Glambot.com Review

   I first heard of the Glambot site from an offhand comment in a YouTube tutorial. I would give a link to the video, but it's not really worth the mention. I was actually watching in horror as the YouTuber was applying a crazy amount of makeup layers, starting with a foundation that was completely wrong for her skin tone, but I digress.
 I searched for Glambot & found it here https://www.glambot.com/  Glambot.com is a consignment sight for used makeup. I browsed through the site, window shopping, but I really became intrigued with the concept of selling off some of my collection to get some room in my makeup stash.
 The process was fairly painless & saved me the hassle of having to sanitize the makeup, selling it off piece by piece via swapidu or some other site. The downside is that convenience costs, & I ended up receiving a fraction of what the 20 items plus deluxe samples were worth. I was offered $83 cash or $108 Glam bucks for my stash that contained a lot of deluxe full sized items, including a 4 oz bottle of Josie Maran SPF 47 moisturizer that had barely been used.  Glambot does offer a prepaid shipping label, but if you don't accept the quote of either cash via Paypal or a higher amount usable only at their site, then you will be responsible for paying the shipping to return your items to you. I took the cash. The process was fairly painless & took under 3 weeks. Considering that these items would've gone bad since I wasn't using them anyway, & I definitely wouldn't have wanted to hassle with selling them individually, I can't complain about getting some cash for them. There are a few items that I want from their site, but the point of me thinning out my stash was to get some room & narrow my collection down to items that I use regularly. I will probably be looking to buy, maybe sometime next year. I defintely recommend at least checking Glambot.com out for yourselves.

Skin Actives Update

  

  Pictured above is my latest order from Skin Actives, at www.skinactive.com Liquid Rainbow-left ($12.50), is a moisturing lip treatment. I tried it before, when it was available in the lip kit that came with the Lip Collagen serum in trial sizes. I liked it before, but I didn't care for it being in a squeeze tube because it would leak & end up all over the cap. I hadn't reordered it since, but my lips have become a situation since I forgot to apply sunscreen before spending all day at the Iowa State Fair w/ the fam. In addition to this lovely farmer's tan, my lips have become chronically dry. Liquid Rainbow is ultra moisturizing thanks to the Liquid Crystal base (which derives it holographic sheen from cholesteryl nonanoate) & high quality antioxidants added to the formula. Fortunately the full size is  offered in a convenient lip-gloss container. I don't feel the need to incorporate the Lip Collagen serum, because I already buy SA's Collagen serum in bulk so adding the lip variant seems redundant.  UV Repair cream w/ booster-right($25 for 2oz) is designed to repair sun damage & combat signs of aging. I tried UV Repair cream when I first began using SA, but the smell was really strong & I didn't want to continue using it. I was getting such good results from the other formulas that I was using, that I really didn't see the need to use something that I found unpleasant smelling. Again, that trip to the fair has reorganized my skincare priorities. Much like SA has revamped the UV cream. The really strong smelling ingredients are now offered separately as a booster. I considered not ordering that, but I'm willing to do what it takes to fix the damage I incurred. 

 Well I started off the spring/summer skincare season using SA's Firming Collagen cream, & 4% DMAE serum. Both are excellent for firming the skin & tricking people into believing that you're much younger than you truly are. I would probably have reordered the Collagen cream if not for the sunscreen debacle. The update is that I began using SA products in 2012, & I'm still using their product's as key components of my skincare regimen. I switch up the products I order, but I always reorder the Collagen serum, Vitamin A cream (night), & Bright-I cream. The products in the SA catalogue are comparably priced to drugstore lines, & contain more actives than high end brands, along with free education via their website. Their customer service is excellent, & the company makes your items to order. Why is this important? Because active ingredients like marine collagen, peptides, & etc. have about a 6 month shelf life utilizing refrigeration. I love this company's skincare products because I get great results for WalMart prices. Vive SkinActives.com!

IT for Ulta's Contour Set is IT!

Well, I love this contour set from IT. The brushes fit nicely in my hand. The brush head is dense with soft synthetic hair, but not so densely packed that it's too firm to work with. I was so disappointed with RT's Bold Metal flat contour. IT has made the contour brush that I didn't that I needed! At $39 for essentially 3 brushes & a case, in comparison to the $26 that I dropped for the Bold Metals brush. I feel like IT gave me a way better deal over Real Techniques. Especially because I'll be using the Contour Must-Haves kit everyday. I've used that RT brush 5 times in the year that I've owned it. This kit from IT Cosmetics gets an A+ from me.

NYX Slide On Lip Pencil review pt.2

My order came today, yay! Of course I had a camera fiasco last week, so I did the best I could taking photo swatches via my tablet's cam. Here they are:

The colors are rich & true to the descriptions. Sugar Glass was described as a yellow toned brown (beige), in the neutrals category. Nude Suede Shoes was described as a pink toned neutral (beige). Both of these are exactly the colors as described. All of the Slide On Lip Pencils apply very smoothly with good color payoff, & are matte. These are really reminding me of the original formula CG Smoothers lipliners. (If only they would resurrect my holy grail CG Smoothers liner in Sleek Teak, a mauve toned taupe!) In comparison to Urban Decay's Glide On lipliners they're not as dry & Nude Suede Shoes doesn't pull orange on me like Naked & Naked 2 did. They do come off fairly easily with Garnier's makeup removing lotion cleanser, but they don't smudge very much when I directly wipe them with my fingers. Price points:  NYX Slide On Lip Pencil $7.99(Ulta); Urban Decay Glide On Lip Pencil $20 (everywhere). I don't care about the difference in price points, even if both these lines were priced at the more expensive $20, I would still prefer NYX's color range. This is not because I have anything against Urban Decay, I actually really love the UD Ozone Primer Pencil along with the Super-Saturated lip color pencils (discontinued). I also do not care for NYX's High Voltage lipstick line. I ordered French Kiss based off the swatch & description of being a cool toned pink. It was neither of those things! More like neon peach, yuck. My point is that every makeup company can have hits or misses. I feel like the Slide On lippies are a hit for NYX.

Real Techniques How Could You???

  I don't know who to blame this on. Real Techniques was doing great until the last year or so. I hadn't purchased a brush that I didn't like from RT until 2014. Of course there were some brushes in my kits that weren't getting as much love as my daily used favorites, but now it's happened. I've gotten terrible brushes from Real Techniques; the silicone liner brush. It's a pointed silicone tip that's supposed to be excellent for gel liners, but I hate it. It does not glide gel liners evenly onto my lashline as promised. It skips & drags them along, unpleasantly & unevenly as possible. Here's a pic of the offending party($6), courtesy of RealTechniques.com

Now,  let's talk about the Bold Metals flat contour brush 

@$26, this was not a cheap mistake for me to make. The handle is plastic (not metal), it's way too long, & feels weighty in the hand. I often end up banging the handle into my makeup mirror. The brush is very densely packed, but it doesn't blend out contour very nicely. I've got a lot of makeup experience under my belt, & I'm getting the sense that more isn't necessarily better when it comes to packing the bristles into brush heads. Especially when making them so dense, counterintuitively makes the brush heads too firm. I want a precise contour, but I want the brush to work with me, not against me....  Here's to hoping that I have better luck with IT's new Contour set (from their Ulta line).

Oh Joy! NYX is duping UD's Glide On lippies! Pt.1

    Happy day to you all! So Nyx has recently released their Slide On lip pencil line:

 From the appearance, & description, I'm going to assume that these are the dupe for Urban Decay's Glide On pencil line. Although, I hope not exactly! I mean in reference to UD's color range. I haven't been exactly salivating with the direction they've went with the "nude lip" trend. Everything seems to have a warmer brown, or peachy undertone. Or the lip pencils are pink & on the bright side. I don't care what undertone you are, if you're fair (like myself) only a cool, pink toned nude shade is going to look MLBB. Ok, rant over. Crossing my fingers that NYX nailed the nude lip for us fair skinned ladies. I couldn't find nary a review ANYWHERE on the interwebs, so I was forced to buy the colors that I was deliberating over, all 5 of them. I go first, so that others may know the pros & cons before they buy (you're welcome). The colors I purchased from Ulta.com (my nearest Ulta is 90 minutes away) are: 1.Bedrose; described as soft, nude pink w/mauve undertone, 2.Dark soul; deep, wine red, 3.Nude Suede Shoes; nude w/pink undertone, 4.Sugar Glass; true nude w/yellow undertone, 5.Red Tape; deep red. 

 Yes, I did get a yellow toned nude in there, but the swatch online looked really enticing. Besides in my experience, Ulta's online swatches/descriptions are usually waaaaay off. Why not buy directly from NYX online & enjoy the lower free shipping cut off, while saving myself the sales tax, you may ask? Well, I also have my suspicions that this may have something to do with the lack of reviews on this product, but the NYX site warns in its basket to expect shipping delays because they're revamping their site. I also took note of the banner announcements for their flagship stores opening (in the L.A. area). So, I should be getting my order of these in the next couple days & I'll be back with some swatches & reviews!

Makeup Overhaul

  I'm wondering how many other women suffer from this disorder? Is anyone else a makeup "hoarder?" 

Ok, well I am. I might have to blame this partially on Leslie over at Bare Minerals, with her mineral makeup that can last practically forever. I had gotten into the habit of never throwing anything out. Unfortunately, Bare Minerals doesn't do it for me anymore. I've graduated to IT Cosmetics' line, so it was time to overhaul my makeup cart. 

This was all brought about because of an itch I got to try out blue eyeshadow, which led to an overhaul of my eyeshadow drawer 

So now here we are. It's probably good that these events came to pass, everything is orderly, the stuff I use most is easily accessible & my impulse purchases in Walmart's makeup aisle have been curtailed. Also, I did end up finding a great blue pallet from Revlon's CustomEyes; the greyer leaning smoky blue one.