Makeup
- tallredamanda » See my profile
- Points: 98485
- Reviews: 434
Here are all my reviews:
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I will admit that I am extremely hard to please when it comes to mascara. I have been using the same favorite most of the time for a couple of years now, but when I am handed a tube of something I've never tried, I'm always willing to give it a try. So I tried this one and it did not impress me. I've never been a fan of the curved brushes. Seems no matter how much practice I get, I am not good at using them. Nor do I see a difference in how my lashes look when I use a curved brush vs. a regular one. This particular mascara also isn't the darkest black I've ever seen in a mascara and it seems a little flaky which is terrible for me since I wear contact lenses. If you're easier to please in the mascara department or if you love curved brushes this might be worth trying, but it's not a product I will ever use again.
January 6, 2016
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I had a sample of this and it's not bad. Most eye creams don't blow me away and this is one of those that doesn't. It is very rich and creamy and I only needed the tiniest dab on each eye to get a nice amount of moisture. It has a nice scent and I would say that it definitely worked as well as any other eye cream I've liked well enough to use until I ran out. I'm giving in low stars because this line from Fresh is insanely expensive, in my opinion. I was in a Fresh store several months ago and they pushed this line so hard I may never go into another Fresh store ever again (luckily I can get the products at Sephora). They want $78 for a jar of eye cream and that is way too much money to spend on a product that doesn't impress me. The only eye cream that has ever impressed me is only $50 a jar! Maybe some people love these Black Tea products and swear by them, but I think they're a waste of time and money. Which I hate to say because I really like many other Fresh products. Just not these.
January 6, 2016
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I had a tiny sample packet of this cleanser and I could not even finish it! It seemed to be working well enough at first. I mean, it's a cleanser. It's creamy. It has quite a pleasant fragrance (in my opinion), though I don't quite know how to describe it. The package proclaims it to be suitable for "all skin types" and I have rarely had more than occasional (usually weather related) problems with my skin, so I didn't foresee any issues. After the first day I noticed some issues with my skin burning. Especially the skin around my mouth and it was worse when I put on face cream before bed. The same thing happened the next day and I tried a different face cream, thinking may my skin was extra dry from the weather or something. The next day I made sure drink extra water and then I finally remembered I was using a different cleanser. This cleanser! As soon as I stopped using it the burning feeling stopped. I have no idea what ingredient in this cleanser disagreed with my skin as I've never had problems like this before. But if you have sensitive skin, I really do not recommend this one!! Even if you don't, try with caution. Start with a sample for sure!!
January 6, 2016
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Wow. When I tried this for the first time I was extremely skeptical. I had never tried a balm before, but found myself with a free sample jar and ready to test drive a new nighttime moisturizer. This has a soft, herbal-type scent that I found relaxing, but not everyone might enjoy it so give it a sniff before you buy, especially if you have a sensitive nose. Because it's a balm the texture is so so different than any product I had ever put on my face before, but it's exactly what you would expect of a balm. A little goes a long way! What threw me off on the first use, and the reason I'm taking off one star on this review, is when it first goes on it seems extremely greasy. That first time it grossed me out a little and I wasn't sure I was going to finish the sample. But! A few minutes later it soaked into my skin and stopped feeling so greasy and when I woke up the next morning my skin was soft and looked so great. Smooth and radiant and without any angry, red dry patches. With a little practice I found an amount of product (tiny!) that decreased that initial greasiness a bit, but still gave my skin that deep moisture that it needs as the weather gets colder. The current price on Sephora is $48 for an almost two ounce jar which makes this a product I would consider purchasing. My half ounce sample jar lasted a couple months, at least! So to me, that would be a worthy investment. I definitely recommend giving this one a try!!
January 6, 2016
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I didn't hate this primer, but I didn't love it either. It's very white, which I liked because it was easy to see where I had applied it and how heavily it had gone on so I could try to keep it even. I tried it with two or three different mascaras and no matter which one I used the difference between my lashes with and without the primer. Maybe slightly fuller sometimes, but really only slightly. I even tried it with a Clinique mascara, and that was probably the best pairing, but I still wasn't terribly impressed. My favorite mascara gives me better results without any primer at all!! Luckily this was only a sample tube and not a product I spent any money on. And everyone is different, maybe other people get great results from this. Give it a try, especially if you have a chance at a free sample! You never know.
January 6, 2016
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This cream goes on so thick and so...greasy. It was awful on me. It was as if it never soaked into my skin. I put it on, then started my eye makeup in the hopes that it would have time to sink into my skin and not feel so sticky and greasy, but it made no difference. I wear pressed powder foundation which typically goes on smoothly and perfectly (with the right primer, or without!) but this cream was so sticky even after several minutes my foundation was a struggle to blend and it looked awful. Unfortunately I didn't have time to take everything off and start over, but because of that I only used this once and now I'm throwing it away. The ability of this cream to protect my skin from sun is irrelevant in my opinion because I can't wear it daily under my makeup. My skin also looked greasy and shiny through my foundation really, really early in the day. I know this brand makes some great products, but this is not one of them and I do not recommend.
October 4, 2015
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I wear powder foundation almost all the time (with the rare occasion of wearing liquid or cream) so sometimes using a day cream, with or without SPF, can be tricky. A cream with the wrong texture can really screw up how my foundation goes on or how it looks (or both!). This one was really great. I would apply the cream first then start on my eye makeup so it had time to sink into my skin. By the time that was finished (and it doesn't typically take me all that long), the cream had adsorbed and my skin was silky smooth and ready for powder. I used to put on an SPF cream, then primer, then foundation, but found that was too many layers that also made my foundation look bad. Plus with the right cream, a primer isn't needed and this is one of those. It comes out pretty thin, but provides an impressive amount of moisture and great sun protection. I know, because I have fair skin and I like to take a 30 to 60 minute walk outside most days during my lunch break. I burn so easily, sometimes that's all it takes to get a little pink, but this cream protected my skin perfectly every time I used it and my foundation always still looked great at the end of the day. Definitely a nice cream!
October 4, 2015
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A friend gave me a small tube of this cream in the Bianca scent and I was SO excited because Bianca is one of my favorite scents from the Tocca brand! Because it is small I saved it to use at work, because it is easy to tuck away in a corner of my work space within easy reach when my hands are feeling dry (which is most of the time). I would say that for the first half of the tube of this cream, I would have given it 10 stars. It felt amazing and the scent is just as wonderful as I remembered (green tea and lemon, they say). Light and fresh, but not overwhelming. Then one day I noticed the cuffs of my top were darker than the rest of the top. This was my first clue that this hand cream is greasier than I realized. Next, a few mornings in a row I noticed greasy fingerprints left behind on my paper coffee cup. And that, I think, is what is most annoying about this cream. On the skin it does not FEEL greasy, but all the prints left behind tell otherwise. I ended up deciding to throw the last of the tube out (I almost never do this) because the delicious scent just isn't worth the mess it was making all over my phone (I realized), my desk, and my wardrobe. Stick with the perfume from this brand and skip the hand cream. The tube lists coconut oil, shea butter, and aloe as ingredients, which is no different from most other hand creams, so I'm really not sure what when wrong here. Very disappointing.
September 20, 2015
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I love makeup and I love Total Beauty for letting me try this out! I have such an incredibly wide variety of eyeshadows, but very view palettes of this size, because, well, I'm not a fan of the SIZE and how tricky it is to store them. I've used eyeshadow from this brand once or twice in the past (again, wide variety, so really only once or twice) and I liked them ok. This set? Wow. I don't know what L'Oreal did with their shadows but the improvement is incredible. But I'll come back to that. There is a fantastic variety of shades included in this palette. I have La Palette Nude 1 for fairer skin tones, but some of the shades were a bit too orange for my coloring. But I'm a redhead and extra aware of the fact that orange or anything near it is not my shade. But for every orange-ish shade, there was another shade that I really loved. My favorites were 8, 9, and 10. They seemed the most versatile, to me. But I love that there are both matte and shimmer shades included! My absolute favorite thing about the set? I would put on my makeup around 6:30 or 7 am and 14+ hours later it still looked exactly the same as when I put it on. It was FLAWLESS. Please note that I used it with a shadow primer, but I will also note that I use EVERY brand, even the expensive ones, with a primer and nothing ever looks that amazing after 14+ hours. I am seriously impressed. I usually throw out whatever brush or applicator comes with any set, but I gave this one a chance and I didn't hate it. I didn't love it either. I didn't like how soft the brush was, but I did love how small it was so I only put shadow exactly where I wanted to put it. Except that the shadows are a bit soft so there's some fallout, but that's a problem I have with almost every shadow so I've learned to work around it. Seriously, at the end of the day, these are worth it for the amazing staying power alone.
August 6, 2015
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I honestly thought this was a normal moisturizer, but I just looked it up on Sephora to see what the price is and it turns out it's a serum! It's an odd sort of tan, pinkish color and it has a relatively heavy perfume type scent. Luckily that scent wears off pretty quickly, so it didn't annoy me too much, but if you're sensitive to fragrance, this is not a product for you. I used it at night for three or four nights in a row and it made my skin look very nice. I woke up each morning with smooth skin texture, even tone, and generally healthier skin. Besides the heavy fragrance, my big complaint about this product is the price. It's Dior, so obviously I knew it would be high, but on Sephora's website it's listed at $115. Honestly, for that price, I have always seen better results from Algenist products. Or Arbonne. Both those brands are in the same price range but with even more impressive results. And no heavy perfume scent!
August 2, 2015
