Benefit Thrrrob Face Powder/ Blush swatch/ review

Benefit initially started with the Dandelion face powder , then gradually expanded over the years into other shades of face powders. They are meant to be either all over face powder, or blush/ bronzer (depending on which color).  They are not eye safe though.

Comes in the standard paper box packaging much like Dandelion. I don't mind the box but it does get worn down very quickly- I've barely used mine like 4 or 5 times and it really looks slightly battered already!

Made in USA, comes in a really generous size 12g (0.42 oz).

The powder is essentially in a pan stuck to the bottom of the cardboard box. It's just glued on.

Comes in a pink bristle flat brush, I don't really use it often. While I use the brush in Dandelion powder, but that's because Dandelion is a bit less pigmented so it won't look as streaky as when I use the same brush on Thrrrob.

In addition, Thrrrob is a bit more loosely pressed than Dandelion, I get a lot of flyaway, and the brush is too scratchy for the surface of this blush and I tend to pick up a lot of loosened powder, which means I have to shake it off before application.

Here's the swatch on my skin, I did a big swatch and tried to swatch almost 3 layers on the left, and 1 or 2 on the right. You can see even if you build it up, it's still quite similar.

Here's the interesting bit about this powder- I would actually not call it sheer or unpigmented, for such a light colored blush it is very pigmented, so what goes on swatch below is what it looks like on my cheeks.

It's a very baby pink and cutesy pale pink. I know some people will say it won't melt into your skin, but I love how 'cute' the color is on the cheeks.  A bit like those Japanese beauty magazine cover model's dolly pink sort of shades.

I would say it's closer to being slightly matte, but because it's so finely milled it just blurrs everything (see how smooth it makes my skin look) and imparts a sort of inner glow.

Overall 4/5. I really don't have any blush with comparable colors and I love the pop of cute pink it gives me. I think benefit could easily repackage this as a normal blush making it more portable and reduce the size, as I cannot really see many people using this as an overall face powder, it should just be a blush.

Aveda Damage Remedy Intensive Restructuring Treatment review

Most people either love or loathe Aveda haircare. They usually feature unique scents (either very earthy or very fresh and clean), in addition to having a huge range of haircare that suits different needs.

The Damage Remedy Intensive Restructuring Treatment is a hair mask basically. It's in a light white cream consistency, not runny but not too thick either. The scent is slightly earthy yet also has a slight essential oil scent (I cannot pinpoint which essential oil, but like the scent when you walk into one of those essential oil stores).

Ingredients:

It spreads easily on the hair, and feels like it absorbs quickly. After shampooing, I leave this for about 3-5 minutes then rinse. It leaves my hair soft and bouncy and actually feel a bit 'repaired'.

With a lot of haircare, I firmly believe you will need to find several treatments or masks in addition to shampoos to suit your different hair needs. Particularly with treatment products, sometimes your hair is lack lustre for different reasons, and alternating a few treatments can ensure your hair gets a balanced intake of all the goodness.

I use this in alternating with my other moisturising hair masques like Kerastase oleo relax, or nutri-thermique and find it works quite well, it seems to add something that the other two kerastase or my Amino Acid conditioners (e.g. Kiehls amino acid conditioner or Fancl amino acid conditioner) don't have.  Using this regularly it doesn't seem as effective, but alternating with other products seems to boost the overall effect.
 

Overall 4/5. I would tentatively repurchase- however as said it seems a bit different to my other moisturising hair masques and using once a week or fortnight seems to be more noticeably effective than using it as a regular treatment.

Kanebo Coffret D'or Jewelight Nail Color Polish review (BE73/PK150/PK151/OR49/PU20/SV14/GD18)

Here are the rest of the Coffret D'or Jewelight Nail Color shades (from 2009 and 2010). I will try to swatch / review these progressively, but you can get an idea of the color first. They typically apply very close color to what they look in the bottle.

From left to right:

BE73- sparkly ivory chamapgne with ultra fine shimmers.
PK150- french soft pink with very few subtle shimmers. It's a fair bit less sparkly than BE73.
PK151- Semi-translucent pink petal that is glossy and with a gold fine shimmer throughout.
OR49- translucent summer orange (that still builds up to a orange tinge) with gold shimmers.
PU20- lavender purple that can be built up to semi opaque with rainbow shimmers.
SV14- sparkly silvery shimmer with a few flecks of rainbow shimmers.
GD18- deeper champagne gold (without bordering to yellow gold) with dense gold shimmers.

SV14 on left, GD18 on right

PK150 left, OR49 on right

OR49

PK150

PU20

BE73 and PK150

Kanebo Coffret D'or Jewelight Nail Color Polish Lacquer BE73 review/ swatch

Here's a swatch of another Coffret D'or Jewelight Nail color in "BE73". BE stands for Beige series.

BE73 really has a pretty jewel finish, in the bottle you can see how it's a very pale champagne beige gold with shimmesr. The shimmers are extremely fine, which doesn't make it foiled nor metallic nor frosty nor iridescent. I would say it's sparkly finish.

Here it is- it's so clean and pretty. 3 coats would bring out the more ivory white gold undertone, while 2 coats look more translucent sparkly champagne. It reminds me of a less opaque and frosty version of OPI I Only Drink Champagne.

On the left is 3 coats, on the right is 2 coats.

Overall 5/5. This is a pretty versatile color. I can see it being a good wedding nail color or for day to day office wear. The consistency is smooth and easy to apply. Drying time is moderate. (I use seche vite topcoat over it).

Frederic Fekkai Technician Color Care 3-minute Mask Rapid Treatment restores vibrance review

Frederic Fekkai seems to get a lot more rave and review in the US than Australia, it's not very advertised here. The Technician Color Care range is desigend for colored hair.

You should apply to freshly shampooed, clean damp hair, then leave in for 3 minutes then rinse.

It's in an open round jar and the product is a pretty soft pink cream with a pearly sheen. It's a bit thicker in consistency with certain firmness, so you have to dig your fingers in and scoop a bit out. However once smoothed on hair, it's easily spreadable.

This mask has been advertised as a 3-minute hair mask. When used accordingly it does seem to work. I tried leaving it in for a bit longer like 15minutes and while the result was slightly better, the difference is pretty small.

The hair mask has a relatively light floral scent that I don't mind despite my sensitive nose.

In terms of effectiveness, I would probably say this is between a conditioner and mask- it's more nourishing than a hair conditioner but not as super as other hair masques (e.g Kerastase). It leaves my hair tangle free and more manageable, then again I have relatively healthy hair that's just dyed frequently and experiences some dryness or frizziness at times.

It doesn't seem utlra hydrating. I would gladly finish the pot off, but not sure if it's worth repurchasing. 

It's 150g in full retail size and RRP around 30-35AUD when purchased in Australia. This means the pricing is almost on par with Kerastase hair masques (based on price/size comparision). Kerastase masques are around 38AUD for 200ml here for their standard items like Nutri-thermique (not premium lines). Based on pricing I would easily prefer Kerastase instead.

Overall rating is 4/5 without considering the price, given it really only needs 3-5 minutes on your hair, compared to other masques that requires a good 10minute for maximum effect. Taking price into consideration compared to other hair masques, this would just be a 3.5 out of 5.

Origins Make A Difference Skin Rejuvenating Treatment review

Origins Make A Difference Skin rejuvenating treatment is probably marketed as a moisturiser/serum type of product. It's one of those samples that I keep on getting every single time I shop at Origins, so I never purchased a full size one, but did go through a few 5ml tubes over the year.

It's a soft creamy gel-creme consistency. The thing I love about the Make a Difference line is the scent! It's sooooo lovely. Smells a bit like white tea with a hint of grapefruit, something very clean and crisp and soft.

On the skin- it just makes the skin ultra smooth and soft to touch.

Now everything I've said about this product sounds lovely so far- however, bottomline is I think this is so similar to Estee Lauder Idealist. They are basically serums/ moisturisers that leave a siliconey finish (i.e. ultra smooth and soft to touch). However as skincare items, they do very little ( and any smoothness is more superficial).

Overall 2/5. I do use it up on my cheeks or neck etc, but I rarely use this on my full face- it tends to give me slight irritation or clogged pores probably due to the silicone content. I don't really think there's any treatment qualities with this product either.

Origins Ginger Souffle Whipped Body Cream review

I love the Origins Ginger line- it's been around for at least 5-6 years, and is now a staple in the Origins collection.

There are various Ginger items like body lotion, bath lotion, body spray and now the Ginger Souffle.

The Ginger line features a slightly warm ginger scent (without that common sharpness of finger), but predominantly what I think it reminds me of is Coke! Like coke but less sweet. 

I like very mildly scented body creams that's non-cloying and doesn't give me headaches and the Ginger line is one of them. It just smells wonderfully like a winter night cuddling with a warm cup of ginger tea or something.

Comes in a flip top cap, the souffle as you can see if like a whipped cream consistency that is buttery soft.

It spreads easily and carries the scent so gently.

Easily absorbed into the skin.

Overall this leaves my skin mildly hydrated. It's not as moisturising as my other staple body creams (Aveeno Daily moisturising lotion and Kiehls Creme de corp) but I usually just use this a few times a week when I feel like wearing a scented body lotion.

As with all fragrances, whether you like a scent is a personal preference.  I highly recommend the ginger line of scents if you like soft and foody scents that's not too sweet and sickening. It also doesn't have that 'alcohol' after scent with a lot of other fragrances.

Overall 5/5 for me for scent. As a body moisturiser the moisturising property is probably at best a 3.5 or 4.

Clinique All About Eyes Serum review

Clinique's all about eyes cream gets decent reviews in most places (not entirely positive but definitely there is a market for it). I have the all about eyes cream but yet to open it, however when I saw the All About Eyes Serum, I quickly snatched it up as I'm a bit of a sucker for gimmicky type of product applicators etc.

I've previously used a Chanel eye serum or something in similar packaging, it is nice to have a metal roller ball because it feels very cooling on tired and puffy eyes.

The Clinique serum is housed in a translucent pink/coral glass tube with a roller ball applicator and screw top cap. It's 15ml which is the standard retail size for eye creams.

The design is rather wise, there's a dent in the middle so you can grip it more easily. However given it's a glass bottle, it will easily shatter if you ever drop it on the bathroom tiles.

Here's the rollerball applicator. It rolls pretty easily. and applies a pretty thin layer of serum undereye.

Here's 2 rolls on the skin. You can see the serum is really thin- it's barely picked up in the photo.

Overall, this is marketed as a depuffing and moisturising serum. I do not think it's moisturising at all , (however maybe it's intended to be layered with other eye cream on top). On depuffing side, nothing either.

It'll be a struggle to finish my 15ml tube for sure.

In addition, I guess there's always the hygiene factor with these roller ball designs, basically you are rolling back any dead skin cells into the tube, so it's recommended these should be used as soon as after opening.

Estee Lauder Pure Color Nail Lacquer 02 Pink Thrill swatch/ review (from 2011)

Estee Lauder either revamped or added a lot of new colors to their Nail Lacquer line in 2011. I've always had a few bottles around from last few season's collections, particularly the limited edition shades. However I've never been that impressed with their french colors or nude pinks etc. They were either a bit frosty and thin and streaky or just plain boring.

I've decided to try a few new shades from the collection. Had to go out to a client last week so I decided to wear this shade which should look more professional with my suits.

#02 Pink Thrill is below: housed in a pretty (and a bit heavy) glass bottle.

You can see #02 pink thrill has an ivory pink base, but with a subtle pink iridescence as well. The iridescence is ultra fine and shows up as a very subtle flash of pink:

The bristle is on the not so dense side, I don't have trouble applying but wish it was denser and wider, because sometimes the brush picks up a big drop but the bristle can't hold the amount, then it tends to drip quickly which means I have to work fast on my nails.

Here it is with 3 coats. I rarely wear 3 coats because it tends to feel a bit goopy and thick and takes longer to dry. However I wanted some opacity with this shade. It is still very slightly translucent with 3 coats but looks like a lovely french pink color. The pink iridescence flash makes a nice twist.

Here the pink iridescence/ flash is picked up a bit more:

On my other hand I tried wearing 2 coats, it's equally pretty:

Below are 3 coats again:

I definitely received compliments on this shade. I was with another colleague and she said she should try more pinks because they look so lovely and clean. Overall 5/5.

The new collection of shades seems to be a lot of glossy and shiny than previous ones I've tried from Estee Lauder. Thumbs up. I got very good wear out of this one too, it's day 4 and my polish is completely in tact.