beauty Archives - Page 4 of 16

Estee Edit Skin Glowing Balm

August 29, 2016

If you’ve missed my previous posts, Estee Edit is a new line launched by Estee Lauder. Think of Estee Edit as the hip, trendy, younger sister! Over the past few months, I’ve been slowly reviewing some of their products.

Today, I will be talking about the Estee Edit Skin Glowing Balm, which unfortunately, did not work well with my oily skin.
The Skin Glowing Balm describes itself as a tinted moisturizer that enhances your natural skin, without covering it up. In addition, this product is supposed to leave you with a nice glow and is infused with ultra hydrating ingredients such as shea butter, primose oil, and muru muru seed butter (What even is that? It sounds cool).

I definitely agree that this is a tinted moisturizer, although it looks like a liquid foundation at first glance to me. The coverage is very light, although it feels slightly heavy and has a strange scent to it.
I know this looks very light in contrast to my tanned arm, but my face is a lot lighter than my arm. I have the shade chanois, and I found it matched perfectly with my skin tone.

Although it matched really well, I had a hard time agreeing with this product. As mentioned above, I found it to feel quite heavy and uncomfortable to wear, even though it’s supposed to be a light tinted moisturizer. It was also chunky when I dispensed it onto my hand and hard to blend.

In addition to the strange smell, it didn’t make my skin glow or look radiant at all. It looked cakey, left a lot of streaks, and did not last that long (especially in the heat!). For the areas that my glasses touched my face, the product came off really quickly so it looked splotchy.
So I thought, ‘hmm, maybe if I add some of my Korres facial oil it would help”, as I love dripping the Korres oil into my other foundations for a beautiful dewy, glowy finish. Nope. As you can see above, it did not want to mix at all.

I’ve tried a variety of different products to use with this – different primers, different setting powders, different foundations, etc but the result was still the same for me. A combination that I liked a lot was the ELF green primer, this product, and the Maybelline mineral powder – it left my skin looking flawless, but this product ended up coming off and looked cakey within four hours.

I wouldn’t wear this by itself because I like medium+ coverage, and it still felt heavy despite not improving my skin complexion at all! If my foundation is going to feel heavy, I rather it at lest have some sort of coverage.

I really love recommending makeup products to you guys, but there will always be some products that don’t work well for me. And I am always honest in my reviews. All in all, I can’t recommend this product for oily skin. It is not worth the price either, which is $36 CAD.

Perhaps for combination or dry skin, it would be better. My skin type tends to change as the seasons shift, so I will be trying this when my skin becomes drier in the winter time. I will do an update then!

On a happier note, I have really enjoyed all of the other Estee Edit products! Keep an eye out for those in the coming months 🙂 Here is a review on the awesome lip flips and a brief overview of the products!

Nay…

Press samples featured. Opinions are own.

Nova Scotia Fisherman Overview

August 1, 2016

No, I am not talking about fisherman on Curiously Carmen today! Rather, I am talking about a Canadian based company that was featured on Dragon’s Den. Can you guess which province this is from? Yup, my first product from one of the Maritime provinces!

I’ve been meaning to try these earlier, but unfortunately my grandma passed away last month and I didn’t have the time to fully test these as I was going over to the hospital everyday beforehand and concentrating on full time school as well. My apologies for the late review, but it’s been a very hectic July.

Nova Scotia Fisherman started off as a small business selling wax candles run by two nephews. Eventually, they expanded to carrying body care products that features 100% natural ingredients!

To have a little touch from home in their products, Nova Scotia Fisherman proudly features Nova Scotia sea kelp in their products. A portion of all their sales go back to the Nature Conservatory of Canada to protect natural resources, especially in their home province.
Hand & body cream ($11.95 CAD): For the past month, I’ve really been loving this hand & body cream and it’s pretty much the only moisturizer I use now. I have absolutely no complaints about it. There is a pleasant, neutral smell to it. The cream is rich and deeply moisturizes my skin without feeling sticky or greasy afterwards.

I can definitely see myself purchasing this cream again. I love using this cream before I sleep, because I wake up with really soft and smooth skin. This would make a great gift for people who use their hands a lot or have constantly dry hands!
Assorted soaps ($7.95 CAD): I was sent a few of their soaps to try. Each of the soaps had a lovely scent to it. Before I had time to review these, I stored them openly in my closet so that my closet would smell nice and fresh!

I was expecting more in terms of moisture. I normally just use bar soap when shaving my legs. When I used one of the soaps to shave my legs, my legs were a lot drier than usual and kinda stung (probably because it didn’t have enough moisture from the soap).

The soap also didn’t lather much, but it didn’t bother me. It had more of a waxy consistency, which makes sense because I mentioned earlier that they started out as a candle company. I still felt nice and clean, and smelled slightly like the fragrance afterwards. Which by the way, they do not use any artificial fragrances!

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Overall, I really liked the lotion more than the soaps. I found the soaps to be just alright, and not worth the $7.95 although they cleaned well and smelled really good (naturally).

You can check out and buy their products on their website, with free shipping after $50 CAD. In Vancouver, they are located on shelves in various markets such as Donald’s Market (Nanaimo Street), Pharmasave (Commercial Drive only), Thrift Foods (North Van only), and Whole Foods (West 8th). Check out this page for the full list of retailers!

Yay!

Introduction to essence cosmetics

July 31, 2016

I’ve been hearing such great things about essence cosmetics, and decided that it was finally time that I tried some of their products myself. essence cosmetics (Not a typo, the ‘e’ is a lowercase) prides itself on quality makeup products, at extremely affordable prices. They are a German brand that launched in the US in 2008, reaching Canadian shelves in 2012.

Today, I’ll be talking about the essence products that I purchased recently! I’ve come to really like the brand and can definitely see myself trying other products in the upcoming months.
essence lipliner ($1.99 CAD): The lipliners were the first thing I tried from essence. For $2, I definitely think they are worth it and they do last a good amount of time (3+ hours without eating/touching). I love that they are really pigmented, and glide on your lips really easily. I really wish they had more than four shades!

essence long lasting lipstick ($2.99 CAD): I already have way more lipstick than I need, but I was really curious as to how this one was. So, I went out of my comfort zone and bought a colour I don’t normally wear- a bright, coral pink! The lipstick is very moisturizing, and creamy. I find that this shade goes on a bit clear, so I normally go over it 4 times to get the shade it actually is.

essence eyebrow designer ($1.99 CAD): I was looking for a new brow pencil to try, and didn’t want to splurge so it was the perfect opportunity to buy the eyebrow designer! I was really impressed with this. Just like the lipliners, the brow pencil glided on really easily, and was very pigmented. I was out for 12 hours, and this did not smudge one bit. However, I took a nap with this on once, and it did smudge off a bit – woke up with less eyebrows, haha!! Can you believe I only spent a total of $12 CAD for all FOUR of these products?! In the picture above, I am wearing one of the lip liners and the coral lipstick. On my computer screen, the lipstick looks a bit darker, probably due to the screen resolution and brightness settings.

Anyways, my first impression with essence is that I absolutely LOVE their products! As a beauty lover who is also a student with no job right now, I love that I can buy makeup products without feeling guilty. If you haven’t tried essence, I highly suggest you go to your local Shoppers Drug Mart and try some now! You won’t be disappointed.

Yay!

*Products purchased by myself

L’Oreal Nail Polish – White

July 18, 2016

A few months ago, I was really wanting white nails so I quickly picked a L’Oreal one up at London Drugs! There was only one white polish on the entire shelf, which is why I picked this one.

If I’m at a drugstore, I normally just buy Sally Hansen or essie, but I figured it’s time to try L’Oreal! I forgot how much I paid for this- maybe about $6?
The packaging is pretty simple, not much to note here. The shade is called hit the slopes – 712. Perhaps inspired by the beautiful, snow capped mountains in the wintertime.

Unfortunately, I found this nail colour to be a bit difficult to work with. It was very runny and the colour was very light. I used four coats for the colour above, and I was getting annoyed with how runny it was! It took a lot of patience and time, so don’t be using this when you are in a rush.
I finished with the almighty and my Holy Grail Seche Vite top coat. The top coat drastically improved the nail colour and made it look a lot better. It would have looked very weak and bland without the top coat. I wore this for the entire week I was in New York City, and it did not chip at all! Seriously, Seche Vite’s top coat is the BOMB.

This was my first time trying L’Oreal’s nail products, and this polish left me a bit disappointed with the formula. I’ve tried other brands before where it was just that one shade that didn’t work out, but the others were great, so maybe I should try another L’Oreal polish.

Nay!

*Products purchased by myself

GIVEAWAY: Palmer’s Skin Therapy Oil

June 15, 2016

I am back with my second Palmer’s review! Last year, I talked about their new richly moisturizing cocoa butter line. You can read the review here if you missed it!

Today, I’ll be talking about Palmer’s cocoa butter skin therapy line AND giving away the products to THREE lucky readers! Keep reading for the giveaway details!

Palmer’s cocoa butter skin therapy line is a gentle, simple and affordable line suitable for a wide range of skin types. I have been really loving and incorporating oil cleansers a new moisturizers into my routine lately. I find that my skin gets dehydrated pretty fast, so using an oil cleanser is richer.

The cleansing oil is a very gentle cleanser. I found it did an okay job in removing an entire face of long lasting powerful makeup, as it didn’t completely clean everything off the first round.

However, I do find that most drugstore products either need to be used more than once when wearing an entire face of makeup (my primers are super powerful) OR they are over drying. So, for the price of the cleansing oil, it does a good job.

I also really liked the scent of the cleansing oil! It comes in a rose hip fragrance and I am a sucker for floral scents.

Moving on to the skin therapy oil, this is a moisturizer to be used after cleansing. As I’ve mentioned before, my skin has been pretty dry lately and I’ve found that many of the creams I’ve used are not doing the trick.

I found this oil to be moisturizing, but not as much as I needed it to be. Two months ago, this would have been great but it’s frustrating how my skin type is constantly changing. Since last May, my skin type has gone through the ENTIRE spectrum so certain products that I loved in the past do not work as well now. I’m hoping this is only temporary and I’ll go back to my ‘normal’ skin type which is oily! I am also taking many steps to make my skin less dry 🙂

All in all, I enjoyed using the two new Palmer’s products and think they are great for their super affordable price range.

Now for the giveaway! I am giving away THREE of these duo sets. This giveaway is open to those with a Canadian mailing address and will on June 27th at 11:59 pm PST.

TO ENTER:
–Subscribe to my blog by entering your email on the right hand side (1 entry)
–Comment below on this blog post why you want to try the product (1 entry)
–Follow me on Twitter (1 entry). If you’re already following, comment below and I’ll include your entry.
–Follow me on Instagram (1 entry).

–Comment on why you’d like to win on on Instagram (1 entry)

–Retweet on Twitter (1 entry)

Fine print:

-Must be legal age in your province

-If winners do not respond in 1 week, the prize will be forfeited to another participant-Although very rare and highly unlikely, Curiously Carmen and Palmer’s are not responsible for any potential allergic reaction/harm you may encounter through the use of these products

Additionally, you can find Palmers at Canadian Wal-Mart stores.

Good luck on the giveaway!

UPDATE JUNE 30, 2016: The giveaway is now closed! Congrats to the three winners: Robyn, Brandon, and Toby! Thank you for everyone who participated!

Yay!