Annmarie Gianni Skincare sent me a sample of their newest skincare product to try out – the new Repair Serum! I love that the brand uses natural ingredients to improve your skin – that really work! The new Repair Serum is formulated to build collagen, repair itself and prevent aging, using vegan stem cells derived from oranges.

From the website:

This active blend of stem cells, along with Superoxide dismutase (SOD) — a powerful antioxidant — will make a noticeable difference in aging skin when used continuously over the course of 30-40 days. This serum is high in Vitamin C and has the essential oils of Lavender and Sandalwood, which are skin-lightening and balancing.

So, what’s the scoop? I used the serum under my moisturizer each night, and after 30 days I did notice an improvement in my skin. My skin felt really smooth and seemed brighter after use. The product absorbs nicely, and doesn’t feel oily. I didn’t experience any breakouts from it, either. It does have a strong scent from the sandalwood and lavender, but I found it quite pleasant.

I think the serum would be a great choice for anyone looking for an anti-aging serum with lots of high-quality natural ingredients. I give it two thumbs up!

Disclosure: Editorial Sample Provided For Review

Hello Lovelies! Things have been very busy this month with school and real life, so my blog has been sadly neglected. I have a few EOTD posts to catch up on, so here’s the first! I was wanting to wear something more dramatic, so I used a darker blue color, and paired it with one of my favorite Shiro colors.

The lid color is Oceanic Expeditions from Eccentric Cosmetics. It’s a navy blue filled with gold, and purple sparks. The crease color is Shiro Cosmetics’ Fullmetal. Fullmetal is a complex charcoal base with a strong golden shimmer and red highlights. I used Shiro’s Tears of Retail Employees to highlight. The eyeliner is Physician’s Formula Shimmer Strips Kohl Kajal Eyeliner in the blue color. I really love these kohl liners!

The blush is Detrivore Cosmetics’ Poison. I forgot to wear a lip color for the picture. I wore MAC Sintillation Lip Gelee.

I recently visited one of my favorite boutiques on the Oregon Coast, and my sweet husband insisted I pick up a little treat for myself while we were there. It was a tough call, since the shop has sooo many nice little things, but I settled on a Love & Toast hand cream in the delectable Honey Coconut scent.

Love & Toast’s hand creams come in little 1.25 oz. metal tubes. The ingredient list is quite impressive, with shea butter, green tea extract, aloe vera, and a bunch of other nice stuff. It doesn’t contain parabens or animal ingredients, and the paper packaging (it comes in a little box) comes from 100% annually renewed resources.

The Honey Coconut fragrance is quite yummy, with notes of honey, vanilla, violet, and sandalwood. There is a matching perfume and other body care products if layering is your thing. It’s a very edible scent, very sweet, and heavier on the honey and vanilla than on the coconut. In fact, I probably wouldn’t finger it as being coconut without the hint in the name.

The texture is pretty creamy and rich, although not as thick as some I’ve tried. It doesn’t have that awful slimy feeling that I HATE in hand creams, so the texture gets a win in my book. It absorbs fairly quickly, but not so fast that your hands feel dry again a few minutes later. (I hate that too!)

Overall, it’s a special treat. It’s not cheap, at $9.00 a tube, but I consider it splurgeworthy.

So, this was originally an EOTD post, but yeah. The eyeshadows have mostly been discontinued, so while it turned out super fabulous, it was going to be a terrible EOTD post from a blog perspective. Instead, you’re going to get a review on Maybelline’s Instant Age Rewind The Perfector Powder. I’ve been meaning to review this for about a month now, but just haven’t gotten to it. So, here it is!

I love pressed powder foundation, but it’s been years since I tried a drugstore version. Way back in the day, like, seven or eight years way back, I wore Prestige’s Wet/Dry Foundation. It was actually pretty good, and I went through two compacts of it before switching to something else – mostly because it got hard to find. I haven’t used a drugstore powder foundation since then. I was doubtful about this new Maybelline one, but I really couldn’t resist.

The powder comes with a “primer” built in – it is, I presume, the white swirl in the powder. Once you open it and swipe it, it becomes apparent that the swirl IS something different from the pigmented part of the powder, as it has a slightly different texture. Swiping the included foam sponge across the surface will pick up an even amount of both, and it applies to the skin without any weirdness from the white part. The overall texture on my skin is lovely. I LOVE THIS POWDER. LOVE IT.

It has a medium coverage when applied with the included foam sponge. It evens out my skin tone, provides ample coverage for my taste (I like the medium coverage, I don’t need it to be bulletproof), and doesn’t settle into fine lines. This is a HUGE deal for me. I have a different (much more expensive) brand of compact powder foundation to review that does settle into lines, which is why this Maybelline one is now my go-to product. (Mr. Expensive Formula has become my carry-along-for-touchups product.) Even when applied with a concealer brush, the Maybelline formula really doesn’t offer as much coverage as I want for concealing, however. I use what’s left of the mineral foundation I was using (now discontinued, boo hiss, and the reason I needed a new foundation) to conceal, and get the coverage I want. Mr. Expensive Formula works nicely as concealer as well.

I kind of want to just summarize this product as “I LOVE IT GO BUY IT” but that doesn’t give you much info. Besides the not settling into lines thing, The Perfector Powder also wears quite well. It really doesn’t fade, and does provide an adequate level of oil control, what you’d expect from a powder. I’m using the second lightest shade, Light 02, which is a great match for my skin. It doesn’t oxidize orange-y. The texture is very silky and lovely. One caveat – the finish is on the sparkly side. It advertises that it “adds a touch of radiance for a younger looking skin instantly,” and that means some sparkles. Some people are not going to like the bit of disco-ball effect it gives the skin. I personally am all about the sparkles, so it’s cool. But it’s something to keep in mind before purchasing.

Like I said, it comes with a foam sponge, which works just fine for applying a medium coverage layer. It also looks nice if you use a chubby brush like the Real Techniques Expert Face Brush to apply it – which I like to do around the nose and chin. The compact has a secret compartment for the sponge, as well as a mirror tucked in there.

So, the pluses – relatively inexpensive (under ten bucks), looks great, wears well, love the sparkles, love the sponge applicator, love the texture. The minuses – it sparkles. I’m in love, and giving it two thumbs up.

Whoa! Stop the train! Pacifica, a Portland-based company that makes perfumes I really enjoy, is offering an expansion of their color cosmetics, as well as some skin care products. Neat-o! I’ve heard a rumour that you can find some of these things at Target, so I’ll be checking that out in the coming weeks. Look at the pretties!

This Enlighten eyeshadow quad looks nice. $14 isn’t a bad price, either, if the quality is nice. The colors look really pretty, a nice multi-use palette – I love these for travel.

I’ll have to look at the ingredients before I’d commit to buying, but I’m really interested in the Alight Multi-Mineral BB Cream. As long as it’s not too emollient, it sounds like a nice tinted-moisturizer type product for summer wear. I wish it had sunscreen, but can’t have everything…

The Radiant Shimmer Coconut Multiples look awesome for lips and face! This one is really calling my name.

There is a face wash, a face moisturizer, and face wipes that are new too. I love the packaging, it’s well done! Hopefully these products will turn up locally at places where other Pacifica products are sold, and I’ll definitely be scoping out Targets to see if I can find them!

It’s really hard finding a good hand cream. My gold-star favorite is L’Occitane’s Shea Butter Hand Cream, but at $25 a tube, I have to admit it’s pricey. (In its defense, a full-size tube lasts for like six months, so it’s not that bad, which is why it’s still my gold-star favorite.) BUT ANYWAY. I’m picky about hand cream. I really, really hate that slippery feeling you get on your hands when a lotion or cream contains a lot of silicones. I don’t mind it on my body, but I hate it on my hands. I picked up a tube of J.R. Watkins Shea Butter Hand Cream to try out because of its IMPRESSIVE ingredient list and more reasonable price.

So, what does it have in it? What doesn’t it have in it? Seriously, this hand cream reads like a who’s who of awesome ingredients – shea butter, jojoba oil, macadamia oil, avocado oil, cocoa butter, babassu oil, apricot kernal oil, aloe, calendula, chamomile… it goes on. It doesn’t contain mineral oil, petrolatum, silicones, or parabens. It’s pretty darn close to an all natural product. The scent is a delightful lemon frosting/cookie smell, very refreshing and very yum. Seriously, I almost wanna lick my hands, it’s that good. It is knock-you-down strong though, so if you don’t like a strong fragrance, steer clear. It’s more dessert-like, as opposed to fresh cut lemon juice.

The texture is quite thick. If you want a light hand cream, this isn’t it. It’s thick, it’s rich, it’s going to leave a feeling on your hands for a while after you apply it. It won’t be a slick, slippery feel though, which is why I like it. It definitely relieves dryness like a champ. A little goes a long way, so this tube is going to last for a while.

Overall, I’m quite pleased to have given this a try. The 3.5 oz tube is on the large side to want to carry in my purse, but it’s fine for the tote bag I drag to school every day. It’s also a perfectly good size to keep on your nightstand or on the bathroom counter. Price will vary depending on where you shop, but it should always come in under ten bucks for a tube. I give it two (no longer dry!) thumbs up!

Having gone through various shades of browns this week, and then purple, I decided that today’s makeup needed to feature green colors. I used my always-favorite color Theo from Black Rose Minerals, as well as a Meow Cosmetics green. Bonus today: A picture of Theo!

I put Theo, a light fawn with a green duochrome and green sparkles, on the lid. The crease color is Little Green Men, a Halloween color from Meow Cosmetics. Little Green Men is a sparkly pine green with flashes of green sparkle and iridescence. It’s a great dark green. I used Lobotomy, from Detrivore Cosmetics, to highlight. The eyeliner is Milani Cosmetics’ Liquid Eye Mechanical Eyeliner in Green.

The blush is Thing, a pale peachy color, from Detrivore. The lip color is Shiro Cosmetics’ Why Not Zoidberg? Intertube. Isn’t it the best coral-y color?

I snapped a quick pic of Theo the other morning, looking all handsome.

It’s late winter/early spring, which means New Product Launches for a lot of my favorite brands, especially skin care launches. Also, Valentines. I love Valentines stuff, even though I’m not really all that big into the holiday itself. I just like fun products. Here are five things I really wish I had the budget to buy!

1. Boscia Tsubaki Beauty Oil. I loooooove facial oils. I like to use a drop or two either by itself or under moisturizer at night. They make my skin happy. This facial oil contains camellia oil and rice bran oil (both of which my face likes a lot), as well as some really nice essential oils. I wannit!

2. Many items from Flower Cosmetics, which has launched at Wal-Mart stores and online. I love the packaging for this product line, AND the price points! I really need to get on over to a Wal-Mart to check it out.

3. This Red Ruby Groovy Natural Body Wash from gud smells THE BEST. Strong grapefruit scents are basically instant cheerful in a bottle, for me. I just need to use up a bottle or two of body wash, and then I can justify buying this.

4. Grapefruit must be a thing for 2013 because Yes To has launched a Pink Grapefruit product line targeting skin brightness and clarity. I want the eye cream and the serum and the towelettes. I already love the Blueberry and Cucumber towelettes, so I’m guessing I’ll love the Pink Grapefruit ones too.

5. Lush’s Valentines stuff sounds lovely, and DAMN THEM! These perfumes… oh God. I don’t love all of Lush’s perfumes, but the ones I like I LOOOOOVE. They’re seriously killing me here.