Beauty Sample Saturday #2

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Early this month, two wonderful BeautyTubers (YouTubers who make videos about beauty) I follow started a challenge for May. They wanted to use one sample each day, 31 samples in 31 days, followed-up with mini reviews. They invited other BeautyTubers and subscribers to join in.

The two YouTube Beauties who motivated me to do this are:
Olivia and here is her video (channel name: makeupfunwitholivia)
Cherylene and here is her video (channel name: Cherylene)

May 9 Urban Decay B6 Complexion Prep Spray
This served no purpose on my skin. It is used before applying makeup for "redness reducing, pore minimizing and oil absorbing." It did none of the above for me. I don't really have a redness issue other than the broken capillaries around my nose and nothing short of IPL will help those. But I do have pore issues and oily skin. I tried this three days in a row with three different foundations. Worthless.

May 10 Givency Noir Couture 4 in 1 Mascara
What is up with this brush? I actually had to go look up some info to understand the method to the madness behind this brush style. Nope, nothing. The only thing I can think of is that G thought their novel brush style on the Phenomen Eyes Mascara (spike ball tip) was better in threes? Or maybe the designer has a fascination with caterpillars. The 4 in 1 claim is that it creates intense volume (yes, did volumize if you could get the clumps out), strong curl (nope), infinite length (infinite?) and complete lash care (I have no idea how to measure this so I'll give G the benefit of the doubt). This brush is extremely difficult to use, particular on my smaller eyes. I couldn't get to the base of my lashes with this brush and when I tried, it deposited too much formula and I had little globs on my lash tips. Completely impossible to do the bottom lashes. This might be a great formula but the brush ruins it. I feel like I've tried this style brush before, Mally, perhaps?

Givency Noir Couture 4 in 1 Mascara
Spike ball x 3?

Givenchy Phenomen Eyes Mascara
The original spike ball brush

May 11 Suki Exfoliate Foaming Cleanser

Suki Exfoliate Foaming Cleanser

Winner! This was great in the morning with the refreshing, lemongrass Suki scent. The scrubbies are sugar which is nice because they start out rather scrubby and then dissolve to get gentler. I prefer non-foaming cleansers because (shield the children from the rest of this sentence...) I get foam up my nose. So ladylike as I snort them out. This was a reasonable amount of foam and I was able to maintain my decorum in the shower. I'm thinking Emily Post didn't have etiquette lessons on snorting bubbles or did I miss that chapter? I'm ordering this cleanser!

May 12 Shu Uemura Skin Purifier Cleansing Oil
There is very little true oil in this. It's extremely liquidy as it is mostly fractionated coconut oil which is very different than whole coconut oil. It's a chemistry thing and the INCI name (fancy, eh?) is caprylic/capric triglyceride. You see that all the time on ingredient decks. Now you know! If you want to know what they do to coconut oil to transform it into fractionated coconut oil, well, that's what Wikepedia is for. Knock your socks off. This was nice but it's not my kind of thing, thus, this will be a no judgement review other than ridiculous price for a what appears to be mostly fractionated coconut oil. Shu makes a few cleansing oils - this one has a wee bit of salicylic acid in it and is marketed for oily and acne prone skin.

Shu Uemura Skin Purifying Oil Cleanser

May 13 Clean Warm Cotton edp
In my world, warm cotton smells like Tide and Bounce. If I'm in a frugal (aka cheap) mood when shopping, then it smells like Costco's Kirkland dupe for Tide and Bounce. I did get whiffs of Tide, maybe Downy,  in this but not as much as some "clean cotton" or "summer linen" or "clothes line fresh" genre of scents. This has a bit more floral than most laundry scents. It's a nice scent but scent is very personal and although I could be on an elevator with someone who is wearing this (unlike, heaven forbid, Giorgio, eeee gads) and not glare at them, this is not a scent for me. If you like clean cotton, linen, laundry scents but find them a bit too much like Tide, you really should give this one a test. It's quite pretty for a cotton type scent.

May 14 Balanced Guru No Frizz Oil
I almost demanded my money back but couldn't since this was a free sample. Or maybe this came in an Ipsy or Birchbox? I don't care what it came in all I know is it went out with the trash. I actually had to dig it out of the trash to take a photo.  The box said something about don't weigh your hair down with silicones, use this wretched thick goopy sesame oil blend instead. Perhaps I'm exaggerating. I use hair oils all the time, I know how much to use. My hair looked and felt horrible with this one. It was stringy. Stringy! Not that edgy, piecy, sexy, bedhead look. Noooo, this was a bag lady who hasn't washed her hair in 3 months kind of look. It felt even worse, as though I coated it in wet sand. Don't, just don't.

Balanced Guru No Frizz Oil
"No, just no!"

May 15 Armani Luminous Silk Foundation

Giorgio Aramani
Luminous Silk Foundation

Really, really like this. I bought this about 10 years ago and I don't remember liking it. I didn't like pesto back then, either. I still don't like pesto but I do like this foundation now. You're probably wondering what pesto has to do with foundation. Absolutely nothing. My skin looked smooth, youthful (winner winner chicken dinner), and polished. This is not a long wearing foundation. This is a going out to lunch, going to church, going to a morning seminar kind of foundation. In my world, it's also a going to the grocery store kind of foundation because, yes, I wear makeup to the grocery store. And to Dairy Queen. And to pick up the dry cleaning. For the record, I don't wear makeup when gardening. Then again, I don't garden. Oil broke through at about the four hour mark, it started to wear away by the five hour mark. That's ok, it doesn't take me five hours to eat lunch. The sample was shade 5.5, I added Cover FX Custom Color Drops in N50 to deepen the 5.5 to match my self-tan.

I'm having a blast with these samples! Once again, thanks Olivia and Cherylene for this challenge!
Cheers,

Lulu

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