Before we start the review, I'm thinking I want to start doing more product review posts here. What do you guys think? Write your thoughts in the comments below, and if you have any other post suggestions you'd like to share, put 'em there too :)
Alright, to business.
My first experience with the Burt's Bees Natural face essentials soap bark and Chamomile deep cleansing cream(woah! what a mouthful.) was about two years ago. I got a sampler kit for Christmas that had chapstick, body wash, lotion, etc....and one of the samples was a little bottle of the face wash. I have this thing for face wash. I seriously enjoy just looking at it all at the store, reading all the labels and seeing what they all claim to do. I also really like trying new things, but my skin would beg to differ. My face doesn't like change, which is apparently not uncommon.
But, like any good face wash fanatic, I threw common sense out the window and tried it anyway :) Yay me!
My first impression of this product was, frankly, not good. Not good at all. It came out as a cream, which was suggested in the name, but I'm used to my soaps foaming, ya know? So that was disconcerting. But apart from that, I felt like it was making me break out more! To be honest, the only reason I kept using it was because it was a present from my mom and I didn't want her to know I didn't like it.
But boy am I glad I stuck with it. Suddenly my skin started clearing up in a big way! Here's the thing with face soap. When you switch from something you've been using for years, your skin is going to freak out, and the Burt's Bees soap was doing even more than that. It was purging my skin. It was drawing out all the crap, then getting rid of it! Which was hard to live with while it was happening, but once it got rid of all the nasty, my skin looked better than it ever did, and it stayed clear! My breakouts started getting way less, or sometimes not at all! And my skin itself just looked healthier and smoother and all around great!
Unfortunately, that was a tiny bottle and I made the mistake of letting my mom try it. Bad idea. That puppy got used up reeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaalllll quick, and when we went to the store to buy a normal size bottle, the price about gave mom a heart attack. A full size bottle of this stuff is between $8-$10, depending on where you buy it(Target, Walmart, ULTA, just to name a few) and even though that's not expensive, it's WAY more than the $3 we were paying for our go-to face soap. So, in agony and dispair, we went back to old faithful.
Eventually my skin got better and more regulated as I got older, but it was just never as nice as it had been when I had my beloved Burt's bees soap bark and Chamomile deep cleansing cream *SIGH* And very recently, I had a bad(very, very bad!) experience with another face soap. I had a bad reaction and I had more pimples than I did when I was fifteen and hormonal........Not cute. This got me thinking, though, and remembering how good my skin was when I was using the Burt's bees stuff. I decided right there(having a job, and subsequently, money, will do that to you) that I was going to just grit my teeth and buy that face soap. I was talking to my mom about it, and she said she really wanted to go back to using it too, and maybe we could split the cost. Even better.
So we bought it, and, just like last time, I had several bad skin days. But this time I can't blame it entirely on the face soap. I was coming from another face soap that I was allergic to, so I was already starting from bad. Anywho, I had several bad skin days...like a week. Then, right on schedule, my skin cleared right up! At this point, it's been about a month since I switched back to good old Burt's Bees. Now, let's weigh the pros and cons:
PROS-
*Large Bottle. It's like the size of a normal squeeze bottle of lotion, so pretty big, especially for this kind of product. Face washes, not to mention organic face washes, are generally quite small.
*You don't need much. Like at all. Mom and I both have been using this every day(I use it twice a day) for a month, and we're maybe half done with it? Probably not even half. I mean, you have to experiment to see how much YOU will need, but I use about a dime size, and I think mom uses a little less. This is great! You get a large bottle, and you don't need much! That $8 price tag's looking a little more reasonable.
*The smell is good. Mom says it reminds her of juicy fruit gum, but not so artificial. I don't really agree, but as I can't describe what it smells like to me, we're just gonna stick with that description. I can say though that the small is not at all overpowering or lingering. Basically the moment you put it on your face, the smell goes away, and you don't walk around all day with a face smelling like juicy fruit gum ;) The product also has a really great cooling sensation!
*Let's face it. It works. My skin is clear and smooth, and it stays that way, even in stress or other things that would make me break out. I'm not breakout free, but it's so drastically diminished that the one or two zits I get don't even bother me, because the rest of my skin is perfect.
*It's all natural. This isn't really super important to me. I mean, I don't dismiss products because they're not organic or natural, but I must say it is a bonus!
Now let's talk about the cons:
*It's expensive. Like I said before, it can range between $8-$10 dollars, depending on where you buy it. For a lot of people, the price is a huge issue. It was for me! It's not like I'd never see Burt's Bees products before getting that Christmas present! But I always cringed at the price, because if I didn't like it, I was stuck with a $5 chapstick. But trust me, this product is worth the money, and like I talked about in the "pros", you definitely get your money's worth!
now, before we wrap this up I do have to add in a few personal notes(because apparently this whole thing isn't a personal note) I had to give my skin a little longer before it started to calm down, because I was coming from a soap that was actually making me break out more. I had to give this product a good week, week and a half before it really started to work. Obviously, everybody's skin is different, so it may take less time, it may take more time, but the important thing is to GIVE IT TIME.
I'm also at the tail end of hormonal breakouts, and my skin is therefore just generally easier to manage. HOWEVER, I did try this several years ago, like I said before, so you teenagers will still see results!
I must also say that I have never had acne. I had my share of pimples, for sure, but never acne. I never needed, like, proactiv or anything. Just your everyday, run-of-the-mill zits. Not cute, but it could have been worse. Therefore, I don't know what this product will do for those that have acne-prone skin. I'd say it's worth a try, though. It's more easily accessable and cheaper than products like proactiv, and because it's natural, it won't be as harsh as some of the less expensive face products formulated for acne.
K you guys! Try this. It's good ;)
April's Glam Bag theme was Rockstar glam, so the bag looked like a turntable. That was awesome, I must say! Also, before I dive into the product review, I have to mention that the ipsy bags are really great! The designs are cute and the bags themselves are nice quality! On top of that they're a great size for slipping in your bag or suit case for easy travel usage! Bonus!
The next item on the list is called "Looks so natural" Kiss Lashes. "Kiss Lashes" is the brand name, and "Looks so natural" is the style name. They're falsies, in case you couldn't guess ;) Now, my first impression for these was "But I don't wear false lashes!" Seriously, guys. I've never warn false lashes in my life. I don't even really know how to apply them. I have been wanting to try them, though. Not for everyday use....the lashes God gave me generally suffice....but for a play/stage makeup, or a costume of some kind, I could see me needing a little help in the lash department. I haven't had to use this product yet so I can't give my personal opinion, but I like the way they look and I've heard good things from other reviews! On top of that they retail for only $3.99! I think that's about as inexpensive as you can get and still get quality lashes.
Finally, I got the Benefit lollitint lip and cheek stain in the color "Candy Orchid". The lollitint was the sample size product for the month of April. The bottle is so cute and tiny, and the applicator looks like nail polish. To apply you just dot the color on your lips or cheeks and then blend into your skin. The color pay-off is pretty great and, as it's a stain, it blends easily while wet, and doesn't budge once dry. I would like to say I can totally recommend the Benefit lollitint lip and cheek stain, but I looked up the full size bottle, and, while the full size bottle is quite large, the price tag is also quite large. The Benefit lollitint lip and cheek stain retails for $30.....for blush. Eh, yeah it's a great product, but it's not THAT much better than regular drugstore blushes.
This book was not recommended to me, I didn't read anything about it, nor had it been something I'd been wanting to read for any amount of time. I literally was in my library, wandering around, saw this on a shelf, grabbed it, and checked it out. For those who may not know, Candace Cameron Bure(Bure is her married name) is an actress, wife, mother, and Christian. She played DJ Tanner on the show "Full House" in the 80s, and her brother, Kirk Cameron, is also an actor, first on "Growing pains" in the 80s, and more recently the "Left Behind" series, among like a hundred other things. Candace is also currently a contestant on "Dancing with the Stars", which is why I think her book was even on display. I already knew these things about her, and I really like her a lot, so I figured her book would be a good place to start in my journey through the realm of non-fiction, so, I checked it out.
Now down to business. I think the most important thing about a book is how it's written. The content is important, but no one's going to get to the content if the format is bad. Not so with Candace's book. It's written in the typical non-fiction first person, and it's easy to read, without being dumbed down or condescending to those like myself that are used to a little higher level of literature.(I had just finished reading Lord of the Ring, so you can imagine the shock my brain went through reading "Reshaping it all" lol) Also the chapters are short, which makes getting through them much more enjoyable...because nothing is more overwhelming than thumbing through a book and realizing each chapter is like 47 pages long.
The first product was a NYX eyeshadow palette called "Love in Rio". I have heard great things about NYX and have always wanted to try it, but couldn't ever justify buying any of their products when I knew cheaper ones would work just fine. So, as you can imagine, I was pretty stoked. The packaging on that palette was beautiful. All black, pretty simple, but the clasp was a bow! I love bows, in case you don't know me. And even though it was plastic, it was pretty nice plastic, very heavy-duty. Also, and I suppose more importantly, the colors were beautiful, and totally something I would wear a lot. There was a pink-champagne color, a sort of caramel brown, and then a chocolate brown, all of which were sparkly....but not in a tacky way. When I put the shadows on the sparkles turned more pearl-y, and just made the whole thing look really, REALLY nice. The shadows weren't super pigmented, but they still had a pretty good color pay-off, and they were really smooth to apply. Ugh! First product was a win!
Second was the Pixi flawless beauty primer. I had heard of pixi, and I know you can buy it at Target, but I've never tried their products. I knew it was a little pricey, and I was of the mind that nothing sold at Target should be that expensive. Just, no. This primer was, once again, a full size product, so that was exciting. So far, I've only tried it on the back of my hand, but it had a slight pink(like skin pink, not bubblegum pink) tint to it, that almost immediately went away as I messaged it into my skin. It smelled really good(and not like sunscreen, which tends to happen with primers) and didn't leave my skin looking shiny or greasy, which is also something that tends to happen. I also noticed that that area of my hand felt a lot smoother than the rest of my hand, so that was really good. Like I said, I haven't tried it on my face yet, but I think I'm still gonna give it a thumbs up.
The third thing in the bag was an eyeliner pen from the brand Chella. Ever heard of it? Yeah, me neither. I think I was the most excited about this product, because the brand was a complete unknown to me. Upon removing the cap, I saw that the eyeliner looked like one of those felt tip "paint brush" markers I had when I was a kid. I know that these types of liquid eyeliners are supposed to be easier to work with if you're not used to applying liquid eyeliner....I am, so the design didn't really impress me. I wasn't unimpressed, but I wasn't like "FINALLY! I can apply liquid eyeliner now!" Actually, I was a bit more distracted by the color. Indigo blue. I was like blue eyeliner? Really? What am I supposed to do with this?! So, I did the only thing I could do in that situation, I started drawing with it on the back of my hand :) and you know what? It didn't come out as shockingly blue as I was expecting. The color had some black undertones to it. The line was definitely blue, but still very wearable. I think, until spring comes, though, I'll be applying some black or navy eyeshadow over top of it to decrease the intensity even further. But the line, oh, it was a beautiful sight. Super thin and even, and it dried almost instantly! Even though the color was a bit of a shock, I think I'll be able to work with it and therefore I give it a thumbs up!
