Bad, Better, Best

The search for a usable, inexpensive and pretty color brown eye pencil continues... it's just one of those things that since I noticed I'm lacking, I just couldn't live without.

My first attempt was very bad, it was WNW double sided automatic pencil, which was not pigmented, flakey, and creased a lot, then broke after I used it twice.
Price: $4

Second attempt was much better, a light golden brown that came as a part of a 5 pencils set from e.l.f. They are all quite shimmery, and could be a little more pigmented, but overall, it's pretty great. The shimmer doesn't show so much on my eyes, and the result is pretty casual, perfect for day time make up.
My main problem with it, is that I don't like eye pencils that needs to be sharpen, I always manage to drop them, and then unable to sharpen them without breaking the tip. I do like it that each pencil comes with a sharpener on the cap.

Price: $5 for the set (I got it for $2.5 because of e.l.f spring sale)

I could totally stick to the e.l.f pencil, but a walk through CVS and a very pretty display of Physician's Formula got me to by a set of 3 automatic pencils for brown eyes. BINGO! those are everything I wanted them to be! soft and opaque, easy to apply without mess. The black is very nice, the purple is OK but not pigmented enough, but the brown is absolutely amazing. Dark rich color, and stay on all day.
It's a little strange, since the company market those under "shimmer stripe" but on me, they all look matte.

I liked those so much I already got a second set. Now I want ll of them.

I wish they sold them separately, because each set has one black pencil and I don't need so many blacks, but considering that 3 pencils costs a little over half of one pencil from Urban Decay, maybe it's not the end of the world.

Be Pretty Box from Vita Cost

I think I've mentioned before how ambivalent I am about beauty boxes. On one end, the idea of getting a box full of surprises, as well as scoring expensive stuff for cheap sounds extremely appealing. On the other end, almost every time, I real a blog that covers one of those boxes, I'm disappointed - it just never seem to be worth the money and expectation.

And so, the compromise that I found with this is going for a box from a supplier that I already had good experience with. It started with Julep Maven, a box of great nail polish and beauty products which is all from the same company, than I got the pretty wonderful coastal Scents mystery box was was also really nice (especially, since one of the eye shadows became my favorite blush in the past week).

And now, I got the Vita Cost "Be Pretty" box. I order t mostly because Vita Cost have my favorite toothpaste at 2/3 of the price and I had to order that anyway.

For $14 including shipping, I got a not very sturdy cardboard box that felt very heavy. I was very curious to see what's inside, since it felt quite full.

And this is what was inside:

2 little bottles of Kiss my Face liquid soap. not too exciting, though I do like this company, especially their sun block. At any other time I'de be disappointed, but I'm going on vacation in a couple of weeks, and so, this is just perfect. I'm very pleased.

A full side bottle is $7 on Vita Cost for 17oz. so this is about 2$ worth of soap.

4 little saches of eye serum and face serum by Desert essence. I've never used this, but I do like this company, so I'm happy to give it a shot. 

Coral active moisturizer for acne prone skin. Never heard about this company before, but it sounds good, I do suffer from acne and always looking for that one product that will actually do something.
This is priced at $13, which is pretty cool since this was the price of the whole box + shipping.

Deep Steep moisturizing stick. I'm not quite sure if this is a lip balm or what, but the packaging is really cute. I like everything passion fruite and though I have more then 20 open lip balm at the moment, I'm always happy to try a new one. 

Price: $3

2 small unscented soaps by Out of Africa, again, a company I never heard about, and again something I wouldn't usually be too happy about, if it weren't for my upcoming vacation. those would be perfect for that. 

A full size of this soap is $3, so thought 2 minis are about 1$ each. 

Eye Gelee by Reviva Labs. I adore this company, I only tried their Glycolic acid peel and it's one of the more effective facial treatments I've ever used. I'm so excited to try another product by them. the bottle say "use in the morning" but I just tried this in the evening after a long day of sitting infront of computer screens and found it really soothing and refreshing. For me, this is the highlight of this box.

Price is $6.5

Last is some color! Yay! Lip plumping lip gloss is a really beautiful color! at least in the tube, I haven't tried it yet. It's nice to get some makeup after all the skin care and soap. And I'm glad they went for a color that's really pretty and doesn't feel like a chance to get rid of all the lavender brown horrible gloss no one wanted. 

Price is $5

Over all, I'm really excited to get this package. The total value is about $28 or maybe a little more. All of the products are totally new to me. I can see how for someone this can be disappointing, but since I needed a bunch of travel size products and I'm super happy about any acne products and any Reviva Lab products, I feel like this box was made for me.

I don't know if I get this every single month, but I'm excited and curious to see what's in the next one. 

Spring Fever

Remember my rules for the shopping diet? I forgot to mention one rule which is sort of silly and personal, and I've been keeping it for so long I forgot to mention it.

I really don't like it when my husband smokes, for a million reasons. He stopped a few years back, but when he's stressed or when we have a big shoot, he'll ask me to go get him a pack. One of the many reason I hate this (aside of the obvious health reasons and the fact that it's stinking our home) is that it's such a tupid waste of money. So, in order to not get too annoyed I made up a rule which goes - if he spend $12.5 on a pack of cigarettes, I spend $12.5 on something silly and unnecessary.

And so, between being sick and not spending my beauty allowance and a pack of cigarettes my husband got for a shoot a couple of weeks back, I suddenly had $25 to spend.

I've been sick for almost 2 weeks now, and it sucks. Also, being that I'm mostly home in bed I didn't get to wear a lot of make up, or feel like I need anything in particular. However when E.L.F spring break sale it was just too good to pass.

So, this is what I got:
1) Mineral Foundation + brush - haven't tried this one yet, I do have one of E.L.F mineral foundation in a color that's great for summer but doesn't work for me now, and I love it.

2) 3 pieces mineral eyeshadow set - really pretty natural tones.

3) Zit Zapper & Concealer - Haven't tried this one either, I like my other E.L.F concealer and though I've never seem to have any luck with those zits products, I'll give it a shot.

4) 5 eye pencils set. Actually the main reason for the whole order, Since my failed attempt at colorful eye pencils, I've been wanting to find and inexpensive alternative. I've tried the teal and the black, and though not as vivid as I might wish for, they glide really nicely, and very easy to use.

5) BlackBook EyeShadow set - I got it, cause the packaging is really cute. Yes, I admit it, it's pretty shitty, not very pigmanted palette. As with most cheap palettes, shimmer shadows seem better then matte. It's quite usable, and the colors are pretty, but nothing special or wonderful.

6) Natural palette, Haven't tried it yet, but that shadow seem to be slightly better then the BlackBook.

The special sale was half off everything in the spring collection. E.L.F is already super affordable, and the spring collection is already a little extra cheap, and so at 50%, the prices were really ridiculous. 

Natural palette was $3, Mineral Foundation and brush were $2.5, 3 mineral eyeshadows were $2.5, BlackBook was $3, concealer and zit zapper was $1.5 and pencils were $5.

With tax and shipping I paid for this giant care package to myself $24.17

As usual with E.L.F - some products are magical and some are crappy, but when it's that cheap, it's always fun to discover new cool things. Honestly, if the only great discovery from this spree will be the color pencils, I'm totalyl satisfied. 

Special Delivery!

When I made the rules for my shopping diet I decided that I could get Julep Maven box if it's really spectacular, and it pretty much was. I love bright colors, and I picked the one I liked and was all happy about it. A couple of hours later I realized that each month I get any combo that has a teal or blue and some type of orange in it and that I have a bunch of teals and oranges I haven't even opened yet.

I canceled it, and then Coastal Scents relaunched their mystery box and I decided that since I didn't get Maven Box, I can get this one instead.

I ordered it about a week ago, and then got sick and the box got here today, just as I was trying to feel a little better, to cheer me up in my miserable snotty condition. 

And how can one's not be cheered up by getting anything in the mail that comes in a bright magenta box?!

In the box was... a smaller box, also pink, a bumper sticker and a cute little mini eyeshadow samplers, with 4 mini shadows is New Penny (bronze) Vanilla Sky (cream) Aurora (orange) and Deep Forest (dark matte brown). 

So what was inside the mystery box?!

Nice looking tissue paper 

A really nice collection of brushes

A flat shadow brush, a small pencil brush (I'm especially excited about this one), a slanted brow\liner brash, a large powder brush, very soft and lovely, a sponge applicator (I don't like those at all, and probably will not use it) and a hash comb \ brow brush.

I'm sure the 1st 4 will be used quite a bit. So as far as I'm concern - big success. 

Coastal Scents makeup remover. I've used it in the past, it's nothing fancy or extra special, but it does a decent job at removing makeup (both face and eyes) It's not the best cleanser I've ever used, but still, totally usable.

Bronzer in "Dark", I've never used bronzer before. I think I belong to the school of beauty that think that the paler the better. Plus, with my long face, shading is not something I can work to my advantage. I'm not sure what I'll do with this. The color is quite pretty, so for me this might just be the world's largest eyeshadow. 

4 Coastal Scents Hot Pots in Powder pink (which looks more white to me), Aqua (beautiful matte light teal), Petal Peach (pretty neat, but not really my kind of color) and Sterling (a nice dark silver). Non of those are colors I would choose for myself, but I really like the pink and the aqua and sure the silver will come in handy. 

2 loose eyeshadow, a little sample of am amazing dark metallic purple and a full size doe tail, I couldn't find this color of their site, which I think means it's either discontinued or had a change of name. at any rate, it's a pretty intense shimmery dusty golden rose which is perfect.  

Lip pencil in mauve, not my favorite color, but since it's not extremely pigmented, I think I can use it under any pink lipstick, which is great.

Double ended shadow pencil in Peach De Jour, which surprisingly enough, isn't peachy at all, but what looks like bronze on one side and white on the other. This might just be just what the DR. order to recover from the WNW double shadow pencil disappointment...

I know that Coastal Scents is not exactly top shelf, but overall, I like their products. The purpose of this buy was to get myself a nice fun surprise and as far as that goes, I'm very happy with all the fun stuff I got. I'm especially excited about the pencil brush, the little brown and bronze shadows, the full size aqua and the loose Doe Tail shadow. If the double edge pencil turns out good, it might be the best part about this buy.

The boxes are out of stock (again) but if and when they come back, I'm totally getting another one. 

You give love a bad name

My shopping diet, rather then shopping starvation in working amazingly well, this is week 4 and not only I havent strayed from the rules, I also feel like I'm indulging myself a lot more then before. The idea of having money, even a little of it, to spend solely on cheering myself up is so exciting, I find myself walking into stores, wondering around and leaving content without doing any shopping.

The first week of this was so intense I actually bought nothing. The second week, I almost didn't get anything either, but then I had 2 meetings in a row, that proved beyond a doubt that my makeup collection is lacking in one particularly area - non-black eye pencil.

One of the nicest advantages of working in fashion is that basically - there are no rules (unless you are wearing crocs) and so, usually I have no problem with heavy black liner and red lipstick for a 9:00 AM meeting. However, when I was trying to make myself presentable for a meeting with a techi and then a meeting with a TV producer, I didn't feel it was right to let loose on the drama.

And so, natural shadow and... I desperately wanted a brown or taupe liner. And so I found myself at Duane Reade again, looking through too many options, somehow leaving with 2 WNW Perfect Pair Eye Wand - a double sided pencil on one side and wider shadow stick on the other. One in bronze and taupe and one is 2 shades of blue.

Sadly, the only nice thing I can say about those is that they are 3.99 each. A nice price for 2 products that can, theoretically, create a whole eye look. However, the one I tried (bronze and Taupe are incredibly frosty (ad not in a nice way), very unimpressive pigmentation and crease after a few hours. Also, on my second use, the tip of the narrow side broke, and the shadow end just fell out!

You know how some people are real snobs when it comes to products? I think a lot of this snobbish attitude comes from trying a first product from a company, then ruling everything else out because that one experience was bad. If this would have been my first WNW buy, I'de probably avoid this company from now on.

3 (sort of) new lipsticks

My favorite makeup to buy is lipstick. 

Which is a little funny because really all I want is very red lips. Oh, and for the lipstick to not dry my lips, and that it won't get on my teeth, or fade in an ugly way, and preferably would last for many hours without me having to redo it, and Matte, that's important, but the kind of matte that doesn't make the wrinkles in my lips show, and no feathering.

Well, I guess it's not such a big surprise that I keep buying lipstick, it's not so much that I want verity  but that I'm searching for that one lipstick that will do everything. Hoping to one day stumble upon it and then never buy another lipstick again (ya, Right)

e.l.f Mineral Lipstick in Cheerful Cherry 

Here are a couple of new purchases, or sort of new, the e.l.f lipstick is actually about a year old, however, at the time I didn't like it, so I shoved it in the bottom of a make up bag and forgot all about it, until a big make up cleaning a few weeks back.

And I'm so glad I did! I can't remember why I didn't like it. What's not to like in a dark berry red semi sheer and incredibly moisturizing lipstick?! maybe the name fooled me, you would expect "Cheerful Cherry" to be a light pinkish red. I guess this is more of the black cherry kind of cherries. 

What's really amazing about this lipstick is it's build-ability. I can get a light light almost natural looking coat or, add 3-4 layers for an almost opaque cover.

Also, as all e.l.f products, the price tag alone is enough to make anyone happy. at full price this is $5, but as e.l.f are known for their special sales, I got it at a 50% off mineral makeup for $2.5. 

If you are going to buy this online, do yourself a favor and look for bloggers' swatches, the colors on the site are apparently very inaccurate. 

Revlon ColorStay Ultimate Suede in Cruise Collection

For obvious reasons I assumed that "ultimate suede" means super matte. I mean, if patented leather is glossy, and regular leather is regular lipstick, then suede has to be matte, right?

Wrong! When you apply this, it has quite a bit of shimmer in it. It dries really different then it looks when it's wet, sort of more opaque and more matte but with some shimmer remaining. The color does look a bit lighter on my lips then in the tube, which is a shame cause before it dries it's a perfect coral.

Ultimate Suede does have a nice staying power, however, it seem to not so much fade, as flake off in a very unattractive manner.

I used it a couple of time, and not sure why. Maybe I'm trying to like it, or maybe it's because it's just so different. I would like to dry a darker shade of this, maybe Couture Or Trendsetter but at $10.5, I think it's too much of a bet for a product I already have a pretty bad opinion about. 

Maybelline ColorSenational Vivid in Vibrant Mandarin

I love Vivid just as much as I didn't like Suede. If Suede manage to take 2 types of lipstick, regular cream and long wearing,and combine them into the worse of both, Vivid takes to type of lipstick (moisturizing stain and regular cream) and bring out the best in both.

It's as moisturizing and easy to apply as a tinted balm but with lots of beautiful neonlike pigment. The coat is half sheer, it's not a matte or opaque lipstick, but the color is so vibrant it really pops. It's not very  long wearing but when it fades there's a nice vibrant stain left. It still looked good after 3 hours and 2 cups of coffee, but after lunch it faded completely.

This is a really wonderful product, and at $7.5 I would be happy to own every single shades in this series. 

Some thought about Shopping

I started the finish 10 product before I buy something new at the end of December, when a combination of Black Friday Sales, Pre Christmas Sale and the beginning of Good Ol' winter depression took their tole and I just felt I was getting out of control with spending money on make up.

The project was a big failure, because I didn't stop shopping, not for a second. However, I did learn a lot about my shopping habits, pitfalls and how to do a shopping diet in a better way.

1) Finishing 10 products was a way way too large of a goal. It's lik saying "I'm not going to eat any cake till I loose 40 pounds" I think that the right way to do this is to set a time limit rather then a product limit (like a month or a week).

2) However, documenting finished product is great, not only cause it get me to review if I actually liked something or if it was just excitement of getting something new. Also, it got me to enjoy using products more rather then enjoying (just) the act of shopping.

3) I have a big issue about buying expensive products, while no problem what so ever with spending lots of money for many cheap products. This is something I need to pay more attention to. Right after I started the project I manage to order 11 different China Glaze nail polish bottles, The price was about 4$ per bottle, which was a great price. However spending 50$ on nail polish is a lot, and that money could have been used more wisely.

4) I finished more then 10 products, there were actually 18. However, out of those, only 2 were makeup, the rest was skincare. So, though buying makeup is a lot more fun, I guess this means most of my cosmetic budget should go on skincare.

5) Sales would be the death of me! I can go from not wanting anything to wanting 2 things in a minute, if the second is 50% off. If anything is 50% off I want it right away, no matter what it is. I have to stop getting stuff just because it's on Sale. There will always be another Sale.

6) Same goes with online shopping! I have a hard time spending more then $10 on emotional drugstore shopping sprees to cheer myself up, but spending $40 online (or even worse, $50 so I can get free shipping...) is much much easier.

7) Same with all type of Add-Ons! yes, I'm talking mostly about you Julep... $20 feels like a fair amount of money to spend on nail polish per month, in the shape of an awesome Julep box, however, they keep having sales, secret stores, adds on etc. And Spending another $10, $20, $30 is way too easy and somehow doesn't register with me as a real expense. 

8) There's nothing wrong with emotional shopping. If it's done with awareness and a set budget. Buyers remorse is the stupidest thing to feel. Getting a $10 lipstick to cheer myself up is healthier then a pint of ice ream, Cheaper then going out to dinner and a lot less self destructive then 4 glasses of Whiskey. 

9) I need to learn how to tell the difference between: Need, Want and Feel like shopping. those are 3 totally different urges that can be satisfied with totally different methods of shopping. If I either want or need something, there's usually no need to lay full price for it. I can either order online or wait til there's a sale or something. Feel like shopping is a craving that can totally be satisfied with $5 and a trip to Duane Reade, where I'll buy something that is full price but very inexpensive. Need and Want items can and should be grouped together for one big online order from a less expensive supplier or free shipping on larger orders. 

10) Having a list is good. Not a shopping list, but a wish list. First of all because making it is almost as satisfying as shopping and second because it makes even random emotional sprees a little more effective and a lot less randome. It's also totally OK to dump the list and buy something totally useless and strange, as long as it is within budget.

11) And last - This is not such a huge deal (at least for me), yes, I enjoy shopping, and yes,  do spend money on stuff I don't really need and stuff I'll only use once or twice and stuff that's a total dupe of something I already have. However, I'm not spending a staggering amount of money on this. It's OK to spend some money on stuff for me even if it's silly stuff. 

So, what next?

A second shopping challenge. hopefully this would work better then the first. 

Combining everything I learned those is my new rules:

I'm setting a budget of $10 for buying something every week, this would cover emotional cheer up buys. If I have to go a little over that's OK, lets say up to $15, but I am going to try and cap it at $10.

I can save a week's budget to spend $20 the next week, but I can't spend $20 and say I won't shop the week after. 

Being that I also have a lot of new unopened products or stuff I used once and then just forgot about it. I'll open \ use something new or almost new every week. This will help with not feeing like I'm stuck in a rut and bored from all the stuff I already use.

I can order next months Julep Maven Box if it's absolutely spectacular, but no add ons.

Stuff I really need like Nail polish remover or cotton balls are OK to buy, but only if I don't have any left.

I'm going to try this for 6 weeks and if I manage to keep it up, I'm going to reward myself with something I really really want.