Beauty Product Reviews | Page 4

awesome product, but not all the shades are suited for what it does. do not purchase this product online.

i got this on St. Patrick's Day and it's Easter now, so i think i've had it long enough to review. YSL must be employing some really awesome scientists at their R&D labs. :3

but i'm a little dissapointed that it's a bit sticky (instead of sleek and water-like like Dior's lip stuff). it's kind of like the stickiness that i get from my NYX SoHo Glam Collection's lip colors--which i love. the staying power makes it worth €27. the staying power is almost scary, i needed to use eye & lip make-up remover--which i've only ever used for mascara before this. but i do trust that this won't be any more dangerous than getting your lips orange from eating popsicles. because it's very pigmented and you can't just wipe it off you if get too much on, so i use it sparingly. i actually just dot my lips with the lip of the applicator and smudge, that's the only way to get a natural look.

oh, and this smells like a mix of raspberries and lemons! it's... an interesting scent. it's not bad, just a bit... "interesting". 0_o

another thing is: i got the #15 one (Rose Vinyl) which is an awesome shade. i don't regret getting it at all. BUT! the product is meant to be used as anything from a stain, lipstick, to lip gloss. but i think #15 only works best as a lip stain after smacking a full layer off some Kleenex (it's a very natural/fleshy pink as a stain). i attached a photo of what it looks like as a stain. my zero photography skills and i tried our best to play with lighting to take an accurate picture of the shade (i apologize for the exaggerated nostrils, i blame the lens). it does look like a dusty-pale pink with gray undertones on the applicator and in the bottle, but its true color comes out after you press your lips together.

as a gloss it's terrible. after a couple of layers, you end up with a rather milky/creamy gloss, which is super icky-looking. TBH, i don't mind at all because i just wanted a stain/a more subtle look anyway. i'm just saying this in case anyone wants to buy #15 as a gloss (and not a stain). i'm not saying it doesn't do what it claims it does, but some colors aren't suited for doing everything it claims it does--which it does (i think colors like #7 or #11 would work in as all three). even as a stain, it's still a bold color that's good for the evening.

also, DO NOT purchase online! you NEED to walk into a department store and swatch them. for instance, i tried out the #12 which looks very pretty on the brochure YSL dropped me and online (official YSL material and blog reviews alike). it was supposed to be a "coral", but it left a light tangerine stain on my hand, it's darker than i thought, and there's nothing pink/coral about it.

will not be purchasing the full-size version, very rich, not very moisturizing/helpful...

i wanted to move on from regular moisturizing eye cream to an anti-ageing eye cream. so i got samples of this along with Orlane Anagenèse 25+ First Time Fighting Care Eye Contour. i tried the Orlane Anagenèse 25+ one first and was pretty impressed that my dark circles went away.

the "Eye Balm" is precisely what it says it is, it's a balm. it's very rich, even richer than The Body Shop's Wise Woman Eye Cream. but unfortunately, it doesn't absorb as well. instead, it just kind of dries off on your undereyes, it actually reminds me of Elmer's glue. i mean it's okay when Clinique Acne Solutions Clearing Moisturizer does that because it's an oil-control/anti-acne product, but if a product does that on your eye area, that's just bad for ageing, right? instead of hydrating my eye area, it kind of made it tight and dry. and i'm upset that the dark circles Orlane Anagenèse 25+ got rid of are back now. :(

also, because it's so thick, you end up using a huge gunk of it, which is pretty wasteful. the 1ml sample only lasted 2 days (4x uses) whereas the Orlane sample (2ml) lasted a good 19+ days (2x daily). a little goes a LONG way with the latter. i'm also thinking that, like the The Body Shop's eye creams, this also is a "band-aid" product that fills in lines, but doesn't really have any active ingredients for my "preemptive strike" against ageing (unlike YSL and Orlane).

i don't hate L'Occitane. in fact i LOVE their solid perfumes: best travel items ever (with European TSA's silly liquid rules and all). but this is their first skin care product i tried out and i'm really unhappy with it and i will not purchase the full-sized pot. sorry. :(

Pearl #472 (Bohemian Rose)

i love it! i bought it because i had a try at the counter (they're super friendly at the counter) and i love the way it feels on my lips. all slippery and not sticky and it doesn't dry my lips. the color is also very pretty! the make-up artists at the counter suggested it and i love it. i came back to get one after. it also has the sweetest light rosy-tea (and maybe grapefruit) scent ever! it's sort of faded off (i think i bought this in August 2011 and it's March 2012 now) but i can still smell it. :3

my only complaints are: the brush is too big and it picks up too much product for me (and my lips aren't even tiny) and i could do without the glitter bomb. sometimes my lips will look like a disco ball, which is kind of annoying, but i can live with it because it's such a pretty color.

the truth is, i was just discovering make-up at charm school and i didn't know what i wanted at the time, this wasn't even on my wishlist. and i would never have considered Dior. so this was an unplanned purchase. but i had Chinese New Year gift cards, so why not? zero buyer's remorse. i've never owned anything from Dior before this (although Miss Dior Cherie is on my wishlist and i love their Sofia Coppola ads) so i didn't know what to expect. but i've come to a point of trusting them so much that i purchased Dior Addict Lip Glow from Sephora ONLINE without ever test-driving first. thankfully, i wasn't disappointed either. J'adore Dior. :)

covers my pimples and dark spots from acne well, sometimes it smudges off when i use blotting film/paper if i'm not careful...

i've been using this for those hyperpigmented spots you get from acne (because they take a while to dissapear) and it's not bad. i like that it's not like cake icing at all and it doesn't show, because i typically don't wear any foundation/make-up. it's okay. i think i'll try another brand next time. i just ordered a 3 dollar concealer from ELF (it comes in 4 shades in case you get tanned/paler too) and i'll see how that works out. if it's not as good as Anna Sui's one, i might get this one again. sometimes it smudges off when i use blotting film/paper if i'm not careful... :(

also, it happens to be the perfect shade. can you even see that i put some on my hand on the photo i attached? i can't even remember how many shades there were, because i got it with my little Anna Sui Mini Rouge in around 2008-ish. the make-up artist at the counter just tried this on me and worked fine so i bought it. :)

awesome, but i also still use alternative brands...

i love this blotting film. so ALWAYS have these things in my purse (or another film brand that's manufactured by a Japanese pharmaceutical company called Rohto-methol-something's acne-care line and it does the exact same thing except they come in minty-turquoise and i like that color better). also... because this is affordable but IMHO not reasonably-priced, i only have this in my purse for going out when i don't want to smudge powder (that's translucent anyway), but i have cheaper type of blotting paper that's made of rice paper that i use at home. so i'd say i DO love it and it does a great job, but it still isn't special/different enough that i'd exclusively stick with Johnson & Johnson or always use it non-stop.

PLUS: the rice paper ones are more environmentally-friendly.

very pigmented, #400 good for natural-looking lips-stain, smells nice, but dries my lips real bad

i got this in #400 (bright red). i didn't know what "stained lips" were at the time (it was about 2008 or something) and i used it for lip-staining, by smudging it with cherry Chapstick. because i liked the way it made me look like i was barely wearing any make-up. :)

this smells wonderful and also fits nicely in small purses and coin purses, but i hate how it dries my lips (even with Chapstick on). it like, sucked the life out of me like a Dementor's Kiss, okay? not cool. :|

makes my skin feel velvety and nice, my oily-combination skin loves it, doesn't clog pores, smells nice, but too pricey!

a lady at the Biotherm counter at the department store gave me 5ml tube a while back, but i've only started trying it out now (because i wasn't too excited about it). i suddenly remembered about it after reading this article here: <a class='textlink' href='http://www.beautylish.com/a/vcycr/moisture-101' rel='nofollow noopener' target='_blank'>http://www.beautylish.com/a/vcycr/m...</a>. and i dug it out to try it. it came in the cutest teeny-tiny Tiffany's blue tube ever (it's so cute, i can't bring myself to throw it out, LOL). so, i just tried it out and it made my skin feel really velvety and soft. love, love, LOOOOOVE!!!! it also didn't make my skin greasy or make my acne worst. it also has the nicest, freshest smell ever. :3

i really want to give this a 5, but it's so expensive. AND it doesn't even have any SPF in it. when i realized this, i was really dissapointed--because if it had SPF in it, i would have saved up to buy a full-sized version of it (i mean seriously, what's the point? putting sunblock on top of this would spoil it anyway). :(

so i'm giving it a 4+ instead. but i'm still glad i got that sample, though, because i might just buy something from Biotherm someday (i wasn't really that aware of them before).

it works, and i'm going to buy some more and until i can stop using mascara!

my main goal is to have skin and features so flawless and naturally beautiful that i will need very little make-up and be able to leave the house with ONLY moisturizer + SPF, lip gloss, and eye cream and this helps. the results started to show by the third week of using this twice a day (after morning shower and before bed after washing face + brushing my teeth).

now i have twice as many lashes as i used to on my upper-eyelid and now my lower-lashes have doubled to the amount of lashes i used to have on my upper-eyelid. it's pretty impressive.

it hasn't actually made me grow NEW lashes, but it has kept them on for longer periods of time and less lashes fall everyday (sometimes none falls out when i'm cleaning my mascara off--but then again i use a gentle oil-based remover). it HAS made my lashes longer, though. like i was at the department store the other day and the shop assistant at the MaxFactor counter actually said that i don't need the type of mascara they have for lengthening lashes because "your lashes are long enough already", instead she recommended the type they have for keeping my lashes from clumping together (because i told her i'm really bad at putting on mascara). i was so pleased! :3

also, it means that i get to stop wearing mascara (when i wear mascara, sometimes my lashes crash into my glasses, not all of my glasses just one of them, but they're my most comfortable pair). i'm half-way through my second bottle already and i think i'll get another 4 bottles for the entire year. i hope L'Oreal doesn't discontinue this! :)