Weekly News

  I'm currently testing a few products that Jonotan over at Skin Actives sent with my last refill order of their Collagen serum & Bright-I cream. I will have my results posted in 2 & a half more weeks. I have to comment about the Love Potion '13 Spell collection. Thus far Glamour Puss is my favorite from the collection of 20 samples I received a couple of weeks back.
  Since there aren't any fixatives in Love Potion fragrance products, I'm usually crossing my fingers that what I love in its sample vial, remains unchanged when it combines with my body chemistry. I was a little scared for the first 5-10 minutes of wearing this. The orange & rice notes had taken over & were projecting the delicious aroma of Fruit Loops. I persevered through this phase & I was rewarded with a grown up sweet & citrus-musk type scent. I really like these kind of scents in general, but this one makes me feel extra glamorous. I don't care if my husband can't tell the difference between my many, many perfumes featuring grapefruit, I went for it & ordered 2 bottles of this one.  Does it matter to me that my husband will smell this & comment that "he's smelled that before," or that I will probably have to be buried with my massive perfume collection, like an Egyptian pharaoh? No, & if I get the chance, I will probably buy at least two more bottles of this perfume.
 In other cosmetics news; I've converted to a Beauty Blender believer. The sponge is worth the freaking money. Don't fight it, just research, look for coupons, & buy it, because resistance is going to be futile. The only liquid foundation that doesn't want to completely cooperate with the BB, is my beloved (discontinued) Boots No.7 Lifting & Firming foundation. Fortunately, using my Real Techniques Flawless foundation brush, THEN blending it out with the BB netted me the perfect finish that I was getting with my other liquid foundations. I also wasted my time & tried out Lancome's CILS Booster XL mascara primer. It doesn't really do much of anything but make my lashes clumpy. I tried it with almost every mascara sample that I had, so I know the clumping wasn't a fluke. I took it back to Sephora after testing it out with five different mascaras, including Lancome's Hypnose Star. I always cheat on L'Oreal's Double Extend Beauty Tubes, only to return, poorer & no better off than I was before.

IT Cosmetics

  This brand has gained a lot of traction since they partnered with QVC. My first experience was with their contouring pallet, when they were with HSN. I didn't understand contouring, so I thought the pallet was junk & ended up returning it. The company has since revamped their brand & updated their offerings, along with explaining how to use their products better in their on-air sales presentations. I did end up buying their contouring pallet again, after I learned how to properly contour from tutorials I found on Youtube. I still can't give this brand an A though. Overall, I give them a C+. Let me explain this rating, I feel like I'm giving them a fair rating with a C+ because I own & have tried quite a few of their products, purchased using my own money. The first reason that they get a C+ rating is due to their foundation/concealer color range. L'Oreal's True Match line has an excellent range for half the price & I can find the products at Walmart, for a third of the price of IT Cosmetics' foundations. The people that can wear their colors give them great reviews. I am fair with a warm leaning neutral skin undertone. The only color I can use out of their foundation/concealer line is the Neutral Medium, if I have self-tan on & only if the self tan is red based. Otherwise, their fair color is way too pale & way too cool toned to accommodate a large majority of us fair skinned ladies.

IT Cosmetics shade finder chart

 Look at it, look! How do you even? There isn't any in between from the fair to the light shades. Their shade range is more limited than Covergirl's drugstore foundations & yet costs 3x more than CG's foundations do. I'm sorry, but I've just come to expect a great range of shades from HE brands, this makes them worthy of the heftier price tags they come with, in my opinion. This is where IT Cosmetics gets a big fat F. It's 2013, women come in a much larger skin tone variety than the 5 shades they offer. Please, IT Cosmetics, become more accommodating in your shade offerings, because there are literally hundreds of other cosmetics companies that women can give their money to.  

 

Brow Power Lift pencil

Brow Power eyebrow pencil

 IT Cosmetics' Brow Power Lift pencil gets an A+ from me. You can find the tutorial on how to properly use it on QVC.com. This is definitely pricey at $24, but it's worth it as a highlighter because you have a matte side & a shimmery side. They use liquid crystal technology, also known as cholesterol nanoate, to get their non-glittery glow. Liquid crystal technology is our friend, ladies. It truly gives skin a youthful sheen when applied properly, much like what we've been promised with mica, but cholesterol nanoate actually delivers. I had never intended to try their eyebrow pencil, I wasn't interested at all, but it came in a kit. I'm surprised that I actually found it to be an excellent eyebrow pencil, & this is after I've officially converted to the brow powder camp. It does take me a bit longer to apply than brow powder, but it's a great pencil & the color is self adjusting. That's something that I can't say about brow powder.
 Other products that get A ratings from me are IT Cosmetics' Vitality Face Disk, & their Bye Bye Pores HD Powder.
 I give the following products a C rating:  Bye Bye Pores bronzer, because although it is matte, it can still enhance pores & is red based. A bronzer has to be cool based, as well as matte to work for contouring. IT Cosmetics brushes also receive a big fat C from me. Bigger isn't always better! The only brush that I would give them an A rating on, would be the concealer side of their Airbrush Dual Concealer/Foundation brush. It's the only concealer brush that achieves better results than my fingers or my Beauty Blender sponge.
 Products that I give an F to, besides their foundations, are beginning with Hello Light Anti-Aging Creme Radiance. No, it's not because of the name. Seriously, though, who names these products???? How can you explain to a friend about a great new product that you've found, when the name takes up two sentences of the conversation? Anyway, if you get the brush & illuminator together, you're going to be mighty disappointed. This brush is the worst way to apply this product, it simply doesn't put the product where it needs to go & it puts way too much of the product on. The product is better applied with the Real Techniques Setting brush, but works best when applied with your fingers. When you use this method, the highlighter becomes ok, but still doesn't look as nice as their pencil or highlighting powder. Hello Lashes is a terrible mascara offering from this company. It's supposed to be a 5 in 1 product, yet somehow fails to even be good at one thing; being mascara! I don't want to get into what they claim it does. Personally, I call Hello Lashes, Hello Clumps! This mascara is as terrible as Hard Candy's mascara offerings are, but at 4x times the price point, hello! Bottom line, do try IT Cosmetics, but don't expect their brand to live up to all their claims.