Product Rejects | #1

beauty

Very rarely do I like to to highlight products that I don’t think are worth spending your money on unless I just flat out don’t like it. However, when I was clearing out my makeup drawer recently I came across a few things that I regret ever buying and thought I would share them because no matter how much you love a specific brand, sometimes you don’t like a certain product they release.

The Bodyshop Tea Tree Flawless BB Cream | This was a product I bought when it was newly released last year. At the time I was struggling with bad breakouts - which I do still suffer with so any product recommendations would be greatly welcomed - but I wanted a slightly lighter base for summer. The shade range is awful as there are only three shades in total and they’re all fairly orange. Being a BB cream I assumed it would be fairly easy to blend in so if the colour was out slightly it wouldn’t be too bad, like with most products of this nature. However, this product is actually very thick for a BB cream and doesn’t blend in well at all. I found that it almost separates when blending no matter if I used my fingers, a brush or a sponge. It just wasn’t to my liking.

Bourjois Happy Light Matte Serum Primer | At first I loved this product - full review here - so when I picked it up again about a year later I expected to still love it. I’m not sure if the product has changed or if my skin has changed but it now sits differently and I found it not be as good at keeping my makeup in place as I remembered it to be. I also found that it could flake off in certain areas when applying a foundation over top.

Maybelline Dream Flawless Nude Foundation | This was just an all round no from me. I wrote a full post about this foundation - which can be seen here - but in summary I didn’t like the application and I didn’t like the product. It's okay on days if you just need to slap something on but in my opinion there are much better things out there.

Maybelline The Eraser Eye Concealer | I picked this up after hearing so many rave reviews about it however personally I didn’t think it was anything special, especially for undertake eyes - full review here.

Bourjois Chocolate Bronzer | I loved this product to death and still probably would if I still used it however, if you have sensitive or acne prone skin I’d recommend staying clear as I found this is be the number one cause of my breakouts. The Bourjois Bronzing Primer breaks me out instantly too, which I’ve so far put down to the scent as all other Bourjois face products I’m fine with.

Revlon Bold Lacquer Mascara | I’m a massive fan of the Revlon Lash Potion Mascara so when this launched I was really excited to try it. My main niggle with this mascara is that it has lash fibres in it - something which isn’t stated on the bottle - and as a contact lens wearer this made my eyes extremely irritated. It was also an incredibly wet formula which personally I really don’t like in a mascara.

Rimmel Wonder'full Mascara | Personally I found this mascara just didn’t really do anything to my lashes. It didn’t lengthen them and it didn’t volumes them either, is was a very nothing product for me.

What are some of your purchase regrets?

~ Jade xx

Worth the hype? | Maybelline Age Rewind Concealer

age rewind
The Maybelline Instant Age Rewind concealer has been getting a lot of buzz recently. Its been out a fair while however it seems to have just caught on, a little late some might say. I decided to pick it up after hearing so many things about it wondering, is it really worth the hype? 

Quite simply, no. I don't think it is worth the hype and I'll explain why. Firstly the packaging really irks me. Although this product is meant to be used under the eyes rather than on blemishes the sponge applicator on the end still screams bacteria collector to me which isn't a good thing. There's not a lot you can do about it either, unless you remove the sponge but I'm not sure how well that would work. 

Then there's the amount of wasted product you get. I've only used mine maybe five times and it's already nearly half way gone. The sponge collects a lot of the product which you can't get out so you end up using a lot more than you need to. 

Besides the packaging though I also don't like the main event, the actual product inside. It's marketed as an 'anti-age' under eye concealer which is supposed to banish dark circles and fine lines. That to me means it would be light in texture and also reflective to bring light to the area but this product is neither of those things. I find the product to be quite heavy for an under eye concealer which seems to bring down my under eye area rather than lift it and because of the heavy nature I find it creases easily - not so good if you have fine lines. It's also not a lightening product so for me it doesn't do anything in the way of rewinding my age - not that I really need to as I'm still under twenty but that's besides the point. I'm also really disappointed with the shade range. Generally you want your under eye concealer to be a couple of shades lighter than your skin tone to highlight the area and rid any dark circles. I have the lightest shade of this concealer and it's far too dark for under the eye, it's even to dark too use on the rest of my face and I'm not a fair skinned girl. 

All in all despite hearing so many good things about this product it really didn't do it for me at all, maybe it's overhyped to the point my expectations were so high it could never perform that well. I don't know but what I do know is I shan't be picking this up again.

Have you tried the Maybelline Age Rewind concealer? 

~ Jade xx

Photography information

Canon 600D with 18-55mm lens, Canon 24mm lens or Sigma 70-300mm lens. Canon EOS M with 18-55mm lens or Canon 24mm lens. Any edited photos are edited using Photoshop CS6. Picture source is given for any photo used that is not directly ours.