make up noob

I think I went to the Eaton Centre three times in one week until they finally had this Chick’n’Mix Bath Bomb up for sale. It’s just so cute, how could I not have it? 

The bottom is a blue half-egg, about the same size as a normal bath bomb. The top is a yellow half-egg with eyes to look like a chicken (and an orange bit), and inside is a walnut shaped mini orange ‘egg’. Lush says it’s a baby bunny? It looks like a walnut to me, and if not that, then a bad attempt at a small egg. Idk man. 

I saw this Skinmiso Pore Corset Serum in a buzzfeed video and it sounded pretty great so I grabbed a bottle off Amazon. The bottle itself is small but not as small as many serums I've seen before, and the liquid inside is clear, a little cloudy white with a fresh but incredibly mild scent.

Scrubee is one of the mother’s day products from LUSH UK, and being someone who loves bees, I had to have one. Okay, not just bees, but like this is a win-win-win item for me. 

It’s a little hard to see here, but under that cocoa butter coating the bulk of this is a mix of ground coconut shells and almonds mixed in with the cocoa butter. This cute little bee basically melts in your hand, and when you get past that first layer it’s both exfoliating and moisturizing. 

And I don’t know about you, but my skin (especially on my back!) has suffered from this weird up and down winter, and this felt heavenly. The bottom is about 3/4 of a centimeter of just cocoa butter, so you can exfoliate with one side and then sooth with the other side if you want. 

This Tarte set is one of the birthday gifts at Sephora this year. As most years, I wasn’t particularly into any of the birthday gifts. The blush is a nice neutral colour, but I really hate the feel of lip gloss, and the colour is really neutral when I want something intense and bright. 

I’ve been debating whether or not to try this mask for a few months now and finally caved and picked one up at Yonge & Finch this weekend. How can you turn down something that looks this freaky and is called the Dr. Jart+ Moist Lover Rubber Mask???? I had houseguests. We took photos. It was a whole thing.

Ngl I was a little hoping this would be like a CareLab pudding mask or one of those ones that comes in a cup and turns rubbery as it dries, but as you can probably tell from the packaging this is actually a rubbery mask you put on over top of a first step.

To start, there’s a little tub with a mask inside. This is a milky-white coloured, barely translucent and very gelatinous goo. Yeah, that’s the technical term. Goo. I actually had trouble applying it because it was so jelly-like and some of it just fell right off my face and into the sink. Shrug life. 

Then you apply the ‘rubber’ mask, which is bright blue like the picture, but actually comes in two pieces, top and bottom. It feels like silicone, really, and super weird. 

While I waited, the blue mask felt cool to the touch but my face itself felt really warm. “Probably because it can’t breath,” my friend said unhelpfully. I left this on for a good 15 minutes , removed it, chucked the blue part, and then thoroughly washed my face before doing my normal skincare routine. 

When I tried this out I kind of figured the whole review would basically be “Melon sheet mask smells like melon; story checks out.”

Remember a few weeks ago when a certain musician came to an awards show looking like some kind of gold transformer?

You, too, can have that experience with this No:hj Golden Modelling Foil Mask. Literally, the mask is gold foil, and I definitely took a dumb photo to send all my friends who immediately made fun of me. 

I’ve seen a lot of very positive reviews of these Too Cool for School sheet masks, but at Sephora they run eight dollars each (Canadian) and that is insane! The markup on asian beauty at Sephora is just bananas. So I ordered a five pack off Tester Korea for $12 USD.

What I wasn’t expecting here was the strong perfume. As soon as I opened the mask I could smell the super intense scent they added to it, and I’m not sure why they thought that was necessary. It actually made me take off the mask earlier than I would like, because otherwise I found this really nice.

The Sun bath oil is only available in the UK right now, so I added it to my UK order. The outside is a gold-bronze sheen, and underneath is a bright orange core that has a lovely citrus scent thanks to brazilian orange oil. (I am a sucker for all things citrus, okay?)

I have been waiting and waiting for the Shark Infested Custard bath melt to come out in North America so I could try it, but I couldn’t wait so I just ordered it from the UK. I’m weak like that.

I’d been using a pretty basic drug store powder as a second-last step in my routine for awhile, but when it ran out I wanted to see if I could get something better. Right now my routine (after skincare) is basically primer, cushion, powder, setting spray. My goal with the powder is to just fill in my pores a little bit more and matte everything. (My setting spray is also matte.) 

I tried a Nyx compact but since they didn’t have a translucent one, I found the colour instead seemed to highlight my pores (gross) and it really didn’t last all day. So instead I picked up this Urban Decay De-Slick Mattifying Powder at Sephora. 

I know it looks bone white in the picture, but it goes on basically invisible, which is amazing, and the compact itself is super cute. I do not use the weird, useless puff that came with it, and instead apply this with a broad brush like I’m guessing people use for blush. 

They pitch this powder as fighting shine, absorbing oil, and generally keeping things matte. And I love it. It works exactly like they say, and I’ve found that in combination with my setting spray, it takes a lot longer for that thing to happen where your glasses rub makeup off on the bridge of your nose, making two lines on either side of the red marks. ~___~ So yeah, that’s an improvement. I’ve also found I get less oily during the day, or it takes a lot longer. 

The Metamorphosis bath bomb was one of the big draws at LUSH’s annual conference this year, apparently. It looks pretty cool and weird on the outside: dark grey, with a texture like a cinderblock wall, sort of. 

Even just sitting in my bowl of bath bombs, it had a peppery-smokey smell to it. I ordered this online, so when I unwrapped it I was surprised at how much it permeated things. 

Interestingly, the grey part is a thin shell, and it foams away very quickly in the bath. Inside there’s a riot of colour - verdant green, orange, pink, yellow, a more yellow-green-- all surprising! 

If you’re curious about the Golden Egg gift from LUSH, here’s what’s inside:

Chocolate lip scrub

Floating Island luxury bath oil

Sunnyside bubble bar

Mini butterball bath bomb (90g)

Honey I Washed the Kids soap (says gift size online, but this is massive)

Golden Egg luxury bath oil

It’s easter (sort of) and you know what that means - new LUSH spring items! I grabbed a gift for myself there, and this Chocolate Lip Scrub was one of the items included. 

I don’t usually use lip scrubs but instead an overnight lip mask, so this is a little bit of a new experience for me. I found the texture to be rougher than I expected, even though it’s a scrub, maybe a little too abrasive.