Mascara Monday: Clinique High Impact Mascara

I've been neglecting my Mascara Monday posts, so we are back into it this month. Today's mascara of choice to review is Clinique's High Impact Mascara. I got this as part of a gift with purchase some time ago. I haven't used it until recently, because I have a mountain of mascaras. The Clinique.ca website describes this mascara as "Kicks up the volume and length of each and every lash for a look that's lusher, plusher, bolder. Pure, deep colour only adds to the impact. Wear it once and you'll feel naked without it." This mascara retails for $18 CAD.

Friday Faves: What's Your Favorite Foundation Ever?

I have an idea for a weekly Friday post, "Friday Faves", I will ask you girls what your favourite product is from a certain category as well as showing a peek into my makeup vault. You'll see me going back and forth between the US and Canadian spelling of "favourite" as I am Canadian, but I want my titles to be in the American spelling. This probably isn't a new idea, but I just thought of it today and I thought it would be cool. First up is foundation. I have lots of foundations, I don't know if I have more than the regular girl, tell me what you think. The picture doesn't have all of them, there are a few missing, I just grab these quickly.

Foundations is one of those items that I justify buying over and over again (even though I don't need more) because I want to find the perfect one of me and love trying out new ones. I really want to try the Maybelline Dream Smooth Mousse but can you believe we STILL don't have it Canada?, it's ridiculous! I even see it in Canadian magazine ads and still nothing on the shelves! Some new purchases in my collection include Lancome Teinte Idole and Guerlain Lingerie De Peau which I picked up for free last weekend when I redeemed my Shoppers Drug Mart points. I will review those soon.

Anyways, what's my favourite foundation of all the ones I've tried? Nars Sheer Glow (which is nestled in the middle of my stash). I feel happiest with the result this one gives, it's not drying, feels light on the skin and gives good coverage. Since using other high-end foundations, Nars Sheer Glow comes to mind as being similar every time. I like how you don't have to pack a ton on to get the coverage that you want.

PS - The ELF Flawless Foundation is now available to buy on their website. I think I am going to wait to try this one out, but I definitely want to!

What's your favorite all time foundation?

Clinique Redness Solutions Foundation and Gift With Purchase Haul

Earlier this week I picked up Clinique's new Redness Solutions foundation. I previously posted about how I had a difficult time during my last trip to a Clinique counter. This time around I tried one in another city and did very well. The Clinique rep at this counter talked to me about my skin, tried the foundation on my face, applies two different shades to find my best match, and tried on several other products on me too. I was pretty certain I was getting this one because so many of you recommended it to me and it sounded great. My first impressions of the Redness Solutions foundation is it's an amazing foundation! It does tone down the redness, has medium coverage (leaning more on the heavy medium side) and feels like nothing on your skin. I got it in the lightest colour, "Claming Ivory". I think if you are lighter than me (NC15) I would be weary of trying this because the lightest is not that light at all. The good thing, I do not find this foundation (in this colour) pink at all, it's quite yellow-ish, which I like. I've read over and over that Clinique's foundations are too pink.


I got a bit carried away when the Clinique girl was applying all the products to my face and wanted to buy everything. I ended up going home with this foundation, the GWP and a Redness Solutions Cleanser too. I came home and had buyer's remorse right away, and took the cleanser back today, it was $26.50 and I really didn't need it. However, I am interested in the Redness Relief Mineral powder that she used on me as a setting powder (yellow powder) if any of you have tried that, please let me know! It looks very similar to Everyday Minerals Sunlight Corrector, which I still have samples of, but for much more money. I am curious if it actually calms or relieves your skin. The moisturizer that she used on me, the Redness Solutions Relief Cream, that was really nice too, but $53 for a tub of that. I think the way to go would be to get the trial set, that was like $58 with three products: the cream, protective base and cleanser, maybe I will ask for that for Christmas.

I picked this up now because Sears (in Canada) currently has a gift with purchase until November 10, 2010 when you spend $26.50 (this foundation was $30). I love gift with purchases! However I do wish they came with the Dramatically Different Moisturizing GEL instead of the lotion (they always put the lotion) because I have the lotion already (several of them). I posted about this on Canadian Daily Deals, my other website, definitely check it out if you haven't yet!

The gift with purchase comes with 7 items: Rinse Off Eye Makeup Solvent (good size), Rinse-off Foaming Cleanser, Dramatically Different Moisturizing Lotion (boo), Lipstick/Gloss Duo in Different Raspberry Glace & Long Last Glosswear SPF 15 in Fireberry, High Lengths Mascara, Pop up mirror with brush and a Cosmetics bag of course. I am most excited about the solvent and cleanser.

Have you tried any of the  Clinique Redness Solutions line?

MAC My Highland Honey Review

The past few MAC collections (Fabulous Felines, Venomous Villains and A Tartan Tale) have really underwhelmed and overwhelmed me, they've been huge and nothing has really impressed me about them. I feel that about MAC often, it's underwhelming and overwhelming at the same time, if that makes sense. I look at it and want a dozen items, then I read about the items, see swatches, even look at it at counters and think..meh. Once you have a certain amount of MAC items, it all starts looking the same to you. But one thing that I cannot resist is...peach blushes! I went to the Clinique counter yesterday and the girl tried foundations on me and did my entire face and told me that I would look good in peach blushes and I said YES! I love peach blushes, it was pretty funny that she had me spot on!

Anyways, from "A Tartan Tale", MAC's new holiday collection all I picked up was the "My Highland Honey" blush. Also next to it in the top picture is a sample size of MAC's Eye Makeup Remover (6ml), with any purchase now on the MAC Canada site you can get this for free, enter the code "MACSAMPLE" until Nov 14, 2010. I was back and forth about this blush, and frankly I am happy to have it, but it's totally not "necessary". It's possibly the most true peach that MAC has ever released, lots of the peach blushes that I have can be slightly darker or have pink or coral undertones, this one is just peach. It's a satin finish, I find it a bit chalky and you have definitely have to pack it to get the right colour payoff. It's very light, and even on me, I am quite fair this takes some work.

Here are some of my peach blushes, but as you can tell Peaches and My Highland Honey look very close right? Style is considerably more orange, Cantaloupe is darker.

Okay, side by side, Peaches and My Highland Honey. I tried to take the most accurate picture here, peaches looks darker and less orange right? You definitely do not need both, but if you are obsessed with peaches like me, what can you do? You gotta feed this obsession! I asked my boyfriend and he says they look the same, clearly they are slightly different.

And next to Utterly Game here, they look a bit different I think. In the swatch you can see that My Highland Honey is more bright, orange/yellow compared to the other two. Up close, Utterly Game has a light sheen to it that the other two do not, plus it's a mineralized finish.

All in all, it's a nice blush to have, but to have Peaches, Utterly Game AND My Highland Honey is not necessary and suspect that applied on the cheeks no one (but you) can tell the difference.

Did you pick up My Highland Honey or other items from the new MAC collection?

Review: Ecotools Eyeshadow Brush Vs Old Eyeshadow Brush

Ecotools has recently re-designed their eyeshadow brush, or what they call the "bamboo eye shading brush". I would rather call it the eyeshadow brush, so for the purpose of this review I will. I love Ecotools, I think they are the best drugstore makeup brush brand, plus it helps that they are also affordable (this brush was $4 CAD) and eco-friendly. If you haven't noticed their eyeshadow brush looks very different now, I will do a comparison review of these two brushes today.

As you can tell both brushes have the same design: bamboo handles, synthetic taklon bristles, and aluminum ferrule, they come packaged the same way too. The ferrule and handle are slighly thicker on the new brush. But the way the brushes perform is much different, and although you would think the new brush would be an improvement, I am not so sure.

A closer look here, you can tell how much larger the new Ecotools eyeshadow brush is (on left). The new brush is very soft, large and thick, fluffy and a bit floppy, the nature of the bristles give it much "give". Whereas the old design eyeshadow brush (on right) has harder, smaller and thinner bristles, this brush feels more like a concealer brush to me, or could be very useful to apply cream products. The new one also has a slight, more-defined point at the centre tip. I think the new one picks up more product during application, but the older one deposited better and was more precise. With the old brush, you could not blend anything because it was so stiff, with this one you can use the corners to blend your crease colour, which is nice.

From the side, you can tell the new brush (on left) is huge and fluffy compared to the thin and skinny brush from the previous design (on right)

My main issue with this brush is how huge it is, I wish they had made it smaller. You can tell in the picture above, it covers my entire lid. If you small eyes, this brush may be overwhelming for you.

So I am half and half about this brush. I think the new design is an overall nicer brush, it's soft and fluffy, blends well, but it's huge. If they had made it smaller I would of been totally happy with it. If you still want to buy the old design brush, you can get it in the 6 piece kit since I don't think they've updated that yet.

What did you think of the newly designed Ecotools eyeshadow brush?

Monthly Faves: October 2010

What have I liked most this month? There has been quite a lot of products that I have bought and haven't been too keen on it,but there have also been some gems. Here are my favourites for the month of October...

Revlon Photoready is a foundation that I've been reaching for, frankly I don't *love* this foundation, I did a review when I first bought it. But looking at it sitting amongst all my other foundations (I have many) I feel sorry for it because the packaging is so pretty and have been trying to use it up. As you can tell, I have a long way to go. I have this in the second lightest colour, "002 Vanilla". If you set it with a powder, it's tolerable, but yes it is a glitterbomb.

Olay classic moisturizing lotion for sensitive skin. Sometimes it's better to go back to basics with your face moisturizer and this Olay one is a great one. It's non-comeogenic, light, non-greasy with chamomille and aloe, fragrance and colour-free etc etc. I love this stuff, and people that use Olay face products have gorgeous skin when they get old, from what I've read online, so it's all good.

The Body Shop Coconut Lip Butter. This has been my lipbalm of choice for last month. I love anything Coconut scented so this one is great. It comes in a little pot, screws on easily and is great for on the go. It does give your lips a minor white cast, but it goes away once it absorbs.

Sigma Makeup F25 Tapered Face Brush. This brush has quickly become my everyday routine favourite brush for applying contouring powder all over. I like the shape of it and how soft it is. This one is actually the slightly shorter handle one that comes with the Premium travel set, I prefer the shorter handle, but the brush head is basically the same.

Revlon Age Defying Concealer. LOVE this concealer for under the eyes. I wrote a full review of it here, it's moisturizing and gives great coverage. Definitely pick this up if you haven't. I've tried tons of concealers and this one rocks!

Wait another Revlon product???? Revlon Grow Luscious mascara is pretty freaking good too. I don't know if it's making my lashes grow lusciously, but I like it anyway, the brush is easy to apply and it gives my lashes that "my lashes but better" type of look. Full review here.

MAC Gingerly blush. I love peach blushes, and I picked this up one earlier this month. It's a favourite of Kim Kardashian's. Me and Kim have totally different skintones but I liked how it looked on her so why not get it? It's a dark peach matte blush, sheertone finish so it won't make you look crazy if you put on too much. It makes me think of pumpkins and autumn weather.

What were your favourites for October?