First Impressions Archives – Page 10 of 10

Review | As Seen On TV Finishing Touch Flawless Facial Hair Remover

October 24, 2017

Hi Everyone!

Are you ever skeptical when you see a product on TV that claims to work really well? I know when I see products on TV, I am interested in trying them, but don’t necessarily want to shell out the money to buy it…especially if it’s not guaranteed that it will work. There’s a store called Showcase that has As Seen On TV products and I decided to make an account because they sell Morphe products which I want to try. I got an email that advertised the Finishing Touch Flawless Facial Hair Remover and was interested by the claims that it gets rid of facial hair without pain, nicks, redness or irritation. I also received a bonus called the Satin Finish. It’s supposed to gently exfoliate and buff away unwanted hair. It’s like a very fine sandpaper, I tried it and it didn’t really work to remove any hair, but it did exfoliate and made my skin feel smoother.

The new gold standard in facial hair removal from Finishing Touch. From the world’s #1 facial hair remover for women comes Flawless – a revolutionary new device that erases facial hair instantly and painlessly. Recommended by dermatologists, the 18K gold-plated head is hypoallergenic and gentle on all skin types with a built-in light so you never miss a hair! No nicks, redness, or irritation.

The ways I usually get rid of facial hair is tweezing or waxing. Just last year, I got those portable razors from Muji and I started using them to get rid of the peach fuzz. They are amazing, my skin is super smooth after using it and I don’t get any redness like I do after tweezing or waxing. The only thing I don’t like about using the portable razor is that it’s kind of dangerous if you don’t do it at the right angle, I accidentally nicked myself once. Also, I’m always worried that someone will scare me and I’ll jump and cut myself. If you plan to buy the razors, the best way is to do it dry and use your other hand to keep your skin taut.

It’s hard to take a close up picture to show you how well it removed the peach fuzz on my face, but I took before and after pictures of some hairs on my hand. Even though the hairs on my hand are coarser than the peach fuzz, you can see how well the Flawless Hair Remover works.

I like that the Flawless Hair Remover has no sharp edges and that I could easily get the hairs near my eyes without having to pluck them. It reminds me of a sweater defuzzer because it has a razor that cuts the hair, but it’s safe to touch the head without cutting your finger. The light that comes with it is quite useful, it’s easier to see the hairs you’ve missed. It uses a single AA battery so you don’t have to go out and buy AAA or some specialized batteries for it. The head twists off and you clean the inside with the brush that comes with it. The company says it’s like a fancy lipstick, but it’s a bit bigger than a lipstick.

They also have a rechargeable model available in black

RATING: 4/5

I give it a 4/5 because it works well and removes the hair without pain or irritation like it claims. I docked a point because it’s quite expensive and then you have to buy replacement heads after a few months.

Thoughts: I think the portable razor does a better job of making my face feel smoother and it’s a lot cheaper than the Flawless Hair Remover. The Flawless is TSA-friendly whereas a razor would be considered a weapon, so it’s good for travel.

Have you bought As Seen On TV products? What are ones that actually work?

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First Impressions with Milani Cosmetics

September 5, 2017

Hi Everyone!

I hope you had a wonderful long weekend! Sorry I’ve been MIA for a while, I’ve been painting and reorganizing my room…I will share pics of my beauty corner as soon as I can! I went shopping last week and I went to Rexall and they had a sale for cosmetics, Buy 1 Get 1 50% off, but what caught my eye was the Buy 2 Get 1 Free for Milani Cosmetics! I just had to buy some of their products because they are such a good price and they come in beautiful gold packaging. Unfortunately, they didn’t have testers for the items I bought, so I went by swatches online. Here’s what I got:

Eye Tech Perfection Liquid Liner – The shape of this is really interesting, I don’t think I’ve ever used a regular liquid liner pen, I prefer kohl liners (I usually wear eyeliner on my lower waterline or tightline my upper waterline). I’m not very good at doing a winged liner look, but this pen was really good and I got a very sharp wing. I compared this to the Maybelline Master Precise Curvy Liquid Liner (read my review).

RATING: 5/5

Color Statement Lipstick in 26 Nude Crème – This is a beautiful shade that almost matches my lip colour. It’s good for days where I don’t want to just wear lip balm, but want something natural looking. It’s super smooth and smells like a Watermelon Jolly Rancher.

RATING: 5/5

Keep It Sweet Sugar Lip Scrub – This smells like candy. The directions on the back say “Apply a small amount with finger and gently scrub lips to buff away dry flakes. Tissue off.” Just using a tissue didn’t really work, I still had some sugar granules on my lips, so I just used some luke warm water. My lips feel super smooth and hopefully this will be an awesome product for the winter time…my lips already get a bit chapped now, so I really need to keep a lip balm handy. I’m not sure if I would use it 2-3 times a week as recommended, that seems like it would be bad for your lips, but I will definitely be using it once a week.

RATING: 5/5

Retouch + Erase Light-Lifting Concealer in 02 Light – At first, I thought this was a really small tube for $10 when I could get another concealer by Maybelline or Rimmel, but I compared it with my fave Wake Me Up Concealer by Rimmel and they’re both 7mL. The Milani concealer is a lot thicker than I expected, I wasn’t sure if I would like it because I thought it might cause creasing under my eyes, but I wore it for over 8 hours and it didn’t crease (I set it with The Everything Powder by Cake Beauty).

Tip: it comes with a sponge tip, but those are filled with bacteria if you don’t clean them regularly, so I pulled mine off and I squeeze a dab onto my finger and apply to my under eyes. It’s also better because the warmth of your finger makes the thick concealer blend nicely.

RATING: 5/5

Bronzer XL in 01 Bronze Glow – I loved how this was less than $12 and it’s so big! This has a very light fragrance, but I don’t know how to describe it. With the exception of the lipstick, this is the only thing that’s scented. This is a bit too orange for me, you have to go in with a very light hand and blend well so you don’t look like an oompa loompa.

UPDATE (July 30): I think the fragrance in this was causing me to breakout on my cheeks.

RATING: 2.5/5

Baked Blush in 01 Dolce Pink– I was originally planning to put this in a giveaway, but I kept it so long that I thought I should try it myself and then purchase a new one. It’s a really pretty shimmery pink.

RATING: 5/5

These swatches were taken at different times (hence the shade difference between my arm and hand). On the left is the bronzer and blush swatches and on the right, the concealer, liner and lipstick.

What are your fave Milani Cosmetics products? Let me know in the comments section below!

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Review | Marcelle CC Concealer + Corrector

August 8, 2017

Hi Everyone!

I recently bought Marcelle’s CC Concealer + Corrector from Shoppers Drug Mart. I got the shade Light/Medium and it costs $12.95 CAD. I wanted to give a stick concealer a try, and I needed to spend $50 for free shipping, so I added it to my cart. It comes in a nice and sleek, white tube with a clear top. It was the winner of the 2015 Beauty Grand Prix by Elle for BEST CONCEALER UNDER $20. There are three reviews on the website giving it 5 stars saying that it’s hydrating and doesn’t crease. So I put the concealer to the test!

Conceals dark circles and corrects dark spots, all in one step!

Are the claims true?

As a concealer, it conceals dark circles, undereye puffiness, age spots and redness. It did conceal dark circles, but I feel like there are other concealers that do a better job.

As a corrector, it corrects and prevents the appearance of dark spots. I didn’t really try this to colour correct, but it did sort of conceal dark circles under my eyes. I only used it once, so I can’t say anything about preventing the appearance of dark spots. Unfortunately, it caused creasing under my eyes because it’s a dry formula.

I’m very sensitive to smell when it comes to beauty products. I can’t use scented lotions or hand sanitizers unless they have a fresh, fruity smell (and even then, there are times I have to draw the line). I tend to just avoid scented creams if I can. I also don’t like if a foundation or any makeup has a chemical smell. All makeup will have some sort of chemical smell, but sometimes there’s makeup that I can’t even use because I don’t like the smell. Whenever I’m at Sephora looking for a new foundation or concealer, I always give it a sniff to see if I can stand it. I was immediately turned off by the smell of the CC Concealer + Corrector. It smells like plastic, but that’s what happens when you order something online without seeing it in person first. Even then, Shoppers and Rexall don’t always have testers for the products.

In addition to the smell, the product looked kind of dry too, but appearances can be deceiving so I swatched it on my hand. Unfortunately, I was right, it didn’t run very smoothly against my skin (see below for pictures). I have Cover FX’s Correct Click Color Corrector, and it feels like a lipstick. It’s very smooth and blends nicely. The Marcelle concealer, on the other hand, feels gritty against your skin, I don’t know if I accidentally got some dirt in it, but I’ve wiped it a few times and it almost makes it look worse. I even swatched it on my parents to see if they felt it too and I wasn’t just imagining things. They agreed that it felt gritty. It almost feels like Tarte’s FRXXXTION Stick Exfoliating Cleanser (which I absolutely love, thanks to one of my best friend’s for introducing it to me). This is bad because this product is for the under eye area and that’s one of the most sensitive areas on your face. Regardless of the grittiness, I tried it out yesterday and noticed that it was creating creases under my eyes where I don’t have any.

RATING: 0/5

I give it a 0/5 because I didn’t like the smell or the fact that it was dry, but on top of that, I woke up this morning with a bit of a breakout. I basically exfoliated under my eyes yesterday and now my face is reacting to it. My mom said my eyes looked a bit puffy too, but that could be due to lack of sleep.

Thoughts: I’m an optimist, so I’d like to think that maybe there’s a chance I got an old one that dried out or it was faulty somehow, but this was a fail for me. I wouldn’t recommend this product especially with the fact that it’s for under your eyes and it feels so gritty. I don’t understand how this was rated the Best Concealer under $20 in 2015. Someone with oilier skin might like this product, but mine tends to be on the drier side. You could maybe mix this with an oil product to create a creamier consistency, but I am steering clear of stick foundations for the under eyes. I might give them a try for colour correcting though.

Marcelle is a Canadian company, so I want to support it as a fellow Canadian. This product is a pass for me, but I like their Velvet Gel Waterproof Lip Liner in Rosy Nude and the Rouge Xpression Lipstick in 901 Amour (it won the 2016 Beauty Grand Prix for BEST LIPSTICK UNDER $12).

I’ve heard good things about the Tarte Amazonian Clay Waterproof 12-Hour Concealer and I have a colour-correcting concealer from Cover FX that runs smoothly, so I would assume that the Cover Click Concealer + Foundation is the same formula. Both the Tarte and Cover FX Concealers are a little more expensive.

My skin is more dry than oily (especially around my nose), so stick concealers aren’t the best for me, but the CC part of the Marcelle Concealer + Corrector interested me so I thought I would give it a try. I’ve heard rave reviews about the Nars Radiant Creamy Concealer and Tarte Shape Tape, so I might give those a try.

What are your fave concealers?

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Review | CoverGirl Total Tease Mascara & Katy Kat Eyeliner

April 10, 2017

Hi Everyone!

I received a complimentary VoxBox from Influenster Canada which had CoverGirl’s Total Tease Mascara in Very Black and CoverGirl’s Katy Kat Eyeliner in Kitty Katdabra (KP04- black shimmer). I wore the mascara and eyeliner for a little over 8 hours yesterday and here’s my review of both products:

I’ve tried the mascara twice now and I quite like it. The mascara tube is nice and big, it has ridges at the top, so it’s easy to open. The mascara comes with a silicone brush and has a tip at the end of the wand that you use to define your lashes even more. The Total Tease mascara makes my lashes feel natural (not stiff like some mascaras I’ve tried). It’s like I’m not wearing anything on them. The first time I tried the mascara, it was a bit clumpy, but that was my mistake. It was easily remedied by using a clean brush to comb out the clumps. My lashes still look natural, but just with an extra bit of oomph, especially for my bottom lashes. My bottom lashes aren’t super dark, but with the mascara, they were definitely more noticeable. For me, I prefer non-silicone brushes for my top lashes and silicone brush mascaras for my bottom lashes. I will give an exception for mascaras that I really like and would recommend…Total Tease is one of these. The Total Tease adds length and volume while looking natural.

Now, onto the Katy Kat Eyeliner in Kitty Katdabra. I can’t find the shade on the CoverGirl website, I don’t think it has been released yet. The Kitty Katdabra is a black liner with a bit of shimmer. It claims to be a high pigment formula with effortless application and lasts 8 hours. All three claims definitely held up for me. I wore it from 2pm to around 10pm yesterday. It is a pencil liner with a rubber smudge tip (I’m used to a foam smudge tip, so trying a rubber one was interesting). The liner glides on easily and helped create a smokey and slightly shimmery look that would be great for a night out. I did a cat eye on my lid and lined my waterline. I don’t really like the rubber smudge tip because the rubber didn’t glide across my lid as nicely as a foam tip would’ve. I just used a brush to smudge the eyeliner which worked well. The swatch below looks a bit brown/bronze under the lighting. I didn’t use any primer underneath.

On one eye, I put Smashbox’s Shadow Primer, and the other eye I left bare. The primer definitely made a difference, so if you plan to apply it to your lids, make sure you don’t forget the primer! After 3 hours, the lid without primer was creased and I had to reapply the liner. The lid with shadow primer looked exactly like when I first applied it. The liner that was on my waterline was perfectly intact. By the 8th hour, the eyeliner was holding up well, it was a bit smudged under my eye, but that’s to be expected for wearing it so long. It looked like I had created that smokey look so it wasn’t smudged so much that it looked like raccoon or panda eyes. I would definitely buy this eyeliner, especially if it came in a brown or nude.

RATING: 4/5

I give both products 4/5 because the special tip at the end of the comb sometimes gets in my way. I feel like it doesn’t do much for my lashes and I’ve almost poked myself in the eye a few times. For the liner, I would prefer if it was a matte black instead of a glittery black. Glitter is hard to wash off and I’d only wear glittery eyeliner if I’m going out for the night.

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Review | CUCNZN Blackhead Remover Suction Black Peeling Mask

March 4, 2017

Hi Everyone!

I recently bought the CUCNZN suction black mask (the one I bought is currently unavailable, so I found a new link that sells two bottles instead of one, which I think is a good deal) from Amazon.ca and I must say, wow! It works much better than any nose strip I’ve ever used, but, man, does it hurt to peel it off. I did a full face mask the first time I used it and it pulled out some hairs and quite a few whiteheads. I used it a second time just on my nose area (like a blackhead strip) and it definitely pulled out more the second time because I steamed my face with some hot water before using it. Make sure your face is dry after steaming it, because the mask won’t dry as well. And also make sure that when you apply the mask, don’t get too close to your eyebrows or hairline (put on a hairband) because it will rip off any hairs in its wake!

The best way to apply this is with a disposable makeup sponge. Even though your fingers will give you a more even layer, this sticks to your hands like tar and it just spreads around when it’s wet and it will take a while to get it off your fingers and under your nails. So definitely don’t use a nice makeup brush to apply this because it will be ruined. The easiest way is to use one of those triangular sponges or cheaper round sponges you can get at Walmart or a drugstore.

Before peeling the mask off, check that the mask is completely dry because otherwise, you will have to scrub it off your face if it’s still sticky and your face may get a bit red and irritated from the scrubbing. Don’t leave it on any longer than you have to since it’s basically like putting glue on your face, your skin isn’t getting a chance to breathe. When you peel off the mask, do it slowly, I know it’s painful and you would think it hurts less to peel it off like a bandaid, but if you do it too quickly, it won’t grab those whiteheads and blackheads. If you need to, pause for a bit and then continue when you’re ready. I know my eyes have teared up a bit, and I had to stop for a second to catch my breath. Even from peeling off the mask, my face gets a bit red after.

ORIGINAL RATING: 4/5

UPDATED RATING: 2/5

This is not worth the money! Get a peel off mask instead or use something long-term like AHAs or BHAs to get rid of blackheads and whiteheads.

If you do decide to buy this, avoid your hair and make sure you don’t have any spots that can drip down. Make sure you apply a thin, even layer that will dry and peel off easily.

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First Impressions with Laneige Hydration Trial Kit

January 20, 2017

Hi Everyone!

Last month, I decided to get into the Korean skincare game, so I started my research into which brands and products to try. Since everyone’s skin is different and it’s hard to go by what other people like and dislike, I decided to just look at some of the products on Sephora and buy a trial kit from the best sellers list. I didn’t want to pay $50 for a bottle of serum that I may not like, so I thought a trial kit with travel size bottles was the best option. I decided to go with the Laneige Hydration Kit that comes with six different products (pictured below- taken from google). It was $38 CAD ($75 value according to Sephora) for:

– 1 oz Multi Cleanser
– 1.6 oz Power Essential Skin Toner
– 1.6 oz Balancing Emulsion for Normal to Dry Skin
– 1 oz Water Bank Serum
– 0.6 oz Water Bank Moisture Cream
– 0.6 oz Water Sleeping Mask

My nose is very sensitive to smell, a strong smelling moisturizer can give me a headache or make me feel sick. The Laneige products in this kit have a very light scent, and it’s one of the few moisturizers I actually like the smell. Some ones I’ve tried have been too floral or too strong.

I’ve been using these products for about a month now and I have to say that my face does look brighter and feel more hydrated. It definitely takes longer to do my nightly skincare routine now, I was previously only using cleanser and putting on moisturizer. Adding the extra steps has definitely helped my skin feel softer and hydrated.

I like the Multi Cleanser, it has a light scent like the other products. There are micro-cellular beads that gently exfoliate, it makes your skin feel clean. I know that the beads are very gentle, but I only use it once a week so that it’s not too abrasive on my skin. My skin is very sensitive, so I don’t want to use an exfoliating cleanser with beads too often, especially not on my face.

The skin toner smells great and doesn’t feel sticky after applying (like some other ones I’ve tried).

The balancing emulsion and water bank serum are my faves. The only thing I don’t love about the emulsion is that there’s no pump for the travel size bottle and it’s like getting ketchup out of a glass bottle (the full size version comes with a pump).

The water bank moisture cream is a bit thicker than I’m used to, I think I will only use it on the areas of my face that tend to get dry.

The water sleeping mask is meant to be used once or twice a week and washed off in the morning. I’ve only used it a few times, I don’t mind it, but I’m not sure I would buy the full sized-version.

RATING: 4/5

I give it a 4/5 because I didn’t like all the products in the kit, but liked the majority of them.

Thoughts: Out of the six products, I would definitely buy the full-size versions of the toner, emulsion and serum. Since I already have other cleansers that I use and I think the emulsion and serum hydrate my face enough that I don’t need the moisture cream or the sleeping mask.

What products are in your daily skincare routine?

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Face Masks and Cleansers

April 25, 2016

Hi Everyone!

Korean face masks and make up products have become increasingly popular in the past couple years. I haven’t tried a lot of Korean make up products yet, but I absolutely love the charcoal sheet masks which I bought from a kiosk and cleansers from The Face Shop: Rice Water Bright Cleansing Foam, Herb Day Cleanser 365 Spearmint Cleanser (for Men) and Phyto Powder Foam Cleanser- Charcoal.

I alternate between the two cleansers everyday with a facial brush and my skin feels refreshed and squeaky clean after. As for the sheet masks, you look like Hannibal Lecter for about 20 minutes, but they are great in bringing out impurities and cleansing pores. They are affordable and good for my skin because I get break outs every now and then. I like to use the charcoal sheet masks every couple weeks. The character (animal) ones from the Face Shop creep me out, I scared myself in the mirror when using the pig one. Even though they creep me out and I got it for free, it did a good job moisturizing my skin.

Love,

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