Face Up to It: Benefit the Pore-fessional

Everyone uses and eye primer every day. Hopefully. And for the most part, people can easily find one that works well for them. Face primers are a different thing.  They are much harder to tell if they're working well, because you want your foundation to be invisible, and they usually work okay alone. Benefit has a few different face primers, and featured here is the Pore-fessional.

  

Benefit: The Pore-fessional

Miniature

So, this is a sample size that I got in this set. This is not necessarily supposed to work as a face primer, but I am under the impression that it can be used that way, with it's main purpose to be minimizing the appearance of pores.  Well, first of all, the size of your pores is genetic. It largely doesn't change unless there is something in them (oil; blackhead) and that comes out.  Bleh.  Anyway, it's hard for a topical, sheer product to make a difference. And this one didn't really.  It has an interesting, but not bad smell. Just kinda clean smelling. If you add just a little product, it feels really smooth, and kinda dry, but when you use a lot of product, it makes it seem sort of sticky.  It's main plus is that it mattifys the skin, but I didn't really see a change in my pores. They aren't large to begin with, but it didn't really do anything for my skin as far as lasting time or appearance except for making my skin matte.

I didn't notice anything really regarding lasing time.  Then again, I've used a few primers, and haven't noticed a difference... So maybe I'm just not being observant enough?  I don't know. It's not a necessary product, but if you want to give it a try, definitely just buy a mini in a set.

Zoya Richelle

Zoya Richelle from the 2008 Flourish collection.

Stunning gold.  It's a very shiny gold foil and this is about 2 coats, I believe.  Fabulous formula, but once again, I always have problems with Zoya's bubbling on me. Still working on that. This is just about the most amazing pure gold that I've ever seen, and I totally recommend it.

Would you wear it?

Friday the 13th

This will be a rant post, so beware.

     You know, I've always had safe Friday the 13ths.  The most eventful thing that has happened so far on Friday the 13th was in 5th grade when a kid accidentally dropped a mirror. He's probably cursed for life. Anyway, the month of April has been pretty great so far, but also completely and utterly horrendous in a single aspect of my life. I just have one question. Why the heck would you put pictures of spiders faces on the internet? On the websites I look at.
     Okay, the first instance this month is the most embarrassing. I was watching T.V. *cough, Wild Kratts the cartoon, cough* and suddenly an ugly, nearly albino spider face enters the two feet large screen and runs across it for a while. I was innocently watching an episode about pollinators, expecting to see bees and birds, but they decide for drama, they should add a bee-eating spider. WRONG CHOICE.
     Second. I was on Ragestache, a website with awesome rage comics, and someone thought that it was a good idea to post a friendly spider. A tarantula. Luckily, they had given a wee bit of warning, so I could safely scroll by it with limited view and limited shuddering, but with a slight element of panic attack surrounding me for a while.
     Next, I was watching SourceFed on youtube, pretty much my favorite youtube channel right now (I know, not beauty, I'm sorry), and they flashed a huge spider face at me. Just out of the blue! I’m not one to be a hater on youtube, but you better believe that I left them a mean note.
    As I was explaining these instances to my friend at school, she points out what looks to be a spider on the ground (Thank god it wasn’t) and that cause an already skittish me to freak out in the middle of the school. Luckily it was the hallway during lunch, so few people were there. But it did make this freshman, who I act kind of weird around and tell weird stories around because of the people I'm around when I'm around him, laugh at me.  Ugh.
    Next was NOT a false alarm. It was about an hour ago, I was laying in bed, with my laptop (which you better believe that I am not on right now) and I see something on my keyboard. First thing that runs through my mind is that it’s dust or something, but in a split second, my arachnophobic instincts kick in, and I toss the laptop and dart out of there. My mother and I reenter my room, and we see the spider running to the large stuffed bunny on my bed. The screaming starts. I run out of the room to hold the front door open, and she grabs the bunny and when she reaches the door, I, in a flurry of terror and adrenaline, close the door on her, and make a break for the now safe indoors.  It falls off the bunny in the jostling action, and my mother, rather upset for me hitting her with the door, throws the contaminated bunny at me.  I scream even more. So, loud, so much.
     Once everything is settled, I settle myself on the computer (Now a desktop) and look where our story begins. Ragestache. I am enjoying the comics, before I see the biggest spider face EVER,and I scream so loudly and shrilly that my brother from the phone at college talking to my mom could here it crisp as though I were standing right next to him.  That’s when I kind of started sobbing. (Silently, so as not to freak out my mom) It’s too much all at the same time! She closed the tab, and I better not see a spider for the rest of April, preferable until May 3rd. My birthday. Please save me.

Well, I guess this is Friday the 13th for you.

Next, Will be the story of where my arachnophobia began. 13 year ago, or so. Upon request of course. Excited?

Coastal Scents True Black Gel Liner

 Coastal Scents Gel Eyeliner in True Black.

First, I would like to say that this product isn't new in the photos, so the jar photos aren't representative of what they look like new.  The bottom photo is a little less black than how it was when I swatched it (heavily.) Warning, this is not a positive review. I have nothing good to say about this liner.  It's very bad. It just doesn't have a redeeming feature to it. 

My first gripe is the packaging.  Not only is the mouth small, so it was hard to swatch it, but it's made of glass. Brushed glass. Stupid for two reasons: First, with black, you don't really need to be able to see the product, but for the colors, it distorts the vibrancy or tone of the color.  Secondly, I also bought the platinum one as well as the black, and when I dropped the platinum one, it broke into a million pieces. Please plastic next time.

Now for the actual product.  It is dry. Drier than the other gel liners I've used and even drier than my pencil liners.  This makes it completely unusable on the lashline.  It's pretty good on the waterline, because since it's dry, it doesn't just slip off, but there's another problem. It balls up. It creates these little hard balls that get on to your brush and when you put that on your waterline, these hard little balls get on your eye and scratch it! Ouch!  It's a fairly black liner, but it's hard to build it up, since it just scrapes on! I have to use a very hard brush to get it to pick up product.  Really, I'm going to use it until it's used up, but it's really next to unusable.

Update: That's not true. I'm trowing it away. Hate it.

Ugh, negative reviews are kind of a downer, but there you go.

Do you like prefer dry or creamy eyeliners on the waterline?

My First Ruffian Manicure

 So, this is a little different than my usual nail of the day post, but I did do this recently, and I really enjoyed it. The Ruffian manicure.

Even though they don't even look like the same colors, they are. Orly Rage is the light shimmery color at the base of my nails, and the rest is Zoya Yummy. The top picture shows Rage better and the bottom picture shows Yummy better. Not neon at all like the top photo! There are actually two different ways to do the Ruffian manicure, this being the first, the other being more like this:

 

Photo from Scrangie's blog.

I like them both, but I kinda like the type I did better... that's why I did it, of course.  I think I'll try the other way eventually, though.  I love the color combination I did; I prefer doing a creme and a shimmer for contrast.  Rage is one of my favorite nail polishes ever, but I don't like how it looks on me.  I'm a little more of a tan person, so I don't feel that I can really pull of pale colors like that.  I painted my friend's nails with it, though, and she's really pale, and it looked phenomenal.  Love. Anyway, I just freehanded it, but I probably should have used tape... It wasn't perfect, but not noticeably bad, either.

Would you do a Ruffian manicure?