Review: MAC Lip Conditioner Stick SPF 15 vs. MAC Lip Conditioner SPF 15

This is a review to compare one of my favourite lip balms, MAC lip conditioner SPF 15 vs. the stick version.

To make a long story short, I do not think they are the same product in different packaging even though the MAC website says it is (they do not provide the full list of ingredients for the lip balms to compare)

I previously reviewed the MAC Lip Conditioner (here) and my thoughts in the review still stand the same

Moisturizing

-the lip conditioner in the container format is much more moisturizing than the stick version. I actually don't find the stick version moisturizing at all - I keep having to reapply it often. And the consistency of the stick balm is thinner

Taste

-the stick version tastes slightly bitter to me although when I asked Dale for his opinion, he didn't think it tasted bitter - then again, he's a guy :P But really, Dale's sense of smell and taste is not as fine tuned as mine - he even acknowledges this

Sun Protection

-both have SPF15

Size/Price

-the stick version is 0.16 US Fl OZ (4.8 g) for $17.50 CDN

-the container format is larger at 0.5 US FL OZ (15 mL) for the same price, $17.50 CDN

Overall, I still stick to the original MAC Lip Conditioner in the container format because I find it more moisturizing, slightly better tasting (really!) and it just so happens I get more for my money (yay!)

Have you tried any MAC lip care products?

What is your favourite lip balm? (every time I ask that it seems Burt's Bees lip balm is the winning suggestion)

Beware Benefit Benetint Lip Gloss lovers

I just read an online newspaper article in the Toronto Star that investigated heavy metal contamination found in makeup products. You can read the full article here.

The interesting thing is that the article only names one specific makeup product that contained high levels of heavy metal: Benefit Benetint Lip Gloss. This is an excerpt on it from the article

So, I haven't ever liked any Benefit cosmetics....but I did want to share this article with you as I know many people do like this brand in particular and perhaps their lipgloss at that. 

Review & Swatches: Hard Candy Lipstick & Plexi Gloss, Rimmel Royal Jelly Gloss

The products I'll be reviewing in this post are:

Left to right: Hard Candy "Rush Hour" and "Fire Alarm" Painted Lady Lipsticks, Hard Candy "I Want Candy" Plexi Gloss, Rimmel Royal Gloss in "Sweet Lust" and "Pink Taffy"

Dale got these all for me when we went to Walmart

A lot of people don't know, but Hard Candy Cosmetics use to be sold at The Bay cosmetic counters years ago at a much higher retail price. I recall paying just over $30 after tax for one Hard Candy lipgloss as a teen :S  Times have changed for the better here as the lipsticks and glosses were around $6 CDN each I think

The swatches of the Hard Candy "Rush Hour" and Hard Candy "Fire Alarm" lipsticks are pretty true to the colour of the swatch

I'm wearing the Hard Candy "Rush Hour" lipstick 

And here I'm wearing the Hard Candy "Fire Alarm" lipstick

I love the pigmentation of both lipsticks. They apply smoothly. 

And I think the packaging is cute - especially with the ribbon at the bottom of the tube. 

The swivel base for the lipsticks is slightly a bit stiff (it's not as smooth of a turn as say, my Estee Lauder lipsticks or MAC lipsticks), but considering the affordable price, it works and hasn't gotten stuck 

I highly recommend the Hard Candy Painted Lady lipsticks if you find a shade that you like :)

Onto a review of the lip glosses 

The swatches from left to right: Hard Candy "I Want Candy" Plexi Gloss, Rimmel Royal Gloss in "Sweet Lust" and Rimmel Royal Gloss in "Pink Taffy"

I do not recommend the Hard Candy "I Want Candy" Plexi Gloss 

It's sticky, there is no pigmentation in the lip gloss (so it's like any other lip gloss), and worst off it tastes like Benylin to me. 

It's funny because Dale picked this gloss for me since it was the last Hard Candy Plexi Gloss on the stands - so we figured it must be great to be nearly sold out. Wrong. 

But at least I got one thing right! For the Rimmel Royal Glosses, I saw a few highly rated reviews on them (particularly that they are not sticky at all and taste yummy) and picked them up based on that.

I can honestly say they live up to the reviews and I highly recommend the Rimmel Royal Glosses if you're looking for a high shine lip gloss that tastes pleasantly sweet and is not sticky at all. For the two colours I got, although they look different in colour in the tube and in the swatch, they look like regular clear gloss once worn. 

What are you favourite lipsticks and/or glosses at the moment? ;)

Skincare Haul & Reviews

These are some of the skincare products that Dale bought for me in the past month - so sweet of him ;)

This is a quick re-cap of what I think of some of these products. 

For the products that I did not do a write up for, I just haven't used them long enough (2+ weeks straight). 

I Love...Strawberries & Milkshake bubble bath & shower gel

-the scent is nice. It's more on the mild side - but I can definitely smell the strawberries and the creaminess to it (the milkshake part I guess?)

-lots of suds! Great for a bubble bath or even a shower gel if you love lots of lather

-it is a tad bit drying on my skin. I need a more moisturizing shower gel than this one. But this is great for a bubble bath once in a while. So I do recommend it as a bubble bath

-they sell this at Shoppers Drug Mart for fellow Canadians

 Nivea Good-Bye Cellulite  

-Dale picked these up for me as a surprise and I have gone through 5+ tubes of this in the past

-one thing I really like is the perfume scent. Other than that it's just okay. I have already reviewed this product here

-I currently love my Sanctuary Spa Covent Garden Sculpting Anti-Cellulite Treatment more than this Nivea product (Dale initially bought me the Sanctuary Spa Covent Garden gel during our London England trip at Boots. Since then, he ordered a shipment of the creams for me through the company website as I don't believe it's sold at stores in Canada) 

I initially discovered this Fruits & Passion Cucina Coriander & Olive Tree line of products at my older sister's place.  I absolutely love the hand wash from this line! Dale knows how much I love it so it was so nice of him to surprise me with the set & another back up hand wash :) The scent is much more of coriander than it is of olive oil. Thank goodness because the one time I used olive oil on my hair as a deep oil treatment, I could not stand the smell of it and had to rinse it out almost right away

The Coriander & Olive Tree Deodorizing Fragrant Kitchen Spray and Coriander & Olive Tree Regenerating Hand Cream are both great. The scent is just amazing and consistent throughout the line of products. And yes, the hand cream as well as the hand wash are moisturizing (they don't trigger my last lingering bit of eczema). Plus, the hand wash removes any unpleasant lingering scent on your hands that you often get from preparing certain foods :)  Bonus!

Burt's Bees Coconut Foot Creme 

-I love Burt's Bees products because all their products I have tried have been compatible with my sensitive skin. Plus, they use natural ingredients and few chemicals

-I love their coconut foot creme! It is not synthetic smelling at all and the scent is just so yummy. I love the thick consistency of it. It's very moisturizing. I slather it on & put socks on before bedtime

The Body Shop Vanilla Body Lotion 

-I must have mentioned this at least two other times in my blog, but I LOVE The Body Shop Vanilla lotion. This is purely for the scent. I have tried numerous vanilla lotions which have all smelt synthetic to me compared to this one - I don't even experiment with other vanilla scented lotions anymore. If there's any scented lotion that gets me in the mood, it's this one. Not that I need a lotion for that :P 

-the moisturizing properties of the lotion is of course, like 99% of other scented lotions - it just doesn't come close to my HG Aveeno Daily Moisturizing lotion. So what I do is I mix half of The Body Shop Vanilla Body Lotion in the palm of my hand, and mix half of my HG Aveeno Daily Moisturizing Lotion (review here). Voila - a beautiful warm scent and long lasting quality moisturizer in one!

The Body Shop Vanilla Bath & Shower Gel 

-I like it, but it's not a must in my skincare routine like the vanilla body lotion is

-unfortunately it does not suds up as much as the I Love...Strawberries & Milkshake Bubble Bath & Shower Gel

-it's not a moisturizing shower gel. The scent is not as "warm" as the vanilla body lotion if that makes sense. So I really could do without this product

The Body Shop Almond Body Butter

-again, I love this just for the scent. It's a bit oily even after it's been rubbed into my skin. So as I mentioned above, since nothing comes close to my HG Aveeno Daily Moisturizing Lotion I use half of the Aveeno mixed with half of this scented body butter. This is how I apply any scented lotion by the way. And by doing this, it also makes my skin a lot less oily since I'm using less of the body butter

The Body Shop Guarana Lip Butter

-I had not heard of the guarana berry until Dale got me this lip butter. I don't even think I know how to pronounce the word! :S

-omigosh this stuff tastes so yummy! I think I ate most of it haha 

-it is moisturizing although not HG status for moisturizing. This one will be one of my favourites just for the flavour though 

*****

If there is any product you see here which I did not write a review for & you'd like me to review it, please let me know and I'll work on a review for you :) 

Accessories, Dresses, Makeup

Some of the things I got in the past month from...well, you know who ;)

Forever21 Floral Print Dress in "Blue Pink"
Shoes: Charlotte Russe Peep Toe Bootie with Side Zipper 

The dress above reminds me of Tommy Bahamas because of the print and bright colours
And the peep toe booties above are from Charlotte Russe - I la-la-love them ;)

Black dress with shoulder beads from Forever21 

I love the taupe colour of this Forever21 Perforated Knit Dress. It is a bit long (just above the knees), but it's nice for a more formal dinner

A couple of bandage dresses from a store on Yonge Street in downtown Toronto called Axiom

Frederick's of Hollywood "Intoxicating Ingenue Dress" 

It was my first time visiting a Frederick's of Hollywood store when I was in Buffalo NY last month.

Dale and I went to the Walden Galleria location, which was a slight disappointment. I was expecting the store to be bigger, or at least have a better selection compared to their vast online selection. 

But we did manage to find a couple of things including this nice black one shoulder ruffle dress ;) 

As for the patent peep toe slingbacks above, I'm surprised they're not sold out online at Charlotte Russe yet. They can match almost any outfit and they're super comfortable yet sexy. I have them in every colour now :) yay!

If you read my blog, you'll know there's a running joke between Dale & I with holes in my socks

There's some affordable jewelry that I really like at Forever21

This is their lavish panel bracelet in light green/gold

Dale chose these two earrings out for me himself from Aldo - they're really nice :) 

The left pair is "gibler" in silver and the right is "gundlach" in white nubuck

I have swatches of all seven Icing nail polishes, which was picked up at Claire's. I will have it up in my next post shortly ;) 

The bottom pink ring is the faceted faux stone ring from Forever21, the middle ring is the vintaged filigree ring from Forever21 and the top cream coloured ring is the faceted bead ring in olive/gold from Forever21.

I love rhinestones so the jointed leaf earrings from Forever21 are a favourite! 

Left to right: China Glaze in "Innocence", Nina Ultra Pro in "Punki Pink", Orly in "Passion Fruit"

I picked out the far left polish, he picked out the other two bright colours (his favourites). I will try to get some swatches up in my next post

I agree with all the highly rated reviews of Rimmel Royal Gloss - the texture is smooth & not sticky 

I rarely get a chance to visit Wal-mart, but on my last visit I picked up a couple of Hard Candy Painted Lady lipsticks, a Hard Candy Plexi Gloss and their Lash Tinsel Glitter Mascara 

I have swatches of both lipsticks which I will also try to get up on my next post shortly

I did not pick out these Estee Lauder and Clinique makeup items myself - but for Estee Lauder, I love the luxe gold packaging and you can feel the quality from the amazing texture of their lip products

This is my second Hot Tools curling iron (the 1.5") - he got this for me when we were in Buffalo NY

I much prefer Hot Tools over Conair curling irons - for quality and the way it handles.

The price of Conair curling irons in Canada is pretty much the same as Hot Tools if you're getting it in the USA or through ebay ($30-$40)

The Tokidoki Sodashop perfetta cosmetic case from Sephora. The print is super cute! And I love how there is an inner slide slot inside the makeup bag. 

Ahhh you know me with Hello Kitty! :P

We were in Sephora and I loved both the HK compact mirrors - by why oh why was the rhinestone covered one not a compact (it's a one-sided mirror)? So I chose this Hello Kitty compact instead which is super super cute - love the outer mirror finish and there's a magnifying mirror as well as a regular one inside

I will have some swatches up in my next post

Doing anything exciting this weekend? ;)

Prize from sssdawna's giveaway

I was one of the winners for sssdawna's 12 Days of Christmas giveaway

Yayyy! I think this is the first blog giveaway I won :) Thanks so much Hun!!

And a few things I love about sssdawna's blog is: she writes well and is straight to the point, I love her honest reviews and if I ever need hair product advice I'd ask her for sure, her StyleWatch series is cool and she always follows up her blogger comments 

She sent me such a sweet card and wrote such sentimental words - it really made my week :)
I'm pretty sentimental myself - I keep all the cards I get

From top to bottom: Avon Glazewear Intense in Brown Sugar (G522)
Avon Glazewear Shine in Iced Pink (G200)
Avon Glazewear Intense in Crimson (G104)

The respective swatches are below:

And I can see why the lipglosses above are rated America's #1 Lip Gloss

They glide on very smoothly, they are not sticky and the pigmentation is even & super pretty 

Plus I love how small they are - perfect for my small purses when I head out :)

I'm wearing the Avon Intense Shine in Iced Pink 

I can never have enough cream :P
The texture of this one is very nice and concentrated - reminds me of Neutrogena's Norwegian Formula hand cream

Gorgeoussss Stila palette with four eyeshadows and a duo lipgloss/blush
I already had my makeup done when I picked up the parcel - but I'll be doing FOTDs with this palette soon!

I use cream liner everyday so this brush is perfect - and I love how it's bent/angled

Lush Products!!! 

I love how they're all handmade and so far, I've had very good experiences with Lush products despite my sensitive Skin. They smell soooo nice and I can't wait to pamper myself with the Lush Hokkaido bath bomb

Thank you so much for the lovely prizes and the beautiful card Hun :) 

It definitely made my week!

Have you tried any of the products in this post? 

MAC Pro Longwear Lipstain Marker Review

From MAC's Art Supplies Collection, I got three lipstain markers in the shades Point of View, Runway Ripened and Puposefully Red.

Just to note: for the shade Point of View the swatch colour on the box is a bit misleading from the actual colour.

The colour swatch on the box looks much more nude than it really is. I seriously don't think it would come out that kind of colour on anyone's lips.

This is the swatch on my skin. It is watery in consistency but only a thin layer applies and it's literally a stain (just like Benefit's famous cheek stain. Same idea).

See the colour that comes out? I would put this in the brown family rather than the nude family.

Purposefully Red and Runway Ripened both come out red on my lips with Runway Ripened being a tad bit brighter.

However the swatches show that Purposefully Red has some coral/orange undertones to it and Runway Ripened having some magenta undertones to it.

Here are the swatches: Purposefully Red (left) and Runway Ripened (right)

It really does look like a marker....felt tip and all...just like a Sharpie permanent marker :)

This is me with nothing on my lips

After applying MAC's Point of View lipstain it makes my lips a red-maroon colour with a caramel undertone

This is later in the day with MAC's Purposefully Red on my lips. I really like this shade a lot. In person it looks more red than in this picture. This picture seemed to pick up some of the coral undertones

And this is me wearing MAC's Runway Ripened which is a tad bit brighter than Purposefully Red

It's a stain so it's obviously not creamy or moisturizing. Everyone has fine lines on their lips so the stain will sink in and naturally accentuate it.

The stain will dry within a minute or two. After it dries, to avoid the prune look for my lips I applied a gloss on top.

Here I added MAC's Dazzleglass Creme in Perfectly Unordinary on top of Point of View.

You can see from the tube of gloss what shade of pink it is. When I layer this pink gloss on top of the lip stain the colour becomes more mauve (not evident from picture). This is a close up of the lipstain + lipglass on my lips.

So a gloss on top definitely takes away the "dry" look the stain will give your lips and the lipstick did not budge when I applied the gloss on top.

Personally I like these a lot more than MAC's Pro Longwear lipcolour which I have in the shade Clingpeach (note Clingpeach looks nothing like it does on the website swatch). I do not like the consistency of the longwear lipcolours - even with a thin layer of colour and gloss on top, the longwear lipstick starts to crack off in little bits and you can feel the gritty lipstick bits if you smack or rub your lips together. What's worst than feeling it is seeing it LOL (or others seeing it!).

With the new lipstain markers, you can't feel it on your lips at all which I love. And I can smack my lips together as much as I want and I don't have to worry that the lipstick is coming off in bits :\ Also, with regular creamy red lipsticks I often have that dreaded red lipstick on your teeth problem. I don't want to be so conscious of that or to have to keep checking my teeth in the mirror when I'm wearing red lipstick so for that reason, I really like the lipstains in the two red shades I picked up.

Have you or will you check out the new MAC Pro Longwear Lipstain Markers? Or are you eyeing something else from the Art Supplies Collection?

How is your week so far?

:) Karen