makeup Archives - Curiously Carmen

Stila Stay All Day Lip Liner

November 21, 2016

With the lip challenge, I have also been trying this Stila Stay All Day liner to go with some of the darker lipsticks!

Stila is pretty famous for their Stay All Day line. I am a big fan of their Stay All Day liner, foundation, and bronzer which I have also reviewed. I also have the Stay All Day brow pencil and the illuminating balm which I both love, but I haven’t had a chance to review those.
The lip liner comes in a light plastic packaging. It is pretty thin, which means the pencil is even thinner. I’m cursed with broken lipsticks/liners if you saw my previous Stila Stay All Day Matte Lipstick post, so I was extra careful with this thin pencil!
I have the shade cabernet, which is a majestic deep plum red. It reminds me of a nice, dark wine. The pencil is very smooth and glides easily. It is also very pigmented!

Since the pencil is thin, it is very easy to get a nice, precise, clean line.
Here is a picture with from the lip challenge, wearing this liner. I think it lines my lines very nicely and makes them look slightly more plumper!
And another picture! I love how clean and precise the line looks, and brings out my cupid’s bow.

After writing this post, I looked it up on Stila’s website and found out their whole lip liner line is based on wine, with other shades such as rose, merlot, zinfandel, and moscato! Cool 🙂

Yay!

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.

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

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.

Stila ‘Perfect Me, Perfect Hue’ Eye & Cheek Palette

May 22, 2016

Stila has launched the Perfect Me, Perfect Hue Eye & Cheek Palette as part of their Summer 2016 collection. This palette just came out this month in addition to two other new products this summer: Stila Stay All Day Foundation (re-launch) and the Colour Correcting palette.

I will also be reviewing the foundation as well, so stay tuned for that!
The packaging is consistent with all of Stila’s other products. However, there is the addition of cheetah print! I found the packaging to be good quality, and sturdy enough to put in your purse or luggage without having to worry about it breaking or opening.
Ta-daaaa! Here are the shades. The bottom two are blushes, while the top shades are for your eyes. There are four versions of this palette, depending on your skin tone: fair/light, light/medium, medium/tan, and tan/dark.

The sample I received was actually for tan/deep skin, which meant it didn’t fit my skin tone completely. However, I will get into that in more detail further along in the review.
Swatches of the palette. Instead of putting down the shade names, I listed the swatches based on where they are supposed to go on your face. Of course, you don’t have to follow these suggestions if you don’t want to!
The back of the palette also shows you which shades go where. For someone just starting out with makeup, this would be really helpful!

With the guide, I found it effortless to create a look that complimented each shade perfectly. A lot of the times before I use eyeshadow, I sit there for a good five minutes thinking of which shades to use, and where. I liked how I didn’t have to think about it and was able to create a look that I loved in under five minutes.

Here is the finished eye makeup look with the palette following the photo provided on the back of the palette! I was really impressed at how pigmented and blendable the product was. I couldn’t believe that it took me under five minutes to finish this look and I love how warm the shade is.

These colours would be perfect for a glamourous summer night out!
Here is a close up of the colours! Again, the shadows were really pigmented and super easy to blend.

You may be wondering about the blush? As mentioned in the beginning, the sample I received was tan/deep. The colours in the palette are chosen based on what shades would compliment your skin tone the most.

Because of this, I found the blush did not go well with my medium skin at all. The colour was too vibrant on my skin and made me look like a clown, LOL. Trust me, you don’t want to see how it looked on me. I’m sure that if I tried the blush in the light/medium palette, it would have turned out better.

However, I will say that the blushes are very pigmented as well. One quick dab produced an intense amount of colour!

In conclusion, I really enjoyed playing with this new palette and can see myself wearing the eyeshadow a lot. Even though I have the tan/deep palette, the eye shades still looked pretty good on my eyes. If I had the medium/light palette, I would definitely have used the blush too.

My favourite part of this palette was how quick and easy it was to blend and create the look! It’s nice to know that I can still have a great shadow look even if I am short on time.

You can find this palette at Shopper’s Drug Mart, Murale, and Sephora! This retails for $51 CAD.

Yay!

Thanks for reading!

Carmen

Samples provided for review. Opinions are own.