Birthday presents - Clinique Travel Set

Today's present is from my best friend who bought this with the reasoning 'I know her mum will refuse to buy her makeup so she won't be getting that much so I'll buy her makeup'. She was right, my mum refused to get me anything *sob*.

So this is one of Clinique's many travel sets which includes:

• 1x Take The Day Off Makeup Remover 30ml/1oz
• 2x All About Eyes 7ml/0.21oz
• 1x High Impact Mascara 7ml/0.28oz ( #01 Black )
• 1x Bag ( Pink )

 So there are four products are all samples except the mascara. I actually have the mascara as a sample as well courtesy of Glamour a few months ago.

First up is the Take The Day Off makeup remover. First of all, I like the name of this, it reminds me a bit of Benefit's way of naming products. This makeup remover's quite good, it works well enough, but as there isn't an extraordinary amount of it, I'm just using it to dip a cotton bud in to remove any mistakes I may have made as I have a tendency of pouring out too much makeup remover.

Next up are the All About Eyes de-puffing eye massage serum. I've used this once but I can't really tell if it makes much of a difference as my eyes aren't really that puffy. It has a tiny bit of a sticky feel to it, which isn't really that much a big deal as it fades away after about five minutes (the feeling, that is).

Finally, we have the High Impact mascara. Although it does nothing to curl my lashes (but then again, what mascara does?), it does add volume, so I think I'll use this for night outs rather than during the day, as it can get a bit too much if I'm not careful (which I'm not during the morning before school) and I don't usually have time to start again before school.

That's it for this post, I shall be finished with my tests this week at the time that this is posted so if I don't get a lot of homework, I may have another update which isn't scheduled! (Although the next one is anyway.)

EDIT: My post scheduling thing is a little funny, it didn't post my previous post at the time I wanted to so I thought I'd just post this one today anyway.

Sephora Mascara Liner in red

Oooh another Sephora post..for someone who's not crazy about Sephora, I sure do have a lot of their products! Well this one is a little older and I saw it lying around in my box and thought 'Oh hell, let's see if this hasn't dried out!'



Ladies, I am proud to say that it is still functioning, although has dried out a little! This here as you can see is a metallic glittery liquid liner AND a mascara! it costs 9.99€ from what Sephora.fr tells me and I have to admit, that's not actually a bad price for what it is.







Rather odd applicator isn't it? Well there you have the bog standered brush for lining fixed onto the mascara part which has no form aside from the typical plastic mascara brush swirls.



The swatch is actually...fantastic, which surprises me. It's very pigmented, quite easy to apply (although be careful not to get your lashes red if you're doing your eyeliner, that's what happened to me as you'll notice in the next few pictures)

The colour itself is rather unconventional, as not many people go for red, but they have blue, pink, purple , green, gold and silver as well, so I think one of those will be added to my giveaway prize (yes I still haven't got everything yet, I know, I'm a procrastinator)

Unforutnately, I don't know tjhe shade this is in as the site only lists the other six and the writing's faded from the liner.





Here you have it as a liner, it's applied quite messily, but I was a bit impatient and wanted to get the photos done and then start with the FOTD I just posted.




Here you have it as a mascara and it is actually quite impressive. The colour payoff is incredible and ok, it doesn't give curl or length or any of that, but then to be fair, it's just a colour mascara.

All in all I'm very impressed with it and here's a picture of me from December 2008 with it on, during my rather more clashing colour days :)


The pose is rather unflattering and as you can see, that is my sister there, but this picture shows the red off very well :) I actually really like the contrast between the red and the blue here :)

xxxxx

When it's time to say goodbye to a mascara

It honestly seems like I spend every third post apologising for my absense. Well, here goes again, a HUUUUUGEE sorry for the neglect during the week, I think this year it's gonna be weekend only posts as this year I need to up my game concerning school work.

Moving on, my first mascara ever was the Rimmel Extra Super Lash, which I've since then had for about three years, I think. I find it gives me a very natural look and does lift up my lashes a bit which made me quite pleased.



Now, the other day I was trying it out when I noticed it had a bit too much mascara on the brush so I wiped it against the lid and then this happened....



Ok...you can't see what's happened, but basically the brush has molded with the mascara so that the bristles have completely flattened. Now, I have the same mascara in brown as well so here's a pic to compare the two.


So the flattened one is on the left and here you can see quite the difference to what it SHOULD look like. All in all, this mascara has worked very well up until recently so I guess it really depends on how long you can carry on using the same mascara, because this was fine WAY after 12 months or how long we're supposed to keep them.

When to start considering a lash perm...

That would be when even a combination of Diorshow Iconic and the Shu Uemura eyelash curler does NOTHING to your lashes.


My eyelashes are sort of thick, but pokerstraight. What's even more unfair is that all three of my siblings have lovely lashes, which range from the so-perfect-mascara-is-optional to -anything-from-chanel-to-maybelline-gives-my-lashes-perfect-curls (otherwise known as Dani). And then there's Joe....argh, my brother has the curliest lashes I've ever seen. Wasted. On a boy.

And moi?


They look better in the pic than they are but seriously! Only my end lashes curl. So to remedy the problem, I got the Shu Uemura eyelash curler and thought : "Excellent, my lashes will now be absolutely brilliant, judging by what I've read on Make up Alley".

Eh, not so. First of all, they can't even hold a curl for more than five minutes, which had me wondering whether it was a fake and why Selfridges would sell fakes, but then I just concluded that my lashes are defect, not the products. I had the some worries with my Diorshow mascara -was it defect?



Ok, so they're incredibly long. That's good. But...where is the curl I was promised??!!!




It barely even lifts them! So to make sure it wasn't defect, I used my best friend Stef as a test subject.


THAT is more like it. Incredible volume, length...yeah that's sounding more like the mascara I've read about.



Just compare that to my lashes, you can see the notable difference. AND she didn't even need the curler!
So as a conclusion, if you have average lashes and want something extra special, get this . If not, and you're like me...well, there's another option.

I wrote to the beauty expert on Beauty21, Sara Hill. She wrote back with this:

Hi Nathalie,

Thanks for your question.
It sounds as if you’ve tried about everything; my only suggestion is to try eyelash perming.
Eyelash perming is a salon or home treatment used to curl lashes.
Depending on the brand and type of eyelash perming kit used, permed eyelashes
will maintain their look anywhere from 1 to 4 months. More expensive brands are used
at high-end salons usually last much longer than cheaper versions sold in superdrug or boots.
Personally I think it is very important to have this treatment done by a trained professional,
that has completed the proper training course, as your dealing with chemicals near the eyes.
My close friend from China, where lash perming is very popular, has it done in a salon every
three months and doesn’t need to wear mascara every day except on nights out because the
effect is so good.
Hope this helps.
Let me know how it goes.
Kind Regards
Sara

So I may just have to consider that, because I said pretty much the same thing to the make up artist on the set of the first film I did and she said des sourcils permanents . Now I duno if she means falsies, which I don't want, or a perm. I'm gonna research the whole perm thing before searching for somewhere where they do it thought, I don't want any bad side effects!

Moving on, I tried a sort of pin-up look in my look today, only I didn't succeed so it ended up just being rather neutral.






And I painted my nails a new colour today, Urban Decay's Magic Bus from the Summer of Love kit!



I do really like this colour and I managed to apply it fairly neatly :)