Curiously Carmen

Beauty: Tried & Tested Beauty Gift Ideas Under $20

I did a post similar to this two years ago, and I thought I would bring it back! With the holiday season approaching, you are all probably looking for gifts. I compiled a list of beauty products that I have tested here to make your gift search a bit easier! To make it easy on your wallet, they are all under $20 CAD 🙂
Being by Sanctuary Shower Spray: Being by Sanctuary is a new brand that launched a month ago in Canada! I tried out a few of their products, and the shower spray is fun to use and cleans well too. The spray foams up once it’s on your body and it leaves a nice scent (I had the salted caramel macadamia nut one).

Availability: Shoppers Drug Mart
Cost: $15 CAD
Crabtree & Evenlyn hand cream: I feel like this is a common gift, and for good reason. The C&E are great quality and always leave my hands feeling really soft. They have so many scents to pick from too.

Availability: Crabtree & Evelyn stores
Cost: Starts at $9 CAD, prices go up depending on size
Maybelline Lash Sensation: I don’t wear mascara often but when I do, I turn to my Maybelline Lash Sensation. The price is amazing and it is one of the few mascaras that get along with my lashes.

Full review: Click hyperlink above
Availability: Drugstores
Cost: $9 ish
Pixi Endlessly Silky Eye Pen: I stumbled upon the Pixi eye pen, and wasn’t expecting too much from it… but OMG it is so good. Vibrant colour, stays put the whole day/night, no smudging, all that good stuff!

Availability: Shoppers Drug Mart
Cost: $15 CAD ish
LUSH Sleepy Lotion: This product seems to be quite popular, touted as being a cure for insomnia. And while it didn’t quite cure my sleeping problems, it has a really nice scent and is quite moisturizing. The cream is also a pretty pale lavender shade.

Availability: LUSH stores
Cost: $20 CAD

I hope this helps! Happy shopping everyone 🙂

 

Beauty: Night Skincare Routine

Recently, I have been playing around and testing out products for my night skincare routine. Since starting this routine, my skin has noticeably gotten a lot softer and smoother so I thought I would share it! My pores seem to have shrunk too.

I have been doing this routine for the past three weeks now. These are the five products that I have been using!Step 1) Pixi Glow Tonic: I received this toner earlier this year, but it stung and dried out my skin so I stopped using it. It was disappointing since so many people have raved about this product. I’m not sure what happened since then, but my skin is able to tolerate it now and I love it now! I use a cotton pad and apply this all over my face.

Step 2) Eminence Neroli Age Corrective Hydrating Mist: I use two spritz on my face each night and gently pat it into my skin. My skin drinks this up and instantly my skin feels more plump and hydrated.

Step 3) Estee Lauder Advanced Night Repair: I use this for extra moisture and hydration, especially during the winter because my skin gets really dry.

Step 4) Mizon All In One Snail Repair Cream: My new favourite skincare product!!! This is my favourite part of my routine because this cream is seriously amazing. After my skin has been hydrated with the Eminence mist, I pat this in for the ultimate hydration and to seal in the moisture overnight.

Step 5) Estee Lauder Revitalizing Supreme eye cream: My last step is gently patting this eye cream over and under my eyes to prevent eye wrinkles.

Step 6) Lush sleepy cream: I bought this after reading so many great reviews at how this cream instantly put people to sleep. As someone who suffers from sleep problems, I was very intrigued but it did not work on me personally. But, it smells great and hydrates well so I just use this on my hands before I sleep so that my room smells nice before I try to catch some zzz’s.

My skin dries up like crazy during the winter months, but this year, my skin has been seemingly unaffected by the cold and heaters.

I will probably change up my routine when the weather changes (as you should) but for now, this has been working very well for me!

I am thinking of posting my morning routine too, which is quite similar to my night time one!

Beauty: What’s In My Makeup Bag?

I have yet to do a makeup bag post because honestly, I don’t keep much in my makeup bag. Compared to other videos or blog posts I’ve seen, my makeup bag is quite minimal. However, I wanted to do a different type of beauty post today so I figured I would talk about it!

These products are in my makeup bag on a daily basis. But if I’m going to a nice event or something, then I would add some touch up products in my bag. I hate carrying many items in my bag so I try to keep it as light as I can!
Hand cream: The hand cream I’m currently using is a Nature Republic one, and was a gift from Korea. It has a nice, light floral scent and is very moisturizing.

Mirror: A tiny mirror is very handy on the go! I have a tiny, two sided bunny mirror that was gifted from Hong Kong.

Advil: You never know when you’ll get a headache… so I just keep some incase.

EmergenC: Honestly, I’m not sure why this is in here LOL. I must have brought it with me one time and forgot to use it. Anyways, now I just ended up keeping the pack in there. It’ll be good to have if I’m feeling a bit sick.

Tweezers: For that ONE pesky hair that suddenly appears from nowhere! Ugh.

Bandaid: For saving your feet from painful blisters! Or cuts in general.
Lip balm: I purchased the Moody Bee lip balm on a whim at work one day, when my lips were super dry and I didn’t have lip balm with me. Surprisingly, it’s been one of the best lip balms I’ve used and I use it daily! It’s also a local brand which is nice.

Lipstick: I used to carry 3+ different lipsticks in my bag, but that was overkill so now I just have my MAC lipstick in ladybug. It’s a nice, classic red that you can’t go wrong with!

Lipgloss: Sometimes I like to just use this Island Girl lipgloss for some shine. I also like to layer this with my MAC lipstick above.
Face cream: Last but not least, I keep a few Fresh face cream samples from Sephora! My skin goes through random dry periods so it’s convenient to have this in my makeup bag.

When listing them out, it seems like quite a few products but it really isn’t. All of the products are very light and compact, which is what I’m looking for when carrying it around on a daily basis.

What’s in your makeup bag?

Beauty: LUSH Sleepy Lotion

Lately, my social media feeds have been filled with the LUSH Sleepy lotion, which many avid users are claiming that it helps them fall asleep instantly and soundly for the entire night. It even got featured on a few non-beauty media outlets as a cure for insomia! As someone who has struggled with sleeping problems and insomnia for over 6 years, I was really curious but also doubtful.

I decided to try a tub and see if it would be the miracle cream that everyone has claimed it would be. Unfortunately, I was left disappointed with its claims.
What it says (Taken from Lush website):

Slather on this gorgeous pale purple lotion, breathe in its sweet, comforting lavender and tonka perfume and you’ll instantly feel at ease. Glycerin, cocoa butter and almond oil work together to moisturize skin and lock in hydration to keep skin soft, supple and comfortable all day or all night long. Say hello to your new nightly ritual! Zzz…
There are two tub sizes, I bought the larger one which was approximately $20. A bit more expensive than the drugstore lotions I use, but hey, if this was to solve my chronic sleeping problems and cure my anxiety, it would be worth it.

Anyways, I agree with everyone that the smell is AMAZING. It smells like lavender with a hint of warm almond and vanilla. Smelling this definitely cheered me up and I found myself applying it apart from bedtime because it smelled that good.

I tried this over a course of a week, and looked forward to applying it because it smelled so good. It didn’t help me fall asleep instantly, or fall into a deep sleep. But, because it smelled so good, so I would inhale deeper. And deep breathing = relaxing and calming.
-Smells very amazing and comforting
-Very hydrating
-Relaxing scent
-Did not make me feel sleepy
-Did not make me fall asleep faster or sleep better
Hmm… Although disappointed that it didn’t improve my sleep, I would still give this a yay because it really does smell wonderful and happy. In the meantime, I will continue to rely on my wind-down sleep routine to help me fall and stay asleep.

Yay??

Beauty: Wunderbrow

For the past year and a half, I have seen sooo many ads on the Wunderbrow. They looked pretty gimicky though. I must admit that they intrigued me, but never enough to purchase it and try for myself.

Since the boyfriend and I are finally going on an (airplane) vacation after four years to Mexico, I decided to look up some waterproof makeup products. That’s when I came across the Wunderbrow again and after watching many test videos, decided to order it off Amazon!

Is it really waterproof and does it live up to its 3 day claim?! Let’s find out!

What it says (Taken from website):

Perfect even the most disobedient of brows with our one-step, long-wear eyebrow gel, WUNDERBROW from WUNDER2! Define, fill and thicken for a more natural brow look that is completely waterproof, smudge-proof, transfer-proof and lasts up to 3 days. Easily brush on the natural looking gel, infused with ‘hair-like’ fibers to fill and sculpt.
As mentioned above, I ordered the Wunderbrow off Amazon and it arrived within 2 days with prime. It comes with a little spoolie too.

Application: All the reviews I watched/read mentioned that the brush tip (pictured above) sucks and is really hard to use. Indeed, I agree with this. You definitely can not use the brush that it comes with. I found it easiest to apply with a stiff angle brush.

The application took a bit longer and was kind of annoying. I found that I constantly had to dip my angled brush in the product and slowly dab it. In particular, the end of my left eyebrow was quite hard to do as the product wouldn’t stick so it became patchy in that one area only. For that area, I just had to dip extra product.

Wear: Here is the most important part! Does it live up to it’s claim of 3 days smudge proof, transfer proof, and waterproof?! The answer is… somewhat. Why somewhat?

I was very surprised when I rubbed my finger over my eyebrows, and literally nothing smudged off or transferred! After a shower, my eyebrows looked the same and after doing the finger rubbing test again, nothing transferred or smudged!

However, it definitely does not last 3 days. I would give it 24 hours at most. I tested this to sleep, and when I woke up, probably 50% of the product is there.

Here are two videos of me doing the smudge and transfer proof test!

In this video, I waited a minute for the product to try beforehand.

Perfectly in tact after a shower!

Here is a photo with me in the morning after washing my face/brushing my teeth etc. My natural eyebrows are a bit lighter, so the pigment is still there but it would need to be defined again.

(I do not recommend sleeping with any sort of makeup on, but when a product claims to last 3 days and be waterproof, it had to be tested.)

Overall, I am quite impressed with the Wunderbrow and will be taking it with me to Mexico! Usually, products that claim to be waterproof aren’t waterproof at all and will smudge… but the Wunderbrow did not fail me.

I haven’t decided if I will be testing out any waterproof eyeliners too, but the Pixi Endlessly Silky Pen really impressed me last month so perhaps I will just bring that.  Let me know if you have any waterproof suggestions!

Yay!

Product purchased by me. Opinions are own.