Things I've Hated This Month: August

I'm sorry. We're already 1/3 into September, and I'm posting something that dates back to August. I know, I'm terrible. But honestly, I only decided that I disliked one of these products in the last week. I realized I wasn't using it at all, tried it once more this week, then decided that it needs to get returned to Sephora this week when I go home to celebrate my mom's birthday.

Thus begins the things I've hated this month!

This is the Shiseido Lacquer Rouge in RD305 (Nymph). This literally sat in my "loves" on sephora.com for weeks and weeks. I read reviews on it, I loved it, I was convinced that when I actually bought it that it would become a holy grail product for me.

Then I did buy it, and I just simply didn't fall in love at all.

I think part of it had to do with me already owning a couple of lipsticks that are really similar in color to this one (MAC Plumful and MAC Craving). And I didn't anticipate that it wouldn't dry down to a matte finish. Instead, it stays glossy. I'm not a huge fan of glosses in general, so the gloss-like aspects of this lip lacquer just didn't do it for me. And there's just no way that I'm going to keep a product that doesn't wow me when I spent $25 on it. So, I returned it a couple of weeks after I bought it. Of course, I ended up buying REN's Get Radiant, Glowing Skin in Just 10 Minutes! Kit when I returned this lip lacquer.

Then there's this Clinique Lash Building Primer. I initially bought it hoping that the white color of it would make colored mascara pop. I ended up returning the colored mascara that I had bought to use with this, but I figured that I can always use a mascara primer.

Then this week, I really got to thinking about this primer. I took it out of my mascara/eyeliner drawer for the first time in weeks.

This time around, it struck me how much product gets stuck to the brush. And after using it, when you're putting the applicator back into the tube, that excess product doesn't just go back in. Instead it clumps up around the base of the tube, and it just sort of looks gross. But I decided that if I used this primer and it make a difference with the volume/length of my eyelashes, then I would keep this primer.

Forgive the bad lighting in the second photo, I was stupid and in a hurry to get to work, so I took the photo in my bathroom. 

But you can tell, that there isn't much of a difference between my eyelashes in these photos. The top photo is without primer, the bottom photo is with the primer. I used the same mascara both days. This product just isn't worth the $15 I spent on it. I'm going to return it this weekend and buy something that I'll (hopefully) love, instead.

And one more thing about this primer: it made using certain mascaras difficult. I found that if the mascara had a traditional mascara brush (LORAC's Pro Mascara, Benefit's BadGal Lash, etc.), this primer worked fine. But if you tried using a synthetic, plastic brush with it, it was next to impossible. I just could not use my Benefit They're Real! after using this primer. It was rough going.

Moral of the story: sometimes you buy products. And sometimes they just don't blow your mind. Then they sit in the back of a drawer somewhere, but you should return them. And buy more makeup! 

Things I've Hated This Month: July

Generally speaking, I do a LOT of research before buying any makeup or skincare product. Like, hours worth of research, comparisons to other products that are similar, if it's a product that's easy to sample I get samples from Sephora. Basically, I already know how I'm going to feel about a product before I spend the money on it. But some things, you just can't help. These are the things I've hated this month.

Meet one of my family's cats: Felix! Anyways, I bought these two products in the last few weeks, thought that they would become holy grail products, then had them seriously disappoint me. And it wasn't for lack of research/sampling: I researched both on blogs and on Sephora reviews and I tried them both in my local Sephora multiple times. I put so much effort into research that multiples times, I left my dorm and went to Sephora without mascara on so that I could easily try the Benefit BADgal Plum. I swatched Too Faced Candlelight on my hands, my fingers, my face, my arms. Basically, the women who work at my local Sephora thought that I was crazy, but I'll be damned if I purchase a product and end up hating it. I also just feel bad returning things to Sephora. What happens to that unloved, discarded makeup? I think it just gets returned to its company (Benefit, Too Faced) and there it meets its destruction.

I'll start with the BADgal. The plum color is supposed to make your eye color pop more than a black mascara would. Reviews I read on Sephora specifically said it made their hazel eyes look great, and of course I thought, "My eyes are hazel! This will work great!" When I tried it over and over again at Sephora, I just kept thinking that the lighting in Sephora is funny, and that it would look better out in the real world. So I bought it.

Without flash, it honestly looks like plain old black mascara, except for that chunk of extra product on the tip of the brush.

But with flash, it looks amazing! Almost TOO purple.

To show you exactly how inadequate this mascara was, I decided to show what it looked like on. This is me prior to mascara application. All I'm wearing is concealer to cover up my I-look-like-I've-never-slept-in-all-twenty-years-of-my-life issue.

Photo sans flash. Can you guess which eye is wearing the plum mascara and which one is wearing black LORAC Pro mascara? The eye on the left is wearing the Benefit BADgal Plum. The eye on the left has black mascara. 

With the flash, the difference is a little bit more noticeable, but it's just not enough to warrant the purchase of a mascara solely for its color. Additionally, although I have no photos to prove it, if I put ANY of the BADgal Plum on my bottom eyelashes, by the end of the day I had faint purple circles under my eyes. I already have a dark circle issue; I don't need a PURPLE circle issue. And if you don't put this on your bottom lashes, they noticeably look like they don't match: purple top lashes and black bottom lashes do not a good eye make.

The second product I struggled with: Too Faced Candlelight. One of the girls that I work with in my RA job has absolutely glowing cheeks. I think she's actually caught me staring at them before. I need to just suck it up and ask her what product she uses. Regardless, I thought this might be it for about a hot minute. It turns out, this powder is about as illuminating/highlighting as an entirely translucent mattifying powder.

The packaging is adorable, but alas, I don't use/keep crappy products simply because the packaging makes me want to drool.

The powder itself looks to be slightly yellow-cream-ish.

I turned on my flash, in an attempt to make some shimmer show up. It really is a testament to the uselessness of this product that even my camera's flash couldn't pick up a single shimmer.

So I turned the flash off and tried a different angle. From this angle, you can almost see a little bit of the shimmer!

You can't see it at all on my hand, except for maybe that one sparkle down in the bottom left hand corner. I won't bother with showing it to you on my face, because there's just no difference between wearing this product and not wearing it.

Needless to say, both of these products are going back to Sephora this weekend. I've come home to east Tennessee to hang out with my mom and sister/celebrate one of my best friend's 21st birthdays. Jen (my sister) and I have already gone to Ulta and our local JCPenny Sephora, we'll go to the Sephora in the mall on Monday, most likely! There will be plenty of new products for me to play with.