I've debated over posting this for the last little while. Too may bad reviews can be disheartening, so I tried to keep these short, but the bottom line is that not every product will work for everyone. Actually, for some of these products, I've read rave reviews from other bloggers, so just because these didn't work for me, doesn't mean they won't for you. As always, these are just my experiences.
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| Picture from Best Bath Store |
Best Bath Store Acne Treatment Gel
This is advertised as being good as either an all over or spot treatment. I ordered a sample to try as a spot treatment. I put it on before bed and woke up with angry looking skin. The two pimples I'd put it on were very red, inflamed, and almost raw looking and I'd gotten a few smaller breakouts in the same vicinity too. I did try it a couple more times, just to rule out a coincidence, but I'm pretty sure this was the culprit. I'd also picked up samples of the rest of Best Bath Store's acne line (their Acne Facial Bar and Acne Treatment Facial Toner) but after the gel, I've been a bit scared to try them out.
Real Purity Mascara in Black/Brown
Usually I go for black mascara, but when I ordered, Real Purity was sold out of the black and I desperately needed mascara, so I went with the Black/Brown. The colour itself was fine - it looks brown in the tube, but pretty close to black on the eye. It's a pretty wet formula, so I often had to clean up mascara smudges that would end up on my lids before it dried down. It doesn't give very dramatic lashes either, which I could have lived with, but about an hour into wearing it, my eyes would start feeling hot and extremely itchy until I washed it off. The ingredients seem clean and I don't know what I was reacting to. They do list "pure plant extracts" without specifying any further, which I guess should have been a red flag, since it could include any number of things. Needless to say, I've been sticking to my HG Zuzu Luxe mascara ever since!
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| Picture from Real Purity |
Real Purity Berry Kiss Lip Gloss
I decided to pick up a lip gloss sample as well once I was ordering the mascara. Colour-wise, it looks like a scary bright pink, but it applies sheerly and looks nice enough. My big problem with it is the smell. The ingredients list "natural strawberry flavor," but it smells remarkably like that horrible, overly sweet, fake fruit smell that you find in cheap, dollar store-type lip gloss. The smell hangs around too, which makes it pretty much unwearable for me.
Miessence Concealer
Miessence's makeup line has consistently left me underwhelmed. As far as I'm concerned, their makeup really needs to perform a lot better to justify the prices they charge! The texture of the concealer is thick and kind of paste-like, making it hard to apply and it doesn't set at all, even with a powder on top. Coverage was very minimal and did nothing for my under eye circles. It looked cakey and sunk into fine lines, and I wasn't able to find a colour match either. Basically a hot mess all around!
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| Picture from Earth's Beauty |
Earth's Beauty Mineral Colours Original Foundation Powder & Mineral Colours Plus Foundation Powder
Earth's Beauty was my first real foray into mineral makeup and I ordered samples of 4 foundation colours to try towards the end of last year. These are a bit strange to work with. Both formulas are very sheer, with hardly any coverage, but at the same time, they manage to look powdery and cakey. The sheerness means that all of the colours I ordered seem to match my skin okay, but other than that, this foundation was not a hit at all.
