SWATCH & REVIEW: Inglot Lip Paint in 68

Been meaning to swatch this gorgeous Lip Paint pot. Picked it up from INGLOT in colour 68.

Thoughts:

A wonderful consistency between a gel and cream. Highly pigmented but gel properties mean that opacity can be adjusted. Very moisturising but leaves a stain due to pigmentation which is good for work days where you don't want your pale lips showing after you eat lunch.

Only thing is that this requires a lip brush. Unless of course you don't mind using your fingers.

Swatched on my lips quite sheerly, it can be applied a lot more opaque than this.

Overall a really decent product. Give it a shot next time you find yourself at an INGLOT counter.

REVIEW: Garnier Clean Detox vs. Loreal Perfect Clean

I haven't done any reviews on skincare before, and i recently bought two new facewashes, so i thought it would be nice to share my thoughts and experiences about them! Both of them were around the $AUD 10 or less mark, i think they were on discount though, not sure.

My Skin type: I have very dry skin that flakes alot around the T zone and nose area, i do not have sensitive skin, even though I have very dry skin, my skin does get a little tacky and slightly oily (or rather clogged pores, not really 'oil') during the scorching Australian summer months.

What I look for in a facewash: non-drying/moisturising, refreshing (but not menthol-y), a scrub of some sort to exfoliate gross flakey skin and clear out pores, and a great smell. I do not like facewashes that have acne clearing acids and menthols in them as they are wayyyy to harsh/drying for my dry skin - it would probably make my whole face flake off!

Garnier Clean Detox:

This is a foaming 'purifying gel' that claims to help:

- neutralize toxins and impurities

-Remove impurities and makeup

- Boost radiance

Pros: Its a liquid gel texture (as u would get in most gel facewashes), its clear, and it smells SO GOOD! It smells like refreshing green tea, and it foams like a dream. It also comes in a pump bottle which is convenient.

Cons: For those of you who need a scrub to do that bit more (to get down into ur pores and remove unsightly flaking skin) this facewash is just too 'soft' to do anything like that, i usually add my Vichy's face exfoliating beads into it, and then it works well.

Overall Verdict: It smells divine, it foams nicely, it leaves my skin feeling light and dewy, but it wont scrub out my pores and flakes if i have any, but for a hot summers day, it is great to remove that uncomfortable sticky/tacky feeling and to just freshen up your face.

 Loreal Perfect Clean:

It comes in a very interesting looking bottle with a face scrub attached to it (they call it cleanPod) and i chose the one which says 'glow' :)

This is a close up of the clean pod in different lighting, click on the picture to get a closeup view :)

The tiny protruding bristles are quite flexible and seem quite effective for scrubbing and buffing the skin with the facewash.

This is how it is removed

The actual formula of this facewash, surprisingly, smells EVEN BETTER than the garnier clean detox, its a DIVINE APRICOT smell! Makes you wanna eat it :D Better still, it has tiny exfoliating beads in it that are perfect for the pores and flaky skin. The ONLY thing i would say about this is that i prefer not to use the actual facewash with the cleanPod because i feel that you make more use of the gritty exfoliating beads when you use your fingers to really massage it into your skin. I tend to swap and use the cleanPod with my garnier detox because it has a lack of abrasion.

This is just an example of the cleanPod in use, after i scrubbed the back of my hand that i had tested foundation on; and yes, i have used it on my face before, and i am quite the happy customer.

Better yet, when the cleanPod is placed back into the bottle, there is a suction cup on the back of it, making it able to be stuck onto the shower wall. Its a pretty nifty gadget

Pros: Best. Smell. Ever., effective scrub, awesome cleanPod, just the right amount of foaming, lovely gel texture to the wash, leaves you fresh, and cleansed; cool suction contraption to the cleanPod.

Cons: I feel that the cleanPod doesn't effectively make use of the formula's gritty scrub, because it has little teeth of its own so it doesn't really push the scrub into the skin. Because the scrub has great grittiness which is awesome for my dry flakey areas and pores, i don't use it to remove eye makeup in the shower - i would rather use my garnier for this job.

VERDICT: If i seriously only had to have one, i would choose the Loreal perfect clean in Glow because of the smell and multiple exfoliating options, but honestly both of them have its benefits (such as the garnier being soft enough to use to remove eyeshadow without getting exfoliating beads into my eye), and honestly i use them together, i mix the two, and sometimes i just use garnier with the cleanPod scrub. Having them both has been a WIN-WIN situation for me :)

Hope that was of some help and interest to you all!

REVIEW: Solotica Hidrocor Lenses

I ordered these a while back, in two colours, Ice, and Mel (Honey). I bought mine for USD$ 72 per pair from www.rumo.com.br with free shipping. Honestly, the shipping took FLIPPING AGES!

it states that free shipping takes from 5-18 days, and that paid shipping was 3-8 days, but mine took OVER 40 DAYS! i thought it was never going to arrive! and especially because the website is brazillian by nature, customer service took a long time to reply, and when they did, i couldnt understand their english!?? it didnt make any gramatical sense. BUT, that being said, it did eventually arrive (thank god, i thought it was lost in shipping!)

This is the colour chart of their offerings :)

Oh and by the way, they have different versions as well such as the famous Solotica Hidrocharme, but the Hidrocor ones (these ones) dont have a limbal ring, whereas the Hidrocharme ones do! 

I just assumed these ones would look more natural...?

The packaging

The little bottles (i already ripped off the aluminium seal)

These are the "Ice" ones, they are basically just very fine WHITE pixels! no blue whatsoever...and for some odd reason it makes them look like a blue grey! and wow what a difference it makes!

 With both contacts in :)

 Click on any image to zoom in so you can see it EXTRA DETAILED! :)

OK so these are the "MEL (HONEY)" ones! Some websites will say Mel, some will say Honey. (just language difference)

O yeah and these ones are basically very fine yellow pixels, which make eyes look honey green!

Supersize CLOSEUP!

These are designed to last a year, each package comes with its own contact lens casing, and instructions. 

They are FAR FAR more natural looking than the cheapo ones I've bought before (AUD$30) which were only designed to last a month.....

Plus these are so much more comfortable than the cheapo ones too!

The only odd issue i had with this was...the surface curvature of the lens is slightly rounder than my own eyeball, so i did experience some air bubbles where the whole lens didnt stick to my eyeball entirely, but a few blinks got them out and they were absolutely fine :)

Compared to the cheap ones, i can see out of these alot clearer, the cheap ones just clouded my vision!

 (NOTE: i dont have any vision problems so these are for cosmetic purposes only)

I like these a lot...hopefully ill get time to wear them after i graduate....oh gawd only 4 weeks left *dies*

SWATCHES: OCC Liptar

Its about time i did some swatches on all the liptars i own!

Liptars are known to be the most intense lip colour on the market, made by Obsessive Compulsive Cosmetics. Its vegan friendly, and is made from a simple concoction of high intensity pigment and peppermint oils (check website for specifics).

The old ones came in 10ML tubes before they altered the packaging and now i think it only holds 8MLs, but still, they are so intense, a tiny bit goes a looong way, i cant imagine ever finishing one of them unless its used rigorously every day for professional makeup artistry.

Flavour: because it is made on a base of peppermint oil, it has a subdued peppermint underflavour, if that makes sense, it is not at all a spicy over-the-top in-your-face toothpaste kind of peppermint, but its very very pleasant and subtle aroma that i actually quite like!

Texture/Consistency/Application: It applies really creamily and smoothly, and OPAQUE!!! i cannot emphasize that enough. If you want colour, with Liptars, you got colour. It does however dry to a satin finish and may dry out your lips if you are proned to dryness and chaffing, so please exfoliate/moisturise before hand, or apply a balm or gloss over the top.

The amount of product needed to cover the whole of your lips is tiiiny, depending on how big your lips are, mine being an averagely-semi full size, i only need the amount of half a pea on my lip brush, or if the colour is being dry (ill explain this later in the section of 'the things i dont like') then maybe a pea size of product, but in between those two measurements!

YES Yes yes, you must use a lipbrush if you want application to be precise, unless you plan to jazz up an unpigmented lipgloss or lipstick by smearing a tiny bit over the top of another product with your finger, then thats a different story!

Price: USD$ 12.50 each,

since these products are not sold as 'one off' lipcolours, rather an array of colours that allows you to MIX any custom colour you prefer, it amounts to quite alot (as people would want to get all the colours to be able to mix)!

But the fact that its going to last you literally forever, its not too bad at all!

Things i Dont like: The good thing about not reviewing it as soon as i got it (which was like a year ago) is that over time there were negative things that could show up that i wouldnt have known as soon as i got it. 

• After a while the pigment and oil starts to separate and since its in a squeezy tube, its really hard to mix it back together, so sometimes i get very dry pigment with hardly any oil, and sometimes i get very sheer pigment with heaps of oil, so what i have to do is always turn them upside down (and vice versa) every time i remember, it improves it but still not that much though :( 

• It WILL LEAK if you try and bring it out with you (in your handbag etc). The packaging is not very tight/sturdy. Quite inconvenient in this matter.

• and for some reason my liptar Feathered (white) arrived leaking and it just gets everywhere, and i feel realy bad that product is being wasted is enough for approx 5+ applications, and the tube prety mch cost like $15 AUD.

• The colours are SO INTENSE that they do stain. You can even see in the swatches that the blue has gone abit green because of the previous yellow swatch.

ONTO THE PICTURES/SWATCHES!!!!

I use my lipbrush from The Body Shop to apply the product, i dont think you'll be able to get away with those crappy lipbrushes from bad makeup sets, you need a good one.

 My bare lips, primed with some foundation and set with powder

(3) Katricia photographs alot lighter than it is in real life, in real life it looks like a dark hubba bubba grape

that goes the same for (8)RX, it looks alot darker in real life and photographs alot lighter

(2) Safety orange looks red, but its just a really warm/hot orange

The (7) Traffic 'yellow' swatch is alot clearer here, it can be mixed with the (2) safety orange to make a more "orangey orange". 

Note that crazy colours like white, yellow, and blue are not meant to be used on their own (they can be if you're going for a haloween look) but they are usually for mixing colours, lightening colours, toning down colours, adding warmth, etc.

Plus it doesnt just limit to the crazy colours either, all of OCC liptars were made for mixing, so you can get what ever shade you would like!

For example, my sister has a barbie party coming up soon and I'll be giving her a hot barbie pink lip, which i would probaby mix 1, 5, and 6 (Anime, Hush, Conquest) OR 1, 5, and 9 (Anime, Hush, Feathered).

or if i really want to go bubble gum pink, i may consider mixing 1. Anime with 3. Katricia, or if im feeling daring, trying to mix it with a tiny bit of 8.RX, and ofcourse lighten it up with 9. or 6.

Overview of colours:

1. Anime - day glo neon pink (medium tone, extremely bright)

2.Safety Orange - ultra warm and red orange

3.Katricia - creamy lavender

4.Pretty Beige - pretty much my skin colour

5.Hush - very muted bridal pink

6.Conquest - like a cream colour, or a bone colour

7.Traffic - Warm yellow

8.RX - primary blue, darker in real life than photographed

9.Feathered - correction fluid white

I love 6. Conquest (even though its a beyond OMG concealer lips colour), it really reminds me of this Chocolate themed makeup that MakeUpStore did in one of their emagazines (top right hand picture). Whenever i look at Conqest liptar i now think of white chocolate!

hehe :)

Hope you guys liked it!

REVIEW: Eyeliners from Cherry Culture

So this will be a review about 3 of the 4 eyeliners i purchased from my previous haul from Cherry Culture. As you can see there is the two Amuse liners (at a bargain clearance $0.45) and the Jordana Quickliner (at also a bargain of $1.34). The fourth eyeliner that i have not reviewed is the LA Colours Auto liner ($2.25) because it was very well wrapped/sealed and i dont like to open products for no reason...i have plenty of already open/unfinished liners sitting around!

So these are the three I'll be showing you guys today...I made a mistake, the Jordana Quickliner Eyes is actualy in 'Cocoa' and NOT brown :P But you can see that the Amuse pencil liners are longer than the wind up crayon style of the Jordana one. I must admit I was really hoping that the Amuse liners would turn out well...although they were only $0.45, but if they didnt, well hey, thats what you paid for :P

I started out with the Amuse Black liner....and MY GOSH...IT WAS HORRIFIC! As you can see in the above picture, I tried to draw swatches on my hand with force, and it was just hard, and waxy, there was no "glide" in the application whatsoever, and worst of all, i could HARDLY SEE IT; pure dissapointment. 

BUT! It was not until i got to the second one, the Amuse Brown liner that i sighed in relief, this was much better, in pigment, and application. It was so much softer/less waxy!! it glided ALOT more than its black counterpart, and deposited alot more pigment. I guess it depends on the colour you buy :S odd.

The jordana quickliner eyes in "COCOA" (sorry for the mistake in the pic). This turned out to have the best formula out of the three, it was gorgeously smooth and glided over my skin with such ease...as you can see in the picture its alot shinier, or oiler (hence that gliding feeling) compared to the Amuse Brown liner which is abit drier and chunkier.  The only thing i would criticize about this one is the colour, its abit too much of a warm red/orange brown for me, I personally much rather prefer the dark brown presented by the Amuse Brown Liner.

This colour used wrongly may risk making me look bloodshot in the eyes (too much red) but if its used right, it can still help create a hot smouldering eye look!

a preview of me with Jordana Quickliner Cocoa - with no mascara