Product Reviews

[Caramel]

As a kind of continuation of the «What did you buy today?»-threads, here is a place to post reviews of products you've recently tested. Or even your favourite products that you've loved forever. Or products you hate and think no one should be wasting their money on. Short reviews or long reviews.

Please include your skin type/colouring or whatever else is relevant to the product you are talking about, as well as what expectations you had before trying it, and naturally why you liked or didn't like the product. Swatches and pictures are very welcome too!

 

[Caramel]

Laura Mercier Tinted Moisturizer Broad Spectrum SPF 20

sephora.com

This is a product I have been hearing about and wanting to try for years, and I suppose there are plenty of reviews of it to be found out there, but I'll write a quick one anyway.

My skin type is sentitive, dry to combination. The colour is fair-medium with neutral undertones.

My usual foundation is Lancôme Teint Miracle, which I absolutely love the finish of, but I have been looking for something lighter coverage for the summer, and since I've kept hearing good things about LM over the years I decided to try this. Unfortunately I wasn't too impressed. I think perhaps Laura Mercier doesn't work for me in general, since three out of three of her products I've tried were misses (previously the mineral powder and secret camouflage concealer). I did love the colour I got, it's probably the most perfect summer foundation colour I've found so far – I went for Ochre, which is described as a medium beige (I usually wear TM in the shade 01 Beige Albatre, but go a couple of shades darker in the summer).
However, I found the consistency of the tinted moisturizer really difficult to work with, it was very thick and sticky and just didn't blend well into the skin at all. The lady at Sephora did warn me that I might find the consistency unusual, and suggested I use either fingers or a sponge to blend. I tried both, and think I preferred to use my fingers, but I still found it hard to get a good result. As for the coverage, it was pretty much non-existant on me. I kept going back throughout the day to touch up with the Teint Miracle. I was indeed looking for a sheer coverage, but I would still like the dewy, airbrushed finish that I am used to, and this didn't really give me anything. All in all a pretty pointless buy for me.

I've since gotten a sample for the tinted moisturizer from Nars, and from what I've tried so far I much prefer this one. The consistency is quite similar to Teint Miracle, quite runny, it blends in much the same way and gives a similar (but lighter) finish. Definitely a good contender for my next foundation purchase.

 

[Caramel]

Garnier Miracle Skin Perfector BB-Cream

vita.no

This was a sort of frustrated impulse buy after my disappointment with the above mentioned tinted moisturizer. It's a very inexpensive bb-cream, I think it was the first drugstore bb-cream to be launched so it's been around for a while. I didn't really expect much from it, but I ended up being pleasantly surprised.

First some negatives though. It has a very limited colour selection. I know a lot of bb-creams are supposed to adapt to your skin tone, and this actually does that very well, but I would still have preferred a few more colour options. Here in Norway there are only two colours as far as I can tell, light and medium, but on US sites I've seen three colours: fair/light, light/medium and medium/deep. I went for the medium, since the light one looked like my palest winter-pale colour and I was looking for a summer foundation. The medium definitely looks too dark for me right now, but it did adapt fairly well to my skin tone, and no one I asked thought it looked unnatural. I think a shade in between the light and medium would have been best for me though, so if I was in the US I would have gone for the light/medium colour.

Another negative is the smell, it's pretty strong, so if you are sensitive to smell you might have problems with it. I didn't mind it too much, but would have preferred it without.

Now for the consistency, this cream is kind of thick, definitely not runny like the Nars or Lancome foundations that I mentioned above. For some reason I was instantly reminded of the old Nivea moisturizer that comes in the blue flat round tin, which I used to buy in my very early teens. So it's quite thick and creamy, but not at all difficult to work with like the Laura Mercier tinted moisturizer, and it blends easily into the skin. I applied it with the Expert Face Brush from Real Techniques, which I haven't really found good use for before. It has really good coverage for a bb-cream, and has that nice airbrushed quality that I like. The finish is a little sticky though, and it took a while before it settled/dried on the skin. I would suggest setting it with a light powder, and it might not work for you if your skin is more oily.

All in all, a fairly good buy, especially for the price (1/4th of more expensive foundations), and if one is lucky enough to suit one of the two/three colours available.

 

[jackie1]

Tria Laser 4x

I got tired of shelling out hundreds of dollars every time to get a laser treatment. I'm an anti social person in general so I sort of hate dealing with people and it's just a very uncomfortable procedure to have someone you don't know treating your bikini area. So I decided to splurge and get the Tria Laser so I could remove my own hair at home.

I'm a pretty good candidate since I'm fair with dark hair. It doesn't work for all skin and hair types btw. Anyway, I used it on my upper lip (lolz), knuckles , forearms, legs and bikini area. I've had 4 sessions and I'm noticing so much less hair.... it's truly amazing and worth it since it's cheaper than 2 sessions (L.A prices). I was deciding between the Tria and Tanda but read on this site i found about at home laser hair removal that Tria was better cause its Diode and Tanda is IPL... so i decided to get the Trian... in pink

In terms of pain it doesn't bother me much at all but I have a high pain tolerance. The worst area to do was my underarms. Other than that not bad and I would highly recommend. It doesn't work for everyone though so make sure it works for your skin first.

Would I recommend? Hell yes. No more gorilla arms... lolz