Wednesday, 26 October 2011

Fortune Cookie Soap Review

I first heard about Fortune Cookie Soap on the youtubes.  It's a lot like Lush products but more food scent focused and they get their name from selling soap in the shape of fortune cookies. Of course I was eager to try out some of their products.  They have quite a good selection of soaps, bath stuff, body butters and fragrances.  It was actually really difficult to choose the scents I wanted to try out first because they all sound really good. I ended up getting a fortune cookies soap in "rain shower summer", cupcake soap, a bath salt in "vivid", a bath bomb in "fresh pineapple sorbet gelato", their "clearly complexion" dry clay mask and I got a free sample of their bath melt in "cupcake"(which is not available anymore).  Now I will start off by saying most of the reviews will not be all that great but I still have hope I'll like some of their other products.

So first I'll talk about their fortune cookie soap.  The one I got smelled really fresh and I absolutely loved how it made my whole shower smell like a summer rain.  It also cleaned great, my skin felt squeaky clean with no residue and the smell lingered on my skin.  However, the down side is you don't get many uses out of it because it becomes very flimsy in the shower and breaks apart.  So that was a little annoying but if you have one of those bath mitts you can just put it in there and probably get more uses out of it. 



A soap I didn't enjoy all that much was their cupcake soap. I ordered it mainly because it looks so gosh darn adorable and I love cupcakes.  I was planning on just really using it as decoration, unfortunately as soon as I received it the cupcake icing started turning into this poopy brown colour.  I asked the maker and she said it's normal because sometimes the vanilla in it reacts which I was extremely disappointed in.  So because of this I had to use the soap and it wasn't much better than it looked.  It didn't lather very well, the smell wasn't very cupcake-y when used in the shower, it sort of smelt like play-doh.  It also didn't rinse off cleanly, it didn't just moisturize, it left a film on my skin.  As well, the scent didn't linger on my skin (probably a good thing).  Their cupcake bath melt was pretty much the same.  The tub smelled like play-doh and it didn't really moisturize my skin as it did grease it up. 


I got their clay mask to try out because of my oily skin and I thought it was neat concept; it comes as a powder and you use any of the mixing mediums listed based on your skin type, like milk, honey, water etc.  It comes in four packets and I tried different mediums.  It was a huge pain when I used yogurt or sour cream, all the clay just balled up and wouldn't apply to my skin, just kept falling off.  The milk and water applied a lot better, however, as soon as the clay started drying on my face it felt awful. The tightening was too much, it started to make my skin itch and become irritated, even if I only left the mask on for 5 minutes. And after I rinsed it off my skin was so incredibly dry and blotchy.  Luckily my moisturizer was able to relieve my skin but I would not recommend this product to anyone.


A product I was really excited to use was their bath salt.  I got it in their most popular scent and it smells like sweet laundry detergent. Some of you may not like that smell but I do haha.  It smelled so fresh and clean but when I poured the salts into the bath the smell did not disperse through the air, in fact, the smell disappeared all together and I was left sitting in boring bath water with salts that were supposedly having some glorious affect on my skin.  Needless to say I was disappointed.  But I would still like to try one of their other products with the same scent.


The only product I did actually enjoy was their gelato bath bomb.  It not only looks freakin adorable and good enough to eat but it smells good enough to eat too.  It works wonderfully, a great bath bomb and the smell fills your whole bathroom. The pineapple scent was so relaxing, and was a nice get away from the impending doom of winter.  The smell also stays on your skin which I enjoy since I love the smell so much. I would definitely recommend their bath bombs, but that's all I was able to recommend. Like I said I'm hopeful to try some of their other products and scents and maybe have more luck. I do suggest you take a look at their site, they have some pretty unique items that would make great gifts for the holidays or yourself.

Thursday, 20 October 2011

October Luxe Box Review

The items I got this month were Lise Watier's Flash Face Lift Radiance Vials ($27), Kerastase's Elixir Ultime ($50), China Glaze's Crackle nail polish ($8), Olay Professional Pro-X Eye Restoration Complex ($60, drugstore), and Lise Watier's Plumpissimo Le Gloss ($20).  And as you can see they changed there packaging to a more sleek black design with a nice personal touch.


Lise Watier's Flash Face Lift Radiance Vials claims to erase signs of fatigue, smooth fine lines and wrinkles, restore radiance to your complexion and hold your makeup all day.  When I tried it I noticed my skin did look brighter and more refreshed, however, that's about all I noticed. There was no difference in fine lines and it certainly didn't hold my makeup all day.  I might have recommended this product just for brightening my skin if it wasn't for one major flaw...the smell.  The smell isn't disgusting but it isn't wonderful either.  The smell is strong and overbearing and it STAYS on your skin. For hours that's all I could smell, even after putting all my makeup on.  It ended up giving me a headache and I really don't want the smell of a beauty product to  overpower the perfume I'm wearing.



Yet another hair product, the Elixir Ultime claims to deep condition hair and smooth hair fibers to bring shine.  It also says it restores strength to hair and protects it from the harsh environment.  The product is good and standing up to the Moroccan Oil I've been using it does a decent job. My hair feel soft and smooth but I wouldn't say it's any more amazing than skmething you can pick up at the drug store.


I have been dying to try a crackle nail polish and have heard really good things about China Glazes.  I'm sure most of you have heard about crackle nail polishes.  You put it over any of your other nail polishes and it will form a deconstructive crackle design over it.  The colour I got was "Latticed Lilac" and it's so pretty! And as you can see below the crackle is awesome. There is an art to applying this stuff though and it takes a little bit of practice because it starts crackling almost instantly so you can only go over it once.  So it can crackle a lot cleaner than what's pictured. I've seen some brands that just crackles along your brush strokes and so it's only vertical crackle. This one crackles all over.  I highly recommend China Glaze!


Next is Olay Professional Pro-X Eye Restoration Complex.  It says it improves the look of crows feet which I don't have at all so I can't critique that part.  It hydrates well and for me, if I don't use a moisturizer, my fines lines are iore pronounced. But I prefer using an eye cream because moisturizers tend to look greasy under the eye.  It also decreased the puffiness around my eyes but did nothing for dark circles.  However, the act of massaging it in what's supposed to get rid of the puffiness. So overall, for the price, I wouldn't recommend this product.  I say just go a pick up some generic brand eye cream.



Lastly is Lise Watier's Plumpissimo Le Gloss.  It's a lip gloss that's obviously supposed to plump up your lips.  It says it contains some sort of dehydrated spheres that expand when they come in contact with the water in your skin and fill in and plump up the lines in your lips.  Well, surprise, surprise, it didn't work for me. As you can see below there's no difference.  However, I would like to say that I love the sparkling pink colour of the gloss. But for $20 it isn't worth it.





Also this month my box came with a $25 off if I spent $75 on this site dealuxe.ca.  Which I thought was pretty sweet.  I go to the site and it's really nice clothes..*even sweeter.  Then I look at the prices and almost the ENTIRE site is over $100 items.  Like there are maybe 10 basic shirts that are $85 and rings and stuff that are $60.  Even with the discount there is no way I'm paying $60 or ONE t-shirt.  I thought that was a bit ridiculous for the Loose Button company to do, obviously their clients don't have the money to be spending $300 on a skirt.  We're just regular people, not millionaires.  Needless to say I will not be using the giftcard.  But all in all it was an okay box this month. Hit or miss sometimes I guess!

Hope everyone is having an awesome October :)

Sunday, 9 October 2011

September Favourites

The first item isn't a beauty product but it's still something I have been obsessed with all month!  I went to Wal-mart a few weeks ago and went a little crazy with scented candles. The brand is called "The Fern Group", and I got 3 scents, Apple Pie, Vanilla Cupcake and Cinnamon Roll. My favourite is, of course, the vanilla cupcake.  I wish I could have bought all the scents they had but my poor wallet could not afford it. For some reason my favourite time to buy scented candles is in the fall, I just think the scents really put me in the mood for the season change :)


Next is a matte eyeshadow by Urban Decay called "Chronic".  It was on sale for $3 so I figured why not, and it was in a pretty green colour that I loved. It is an EXCELLENT eyeshadow, as you can see in the photo it is highly pigmented and the colour pay off is amazing. They have a few other matte colours as well so if you don't like the green there's more neutral colours. I highly recommend this eyeshadow and since I have never tried any of Urban Decay's eyeshadows, I definitely think I will now if all their products are this good of quality. In the swatch below, on the lefp is the eyeshadow without a primer and on the right is with a primer.


This month I tried a few products from "mark." Usually you can buy their products through Avon.  I bought one of their facial cleansers and their face blotting sheets. With it I got samples of their Lemon Sugar 3 in 1 Cleanser and their Lemon Sugar Body Butter and OH MY GOD the smell is soooooooo yummy.  Out ob the two I woul` recommend the body butter because the smell lasts on your skin. With the cleanser it smells amazing in the shower when you're using it but it doesn't linger on your skin. I literally could not stop smelling my arms after I put the body butter on haha.



And lastly is a product I mentioned before from my Luxe Box, the Moroccan Oil.  I have been using it religiously and my hair has never felt softer and I've been getting a lot more compliments on my hair too. Again, if you want to read the full review it's in my previous post.