GLOSSYBOX Review

   Glossybox in Canada!

Founded in Germany, Glossybox is a monthly subscription beauty service that is revolutionizing beauty regimes across the world. Each month members receive five luxury cosmetics wrapped in the company's signature powder pink box. Glossybox provides its clients with new beauty trends and products and a fashionable way to store their every growing beauty collection. 

 I received my first Glossybox during the first week of February 2012. It came in a pretty shipping box that said "GLOSSYBOX" on it. Inside the shipping box was a pretty powder pink color paper box. There was a black envelope that had a post card with greetings and product information on the back. It also came with three sticker labels to be used on powder pink box for when you want to use the box as storage (such a neat idea!)

Inside the black packing paper were six beauty products. Glossybox typically comes with five products varying from deluxe sized samples to full size products but sometimes additional bonus items are included.

Here are the products I received:

Oscar de la Renta Live in Love body lotion, Ahava Skincare Mineral Hand Cream, Elizabeth Arden Prevage Night Anti-Aging Restorative Cream, Essie Nail Polish in Neo Whimsical, Elizabeth Grant Moisturizing Stick, Beauty So Clean Sanitizing Wipes and Mist (bonus product)

                            

                            

 So as most of us are already aware of, this type of monthly subscription beauty boxes isn't anything new. There's Birchbox and Glambag in the US and Luxebox in Canada. I can't speak for Birchbox or Glambag since I haven't tried those but compared to Luxebox, Glossybox does offer couple of extra bonuses. The main bonus being the lovely storage box that the products come in every month. It's such a cute storage box!

Another bonus is that Glossybox tries include at least one full size product each month. However, Glossybox is few dollars more than Luxebox. $15 for a month to be exact. You can collect points on Glossybox website by reviewing the products you receive in your Glossybox or by referring Glossybox to friends and redeem those points to earn a free Glossybox.

Checkout Glossybox website for more details and to sign up!

www.GLOSSYBOX.ca

GARNIER B.B. Cream Review

Garnier B.B. Cream (Beauty Balm Cream)

Skin Renew

Miracle Skin Perfector

Garnier B.B. Cream is an instant all in one skin perfecting balm/lotion with mineral pigments. It comes in two shades: light/medium and medium/dark. 

This feels more like oil free tinted moisturizer rather than traditional BB cream. Some of the noticeable differences would be, first, this Garnier BB cream does not offer any sun protection like most BB other BB creams do. I read a review that claimed that this product has SPF 15 but no where on the product or box does it say it has any SPF. It has mineral pigments so it may offer some natural sun protection but that would be very low barely-there protection. Second, it only gives minimal coverage. The consistency of this product feels thinner and lighter than most other BB creams. Third, it doesn't offer any blemish treatment or whitening/brightening treatment which are some of the things most Korean BB creams are well known for. It does contain vitamin C for hydration and mineral pigments which helps to give skin more "evened-out" look upon application, but the before and after pictures on the box are definite exaggerations. It's hard to believe that the "barely-there" coverage this product offers can drastically cover imperfections as the before and after pictures claim.

It's not completely useless; it does offer hydration for the skin with slightly evened-out skin finish. But these can easily be achieved by mixing your lotion and mineral powder or cream/liquid foundation. 

If you are looking for products similar to Korean/ traditional BB creams, this product should be avoided. If you are looking for a decent tinted moisturizer and you enjoy the strong perfume scent of Garnier products, than you might want to try this!

*I'm typical medium skintone. I wear MAC NC25-30 foundation color; therefore, in Garnier BB cream, the light/medium shade best suited me. The light/medium shade would be too dark for anyone lighter than NC/NW20- Garnier should add fair/light shade to this line! However, since this product only gives a sheer coverage, exact match of product shade to skintone is not really necessary.*

Get a free sample of Garnier BB cream here

Get $3 off coupon for Garnier BB cream here

*BB is short for blemish balm and/or beauty balm*

ESSIE Winter Collection

Essie winter collection has six creamy satin finish muted colors ranging from wearable nude to colors with splash of pastel to vampy dark blue and red. The formula of all six colors are great; creamy and intensely pigmented.

brooch the subject

bangle jangle

 

cocktail bling

 

school of hard rocks

 

bobbing for baubles

 

size matters

WKW for Shu Uemura (왕가위 슈에뮤라)

WKW for Shu Uemura (왕가위 슈에뮤라) Holiday Collection by Wong Kar Wai

Shu Uemura released a collection that is holiday rich in emotions and atmosphere, with beautiful package decorations inspired by internationally renowned director Wong Kar Wai's special short film for Shu Uemura "Mask."

Here's a clip of "Mask."

There are various type of products in this collection including eyeshadow palettes, lipsticks, glow/blush powder nail polishes, brightening cleaning oil, brush set, glitter false lashes etc... 

I picked up three products from the collection: Drowning In Flame Palette, Lustrous Glow Powder, Rouge Unlimited in Pink Flush.

NARS Larger Than Life Eyeliners & Lip Glosses

NARS Larger Than Life Eyeliner ($23/ 0.02 oz.) is a long wear pencil eyeliner available in nine shades. Four shades I tried are Via Vento, Bourbon Street, Rue De Rivoli, Rue Bonaparte.

NARS says these liners wear for 12 hours without smearing or caking. I've tried wearing them for 11-12 hours and they held up pretty well. There was no smearing or caking up to 9-10th hour of wear. By the 11-12th hour there was slight smearing and the color appeared a bit faded but not noticeable unless looked at up closely. 

These liners come in retractable applicators which mean they will always be the same length. And they come with built in sharpers for the pencil tips. These two factors are great bonuses since I hate using pencil liners after they've been sharpened away more than half of the initial length of the pencil (short pencil liners are harder to use and easier to lose). But I don't always buy retractable pencil liners because the tips can't be sharpened to pointy tips. So the added built in sharpener for these retractable pencil liners works out well. The sharpening did take some practise to get it done without losing so much of the actual product. But losing some useable product when sharpening any pencil liner is inevitable.

The four pencils I tried are creamy rich colors that are well pigmented and apply on the skin evenly with ease.

Via Vento is matte black, Bourbon Street is purple with a slight sheen, Rue De Rivoli is metallic forest green, and Rue Bonaparte is matte light beige.

NARS Larger Than Life Lip Gloss ($26/0.19oz) is available in nine colors. I've tried three colors so far: Tiber, Piree, Spring Break. NARS says these glosses are long lasting high shine hues that are infused with ingredients that not only nourish and fight free radicals but also volumize lips with natural lip enhancers.

Colors above are (from top) Piree (rosy pink), Tiber (mauve-ish beige-brown), and Spring Break (beige-nude with slight sheen). The applicator for Larger Than Life Lip Gloss is different from other NARS lip glosses; it has much smaller applicator with plastic bristles with pointed shape which allows for precise application.

I love Piree and Tiber; they are both well pigmented and applied evenly and seem to fill up the lips to make them appear smooth and full. But Spring Break looked bit chalky and made the dry-ness as well as all the lines on the lips very noticeable. These glosses all do stay in place well and they are not as sticky as most other glosses that are "long lasting." As do many NARS lip products, these glosses don't smell or taste good but if you don't plan on smelling or tasting your lip gloss it's definitely worth trying (given you choose one of the well pigmented colors like Tiber or Piree and avoid colors like Spring Break which gives off more of a sheen than color).

I'm very satisfied quality of both NARS Larger Than Life Pencil Eyeliners and Lip Glosses. I'll be purchasing more colors to try very soon.

A week after this post, I did end up purchasing another NARS Larger Than Life Lip Gloss: Odalisque. Please visit this link for picture+swatch of Odalisque.

All products were purchased by me at