample Bag I was given



Bag's contents (except one product I forgot but I will include a picture below)


Primer that I received that I forgot to include in collective picture

I was really excited about this because I am not currently signed up to any beauty subscription boxes such as Lust Have It or Bellabox that include sample products so I was happy with this. 

Here is a list of products included:
  • L'oreal Paris EverPure Moisture leave-in conditioner 10mL sachet
  • L'oreal Paris EverPure Moisture Shampoo 10mL sachet
  • L'oreal Paris EverPure Moisture Conditioner 10mL Sachet x2
  • L'oreal Youth Code Luminosity Serum 1.5mL
  • L'oreal Revitalift 10 Total Repair BB cream 1.5mL
  • Nature's Own Complete sleep calming hot drink 8g
  • Designer Brands Showoff Mascara 6mL
  • Designer Brands Pore Minimising Primer (not full size but unsure of quantity)'
  • Designer Brands full size Kohl eyeliner in black
  • Packet of jellybeans
  • Pen with Soul Pattinson logo
  • Fold out brush and mirror with Soul Pattinson logo
  • Cardboard notepad and pen set with Soul Pattinson logo

I will definitely try all of these products and hopefully I like some of them! I am especially impressed with the full size black DB eyeliner as well as the large sample DB face primer.

Did anyone else receive sample packs from Soul Pattinson pharmacy?











Instagram