FINISHED! November Edition

 

Hello, dear readers.

As much as November was a success in business life, it was a total FAIL when it comes to finishing products. I can’t recall a month with less finished products. Luckily, I haven’t had time to buy much, so this kinds of balances it. Still, I’m staying positive and I’m hoping that this means that December will be something. I’m kind of looking forward to see what kind of fail my low buy was, lol

So, without further ado, here are the products I have finished this month.

SKINCARE:

 

 

 

Sisley Lyslait 30ml.

Sisley Floral Toning Lotion 30ml. Since I’m finishing these so often, I won’t review them any more. Suffice to say I love it.

Sisley Ecological Compound 5ml. A lovely, lightweight moisturizer.

Sisley Sisleya Radiance Anti-Ageing Concentrate 3ml. One of my favourite serums with the least favourite price. It makes my skin very even, without redness.

—

MAKE-UP:

ESSENCE I Love Stage Eyeshadow Base. An excellent product for the price and I have already repurchased another. It lasted for almost a year.

SISLEY Instant Perfect primer 2ml. A nice primer.

ESSENCE Nail Art Sealing Top Coat. When I bought my first bottle, I was very satisfied with it. After finishing the second, I’m not sure I love it so much any more. I’m switching to Eveline. P.S. I have no idea how the bottle got so dirty. I tried to clean it, but it didn’t go away.

—

HAIR and FRAGRANCE:

GARNIER Natural Beauty Coconut and Cacao Butter Shampoo (not on the photo). An excellent scent, but didn’t help much with dry hair.

GUERLAIN Idylle edt sample. A lovely spring-time scent.

SANTA MARIA NOVELLA Gelsomino soap. An excellent soap for hands.

—

Well, that’s it. 10 products in total. We’ll see what December will turn like.

I’m a kind of busy right now, having to attend another conference and then I’m going on a short trip somewhere, so I hope you’ll forgive me if I don’t post as regularly.

Have a great week,

Tamara

Friday FAVOURITES 20.01.2012

The exams are approaching, so I don’t have much time for make-up – I mostly sleep and/or study.

For this reason, I’ve decided to go with natural make-up.

I have used the most the following items:

cK Loose Powder

Dior Diorblush Strawberry Sorbet

Guerlain Ombre 4 Eclats in Perles des Mers (minus the turquoise shade)

Essence quad in Ciao Bella

Sisley Phyto Ombre in Sorbet

Chanel Rouge Coco Shine Chance

Rouge G in Gaby

Chanel Illusion d’Ombre in Mirifique

ESSENCE I Love Stage Eyeshadow Base Review and Swatch.

PRODUCT DESCRIPTION

Essence I Love Stage Eyeshadow Base comes in a 4ml transparent tube with sponge-tip applicator and retails for around $3. It is considerably cheaper than Catrice ($6 for 2,1ml)

TEXTURE

Essence eyeshadow base is very thick – almost concealer like in consistency. It feels wet and heavy on the lids. However, it dries out very quickly, and after it has settled, I don’t feel it at all.

The colour reminds me of a concealer, too. It is slightly yellowish and more pigmented than any other primer I have tired (Catrice, Urban Decay, Art Deco, Too Faced).

REVIEW

Essence primer indeed prolongs the eyeshadow wear, but the eyeshadow still creases after 10 hours. With Catrice, I could get 12 hours without creasing.

The primer boosts up the colour of the eyeshadow. In this aspect, it is better than Catrice. Another thing I like with Essence is that you can see exactly how much you have left, so you can get a replacement on time.

I still think I prefer Catrice. While my review of Catrice wasn’t very positive, after a month, when the base dried out a bit, it was much better.

MAKE-UP STASH INVENTORY (January 2012)

I think it’s high time for me to start to control my impulsive purchases and redirect the money I spend on cosmetics I don’t need on something else. I’ve had much more self-control before I started to get involved in beauty community. Before, I’d purchase something only when I would need it, but now I’ve been buying things only because they seem pretty or I think that I simply must have it (even though I’ll probably use it several times before the product is lost in my stash.

I don’t like feeling overwhelmed every morning when I’m doing my make-up with all of the products which I have. Sometimes it takes me literary 10 minutes only to decide which eyeshadow I should use. I’ve tried the concept of creating “looks” which would include several products and then wearing the look for the next week. It is a good concept, but this means that 90% of my stash sits there unused while I’m wearing the “look”.

I do not plan to use up all of my make-up. I’ll use eyeshadows only until I hit the pan (especially if it is a discontinued or LE product). The same goes with lipsticks. I always leave a millimetre or two of the lipstick in case I ever need to find a dupe. After that, I put the product in the original packaging and put it in my “finished products” drawer. I know this sounds a bit ridiculous, to keep the boxes after you have spent the product, but I have paid a lot for these products and I cannot imagine throwing the compact of, let’s say, Guerlain eyeshadow away.

I have taken a photo of all the items in my stash, for my reference (I’ll do the same the next year). Compared to the previous stash pictures, you can see that I have spent some items (yay! for me) and hit the pan on many others.

Fleurissante’s Favourites 2011

Happy New Year!!!

I wish you all the best in the next 2012. May it be much, much better than the previous one.

Fleurissante’s Favourites lists my favourites products in the last year. It doesn’t matter if they were freshly released or something available for a long time, which I have discovered the last year – the only thing that matters is that this are the products which have come closely to the Holy Grail status.

ESSENCE Nail Art Sealing Top Coat Review

 

Do you remember how in absolutely every nail polish review I say that I never comment on the longweariness of the nailpolish, as absolutely every nailpolish (high end or drugstore) chips after a day or two.

Well, it seems that all my nailpolishes are of not so good quality, since Essence Nail Art Sealing Top Coat prolongs the wear a lot.

Essence Nail Art Sealing Top Coat comes in a non-transparent bottle (not so good, as you cannot see how much there’s left). As the name says, its purpose is to fix the nail-art desingns (including the nail-art jewellery) on the nail. The bottle has 10ml and it retails for around $3 or 2 euros.

The quality is absolutely superb. With this top-coat, every single nailpolish lasts up to 5 days, sometimes even up to a week, without chipping. It even survives the dish washing.

I have tried even the super-hyped Seche Vite (which peeled off my nails after a day), but it can’t compare to Essence Nail Art Sealing Top Coat.

 

HAUL: Guerlain, Catrice, Essence

As the new academic year approaches, I’ve wanted to refresh my stash. I want to get everything before the new semester starts, so that I don’t waste time agonizing which body lotion or shower gel to pick when I’ll have more important things to concentrate on.

–

ESSENCE Lipliner in 01 Soft Rose

Hello, I’m back again. I’ve had a difficult exam, so there was no reviews for the last several days, but I’m back to my routine now.

Other than make-up base, the only other cosmetic item which is almost non-existent in my stash is a lip-liner. I rarely use it, as I find it too much of a bother.

Essence lipliner pencil has the honour to be the only lipliner in my stash. I’ve picked it on a whim, because I liked the colour.

The shade Soft Rose is a medium dark dirty pink. The colour is lighter than my natural lip-colour, but it goes well with the majority of lipsticks and lipglosses in my stash.

The lipliner is very creamy and smooth, although I find it a bit too creamy for my liking as it melts easily. I always think that lipliners should have a harder texture.

I wear this lipliner more like a matte lipstick than as a lipliner. As a lipstick, it wears well, but can leave the lips dried out.

Overall:

My Stash: Eyeshadows, Mascaras and Eyeliners

We have finally arrived to my favourite part: eyeshadows. I think that if I’d stop to buy eyeshadows today, I’d still have enough to last me a lifetime.

As for the eyeliners, I’m not a great collector. I prefer black, but here and there I use colour eyeliners.

Project 10 Pans: Part 2 – Skincare

I have announced my Project 10 Pans and the rules I’m planning to stick to in this post.

This post will feature all the skincare items I want to finally spend. Most of the items are already half-spent, but for some reason, I got bored with them and put them aside. This project will finally help me to get rid of all that stuff that is wasting the space in my cosmetics cabinet.

Project 10 Pans: Part 1 – Make-Up

I’m sure that many of you have heard for Project 10 Pans. It is a less radical version of no-buy, where you are not allowed to purchase anything new until you have spent 10 products from your stash.

Yesterday, I’ve been organizing my stash and found tons of items that are almost finished and which are only wasting space. I’ve decided that it is a high time for me to get rid of those items, so I’ve started my own Project 10 Pans (or in my version Project 42 Pans) in which I’m hoping to finally spend all of these products (and to save some money, of course, because I’ve got my eye on Dior Summer collection).

In the past, I’ve been starting such a project, but soon I would cave in and the project would fail. This time I’ve decided to post about the project on-line, hoping that it will force me to stick with it.

I’ve formed these rules:

    – I’m allowed to buy only essential items at any time (such as a moisturizer, a foundation, a cleanser or a mascara)

    – after I spend first 8 products, I’m allowed to purchase only one thing, as a reward for myself (luckily for me, many of the products are sample of GWP size, so it shouldn’t be too hard)

Plus several additional rules:

    – I’ll stop carrying all my credit cards with me

    – the amount of cash I’m carrying with me must not be enough to get any make-up item

This post features the first part of my project which concerns make-up. I’ve only put one eyeshadow palette in this project, as it would be impossible to spend even half of mine eyeshadows.

I’m including links for:

Part 2 – skincare

Part 3 – hair and bodycare