Review: Revlon Just Bitten Kissable Balm Stains

So I know the beauty blogosphere has been overrun with posts about the new Revlon Just Bitten Kissable Balm Stains and so here I am to add my own $0.02.

(borrowed from Revlon)

I have to say that I have used the Revlon Just Bitten Lip Stains that came out last year and I despised them.  It seemed like no matter what color I tried, they all went extremely purple - despite the fact that my lips aren't very pigmented - and made me look like a corpse.  I actually ended up just pitching a couple of them.

Now Revlon is Back with the Just Bitten Kissable Balm Stains.  On first glance, the product reminds me a lot of my NARS Matte Velvet Gloss Pencil.  I don't think the NARS pencils are supposed to be stains, but in my experience that is exactly what they did.

I picked up two of these balm stains in Sweetheart - bright blue-based pink, and Rendezvous - bright coral. 

In my experience it wore well for a good three hours - looking pristine.  It did wear for six hours, but by that time the color had darkened considerably.  It did stain evenly and I wasn't left with streaky lips, which is absolutely key for me with any product that markets itself as a stain.  If it stains unevenly, it's not worth anything to me.

Overall, I am in love with these balm stains.  Like I said, they seem to work as well as the NARS gloss pencils, but at a fraction of the price.  These are quick and easy, they have great pigmentation and phenomenal staying power.

Overall: 10/10

Review: NARS Cream Blush in Cactus Flower

So if you've ever read this blog before, you already know that I have a blush problem and in particular, cream blushes are a weakness of mine.  This first step is admitting you have a problem, so there :P

In several of her videos, Audra has talked about the NARS Cream Blush in cactus flower.  Cactus Flower is described by NARS as "delicate shimmering poppy".

It is a very red coral with a very fine gold microglitter that gives it a very glowy almost iridescent finish in the pan.  On the cheeks the gold is much less noticeable but if you like matte blushes, you'll probably want to pass this one up.  

sunlight

indirect natural light

daylight fluorescent bulb

The formula is very pigmented, just a light tap of my finger into the product is more than enough for one application.  It does sheer out fairly easily and the color is very wearable by someone like myself who is on the pasty side of pale.  The formula is very wet and has a lot of slip when first applied, but it dries down nicely.

I think this is one of my more favorite cream blush formulas.  It is super pigmented, glides on so smoothly and then dries down nicely.  I really love the subtle gold sheen from the microglitter - very reminiscent of their powder blush, Orgasm.

The NARS Cream Blushes contain 5.5 grams of product and retail for $28 wherever NARS is sold.

Overall: 9/10

Estee Lauder Pure Color Blush in Fearless

I absolutely love Dustin Hunter and if you don't know who he is, I suggest you run - do not walk - to his YouTube channel and watch all of his videos RIGHT NOW.

Anyway, a while ago he did a video haul that included the Estee Lauder Pure Color Blushes and in particular, the limited edition blushes for the Macy's Brasil Dreams collection.

I tried out the new Estee Lauder Invisible Fluid foundation a while ago, but aside from that I'm not very familiar at all with the line.  Based on Dustin's review and my own love for blush, I decided to try out some of the Pure Color blushes, which are all re-formulated and re-launched.

As far as I can tell, there are 16 of the regular Estee Lauder Pure Color Blushes and then 3 additional Macy's exclusive in the Brasil Dreams collection.  I really like the packaging on the Pure Color Color blushes.  The blush pan is square.  I don't have a good reason for why I love certain geometry so much, but I do (see also my love for Butter LONDON polish).

Most of the regular Pure Color line are very wearable colors.  The Brasil Dreams collection are incredibly bold in the pan.   I ended up picking up the Estee Lauder Pure Color Blush in #26, Fearless.

Fearless is a satin finish.  It is a very bright blue-based pink.  It is one of the limited edition blushes for the Macy's Brasil Dreams collection.  This is not your grandma's blush, trust me.

The Estee Lauder Pure Color Blushes contain 7 grams of product and retail for $28.  

The Brasil Dreams collection is available only at Macy's and contains Fearless (bright blue-pink), Naughty (bold orange) and Siren (dark rose red).  Be aware that the options on the Macy's website are not correct.  Fearless is pink, Siren is red.  

This is not my favorite blush of all time, but I am really impressed with the pigmentation and the formula.  Even applied lightly, it wore for at least 7 hours on me with minimal fading.

Overall:  9/10

Review: Tom Ford Eye Color Quad in 01 Golden Mink

I know I have mentioned this quad several times, but I just realized that I've never done an offiical review of it.  Ooops!  

I picked up the Tom Ford Eye Color Quad in 01 Golden Mink last November when I was in Vegas.  Unfortuantely, I don't have any department stores locally that carry the Tom Ford beauty line and I am just not willing to shell out this much money for a quad without trying it out first.  So while I was in Las Vegas, I made a special trip to the Neiman Marcus to look at these quads.

I wasn't disappointed, these quads are stunning!  But I am really glad that I looked before buying because I found the retailer descriptions of this quad in particular to be incredibly misleading.  If I had just looked at the pictures online I would have assumed that all four of the shades were shadows rather than half the compact being glittery pigments.

The Tom Ford shadows have four finishes, sheer sparkle, satin, shimmer and matte.  I can't find any official description of which color is which in any of the quads which is incredibly annoying.  

(I didn't swatch these in the best order.  L-R It's the two shades from the bottom first and then the two shades from the top.)

I will assume based on the name alone that the two across the top in the first picture (and swatched on the right) are the sheer sparkle finish.  They are basically a super finely milled glitter with some sort of liquid component.  They are incredibly shimmery and look just beautiful on the eye.  I don't wear them alone, but layered in strategic places over other shadows, they are stunning.

The lighter brown color in the lower left of the quad is probably a shimmer.  It's a satin eyeshadow with discernable glitter.The darker brown on the lower right of the quad is probably a satin as it contains no obvious glitter.

The two brown shadows are so incredibly creamy and pigmented.  They apply like a dream.  The two sparkly shades across the top are trickier to apply.  I've found that using one of those little sponge applicators works really well.

The packaging is the typically masculine, super sleek Tom Ford packaging.  It is also incredibly reflective.

The quad contains a total of 10g of product and retails for $75 at Neiman Marcus, Saks Fifth Avenue or Bergdorff Goodman.  

I will grant you that $75 is a lot for an eyeshadow compact, but you do get a lot of product.  If you look at just grams per dollar, it's actually not that bad.  Tom for works out to $7.50 per gram.  MAKE UP FOR EVER shadows work out to $8.80 per gram.  MAC shadows are $10 per gram.

This is certainly a luxury purchase, but I love it and I think it is absolutely worth the money.

Overall:  10/10

Review: Milani Baked Blush in Corallina

This is another blush that I picked up in a Make Up Alley swap.  It's the Milani Corallina baked blush.  Given my blush hoarding tendencies, I have no idea how I didn't already have one of these, but I didn't.  

The color is very on trend with the whole Pantone "Tangerine Tango" theme.  It is a stunning coral blush with gold glitter.  The glitter chunks are noticeable so if that's a deal breaker for you, you will want to skip this one.

I love this blush.  LOVE it.  

It applies so smoothly.  It has fantastic pigmentation.  I think it is just perfect for summer.  Since swapping for this blush, I've tried several other Milani blushes and while I think they are fantastic as well, this blush holds a particular place in my heart.

Like the MAC Mineralize blushes, the Milani baked blushes also contain 3.5 grams of product.  But unlike the MAC blushes which retail for $23.50, the Milani blushes retail for around $7.  And depending on where you get them, they may be coupons.

Overall:  10/10

Milani Shadow Eyez!

I've been on the lookout for the Milani Shadow Eyez for weeks and I finally found them at CVS this week.  I was so excited!

I picked up 3 colors:

• 04 Green Safari
• 02 Brown Deluxe
• 03 Champagne Toast

They also have a white, purple and blue, but I passed on those.  I already have the Nyx Jumbo Eye Pencil in milk, so I didn't need the white.  And like so many people, I picked up the Urban Decay 24/7 shadow pencil set so I already have a purple and blue.

I was most excited about the Shadow Eyez in Champagne Toast.  I thought it looked like a dupe for Urban Decay's 24/7 Shadow Pencil in Sin.  I love that pencil from Urban Decay.  I use it several times a week.

You can still get the 24/7 Shadow Pencils in Sin.  They are $20 for  2.8g of product.  The Milani Shadow Eyez pencils are also 2.8g of product, but they retail for $5.99 at CVS, so they are much more budget friendly.

Anyway, back to the dupe issue.  Here is the Milani pencil and the Urban Decay pencil.

Swatch with no flash:

Swatch in sunlight:

The Milani pencil is pretty much an exact dupe.  I will say that the Urban Decay pencil does wear a bit longer, but the Milani pencil is definitely great quality and it's about a quarter of the price.

Have you guys tried out the Milani Shadow Eyez pencils?  What do you think?

Review: Revlon PhotoReady Cream Blush in Flushed

This is another of the Revlon PhotoReady Cream blushes.  I already reviewed Coral Reef and next up is Flushed.

These PhotoReady cream blushes are part of the Revlon summer Escapism collection and as far as I know, they are not part of the permanent line.  I've seen them at Walgreens and Ulta in my area, but nowhere else.

The photos are a little dark.  In the pot, the blush looks very neon hot pink.  On the skin, it's much less dramatic.

I just sort of had to glob it on to get the heavy swatch because despite how scary it looks, it is actually pretty sheer.  

Flushed, unlike Coral Reef, didn't fade into nothing after it was applied.  It actually wore really well - at least 10 hours before fading.  It's a very blue based pink, so if that's not your thing you may want to avoid this one.  But then again, it can be really sheered out so maybe it could work.

I still feel on the fence about this entire Revlon PhotoReady cream blush line.  The pigmentation from Flushed (and Pinched too, review will be up soon) was much better than the pigmentation from Coral Reef.  Wear time was good.  

Flushed and Pinched dried down a lot better than Coral Reef.  They didn't go powdery as much as the regular Revlon cream blushes, but they were much close to a cream-to-powder formula than I got from Coral Reef.

Overall:  8/10

Review: MAC Dainty Mineralize Blush

This will be the first in a series of reviews on products that I swapped for rather than purchasing.  I swap on Make Up Alley.  Some of the swaps have been great.  Others, not so much.  This swap was fantastic.

I swapped with Kristina whose MUA handle is krissyb1979.  I traded my Naked palette for her bottle of MAC Matchmaster 1.0 (which I *LOVE*) and she included the MAC Dainty Mineralize blush.

In general, I'm not a huge fan of mineralized or baked cosmetics, but you all know about my blush problem, so of course, I had to try it out.  

MAC describes the color as "light yellow pink with gold pearl".  I don't really know that it's a gold pearl.  There is gold glitter in it.  It has great pigmentation, but it's very versatile.  You can sheer it out easily or apply it more heavily for a bolder look.

The texture and pigmentation are really similar to the Milani baked blushes I've tried, though the MAC price point is nowhere near as tempting.

The MAC Mineralize Blushes are packaged in the same size pans as the non-mineralized blushes, but because they're baked, they're not as dense so they only contain 3.5 grams of product as opposed to the regular MAC blushes which contain 6 grams of product.

And despite containing less product, the Mineralize blushes are more expensive as well.  The regular MAC blushes retail for $20, while the Mineralize blushes are $23.50.

I love the color and texture of this blush.

Overall: 9/10

Review: NARS Velvet Gloss Lip Pencil in Mexican Rose

I originally I saw the NARS Velvet Gloss Lip Pencil in Mexican Rose in a favorite spring products YouTube video by Tanya Burr.  I had a bunch of coupons and rewards bucks at Beauty.com, so I picked it up for less than $10.  The NARS Velvet Gloss Lip Pencils typically sell for $24.

I purchased this pencil weeks and weeks ago and it's just been sitting on my vanity.  I don't really know why I didn't wear it, but I didn't.  I finally picked it up last weekend and applied it and was incredibly unhappy.  I wasn't expecting it to be quite so bright and so I promptly took it off and put on something more sedate.  I was ready to list it on Make Up Alley for a swap when I decided I should give it more than a 5 second test run.

So a couple times this week, I wore it all day.

NARS describes the color Mexican Rose as "hot pink" which is pretty spot on.  It is a bold color, but I'm trying to wear more lip products and sometimes I just need to force myself out of my comfort zone.  And after a couple days of wearing Mexican Rose I have to say I'm kind of in love with it.

NARS describes the Velvet Gloss Lip Pencil formula as "Spectacular shine in an innovative, lightweight formula and enriched with Vitamin E plus a blend of moisture-rich hyaluronic spheres that make lips appear fuller".

The formula reminded me a lot of the Clinique Chubbystick on initial application.  It is closer to a lipstick formula than a gloss, but it really is moisturizing and it does stay glossy and moveable for quite a while.

This wore probably 6 hours on me before I felt like it faded to the point that I needed to re-apply.  A big part of that is that the formula stained my lips pretty significantly.

I haven't tried the Yves Saint Laurent ROUGE PUR COUTURE Vernis À Lèvres Glossy Stain, but it makes me wonder if the formulas aren't similar.  Has anyone tried both?  Thoughts?

The big downside for me to this product is that unlike the Clinique Chubbysticks, the NARS Velvet Glosses aren't twist up pencils.  You actually have to sharpen them.  UGH!  Thanks to the incredible pigmentation and wear time I haven't had to sharpen mine yet, but apparently when I do, I need to freeze the pencil first.  This is a recipe for disaster.  I guarantee you that I'm going to put the pencil in the freezer so I can sharpen it and then I'm going to find it at Christmas time when I'm trying to make room in the freezer.  There is no way I am going to remember. 

Contains .09oz of product.  Retails for $24 wherever NARS is sold.

Overall:  8/10 - love the color, love the formula, hate the sharpening.

Review: Bourjois Chocolate Bronzer

I have been longing for the Bourjois Bronzing Powder since I first saw it in Pixiwoo tutorials.  Of course, living in the U.S. it is incredibly hard to come by Bourjois products.  And even those sketchy online retailers who do carry Bourjois, as far as I could tell, none of them carried the chocolate bronzer.

So, I feared I would never get my hands on one.

And then Katie sent me a bunch of goodies from the U.K., including the Bourjois chocolate bronzer!

Behold ...

Yes, it does both look and smell like chocolate!  Could I love this stuff more?  Doubtful.

As you can see from the swatches, the bronzer has a matte finish.  It's not crazy pigmented, but it is easily buildable.  The first couple of times I used it, I did sort of have to dig with the brush to get product, but subsequent applications have been much easier.  And while it smells like chocolate in the pan, the scent doesn't linger.  I didn't feel like I was walking around all day with a chocolate smelling face.

Here is the ingredient list for reference:

I am absolutely in love with this product.  Have any of you tried it?  What do you think?  How does it compare to other Bourjois bronzers?

Overall:  10/10

Review: Revlon PhotoReady Cream Blush in Coral Reef

I heard about the new Revlon cream blushes from Canadian beauty bloggers, so I've been on the lookout for them for weeks with no luck.  And then yesterday I stopped by Ulta to pick up some things and lo and behold, they had a couple of them (though, of course, not the one I was most interested in).

These blushes are part of Revlon's summer Escapism collection.  I have no idea if they will be part of the permanent Revlon line or not.  The blushes come in three colors:  Flushed (blue based pink), Pinched (nudey peach) and Coral Reef (neon orange-peach).  The official Revlon press says:

• Creamy blush provides buildable, beautiful flush of color

• Lightweight formula with silky soft feel on skin

• Blends evenly over cheeks for smooth application

• Photochromatic pigments bend and reflect light to provide cheeks with a beautiful glow

NEW Revlon PhotoReady™ Cream Blush was created by Global Artistic Director Gucci Westman for the Spring 2012 collection. Inspired by the glowing skin of a beach beauty, these silky cream blushes glide on smoothly provide a dewy flush of color for a healthy, gorgeous glow. 

Anyway, on to the review ...

This is the Revlon PhotoReady Cream Blush in #300 Coral Reef.

Though the name "Coral Reef" would imply this is a coral colored blush, it really doesn't scream coral to me.  There really isn't any pink at all.  It's a pretty full on neon orange-peach.

I have one of of the regular Revlon cream blushes (not the PhotoReady line) and the texture is really different.  The texture of the regular Revlon cream blushes is very dry for a cream product.  The texture on the PhotoReady cream blushes is much more gel like.  They apply very sheer and aren't the easiest to build up.  They go on very strong at first, but quickly (and I mean, under 2 minutes) fade so they really are a sort of watercolor wash as opposed to a full on blush.  I'm not sure how well they would work for someone with deeper skintones.

As for the "beautiful glow" the product is supposed to impart, I really think that's just the sheen from the gel consistency.  It doesn't really seem to have any glitter, shimmer or pearl finish.

They don't really dry down at all.  They're not a cream-to-powder product at all and like I said, they fade really quickly.  You could set them with a powder to get better wear.  I think that sort of defeats the purpose of the gel consistency in the first place, but that's your call.

Here it is applied fairly heavily on the cheeks.  As you can see, it's very sheer.  Because they are so sheer, I think they would work on both warm and cool skintones, but if you are much darker than me, I'm not sure they'll show up at all.


I don't know.  I'm not really blown away by this product.  I really like a blush that looks like a blush as opposed to just a tint.  I doubt this will be a staple for me, but I guess time will tell.

The blush contains 12.4 grams of product.  I picked them up at Ulta as part of the BOGO1/2Off sale.

Overall: 6/10

Review: Sephora Rollerball Collection for Her

First off, I want to apologize.  I didn't realize until I was looking up links for this post that this is no longer available online.  I debated posting this because unlike some people *cough*PinkSith*cough* I don't like to show you things you can't have.

But I'm going to.  Sorry.

I picked up the Sephora Rollerball Collection for Her during the March Sephora VIB sale.  It looks like the collection is sold out online now, but you still may be able to find it at your local Sephora. I know mine still has a few.  Amazon and Ebay also have them, but the price is definitely not as tempting.

Sephora seems to do collections like this fairly regularly, so I assume they'll probably have something comparable up soon.

This set retailed for $32 and I had a 15% VIB discount, so it was $27.20.

This collection contained 7 rollerballs.  Most of them contained about .3 oz.  Individually, most of these rollerballs retail for about $20, so if you liked only 2 of them, this set was still a deal.

I was particularly interested in the Coach, Clean and Armani rollerballs, but the entire collection contained:

• Giorgio Armani Acqua Di Gioia
• Coach Poppy
• Clean Shower Fresh
• Lavanila Vanilla Grapefruit
• Paco Rabanne Lady Million
• Hanae Mori Butterfly
• Juicy Couture Viva La Juicy

Some of them have turned out to be duds.  The Lavanila is a bit sweet for me and the Paco Rabanne smells great until I let it sit on my skin for a while, but still, there were some winners.

Overall:  10/10