September + October favourites and empties

Double posting because I meant to post this bi-monthly favourites and empties earlier, but I wanted to get a review together to stuff in between. The stupid thing is that the reviews that are mostly complete, I don't have pictures for and the pictures I did take in a massive picture taking spree last month are mostly for as yet unwritten reviews, *sigh* for boss organisational skills. 

Favourites

Lady Jayne ‘smoothies’ hair ties

Lame ass name but these velvety hair ties that I was sent for beautyheaven trial team actually work really well. Because they’re covered in velvet (and because the elastic is tight and stiff) they grip hair really well and STAY in my hair all day. They’re kinda chunky tho so not great for smaller work, but if you want your hair out of your face for the day then these are perfect.

Empties

    So I chopped off my ponytail in September which meant that my hair was a lot shorter so I don’t have any hair empties this time (I definitely would have finished off my shampoo and conditioner otherwise) and I finished the giant bottle of bodywash I’ve been using (p.s. if you thought I went through a lot of shower gel based on my previous empties, I share that bottle with my cousin so yeah, 2 people can go through a lot of shower gel) a week into November, so I can’t include it either.

Natio eye contour treatment gel 

I have a review on this up already, so suffice to say it’s a good moisturiser and there’s a lot of product left in the tube. I started having problems squeezing much out at the start of September and I realised that was partly because there were cracks in the tube (after so long, and because I kept flattening the sides) so I couldn’t use air pressure anymore. So I squeezed the tube as flat as possible and squeezed all the gel I could possibly push out of the tube into a small tub with a twist lid. The total gel that came out lasted me like a month and a half, that’s liberal use + I used it to mix with tea tree oil to treat pimples.

May + June empties and favourites

(So I meant to upload this right after the march + april empties you know, sort of on time, but then I forgot about it due to the below-mentioned point of temporary respite being over. I'm now in a longer break in work, hopefully I can get more done on blogging)

    So I know I said uploads would be sporadic since I was getting my uni project together but even I was surprised that I essentially fell off the (communication) grid for like 4 months. Even now I’m not done, I’ve just reached a point of temporary respite.

Favourites

Z-palette (black, large)

I’ve been meaning to get at least 1 for ages now, since I hate having to open single eyeshadow compacts. I’d considered the unii palette but the z-palette was so much cheaper and available at crush cosmetics (an Australian online shop). This is so convenient~ I spent an afternoon transferring most of my single eyeshadows and blushes to it and it’s already about ¾ full so I’m going to need another one soon, ;P.

February empties?

Ok so I stopped posting because I was busy with uni and now that I've got a small break in submitting things, I've squeezed this post in. Until I work out exactly when I have to do things, posting will be sporadic if at all here, and honestly it might be sporadic throughout the year.

So I have an obsession with watching/reading other peoples monthly favourites and empties post/videos so I figured I’d try to do them myself. However considering I don’t wear a lot of makeup or use a lot of skincare my empties posts may not be monthly, probably bi-monthly at best.

Actually let’s just call this the January + February empties post yeah?

This month there’s a bit more because I dumped some makeup products because they were too old.

p.s. I don’t have a picture of all my empties all together because I hate having empty stuff lying around and I dump them all straight in the recycling. :P

next time I’ll try and get a picture of all of them, maybe independently and stick all the pictures together heh.

Australis mousse foundation in buff beige

    I’ve been meaning to do a review of this but in the end it was too old to keep any longer so I dumped it. I’ve got the pictures and I’ll probably post the review later, but in short this foundation catches on dry patches and can’t control oil, so unless you have the most perfectly balanced skin that doesn’t dry out or get oily I can’t recommend this to anyone. It was comfortable to put on but the colour was off for me. There are only 6 shades in this range and none of them really matched me, which is no surprise considering I have yet to find a good match in any ‘pharmacy’ brand. 

Maybelline One by One mascara waterproof version

    This was the third mascara I bought, and I thought long and hard trying to pinpoint what I wanted in a mascara, amongst all the completely over the top marketing bullshit that mascaras seem to excel at. I chose not to buy the falsies by Maybelline because I mainly wanted length and curl, not so much volume, but I kinda want to try it just for comparison now. This mascara didn’t do that much for my lashes, it sorta made them slightly thicker, which made them seem a bit longer as the tips became more obvious. It could hold a curl but if I put on more than 2 – 3 coats my lashes started to droop. I like this mascara for not clumping my lashes like the old Revlon one did, though they do start clumping after 2 – 3 coats. It’s more of a definition kind of mascara in that sense.

Montagne Jeunesse breakout face mask + moisturiser

    I finished the mask in January and finished the little moisturiser pocket in February (mainly because I forgot I had it). Honestly not much to say about this mask, I didn’t feel like it did anything much it might have brought 1 – 2 pimples to the surface but I still got pimples while using it and my forehead still got oily so I won’t buy it again. The mask felt like any other clay mask, though it dried faster than the others, and the moisturiser felt tingly in that menthol way when I put it on, and smells like mint but otherwise didn’t really do much. Didn’t dry out my face so I guess that’s a plus.

Nivea Pure & Natural moisturising day cream

    I finished this on the first day of the new year and because I’d kept forgetting, I didn’t have another moisturiser yet, argh. I managed to buy the Sukin facial moisturiser the next day whew~!

Neutrogena alcohol – free toner

I was swapping between this toner and the Nivea pure visage toner before but since this bottle was nearly finished (and I cracked the bottle near the lid), I began using this one all the time to finish it off and I finally finished it in January I think. 

Neutrogena alcohol-free toner review

(late i know but i was distracted by inception fanfiction so please forgive me)

This is a well known and well loved product so this review is almost pointless but hey, I bought it, I’ll review it.

    I’ll be honest I don’t really know what toners are for, some say it’s moisturising, some say it’s for cleansing after your face wash, which is honestly one of the dumbest things I’ve ever heard, I mean if you need cleaning after your cleanser, get a better cleanser!

    Supposedly toners were originally used in England (and other European places?) because their tap water tended to be ‘hard water’ (i.e. water that contained dissolved calcium and magnesium carbonates), which can make your skin feel a bit weird, so after washing their faces they’d use the toner to take the ions off. This is not a problem in Australia unless you live in the middle of nowhere and your only source of water is bore water. As the Wikipedia page attests however, toners are marketed for a variety of things so if it claims to do something unique, go ahead and try it. It’s just that toners are a rather pointless step in skincare unless they claim to do something unique. 

(Also it’s kind of a waste of cotton pads.)

Neutrogena oil-free moisture . . . moisturisers review (sensitive and SPF15 versions)

Amazing, an old review for a product that HASN’T been discontinued or possibly reformulated~! (I’ve still got a lot of reviews to edit, but I’ll be mixing some of the newer ones in with the old reviews like this one)

    Anyway, I bought these way back (like two years ago?) and since I used the sensitive one first the spf 15 bottle was a bit old by the time I started using it. The packaging of either doesn’t seem to have changed, and I haven’t heard of a reformulation so these reviews should still be relevant.

    Also they put the ingredients list on the box (annoying), which I recycled way before I started the blog so I can’t comment on the ingredients used (darn).

Sensitive: 

    I got this bottle ages ago, and I don't think they had the combination one out then but I probably should've gotten that instead, since I do get a shiny T-zone. This moisturizer wasn’t too heavy feeling when I put it on, but I wouldn’t call it light either. It took a little bit to absorb and felt a little greasy but that went away after a while. While I didn’t mind it much I don’t think that would work well for people with very sensitive skin. The texture was about halfway between a lotion and a cream, not runny, but not like a rich cream either.

Neutrogena: Oil Free Acne Wash Pink Grapefruit Facial Cleanser

    wow that's a long name, but yeah today’s review is of the grapefruit cleanser from Neutrogena. Now I’ve heard they changed the formula recently, and I also noticed a packaging design change a couple of months ago, so this review may be slightly less relevant, but anyway. I finished my bottle months before starting this blog so I’ll just substitute with this picture from Neutrogena.com. ^^"

    The product itself was a translucent light pink gel, packaged in a clear pump bottle. You could control how much the pump dispensed, which I liked, because some pump designs just give you one big pump and you can’t stop halfway. The straw for the pump also goes all the way to the bottom of the bottle, which I love. It’s a pet peeve of mine when you buy a bottle of hand soap or something, and the straw stops just before the bottom. >:I That’s just stupid design. The gel was smooth and not too runny, and foamed up well. This cleanser smelt lovely, like sweet red grapefruit (as in a bit sweeter than a red grapefruit), and left my face feeling clean and refreshed without feeling totally stripped. I think the citrus scent aided in the refreshing feeling and I liked using it in the morning, as it wakes you up a bit.