April 2015 Monthly Favorites

I'm a little late in the game this month. It is testing season so I'm running a little behind. I haven't done very much as of late so these products aren't super exciting.

Loreal Brow Stylist Plumper

Alright, let me just announce that this is not,in my personal opinion, a dupe for Benefit's Gimme Brow. I think depending on what you want from it though it could be, but it is not a true dupe nor my personal dupe.

I bought Benefit's Gimme Brow to fill in the one weird sparse patch on my one eyebrow. This is the first brow product though that I am comfortable using over my whole eyebrow. I have thick, dark eyebrows so mostly I need to fill in my sparse patch and hold my brows in place that's it. Benefit's Gimme Brow fills in the sparse patch like a dream but is way too intense for my whole eyebrow, not to mention it doesn't have the most miraculous staying power to begin with.

This product has a lot less fibers and less strong of a tint which makes it nice because it intensifies my eyebrows but not too much, and it holds my brows in place really well.

Cover FX Custom Cover Drops

This is really ideal for the makeup geek trying to get rid of things. If you aren't a huge makeup dweeb, if you don't love playing with your makeup, I wouldn't spend the 44$ on this product. However, I love mixing these drops with my moisturizers and my CC cream and everything else to get this custom coverage.

Olay Moisturizer with SPF- FAIL- It separated, it looked terrible on my skin, regret.

Almay Smart Shade CC cream- Meh- It separated, but not on my face. It definitely adds some coverage but it didn't feel right. There was nothing drastically or specifically wrong though, it just isn't my favorite.

As a Concealer/Foundation- Pretty good- for covering up little areas of hyper pigmentation (read: bruises from hitting myself in the face with my car door) it works well and still looks natural.

Dr.Brandt's Pore refining primer- Promising- I was worried the products wouldn't mix together properly, but it turned out fine. I didn't get a lot of pigmentation because I only used two drops for my entire face (and that's like what you would add to an already tinted moisturizer), but it helped. I'm hopeful to try it out with some primers that particularly focus on blurring imperfections rather than filling holes.

Jouer Moisture Tint Sunscreen- Holy caking, Batman!- To be fair, I never would have mixed these if I wasn't a completely useless human being in the morning who couldn't remember or stop to think that the sunscreen looked fully pigmented and not like the luminizing primer I seemed to think it was. Regardless though there was SO MUCH COVERAGE and caking. It emphasized a dry patch I didn't even know I had.

Larenim Luxurious Kabuki Brush

My best friend was getting ready for her second senior prom and when I packed up a bag of makeup for her, I gave her my e.l.f. kabuki instead of this one because this brush is mine and it is probably the best brush I have ever had. It was the very first brush I got when I was 13, my mother bought it for me. I have treated it like trash and yet the bristles are still in pretty good shape, it has never ever shed, and it is the perfect density for applying powders. Not to mention it is SO soft. 

The company has since changed the packaging/appearance, but I do believe that this is the same brush. It's only like 20$ which is an investment but compared to some other high quality brushes you are getting away cheap.

bh Cosmetics Tapered Contouring Face Brush 

So bh cosmetics is a drugstore brand but it is only available online. I've tried a few of their products and mostly it is pretty meh, but I got this as a part of their 10 pc brush set for 20$ and I love this brush. 

I gave all the eye brushes to my friend and kept the face brushes. I use three of them regularly, those being this brush, the angled contouring brush, and the flat blending brush. However, the tapered contouring brush is the only one that made it into my favorites because this is the only one that hasn't shed on me. The density, size and shape are perfect for my uses. I know I've seen a lot of other companies offer very similar looking brushes though that would probably be better quality. 

I use this brush for my contour, it is the perfect one brush way to contour my face because it fits right into the hollows of my cheeks but also has the shape for blending. For 2$, I have no complaints. I would have paid 10$ for this brush easily. As for the set, though it does shed it is a very affordable way to try out a lot of different brush shapes, and the density of these brushes is on point so it is a great way to try things out and see what you really want and use for when you build up a nicer brush collection. 

Julep's Max Nail Polish

So, this is just a plain ol' black and white glitter polish. When I was at Ulta last week I saw a polish called Graffiti that was probably way cheaper and looked really similar, but I got this polish for 5$ during Julep's Black Friday sale so it was affordable. Mostly I just love the design, the formula really isn't that great, I am just adoring how sleek and elegant this polish is while maintaining that touch of whimsy. 

I cannot photograph this polish for the life of me,

Doctor Lacquer's Viking Polish 

The swatches still don't do this justice, but this is a holographic polish that I have been loving on my toes this month. The weather is really unpredictable here right now and I've recently had a lot of special events going on so my toes may or may not need to be polished on a moment's notice. 

The polish formula holds up pretty well and dries SUPER fast, but what I am really loving is the color. Since this particular holo uses a darker base it kind of acts as the Little Black Dress of toenail polish. I have yet to find an outfit it clashes with, mostly because its hard to decide what color it is. The color is very forgiving, so chips aren't super obvious even when they do happen, and unlike a lot of beauty products this polish shines best in awkward lighting. 

Doctor Lacquer- A Review From a Polish Newb

**Disclaimer that I am not cool enough to be a nail polish swatcher/blogger. All of these opinions are my own, and all of these polishes were purchased with my own money.**



I don't believe I have ever been so excited to polish my nails in my entire life. I stepped on a sewing needle the day these arrived at my house and still chose to limp out of the mailbox to get them anyway.

 Doctor Lacquer is an indie nail polish company based on space and medical themes, they have good reviews that I have seen and do quite a lot of thermal polishes. Instead of mini bottles they have medium bottles, which are referred to as meds (<3 p="">

Price

I got 5 bottles of polish, they were all medium size, but they look like traditional polish sizes to me. In total it cost me about 40$, shipping included which averages out to being 8$ per bottle. Not too bad, given the spike in drugstore nail polish costs and the uniqueness of the polish. It's affordable.

According to science and math and not my anecdotal evidence, MEDS which are 10.5 mL are 6.99$ a bottle, and full size bottles which are 16.5 mL are 9.99$.

Shipping and Packaging

0 Shipping was on time, but towards the end of her TAT (1-7 business days, which is pretty dang fast). She gave me a coupon code for it which means that she is aware of her TAT and didn't "lose" my order, which means a lot to me. I didn't have to contact her, but I think that sort of attention to detail says a lot about the kind of customer service an indie company has to offer.

Packaging was very secure and included candy.

As a side note, I love seeing a short nail on a polish company's logo. I make jewelry and polymer clay figurines as a hobby, so its nice to have "working girl" (or "nail-biting girl") nails represented.

 Each polish bottle came in its own organza baggie that best matched the color of the polish.

I actually use the exact same bags she does, and I have the same problem with them being just a little too small for my needs.

Some Personal Polish Background

I am a lazy, lazy human being. Particularly when it comes to nails, even though in general I am not a sticky person, I somehow expect my beauty products to be applied and then magically preform at full power without maintenance. That is not a realistic expectation, and I am aware of that, but I am announcing this because my review will still somewhat reflect this. I was doing some base and top coat research today and came across wrapping your tips and before even knowing what it was I thought "ain't nobody got time for that". 

I don't wrap my tips, I haven't gotten into the habit of regularly applying base and top coat. So, this will be an actual review of the formula. Also, I would like to formally apologize for the terrible swatches ahead. I am horrendous at painting my nails.

Swatches and Review

Viking

Excuse this swatch, I was lazy.

This is from the Something Spatial: Missions collection, which are holographic polishes based off of space exploration missions. It is a green based polish, so that is something I feel like I didn't fully comprehend when I bought it. I'm not saying it is just a green polish, but when I look at my nails from the side without anything underneath it, the polish looks green. That is fine, and its growing on me, but it is something to be aware of when buying holos because they aren't always going to be sparkly color-changing magic from every angle. They are just sparkly color-changing magic from most angles.

As for the formula, it has good grip, is opaque in two or three coats, dries incredibly quickly, and is gorgeous beyond what my swatches can show.

Betelgeuse

This is from the Something Spatial:Stars collection. They are tri-color thermal flakie polishes and I had to limit myself to one. I am a sucker for pink, and so I bought it against my better judgement. It is a wonderful polish, but I should have known better and chosen a better color for my skin tone. Regardless, the color shifts in this one are absolutely to die for.

On the left you can see what the polish looks like warm/on nails. The middle finger show show sheer the product is on the first coat. The other two nails are three or four coats of polish.

This is the thermal change when the polish is cold. The middle finger is two coats of polish held on an icecream thin mint, the pink and ring finger are again three or four coats of polish also held on an icecream thin mint.




The polish is extremely sheer, it requires a lot of coats, but it dries super fast and also super hard so if you like to poke at squishy polishes this is safe from your wrath. I find it is difficult to see the color change in the bottle on this one but it works beautifully on the nails. I don't feel like I need a top coat for this polish, but it might benefit from a shiny topcoat to add dimension and bring out the flakies a little more.

I'm Lavender Rain

This is from a pastel duo on the website. It is still up, but its on sale, so I'm not sure if it will continue to be that way.  The polish is a sheer white polish filled with pastel circular glitter. The glitter goes on well, I don't have to dig it out or use tweezers to get it on my nails, the glitter also stays pretty well with just the polish itself, I don't feel like I need to use a top coat. This dries very quickly between coats (30 seconds and you can add another layer), but it does need like 4 or 5 coats to get to opacity. 

 It is not particularly flexible though,there are times where I have done something that pressed down on my nail and I've gotten a big crack in it and it peeled right off. Another thing is that it grips the nail decently, but I need like super woman nail grip and it doesn't have that, though that also means that I don't damage my nail when I pull it off. 

You can see from the swatches that this doesn't do edges very well, for best results I would probably get a thinner textured white polish and use it as an under layer with this on top.

Dopamine

Dopamine is a thermal crellie from the Hormonal Efficiency collection. It is warm sensitive, but not in the way I expected. It doesn't have a color shift at any point above body temperature. So, it does change color when warm, but your nail is warm, so it only changes color on your hands when it is exposed to cold. I wear Dopamine often on my hands. You can really easily change the color of only one part of the nail polish, unlike Adrenaline below. However, it can be difficult to get on because the larger glitters are just a little too large. They sink to the bottom, and like to come off of the nail leaving huge dents in your manicure.
 I love the colors of this polish though, it even looks gorgeous applied sheerly.

Accomplished with an icepack

Just on its own the polish went three days without chipping during my rock climbing trip, I also used it as proof that it was cold outside. By the end of the week I had one of my climbing partners look at my hands and announce that my polish was too dark of a purple not to be wearing gloves. 

Adrenaline 

Also accomplished with an icepack

 Adrenaline is a thermal crellie from the Hormonal Efficiency collection.  The formula is squishy but not too squishy, and the glitter goes on super smooth and evenly. It takes at least 4-5 coats to get this opaque though, and I personally don't like how it looks when it is sheer.



The color shift of the polish is a little odd. It takes a lot in order to change the color of this polish, and I can't seem to get it to re-color only one part at a time. Also the color shift isn't super noticeable most of the time either, so even though it is a summer colored polish, you would get the most use out of this in the winter.