foundation Archives - Curiously Carmen

Estee Lauder Double Wear Foundation

November 17, 2016

I love writing foundation reviews, although I don’t get to write them as often as I would like! The main reason for that being I don’t wear foundation on a daily basis, so I don’t have a large amount to review. I also really love reading foundation reviews!
In September, I attended the Estee Lauder media preview and was exposed to many different Estee Lauder foundations. There was also a super pretty foundation bar that showcased many of their foundations!

At the end of the event, attendees were colour matched and sent a foundation of their choice to try out. It was hard for me to pick just one, but eventually I decided on the Double Wear foundation because it has great reviews and I was looking for a medium/full coverage foundation.
What it says (Taken from Sephora):

Estēe Lauder’s Double Wear Makeup delivers flawless, 15-hour staying power, and it is natural-looking for carefree coverage.
A lightweight, oil-free, and buildable formula, it doesn’t change color, leaving your makeup looking as fresh as when you first applied it.
This product is fragrance-free and non-acnegenic. It has been dermatologist tested.

I didn’t know acnegenic was a thing? But anyways, 15 hours is a pretty bold claim! Let’s see if this foundation is any good.
Application: I was a bit wary of the bottle packaging ever since trying the Covergirl Clean Foundation, which also comes in a glass jar.

For the Covergirl foundation, it was incredibly difficult to get product out. I had to continuously slam the jar very hard on my hand for product to come out. An easier way would have been to just stick a clean q-tip every time, but that’s a bit annoying.

Anyways, I was quite pleased when this foundation came out of the bottle easily, without any banging or frustration. It would be nice to have a pump though.

The foundation applied pretty easily, with a medium-full coverage. A little goes a long way, and it does make your skin look pretty natural. It also felt really lightweight and breathable. At times, I often forgot I was wearing foundation!
Wear: Throughout the day, I was expecting the foundation to smudge off. But, I was really surprised at how flawless it was even after 7-8 hours! It did not require a touch up, and my skin gets pretty oily. I removed the foundation at night after ten hours of wear, and it still looked pretty good!

Apart from wanting to let my skin breathe, one of the MAIN reasons I don’t like wearing foundation is because it always smudges on my glasses and I think that’s just disgusting.

I hate taking off my glasses and seeing nasty foundation smudges or residue on it, it just really turns me off from wearing foundation.

But with this foundation, I was pleasantly surprised that it barely left any residue on my glasses! If you’re a daily glasses wearer like me, you will understand my delight.

Long lasting
Light weight, comfortable to wear
Medium – full coverage, a little goes a long way
Does not smudge off to glasses as much as other foundations
Does not look cakey

Pours out from a glass bottle, making it harder to control the amount that comes out

Yay!

I would recommend this if you’re looking for a comfortable and long lasting medium/full coverage foundation. This retails at Sephora for $46 CAD, which is a bit pricey but worth every dollar!

Press sample featured. Opinions are own.

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.

Stila Stay All Day Foundation (Re-Launch)

May 28, 2016

This summer, Stila has relaunched their Stay All Day foundation. The formula itself stayed the same, but they have repackaged the bottle into an easier center dispensing dish. The previous packaging featured a mini scoop, which Stila decided was a bit too messy.

To use the foundation, you simply press lightly on the center plate. Product will come out afterwards in a neat circle, which makes it sanitary as well.

The foundation is a medium to full coverage. I was impressed at the coverage after one pump, but I decided to use another pump because I had this annoying zit on my face that did NOT want to be covered up! But it failed the battle, because this foundation was able to cover it up >=)
Since the bottle is opaque and you’re unable to see the shade, there is a ‘window’ on the side of the bottle in which you can see the shade.
My first impression of the foundation was that I really liked it. I loved the medium coverage and the slightly dewy and sheen finish as you can see in the photo above. Although, the description says it is a matte finish, it was on the dewy side for me. The foundation really smoothed out my skin tone and it still looks pretty natural.

However, after wearing it a few more times after, I’ve noticed that this foundation does not like to be used in conjunction with other facial products. When wearing this foundation with primer and setting powder as I always do, this foundation looked cakey, dry, and flakey, instead of the nice dewy finish I was used to.

When I wore this foundation again on its own again, I did not have a problem with it being flaky. So, I would only recommend using this product with moisturizer only and no other foundations. I’m glad that this foundation is long lasting even without primer. I really love this foundation and it will be using it as one of my regulars in the future!

I’m curious to see if others with combination skin like myself, or other skin types, found that this foundation didn’t mix well with primers and finishing powder foundations? Let me know!

Yay!

Thanks for reading,
Carmen

Media samples featured. Opinions are own.

ACI Beauty Fall/Holiday 2015 Media Preview – Part 2/2

August 23, 2015

In early August, I was invited to the ACI Beauty event to experience their Fall/Holiday 2015 collection! I already mentioned this in part 1, but just in case you haven’t read that yet, ACI Beauty is one of the biggest beauty distributors in Canada. ACI Beauty works with many reputable beauty companies to help their products get on the shelves for us beauty lovers.

At the event, we were guided throughout some of their newest products for next season. Welcome to part 2/2!

I have seen some CLEAN products in Sephora before, but never had the chance to learn or test them out until that day. We got to smell some of the perfumes that day, and I enjoyed all of the different scents. If you’re someone who likes light and neutral scents, then this is the line for you.

I had a few friends that came over and played with the samples, and all of them said that the perfumes smelled like ‘clean laundry’.

I currently keep one of the rollerball minis in my purse,the light blue one in the middle of the box named ‘cool cotton’. It smells very refreshing and wakes me up a bit when I first put it on. The size is very convenient, and good to use on-the-go.

I also found that the CLEAN products are very gender neutral, maybe it’s just moi?? By that, I mean they don’t have a distinct ‘feminine’ or ‘masculine’ scent – it just smells like very clean soap! Although these products are catered towards women, I think that men would be able to wear this as well.

This product was highly raved about with the ACI ladies, they use this almost every day at home!

The Bliss triple oxygen instant energizing mask initially goes on your skin as a gel, but slowly turns into a foam as you rub it on your face. The foam expands on your face depending on much dirt or oil you have, so the foam size can vary each day. It also has a very nice grapefruit smell to it.

I posted this on my Instagram already, but am I ever in love with this Paul and Joe lipstick! This lipstick is part of Paul and Joe’s Fall 2015 ‘Cafe Parisien’ line.

To make this cute cat lipstick, Paul and Joe uses a Japanese candy-making technique called Kintaro-ame, which depends on two separate tubes – one columnar and one cat-shaped. This ensures that the cute cat faces remain visible until the lipstick is used up, so you don’t have to worry about the cute cat print going away!

Also on the topic of lipstick, here are the new shades for Anna Sui. I called these the ‘shooting star’ lipstick because of the way the lipstick is shaped inside the tube! The colours are very rich and make a good transition for the Fall season.

The Anna Sui loose powder, which comes in a new beautiful design, is pictured in the back. It comes with a fluffy purple puff, and looks so classic and elegant. I could picture a princess using this powder on her vanity table. Beside it is the Anna Sui BB Cream.

I showed this picture in my Anna Sui nail colour review post already, but here are the new nail colours and a new bottle design! It features a birdie on the top of the brush, while the bottle has an intricate ball gown design to it.

All of the Anna Sui nail products also have an amazing scent to them! The one I received smelled like lemons, and other scents include rose and lychee.

I also really adored the mini ‘latte’ eyeshadow pods that Paul & Joe had, featured on the left. The swirl and creaminess of the colours, coupled with a cute little foam tip brush is reminiscent of that a perfect, smooth latte on a chilly afternoon. I am a big fan of champagne/gold shades, so the eyeshadow pod is right up my alley.

Also featured are the pressed powder pods, which are purchased separately from the packaging. Beside the pressed powder pods are the moisturizing foundation and makeup primer.

The last station we were introduced to was Bliss’s regular collection (not the holiday gift set collection as featured in part 1). For myself, the most interesting product here was the ingrown eliminating pads, I am very curious to see if they will help with my ingrown hairs.

I mentioned this above already, but try to get a chance to try their body butter and soap, which are pictured in the back! The smell is absolutely amazing and will make you feel happy =)

I also did a review of the Bliss fabulous gel to oil cleanser, pictured in the middle beside the Fat Girl Slim products. You can read that post here.

I had a great time at the ACI Beauty event, thank you for having me. I learned about a plethora of new products and am very excited to try them out! Keep your eyes posted for upcoming reviews on some of the products that I have mentioned here.

Which product was your favourite from this post? Let me know in the comments!

Thanks for reading!

-Carmen

Estée Lauder Spring/Summer 2015 Preview Event

March 27, 2015

Hi readers!

Back in August, I had the pleasure of attending my first Estée Lauder media preview event. I was thrilled when they invited me back to their Spring/Summer 2015 preview event this month!

The format of the media preview event this season was a bit different, but I still enjoyed it. Here are some of the highlights, plus some products that I am looking forward to in the upcoming season!

Bronze Goddess shimmer collection: Want to achieve that tanned, golden, bronze look with a hint of shimmer this season? My favourite from this line would have to be the shimmery body spray, seen in the back left. An Estee Lauder spokesperson showed us how to apply this product by gently dabbing it onto your skin to achieve a glowing sheen.

I love this line because it reminds me of a tropical vacation… if I had these products, I would bring them on my next tropical excursion!

Up next, a pretty array of lipstick and nail polish shades for this season! I am a huge fan of coral and pinks, so these products are wonderful to me! My favourite would have to be the coral nail polish in the front.
Next up, my FAVOURITE Estee Lauder products… their perfumes! I’ve never encountered an Estee Lauder perfume scent that I did not like, so I was quite excited to see how these smelled. Of course, they did not disappoint.

The AERIN line, launched last season from Estee Lauder’s granddaughter Aerin Lauder, has the most amazing scents so I’m glad they came out with a few more this time around.
This was definitely an interesting product that captivated my eye. It is their new finishing mineral powder.

It looks like a regular, mineral, loose powder foundation but upon application, it feels like pure silk. It is unbelievably soft and has a nice, smooth finish to it.
We also previewed the new Courreges x Estee Lauder line, which the attendees were really excited about. Andre Courreges is a French fashion designer, known for his modern and futuristic design.

This preview session definitely did not disappoint. I’m super excited to see the new AERIN perfumes and finishing powder foundation on the shelves!

What were your favourite products that I talked about? Let me know in the comments down below!

Thanks for reading!

-Carmen