I've talked quite a bit about products I love and use regularly, so let's have a chat about products that I don't love and hardly ever use. This isn't to say that they are bad products - chacun son gout - everyone has their taste as they say here in France, but they are just products that didn't work out for me.
I'm going to start with the most expensive, and possibly most disappointing product that didnt work out for me and that prize goes to Armani Luminous Silk Foundation.
After seeing this ALL over Instagram and YT and feeling like the description of it as a medium, buildable, natural finish foundation screamed my name I picked it up in one of the most unsuccessful impulse buys ever. After forking out €52 for it when all I had intended to buy was a lipstick, I trotted home smugly with my Sephora bag.
I'm sure I'm not the first person to experience that moment when you spend a small fortune on something you have been obsessing over and then the first time you use it you know you don't like it but convince yourself that maybe you applied it wrong, forgot to shake it - maybe it was the brush or sponge you were using?
I used a BeautyBlender the first time as that's how I'd seen most people apply it and when that failed miserably went in with my trusty Marc Jacobs The Face III. Luminous Silk was having none of it. It was inexplicably both watery and greasy at the same time, was impossible to blend out without leaving marks and after an hour I looked as though I hadn't even applied foundation. Again and again I tried, again and again with the same results. After about two weeks of valiant efforts I pushed it to the back of my shelf in disgust and subsequently gifted it to my best friend.
And guess what?
She hated it too. Her description of nightmarish attempts to blend it and arriving at work only to look in the mirror to find that it had disappeared off her face sounded only too familiar. Quite honestly I have the sneaking suspicion that I unfortunately received a dud - I'm sure it happens. Even more honestly, it was the worst experience I've ever had with a foundation and have no intention of giving it a second try.
Next up is the Urban Decay Electric Palette.
Let me add a disclaimer here - I did not buy this myself, it was a very well-intentioned Christmas gift from my other half although I have to wonder what possessed him as he has never seen me wear anything brighter than a gold shadow on my eyes - I've been a bit braver since buying the Huda Beauty Rose Gold Palette, but still even that never goes past a pink.
I believe he gave it to me Christmas of 2015. About a week before Christmas he headed out smugly saying that he 'had things to buy' and that I couldn't come. A couple of days later when I innocently came across a Sephora bag while fetching something from a cupboard that no-one but him ever uses, I was pleasantly surprised and intrigued - the man is not a fan of the place or the amount of time I spend there every time I claim to be just running in for 'a minute'😅
So Christmas Eve arrived and after putting the little one to bed we settled down on the couch to exchange gifts and I couldn't wait to rip open that iconic black and white box.
The contents:
Christian Dior J'adore perfume - Spot on, 10/10. He had never known me to wear this perfume before but it's an old favourite of mine and he made a great choice.
Christian Dior Lipstick Rouge 468 in Rose Bonheur - again, a great choice. It's a beautiful peachy shade, right up my alley and in line with what I like to wear.
And then the Urban Decay Box. I don't remember what other palette UD had out at the time (I think it was the Naked 3?) but I really wanted it and was momentarily delighted. That faded a bit when I realised it was in fact the Electric Palette, one that I had seen online and had thought to be like something you'd buy in a €2 shop for Halloween. And it gets worse. As I was gently removing it from its casing and opening it up while making appreciative noises (in the intention of finding the receipt and exchanging it) Himself, in his excitement at having done so well with the presents, tried to help me remove the plastic sleeve protecting the shadows and accidently maimed the top left with his finger. So that was the end of that. Turns out that he had been so over it after making a huge effort with finding the perfect lipstick and perfume that when he had been cornered by a girl on the UD stand he allowed her to push the palette on him, thinking she knew best. Bless. Overall I've probably used it 5 times, and only the pink and orange to deepen a blush or use as a small pop of colour on the eyes. It's not at all a bad palette, it's pigmented and blendable, but the colours are just not me. I am however going to try to use it for the heck of it in the next week or so and will post the results on IG if it's not too scary😅
The next product isn't one I didn't use but one I did use - and frequently, maybe twice a week - and that is the GlamGlow Flashmud Brightening Treatment.
Again, not cheap at €49.95. And a product I dislike even more than Armani LS and the Electric Palette put together.
They say that hindsight is 20/20 and this is certainly the case here. If you've read some of my posts on skincare then you know that the main issues I have with my skin are roughness, texture and redness around my jawline and dullness. So when I saw glowing reviews of this product and its' claims to both smooth and brighten I was hooked. And here's the thing - for the month or so that I used it I loved it and relied on it heavily. I would cleanse, put it on as a mask and then exfoliate with it. After, my skin would be as red as a fire engine, but incredibly smooth (unsurprisingly as I had basically sand papered the surface of my face). Not realising how much damage I was doing my skin I kept using it until it was gone and that's when my problems began - the texture and redness became worse. I was so red and so rough, and had clearly pissed my skin off in a bad way. So I spent a week or so covering myself in aloe vera gel and soothing moisturisers to calm it. I eventually discovered that what I needed was an acid toner to tackle these issues and not the exfoliators answer to a sand blaster. I completely went off scrubs after that and probably didn't even use one for about six months until I came across Oskia Microexfoliation Balm (review here), which is far more gentle on the skin.
Last January I was so excited to have found Marc Jacobs Love Marc Lipstick in Roll the Dice on the sales stand of Sephora Champs-Elysees for €8, instead of €29.50. I'm a huge Marc Jacobs Beauty fan, I have three of his brushes, a couple of lipsticks and an Air Blush and love them all except for this one (I did say in my post on my Favourite Make-up Brushes that I'm slightly disappointed by the blush brush, but I do still use it). This lipstick is a bright pink which is very me, the packaging is heavy and has a magentic closure, but I just don't like it. The colour looks odd on me and the formula is strange, it's greasy and doesn't apply opaquely. I've worn it a couple of times and regretted it every time I look in the mirror, there's just something off about it. On the other hand, one of my favourite nudes of all time is Marc Jacobs New Nudes Role Play, so this is by no means a bash of all MJ lipsticks.
Last but not least is my most recent beauty failure and that goes to YSL The Shock Mascara. I first saw Sali Hughes rave about this in her column for The Guardian (you can find it here). She described it as basically false lashes in a tube, that it gave volume, length and a curl. What else can you ask for in a mascara?! I picked it up on FeelUnique for around €30 (cringe) and the first time I used it I was instantly annoyed and disappointed - the opening of the tube was too large, so no product was being scraped off the brush as you removed it - application was a clumpy MESS. I started scraping it off myself and trying to make it work that way, but every time it made my lashes clumpy and just awful so I ended up going to Kiko and picking up their Luxurious Lashes mascara at a purse-friendly €7/€8. The Shock also dried out after a month, which you would maybe expect from a budget mascara but not from one that costs 30 quid.
I also want to add Tarte Shape Tape to this list - you can see my review of it in my post Tarte Cosmetics Mini Haul.
So there it is - a list of my most memorable beauty buy fails. I'm sure there's more but these are the ones that stick out in my mind the most (probably because of the prices😓)
What are your most disappointing buys?
Have a great Sunday everyone!
A x
Doyouevencleanse Instagram, FaceBook and Twitter
I'm going to start with the most expensive, and possibly most disappointing product that didnt work out for me and that prize goes to Armani Luminous Silk Foundation.
After seeing this ALL over Instagram and YT and feeling like the description of it as a medium, buildable, natural finish foundation screamed my name I picked it up in one of the most unsuccessful impulse buys ever. After forking out €52 for it when all I had intended to buy was a lipstick, I trotted home smugly with my Sephora bag.
I'm sure I'm not the first person to experience that moment when you spend a small fortune on something you have been obsessing over and then the first time you use it you know you don't like it but convince yourself that maybe you applied it wrong, forgot to shake it - maybe it was the brush or sponge you were using?
I used a BeautyBlender the first time as that's how I'd seen most people apply it and when that failed miserably went in with my trusty Marc Jacobs The Face III. Luminous Silk was having none of it. It was inexplicably both watery and greasy at the same time, was impossible to blend out without leaving marks and after an hour I looked as though I hadn't even applied foundation. Again and again I tried, again and again with the same results. After about two weeks of valiant efforts I pushed it to the back of my shelf in disgust and subsequently gifted it to my best friend.
And guess what?
She hated it too. Her description of nightmarish attempts to blend it and arriving at work only to look in the mirror to find that it had disappeared off her face sounded only too familiar. Quite honestly I have the sneaking suspicion that I unfortunately received a dud - I'm sure it happens. Even more honestly, it was the worst experience I've ever had with a foundation and have no intention of giving it a second try.
Next up is the Urban Decay Electric Palette.
Let me add a disclaimer here - I did not buy this myself, it was a very well-intentioned Christmas gift from my other half although I have to wonder what possessed him as he has never seen me wear anything brighter than a gold shadow on my eyes - I've been a bit braver since buying the Huda Beauty Rose Gold Palette, but still even that never goes past a pink.
I believe he gave it to me Christmas of 2015. About a week before Christmas he headed out smugly saying that he 'had things to buy' and that I couldn't come. A couple of days later when I innocently came across a Sephora bag while fetching something from a cupboard that no-one but him ever uses, I was pleasantly surprised and intrigued - the man is not a fan of the place or the amount of time I spend there every time I claim to be just running in for 'a minute'😅
So Christmas Eve arrived and after putting the little one to bed we settled down on the couch to exchange gifts and I couldn't wait to rip open that iconic black and white box.
The contents:
Christian Dior J'adore perfume - Spot on, 10/10. He had never known me to wear this perfume before but it's an old favourite of mine and he made a great choice.
Christian Dior Lipstick Rouge 468 in Rose Bonheur - again, a great choice. It's a beautiful peachy shade, right up my alley and in line with what I like to wear.
And then the Urban Decay Box. I don't remember what other palette UD had out at the time (I think it was the Naked 3?) but I really wanted it and was momentarily delighted. That faded a bit when I realised it was in fact the Electric Palette, one that I had seen online and had thought to be like something you'd buy in a €2 shop for Halloween. And it gets worse. As I was gently removing it from its casing and opening it up while making appreciative noises (in the intention of finding the receipt and exchanging it) Himself, in his excitement at having done so well with the presents, tried to help me remove the plastic sleeve protecting the shadows and accidently maimed the top left with his finger. So that was the end of that. Turns out that he had been so over it after making a huge effort with finding the perfect lipstick and perfume that when he had been cornered by a girl on the UD stand he allowed her to push the palette on him, thinking she knew best. Bless. Overall I've probably used it 5 times, and only the pink and orange to deepen a blush or use as a small pop of colour on the eyes. It's not at all a bad palette, it's pigmented and blendable, but the colours are just not me. I am however going to try to use it for the heck of it in the next week or so and will post the results on IG if it's not too scary😅
The next product isn't one I didn't use but one I did use - and frequently, maybe twice a week - and that is the GlamGlow Flashmud Brightening Treatment.
Again, not cheap at €49.95. And a product I dislike even more than Armani LS and the Electric Palette put together.
They say that hindsight is 20/20 and this is certainly the case here. If you've read some of my posts on skincare then you know that the main issues I have with my skin are roughness, texture and redness around my jawline and dullness. So when I saw glowing reviews of this product and its' claims to both smooth and brighten I was hooked. And here's the thing - for the month or so that I used it I loved it and relied on it heavily. I would cleanse, put it on as a mask and then exfoliate with it. After, my skin would be as red as a fire engine, but incredibly smooth (unsurprisingly as I had basically sand papered the surface of my face). Not realising how much damage I was doing my skin I kept using it until it was gone and that's when my problems began - the texture and redness became worse. I was so red and so rough, and had clearly pissed my skin off in a bad way. So I spent a week or so covering myself in aloe vera gel and soothing moisturisers to calm it. I eventually discovered that what I needed was an acid toner to tackle these issues and not the exfoliators answer to a sand blaster. I completely went off scrubs after that and probably didn't even use one for about six months until I came across Oskia Microexfoliation Balm (review here), which is far more gentle on the skin.
Last January I was so excited to have found Marc Jacobs Love Marc Lipstick in Roll the Dice on the sales stand of Sephora Champs-Elysees for €8, instead of €29.50. I'm a huge Marc Jacobs Beauty fan, I have three of his brushes, a couple of lipsticks and an Air Blush and love them all except for this one (I did say in my post on my Favourite Make-up Brushes that I'm slightly disappointed by the blush brush, but I do still use it). This lipstick is a bright pink which is very me, the packaging is heavy and has a magentic closure, but I just don't like it. The colour looks odd on me and the formula is strange, it's greasy and doesn't apply opaquely. I've worn it a couple of times and regretted it every time I look in the mirror, there's just something off about it. On the other hand, one of my favourite nudes of all time is Marc Jacobs New Nudes Role Play, so this is by no means a bash of all MJ lipsticks.
 |
| Roll the Dice - I should LOVE this colour!😓😕 |
Last but not least is my most recent beauty failure and that goes to YSL The Shock Mascara. I first saw Sali Hughes rave about this in her column for The Guardian (you can find it here). She described it as basically false lashes in a tube, that it gave volume, length and a curl. What else can you ask for in a mascara?! I picked it up on FeelUnique for around €30 (cringe) and the first time I used it I was instantly annoyed and disappointed - the opening of the tube was too large, so no product was being scraped off the brush as you removed it - application was a clumpy MESS. I started scraping it off myself and trying to make it work that way, but every time it made my lashes clumpy and just awful so I ended up going to Kiko and picking up their Luxurious Lashes mascara at a purse-friendly €7/€8. The Shock also dried out after a month, which you would maybe expect from a budget mascara but not from one that costs 30 quid.
I also want to add Tarte Shape Tape to this list - you can see my review of it in my post Tarte Cosmetics Mini Haul.
So there it is - a list of my most memorable beauty buy fails. I'm sure there's more but these are the ones that stick out in my mind the most (probably because of the prices😓)
What are your most disappointing buys?
Have a great Sunday everyone!
A x
Doyouevencleanse Instagram, FaceBook and Twitter
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