Friday, February 19, 2016

HAUL || American Shopping || Makeup, Treats, and Fashion!

Went down to the states a couple weeks ago, despite our weak Canadian dollar, and I picked up a bunch of stuff, so I had to share! I mostly shopped at Target and Torrid, and picked up a selection of tasty treats, makeup, and new clothes! Emjoy! =)

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Monday, February 15, 2016

REVIEW || Paula's Choice Resist Anti-Aging Products

This post has been a long time coming, as these products were sent to me for review ages ago! Of course, though, all my opinions in this blog post are as honest and unbiased as usual!

Anyways, here's a peek at the three products I was sent from Paula's Choice to try out:

everything

I've never tried anything from this brand before, but have heard good things from various bloggers and youtubers. If you aren't aware of this brand, it falls more into the higher end skincare realm, so these products aren't exactly cheap. The products I received are all from their Resist anti-aging line, and I got a Hyaluronic Acid Booster, a Skin Firming Line Minimizer, and an Anti-Aging Eye Cream. Perhaps I'm not the usual skin type or age range for anti-aging products, but it's never too early to start, I suppose!

Resist Hyaluronic Acid Booster

booster box

booster bottle

This product is meant to be good for all skin types, and helps to "plump skin" and "smooth wrinkles." It's a gel-like serum that comes in a glass bottle with a dropper. You can use this either on it's own, or mix it with your moisturizer.

Personally, I didn't really like this stuff. I tried it both on its own, and mixed with a few different moisturizers, but I always found that it ended up feeling bad and sticky on my face. When used on it's own, it sinks in so quickly, leaving only stickiness, so that I always felt I was tugging my skin to try to cover my whole face. With moisturizer, I'm unable to find a good balance, and either have way too much or too little to cover my face... and always that sticky feeling as the product dries/absorbs.

I like the idea of this product, however. I'd suggest looking at some other reviews too, to see if other people like this before writing it off. Hyaluronic acid is great for your skin, and if you can make it work for you, or deal with stickiness for the sake of hydration, maybe this is worth a shot.This product is $45 (USD, I believe) on PaulasChoice.com.

Resist Skin Firming Line Minimizer

treatment

The packaging on this one is pretty weird. It kinda looks like an injection or pen or something... but it is really easy to get a very small amount, which is all you need for the eye area. This product was also the main one that the PR agency was advertising in their email. It is meant to help minimize wrinkles like crows feet, or around the mouth, or anywhere else on your face. It's supposed to be similar to retinol, without having retnol in it, so it is better for more sensitive skin types.

You apply a tiny amount of this serum over your other moisturizers at the end of your skincare routine. It costs $50 USD on the PaulasChoice.com site

Resist Anti-Aging Eye Cream

eyecream

This is definitely my favourite of the three products that I recieved to review. You might have been able to guess that, if you saw my 2015 Favourites post. You need a very small amount of this thick, creamy eye cream, which means it's going to last forever. It has great ingredients, including shea butter, and it's certainly moisturizing, not really greasy, and doesn't absorb too quickly to spread gently around the delicate eye cream. I love that it doesn't have a scent (like all the products mentioned here), as well. This product is $32 USD on PaualsChoice.com.

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So those are my thoughts on these products! Let me know if you've tried any of them, or any other Paula's Choice stuff!

Thanks for reading!

Sunday, February 14, 2016

Don't forget to check out my Guest Post on Makeup by Maha Matar || My Top 5 Drugstore Makeup Products!

Happy Valentine's Day everyone! I hope you're having an awesome weekend so far! I just wanted to pop up a quick bonus post this morning to remind you of my guest Post over on Maha's blog!

maybelline rocket

I'm sure by now, you've seen the guest post Rebecca wrote for my blog that went up on Monday (if not, check it out here!).

I also wrote a guest post this month for Maha over on her blog, about my Top Five Favourite Drugstore Makeup products! If you haven't seent hat yet, make sure to check it out over at MakeupbyMahamatar.com, and share the love and look at her other posts!

Thanks for reading! Hope you've had a good weekend, and don't forget to come back tomorrow to see my review of a few Paula's Choice skincare products! =)

Friday, February 12, 2016

REVIEW || MAC Retro Matte Liquid Lipcolours || Divine-Divine & Feels So Grand Swatches

I bought two of the Mac Retro Matte Liquid Lipcolours a little while ago, and wanted to put up a quick review for anyone wondering about them! I also swatched the two I have: Divine-Divine and Feels So Grand.

Click here to watch in HD, or watch below:

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Wednesday, February 10, 2016

TUTORIAL || Romantic, Wearable Valentine's Day Makeup!

I wanted this year's Valentine's Day tutorial to be soft, pretty, glowy, and romantic. Maybe red lips and smokey eyes seem more classically valentines-y to you, but not everyone is comfortable like that, or maybe your V-Day plans are much more casual and you just want a pretty look that still kinda celebrates the day. Hence all the pink tones I used to put this look together! Hope you love it!

Click here to watch in HD, or watch below:

Thanks for watching!

Monday, February 8, 2016

GUEST POST || Rebecca's Beauty Boudoir || 2 Ways to Wear White Eyeliner On a Budget

Hi everyone! My name is Rebecca from Rebecca’s Beauty Boudoir and I’ll be guest blogging on Kristy’s lovely blog today.

Something that surprises me is when people tell me they aren’t being playful with their makeup because they don’t want to break the bank. You’d be happy to know that achieving an edgy look doesn’t have to be expensive, after all makeup is all about having fun!

White eyeliner is very editorial and it’s the perfect colour to amp up your look while looking wide-awake. Today I'm going to show you two white liner inspirations while using two wallet friendly products.

1. Inner corner (NYX Jumbo Eye Pencil in Milk, $6 CAD)

Highlighting the inner corner of your eyes is a trend that never gets old! Here I used the NYX Jumbo Eye Pencil in Milk to brighten up my eyes. The pencil is creamy and highly pigmented. Pop the pencil in the inner corner of your eyes then lightly smudge it with you your fingers for a softer look. For a more dramatic look use a dense pencil brush to make it more prominent. You can easily wear this with a little mascara and a neutral lipstick of your choice.

2. Cat eye (NYX White Liquid Liner, $9 CAD)

A white cat eye makes as just as much of a statement as a black one! Here I'm using the NYX White Liquid Liner to achieve this editorial look. I find white very playful and the looks you can achieve with this are endless. This liquid liner is very fluid and comes with a brush applicator. Don't be scared to be as dramatic as you want because the formula is forgiving.

After seeing this I hope this dares you to be playful with white! Let us know in the comment box below what you think about this trend and how you'll incorporating it into your looks!

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Thanks for reading! Have a great day!

Wednesday, February 3, 2016

HAUL || January 2016 - Chapters Indigo, MAC, Bath & Body Works, Bluenotes

Just a small collective haul of everything I bought in January! Some books, makeup, and a couple randoms! Enjoy!

Click here to watch in HD, or watch below:

Thanks for watching!

Monday, February 1, 2016

REVIEW || Demeter Foolproof Blending Duos & Trios

Hi guys! Today I have a review for you on two different fragrance sets from Demeter. The first is the Foolproof Blending Base Note Trio in Vanilla, which comes with three scents (obviously), including Hawaiian Vanilla, Gingerbread, and Angel Food. The second is the Foolproof Blending Duo Customer Fragrance Kit, which comes with two scents: Jasmine and Lavender. (I was sent these two sets for review, but all opinions in this post are honest and my own.)


So the Vanilla Blending Trio includes three scents, as I just mentioned, but on the box the scents came in there was a scent pyramid, showing different families of base, middle, and top notes in fragrance. A whole fragrance usually has a least one scent in each category, and the three scents included in this set fall into each of those tiers: Hawaiian Vanilla is a top note, Gingerbread is a middle note, and Angel Food is a base note. So the idea is probably that when you layer all these scents together, you get a full scent that will last all day, and subtly morph over time, as the top and then middle notes wear away.

Also, in the box, along with the three scent bottles, there were several fragrance strips (like the ones anywhere that sells perfume), so you can try blending different combinations on the strips without spraying the mixes all on yourself! There aren't a ton of these, but once you get the general idea of how the scents work together in different combinations, you don't really need them, and I think there were plenty for that experimentation.

As for how each scent smells, well... Demeter is pretty damn accurate! All of these scent name work perfectly for these fragrances:

  1. Gingerbread smells fantastic, and is probably my favourite scent in this set. It is spicy, just like gingerbread, but might be a tad strong to wear on it's own. Very festive, probably a fall and winter scent for most people!
  2. Angel Food smells light and vanilla-y. It seems very delicate to me (which makes perfect sense for an angel food cake scent), and definitely smells like cake, for some reason. It's great.
  3. Hawaiian Vanilla smells strongly vanilla-y, to me almost smelling like a vanilla-flavoured alcohol! Which is not to say it smells bad, it's really nice! Again, I'm not sure this one is wearable on it's own for me, but maybe if I just really wanted to smell sweet like candy!

After playing with layering these scents on the strips, I have a few thoughts on a couple of obvious combinations, as well:

  1. 1 spray each of Hawaiian Vanilla and Angel Food + 2 of Gingerbread: I added a second spritz of gingerbread to this mix because I felt like the two vanilla scents overpowered the spicy scent, which I love and wanted more of! You could certainly wear this combo with less gingerbread, and it would be less powerfully spicy, but I loved this combo! It smells almost like creamy cinnamon buns...
  2. 1 Hawaiian Vanilla + 1 Angel Food: together, these basically smell like a vanilla cake. So yummy! Also, the Angel Food helps to balance the more powerful Hawaiian Vanilla, which makes it easier to wear both together than Hawaiian Vanilla on its own... in my opinion of course!
  3. 1 Angel Food + 1 Gingerbread: I found this to be a really lovely mix, and nice and wearable. The Angel Food lightens the spiciness of the Gingerbread. Probably my favourite combo!
  4. 1 Gingerbread + 1 Hawaiian Vanilla: together these two smell just like a Bath and Body Works fall candle!It's a powerful and delicious combination that you might not wear unless it's fall/winter. Unless that's just who you are as a person... This combo could also make a great room spray if you do run out of your favourite B&BW cinnamon-y candle!

So those are basically my thoughts on the Demeter Vanilla Trio... Now, let's take a look at the Custom Fragrance Kit!

As you can see in the above picture, this set comes with two fragrances—Jasmine and Lavender—and also an empty bottle, a tiny funnel, and four little droppers. The idea with this set is basically to mix your own custom perfume, which sounds pretty cool. I wish they had included some fragrance strips to test your blend before you start mixing, so I used a couple left overs from my Trio set. If you didn't have both sets, you could always try the blends on your skin, or even cut your own strips from a piece of paper, maybe.

Obviously, you can also wear the scents alone...

Jasmine is a beautiful, light, floral perfume. Jasmine green tea is pretty much my favourite smell of all time, and this smells pretty much like that. So good!

Lavender is a very real, authentic scent. I personally wouldn't wear this one alone, but I know that some people love lavender, even though it just isn't for me. The fragrance, though, isn't too overpowering or fake smelling.

Oddly, when I tried mixing the two scents equally, I felt they created a floral licorice scent. Which was very weird. So I decided to make my mix 1 part Jasmine and 2 parts Lavender, which smells great, and is what I mixed together in my empty bottle!

I'm sure many of you could have come up with a more imaginitive name for this blend, but you can't say mine isn't descriptive! =D All in all, this is very easy and fun to do, though I do also think that you could just as easily mix the scents together on your skin? I guess the main benefit in having it pre-mixed is that you can choose to wear one spritz of your mixture instead of needing three like I would to make my blend on my skin.

Also, I found that the droppers were pretty flimsy, unfortunately! Grabbing more than three squeezes full managed to pop the seams on every single one. That's why my mixed fragrance is so empty; I just couldn't measure any more with those droppers without making a huge mess everywhere! Still, it was fun to play with.

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I think if you are interested in getting one of these sets, I liked the set up of the Trios more. There are more possible combinations, and no messy droppers to deal with. Both types of sets, however, can be found on Demeter's website. The Blending Trios are $45 (USD?), and the Blending Duos are $35 (USD?). You can also pick your own scents to make your own Trio, if that interests you, for the same price.

So that's everything for today! Let me know if you've tried any Demeter scents before, or if you plan on picking up one of these sets!

Also, thanks to the Canadian Beauty Blogger network for the opportunity to review these products! If you'd like to check out what scents other bloggers received, and read their thoughts on these sets, check out the Link-up below!

Thanks for reading!

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