Botanic Farm Korean Skincare Review

Memebox sent me a few products to review from one of their new brands- Botanic Farms. My skin has been looking rough lately, so this was very exciting!

I received two sheet masks, a sleeping pack and a multi-step blackhead clearing strip set. Let’s check them out.

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The first product I tried was the Natural Energy Kiwi Sheet Mask ($2). This was a pretty standard white sheet mask like you’ve seen me wear a few times on this blog before. I love using these for a quick, intensive boost whenever I feel like my skin is dull and tired. My skin felt moisturized and fresh afterward.

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A few days after that I was ready to try the Polar Energy Hydrogel Mask Pack (Syn-Ake) ($4).

If the first sheet mask was sort of entry level, this one was advanced. It had a jelly-like plastic feel too it and a cool webbed effect like snake skin (attention to detail!). It was meant to promote skin cell regeneration, much like the way a snake sheds its skin (and was not infused with synthetic snake venom as I initially suspected  from the packaging). There was limited English on the packaging, so I did my best with guessing which side to stick to my skin (I went with the plasticy side that seemed more clingy) and left it on for at least 20 minutes.

This one looked pretty scary (in fact I had to announce I was wearing it from behind a closed door before I saw my husband so he wouldn’t freak out) but it wore pretty comfortably. I must say, I could feel real results immediately after! My skin felt smoother and more taut.

Yikes! Sometimes looking good requires looking scary for a little while first.

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The Black Soybean Milk Pudding Sleeping Pack ($25) was crazy! It had a thick, gelatinous texture that didn’t want to smooth out at first. However, after massaging the almost chunky jelly on my face for a few seconds, it melted into a more easily applied gel. Even then it was still so thick that it couldn’t fully absorb, more like a slimy version of a mud mask. I just ended up swirling it around on my face for a while which was oddly therapeutic.

What also mystified me about this stuff was the way that the remaining product reformed itself back into a flat surface while I was applying the product. Using this stuff felt like a science experiment (and I’m into that).

Like it never even happened!

Will it absorb?

What’s up, slimeface?

I can see why this is for sleeping in since it stays slimy for a while, but it did absorb ever-so-slowly over the course of the night. When I woke up, that seemingly impenetrable layer of gel had sunken into my skin, leaving only a faint film behind. My skin felt awesome and so plump and smooth. This stuff is great!

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Finally we have the Egg Clear Black Head 3-Step Nose Pack ($3). This is like the ultimate warrior edition of your OG Biore strips.

This was an excellent product for me to try because I have both (ahem) a lot of real estate to try the product on and I have gross clogged pores and blackheads on my nose that I can never get rid of with standard strips.

Step 1 involves a pre-soaked thick tissue material that you apply to your nose. It’s so thick that I thought it was two pieces, but no. It’s pretty comfortable to wear, although it does sort of look like surgical dressing for a nose job.

Step 2 is a little closer to the kind of strip you may be used to, albeit much higher quality. You wet your nose to use it, then peel it off a plastic sheet and it sticks right on. It’s much less messy and much easier to use effectively than a traditional American strip. It has more of a cottony feel and it also has little snips around its edges to help it conform to you nose better rather than leaving those annoying air bubbles underneath. Leave this on for 10-15 minutes.

I thought about showing you the used strip and decided against it. You’re welcome. It was pretty gross, but also satisfying. Way more pore-clearage than a Biore.

Step 3 is a transparent gel strip covered in essence. This only needs to stay on for 5-10 minutes to help the essence soak in before you peel off.

And ta-da! There are still clogged pores on the bridge of my nose, but the sides are significantly clearer. I wonder if I could get 100% clear if I do these more regularly?

Enjoy a before (above) and after (below) of my nose pores. I know that’s kind of gross.
Can’t argue with results, though.

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And that’s it! Botanic Farm has been good to me. My skin is feeling very soft this week.

Makeup Geek Eyeshadow Review

I recently purchased a Z Palette (still en route) and realized that in addition to the crazy depotting experiments that will be going into the palette, it would be the perfect time to buy some single shadows from Makeup Geek to put in it. I’ve read rave reviews about MUG eyeshadows and I really love their creator, Marlena, so I was also excited to support the brand. Of course the MUG shadows showed up before the palette itself, but that’s ok. I can still share some thoughts with y’all while I wait for a place to actually store these things.

(It’s here! Yay!)

First of all, the shipping was (clearly) fast. I placed my order Wednesday night and it showed up on Friday. This might be the quickest I’ve ever received anything other than from Amazon, which is pretty amazing considering Makeup Geek is a small business and Amazon is a huge mega-corporation. You do pay for your shipping with MUG, however it was only $1.99 to ship my 5 eyeshadows, so I don’t feel bad about it at all. The box was extremely well packed to ensure nothing broke in transit, which I appreciate.

OK, so eyeshadows. I got one matte shade, one with light shimmer, one full shimmer, and two of the foiled shadows. In other words, I got the sampler platter of finishes.

As I alluded to with the Z palette comment, the shadows come in pans without any outer casing. This is very efficient and saves a lot of space, which I love, but also means that the shadows are floating around loose and unprotected until my palette gets in. As soon as I get my Z Palette (an empty magnetic palette where you can mix and match all of your favorite makeup to create your own ultimate makeup collection) I’ll show you how they fit. The shadows arrive to you in cute little art deco-inspired envelopes (gold accents for the foiled shadows and white for the regular line). The foiled shadows are $9.99 each and the regular line are $5.99 each. All totaled, this mini-haul cost me $39.94 for 5 shadows plus shipping and the shadows promise to be high-end quality. So far so good!

Here are the individual shadow pans themselves and the website’s shade descriptions:

Flame Thrower ($9.99) “True brightened warm copper with a foiled finish.”

Starry Eyed ($9.99) “Light champagne beige with slight pink undertones and a foiled finish. Pinky-beige champagne.”

Cosmopolitan ($5.99) “Rose Gold with gold flecks and a shimmery finish.”

(FYI the ding in this shadow is my own fault- I scratched it when I was opening the pouch it came in. These shadows all arrived in perfect condition.)

Hipster ($5.99) “Dark sand and light taupe tan with slight shimmer.”

Bitten ($5.99) “Matte deep maroon red”

Swatch time!
L-R: Starry Eyed, Flame Thrower, Cosmopolitan, Hipster, Bitten.

Initial reaction:

So I’ve heard rave reviews about the foiled shadows. I agree that they are very nice, but I think they have been overhyped a bit. In my opinion they aren’t some magical pixie dust the world has never seen the way some people have described, but they are still high quality, very pigmented metallic eyeshadows. I would compare them to the look of a loose powder pigment, but in an easier to use pressed format. I thought Flame Thrower was more intensely metallic than Starry Eyed, and Flame Thrower did have a slightly more slippy, silky feel than a traditional eye shadow where Starry Eyed’s texture was a little more commonplace. Starry Eyed wasn’t that different from most other champagne metallic shadows for me (very similar to Stila’s famous Kitten shadow). Again, that doesn’t mean they’re bad (at all!). I do think they are comparable in both color and quality to shadows that cost a lot more (Starry Eyed is similar to Stila Kitten, and Flame Thrower makes me think of MAC’s Amber Lights- both of which used to be fixtures in my makeup kit).

As for the other OG shades, Cosmopolitan and Hipster both blew me away with their initial swatches, but Bitten seemed a little under-pigmented and streaky. Part of the reason for that is that these are finger swatches. Ironically, finger swatches often look better than what you can produce with a brush (your finger’s surface picks up more concentrated color than a brush because a brush is meant to diffuse the harsh lines a bit), but I found that Bitten picked up far better with a brush and looked amazing when applied! I’m really glad, because that was the shade I was most exited about.

I tried swatching again this morning over primer to see what would happen and the difference was startling. You can see how Bitten wasn’t doing so well on its own, but comes to life over the primer. The other regular shadows benefited slightly from the primer and the foiled ones looked the same either way. This is all fine by me because I always use a primer anyway.

Swatched with no primer on top and a strip of primer on the bottom:

Enough about swatches, let’s see these bad boys in action.

I’m really sorry for how tired my eyes look in the first set of pictures. I look so tired because I was really, really tired. I took this set last night and it was way past my bedtime. I was just that excited about these shadows that I HAD to play with them before I could sleep. In these, I’m wearing a wash of Starry Eyed on the inner 2/3 of my lid with Flame Thrower blended from the outer third. Since it was late I just slapped this one with my fingers without primer or anything, but I still thought they blended really nicely (and as mentioned above, the foiled shadows do very well without primer).

Ok, here’s today’s look where I was actually awake. I did kind of a grungey, ’90s inspired mostly matte eye without much else going on.
I’m wearing Bitten all over the lid with Hipster just barely blended into the crease as a transition shade and Starry Eyed in the inner corners again.

Dat pigmentation tho.

I think I’ve told you guys before that I LOVE red tinged eyeshadow.

Comin’ at you straight up out the ’90s.

I failed to include a look with Cosmopolitan, but that will be coming in a post soon, so I’ll be sure to link when I put it up (update: here it is!).
As for my final thoughts, I want to confirm the hype (for the most part, since I mentioned earlier that some people have gone a little overboard). These eyeshadows were all great to work with, blended super well and had great pigmentation. MUG provides a variety of finish levels as well as really well thought out colors. They are all a great value, but in my opinion the regular old non-foiled shadows are actually the winner. They are phenomenal to work with (even though some require primer), they are pigmented, and they are only six bucks. All of the shadows are high end quality, but the regular line will give you the most bang for your buck. I’m definitely going to be placing a second order in the near future. Thanks for creating such an awesome product line, Marlena!

Soft olive neutrals with the Wet n’ Wild Comfort Zone palette

I did a makeup stash purge a couple months ago and a lot of palettes hit the trash.It was brutal, but I really needed to downsize. Urban Decay suffered a hit, so did my way-expired Nude ‘Tude palette that I lovedddd (that one was hard, but the eyeshadows were definitely starting to spoil). You know what actually made the cut? My cheapo Wet n’ Wild Comfort Zone palette.

Even though it was by far the least expensive set I had (only $4.99!), it’s also extremely versatile and it has some unusual shades that seem so much more sophisticated that its humble pedigree would suggest. While the shades don’t feel quite as soft to work with as a higher end shadow, they look just as good once they’re applied and no one will ever know the difference.

The other night I had to meet a friend and she got to the restaurant way earlier than anyone expected, so I had to kick my makeup application into hyperspeed to get out the door so she wouldn’t have to wait any longer. I wanted a low-maintenance wash of color that could stand alone and wouldn’t require a lot of additional products, but I also didn’t want to go with a standard taupe or champagne shade. I thought the pale olive green/grey hybrid “browbone” shade from Comfort Zone would be perfect.

So here it is, with the grey-green all over. I also dragged a little bit of the bronze shade from the same palette along the lashline to punch it up just a little. In an unprecedented move, I didn’t do my brows because 1) I was trying to be quick and 2) I was worried it might overhelm the look.

  

Other products worn:

L’Oreal Voluminous False Fibers Mascara ($8.99)

Smashbox L.A. Lights Blendable Lip & Cheek Color in Venice Beach Bronze ($29)

Soap and Glory Sexy Mother Pucker Gloss Stick in Nudist ($10)

Pony 3 Eyeshadow Palette and Lipstick Review

Hi friends! I’ve got a new Memebox product that was sent for me to review. This time it’s the latest collaboration between Memebox and amazing Korean makeup artist and blogger PONY. They’ve collaborated several times in the past, and this iteration is called “Shine Easy Glam 3,” AKA Pony 3, and the collection is inspired by spring flowers. I was sent the “Brown Bloom” Eyeshadow Quad ($18) and “Orange Dahlia” Lipstick ($12).

First of all, I was immediately taken in by the packaging.

The boxes are so cute, and the holograph lettering on solid white and gold cases for the makeup feel simultaneously edgy and luxe. Both products have a nice weight to them and they seem higher-end than the price would suggest.

 

Minus the hologram, it makes me think a little of Tom Ford cosmetic packaging- not that I can afford anything by Tom Ford.

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I was a little surprised at how glittery the eyeshadows themselves were. The color pairings are nice and they all complement each other, but I was expecting a more matte definition color instead of the very shimmery dark brown in the eyeshadow quad. They are beautiful though, aren’t they?

When swatched, I found the two light shades to both be fairly sheer while the orange and brown shades were much more heavily pigmented.

At first I didn’t know what to make of that glittery beige shade because it’s sheer, but incredibly sparkly. It quickly became my favorite of the bunch because I realized I could use it to transform other shades. I tried wearing all kinds of eye looks and tapping that shade lightly on the center of my upper eyelid for a glistening effect (it looked extra good on a smoky eye). Of course I took no pictures of these experiments (vacation life), but I’m sure there will be future posts using the shadow that way.

One problem I noticed was a lot of glitter fallout on my cheeks after applying these shadows (mainly the sparkling beige and the peachy orange), but I corrected this by applying my eyes before my concealer/foundation/whatever so I could dab the glitter off my cheeks with makeup remover without destroying anything. This worked well for me and I didn’t experience any additional fallout after the initial application.

I’ve included a couple shots of the shades in action, but I’m afraid these pictures don’t do them justice since I was working with some pretty bad lighting while I was out of town. The real thing was much prettier (and more pigmented), but at least you can see that the shades blended well together! The glitter was so fine that it blended into a really nice liquid looking sheen that I always loooooove.

You can sort of see the shimmer here:

Overall, I thought this eyeshadow palette was a great value and glitteryness made it a bit different than other similar comparable American palettes. The matte beige shadow was lacking a bit in pigmentation, but it still worked well as a base color and blending tone, so I didn’t mind.

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As for the lipstick, this stuff blew me away! I’ve noticed with a lot of the makeup I get from Memebox that the eyeshadows are good, but the lip products are GREAT. This $12 lipstick was as creamy and moisturizing and opaque as something at least twice as much.

and finally we have a couple full face shots for the complete look!

All in all a great addition to my spring makeup collection!