Benefit Gimme Brow Review

I'm absolutely dying to share this exciting new purchase with you all! It's the Benefit Gimme Brow in Medium Deep! This has had a lot of hype in the YouTube community, as well as the makeup blogging community, so I thought I might throw mine into the pool!

Benefit describes this as:

This innovative brush-on fiber gel adheres to skin & hair... creating brows before where there were none. It builds easily for thick, lushes arches, thanks to a tapered brush for blending & precision tip for shaping.

It is:
> Water resistant
> Long-wearing
> Natural-looking
> Buildable





Firstly can I just say that the packaging is so incredibly cute: it has a parallelogram prism shape, with light pink polka dots on it. Benefit has done it again with the girly packaging that's just to die for. It also envelopes the product instead, so it won't get squished if you have to travel long distances to get home, or if you like having massive purses like I do!
I purchased this in the shade Medium Deep, since I have dark brown hair. The other shade they have is Light Medium, which is aimed for those blonde hair gals (and guys!) out there :)

This teensy little tube is sold at $22 USD, but retails in Hong Kong for $220 HKD. It's definitely not a cheap product but a little bit of an affordable splurge for the average broke college girl!

One Benefit (see what I did there? lol bad pun) of this product is that since it's really tiny, you can easily throw it into your makeup bag, or if you're not bothered to carry one, you can toss it into your wallet without it bulging. From the Benefit website, it teaches you to apply the product in "short pressing motions, stroke brush tip along brow to define shape. Comb through to blend & build brows. For the most natural look, start at the inner edge of your brow and move outward. Repeat to add more volume"

This is definitely one of those buildable products. If you feel like a natural look, you can easily stroke this a couple of times through and you're good to go; or if you're feeling like Cara Delevingne and her famous bold brows, you can keep building to create more volume.

One thing I found with this is that this product looks natural even if it's built up. It's microfibers within the product makes the product act like a mascara for your brows!

If you want an extra oomph to your brows, you can apply a highlighter just under your brow bone to really lift your brows and open up your eyes. I just swipe that under my brows when I apply my normal face highlighter.

The brush itself is a tiny little spooly, with about 5 rungs to it. It's like a teensy little mascara wand, with the little microfibers between each rung so that when you run it through your brow hairs, the fiber-gel will cling to your skin and eyebrow hair.

The conical shape of the spooly is great because it really lets you perfect the shape of your arch without any difficulty, which is awesome for if you're in a rush. Because of this product, I can have my eyebrows done within the minute, which is a lot faster than having to fill in your brows with a powder and having to carefully have the pigment equal on both sides.

I used to neglect my brows because I always thought that it would take ages to fill in my brows every morning, and that it might clog up the pores in my brows and cause my eyebrow hairs to fall off, but so far, it's looking good!

Since this is a long lasting product, I wouldn't recommend scrubbing harshly on your brows when you take your makeup off. I've made that mistake before and lost a couple brow hairs along the way :(

Stay tuned for my post next week about the Benefit Rockateur blush. I only got it yesterday so I don't think a blog post today would do it justice since I have to try it enough times to review it!

Love from Julsie! XO

Rimmel Stay Matte and Divergent

Oh hey, it's Sally!

Remember me? Oops so it's been a while since I posted because I've just been going to school and what not so nothing really interesting had been happening.

A few weeks ago, I had to make a new purchase of powder because my Clinique Super-balanced Powder ran out and then when I went off to buy a new one, turns out it's been discontinued. *Insert depressing noise* So, I just went to the local pharmacy and bought the Rimmel Stay Matte Powder in Peach Glow. Wow this stuff is good!
Also, it's much cheaper than my Clinique powder which I also loved but really, I think they're about the same so I'm now happy that I found this. The only downside to it is I don't like the packaging, I wish it had a mirror in it and sometimes, I find the cover a bit hard to get off. Also it doesn't look very nice which is why I guess I never bought it before.

I finished reading The Host by Stephanie Meyer a while ago and boy that book was good. Now, I've just started reading Divergent by Veronica Roth. Apparently, I was told if I'm a fan of the Hunger Game series, I should be a fan of this so I bought it on my Kindle. Unfortunately, I'm too early in the book to comment how I feel about it and give a proper review but I will when I've finished reading it. So far it has drawn me in well and I'm glad it's a trilogy so I have two more books to read before I have to go hunting for another book.

That's all I've really got to say for today. A short sweet post! Hope you enjoyed reading it! For those of you who just started school, good luck! Talk to you later,

Sally xx

Garnier Dark Spot Corrector Review

As you're reading this, I'm away at university orientation camp! Having been to international schools all my life, I was expecting wilderness and tents and living on bare necessities.That was all the camps I've ever been to, and I've gotten a lot of survival skills like the Heat Escape Lessening Posture (HELP) position when you fall into the sea, or first aid, or CPR, or making a campfire.
But it turns out local Asian camp is totally mild. Like, living indoors with showers and toilets. On the to-bring list they told us to bring phone chargers.... This feels more like a luxurious, "outdoor" getaway!
But thanks Sal for posting this for me whilst I'm away!

If you saw my Pupa Silk Touch Foundation Review, then you would know that I have horrible acne scarring. I don't even know how it started, but maybe it was the stress of exams, or not having time to do weekly facials since I was slaving away for school.

Just a little background information, acne scarring is the result of excess melanin production, the dark pigment that makes you tan. Some people are born with high melanin production in their skin cells, resulting in a darker natural skin tone. But, as a typical Asian, I have fairly light skin, so any acne scarring is like, a brown spot on a white canvas.
Awkward.
As a reference, I have around NC15-NC20 ish skin tone, depending on the season.

I always look for high coverage foundations, but the hot and sticky summer heat makes it really annoying to be wearing thicker foundations, especially since I have normal to oily skin. So, since seeing this at the local drugstore, I decided to give this product a go!

*Unfortunately, the photo is not my own, I've been so busy, and it's so hard to take good quality photos at night!

It claims to fade discolouration, from dark spots, age spots and blemish marks. Which is absolutely perfect, its exactly what I need faded! It is made up of pure Vitamin C, which encourages faster skin turnover, and  allow you to lighten your discolouration. In less sugar-coated words, it makes your skin cells shed faster, like a friggin snake. But don't worry, it's nothing you can actually see.....
I made it sound really gross, but that's the technicality behind it.

It has a typical fresh moisturiser scent, just like every other Garnier product. I use it as a daily moisturiser, even though it's a little thick, but nothing my skin can't handle. I like to know that my moisturiser is lightening my discolouration whilst I've got makeup on. Since it's only my 5th day using this product, I can't exactly say if it really lightens my discolouration, but my skin definitely looks brighter and more luminous. I'm not sure about it in the long run, but I will keep you updated! At HKD$129, it's definitely worth trying, if it means I can use less foundation, or hopefully even go without it someday! Plus, all those high end, high coverage foundations and concealers tend to add up, cost-wise, so technically skin care products that claim to improve your skin tone will be more worth it!
I'll definitely keep you all updated on how it turns out! I really don't want to take a before and after photo of my skin, it's not like I want to be reminded of how shitty my skin is (was? hopefully?!).

Haha , lots of love, from Julsie! xox