Living Proof Full Thickening Cream

I was really excited about this product when I first got it. A cream that makes your hair look thicker all over? Count me in! Plus I'm a pretty big fan of the Living Proof Full products that I've tried so far, so I had really high hopes.  So let's jump right in.

Living Proof Full Thickening Cream is meant to create "beautiful, natural fullness and touchable body that lasts throughout the day. Because it's a completely felxible technology your hair won't collapse or become stiff and crunchy."

Living Proof says that finding the right amount of product to use can take some experimentation and I've read some reviews that said their hair looked greasy after applying this stuff, so the first time I used it I decided to play it safe. I used about a dime sized amount (which is what the directions suggest) Actually I may have used slightly more. But it turned out that I had played it too safe as this wasn't enough for my long, medium thickness hair. The results were still nice - it had an obvious smoothing effect and my hair was definitely shinier than usual as well! but it didn't look any thicker than usual. Having said that, my hair looked and felt super smooth and shiney for a couple of days, so I was pleased.

My second attempt was more succesful. This time I used about two nickle sized amounts, spread it evenly throughout my damp hair. The results were smooth and shiney, just like the first time, but this time my hair had a thicker appearance, while maintaining a lightweight feel and plenty of bounce. It looked so good, I didn't feel the need to style it any more! To be sure, this product does not provide a va-va-voom Dolly Parton-esque type look, but a you've-got-naturally-thick-and-beautiful-hair look. If you want something really dramtic you'll have to continue styling.

I expected things to be limp the next morning when I took my hair down from its nightly pony tail, but to my surprise everything was looking just as full and bouncy as the day before! cutting the time I had to spend on my hair down to about a minute. Perfect!

When using this product, keep in mind that it is not a lifter. So if you're wanting lift at the roots you need to use a root lifting product before applying this thickening cream.

Overall I like this product and recommend it to anyone troubled with flat, lifeless hair. I think Living Proof's Full Shampoo and Conditioner do just as good a job at providing lightweight body and bounce though, so I'm not sure that I will be purchasing this cream in the future for myself. (I don't see the need to use both) This thickening cream does have the added bonus of providing beautiful smoothness and shine, which I loved.

This product retails for $26 for a 3.7 oz bottle.

Clinique - A Different Nail Enamel For Sensitive Skins Fall 2013

I've never had sensitivity issues from nail polish, but I was drawn to the new beige shades sitting atop the Clinique counter so I decided to test some out today while doing some shopping.

My plan: Paint my nails with the testers at the counter. Walk around the mall, window shopping while I decide which shades I have to have, go back and purchase some beautiful polish.

The short story is. I didn't purchase any of them. While I love all of the shades - they are flattering, beautiful and classy for all - this formula took forever to dry! I tried to be super careful for a good 10 minutes after applying the enamel but I sill ended up with smudges and scrapes everywhere! I really don't remember touching anything. It was really frustrating. I'm not sure what changes were made to make this "For Sensitive Skins" but I cannot recommend these to anyone who doesn't have at least 20 minutes to sit still, not moving their hands at all, while their nails dry.

If you're used to having reactions from nail polishes then maybe the $12.50 price tag is worth it to you. But I can get the same shades from Zoya for $8 and those suckers dry fast!

Edited to add: This stuff chipped like crazy about 24 hours after application. Definitely not worth $12.50.

Farm House Fresh Sugar Sugar Gift Set Review

If you're looking for a sweet gift to give, this just might be it. This was given to me as a thank you gift, and I love it so much I feel like I should give a thank you gift for the thank you gift!
This gift set, comes with a tub of Sweet Cream Fine Body Scrub, a tube of Whoopie! Shea Butter Hand Cream - in white velvet buttercream - and a cute little wooden spoon you can use to easily scoop out the sugar scrub.

The butterceam hand cream smells unbelievably good! It is absolutely my new favorite hand cream. It smells so sweet, yet soft. It doesn't make you smell like frosting or anything. It smells better, if you can believe it.  And it leaves my hands smelling delicious for hours! Seriously, this stuff lasts. A lot of popular vanilla and baked goods-type scents kind of have a fake, chemical fragrance to them. Like they just couldn't get it quite right, but Farm House Fresh found the secret recipe with this one.
The forumla is creamy, hydrating and not greasy.

The Sweet Cream Fine Body Scrub is almost as yummy smelling (nothing can equal the whoopie cream though) The sugar granules are a nice small size and not too abrasive on the skin. It has a creamy vanilla scent that leaves your skin smelling sweet for hours. After I used it last night, I kept wondering which lotion I used to make my skin smell so great. It took a while to convince myself that I had indeed used a fragrance free lotion and that the scent was actually left by this scrub.

I definitely recommend this gift set. I love it more every time I use it.
You can buy it online for $36.

I'm loving the Whoopie! Cream so much I think I'm going to have to buy the Body Cream in the same scent for $30.

FREE Sample of Pond's Luminous Finish BB + Cream

At Target.com.  http://samples.target.com/
It looks like it only comes in Light and Medium, and you don't get to choose which sample Target sends you. Oh well.

I'm definitely trying this one out. I'm interested in anything "luminous" since my skin gets so dry and dull in the winter, but more often than not "luminous" just means that they threw in some crazy shimmer. I would love it if this BB Cream turned out to be something really amazing.
I'll let you know what I think!

Pixi Illuminating Tint and Conceal Review and Swatches

Pixi's Illuminating Tint and Conceal has been calling out to me every time I walk by the display in Target. I was initially drawn to the packaging, which includes a dome-shaped cream concealer inside the lid of a tinted moisturizer, making it easy to travel and just convenient.  I don't usually bother with tinted moisturizers but decided to give this a try.

The concealer is a full coverage creme-to-powder finish. It's really creamy upon application and easy to blend out but it turned a little cakey after a while. The three lighter shades are practically identical once applied even though they look different in the cap.

(L to R)  1, 2 and 3 concealer

The tinted moisturizer was a pleasant surprise to me. This formula isn't too runny and it felt nice and hydrating, yet lightweight (I couldn't feel it on my skin at all) and silky on the skin. It blends out smoothly and easily and it does a beautiful job of evening out my skin tone and masking redness. This is an illuminating product so it contains some shimmer. I think the amount of shimmer is nice. It adds a fresh faced overall glow. Definitely not overkill, but the shimmer is there. So if you're against all-over shimmer you'll want to avoid this. Overall this gives the apperance of naturally beautiful skin and with spf 20 you'll be helping your skin stay beautiful.

I find it odd that they paired a full coverage foundation with a tinted moisturizer. The moisturizer gives such a light and natural finish while the concealer is pretty serious business. Applied with care it's not a horrible combination but it is an odd one, in my opinion.

At $30 this seems a bit pricey for a tinted moisturizer, but it does come with a decent concealer so it's kinda worth it.

Coastal Scents Warm 88 Palette Review Revisted

About 2 months ago, I reviewed the Coastal Scents Warm 88 Palette. The review was fairly positive, and while I still enjoy using several colors in this palette, after having used it for over 2 months now, my overall opinion has gone down a bit.

My chief complaints are these:

There are too many shades that are nearly identical. In the pot they look different enough, but once applied they look the exact same. Particularly the orangey/coral-esque shades, but also the shimmery blues, purples and whites. This palette could definitely be condensed and you wouldn't lose anything in terms of shade selection.

The quality of each pot is quite variable. Many are much more chalky than I'd like. Some have barely visible pigmentation and are very difficult to build. And several of the shades crease like crazy without a primer.

Having said all that, I do really love several of the shades in this palette. There are some really nice taupes, shimmery caramel type shades, and some deep browns and plums that are really fantastic to play with, especially for the Fall season. I just wish I could eliminate all those shimmery, silvery blues and replace with them golden .... well golden anything really.

In the future when I'm jonesing for some awesome shadows I'm going to stick with Coastal Scents' Hot Pots. You can pick and choose the individual shades that you want and the quality is WAY better than even the best shadow in a CS palette. The dud shades in these large palettes cry out "I am money wasted!" every time I open it up.

Living Proof Full Shampoo and Conditioner Review

The short of this review is, I think I've found the shampoo and conditioner I never knew I was always looking for. Seriously, I'm in love with these products and my hair!

I've never put too much thought into my shampoo or conditioner and to be honest I didn't know much about Living Proof products, but then a few months ago a friend started raving about them, so I decided to give them a try. And let me tell you, I'm SO glad I did!

The Living Proof Full Shampoo is sulfate-free and is formulated for daily use. It is apparently safe for color treated hair, but my hair is not color treated so I can't attest to that. What I CAN tell you is this stuff delivers on every other level. I used it with their Full Conditioner - an oil and silicone free product -  and my hair was left feeling super clean and had way more volume than usual. Honestly I didn't even think that was possible, especially not from just shampooing and conditioning. I didn't use any styling products at all and my hair had so much body! What was equally impressive was the fact that it felt so light and SO clean while still feeling healthy - not stripped. And that feeling lasted for about 3 days. I don't wash my hair every day. It's not necessary and it's such a pain to dry it! And usually by day three, things are looking really limp and just sad. But with Living Proof my hair still looked great on day three. Crazy, huh?
Crazy good!

Another thing I love about these products is the fragrance. It's a nice, soft, kind of herbal scent and it leaves my hair smelling amazingly fresh for days.

In the past, if I wanted voluminous hair I had to slather on a bunch of mousse, or spray my roots and massage  and apply heat to activate. But with the Living Proof Full Shampoo and Conditioner I don't have to do anything extra, if I don't want to.
I recommend these to anyone who wants extra bounce without the extra work!

You can buy Living Proof products in the US at Sephora, Nordstrom, Ulta and QVC. In Canada at Sephora. In Europe at SPACE.NK.apothecary. In Australia at Mecca Cosmetica. And of course you can buy from their website which offers free shipping on every order. How awesome is that?

I will be reviewing more Living Proof products in the coming weeks, so stay tuned!

NP Set It Takes Two Concealer and Foundation Pot Review and Swatches

I love getting a concealer and foundation in one package. It means I only have to reach for one product, it's easy to travel with and I only have to make one purchase. So I was automatically drawn to this dual-purpose product.

While we're on the packaging ... The cream concealer is house in the lid of the foundation. The top flips up to reveal not only the concealer but a nice little mirror as well, which is a really nice touch. There is a white star in the center of the concealer pot, which according to NP SET is a bonus highlighter, but honestly it's more a gimmick, if you ask me. In order to access ONLY the highlighter you have would have to use a small brush and avoid mixing the pigmented concealer into the star every time you use it and I can't be bothered with that.  Anyway, to access the foundation you screw off the lid which has a small spatula attached to it for you to dip into the foundation. People will either love or hate that feature. I think it's fine for now, but when there's not much foundation left I predict that it will be difficult to get the rest out since the opening is quite small.

Okay, on to the good stuff. The formula.
The foundation applies really smooth and is creamy easy to blend without being greasy or shiny. The finish is semi-matte and coverage is light-medium. This won't be right for anyone with serious imperfections that need to be covered, but it's very nice for evening skin tone and brightening things up a bit.

Unfortunately the shade selection really let me down and makes this unwearable for me.  It only comes in three shades - light, medium and dark - and light was way too orangey for me. It makes no sense to me to only offer a foundation in only three shades, since very few people will be lucky enough to find a nice fit.

 

The concealer is pretty meh, for me. It's smooth and emollient which made it a dream to blend, but the coverage is sheer and that just won't cut it for my under eye circles. It should work for anyone needing only to conceal light discoloration, but anything significant will need a product with more coverage.

 

Overall this product is a disappointment. I wanted to love it and I really do love the formula of the foundation but the shade selection is horrible and the concealer just won't conceal much of anything.

NP Set Pre-Foundation Pore Perfecting Primer

Ah, primers. They come in so many varieties these day, and make so many claims. I don't enjoy trying new primers nearly as much as other products, but I was really interested to see if NP Set could really perfect my pores, so I made the plunge and picked up this primer for $28 at Target.

To be honest, I was skeptical. A lot of "perfecting" primers have left me disappointed, so I wasn't expecting this to do much for the unfortunately large pores on my cheeks. Lucky for, and my wallet, I was pleasantly surprised to see that this actually does deliver! My pores were instantly blurred. They didn't totally disappear but they were hardly noticeable for my entire 10 hour day. Count me impressed!

This is a silicone based primer. When it comes out of the tube it looks slightly pink, but it goes on totally sheer. It had a nice mattifying effect on my skin, although I don't have incredibly oily skin to begin with. I don't usually have problems with foundations sliding off my face as most decent foundations stay put on me, but I still noticed that the overall finish of my foundation looks fresher and more even all day long.

This will cost you close to $30, depending on where you get it, for 1.01 fl oz. That's seems a bit high for people doing their cosmetic shopping at Target. However it does a great job at blurring my pores so I will probably repurchase, unless I can find a better one for less.