Play! by Sephora is a subscription service that provides members
with 5 makeup, skincare or hair care samples and a perfume or foil packet bonus
for $10 a month plus tax. This is a great service if you care about mid-range
to high-end brand names and ease of purchasing items as all products in Play!
boxes can be found in store or online.
Why, Sephora? Why do you always do this to me?! I initially signed up for the skincare but I swear I get more makeup and hair care than anything else. So Sephora decided to send out two lip products this month, surprise! Their logic: one for you, one for a friend. Unfortunately I have no friends (I'm ok with this), otherwise I would go to pub trivia and sniff other people's beer or do something productive instead of taking terrible pictures of my makeup but how could they possibly know that? The info card did give off some serious Tarot/Mardi Gras vibes though so I did love that about the box.
February’s box consisted of:
Belif Moisturizing Eye Bomb - $9.60Viktor & Rolf Flower Bomb - $1.62
The Sephora Collection Rouge Matte lipstick is a deep berry shade
cream lipstick in the world’s tiniest bullet. I can see the romantic quality
for Valentine’s Day with this shade except, you know, Sephora usually doesn’t
arrive until the third or fourth week of the month. That and we’re slowly
creeping into warmer spring months, barring the fact that it’s 35ºF outside right
now. My issue with this product was that the bullet arrived broken. I was not
the only person who had this issue. A quick browse through reddit and various
reviews on blogs and YouTube showed that almost everybody who received this
product had a broken bullet. Basically Sephora tried to slough off their
unsellable product onto subscribers. Not cool.
The wild card for February was the NARS Velvet Matte Lip Pencil. It’s
a decent sized sample, can be sharpened, double as a liner and has a very
creamy texture and great color payoff. What makes it a wild card is the
outrageous color sent. True, true, truly outrageous (even more astounding is
that Jem lasted 3 seasons). The shade Let’s Go Crazy is… wearable, but just
barely. This bright ass, day glo pink is offensive in so many ways but if I
ever felt like going bold or fun for a day it works surprisingly well with my
skin tone. Plus fifteen points for the formula, minus several thousand for
color choice.
I am awash in eyeliners but I’m glad to receive a brown one at
least instead of a black one. Lancôme Demi Liqui-Pencil brings me up to about 4
small brown pencil liners and about 300 black ones in various forms. It’s a
small, plastic pencil liner that requires a pencil sharpener. The pencil
delivers a deep brown with a semi-glossy, almost metallic finish with micro
shimmer. It also sets to a smudge proof finish within seconds of application (I
tried smudging after letting it sit for about 5 seconds). This little guy is
going to get a lot of use on my upper lid. I plan on wearing makeup more in the
weeks coming up since I’ve been too exhausted and lazy to give it a good go in
recent weeks. I expect this will be dead by early June at latest.
Peter Thomas Roth FIRMx Peeling Gel is a fun, probably useless
skincare item. Imagine rubbing Elmer’s School Glue all over your face until it
starts to pill up. Yeah, PTR Peeling Gel is kind of like that. It has a gritty texture
upon initial application and feels like a very mild scrub when massaging into
the skin. Instructions say to use this on a clean dry face which may have
contributed to some of the “brightening” I noticed but I did feel like my face
looked a little fresher than usual. Not as red as it does after I use my more abrasive
physical scrubs but not as sallow as I would look after just washing alone.
I’ve recently fallen in love with eye creams and I think I love
the Belif Moisturizing Eye Bomb. Like other Belif items I’ve tried, the Eye
Bomb is very hydrating without being overwhelming for my skin. It almost pays
for the box by itself in value and a very small amount goes a long way so I
will get a ton of mileage out of this tiny little jar. Beware if you have
sensitive skin though because like many Belief products, this eye cream is
heavily scented. I do wish it wasn’t in a jar though as I dislike dipping my
fingers into jars and tins for skincare and makeup products. It just feels so
unsanitary.
Oh thank god I finally got another perfume sample, Viktor & Rolf Flower Bomb. And it smells
like high-class grandmothers! Right up my alley! It has a rich floral scent but
it smells more like what a florist that specializes in autumnal weddings looks
like, not so much like a finely crafted bowl of potpourri. Sephora’s website
describes it as having key notes of jasmine, orange blossom and patchouli. If I
had a time machine I could see myself wearing this for my wedding.
For all of my complaints, this box had an amazing value, had a perfume sample and contained no hair care. That in itself should be counted as a win. My only two gripes were the broken lipstick and the crazy lip color that works... if I use the term "works" very, very loosely. I love the skincare and can make room for the brown eyeliner. I did love how the eyeliner performs placing it at the top of my "must use" list. Below are some shit swatches and photos in shit lighting. I had been working stupid late hours all February and my only time to take any photos in my dungeon of an apartment were well after 9:30 when I had arrived home and put the kids to bed.
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| Wearing Nars lip pencil in shit lighting |
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| Wearing Rebel Chic in shit lighting |
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| Left to Right, Lancôme, Nars, Sephora Collection |
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