Review of Got2B Powder’ful

So I was really excited to get the Got2B Powder’ful from BuzzAgent. I have super thin hair and am always excited for volumizing products. I also thought, from some of the description information and also from experience with similar powder products that this was going to be a dry-shampoo type volumizer. Nope, not at all.

The product claims that it was volumizes hair within 10 seconds, this is absolutely true. I flipped my hair over and applied the powder at the base of my scalp. It made my hair super up. However, I really wasn’t very happy with the texture my hair had after use. As opposed to dry shampoo and similar types of products that volumize hair and leave it just a little piece-y, this separated my hair a lot and made it feel pretty crunchy.

The biggest problem I had with this product though was that my hair was almost completely un-stylable, the only way I could smooth things out was to brush out and my hair was so crunchy and stiff that it was kind of painful and I’m sure broke some of my hair.

One of the biggest plus sides to the product is the price. It's available at Walgreens.com for $3.99 per bottle, and I'm sure each bottle would last a very long time. Even though I had some problems with the product I think with a little experimentation and some patience you might be able to make it pay off.

Bottom Line: I would say if you’re not planning on doing any further styling and you just want volume you could probably use this product in very small amounts, particularly if you have shorter hair.

April Birchbox Review

I might actually do a Birchbox review the same month it comes to me! Hurray!

Overall I really liked this box!

Glossy Kiss Pencil in Starlet by Mirenesse. (4.2/5)
This was my favorite product out of this month's box. It's got a really nice texture, and even though I don't usually wear orange-red lip colors (it's more orange in real life than in the picture) I think this is pretty darn fabulous. They also claim you could use it as a cheek stain, which I'm a little on the fence about. It's not very waxy so I suppose you could, but I feel like it would be hard to deal with such a vibrant color, maybe if I was more tan it would be okay.

Protect and Detangle by Beauty Protector 8 oz - $21.95 (4/5)
I really liked this product a lot, it's a leave in conditioner, with heat and sun protectant. It smelled nice and didn't leave any kind of residue on my hair or weight it down. I also think this would be a great thing to take on extended backpacking trips, where I need to carry as few products as possible, but will still want to wash my hair. I could use it after shampoo so I don't have to rinse my hair twice and it will help protect my hair from sun damage.

Huile Divine by Caudalie (4/5)
I love this brand, everything I try from them is so nice. Everything they make has not parbens, ethanol, sulfates, and is not tested on animals.This oil in particular has a really great smell, feels great on my skin and doesn't like any greasy residue. Now if only they would lower their prices just a tad...

Supergoop Advanced Anti-Aging Eye Cream (3.8/5)
Anti aging eye creams are sort of tricky for me to review since I don't have wrinkles, my biggest concerns are always dark circles. Regardless of whether or not this product would get rid of wrinkles, it'll certainly prevent them. In addition to it's anti-wrinkle ingredients it's got a Broad Spectrum SPF 37 Sunscreen. I just wish it didn't smell like sunscreen. Luckily I don't breathe through my eyes. Yet.

Hail Merry Macaroons 3.5 oz - $5 (1/5)
If you like chocolate covered sawdust, buy these. They get one point just for having chocolate.

One nice bonus is that they also gave a little card to mail in for a free one year subscription of Women's Health. So that almost makes up for the macaroons.

Sugarpill Heart Breaker Palette Review

Review of Sugarpill Addicted to Pretty Palette in Heart Breaker (5/5)

I love the hell out of this palette. Although there’s not too many Sugarpill products that I’m not totally obsessed with, other than Birthday Girl which sucks. But this is definitely my favorite of all the products I’ve tried. As will all the pressed shadows the colors are vibrant, silk smooth and easy to blend. In order from left to right:

I took a picture of all the colors swatched and then my camera lost it? Wtf. I saw it get saved. No idea what happened there. Sorry about that I'll do some looks with these colors very soon anyway.

Velocity

This is absolutely my favorite shadow of the set. It’s like a matte pressed version of Sugarpill’s Loose Shadow Royal Sugar. I love it. Blue’s are notoriously tricky to work with but Velocity is like velvet. I did a really fun matte blue look, similar to the one done by Leesha (at xsparkage) with this and it turned out really nice. The wear on this color in particular was great. I wore it for a good 13 hours without any creasing, flaking or bleeding and it didn’t stain my eyelids! AWESOME. 

Acidberry

Chartreuse is my favorite color of all time and it is incredibly difficult to find an eyeshadow in chartreuse that blends well and applies evenly. They tend to be kind of chalky and difficult to work with. Not so with 

Acidberry. It’s gorgeous applies easily and is great for doing some spring time looks with. I'm particularly planning a cut crease look with it and Acidberry since they're Seahawk/Sounders colors and my favorite color combination.

Mochi

In terms of colors this sort of reminds me of a washed out Aquadisiac (MAC). It’s probably my least favorite shade out of the whole collection, in the pan. Once I swatched it I changed my mind, it looks really pretty, has if not the best texture of the four then close to it, and I think it has a lot of potential for some very varied looks.

2AM

Purples are always a good thing for me. I have very dark green eyes that sometimes look dark grey. Purples bring out the greens and complement the gray so my eyes never look washed out or dull when I wear a purple eyeshadow. This color is a really nice plum and I’m really excited to play with it more!

March Birchbox Review

I'm going to start doing product reviews a little differently, each product (if there are more than one per review will get an overall score in parentheses next to the product name just so you get an idea about how I would rate it personally.

Also my hope is to get back to updating this Tuesdays and Thursdays. I think I've got a pretty good schedule established for my hiking blog so now I just need to get back into the swing of things with this blog.

Whish Shave Cream, 150ml - $20 (3.5/5)
I don't usually use shave cream cause I'm always running late. Also, if you exfoliate fairly frequently, have a good razor and a moisturizing body wash, you don't really need shaving cream. That being said, this shaving cream is incredibly moisturizing, and has a really nice texture. Even though I have very sensitive skin and my razor is at the end of it's life, I had NO skin irritation at all. The smell is sort of "meh" to me. It smells like fake blueberry smell, which isn't awful but it's not great to me either. I was hoping for a more fresh, clean scent rather than something that smells really sweet and too heavily perfumed.


Oscar Blandi Hair Lift Mousse, 6.3 oz - $23 (5/5)
Oh man. I love, love, love this mousse. It leaves my hair with some really nice volume, it isn't heavy or crusty. It doesn't make my hair look dull, which I find is a big problem with a lot of volumizing products. The scent isn't super overwhelming, it's smells kind of woody and spicy to me, not like hot spicy like aromatic spicy. It's a little pricey but I might splurge.


Madewell for Birchbox Floral Nail Emery Board - $5
Not really sure what to say about this. It's an emery board. It's pretty. Works fine. 'Nuff said.

MAKE Face Primer $30
If you are looking for a mattefying primer I would NOT go with this face primer. It's a pretty okay primer overall although I didn't notice a huge difference in length of wear I do think it helped with applying my foundation evenly and evening my skin tone. The texture was nice, it didn't dry out my skin at all which is a good thing since I have a tendency towards dry patches on my cheek bones. It's SPF 30, which is always a good thing. It's on the pricey side, and honestly I'm starting to lean towards using BB/CC creams mixed with moisturizer as a primer rather than using something like this. Still if you want an un-tinted primer this is a nice option.

MAKE eye shadow in Great Lakes $18
Nice satin finished eye shadow in a medium grey. Very wearable, I could see doing a really pretty smokey grey eye with this. It applies evenly but I can really speak to length of wear since I just swatched it. It's also hypoallergenic, doesn't have any oils, parabens or fragrances (do most eye shadows have fragrances??). It does include vitamins C and E to help protect the skin around your eyes. Overall a very decent eye shadow, except for the price. If I'm going to be buying eye shadow I'll go with Inglot, MAC, Sugarpill etc. All of which are cheaper, and have a better selection.

Zoya Pixie Dust Give Away

The Nail Network is giving away the Zoya Pixie Dust collection and I want it so damn bad. I'm waiting for my tax return to purchase these but it would be pretty damn awesome if I got them for free. Go here to enter (and then give them to me :P)

Product Focus: Olay Pro-X Cleansing System

For the most part my skin is pretty good. I don't have a lot of breakouts, I have something between dry/normal and combination skin. My biggest issue with my skin is the size of my pores, especially on my nose. It's been a constant bother to me, though I am fairly sure it's one of those things that I'm the only one who really notices it. As a result I was thinking for a long time about purchasing the Clarisonic Mia, but I just could not deal with the price point. Not just the unit itself which retails for $119 at Sephora, but also the cost of replacement brush heads which are $25 a pop. I have been wanting an airbrush system for my makeup and I can only rationalize one of those as my big makeup/beauty purchase. So I started shopping around and found the Olay Pro-X cleansing System.

I got this through ULTA for $29.99 and the replacement brushes (which I have not yet purchased) are $9.99. So I figured what the hell, I'll give it a try and if it's crap I can always reconsider the Mia down the road. Overall I am pretty happy with the Olay brush. It works well, and I've noticed a difference in the size of my pores as well as the texture and clarity of my skin as a whole. It's waterproof so I can take it in the shower (Mia is as well). It also has two speeds, which is nice although there is not a VERY significant difference between the two, you can still notice it. It also comes with a sample of the Olay Regenerist face wash, which was a nice little bonus. 

There are a few downsides... The Mia is chargeable and the Olay brush is battery powered, so make sure you have rechargeable batteries. The Mia also has a variety of different types of brush heads, whereas there is only one type with Olay and it is slightly abrasive. I have fairly sensitive skin and it does not seem to irritate my skin at all, but for somebody with even more sensitive skin it might be a little on the rough side.  

Bottom Line: Price per performance I would absolutely recommend the Olay brush to anybody who does not have very sensitive skin. Also if you tend to have dry skin, make sure you use something that has some extra moisturizing properties cause I could definitely see how this could dry out your skin further.

Product Review: The Balm Squad by Jack Black

Anybody who has met me in person knows that I struggle with my lips. They're quite large and tend to dry and chap really easily, it gets especially bad in the winter. I drink at least 72 oz of water a day, so I know it's not just a question of dehydration. The worst thing is that when they are chapped I CANNOT leave them alone. I literally lick and pick at my lips till they bleed. I don't know why I can't just leave them be. So I did some looking around, bloggers who I trust, reviews etc. and one product kept coming up and that's the Jack Black Lip Balm.

Quite awhile ago Leesha of xsparkage posted a review of these lip balms, this was the first time that I'd heard of them and she had bought a four pack through Sephora. Since then I've been keeping my eye on them, wrestling with spending $25 on lip balm, and waiting for sales. Then a few weeks ago I was looking around on Birchbox Men, because I was curious about the service and possibly purchasing a box for a grooming oriented male friend of mine. Anyway, point is that I saw that they had The Balm Squad Lip Quad for $25, coincidentally I also had $20 worth of birchbox points saved up! Alright now it was just going to be $5 + shipping. I finally pulled the trigger and I'm super happy I did.

Lowdown on the Product Itself: The consistency of the product reminds me of when I used Carmex back in high school, which I was super addicted to, but I had to give up since it uses petroleum jelly which dries lips and only repairs in the short term. This doesn't include that ingredient, but feels similar which is great. I've only been using it a short while, but I can already notice a difference. My lips also seem to stay soft for quite a while. I also really like the fact that it's plastic with a screw cap, not like a twist tube, because I have a really bad habit of sticking my lip balm in my pockets and then washing it, which is always The scents are really nice, not overpowering. They don't have a flavor, but for me that's a good thing since it keeps me from licking my lips!

Benefits to the Collection: Buying the 4 pack is awesome, because if you're like me you lose lip balm ALL the time. Now I get to keep one at my work desk, in my  purse, where I do my makeup and one for back up. The four pack I bought comes with the following: Grapefruit and Ginger, Shea Butter and Honey, Mint, Acai Berry and Vanilla. The grapefruit and ginger is totally my favorite and the acai with vanilla is my least favorite. Not to say that it's not nice but just not a favorite. It also means if I'm out and about and still lose my lip balm I don't lose my favorite, since it's at my desk. Lastly I'm a sucker for flashy packaging and I really liked the design and how shiny the box was!