Was that title long enough for you? LOL. Keywords, yo, it’s all about keywords. Okay, enough snark! Maybelline has REALLY been impressing me with their products, lately, and I’m not easy to impress. After having such a positive experience with the Instant Age Rewind The Perfector Powder, I decided to really go crazy and check out the concealer specifically for dark circles. (They also have one more geared towards concealing hyperpigmentation on the face, but dark circles are my particular bane.) The verdict? SHE SHOOTS, SHE SCORES!!!

A little back story – I used Benefit’s Erase Paste for a long time, during the phase where I was addicted to wearing tinted moisturizer every day. Then I got hoooked on powder mineral makeup, which didn’t play all that nicely with a concealer as creamy as Erase Paste. I got in the habit of using a concealer brush dipped in mineral foundation to conceal my dark circles and blemishes, which worked quite well (for the most part). As long as I used eye cream, it didn’t make my eye area looked dried out. Now that I’m mostly using a pressed powder foundation (with occasional forays into liquid foundation, as I use up my beloved Chanel Pro Lumiere), I decided it was about time to try a liquid/cream concealer again.

The Eraser comes in a glass tube with a funky twist-up dispenser and a fuzzy puff applicator thing. (That’s a technical term.) You click it a few times (two clicks for both eyes seems to work), it pushes product into the fuzzy puff applicator thing and you swiped it where you need it. On the pro side, the fuzzy puff applicator thing does a pretty nice job of applying the product evenly and with a nice airbrushed-looking appearance. A pat or two with a finger, et voila! Dark circles (and other blemishes) are concealed! I’ve used it both before and after applying my foundation (even though applying after breaks the no liquids after powder rule, thhhpt to rules) and it looks great both ways. The formula FEELS GOOD on my skin. It’s hydrating, but not greasy, doesn’t settle into my fine lines or eye creases, and wears well. It has good coverage. It’s not a full bullet-proof coverage, but for everyday use I prefer to just camoflage my dark circles rather than attempt all-out obliteration. It looks more natural. So, I really, really like the “looks like skin” finish of this concealer. It photographs pretty well too.

On the con side, the fuzzy puff applicator thing isn’t the most hygienic thing in the world. You can’t remove it and wash it. The directions recommend wiping it off with a dry tissue after use to remove excess product. Umm, okay. Supposedly it’s treated with some kind of anti-bacterial magic, and it’s not like I’m licking it or something. Probably, washing it would introduce more bacteria than just leaving it alone (since bacteria really looooove water and wet things, I imagine getting it really wet would just make it a nice germ home). I’m not a huge bacteria-phobe, but it’s worth mentioning in case you are. The applicator also means it’s not friendly for pro makeup artist use – it’s really difficult to get the product off the applicator and onto a concealer brush for a truly hygienic application on a model. Since that’s not a concern for most people, it’s not a big deal. It’s too bad though, the stuff photographs nicely but it’s too much of a pain in the ass for me to want to use it in my kit.

It’s been a long time since a concealer impressed me, and I’m pretty darned impressed with this one. It does what I want it to, at a very budget-friendly price. I give it an enthusiastic two thumbs up!

I’m back to abusing my hair regularly. I get the color refreshed every three weeks so it stays (mostly) dark blue. This does make it a bit dry and unhappy. I decided to try something new, a hair oil, to see if it would help keep my hair healthy and more shiny. I bought Badger’s Argan Hair Oil, and have been giving it a go.

The Argan Hair Oil also contains baobab oil, jojoba oil, and an essential blend that includes bergamot, sandalwood, and orange essential oils. It smells GREAT!! The instructions indicate that you should apply the oil to damp hair. I personally don’t want oil on my head during the day, so I’m a rebel and apply it at night. I use about a pump and a half, and spread it through my hair, concentrating at the scalp and roots.

I have noticed that my hair seems less dry and crispy since I started using the oil before bed each night. It washes out cleanly the next morning, so my hair isn’t greasy during the day. My hair seems a lot happier than it has in the past when I’ve abused it this much, so I think this oil has been good for it.

The lovely orange-y scent also makes it a great body oil. I’ve been using it after my shower once in a while and I really like it all over my skin. I want to try some of Badger’s other body oils now. The Argan Hair Oil gets two thumbs up!

It seems like whenever I go for the dramatic lately, I reach for Detrivore Cosmetics’ Cetacea. It’s such a great blue color. It seemed like the done thing to pair it with a greenish color this time, so I grabbed Crocodilia, also from Detrivore. It must be the blue hair, it makes me want to wear blue eyeshadow.

I used Crocodilia on the lid. Crocodilia is a dark teal satin eye shadow with heavy sparkle. I put Cetacea in the crease. Cetacea is a dense purplish blue satin eye shadow. It has blue, purple, red, and pink shimmer. I used Shiro Cosmetics’ Finkelstein to highlight. Finkelstein is a sheer creamy white with turquoise sparkle, and an intense aqua sheen. (It was from the Halloween collection.) I used Physician’s Formula kohl eyeliner on the upper lashline and the lower waterline.

I didn’t use blush for this, but rather Physician’s Formula Healthy Wear Bronzer. I’ve been hooked on this bronzer lately. It must be all the sunny weather we’ve been having. It’s an SPF 50 product, but personally I don’t think you’re going to put enough on your face to matter, from a sun protection point of view. But it’s a great every day bronzer.

I forgot to put lip stuff on before I took the picture. Doh.

I used up my Mychelle Dermaceuticals Perfect C Serum and was feeling a little too poor to spring for another one, so I picked up Mad Hippie’s Exfoliating Serum to try instead, as it’s a slightly cheaper. Mad Hippie is a company whose ads I’ve seen popping up here and there, and I liked what I saw on the ingredient list, so I figured it was worth a try. So far, so good!

The Exfoliating Serum is meant to be used at night, every other day or every day if your skin isn’t sensitive. It comes in a brown glass bottle with a dropper – I prefer pump packaging, since you’re exposing the product to air and light every time you open the bottle, but it’s not a deal breaker for me. It’s just important to keep in mind the anti-oxidants will lose potency over time with exposure so it’s best to use it regularly and use it up in a timely fashion.

It contains a veritable SLEW of stuff – vitamin c, glycolic acid, antioxidants like goji berry extract, a skin brightening botanical blend, ceramides, vitamin b, and so on. It doesn’t contain parabens, synthetic color, or synthetic fragrance. It doesn’t have much of a scent at all, really.

I can feel a slight tingle when I put it on, but it’s not uncomfortable at all. The directions indicate applying the product to cleansed skin, and then putting moisturizer over. I have to admit, I’m kind of bad at remembering to put moisturizer on, since I usually wash my face, apply the serum, and fall into bed. My skin still feels happy and not dry in the morning, so I don’t think this is the end of the world.

It’s not the best time for conducting skin care experiments, since I’m still getting facials at school on an almost weekly basis. My skin looks pretty good. I can say that this product hasn’t caused any bad reactions or breakouts for my face. It’ll be interesting to see if my face continues to look great after I’m done with school…

Overall, I’m pretty pleased with Mad Hippie’s Exfoliating Serum. It’s a pretty good price ($34.99) for a product that has a LOT of active ingredients in it. As with all things that contain glycolic or a high percentage of actives, if you’re sensitive, you might want to purchase from a place that allows returns in case of a bad reaction. I’m quite pleased with the product, and would consider trying other products from the line.

I feel so bad I’ve been neglecting my blog so much. Only 5-ish weeks to go of school, and then hopefully I’ll have some free time again to blog. I have such a backlog of stuff to review!! This post is about one of the projects I worked on in April, creating a stage makeup look for my school’s fashion show for charity. I worked with two other students to create this look. I did all the makeup except the contouring, and my classmates did the hair, the face contouring, the pretty head-piece and the false eyelashes. Didn’t it come out awesome? The model is my sister. She walked on a catwalk and then posed for these photos. I didn’t know when I got dressed that morning that I’d be in the picture too or I would have worn something nicer than a crappy black polo (my standard student “uniform.”)

I used a Ben Nye Cream Color in a Special Red as the base for the eyeshadow. It had a tendency to crease (despite my best efforts with primers and powdering on top) so I don’t recommend it for everyday use. For the purposes of our show, I just smoothed it out right before she hit the catwalk. I used Detrivore’s Hemoglobin eyeshadow on top, to add richness and depth to the red. Ordinarily, Hemoglobin on top of a primer is sufficient for a rich, red color, but under the bright lights of the stage, using a red cream base gave it the extra kick I was looking for. The foundation is Chanel Pro Lumiere, which I’m sad to say has been discontinued. *cries* (I’m wearing Maybelline Age Rewind The Perfector Powder, which looks pretty frickin’ decent under those bright photo lights, I must say…) We highlighted with the lightest color from the Ben Nye Fair Personal Makeup Kit, as well as using the dark shade for contouring. Unfortunately, I can’t remember what blush we used, as we borrowed it from someone else. A generic white eyeliner pencil went on the lower waterline, and I used MAC Brun eyeshadow to fill in her brows. (I also use MAC Brun every day on my own brows.) The lip color is an Essence lip liner pencil, called In The Nude. It was essentially the perfect nude lip! We used Ben Nye Lumiere Luxe Powder in Iced Gold, a super shimmery gold powder as extra highlights on the face, and dabbed on her arms and legs (after they were generously moisturized) as well.

As for my makeup, I really can’t remember what all I used, although I’m pretty sure I’m wearing Detrivore Cosmetics and Shiro Cosmetics eyeshadows, and Detrivore Cosmetics blush. The lip is L’Oreal Infallible Gloss in Coral Sands (best nude gloss ever). The concealer is new and awesome (and inexpensive!!) and I need to tell you all about it in another post. For now, let’s admire how minimized my dark circles are, despite the bright lights.

Overall, this was a great experience in stage makeup and I had a blast. I have another photoshoot at the end of the month, for which I still need to develop a concept and find a model…

Photos taken by Erin Berzel Photography

It’s not often that I write a truly negative review. Most of the time, if I didn’t like a product it’s because the product wasn’t right for me, not because the product wasn’t good. But sometimes, I run across a product that I just think isn’t going to be effective for anyone, which is the case with Desert Essence Natural Roll-On Deodorant. I had high hopes for this natural deodorant, but it falls flat.

I prefer to use deodorant rather than anti-perspirant if I can, just because I do think it’s healthy for the body to perspire. It’s one of the ways the body rids itself of toxins, after all. But I also work with the public, and let’s face it, body odor just isn’t socially appropriate, especially if you work in the beauty industry. So far, the only deodorant that actually worked was Lavanila’s Healthy Deodorant, and it’s $18 a tube. Finding a less expensive deodorant that really works has been something of a search for the holy grail for me.

Desert Essence Natural Roll-On Deodorant contains lavender, coriander, and tea tree in a roll-on base that also contains rice starch and corn starch, as well as aloe and allantoin. It’s defintely gentle. However, after about two to three hours I can smell myself. It’s NO BUENO. TOTAL FAIL. I do perspire a bit more than the average woman because of the medication I take (yay side effects!) but this is deodorant fail after two to three hours of non-strenuous activity. Like, sitting in a classroom activity. I shudder to think how it would hold up to actual exercise.

In the meantime, I’ll stick with Tom’s of Maine’s nice anti-perspirant, and continue my search for the holy grail.

Everyday Shea is line of shea butter products brought to you from the fine folks at Alaffia. It’s an affordable line of natural shea butter products, combining great value with great quality. I loved the lotion, so I decided it was time to give the Moisturizing Shampoo a whirl.

The shampoo comes in large 32 oz. bottles with pump tops, in Lavender, Vanilla Mint, and Unscented. I chose Vanilla Mint, because I liked that fragrance best. It’s still a light fragrance, not super-strong at all. The shampoo contains liquid shea butter soap, two surfactants, shea leaf extract, vanilla extract and spearmint essential oil. It’s a very simple formula. It doesn’t contain any SLS or SLES, if you ware avoiding those ingredients.

It’s quite low-lather. If you like (or feel you need) a lot of lather, you will not like this shampoo. I’m pretty accustomed to low lathering shampoos, so it doesn’t bother me. It’s pretty effective at cleaning, but not drying at all. It’s also not too moisturizing. After lightly bleaching my hair, I still only used conditioner once or twice a week with this shampoo, because I didn’t feel my hair needed it more often.

Now, I just (as in, two days ago) pretty thoroughly bleached my hair and colored it blue, and haven’t tried this shampoo on that yet. My hair is a lot drier now, having been more heavily bleached, so I will probably want to use more conditioner. I’ll update this review if that’s the case!

Overall, I’m pretty happy with this shampoo. It’s a good value, it was around $10 for the 32 oz. bottle, and it’s gentle and effective. Two thumbs up!

Last month I picked up a new Wet N’ Wild palette which caught my eye. It’s a limited edition palette called Going In The Wild – you can see some great pics and swatches here. I really love these 8 pan Wet N’ Wild palettes, this is the third one I’ve bought… they’re so inexpensive!! I bought this one because I just looooove that mint green color – I’m such a sucker for it! The purples are pretty too, but it was the green that suckered me in. I decided to play with it today, and paired it with a favorite Linnaeus Cosmetics darker green.

The lid color is the mint green from the Going In The Wild palette. Used over Urban Decay Primer Potion, it actually has pretty good color payoff, in my opinion. The crease color is Vex, from Linnaeus Cosmetics. Vex is a shimmering green-turquoise, almost blue depending on the light. I really miss Linnaeus Cosmetics a lot. I really hope they come back again someday, so I can throw some more money at them. The highlight color is Buttercream Bliss, from Persephone Minerals. I used Milani Liquid Eye eyeliner in Aqua.

The blush is Poison, from Detrivore Cosmetics. The lipgloss is Sintillation Lipgelee from MAC.