Too Faced Haul (Sephora)

This haul is actually a couple months old but I guess I can comment on the products better after having used them for such a long time! I bought all of the following products from sephora online, I paid about 100$ for everything combined but I'l list prices down below. I have to say that sephora is a great place to order from, the only downside is that I have to pay taxes because I live in germany,
so even if the products seem to be cheaper in comparison to german shops, they actually aren't.
Nevertheless the free samples are awesome (depending on the day you purchase, I got a tarte mascara!) and the shipping was very fast!

Here are my gets:

First of, I got the papparazzi ready set, which includes the bronzer, lashgasm mascara, sweet sun shines lip gloss in mocha freeze ,a beauty balm and an eyeliner. The set was 40$ but the actual value was 87$!
- The mascara is ok, nothing special here and doesn't give any volume
-The lipgloss is nice (especially the scent and texture) but it fades quickly
-The eyeliner is pretty good, glides very smoothly
-The beauty balm is unfortunately not my shade, I gave it to someone else so I am not sure about it.
-The bronzer is da bomb, it lasts me sooo long! I guess I have been using it for a couple of months on and off and the chocolatey smell, the texture and the way it stays on my face just made this the best bronzer ever (I have the chocolate soleil bronzer in milk chocolate, might review it in detail)

Also pictured is the under the mistletoe lip creme set which was 28$ (value 71$), will review this later

And my favourite: the Candlelight Glow Highlight Powder Duo, which is just amazing:

The packaging is already so dreamy, and the colors and chandelier from the powder itself are breathtaking. I hesitated for some time before I would actually use it! The highlighter was 30$ and the whole sephora purchase was mainly because of this beauty. 

I tried to capture the golden shimmer glow, but it's really hard. So the particles are golden, I have not noticed a significant difference from the pink or white powder, but I still tend to mix them both. Usually I apply way too much blush and then just go over the blush with the highlighter using a blush brush. It just makes the face glowy and the blush underneath looks way better this way! 

To show the actual effect better I did not wear any blush underneath:

This is just lightly applied, did not use too much and already the effect is pretty great! Before I found this great highlighter I used a benefit high beam dupe from mememe, which was very difficult to apply because of the creamy texture or my skin79 star glow ball highlighter! I will probably stick with this highlighter forever.

Overall the purchase was worth it, although I'll have to speak about the lip creams seperately. But the papparazzi set was worth it because of the bronzer and of course this highlighter was one of the best buys ever!

MaxFactor 2000 Calorie Mascara

I bought the MaxFactor 2000 Calorie Mascara in a bundle together with the waterproof version, which was for free if you buy the regular one, so it cost me only 8 €!

I wanted to try this out for some time so I was happy to have two for the price of one! The brush is pretty standard, good old fashioned, not one of those brushes with hard plastic fibres you get nowadays. I applied one coat of mascara with the regular 2000 calories and thought it look ok, some volume, some length, but what I really liked was when I layered it with a second coat from the waterproof version! Here’s the result:

It’s pretty impressive I think, the 200 calorie mascara also works good with my lower lashes! Not perfect but pretty good. The lashes actually look more neat than on this picture, the mascara is good at separating the lashes! Ok here’s another close-up of one eye:

I am very happy with the result, but because there are so many mascara at the moment, I don’t know whether I’ll keep buying this one or maybe try out another new one. Nevertheless I like this mascara!

Sleek & Barry M Haul

I already reviewed the Sleek Make Up Blush here! But I also bought other Sleek and Barry M products on shades of pink online!

I have a Sleek New Skin Revive Tester Kit in light shades, 4 €

Barry M - Lip Paint Nr. 101 Marshmallow, about 5 €

Barry M Lipgloss - Nr.12 Strawberry Milkshake, about 5 €

Barry M Mascara in Electric Purple, 5 €

The Sleek Make Up Blush in Rose Gold, 5 €

Sleek Dip EyeLiner in Pink, 5 €

I haven’t tried everything but I can already say that the mascara is good for nothing, you can’t even see the purple color! I made pictures but it looked black. Very dissapointed about that. 

The tester kit for the Sleek Foundation revealed the following:

So there are altogether 5 light shades: Linen, Oyster, Oatmeal, White Rose and Shell! I already new that Linen would be too light but I wasn’t sure whether Oatmeal or Oyster suited my skin better, so I got the tester kit! The great thing is that the small tubes can be reused, very cute idea. So you don’t have to use everything all up once you opened the tube!

Linen is pale white with a very slight yellow undertone, Oyster is more pink than I expected and Oatmeal pretty much neutral in it’s undertones and therefor fits my skin best. White Rose is too rosy of course and Shell has too many yellow undertones! I have to say I tried all of them on my face and they all have the ability to blend in with my skin tone BUT Linen has a horrible texture in comparison to the other ones. I’m still not sure whether to get the foundation at all because I already have so many and this one is not particularly good at covering….(currently using Diorskin Nude and Shiseido Maquillage!).

Review: Lancome Hypnose Doll Eyes Mascara

Sometimes I just want to try out more expensive mascara because I think that they are expensive for a reason. This one is the Lancome Hypnose Doll Eyes Mascara which I got for about 28 € in a set with a Lancome Eye Make-up Remover and a concealer (that is way too dark for me so I gave it to my mum):

I like Lancome mascara, I had a classic mascara once and I loved it because it wasn’t leaving any clumps on my lashes and was very natural while stil maximizing the volume and the length. This one here is a bit different though.

The brush itself is thicker on the bottom and thins out to the top, I’ve seen such a brush on some cheap p2 and catrice mascara! The design is very cute and simple, the way I like it. The brush has a little bit too much mascara on the top I think…

Let’s see the effect on me:

It does give me length but my lashes look really messy I think. I actually like a very neat and tidy look, so that they are all separated and long with volume but this mascara does the opposite. It gets worse when I start layering it…everything clumps and is kinda glued together. The plus of the mascara is that it is great for the lower lashes, mine are very difficult to do because they are very thin in comparison to the other lashes but long, this one works great with the lower lashes. Still I am not satisfied but I will use it for the lower lashes.

Make up Look of the day

Well technically it’s already evening here, hence the not so good lighting. I did it to try out some new products I got! I wanted to go for a really light and soft look so i didn’t use any eyeliner (which is normally part of my routine), here goes:

Because of the lighting the blush is not as visible but it’s actually a very nice shade, not intense or anything (I was lucky to find a super cheap blush that I actually liked after the MAC-fiasco). Here is what I used:

1. First I applied the Catrice BB Allround Foundation  in 010 Light Beige

2. Afterwards I used my brand new Clinique Almost Powder Makeup in 02 Neutral fair.  I was actually worried that the shade would be too dark because of many reviews stating the shades usually are to dark for most but it fit me perfectly. Another good point about this powder is that it has SPF 15, which I don’t need but nevertheless is good to know. I used the cheap Essence Powder Brush (the purple one) to apply it!

3. After that I applied my new Catrice Multi Colour Blush in 070 Iced Caramel Macchiato (I just love this name!!) which is a great shade and a breeze to apply! I used the pink Essence Blush Brush!

4. Then I coated my eyelashes with one layer of Essence I love Extreme Volume Mascara (omg just one layer was enough for me??).

5. I used the I love strawberries & milkshake lip balm as a lip base (I hate the smell, it smells nothing like their lotions and shower gels!! nothing like strawberry, but fortunately the horrid smell fades after 2 minutes and the glossiness and moisture make up for it).

6. And last I used my new Isadora Twist up Gloss Stick in 03 Sugar Crush (which is essentially the same as the Clinique chubby sticks, Isadora has less shades but they are cheaper, 12 €, and just as moisturizing, might do a comparison).

That’s all!

Review: Benefit “They’re Real!” Mascara

I got this mascara in the small sample size (30 g) together with a sample sized Hello Flawless Foundation (might review later) for about 10 € on ebay. 

As for mascara I am a “layerer“, I don’t like to use just one mascara, I layer several mascaras to get a intense look out of it. There are some mascaras that I have that are NOT good for layering, e.g. the Lancome Hypnose Doll Eyes or the Helena Rubinstein Lash Queen Sexy Blacks, both not HG material for me. I’m always on the hunt for the perfect mascara that I might even use as a stand-alone:

I heard good things about the mascara but didn’t want to read to many reviews because most people look for different things in a mascara, my number one criteria is that it is layerable. This one’s strong points are, according to advertising, volume & length AND lift/curl ( lift and curl were distinguished from one another but for me it’s basically the same).

It is a plastic brush, the one with plastic fibres… I don’t like those actually because I have too many and I find they are a little bit harder to handle but they do the trick. The brush is really thick in my opinion and even long, it’s probably the biggest mascara brush i have ever seen!

Here’s me layering “They’re Real!”:

And with make up done:

It is not my HG product but I use it frequently now because it does not crumble or dry out, the results really are long-wearing! Will use till I find something better. (Especially since the full size runs at something about 30 €, which for the effect it gives is a little bit over the top.)