My Skin Actives Experience Pt.2

  This post is an update to my first one. There were a couple products I left out in my first post on Skin Actives, & the great folks over at SA were nice enough to send me a bevy of products to try with my reorder of the Collagen serum & Bright-I cream. They sent me full sizes of the two products that I requested to try; their CHAS Antioxidant serum http://www.skinactives.com/Antioxidant-Serum-Glutaredoxin-SOD.html, & the Brow & Lash serum http://www.skinactives.com/Brow-and-Lash-serum-with-KGF.html. They also included a bevy of samples; such as the new creamy cleanser & hand/body lotion, available as a monthly bonus w/ orders over $50, Antioxidant Day cream http://www.skinactives.com/Antioxidant-Day-Cream.html, & Revitalizing Night creamhttp://www.skinactives.com/Revitalizing-Night-Cream.html.       Week 1 (9/2):  I've incorporated the goodies I received into my skincare routine as follows; for day I'm using the creamy cleanser, then Lip/ regular Collagen serums, then the Brow/Lash serum, then Bright-I cream, then Antioxidant Day cream, then my day cream/ sunscreen. My night routine now consists of the creamy cleanser, then the Lip/ regular Collagen serums, then the Brow/Lash serum, then the Bright-I serum/creams, then the CHAS serum, then the Vitamin A cream, topped off with the Revitalizing Night cream. It sounds like a lot, but it's really not that complicated.
  First Impressions: The Brow & Lash serum (This is to promote hair growth in the brow/ eyelash areas.)- This comes in a lipgloss type container with a doe-foot applicator. I have smaller eyes/brows so the applicator is a bit too large to distribute an appropriate amount of product for my needs. This poses no problem as I just improvised with an eyeliner brush I have on hand. My brows & lashes seem to be responding to the serum. I needed to pluck my eyebrows after two days of use, which I hardly ever have to do anymore, & my eyelashes were also a bit thicker. I will continue with this because I'm already getting results.
 Antioxidant/ CHAS serum- As usual with SA products there are no added fragrances, so the serum is a light brown, silky textured liquid with a slightly fruity scent. This serum goes on with a creamy feel, but is oil-free. After two days my skin is slightly brighter & looks well rested. I may be adding this serum to my permanent routine.
 The creamy cleanser- This is white with a light texture, no fragrance, & lathers slightly. Unlike the salicylic wash, the creamy cleanser works well with my Clarisonic brush (I only use it at night). My skin is left feeling soft, after using this.
 The hand/body lotion- This is fragrance-free, has a very creamy texture & is orange in color. This lotion makes my hands feel silky. I'm applying it before bedtime because I only have a sample size, but if I opt for the full size, I will definitely want this in my purse to use more frequently.
 Antioxidant Day cream- This cream is silky & light brown in texture. I don't find that there is noticeable order & my skin responds well to it.
 Revitalizing Night cream-  This cream is bright orange & has a noticeable earthy smell. The smell though noticeable isn't offensive. The texture is smooth & creamy & my skin responds well to this cream.
 In summary for wk.1, my skin is doing well with all of the new additions to my skincare routine.
After a month of continuous use:
  I meant to do a week by week review of my products, but that kind of fell by the wayside for me. I am very satisfied with the products that I was sent to try. I actually ended up getting id'd twice, at two different establishments that I ordered alcohol from last night. I was not wearing makeup. My eyelashes are looking the best that they have in a couple years, I feel satisfied with only mascara on; I'm giving the falsies a rest. I did get kind of sick of layering so many products on at night, so I ended up mixing the night cream & the rest of my UV Repair cream into my Vit. A cream. We are done with summer, so I'll be trying out the TCA Peel from SA next.

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.

Sale At LovePotionPerfume.com

  It's that time again, well it's been that time for a couple weeks now, actually. Once yearly, my favorite artisan fragrance e-tailer, http://www.lovepotionperfume.com/, has a clearance sale. As you can see from the above picture, I went a little crazy. I ended up with 6 free bottles, 2 of which I was generous enough to give my husband, in addition to the special bottle of Love Potion #9 that I picked up for him. Of course I stocked up on the basics (Love Potion, Love Potion Red, & Topper), & I was able to snag a couple that I've been eyeing for awhile; their version of Florida Water, Happy Water, Get Happy, Spider Silk, & Egg. All very interesting names, but trust me, they're all amazing perfumes! There are actually 2 sales going on for members of their online forum, which is accessible through their website. The box pictured is from their buy two/get one sale, with extras thrown in at higher levels of spending. I also took advantage of the other sale happening concurrently, with bottles being priced at $10 for that one. I saw a couple favorites listed in the $10 bin & panicked, lol. I definitely encourage anyone reading to try this company & try them now.

My Skin Actives Experience

From left to right; 1.Collagen Serum, 2.My own concoction, 3.Vitamin A cream, 4.DMAE Serum

*Disclaimer, I have purchased all these products entirely with my own money & these are my opinions (& no one else's) about this brand. Also all photos are the exclusive property of Beccah's Meccah

  Since last December I've been using Skin Actives almost exclusively for my skincare needs. When I was using the line as recommended, people were guessing me a lot younger than my actual age. Now, this summer I kind of went through a stress meltdown & resorted to alcohol to resolve these stress issues. Here's where my Skin Actives collection has achieved superstardom in my skincare routine. Even though I've been taking terrible care of myself these last 4 months, people are still guessing me at my age or younger. This is amazing because I've gotten into the habit of falling asleep in my makeup & drinking beer or wine nightly. Either factor is well known to be disastrous for nice looking skin of their own accord, but the combo is especially hard on over 30 skin. Anyway, I'm remedying that, last night I made it to bed, having managed to properly remove my makeup & adhere to a nighttime routine including the Vit. A cream, & collagen serum (pictured above). Also including Skin Actives' Bright-I serum & eye cream (not pictured). As my reward, I woke up to glowing skin this morning, yay.

  On to the DIY products. Pictured on the right is Sea Kelp Coral. From http://www.skinactives.com/home.php: "Our amazing Sea Kelp Bioferment can be used as a great nutritive active or as a base for our other products. As a base it is perfect for users with oily skin types as it moisturizes without supplying extra oil. It is also incredibly effective for normal and dry skin, as it is a powerful nutritive moisturizer. This active is the major building block for most of our 'Ready to Use' product line - from creams to serums to washes, it is the perfect active for almost any purpose." My purpose is to add this to my DIY face spray. I use the spray for toning, refreshing my skin, as a leave-in hair conditioner, & etc.. It's a nice little multi-purpose gel that I keep in the fridge so that I can also use it on burns & minor cuts in conjunction with my aloe plant. If you're interested in my Face Spritz recipe, let me know in the comments.

This is the unlabeled jar's contents. It's my own concoction of various additives & the Beginner's Formulation Kit. I let my best friend have a small sample & she told me that I should sell it! I have the various actives that I used listed on the Skin Actives forum, but the ones that gave my cream that strong color are the green tea & coffee berry extracts. It is easy to overdo it with creating your own creams, because a cream can only take so much being added to it & still maintain it's integrity as a cream formulation, but I'm happy with how it turned out. The only thing I would change is that I didn't fully let the ceramides dissolve before I added them to my cream. So it has a bit of a gritty texture, but it's still not too shabby, even for having suffered from my rookie mistake. Just for fun, I've
uploaded a picture of the active GABA I have leftover from making my concoction (it's in the tube). Isn't science fun? Since I added a ton of antioxidants  to it, this is my daytime cream. I use it along with the Bright-I cream, Collagen Serum, & occasionally the DMAE serum, for my morning routine. I do switch it up with the occasional sample I get from Sephora, but I don't find myself spending money with other skincare brands since I began using Skin Actives. I am really impressed with everything I have so far & look forward to trying the new items in their lineup & also the TCA Spot Peel Kit. My pores are smaller, my face is firmer, & my skin is more even for having tried this skincare company. I've been promised all these things from other skincare companies, but Skin Actives is the only company that has done what they said they're going to do. The expensive companies usually deliver on one of those promises, & rarely, the drugstore brands also do, but the this is the only company that has truly kept it's promises. They've also gotten even better for new people to try, because they offer samples sizes of their popular products now, in addition to their money back guarantee & excellent customer service. The samples are great for newcomers  to familiarize themselves with Skin Actives or for current converts to use as travel sizes.

Do You Hoodoo? Pt.2

'11/'13 Spell Collections www.lovepotionperfume.com

  I don't think you can see in the picture, but I lined up the Spell Potions from the '11 collections next to the '13 potions that have similar intents. From left to right; Love Drawing('11)/Smitten Kitten('13), Mojo Oil('11)/Whisker Wishes('13), Jinx No More('11)/Black Cat Hex Breaker('13), Lady Luck('11)/Lucky Dog('13). You'll have to hit their website for detailed description of what each potion is intended for.

 When you get your package from Love Potion, they send a bookmark with instructions on how to use their perfume oils, the perfume bottles & samples also come in very nicely beaded, shimmer style favor bags. Love Potion makes perfume, so there Hoodoo based LEs are not going to be in the traditional style of Hoodoo with corresponding herbs, minerals, & etc. that's usually thrown into the bottles. They do not use synthetic fragrance oils, however, & the master bottles are empowered w/a big dose of intent. In my experience, these are great & I'm very excited to try the August/September sampler sets I just received.

On the left are a couple of the oils I purchased from Conjured Cardea. They smell nice & work well to anoint candles with, but they smell metallic when I add them to my loose incenses. Actually, the Love Potion perfume oils are the only ones that smell nice when I add them to loose incense cones. Anyway, Moma Sarah (the proprietor of http://conjuredcardea.indiemade.com/  & http://www.zibbet.com/ConjuredCardea ) is very nice & she offers a 20% discount to single mothers. On the right are a couple of the Lucky Mojo oils I own. Those don't smell very nice added to incense either, but they do last a bit longer on my skin than CC's do. Although they still don't have the staying power of perfume. 6-24-14 Update! Man, the Conjured Cardea oils pack a wallop. I hadn't paid much attention to Bewitching, as I was focused on using Queen B*tch (for various reasons). Anyway, the Bewitching oil from CC is fracking crazy! I swear it's like spiritual photoshop or something. People are indeed bewitched by me when I wear it. I think every woman should have this condition oil in her arsenal, if old fashioned conjure oils are your thing ;)

Do You Hoodoo? Pt.1

  I am into interesting looking things. I love fancy little boxes & jars, pretty perfume bottles, and basically anything that looks out of the ordinary.  I collect perfumes from LPMP & hoodoo oils especially. I like LPMP's perfumes so much because I know that somebody made them with their own two hands & expertise. They didn't come rolling off of an assembly line. When you order a private edition, that means that the proprietor makes that specific bottle of perfume oil just for you. How neat! It also helps that I'm friends with the owner, Mara Fox; I know that she is a generous & kind human being, who gives back a lot of the income she makes toward making the planet a better place. This takes me off track from the matter at hand though.  http://www.lovepotionperfume.com/ has released their 2013 Spell Collection, based on traditional Hoodoo recipes & this has inspired me to blog about good old fashioned Hoodoo oils.
 Traditionally, hoodoo oils are chunky, like the Lucky Mojo Curio oils in the first picture. They smell nice, but they aren't perfume, so the smell fades rather quickly. Over the last two years, I have really gotten into Lucky Mojo Curios oils http://www.luckymojo.com/catalogue.html . They look cool, they smell nice, & they work! The staff at that company have the ability to pack a large wallop of intent into their 1/2 ounce bottles. Unfortunately, I didn't have a great experience buying directly from them. I guess they were in the middle of a staff restructuring & their shipping was CRAZY slow. I have been acquiring their oils from other sources, & regardless of their shipping capabilities, their oils are the gold standard for true Hoodoo oils currently available in the market place. Taking that into consideration, when I have funds available, I will be scooping up their 12 oil deal! So far I own 12 of their oils; including Money Stay With Me & Crown of Success. I got a few others for personal uses that I'm not really comfortable discussing, but they all work for me. The fact that I own 12 & I'm looking to acquire another 12, for starters, should tell you something, anyway.

 Normally hoodoo oils are chunky, the bottles contain various herbs, roots, minerals, & etc. that are appropriate to the intentions of the formula. They may also be dyed a corresponding color. (I love when they lightly color a formula, it looks pretty to me.) Perfume & essential oils may also be added if it benefits the work that the oil is intended for. Don't get suckered into buying the cheap synthetics, as I have before! I have a bunch of oils, in 1 dram bottles, that I won't be using anytime soon. They're nothing but mineral oil, perfume, & dye. I can't even add them to my loose incenses because they smoke black. I won't name the brand, but it's not hard to find them & they're very low priced. Just stay away, those kind of oils are cheap for a reason.