Beauty Product Reviews
Workday staple for eye transition
I use this as a very large transition shade eye brush for hooded crepey eyes on workdays when I’m in a rush to get something on. Fantastic. I use it to sweep skintone shadow from above my inner eye, all the way up to the eyebrow, then across to the outer end of the eyebrow above the crease zone. As usual, the shape Sonia has chosen is so versatile that I have also grabbed for it for targeted highlighter on cheekbones.
I also own a bunch of Crease Two’s which I highly recommend as a hooded eye crease brush that gets the job done in a couple of sweeps, and the Crease One to place a darker and narrower crease shade on top for increased definition.
Great colour selection
This set was a good intro to Jouer’s longwear lip range. I have light-fair neutral skin and all but one of the colours work on me (the greyest shade didn’t work on me). Really love quite a lot of the colours.
I found the formula pretty standard in comparison to other longwear lip paint formulas I have tried - a bit drying, a bit like acrylic paint in texture when dried, but very longwearing as a result. No lipliner needed with these, which is handy on the go.
Great colour selection
This set was a good intro to Jouer’s longwear lip range. I have light-fair neutral skin and all but one of the colours work on me (the greyest shade didn’t work on me). Really love quite a lot of the colours.
I found the formula pretty standard in comparison to other longwear lip paint formulas I have tried - a bit drying, a bit like acrylic paint in texture when dried, but very longwearing as a result. No lipliner needed with these, which is handy on the go.
Great stuff for winter dehydrated skin
This is a fabulous waxy-oil-feeling semi-solid cleanser that really does melt makeup off on contact. It’s SO quick.
I love using it when my skin is dehydrated, my foundation that day is one of those oil-absorbing matte ones that seems to have permanently adhered to my skin, or I have eye sensitivities to a new shadow. I usually use Neutrogena face wipes to do my first (and sometimes only) makeup removal but this Farmacy cleanser is more thorough and much gentler for my skin. Depending on my skin’s condition and time available, I often use a Neutrogena wipe to wipe off the Farmacy cleanser, rinse out the wipe thoroughly with warm water (yes, it survives) then use it as a face cloth to remove the remaining residue a few times.
This product does leave some sort of non-irritating residue - perhaps oils my skin needed(?) - because my skin is softer after this method than just with wipes. I can’t physically feel the residue with my fingers. I notice it seems to condition my lashes.
I also like using this cleanser in the morning if my skin is dehydrated or sensitive. I put it on before I step into the shower and follow it with my usual Shiseido foaming cleanser.
I originally received a sample pot from Beautylish but originally wasn’t keen on the small amount of residue it left (must have been summer!) so parked half the tiny jar in my stash. Roll around winter with dehydration... I couldn’t get it out again fast enough! It’s awesome whenever I make time for a double-cleanse... which I’m doing much more often now.
Great travel size - large
I’m late to the Z-Palette party but wanted to set up my shadows (usually kept in colour families in heavy and robust Adept palettes) for everyday use in something light enough I could grab for travel as well.
I’ve now set up some of my shadows in these Z-Palettes so I can run from left to right in each ‘row’ in the palette for a cohesive look. I don’t need to think twice about it. It’s set up for a woman in a hurry. I also colour coordinated each batch with the palette outer - again for speed.
As much as I love being creative, I was finding I was faced with indecision many mornings, taking too long to decide on a day’s look. I can still do that, but now I have the fast option too.
I love my plastic Adept palettes for heavy-duty storage, but they are expensive to ship to Australia so thought I would try out Z-Palette, as Beautylish offers a no-cost shipping option. Glad I did because the large size fits easily in my travel beauty cases. I also love having the external colour options because it makes the morning selection much easier.
(I’ll be posting the same review under each colour palette I bought here.)
Great for travel
I’m late to the Z-Palette party but wanted to set up my shadows (usually kept in colour families in heavy and robust Adept palettes) for everyday use in something light enough I could grab for travel as well.
I’ve now set up some of my shadows in these Z-Palettes so I can run from left to right in each ‘row’ in the palette for a cohesive look. I don’t need to think twice about it. It’s set up for a woman in a hurry. I also colour coordinated each batch with the palette outer - again for speed.
As much as I love being creative, I was finding I was faced with indecision many mornings, taking too long to decide on a day’s look. I can still do that, but now I have the fast option too.
I love my plastic Adept palettes for heavy-duty storage, but they are expensive to ship to Australia so thought I would try out Z-Palette, as Beautylish offers a no-cost shipping option. Glad I did because the large size fits easily in my travel beauty cases. I also love having the external colour options because it makes the morning selection much easier.
(I’ll be posting the same review under each colour palette I bought here.)
Functional for travel
I’m late to the Z-Palette party but wanted to set up my shadows (usually kept in colour families in heavy and robust Adept palettes) for everyday use in something light enough I could grab for travel as well.
I’ve now set up some of my shadows in these Z-Palettes so I can run from left to right in each ‘row’ in the palette for a cohesive look. I don’t need to think twice about it. It’s set up for a woman in a hurry. I also colour coordinated each batch with the palette outer - again for speed.
As much as I love being creative, I was finding I was faced with indecision many mornings, taking too long to decide on a day’s look. I can still do that, but now I have the fast option too.
I love my plastic Adept palettes for heavy-duty storage, but they are expensive to ship to Australia so thought I would try out Z-Palette, as Beautylish offers a no-cost shipping option. Glad I did because the large size fits easily in my travel beauty cases. I also love having the external colour options because it makes the morning selection much easier.
(I’ll be posting the same review under each colour palette I bought here.)
Loooove it
Pic: Chikuhodo T-1, Sonia G Inochige Pro, RMK Cheek, Chikuhodo MK-MO. (All washed, all currently in use except MK-MO, hence the powder on the Inochige. It shows you their ‘real’ state and fluffiness.)
Yet another Sonia G brush I love. This is my daily workhorse for loose setting powder (Hourglass in that annoying golden curved container lol... this is perfect for getting powder off the black lid). I love it more than my Chikuhodo T1 because it is softer and tapered just beautifully.
The flatter-looking part of the tapered surface supports packing on powder/baking, while the flexibility of the tip helps with easy access around the nose and hairline without getting powder through your hair.
The altering density from the middle to tip means you get this amazing flexibility and lightness toward the tip allowing for delicate and light application, while still having the power of a soft but mid-density-feeling brush to swirl around in circles in a more traditional buffing technique. I didn’t think it could do that - it did. It thought buffing would feel weird on my skin with this shaped head, it wasn’t, because she has somehow balanced it so that it works and can act as a small buffer or a larger buffer.
She is so incredibly clever to balance the hair type, size, length, and density so that it became a multi-functional brush from packing on, to gently buffing, to a delicate, light, targeted, application.
I find it too large to powder under my eyes but use it for that when I’m in a hurry. It did have a goat smell on arrival but that has disappeared - it’s now a month since I purchased it. This is the first brush (I have 20+ of her brushes) that has ever had that odour.
I was one of the people who begged Beautylish to bring in singles of the pro face set when it was released because I really wanted to try this brush. I had been haunting the website daily for months lol! Thank you Beautylish and Sonia G for making it possible!
Underwhelmed; everyday-type product
I love (as in, adore) Viseart shadows and have several 12 pan palettes and the Grande Pro. This is my first venture into their theory face palettes and I am very underwhelmed. I had a mental expectation of pigmentation something along the lines of Kevyn Aucoin’s Capri, or Viseart Shadows. Alas, no. The payoff is... far subtler than I prefer. I like pigmented because it equates to fast when you have the right tools (Sonia G, thanks!).
I have fair neutral colouring and found the bronzer a bit too warm for my preference. The blush was a muted tone, and the highlighter is relatively subtle. So, a good everyday set I could probably put on without looking in a mirror; but nothing that wowed me at all.
I dislike the packaging this comes in and immediately transferred it out into a little Make Up Forever XL magnetic palette, which is so much easier to use than the whole flip and fold sequence in this Theory packaging. The packaging has actually put me off buying any of the Theory eye shadow palettes. I do, however, like the fact the shadows are easy to remove - that’s a total plus for this packaging.
The packaging also didn’t prevent one of the shadows being fractured slightly before arrival. (The Beautylish Package was perfectly intact and utterly gorgeous as usual, so the fracture is much more likely to have come from being dropped at some point earlier in its life.) The packaging also attracts the shadow particles and looks messy very quickly.
So, overall, wish I’d put the money towards another Kevyn Aucoin face product.
Great for drying, not so sure about travel
I bought these as I like to take as many brushes as I can with me when I travel. These guards work great for drying, however naturally tend to have a few hairs poke through when travelling. So, still on the hunt for travel-friendly guards.
I do wish there were wider ones (there may be?) for fan brushes. I put my Sonia G Sculpt One brush in the widest guard in this pack and wish I hadn’t. It’s fine, but now the fan has dried narrower until I wash it again. It works great on standard-shaped brushes.