First off, let’s get things straight – Essence The Gel Top and Base Coat is NOT a gel product. Gel products have small plastic particles called monomers or oligomers, which link together and form a durable coating when a chemical called a photoinitiator is activated by light. There’s a full explanation of the gel polymerisation process here, but in short, …
You’ve heard of physical exfoliants and chemical exfoliants – now meet their less famous cousin, enzyme exfoliants! You’ll find them in a whole bunch of popular products, like Mario Badescu Enzyme Cleansing Gel, Jurlique Fruit Enzyme Exfoliator, MUAC Triple Enzyme Peel and DIY pumpkin, kiwi, papaya or pineapple masks. What’s an exfoliant? If you need a refresher, an exfoliant is …
Physicians Formula has a giant range of blushes, and they’ve just launched a bunch more here in Australia. Here are some of the new ones that I’ve been trying out: Physicians Formula Powder Palette Multi-Colored Custom Blush There are two baked blushes in the Powder Palette Bombshell collection – Blondes and Brunettes ($21.95). Blondes is a cool toned pink with …
Chia seeds are worming their way into everything (it’s the glitter of the health food world!), so it’s no surprise that it’s made its way into skincare, in the form of chia seed oil (turns out those tiny dark specks have oil in them – who knew?). Chia seed oil is a bit special in the world of skincare oils …
Since Sephora opened in Australia, I’ve finally been able to see so many fabled products in person, including the Kat Von D range. I’m reviewing the new Shade + Light Eye Palette today – it’s $46 USD in the US and $65 AUD here, which isn’t much of a mark-up at all ($46 USD = $58.8 AUD at the moment). …
eos lip balms are one of those products that everyone seems to own (in the US anyway), so I was excited to finally try them out. In Australia, you can pick them up from online or from Costco (Kaz picked some up for me), and they cost about $3-7 each depending on the flavour and how you got them. What’s …
I’ve always been a fan of the brown/rose/mauve family of lipsticks, so when I got my hot little hands on the much-loved MAC Twig, I wasn’t surprised when I loved it. Then I realised that I had an embarrassing number of lipsticks in my collection in the same colour family…so why not do a swatch comparison post? (This is only …
Foundation is always a bit of a struggle for me – as someone with combination skin, sometimes it’s just easier not to try. I’ve recently had the chance to road-test two foundations tailored for oily skin, and I was pleasantly surprised! Here’s what I thought of them. Elizabeth Arden Flawless Finish Perfectly Satin 24HR Makeup SPF 15 PA++ ($50 for …