Xmas 2011 - Lorac Bejeweled Day & Night Jewelry Box

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Hi all =D I am temporarily back =X I didn´t pass that bad-ass exam early October so I got caught up in my study materials to prepare for my 2nd try this Monday (November 7th). And besides having 3 kids and a household and all I am stuck in the university a lot these days, too, so my blog had/has to stand behind, sorry! Will not blog a lot the next weeks as I firstly don´t have a lot of time and 2nd not really much new stuff to review =( A few reviews are set to be written though so please keep checking or subscribe.

Anyone checked out the Japanese Xmas collections yet? It´s really weird but so far NOTHING caught my fancy at all. Maybe I´ll get that Lunasol kit but other than that I feel rather underwhelmed with the stuff.

However I got couple of non-Asian Xmas palettes, my fave being the one from Lorac! I got myself a Myus.com shipping addy so I took chance of the Sephora 20% off sale last week and snatched up their huge value-for-money Bejeweled Day & Night Jewelry Box! It retails for US$56 (containing stuff worth US$415) but I got it for US$44.80 =)

I have never tried Lorac before but the positive youtube/online reviews convinced me I needed this gorgeous kit.

The Day & Night Jewelry Box contains:
-2 High-Shine Lip Glosses in Peach (Day) & Rose (Night)
-1 Bronzing Powder
-2 Eye Liner Pencils in Brown (Day) & Black (Night)
-1 Face Palette for Day featuring 16 Eye Shadows and 1 Blush
-1 Face Palette for Night featuring 16 Eye Shadows and 1 Blush
-Jewelry box with mirror, flip-top and 2 drawers in a silver glittery lace fabric

As you see there is a lipgloss, eyeliner and face palette each for day respectively night and the bronzer goes with both looks.

The top part contains the 2 lip glosses and the bronzer. The lip glosses come in 2 universally flattering shades, one being a soft peachy pink for the day look and the other one a beautiful muted rose shade to go with the night palette.
Both contain very fine pearly shimmer, show up very well and have a slick non-sticky texture. Staying power is quite good despite the creamy texture.
The glosses are full-sized and do not contain any fragrance or flavor.



The bronzer is really huge and features a beautiful light peachy tan shade with the softest satin glow throughout. It really gives that nice healthy sheen to my cheeks and is not too brown or muddy. Actually I can wear this as a natural blush or to contour my face (though for more tan ladies it might not work for contouring).



The eyeliner pencils are of good quality and quite soft and pigmented however the black one isn´t as smooth and dark as the brown one. The brown one definitely is a very deep nice color with great color pay-off. Overall nice quality pencils but nothing that special in my opinion.


The star product of the kit are definitely the 2 palettes. Each contains a whopping 16 pigmented, blendable and super smooth shades in matte, metallic and shimmery finishes. Together both palette contain actually a good amount of neutrals (more brown ones for day and the cooler more gray-toned ones for night) but there are also some nice colors like green, purple, teal, burgundy, gold etc...in my opinion both combos are wearable at any time of the day so both palettes are super versatile and wearable.


The day palette is particularly stunning with its array of rich metallic shades. The night palette has a few blacks and grays that look a bit too similar in my opinion and is in general a bit more matte/flat than the other palette.  
Each palette also has a blush to go with the lip gloss (peach for day and rose for night). The blushes are also smooth and pigmented with a very soft glowy finish.


The staying power of all the products is really good. I applied my makeup at like 9 AM today and now (7 PM) the colors still look fresh (of course I reapplied the lip gloss several times during the day).


The jewelry box is really pretty however it sheds glitters like nothing else so I keep it in its cardbord box. The drawers are pretty small so you could only store really flat things inside.

What I really love about this kit is that all the contents are fully removable incl. the eyeshadow palettes so you can take them out of the box and use it for other things (unlike other kits like the Tarte jewelry box),

Overall I am totally thrilled with this gorgeous kit and can highly recommend grabbing one for yourself (or as a gift perhaps). The products are of high quality, the colors are universally flattering and wearable for all occasions.

Rating definitely a well deserved 5/5

Sorry for the long break...

Hi there, sorry for my long break... came back from Egypt on September 10th and since then just incredibly busy with the school start and what keeps me "entertained" the most these days is the preparation for my very last exam... I am so happy to finish my studies finally (well, I have to attend 2 courses with 3 hours/each per week for one more term but those are a piece of cake hehe...oh and I have to write a 35-pages thesis which isn´t very hard either)....

So please accept my apologies for neglecting my blog these days but I am one of those non-multitasking-skilled people on this planet...when I do something intensely it´s hard to concentrate on other stuff during that time!
So please bear with me for another couple of weeks and I should be back to blogging =)

xoxo

LP - The USA edition: Plump Potion Needle-Free Plumping Lipstick in Pink Nude Potion, Rose Pink Potion and Mauveberry Potion

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And another part of my Physicians Formula haul =) I got 3 of the lipsticks as the colors looked beautiful online and the price wasn´t high either (€5.92/each)... I am not much into plumping lip products as many of them are somewhat painful but I wanted these lippies nonetheless =)

The packaging is simple but quite fine looking in my opinion.. the lipsticks are a bit clunky but I actually like that as since they feel heavy they don´t have that cheap appearance.

The formula is actually very nice which I didn´t expect at all for some reason! The lipsticks are very soft and creamy and feel moisturizing and comfortable to wear. These lipsticks are actually so soft that 2 of them broke at the base after some time, maybe due to having them in my bag when I went out into the hot Egyptian weather....

These lipsticks have a slightly minty taste and feel slightly cool and tingly within 1-3 minutes after application. The feeling doesn´t last long and isn´t very strong to start with so it doesn´t bother me at all, on the contrary I like the slightly cooling feel =)
I can´t say if these lippies actually plump my lips but the shiny finish makes my lips look full anyways.

PF also lists this as "redefining your lip contour" and hydrating (e.g. it includes hyaluronic acid). You can read more about it here!

Pink Nude Potion: I totally detest this color. It´s a white with a pink tinge and looks totally gross on me =X

Rose Pink Potion: this on the other hand is an absolutely gorgeous gilded peach pink with a very nice almost metallic finish.

Mauveberry Potion: a deeper creamy pink with a glossy finish. Love this one, too!

Overall these are good lipsticks and totally unexpectedly a nice find at a very cheap price (I can get like 4-5 of these for the price of e.g. a Coffret d´Or lipstick). I may have some other Japanese lipsticks that are better but the PF ones are definitely worth getting!

Rating 4.5/5

Shiseido Anessa Perfect Hair Sunscreen

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I´ve wanted a sun protection for my hair for the longest time (sounds like a weird product but it would help protect hair dye from fading etc.).
I finally settled on the one from Shiseido Anessa which I ordered from Adambeauty for US$21 (quite steep but anyways...)...

This product comes in a white 100ml spray bottle which dispenses the sunscreen as a very fine mist (which is a must in my opinion..). It offers UVA and UVB protection however no SPF or PA level seems to be listed on the package.
The Perfect Hair Sunscreen has a light creamy scent which is quite pleasant. What I love about this product is that it makes my hair super soft and smooth for an overall very nice feel.

To be very honest I have no idea how well this is protecting my hair from the sun? I dye my hair every 4-6 weeks anyway due to some stupid white hair so.... hmmmm....don´t know if this actually protects!

I just spray this on my dry hair and comb it through. This product is waterproof so it will only remove with shampoo which is a great thing!

Anyways, I love this product as it makes my hair so soft and lovely so would repurchase for that result alone.

Rating 4/5

Elizabeth Nude Bonbon OL Necessary Gloss in #2

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I reviewed some of the Elizabeth lipglosses a while ago (older Nude Bonbon OL Style Glosses here and here and Pink Bonbon Glosses here) but seems the OL Style Gloss got a revamp and is now being called OL Necessary Gloss (at least that´s what Adambeauty lists it as)...btw an OL is an "office lady" so that should mean the gloss comes in natural colors suitable to wear to work.

The gloss tube comes now with a diamond pattern and retails for 600 Yen/each. There are 4 colors of which I chose #2 as it looked very pretty in the online swatch.

The applicator is a spatula-type which makes it easy to pile on the gloss.
The texture is very nice as it´s not thicky and not too thick, just the right texture to give a long-lasting and highly-glossy finish.
This gloss is unscented and pigmented enough to show up well.

#2 is a pretty semi-bright coral pink with only miniscule shimmer.

Overall a lovely gloss that comes in pretty colors and is very affordable (US$8 on Adambeauty.com).

Rating 5/5

Funny fake cosmetics =)

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I actually just found these pics on my pc, I took them years ago here in Egypt... these are really hilarious fake cosmetics... Enjoy! =D

LP - The USA edition: Physicians Formula Shimmer Strips Custom Eye Enhancing Shadow & Liner palettes part 1

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Until now I collected almost all of the Physicians Formula Shimmer Strips eyeshadow palettes (Custom Eye Enhancing Shadow & Liner) and will find the last few colors in my mailbox when I return to Austria next week =D

There were 5 collections, each containing 4 palettes for brown, hazel, blue and green eyes so until today there were 20 palettes released. So each palette is targeted to enhance a certain eye color but surely that can´t prevent me from trying all the colors hehe. 
The collection were the classic one, smoky, pop, eye candy and bronzed. You can see the colors here.


Unfortunately when I received the palettes (in several batches) I took the pics mixed so I am not going to review them by collection which was to be perfect but instead you will find different collections mixed in each part. Sorry about that!

Western drugstore eyeshadows usually are of lower quality with a lack of pigment (at least that´s my experience) or maybe I should say used to be as the general quality seems to slowly improve. That being said not all Japanese drugstore brands are great, some are quite inconsistent like Kate (as they have good and really bad shadows)...

My friend Iris seemed to like her Shimmer Strips palettes in she used in this post so I felt assured I would like the palettes so I went ahead and placed my drugstore.com order =)

The Shimmer Strips palettes come in lucent bulky plastic cases that can scratch rather easily so I handle mine with a bit more care than some other palettes. Each palette has a sponge-tip applicator that´s not very useful for me and there is no mirror.
Packaging-wise these are rather simple but I still like them anyway =)
Each palette contains 9 eye shadows arranged in trios for 3 different looks: Natural, playful and dramatic. So usually the top 3 colors are the softest, the 2nd trio is the most colorful and the 3rd has the most dramatic/dark shades. The 3rd shadow in each trio is smaller as it´s supposed to be the liner shade thus should be used least. I mix and match the colors anyway so I usually ignore that trio-scheme but it might be useful for makeup beginners or in a rush or something.

As the name suggests all shadows are shimmery, though in various degrees of intensity. Some colors lean towards frosty, some to a softer slightly shimmery satin finish with the majority being quite shimmery. However none of the colors seems to contain any sort of rougher glitter like some Japanese brands so that´s really awesome for me =) I love shimmery/metallic shadows but don´t really care for glitter!

The amount of pigment varies among the palettes however no color is a dud as all show up on me when using my regular eye makeup brushes. Some colors are super pigmented, some are a bit sheer but as I said, all show up well on me.... which is actually something I didn´t expect from such inexpensive palettes.
The Shimmer Strips palettes blend very well and wear all day long over my Etude House Proof 10 base even here in the sweaty hot Egyptian weather which is always the best condition for me to test out the wearing power of makeup! (I am in Alexandria on the Mediterranean coast so humidity is rather high here, too!). I didn´t experience ANY kind of creasing or fading so I am absolutely impressed (the Proof 10 base is really good though!).

These shadows don´t irritate my eyes either and they are hypoallergenic, dermatologist tested, safe for sensitive eyes and contact lens wearers and fragrance free.

Overall I am very impressed with these little palettes and think they are really value for money (RRP somewhere around US$11 but I know that many US drugstores offer rebates, sales etc.). I got them from drugstore.com for 20% off (so I paid around €6.50/each).

Rating 5/5

Here are the first some palettes, I will review all the other ones later on in part 2 (and possibly a part 3 as well).

-Smoky Green Eyes:

A nice combination of greens, grays, silvers etc.


-Classic Green Eyes:

The original palette for green eyes. Contains soft greens and plums. This palette is a bit sheerer than most others.


-Pop Green Eyes:

A very colorful and funny palette containing aquas, bright greens and purples.

-Green Eye Candy:

An array of purples (one side leaning towards pink, one towards a cool grape tone) and a fun bright lime green in the middle!


-Hazel Eye Candy:

One of my top fave palettes as it´s a taupey/pink combo.


-Classic Hazel Eyes:

A soft taupe/brown/dusty pink palette. This is one of the most neutral office-appropriate palettes, also the shimmer is more subdued in this particular palette.

-Classic Brown Eyes:

A very wearable purple/brown/peach palette.


-Smoky Brown Eyes:

This is one of the most pigmented palettes in my opinion. A pretty variety of silvers, browns and purple. The lighter silver shade is really metallic so I use it lightly =)


More palettes to be reviewed in part 2 soon =)
These palettes pair really nicely with the Custom Eye Enhancing Gel Cream Liners I reviewed here and here!