My First (AND PROBABLY LAST) Dasbox for November 2014

Sooo... I got this package delivered to the office and when I opened it in the midst of all the Christmas packages I was a bit worried that I was beginning to order stuff in my sleep and forgetting about it. But it turned out to be my December Dashbox. 

For all of you beauties out there who have never heard of it, Dashbox is a Slovenian beauty box that promises to “deliver 5 luxury cosmetic products at your doorstep each month” for the price of 10 € per box and additional 2 or 3 € for shipping. I believe that you get some discount if you order for several months in advance and you also gather some Dashbox points that you can use in the online store. Get more info here http://www.dashbox.si/ - or not, whatever.         

     

Anyhow, the moment I opened it I was again like – what is this? And where are my 5 luxury cosmetics products? This is what I found inside. 

 

So let’s do a little recap, shall we? On the far bottom left, we have two 2ml Delarom whitening serum samples. Now this product OK and it really made a difference on my face in the 2 days I used it, but the full size is 54 € and I’m not really sure that it’s worth the money after just two uses. Pass.

Above it, we have a little L’Erbolario sample pack. There is no price value on this, but of course it is sold on the Dashbox online store. I have not yet used these nor am I very interested. Pass.

Right, we have the Greenland Fruit emotions 30 ml hand cream of apparent value of 5 €. Sure, it’s an OK hand cream deluxe sample, but it’s nothing special. And I would never pay that much for a hand cream. Pass.

Then we have the Pièce de résistance of this box, a set of imPRESS nails which is a set of 24 clip-on nails. Now I like the idea since this is something that many of us would like to try and really would not go out and buy, but come on, what is with the color? The last time I wore this kind of pink was in high school and I don't intend to ever wear it again. Since these nails also come in many other great colors, my wild guess would be that they just bought the color that was not selling in bulk for pennies. I am thinking of doing a first impression with these – is it something you'd be interested in?

Last, we have two little samples of Philip Martin's organic face cream, again with no value written on them, so basically it's zero value. It's an OK cream, but again I would not purchase a premium product (full size is 38 €) based on two uses. Pass.

So let's get it straight. When you promise me 5 products, I am expecting products. I got one product, one deluxe sample and 7 samplers (3x L'Erbolario, 2x Delarom, 2x Philip Martins) that I could get in any drugstore with my product. I have so many of such products I don't know where to start using them and I always demand to get at least 7 mini samples for the deluxe products to even start considering spending my money on it. I got 3 mini hand creams last week in L’Occitane just with a purchase of a regular body wash. Amirite or amirite, ladies? What did you think about the Dasbox, if you got it?

This box was a bust. Dasbox thanks, but no thanks. Get better or go fool someone else. The fact that I forgot to even take the box home with me for more than 3 weeks speaks volumes about how excited I was about the products.

Until next time, stay beautiful, stay awesome.

 

I Heart Makeup – I Heart passion palette review

I received this I Heart Makeup – I Heart passion palette a while ago from Licila.si but I was sort of saving it for when I had more time and more opportunities to create a bolder look. Some photos were taken a while back, so I must say that the palette doesn't look as nice anymore, but considering the pigmentation and the number of different shadows I could probably use this for years to come, if it doesn't go bad on me. 

The packaging is gorgeous – I have no other word for it despite the fact that I hate this particular description for just about anything. It's a shiny black palette with a single pink heart on top. BTW, the photo is from the internet, since it's impossible to shoot a good one without reflections. 

From the inside, the palette is absolutely fabulous and offers so many different options. The shades are very different from one another, but I am sad to report that as much as this variation is true for the colors, it is also true for the pigmentation. There are a couple of shadows in here that could as well be missing and as far as I am concerned, I wouldn't shed a single tear about it. On the other hand, we have quite a few colors that are crazy pigmented and quite unique: Dangerous Liaisons looks like something one could perhaps find a Naked 3 palette, and I also love the We are going home, Never Never and Catch your eye. By the way, I also like the names quite a lot, although many of them imply an unhappy romance. 

Anyway, this palette consists of 2 highlight shadows, 5 matte shadows and a whole bunch of shimmers, 10 to be exact. Here are the swatches, first the upper row. 

The first few colors are really nice and most are of reasonable pigmentation. Love is the drug is obviously a highlighter and I love the fact that it is bigger than the other shadows (as is also true for Easier Affair below) since we probably all use those highlighting shades up a bit faster than the others. The only shadow I am not too impressed about is the Rumba Down – it's a must-have shadow for many of us, but it is not pigmented at all – this swatch took about 5 swipes up and down. I appreciate the matte black shadow though  -this one is missing from many palettes I own.

 In the middle row, the only real disappointment is the first shadow – I Believe. It is almost identical to Rumba Down and it is also lacking in pigmentation. The same could be said for In my heart, but it would probably still look nice in the inner corner. Dangerous Liaisons and Takes Over look a bit similar in the photo, but the latter is actually a much colder shade. 

 In the bottom row, Missing a beat is actually quite similar to Dangerous Liaisons from the middle row, which is a shame. My favorite shade in this row is definitely the Catch your Eye, which is a nice emerald green but goes a bit bluish under a certain color. I appreciate an iridescent color when I see one and I was very impressed. 

The palette also has some pretty decent dupes for almost eight times more expensive Naked palette.

 

In all, I would say that this palette is definitely worth the money (it's currently only 6,95 € at Licila.si) since you'll be getting a ton of product for your money, but I could not create an everyday look with this palette so it's probably the not the best option if you are looking for your everyday go-to palette. It's lacking some basic colors for that purpose in my opinion. 

That's it for today, I hope you are all having a lovely weekend! Until next time, stay beautiful, stay awesome!

Products I regret buying – 2014 recap

It was a bountiful make-up year for me, as I already mentioned in my first recap regarding the best products of 2014. But everyone makes mistakes and I'm no exception to the rule. So without further ado, here are the products that disappointed me the most in 2014. Again, I'm trying to keep this short, but I will include the link to my previous reviews regarding these products, if I already wrote them. 

Let's start with face products. 

 

The L'Oreal Mat Magique foundation I already talked about here. It is supposed to be a really mattifying foundation but it only lasted a couple of hours on my face before it started melting away and my face got oily again. I've tried it since with several different primers and fixing fluids, to no success. 

All-around concealer by Catrice seemed like a good, inexpensive option for the days when I actually take the time to color correct my face before I apply foundation. I chose this particular palette because I thought that it would be a good learning tool, but I find that the product is really difficult to blend (with fingers, beauty blender or with brush) and cakes on my face where I apply it. 

Bahama Mama was a big, big disappointment because I've heard so many bloggers go on and on about how it's a great contouring bronzer. I somehow managed to make it work when I had some tan from summer (read about that here) but now I just look like I've been rolling in the mud every time I attempt to use it. I am afraid that it is not meant for us fair-skinned folk, unless you are going for the Kardashian look on an everyday basis. 

As far as eye shadows go, I made two rather unsuccessful purchases this year, but the one that really left me down was the Maybelline Nudes palette. 

You can find the entire review over here, but if you don't feel like reading it, let me just say that half of the shadows in the palette are so bland and have such low pigmentation that they are useless and the other half are nothing special, really. You can find better palettes at Essence, Barry M or BH Cosmetics for half the price. 

Another fun chapter was my eyebrows and lashes. The biggest flop of the year regarding my high expectation and the high price of the product was undoubtedly the Benefit They're real mascara. This mascara is so wet that it's impossible to apply without getting those spidery lashes and what's even worse – it's absolutely impossible to get off. Apparently, it comes with a special remover for this particular formula but I did not bother buying that so I could spend as long as 5 minutes rubbing the stuff off and still wake up next day with panda eyes. 

I was really disappointed with the e.l.f. primer and sealer because it is so dry that it is impossible to distribute in a normal manner on the eyelid. I have tried the fluid version of the e.l.f. primer and love it, though, so I would definitely recommend it. 

Another e.l.f. product that was not up my alley was the Eyebrow kit in #D36. It comes with a darker cream formulation and a lighter powder but none of these two really worked for my eyebrows and had almost no staying power. The story was quite different with the Rimmel Brow this way (001 – blonde) which was very pigmented (I am sorry, I know the swatch below looks like something pooped on my hand, but oh well, you get the picture) but the spoolie was SO incredibly large that it was impossible to maneuver normally around the eyebrow and not go over the edges about 10 times. I could probably use it with a brush but I just cannot be bothered with the mess. 

Two brushes that I already had a rant about are the e.l.f. professional bronzing brush (which does nothing professionally other than leave the bristles all over the place) and the Essence Smokey eye brush (which also sheds and leaves color). Fortunately, they cost next to nothing so I won't feel bad when I toss them in the trash. 

For nail polishes, I had a hard time choosing the biggest disappointment since there were quite a few this year, but I must say that the ones that probably left me most frustrated were the Make-up Revolution polishes below – you can see the swatches here.

This formula really is nothing to write home about – it's bland and doesn't apply evenly, but what is most frustrating to me is that I need three coats to make it presentable which inevitably means that I can expect chipping in 3,2,1… I will not purchase more polishes from this line although the colors are very beautiful and unique. 

Last but not least are the lip products. Again, I tried to bring it down to the ones that were absolutely unsatisfactory and leave out those which are just… meh. 

I Heart Makeup lip combo named Yesterday's favorite is a beautiful red matte lipstick on one side but it’s so matte that it cannot be worn without a lip gloss. I love the idea of the gloss on the other side (sort of a 2 for 1 deal and very practical indeed), but it contains so much shimmer that it would only be manageable for some sort of photo shoot or something, not for everyday wear. 

I’m not sure what I was thinking when purchasing the Rimmel Apocalips in Nude eclipse, but obviously I didn’t take enough time to really check out the swatches on internet. This color may be nude on someone’s lips, but I could as well use it as a concealer because it’s more skin-toned than anything else. Toss. 

Last up we have the Catrice Ultimate shine in 270 (What’s AP-ricote). The formula itself is nice, very soft and quite long lasting, but the color was just off for me – not pigmented enough to be orange, not light enough to be coral with orange tones – just a very unflattering color in all. 

What were your biggest disappointments of 2014? Let me know below!

Until next time, stay beautiful, stay awesome!