Priceline Haul: 5 For Under $25

After uni one day, I decided to head to Priceline to treat myself a bit (a very tiny bit, since I knew Lorac Pro and DipBrow were on their way to me). However, I've previously been disappointed in the Pricelines around my city, either due to their limited range or out of stock products. I was AMAZED to find a practically hidden Priceline that was well-stocked and had wonderful employees, so I hauled a teeny-tiny bit - all of this added up to only $25. Pretty good if you ask me!

ModelsPrefer Infinite Colour Lip Liner; Essence Ticket to Paradise Glossy Lip Liner

ModelsPrefer Infinite Colour Lip Liner in Clearly Sealed
May I first just say I ADORE the name of this product. Its like a clever pun without being tacky or stupid. Love. I haven't made up my mind about this product yet, it doesn't seem to really extend the west time of my lipsticks or make it a more smooth application, but I've also had the driest lips ever lately, so I'm not sure I've given a fair go. This goes for $8 at Priceline and was another product I've wanted for ages but was NEVER stocked at my local (like, for the past few months its been completely empty). I'm sure once my lips improve it'll be a useful product, but I'm still thinking of investing in a good quality lip primer. It's hard to spent money on something that's essentially invisible...

Essence Ticket to Paradise Glossy Lip Liner
This was in the $2 bargain bin at Priceline, for obvious reasons - Ticket to Paradise is an old trend edition of Essence's. I have a load of orange lipsticks so I grabbed it, thinking a lip liner would be useful. I didn't read close enough that it was a 'glossy' lip liner, and therefore doesn't really work in the way I wanted it to. Glossy doesn't really give off the vibe its going to extend wear, and its not very opaque, meaning it won't really be useful to outline my lips with either. Not sure about what I'm going to use this product for yet. I'm considering it as an all-over lip colour for when I want a sheer wash of orange as opposed to all my bright matte oranges, but I'll have to try it out and see how well that works.

Essence Dark Romance Cream Highlighter. Classic me, getting my fingernail into the smooth surface before I could even get a photo.

Essence Dark Romance Cream Highlighter
I've wanted this for AGES (like since the actual trend edition came out, obviously), except by the time I got to Priceline the only one of these left was used (not even the tester, just a used one...). I wanted it SO bad I was willing to buy it and just sanitise it, but Priceline would only offer me 10% off. Really Priceline? 10% off a $5 product? Anyway, of course I didn't take up that generous offer. Come a few months later and I find a well stocked, clean Priceline in the city that has one (unused) cream highlighter left! I was so stoked. This cream highlighter is so gorgeous, with almost a duochromey effect with a pearley sheen. I LOVE that its not actually shimmery but still acts as a highlighter (if that makes sense), mostly because glitter on my cheeks scares me. It gives a natural dewy look and Im in love. The only problem is so often I forget to apply it before setting my foundation... But thats definitely my issue, not the products! I can't fault it. Sorry the swatch isn't great, it was SO hard to pick up the effect this highlighter has - I've never quite seen anything like it. Shame it's limited edition :(

Savvy by DB Lipstick in Pretty Pink, Essence Lipstick in Natural Beauty

Top: Essence. Bottom: Savvy. With and without flash.

Essence Lipstick in Natural Beauty
This is another lipstick I picked up looking for something easy to wear everyday. Its a nice, basic pink that works well as a MLBB. However, the formula is quite slippery (not as much as the Savvy one though), and has to be reapplied often. My search for an easy to wear everyday lip colour continues.

Savvy by DB Lipstick in Pretty Pink
Man its frustrating when brands change up their colours and don't tell anyone. I fell madly in love with a Savvy tester at Priceline that was under the Nude colour, but the label on the side said Pretty Pink. Yet the bottom colour of the lipstick didn't match the sealed Pretty Pinks. Grrrr. None of the lipsticks matched the colour of this tester (typical). I got the Pretty Pink anyway, mostly since the assistant helping me was so sweet, and whilst I do like this colour it's not the same as that one tester that I will forever love. Ah well. Drugstore struggles. This colour is a bit more orange/peachy than the Essence one. I prefer the colour, but the formula is very slippery and I feel like it comes off straight away. At $5ish, I'm not too devastated, but it probably won't get that much use from me.


And that was my cheapie haul! Do you own any of this? What do you think?

And of course, apologies for the less-than-frequent posts. I've just started back at uni so I'm getting into the swing of things. I've started mapping out posts on my phone whilst on public transport which has been helping me get my thoughts together!

Review: Rimmel London Fix and Perfect Primer

A quick review for you guys today since I feel so awful about not blogging in over a week! I've been looking at purchasing a new camera since my current one just isn't doing it for me and makes me not want to take pictures and hence not blog, which of course is a silly reason to not blog, but unfortunately so much of a blog post depends on good quality pictures!

Nevertheless, I have been using this primer nearly every day for a while now and feel as though I am now in a position to review it and tell you my thoughts - so here goes.

This primer comes in a shiny, white squeezy tube with dark purple writing and a matching screw on cap. One important thing to note is that this is the 001 primer - not the 002 "pro" primer, which has blue writing and isn't sold in Pricelines (or Australia at all, from what I can see). This "pro" primer seems to have many more reviews online, and also more positive ones. I haven't tried it for myself though, so I can't give any sort of comparison.

Let's have a look at what this primer tells us it's gonna do. It claims to smooth skin, and minimise pores, as well as prolong foundation wear. That's three key claims that we're going to try see if it fulfils.

The tube is a run-of-the-mill squeeze tube, with a hole large enough for a decent amount of primer to come out. A small dot goes quite a long way, and two would probably do to cover your entire face.

Yeah, I know. The primer is scary orange tinted. It freaked me out when I first saw it - I had flashbacks of BB creams labelled "light" that oxidised horribly, and my heart definitely sunk a little bit. However, once it's rubbed in, the orange tint goes away! Well, I would say at least 99% goes away. I mean, if you look closely you can see a slight difference between the second and third photos, but if you looked at the third alone, you wouldn't think that it looked weirdly orange or anything. Besides, any slight tint is easily covered by your foundation.

So let's go back to those three claims and cover them one by one.

Smooths Skin

I think this is the claim it fulfils the most. I've never had such a 'smoothing' effect with a primer before - mostly they kind of even our your skin a bit and leave it feeling nice. This primer seriously seems to make your skin feel soft, and creates a smooth base for your foundation to go over. This means that you end up with a more flawless finish whilst still looking natural. It's going to sound so silly but when I put this primer on I can't stop touching my own face since it just feels so soft.

Minimises Pores

Silicone-based primers (which this is - I'll go into a bit of detail about that later) tend to have a pore-filling effect, whereby they reduce the look of pores by essentially filling them in, leaving your skin with a smooth surface. As I said above, it definitely does smooth out my skin, and thus I've realised part of this is due to the reduction in the look of my pores - especially around my nose. However, I've never had issues with massive pores, but I've noticed that my foundation won't sink into them like it used to before I wore primer. This primer dries quickly and sinks into your skin, and if you 'tap' (as opposed to rub) it over the areas with visible pores, it will definitely help to reduce the look. It, thankfully, doesn't 'sit' on top of your skin like other 'pore-filling' silicone primers I've tried - Garnier 5 Second Blur and Maybelline's Age Rewind are definite culprits of this.

Prolongs Foundation Wear

This is, arguably, the main purpose of wearing primer - to prime your skin so your foundation can last! Whilst I will admit I don't find a huge difference in the wear of my foundation with this primer, I think its importance isn't diminished, as it provides a base for the foundation to stick to. Otherwise, it would be applied straight to your skin, which is where the issues such as pores and oiliness can surface. My nose seemed less oily when using this primer, as I feel it provided a barrier between my skin and my foundation - so, in this way, you could probably prove that foundation wear is prolonged somewhat. However, I haven't done a comparison of how my foundation lasts with and without primer, which would be needed for some more evidence one way or the other. Overall, I would say it makes a small difference in prolonging the wear of your foundation, but if you really want your foundation to last longer, investing in a decent setting powder might be a better use of your money to achieve this objective.

Something to note when using primers underneath foundation - a lot of the problems associated with primers can be avoided by ensuring that the base of your primer matches the base of your foundation. These bases are typically water, or silicone. Some might be a mix of both (and all are going to contain water obviously), but mostly you can pick one as the dominant base. You can do this by noticing the first five or so ingredients in the ingredients list, and whether any ingredients ending in -cone, -xane, or similar appear. If they do, then it's likely silicone-based. If not, water-based. Same goes for foundation.

I'll use this primer as an example. The first five ingredients are aqua/water (obviously, considering it's a liquid and all), cyclopentasiloxane, aluminium starch octenylsuccinate, propylene glycol, and phenyl trimethicone. As you continue down the list, there are plenty more -cones, silo-, and -xanes that pretty much confirm its silicone base. Comparatively, my Australis primer (in the thin white tube), has an ingredients list that reads like this: aqua, cetearyl alcohol, isononyl isononanoate, phenoxyethanol, and cetearyl isononanoate. No silicones there! Pretty evidently water-based. This would go well as a base underneath my Maybelline Dream Fresh BB Cream (water-based), and my Rimmel underneath my Revlon Colourstay. Whilst sometimes you can mix this up (I've used my Australis underneath my Revlon), this is a pretty safe formula to stick to.



Overall, I think this is a great budget primer for those looking for a silicone-based primer to smooth out their skin and reduce the appearance of their pores. I'm super pleased with this purchase as I got it 50% off as well, and this has jumped to the top of my "Underrated Product" list.

This primer goes for $13.95 at Priceline and is available for purchase online here.

Oops, another long one. So it goes - every time I say it's gonna be short, you can know for sure you'll be reading for a while.

Let me know what you think and I hope you learned something new!

July Favourites

It's that time of the month (no not THAT time), it's Favourites time! This is my first month of having a Favourites post, so let me know what you think of it.

I've acquired quite a few products this past month, so it was hard to pick out my favourites that I've been reaching for time and time again. I hope I've done a good job!

Chi Chi BB Cream in "Light"

If you happen to have read my blog somewhat recently, you'll have seen my full review of this BB cream - here. This is where I go into detail and include swatches and things like that. I'll give you a hint though - I love this BB Cream. It smells amazing, has a dewy finish, blends into the skin perfectly (despite looking far too yellow for me) and, once set, lasts for hours. It also feels moisturising and is a 'true' BB Cream, incorporating not only decent coverage but skincare benefits, full of yummy-sounding things like avocado oil, green tea extract, and caviar extract.

Nars Radiant Creamy Concealer in "Vanilla"

My first purchase from Mecca Maxima, and safe to say it won't be my last. That place is addictive. I don't know if it's the reflective surfaces, or it's surprisingly expansive exterior, or simply the excitement of seeing so many product I've only ever seen online, but the whole shopping experience is so different to, say, a quick trip to Priceline (obviously, but y'know what I mean). Vanilla is the perfect shade for me, and this concealer is crazy pigmented, thick and creamy, blends like a dream and gives a nice 'radiant' or glowy finish. Blows all my other concealers out of the water.

Rimmel London Stay Matte Pressed Powder in "Peach Glow"

I picked this up because I love my Stay Matte in Transparent, but was looking for a powder to set my concealer with that would highlight underneath my eyes. I don't notice a huge difference between this and the Transparent, but this evens out my foundation a bit more and just blends everything together. A daily go-to!

Milani Baked Blush in "Luminoso"

The cult product - and for good reason. The right amount of pigment, slight shimmer and soft as butter. This is an easy blush to wear everyday because it's not easy to overdo, and just looks super natural - no one's going to think "why are her cheeks orange?!" I promise you. For a very pretty price of about $8 (US), this is available from Cherry Culture or Beauty Joint for us Aussies.

NYX Powder Blush in "Taupe"
Another cult product that I had to try out. I love this for basic contouring, as it is a perfect cool-toned brown that looks natural. It's easy to blend and also works well as an eyeshadow crease colour for when I'm feeling lazy - this and nothing else gives a bit of dimension to an otherwise plain looking eye. This isn't available in stores, only online, so definitely go have a look!

Rimmel London Fix and Perfect Primer in 001
I didn't have high hopes for this primer, but when I saw it on sale for half price I went "eh" and picked it up. I also realised its counterpart, the Pro Primer in 002, is the one with the raving reviews online, not so much this one. However, I think it deserves them! This is the only silicone primer I've found that actually dries and doesn't just sit on top of my skin and make my foundation slide around. It has a weird orange tinge which is a tiny bit noticeable when you apply it, but disappears completely once you put something on top. It makes your skin feel SO smooth and even minimises the look of my pores.

Daiso Brand Ellefar Felt Eyeliner
For $2.80, I couldn't help but pick this felt tip liner up. I'm a huge liquid liner lover, so I thought I'd try it out. I've found myself reaching for it a lot this month because it's simply SO black, it shows up my Maybelline Master Precise for sure! It has issues with smudging as soon as it gets wet, but for every day looks its an easy and cheap fix that seems like it'll last for ages!


What do you think of my Favourites for the month? Any of these your July Favourite too? Let me know!