Showing posts with label Oribe. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Oribe. Show all posts
Saturday, May 11, 2019
February Empties
Over the years I've amassed quite a horde of makeup and beauty items. I tried containing it, organizing it, and purging it to no avail. So I've decided to take a new approach: monthly inventory. I am the type of person who has to bookmark upcoming chapters in a book just to be able to power through a chapter, and that's even when I love a book. Why wouldn't this work with making sure I use my beauty items? It's not a guarantee that I will end up with piles of garbage and unwritten blog posts following up on this project, right? *cough*
Tuesday, November 13, 2018
September 2018 Birchbox Review
Birchbox
is a subscription that delivers 5 sample sized makeup, hair care and skincare
items to your mailbox for $10 a month. The sample sizes might not be the
largest but Birchbox
is a great get if you care about trying luxury brands you might otherwise not
feel comfortable dropping cash on. Not to mention the cute gift boxes that can
be repurposed if you have more creative ability than I do.
Thursday, August 31, 2017
August Birchbox Review
Birchbox is a $10 a month subscription that sends out a box with 5 beauty samples. Samples range from beauty to skincare, hair care, fragrances and the occasional snack or lifestyle item of which I have yet to receive. It's August 31st and I'm just now getting around to reviewing my Birchbox because according to the company's site they partnered with a new shipping company and shit met fan. Full disclosure: It's not my favorite subscription box but if you're into poorly matched lip shades and tiny samples of high end brands I'll just drop my referral link right here.
I loved the box design itself this month. It reminded me so much of home and my heart did swell just a little bit seeing the sunset and palm trees. Up to this point I didn't really realize I was homesick.
I'm perfectly fine with my broken, bushy brows but I found myself falling into the Benefit Brow craze. Fortunately I scored the Benefit Cosmetics Gimme Brow this month and I must say I do like it. I got the shade 5 deep and it's a really nice, cool toned match for my brows. I was a bit concerned that it would pull more red than ashy and look strangely warm and brown against my face but my fears were all for naught. I really really need to go get my brows threaded but at least now I feel confident enough to get them done a bit thinner to fit my face shape and my ginormous glasses. Last time I got them done I was not assertive enough and ended up with a straight brow. While I do like the straight brow style on Cara D, mine looked nowhere near as glamorous in part due to my huge Maurice Moss sized glasses.
The Dr. Jart+ Ceramidin Cream is the second Dr. Jart+ product I've received and so far they're not really scoring many points with me. This moisturizer is a fairly thick cream that is full of ceramides, waxy fatty acids that help the skin maintain moisture and is also a component of vernix caeseosa (or baby cheese) on newborn babies. Cool beans, I can respect that. Except I have combination leaning toward oily skin so... no dice. Unfortunately this cream is just a bit too thick and tacky for my taste but I imagine it would work wonders on somebody with normal or dry skin. My biggest hangup is that it has that thicker tacky consistency after application which drives me insane (yeah, I know it's probably more mental than anything) so it's definitely an evening cream for me.
I received another perfume this month called Like This. It is a collaboration between the brand by Etat Libre d'Orange and Tilda Swinton, whom I've had a total girl crush on since Constantine. This fragrance has a very deep, woodsy, musky, almost gourmand scent to it. I'm not sure if what I'm smelling is gourmand or floral though because the scent tends to evolve on me rapidly for the first 10 minutes then gradually over the next few hours. It definitely has a deep autumn scent to it (love!). The info card describes it as having notes of ginger, rose and pumpkin. Omg I just want to roll in a pile of leaves with every sniff.
I received Glamglow Thirsty Mud H this month! Please excuse my excitement but teeny samples by this brand were part of the reason I had subscribed to Play! by Sephora so I was too excited to receive this tiny sample in my Birchbox instead of say, another dry shampoo. This is a wash-off mud mask that you apply to a damp face and leave on for roughly 20 minutes. It contains hylauronic acid, raw honey and ginger and smells amazing. I applied this before bed and my skin felt calm and refreshed and moisturized without that tacky post-moisturizer feeling I get. It did take quite a while to wash off though so if that's a point of annoyance this mask might not be for you.
For the love of fuck I wish Birchbox would either take my skin tone into consideration or just stop sending me colored lip products entirely. I had been eyeballing Stila Stay All Day Liquid Lipsticks for a while on Hautelook while never biting the bullet and buying one. I got the shade Perla, a rosey "nude" shade. My husband worded it best: "I imagine a manatee floating dead, absorbing all that water. Turning sort of sickly purple/gray with hints of what used to be pink. That's what your lips look like in that color." Mind you, this is after I attempted to fix the color with a nude toned NYX lip liner in the shade Coffee. It smells the way fondant tastes. It applies a bit patchy on my lips and requires at least two coats. The downside to this is that after the second coat the lipstick begins to pearl (no pun intended) a bit on itself. It has a very offputting fragrance that smells almost exactly what cake fondant tastes like and has a bit of a sweet flavor to it as well. The formula is not transfer proof and it dries to leave a powdery finish on my lips. Overall this product was a resounding no with me but I wonder if I would have given it a higher rating if I were able to at least wear it for an extended period of time.
Too cool that I got two bonus foil packets this month. It feels like that has been happening more frequently, actually. This month's foil bonuses were Oribe Shampoo and Conditioner for Brilliance And Shine. I'll be honest, I didn't get a chance to use these yet because my box came in after weekly wash day. Please somebody explain to me though why the full size of the shampoo and conditioner are $49 and $52 respectively? Is it the brand we're supposed to be paying for or are these comprised of some form of infant tears and unicorn farts? I would also love to meet the people who are willing to shell out that kind of money for a shampoo and conditioner because I will take that opportunity to ask him or her to buy me a latte.
Am I happy? Yes and no. I could absolutely do without shipping delays and poorly matching shades. I hate the liquid lipstick shade (as I often do because I highly doubt they take my profile's skin tone into consideration) but I did get Glam Glow, Oribe foil packets, a questionably nice smelling perfume and Benefit Gimme Brow (score!). I accidentally ended up with two boxes this month. I had sent an email around August 21st saying I never received my box and my shipping hadn't updated since the original notice on August 9th so they apologized to me and sent a replacement box. My original "lost" box arrived 4 days ago while my replacement box just showed up in the mail today. Oops. My one comfort is that I'm not the only person who has had shipping issues and concerns. I've also been toeing the line about whether or not I wanted to cancel but I believe this shipping issue is the last straw. My subscription is up for renewal in December but I think I feel more comfortable moving to a monthly plan from my current annual subscription. Shipping delays and vendor changes make me pretty nervous.
I loved the box design itself this month. It reminded me so much of home and my heart did swell just a little bit seeing the sunset and palm trees. Up to this point I didn't really realize I was homesick.
 |
| Homesick |
The Dr. Jart+ Ceramidin Cream is the second Dr. Jart+ product I've received and so far they're not really scoring many points with me. This moisturizer is a fairly thick cream that is full of ceramides, waxy fatty acids that help the skin maintain moisture and is also a component of vernix caeseosa (or baby cheese) on newborn babies. Cool beans, I can respect that. Except I have combination leaning toward oily skin so... no dice. Unfortunately this cream is just a bit too thick and tacky for my taste but I imagine it would work wonders on somebody with normal or dry skin. My biggest hangup is that it has that thicker tacky consistency after application which drives me insane (yeah, I know it's probably more mental than anything) so it's definitely an evening cream for me.
I received another perfume this month called Like This. It is a collaboration between the brand by Etat Libre d'Orange and Tilda Swinton, whom I've had a total girl crush on since Constantine. This fragrance has a very deep, woodsy, musky, almost gourmand scent to it. I'm not sure if what I'm smelling is gourmand or floral though because the scent tends to evolve on me rapidly for the first 10 minutes then gradually over the next few hours. It definitely has a deep autumn scent to it (love!). The info card describes it as having notes of ginger, rose and pumpkin. Omg I just want to roll in a pile of leaves with every sniff.
I received Glamglow Thirsty Mud H this month! Please excuse my excitement but teeny samples by this brand were part of the reason I had subscribed to Play! by Sephora so I was too excited to receive this tiny sample in my Birchbox instead of say, another dry shampoo. This is a wash-off mud mask that you apply to a damp face and leave on for roughly 20 minutes. It contains hylauronic acid, raw honey and ginger and smells amazing. I applied this before bed and my skin felt calm and refreshed and moisturized without that tacky post-moisturizer feeling I get. It did take quite a while to wash off though so if that's a point of annoyance this mask might not be for you.
For the love of fuck I wish Birchbox would either take my skin tone into consideration or just stop sending me colored lip products entirely. I had been eyeballing Stila Stay All Day Liquid Lipsticks for a while on Hautelook while never biting the bullet and buying one. I got the shade Perla, a rosey "nude" shade. My husband worded it best: "I imagine a manatee floating dead, absorbing all that water. Turning sort of sickly purple/gray with hints of what used to be pink. That's what your lips look like in that color." Mind you, this is after I attempted to fix the color with a nude toned NYX lip liner in the shade Coffee. It smells the way fondant tastes. It applies a bit patchy on my lips and requires at least two coats. The downside to this is that after the second coat the lipstick begins to pearl (no pun intended) a bit on itself. It has a very offputting fragrance that smells almost exactly what cake fondant tastes like and has a bit of a sweet flavor to it as well. The formula is not transfer proof and it dries to leave a powdery finish on my lips. Overall this product was a resounding no with me but I wonder if I would have given it a higher rating if I were able to at least wear it for an extended period of time.
 |
| Stila Perla swatched in very shitty lighting |
 |
| Left: Stila Stay All Day in Perla alone, Right: Stila Stay All day on top of NYX lip pencil in coffee |
Too cool that I got two bonus foil packets this month. It feels like that has been happening more frequently, actually. This month's foil bonuses were Oribe Shampoo and Conditioner for Brilliance And Shine. I'll be honest, I didn't get a chance to use these yet because my box came in after weekly wash day. Please somebody explain to me though why the full size of the shampoo and conditioner are $49 and $52 respectively? Is it the brand we're supposed to be paying for or are these comprised of some form of infant tears and unicorn farts? I would also love to meet the people who are willing to shell out that kind of money for a shampoo and conditioner because I will take that opportunity to ask him or her to buy me a latte.
Am I happy? Yes and no. I could absolutely do without shipping delays and poorly matching shades. I hate the liquid lipstick shade (as I often do because I highly doubt they take my profile's skin tone into consideration) but I did get Glam Glow, Oribe foil packets, a questionably nice smelling perfume and Benefit Gimme Brow (score!). I accidentally ended up with two boxes this month. I had sent an email around August 21st saying I never received my box and my shipping hadn't updated since the original notice on August 9th so they apologized to me and sent a replacement box. My original "lost" box arrived 4 days ago while my replacement box just showed up in the mail today. Oops. My one comfort is that I'm not the only person who has had shipping issues and concerns. I've also been toeing the line about whether or not I wanted to cancel but I believe this shipping issue is the last straw. My subscription is up for renewal in December but I think I feel more comfortable moving to a monthly plan from my current annual subscription. Shipping delays and vendor changes make me pretty nervous.
Tuesday, July 11, 2017
June 2017 Birchbox Review
Hey guys, so I'm finally getting around to reviewing the final box of the month. 'Bout damn time, non? For those of you who don't know, Birchbox is a subscription box that sends out 5 deluxe or sample sized items a month for $10 and no shipping cost. Items sent out are based on a profile you create upon subscribing so my box is just one of the variations sent out to people in the month of June. This month's bag was surprisingly makeup heavy and had 7 samples instead of the standard 5. It included:
Unfortunately I was unable to use the Oribe Gold Lust shampoo and conditioner. I just recently got my starter locs done out on my trip back home so washes have been less frequent and aggressive. It's a shame too because Oribe usually smells fantastic and I was excited to get a chance to try something from them that isn't a dry shampoo or texturizing spray. Unfortunately my decision to get locs was more of an afterthought: I had talked about my desire to do it back home for years (it's easier to find someone to do a two strand twist method vs the palm roll method) but I hadn't actually gone through the steps to set up an appointment until very last minute.
I feel like I just lost everybody's attention with that last monologue.
I haven't had too much time with this product yet but I'm enjoying the Estée Lauder Advanced Night Repair serum. It absorbs well and doesn't feel tacky or oily. I loved that I had Estée Lauder included in my box. Not only is it a high end brand that I've been wanting to try out but it's a product I'd actually use. Tiny as it is, it's still a pretty valuable sample. And to be perfectly honest, this is a larger sized sample than one would usually expect from Birchbox. I recently purchased a serum so this little guy is going to hang out as a backup when I run out of the serum I actually purchased.
The Beauty Crop made yet another appearance in one of my Birchboxes, this time in the form of a blush. I was wondering if Birchbox ever sends full sized samples anymore (they used to drop the occasional brush or nail polish in a box but that was before my time) all while failing to realize my blush that I received is full sized. The richer cream shade provides so much pigment that it's almost too difficult for me to work with. Just the slightest tap of your finger will give you blush for days to work with. It also blends fairly easily. The peach powder shade was far less impressive. It has a satin finish to it but it's so difficult to pick up any pigment with this shade. Any swatches just look muted, and unfortunately the peach shade does not show up at all on my cheeks. I had to be pretty aggressive to get the peach shade to even show up in the swatch below. If I combine both of these on my face the guava (coral?) shade gives a punch of color while the satin peach shade gives the most subtle glow. I'm sure it would look amazing on a fair skinned person but unfortunately I am too warm and dark for this compact to be overly noticeable.
The Eau de Parfum sample I got from Kensie is beautiful. From the scent to the packaging, everything about this sample was just perfect. My profile states that I want to receive a bonus perfume sample no more than 6 times a year and oh my god, am I glad that this was one of those times. Would I spend the $55 for a full bottle of it? Probably not since I so rarely wear perfumes anyway. Kensie describes their fragrance as having top notes of peach, mandarin and green, middle notes of cyclamen, rose, jasmine, orange flower, oakmoss and violet, and bottom notes of musk, amber, cedarwood, sandalwood, tonka and vanilla. My nose doesn't work that way so let's say it smells slightly heady and musky while smelling very fresh and clean. It's not too perfumey or floral smelling to me with an almost crisp scent of fruit but it's not quite there, if you catch my meaning (you don't). I'll just stick with the manufacturer's description.
The Mellow Cosmetics Liquid Lip Paint was a nice addition to the box. It is a creamy matte formula that has great staying power but it does transfer quite a bit. It's hard to apply and not be messy about it though. It's a very pretty deep berry shade, even though it's a shade I cannot see myself ever reaching for. It seems more like an autumn color than a summer color too. The value was estimated because once again, it would appear that Birchbox has listed the incorrect volume on their site. It usually happens for at least one of my items every month.
Ah, the great disappointment of this month's box: Manna Kadar Priming Shadow Stick. I received mine broken. Reading reviews for this product, it looks like 99.9% of subscribers received a broken shadow stick. I complained to Birchbox about my shadow stick but at that point they had run out of stock to replace mine so I ended up with 50 Birchbox points, which translates to $5.00 credit in their store. This is perfect, especially considering that I for the most part am not planning on buying anything through Birchbox within the next 6 months before my points expire.
Complaints aside, this shadow stick is incredibly creamy and has a nice silvery-taupe shade that probably will not work on my skin tone without looking too 90's frosty. However, if I ever want to work on a throwback Spice Girls look I can use this and a dark brown lipstick, lose like 50-75 lbs and let my ass hang out in some platform shoes. It's settled, I think I may have just figured out my Halloween costume.
My total box value this month was $51.29. That looks completely wrong and I'm now forced to admit that math is not my forté. It cannot be right simply by virtue of my Birchboxes never having a very high value. This value would be almost entirely due to the Estée Lauder serum, Beauty Crop blush and perhaps the Manna Kadar shadow stick though i almost don't want to include that in the total because it arrived annihilated. The dark horse superhero of this box was the Kensie perfume, hands down. It has a very soothing, beautiful (musky?) scent that is just masculine enough to draw me in without giving the impression that I should be wearing my flannel and Doc Martens. Side note: I really miss my flannel shirt and Doc Martens my husband threw in the Goodwill pile when we were purging my closet just before The Big Move out to Chicago. Those were late teens/early 20's staples of my life.
Swatched left to right: The Beauty Crop blush (powder on the left, cream on the right), Mellow Cosmetics liquid lipstick in New York, and a Nyx Gotcha Covered Concealer in medium from my Target Beauty Box that somehow sneaked its way onto this post.
- Oribe Gold Lust Repair & Restore Shampoo - $1.38 CF
- Oribe Gold Lust Repair & Restore Conditioner - $1.83 CF
- Estée Lauder Advanced Night Repair Synchronized Recovery Complex - $15.60
- The Beauty Crop Blush Duo in Papaya Don't Preach - $10 Full Sized, CF
- Kensie Eau de Parfum - $1.08
- Mellow Cosmetics Liquid Lip Paint in New York - $7.00 CF, V
- Manna Kadar Cosmetics Eye Candy Priming Shadow Stick in Jelly Bean - $14.40 CF
I feel like I just lost everybody's attention with that last monologue.
I haven't had too much time with this product yet but I'm enjoying the Estée Lauder Advanced Night Repair serum. It absorbs well and doesn't feel tacky or oily. I loved that I had Estée Lauder included in my box. Not only is it a high end brand that I've been wanting to try out but it's a product I'd actually use. Tiny as it is, it's still a pretty valuable sample. And to be perfectly honest, this is a larger sized sample than one would usually expect from Birchbox. I recently purchased a serum so this little guy is going to hang out as a backup when I run out of the serum I actually purchased.
The Eau de Parfum sample I got from Kensie is beautiful. From the scent to the packaging, everything about this sample was just perfect. My profile states that I want to receive a bonus perfume sample no more than 6 times a year and oh my god, am I glad that this was one of those times. Would I spend the $55 for a full bottle of it? Probably not since I so rarely wear perfumes anyway. Kensie describes their fragrance as having top notes of peach, mandarin and green, middle notes of cyclamen, rose, jasmine, orange flower, oakmoss and violet, and bottom notes of musk, amber, cedarwood, sandalwood, tonka and vanilla. My nose doesn't work that way so let's say it smells slightly heady and musky while smelling very fresh and clean. It's not too perfumey or floral smelling to me with an almost crisp scent of fruit but it's not quite there, if you catch my meaning (you don't). I'll just stick with the manufacturer's description.
The Mellow Cosmetics Liquid Lip Paint was a nice addition to the box. It is a creamy matte formula that has great staying power but it does transfer quite a bit. It's hard to apply and not be messy about it though. It's a very pretty deep berry shade, even though it's a shade I cannot see myself ever reaching for. It seems more like an autumn color than a summer color too. The value was estimated because once again, it would appear that Birchbox has listed the incorrect volume on their site. It usually happens for at least one of my items every month.
Complaints aside, this shadow stick is incredibly creamy and has a nice silvery-taupe shade that probably will not work on my skin tone without looking too 90's frosty. However, if I ever want to work on a throwback Spice Girls look I can use this and a dark brown lipstick, lose like 50-75 lbs and let my ass hang out in some platform shoes. It's settled, I think I may have just figured out my Halloween costume.
My total box value this month was $51.29. That looks completely wrong and I'm now forced to admit that math is not my forté. It cannot be right simply by virtue of my Birchboxes never having a very high value. This value would be almost entirely due to the Estée Lauder serum, Beauty Crop blush and perhaps the Manna Kadar shadow stick though i almost don't want to include that in the total because it arrived annihilated. The dark horse superhero of this box was the Kensie perfume, hands down. It has a very soothing, beautiful (musky?) scent that is just masculine enough to draw me in without giving the impression that I should be wearing my flannel and Doc Martens. Side note: I really miss my flannel shirt and Doc Martens my husband threw in the Goodwill pile when we were purging my closet just before The Big Move out to Chicago. Those were late teens/early 20's staples of my life.
Swatched left to right: The Beauty Crop blush (powder on the left, cream on the right), Mellow Cosmetics liquid lipstick in New York, and a Nyx Gotcha Covered Concealer in medium from my Target Beauty Box that somehow sneaked its way onto this post.
Wednesday, January 4, 2017
December Birchbox First Impressions
Elephant in the room: this post is pretty late. My box came in on December 31st, so technically still December, right?
So right off the rip, Birchbox samples are WAY smaller than Ipsy. That and I keep getting haircare products, which wouldn't be terrible if I actually had hair. More importantly, if I had overly processed, chemically treated, or non-natural hair that requires specific products and laughs in the face of things such as dry shampoos.
I'm also sitting here trying to learn how to live with not having posted volumes and weights, causing me to do actual work finding comparable sizes online to give an estimate of a price point.
Enough of the whining. Hey! I got my first Birchbox, guys!
So right off the rip, Birchbox samples are WAY smaller than Ipsy. That and I keep getting haircare products, which wouldn't be terrible if I actually had hair. More importantly, if I had overly processed, chemically treated, or non-natural hair that requires specific products and laughs in the face of things such as dry shampoos.
I'm also sitting here trying to learn how to live with not having posted volumes and weights, causing me to do actual work finding comparable sizes online to give an estimate of a price point.
Enough of the whining. Hey! I got my first Birchbox, guys!
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