About a year and half ago I moved from the east side of the country to the west side. I've been living on the West Coast ever since! When I moved I threw out a lot of make-up and beauty products I did not use or I did not like; I gave away a lot of products that were brand new that I didn't have the room for when packing or I didn't think would make it on the drive across the country. -After that, my beauty drawers were pretty well cleared out of useless products, but after coming home this weekend from San Diego Comic Con (SDCC) (and I will be posting more about that later) and putting my make-up away, I realized I had a lot of products I do not use at all and some it was more than a year old! This post is about products I am cleaning out, but also do not feel they do not perform well at all! I consider those ill-performing products "misses".
The first 2 products I'm featuring are the Julep DD Creme and Julep DD Concealer. I wanted so much to love these and before they came out they were advertised as something revolutionary. They were suppose to be like BB cremes, but in the form of a foundation & concealer and not just a cover creme; in other words, it was actually a foundation that gave you the benefits of a BB creme. The concealer was suppose to compliment the DD creme. Well, this was a total fail! Sad to say, because I love Julep and their products, but this was a total miss!
The DD Creme itself is smooth going on, but does not give you the coverage that is promised. So, to build coverage you need layers and I felt the more layers you put on the heavier it feels. This product is not friendly to oily skin either! I myself have oily skin and I would get a max of 2 hours wear time before my face looked like a grease ball! Not pretty....... This product also only came in a 4 color range and did not compliment or blend with most skin tones, which was the biggest complaint when the product launched. To top it off, the tube came with very little products. Most people said they did not get even half a month out of the tube, but I have yet to run out and I'm throwing it away now. If I remember right, I have used it about 4-6 times.
The DD Concealer is no better. It does not compliment the creme at all. I did not notice anymore coverage on my dark spots and it was hard to blend. In my opinion the concealers were the same formula as the Cremes, just different colors and colors that did not help with coverage. After about 1-2 hours I would notice that the places where I put concealer on were noticeable and looked like blotchy spots on me.
To top this whole mess off, these were not cheap! I did get to try them both for a price of $20, because I have a subscription to Julep, but even that was not worth the money. Normally these ran $36 a piece! Again, not worth it. Needless to say, these have both been discontinued from Julep and are no longer available for purchase, and I'm tossing them out!
Next up is the (formerly) limited edition Wet N Wild Fergie Shimmer Eyeshadow Primer in #34281 "A Little Party". I bought this when the collection first came out, right before I moved. I was super excited about it and the drug store community built up the original primer so well that I figured this one would be just as great, but with shimmer! After swatching this I thought it was beautiful. Sadly, the performance was not so great. I'm an every day user of the Too Faced "Shadow Insurance" eye primer and that stuff does not budge! Stays on all day and I have no problems! Call me spoiled, but this does not even begin to compare to Too Faced. However, even if you try to cut this product some slack, since it's a drug store product, I still cannot give this product props. It does not help your eyeshadow look bolder or brighter, or even better! It actually makes it hard to apply your shadow and I'm assuming that has to do with the shimmer in it. It's staying power is not there either. I believe I had a max performing time of 4 hours and my eyeshadow did not look that great to begin with. I used this about a total of 3-4 times before it made it's way to the back of my make-up drawer, never to be used again. I'm tossing it now. - This is actually a permanent product in the line now. You can easily purchase this at Walgreens and like stores for around $4.99, but I would not recommend it.
From that same limited edition collection came these 2 eyeliners. The purple is "#34280 Gunmetal Grape" and the blue is "#34279 Cobalt Vault". Again, 2 products I really wanted to love. I will say, I do not hate these products. They just don't cut it for me. Of the 2, Cobalt Blue is the better performing of the 2; with primer I had decent wear time at about 6 hours if not too active and about 4 if you are on the more active side. Without primer, I would not attempt either. For the price, it's not bad if you're not normally into colored liner, especially the bright blue. I didn't feel the blue was very electric though. It's much more dull when applied. The purple is very hard to make opaque and requires several layers. You also have to wait for the layers to set and that's a minute, so to make a nice opaque line with Gunmetal Grape takes quite a while. - Both are still limited edition, but tend to pop up in collections here and there, so if you're interested in trying these out for only about $4.99 each then keep your eyes pealed for new collections from the Wet N Wild line. For me, these are not worth it, especially since I regularly buy Urban Decay and MAC liners that are brighter and more pigmented.
So far, this entry seems like a girl who is just spitting hate on drug store products. While I must admit that I tend to use more higher end products, I do actually have some drug store staples and brands that I love. Milani just happens to be one of those brands that I love. However, there is no love here for these two eyeliners. These are the limited edition Constellation Gel Eye Liners in: "#01 Enchanted Lapis" and "#02 Enchanted Black Opal", respectively. I used both of these once and will never use them again. How they were still in my make-up drawer and not long gone in a landfill is beyond me! The colors are not bad, the problem lies with the fact that neither of these set, EVER! They literally stay liquid-like on your eyes and thus come off, rub off, smear off easily! If you have hooded eyes, forget it! You can no longer get these, but that's the way it should be! I'm not the only one who felt this way. There were complaints all around about these! These came out before their new Fierce Foil liners, which I have yet to try, but you can see why I'm hesitant to try them. I love their regular liquid pencil liners, but these were nothing like them. I used a primer as well and they never set. Not even 8 hours later. Total misses!
Here is a product that is not necessarily a miss, but I have no use for it in my life. I'm the kind of person who either wears lipstick or lip products to have it noticed, or I'll just simply use a natural oil or balm for moisture. I do not use tinted products. It's either all or nothing for me. This is the L'Oreal Colour Riche Balm "#818 Nourishing Nude". I wore this a handful of times and then never picked it up again. This is not a bad product. There were a lot of complaints about wear time with it, but I have to remind people that: A) This is a drug store product, so it's not going to be as high performing as a higher end product (but it's also not going to be as expensive either) & B) This is a balm and not a lipstick, so you can't expect it to perform like one. Through my experience as a make-up lover, I have noticed that glosses, balms, and similar products do not have the same wear as a lipstick and it's not fair to expect a product to be what it is not.
These are still available to purchase at any major drug store, but it's not for me. After having this for well over a year, I'm tossing it.
The Revlon Colorburst Lip Butter in "Proactive" was a complete miss! This was part of a holiday collection and limited edition. It was very hard to track down and I spent a few weeks hunting for it. Sadly, it was not worth the hunt. The Revlon Lip Butters are a line similar to L'Oreal's Colour Riche Balms (see above) and that means they are not quite a lipstick. Rather, they are meant to be a moisturizing tinted lip product. Provocative does not live up to it's name! It's not bright or eye catching. It only leaves some shimmer and only over colors that will compliment it. There is very littler wear time, so it has to be applied often. It's also on the drying side as well and to top off the icing on this awful cake, it is not smooth or easy to apply and is quite stiff! There was no need to rush out and get it. I also have never attempted another Revlon Lip Butter.
As to not end on a completely bad note, my last product featured is one of the Maybelline Color Whispers in "#60 Petal Rebel". When I first bought this I wore it quite often, but then soon forgot about it and that speaks volumes to me. If a product is easily forgotten then it really does not have an impact in your life (in most cases). These lipsticks were advertised as a "whisper" of color, but basically meaning: a tinted lipstick; you get the staying power of lipstick, but the color of a tinted balm. I felt this was a little more pigmented then what you get in most balms. It did take a few layers to build to my liking, but my biggest issue with this is that while it was not drying it was not moisturizing either and it lasted only about 2 hours or less. Re-application was much needed and often and it's just not practical if you're out and on the go. These are still available for purchase at major drug stores, but I say "pass" on them.
-That wraps up my first blog entry on clearing out my unused/old make-up and also my first entry on make-up misses. Feel free to leave your comments below if you have any advice or experience with these products yourself! I'm so glad to be back and I promise the next entry will not be a year from now ;)
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