The Beauty Junkee's Valentine's Giveaway!

The Beauty Junkee is giving away a bottle of ISSEY MIYAKE L'EAU D'ISSEY PERFUME! 

 

Wanna know how you can win one? Click HERE  

Product Review: Elizabeth Arden Eight Hour Cream Skin Protectant

 

Product Description:

Soothes minor skin irritations. Also for symptoms of chapping, peeling or flaking due to minor burns, sunburn, windburn, scrapes, abrasions or cracked lips.

I received this as a gift from my mom. The EA Eight Hour Cream are considered classic products of the brand, but when I read reviews online, people actually either love it or hate it. Wanna see why? Read on to find out.

The product comes out as a thick orange substance with a strange smell!

PROS

• I use it for my cracked lips and it does a good job of moisturizing my lips.
• A little goes a long way

CONS

• It's 56.8% Petrolatum
• It has a very weird smell! Can't EA make something better smelling? 

In conclusion, it actually does a good job doing what it's supposed to do. However, since I rarely have any skin irritations, I just use this mostly for my lips. I also feel that it's too expensive for something that's half petrolatum. I mean petrolatum is really cheap! I'd welcome this as a gift, but I won't buy this myself.

Where to buy and how much? At Rustans for P900.

On Loyalty Cards and What Nots

I only have a few loyalty/discount cards: SM Advantage, Healthy Options Green Card, Health Express and Bench Lifestyle Card. I'd like to share with you some of my thoughts.

SM Advantage

Price: P150.

Validity: 2 years.

Points/Rebates: P150-250 spent is to 1 point (1 peso worth) depending on what the purchase was (gasoline, groceries, department stores)

Money needed to earn back application fee: P22,500-37,500 in 2 years

Worth it IMO? Only if you gas up in Petron and do groceries in SM Supermarkets. Otherwise, no.

Healthy Options Green Card

Price: Free with a single purchase of P2,000

Validity: No expiry, but card has to be renewed

Points/Rebates: P10 is to 1 point (unsure of how much 1 point is worth though, have to double-check)

Money needed to earn back application fee: N/A

Worth it IMO? Yes.

Health Express Discount Card

Price: P400

Validity: 1 year

Points/Rebates: 20% discount on all items

Money needed to earn back application fee: N/A

Worth it IMO? Yes.

Bench Lifestyle Card

Price: P100-150 (not sure)

Validity: 5 years

Points/Rebates: P10,000 spent equals to 200 points/pesos (P50 gets you P1) for cash purchases. You only get half the points for card purchases. PCX is an exception because you only get ¼ the points.

Money needed to earn back application fee: P5,000-P7,500 in 5 years

Worth it IMO? Yes.

I shop in Rustans quite frequently but since I don't like the points of the Frequent Shoppers Card 2, I didn't get one. Here's the stats:

Price: P350

Validity: 2 years

Points: P1,000 equals to P5 (P200 gets you P1)

Money needed to earn back application fee: P70,000 in two years

Worth it IMO? Come on, there's no way I'm spending P35,000 a year in Rustans! Maybe when I'm earning the big bucks.

So, what do you think are the worth it cards out there? I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Eyeliner Showdown: Black Pencil Liners

Hello everyone! I'd like to do another eyeliner showdown, which I love doing. I'll be doing four eyeliners, ranging from expensive to downright cheap. So I'll be doing black eyeliners. I have four contestants: Make Up For Ever Aqua Eyes, Urban Decay 24/7 Glide-On Pencil, NYC Waterproof Pencil and Nichido Girls Night Out. I bought these four based on good reviews.

So here they are when swatched. Please excuse the MUFE swatch. I wasn't able to do it so properly.

I let some time pass, and then smudged them with my finger.

 

As you can see, there is no change in MUFE and NYC while UD smudged a little. Nichido smudged a lot.

Here are they after getting wet. No change in any of them.

 

  I once again smudged them with my finger. Nichido smudged even more.

 

So in the end, it was the MUFE and NYC that held up. Pretty nifty considering that the NYC pencil is only $5! Yey for cheapness!

A Series of Unfortunate Events

Hello everyone! Today is not going to be a beauty-related post. I'd just like to share with you a story that happened to me yesterday.

Setting: Grade 4 Classroom during recess time

Cast of Characters: Four Grade 4 students, one Grade 5 student (all males) and me

Student A was eating sotanghon soup for recess. His friend, Student B thought it would be funny to get the carrot from his soup, squish and and throw it up the ceiling. It got stuck there, so I told Student B to get it out of the ceiling. He tried standing on the table, but he wasn't tall enough so Student C stood on top of the table with a broom in his hand. He succeeded in taking the carrot out. Unfortunately, a piece of hair from the broom fell into Student A's soup. Annoyed, Student A threw a spoonful of soup at Student C. To retaliate, Student C started squirting his water bottle at Student A. I, of course, got annoyed and took Student C outside, got a mop and told him to clean up the mess he did. In the one minute I was gone, a Grade 5 student made his way to my classroom and said with his fingers pointing, "Nobody move!" Student D then got his toy gun and shot the Grade 5 student with a foam bullet. The foam bullet went straight for the Grade 5 student's eye and he had to be brought to the hospital for a check-up.

Yikes! What a day!

Stila Ulta Mate Set

Hello everyone! You know, one of my goals for the New Year is to blog 5-6 times a week. But obviously that's not happening as I'm still blogging my 3-4 times a week. Sorry for that. I'm just quite busy.

Anyway, I'd like to show you what I got from a pool order with Her Royal Bleakness: the Stila Ulta Mate Set.

This is really a value for money kit! It comes with an Illuminating Tinted Moisturizer, a  mini Convertible Color, a mini Lip Glaze, a mascara and four eyeshadows!

So here are the actual products:

 

 Here are the eyeshadows. Of course, they had to include their best-selling shade, Kitten. Wheat and Kitten are quite similar but Kitten is more pinkish gold than Wheat. Both of them would make good everyday eyeshadows for me. Golightly is a pigmented brown while Mystic is sort of an aquamarine color. These e/s have very good pigmentation, except for Mystic which is not as pigmented as the others.

 

So let's go the the other stuff on the kit. On the very top is the Convertible Color in Peony. This will work well underneath peachy-pink blushes like NARS Orgasm. Below that is the Lip Glaze in Ulta mate pink. It actually goes on very sheer but buildable. What surprised me the most is the Illuminating Tinted Moisturizer. When I read that it was Shade 01, I was worried that it would be very fair. Well, as you can see in the swatch, it's fair for me. However, when I blended it out, it disappeared on my skin! I think it will work well as a makeup base. Because once I blended it out, what was left was a dewy look and a slightly brighter face.

All-in-all, I give a thumbs up to this set! Yey Stila!

Product Spotlight: Denman Large Styling Brush

I've never done a review on a hair product before but I just had to for this one. I've never been one to care for hair, but since I'm taking hair classes now, our teacher recommended this brush to us for our styling brush. I didn't buy this because it costs a ton of money so I bought a small cheapy styling brush. I had a hard time blow drying using it. Our teacher told us that the Denman brush is really good because it really has strength. Instead of getting stuck in the hair, this brush can really roll down to remove all the tangles when blow drying. So, after having a hard time with my cheapy styling brush, I went to Beauty Bar and closed my eyes!

I have to say that this brush really gets the job done. It can really go down on the hair. The only downside? The price. It costs a whopping P995 (around $20).

Will I buy this again? I hope not. For it's price, I'm hoping it will last a lifetime! LOL. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

Twilight Makeup in the Philippines!

So I was strolling around Festival Supermall in Alabang when I noticed something of interest in this store. Can you see what it is?

Let's take a closer look:

 

Yes the Twilight makeup is here! I wasn't able to take a picture of the inside, but I went in and swatched the products. I'm not sure if this is applicable to all the makeup, but some of the products like the lip glosses are made by Duwop. The Swoon blush, which is a favorite among the Twilight makeup by bloggers, really surprised me because I thought it was a powder blush but it's actually a cream blush.

These products cost a pretty penny though. The loose eyeshadows are around P550 (around $11) for a 3 gram jar, the lipglosses are P1,100 (around $21) and the cream blushes are around P1,250 ($25). I'm not sure about the exact prices but it's somewhere around that price range. Twilight fans might be pleased though that they are available here. For people around Manila, I was told that their Robinson's Ermita Branch also carries the Twilight makeup.

Win a Complete Set of Kerastase Minis!

This is a very exciting giveaway! A whole set of Kerastase Minis for you to try. And it's open worldwide!

Click here to find out how to join.

Reasons Why I Love Mineral Makeup

By the name of my blog, you can see that I love mineral makeup. I have lots of them especially foundations and finishing powders. They remain to be my everyday makeup. I don't use traditional makeup on a daily basis. Now I'll tell you why I love them!

• It has natural SPF
• It's much more skin-friendly
• It has a much longer shelf life
• It's cheaper than traditional makeup
• It looks and feels like second skin
• Does not cake after a few hours on my oily skin
• It doesn't clog pores and it's suitable for sensitive skin
• A little goes a long way
  

So as you can see, there are so many benefits of using mineral makeup. However, I admit that it has its downsides. Here's my list:

• It's can be messy and hard to travel with
• It needs to be applied with a brush (can't use fingers!)
• Does not provide the full coverage that traditional makeup offers
• A lot of brands are not available locally
  

So there you have it. If you ask me, the pros still far outweigh the cons. As for the staying power, some people complain that it doesn't stay long on their skin, especially when it comes to blushes. I believe that they just haven't found the right brand for them yet. I happen to know some brands wherein the blushes last for 10-12 hours on my uber oily skin! And I mean oily! Mineral makeup is my first love and will forever hold a special place in my heart.

So what about you? What do you prefer? Mineral or traditional? I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Product Review: The Face Shop Professional Makeup Base #01 Green

Hello everyone! Today, I will be reviewing The Face Shop Professional Makeup Base.

 

 photo taken from www.thefaceshopen.com

 Product Description:

Oil-free, non-sticky makeup base helps skin banish unwanted shine for fresh makeup. Green neutralizes redness and evens out skin tone.

As you know, green colors are commonly used to neutralize redness.

So here it is when swatched:

 

 And here it is when it's blended in my hand. The lower part is where I blended it. Notice that it turned a bit whiter than the top of my hand:

 

You only actually need a small amount for the whole face, or else you will get a whitish cast. So yeah, a little goes a long way. The Face Shop website recommends this for combination to oily skin. Wanna know why? Because it's oil-free! Music to my ears.

So here's the rundown of pros and cons:

PROS

• oil-free and non-sticky!
• a little goes a long way
• actually does a good job of neutralizing redness

CONS

• can be drying for people with dry skin
• I don't recommend this for morenas. This is better off for people who are on the fair side or else it will produce an ugly whitish cast. I find that for green, the fairer the skintone, the better the result.
  
• Use a small amount even for fair people so it won't produce a whitish cast.
  

TIP:

• Make sure to moisturize well before applying this. Even in my oily face, it tends to bring out the peeling spots (because of my tretinoin usage).

So because I love you so much, I will actually show you a picture of my face without makeup. As you can see it's very splotchy especially around the cheek area, and I'm breaking out in my chin area. The good news is that my face no longer looks like this because I recently had Pixel Laser on my face. This picture was pre-Pixel.

 

So here is how I look like after applying a small amount of the makeup base:

 

It looks all white right? Eww. But as you can see, it did cover up the redness.

So here's how I look like after foundation. I used Earthen Glow Cover Me Foundation in Yuan Yuan:

 

It no longer looks icky white. Notice that my skin tone is more even. Don't mind my eye area, though. I still haven't place concealer yet.

Will I buy this again? Yes. This retails for P355 (around $8)

More NYX Round Lipstick Swatches

I finally have my 2nd pre-order loot! Although ordered a few more products aside from the lippies, I'll just be showing you the lipstick swatches. NYX can be addicting!

So here's my loot:

I swatched them since I know that the NYX website has poor swatches.

Here are the swatches without flash:

With flash:

If you ask me, Frappucino and Mars look so similar, so if you have one of them, you can skip the other one already. Pumpkin Pie looks definitely nude on me. It actually takes a few swipes for it to show up on my skin. My favorite out of the bunch are Frappucino and Mars, since I'm an MLBB kind of girl.

So I also swatched them individually. I'm sorry they're not so good, since my camera isn't top quality plus we have bad lighting in our house. I also hurriedly swatched them so they're not exactly even. LOL. It's really just for the sake of swatching. HTH!

 

 

 

 

 

 

I have more swatches in some of my previous posts if you'd like to see. Bye now!

Happy New Year! Hello 2010!

Happy New Year Everyone! Stay safe!