All posts filed under: First Impressions

Quickie: Mattify Your Lipsticks with MAKE by We See Beauty

I wasn’t planning on talking about this just yet but when something great compels you, you tell the world about it. By ‘world,’ I mean my readership. Heh. Anyway, matte lipsticks… are kind of a tricky subject, I feel. I personally love matte lips, but a lot of people have said that they can be drying etc. Sometimes, I’ll even find a color I like that would be perfect, save for the glossy shininess. Anyway, I was looking at We See Beauty’s site, mainly for their cosmetics line, MAKE. I posted about them a long time ago but never got around to purchasing because they don’t accept credit cards outside the US. One night, my hankering for a palette led me to order from a third-party~ and now we are here. In case you were wondering, I picked up two other items, which I’ll talk about later, maybe. So back to the pencil. I have a MAKE Colour Super Matte Lip Pencil, which is basically “the ultimate lip adjuster.” It turns your lipsticks matte… or, …

Le Métier de Beauté Kaleidoscope Lip Kit in Gemini’s Kiss & a Beauty Vault VIP Recap

For the last and final month of the Le Métier de Beauté Beauty Vault VIP Subscription, subscribers got a Kaleidoscope Lip Kit in Gemini’s Kiss, which features 8 lip colors (4 lipsticks & 4 crèmes or glosses) in split pans. I don’t have the individual names but I’ll email LMdB to ask then append this post if they are individually named! I wasn’t supposed to post this until much later. I just got this yesterday and haven’t been able to play with it much yet, but I wanted to get this post up because LMdB is closing their subs soon… and I wanted to show you what they’ve sent, so far, in case any of you are interested in subscribing to them. Here’s the last shipment for the first round, which went on from August 2013 to July 2014. Le Métier de Beauté Kaleidoscope Lip Kit (Gemini’s Kiss): left pans are lipstick, right pans are glosses/lip crèmes Swatches: Le Métier de Beauté Kaleidoscope Lip Kit (Gemini’s Kiss) Face Swatches: Le Métier de Beauté Kaleidoscope Lip …

Commodity Goods Fitting Kits

I’m not into scents much, but lately, I’ve been trying on different ones to see which I like the best. So far, my scent preferences have differed a lot from when I was a kid (I used to wear perfume and cologne more before), so it’s been a challenge looking for something that suits me personally. I’ve got a post on fragrances in the works, but allow me to talk a bit more about a recent discovery. I first found out about Commodity Goods from my new favorite beauty website, xoVain. One of the writers was sampling a perfume brand through “Fitting Kits,” little tester vials of the scents they offered. Priced at $9 each with free shipping, a fitting kit (one for Women and one for Men) had 10 scents you can trial before committing to a big bottle. I’m personally pretty picky with scents. I don’t get on with a lot of cult favorites like Chloe and Prada Candy, for example. I don’t know. My nose is weird. Commodity, a small company based …

New Releases From Maybelline*

Earlier this week, I got a cute surprise from Maybelline: some of their new releases, which includes four lipsticks and three brow mascaras, all tucked into this hot pink lip purse! I’ve fallen behind the new Maybelline releases since I’ve steered my beauty consumption towards a more cruelty-free route quite a while ago. The four lipsticks are variations of pink, as they are part of the Maybelline Pink Alert Lipsticks, which is a new addition to their Color Sensational range. I think it’s an attempt to kind of “up the amp” in pink lipsticks, doing away with the prissy, frilly pinks with four kind of really in-your-face “rebellious” pinks, which they call “runway-ready pink shades.” There are four pinks: POW 1, POW 2, POW 3, and POW 4. POW 1 and POW 3 and blue-based, cool pinks. POW 2 and POW 4 are warmer pinks, with POW 4 being the most coral-y of them all. All are pretty bright. If you know me, I can’t handle bright lipsticks on my visage (lol), but you know …

Victorian Disco Swatchfest

Ahem, a haul/swatch post. We gotta stop meeting like this. This Victorian Disco order was made back in January. I just got a hold of them last week, oy vey! I took advantage of the “blogger pack” and ordered two to save on shipping. Each pack comes with a mini jar, and 6 samples, I think. I was kindly given two samples by Ashley! Yay! Here are the samples I got. I had ordered Why Does It Have to Be Dragons?, so I have an extra sample. It’s a beautiful rich chocolate brown with some sparkles and slight red tones. Water Siblings is beautiful and I’m glad to have been sent it because I wouldn’t have gotten it myself. It’s a bright pink with a strong violet sheen. In Training is a beautiful cool blackened eggplant shade with a sheen and some silver sparks. Dalek Disco is a toasted brown shot with gold. Spacey Wacey is TARDIS blue with minimal sheen but a smattering of multi-colored sparks. Aura is a really pale pink that’s kind …

MUJI Bits I picked up last month

The MUJI beauty corner is a place I’ve always wanted to explore but never quite did. I was under the impression that they are cruelty-free, but when I went to Google and double-check, I couldn’t find my source anymore and the top hit was my blog. As such, I’ve decided to revamp my cruelty-free beauty page (it’s in the works!) and reassess my values when it comes to consumption. I just wanted to quickly share some bits I picked up from MUJI, though. I’m not sure if they’re CF—they have a whole issue of selling shark fin soup (???) which I do not support—so please keep that in mind when reading through this post. Because of SPF paranoia, I got myself a UV Makeup Base, which has SPF 28 PA++. That’s pretty much all I understand from the packaging, but I tested its color and it seems to be a decent match. I also got two of these Medicated Lip Creams, which were pretty cheap (around ¥ 200ish) and have SPF 12. For lip products, …

Some Pixy Picks*

Not too long ago, BDJ Box released a Pixy exclusive and it was chock-full of Pixy products. Pixy—with a 'y'—is a new Indonesian brand that's set to grace Philippine drugstores soon. It is fairly cheap, so I was obviously curious about the quality of these products. I was sent these items, from the box, so I thought I would do a short review on some of the items. Maybe this could be a guide to the products, in case you wanted to pick any of them up when they are finally unleashed to the beauty masses. First up, which I know y'all want to know about are… the lipsticks! I got three, each in a different finish: satin, semi-matte, and matte: To be honest, the matte was not very matte. As you can see from the swatches, it still has a strong sheen to it. My favorite finish was the satin, followed by the matte. The semi-matte was okay, but not the best. Also, I think that the color (which I don't think suits me) …