Balea Shaving Gel "Summertime" (Mango Smell) Review.

Hello! Happy new year! I hope you are doing great! Today I'm going to talk to you about a Shaving Gel from Balea company (company that is sold in DM stores).

Now I usually use my boyfriend's shaving gel because... well it works well, it doesn't irritate and it's always in hand in the house but I was passing by a DM store like 2 weeks ago and I am always tempted to enter them so I did.
They had some shaving gels on sale and I wanted to be all fancy like and have my own "girly" shaving gel so I picked up the Mango smelling one.

Comes in a classic shaving gel's tube of 150ml and the gel itself is blue turning into a white foam when you apply it on the skin, ordinary stuff.

What the product promises:

"The soothing feeling smoother and softer skin, rounded by the fresh and fruity mango scent that delights the senses. The rich moisturizer moisturizing formula pampers the skin during shaving."

What I think:

The positive thing I've to say about this gel is that....it smells nice. Unfortunately that is the ONLY positive thing about it. 

It doesn't make the skin at all smoother, it doesn't feel moisturizing and it doesn't pamper you during shaving. On the contrary, the skin feels quite aweful and dry while shaving, it doesn't "prepare" the skin or the hairs for shaving like other gels do and the shaving becomes hard like you shave your legs dry basically. It actually makes the skin so dry and rough that I even managed to cut myself in a lot of spots with a protective razor (mach 3) and I have NEVER managed to cut myself with this razor before. After the shave obviously, the skin feels super irritated, red, itchy and painful. I even tried applying a ridiculously big amount of it with the hope that it will be better but it made no difference whatsoever.

Basically I don't even think I will finish up this product since it was so terrible for me, I might give it to someone but I'm sceptical I wouldn't want anyone to end up with irritated and cut skin, Bad job Balea.

This is probably one of the worst products I've tried in a long time, that will teach me to stick to my boyfriends trusted shaving gel! Cheers :)

My grade for it:

Merry Christmas! - 100th Post, New Hair AND Makeup Tutorial!

Hello my dears! First I would like to wish you Merry Christmas/Happy Hanukkah/Happy Holidays or Happy anything that you celebrate!

I took a breath those last days and rested since I had caught a heavy cold (the charm of Romanian weather) but I wanted to make a post today. I also recorded a makeup tutorial (speed-tutorial basically) without voice over just so anyone can watch it. I also dyed my hair dark lol.

So here is my video and list of products (I know a lot of them might come from companies you don't have access to but you can always improvise with what you have like I do :) )

FACE:
Catrice "BB allround foundation" no. 020 & 030
Rimmel "Wake me up" concealer "Ivory"
Avon Eyeshadow Base (used as a corrector)
Bobbi Brow "Sheer Finish Pressed Powder" no. 07 White
Benefit "Hoola" Bronzing Powder
P2 "Powder and Blush Duo" no. 010 Beaute (from their "Beauty Stories limited edition")
MAC "Mineralize Skin Finish" in "Soft and Gentle"

EYES:
Essence "I <3 Stage" Eyeshadow Base
Maybelline "24hour Color Tattoo" no.35 On and on bronze
Maybelline "24hour Color Tattoo" no.65 Pink gold
Andriana Karembeu "The Flash" no.003 (The fuchsia pigment)
Seventeen Cosmetics "Sparkling Eye Shadow" no. 02 Rose (the rosey copper pigment)
Golden Rose "Terracotta Eyeshadow" no.107 (the berry rose color at the crease)
Leish pigment no. 73 (from ebay, the gold pigment on the inner corner of the eye)
Chanel Eyeshadow in "Premier Or" on the inner corner near tear duct
ArtDeco "Baked Eyeshadow" no.345 on lower lash line (out of the frame)
Essence "All about Nude" eyeshadow palette (cream pink color on crease and lower lash line, sparkling silver under brow and the dark burgundy on the lower lash line at outer corner)
Erre Due "Silky Eye Pencil" no.27 (the gold pencil on water line)
Erre Due "Silky Eye Pencil" no.23 (the light pink pencil on water line)
Manhattan Eyeliner 12.1 (the purple/pink pencil on lash line)
MAC "Fluidline" in Blacktrack
Rimmel "ScandalEyes Waterproof Kohl" no.001 Black (upper water line)
Kallos Love "Perfect Volumizing Mascara"

BROWS:
Maybelline "24hour Color Tattoo" no.40 Permanent Taupe

I let the lips free with lip balm!
Enjoy!

Lots of love,
xo Heliana xo

"Take a peek at my vanity" Series - No.1 - "Your Cupcake" Essence eyeshadow palette.

Hello! How are you? Excited that the holidays are so close? I bet you are and I am too! Finally I will get some rest! I haven't had almost AT ALL free time these past 2 months! I wanted to write so many posts but I just didn't have the time to stay down for half an hour and write, so crazy! SO!

I decided to make a sort of post series with the title "Take a peek at my vanity" in  which I will basically present to you items from my collection telling you a few words about them, swatch them for you etc just for entertainment. I will make such posts once in a while usually about items that I have a long time and I didn't review them or they might have been limited edition or who knows :D

In this post, as the title says I'm gonna write about a limited edition (as far as I know) eyeshadow palette from Essence, called "Your Cupcake". Now I have to mention I am terribly confused about the availability of this palette as I knew that it was a limited edition palette back in 2012, however, I got it as a gift from my friend from Germany this year in 2014 so I'm not sure what is the deal. I read somewhere that at first this was only bought by points if you belonged at the Essence club and then they released it again as a summer edition but I don't know for sure, I'll try to get some more information from my friend and let you know.

Another bizarre thing about this palette is that the old reviews about it (back in 2012) say that the bright colors of this palette are not very strong and they fade fast and the swatches I had seen were indeed very powdery and weak but the colors in my palette are amazing, the swatch beautifully, they are pigmented, easy to blend and with great durability on the lid, so maybe they really re-released them and maybe re-formulated the shadows? NO IDEA! But enough blubbering, let me show you the palette...

This is what the palette looks like. The concept is very similar to the old Urban Decay palette "Alice in Wonderland". It is cardboard with a lid that holds a mirror and some 3D cardboard figures popping out (sort of tokidoki copies) and then there is a drawer that you pull out and there are the eyeshadows along with brushes and cream liners.

As you can see, the palette contains 12 eyeshadows, 2 brushes and 2 cream eyeliners.

Brushes: One is an eyeshadow brush (green) which is very soft and just an okay brush for applying eyeshadows. The other is an angled eyeliner brush (purple) which is not particularly practical for liner application, I find it too soft and slightly hard to control.

The eyeliners are decent, not hard to work with, the intensity is good, they are not waterproof but they last pretty well!

Let's talk about the shadows!

01: Off white almost silver, shimmery

02: Shimmery gold/champagne 

03: Flesh toned beige/orange with a velvet finish

04: light blue almost petrol color, finish is almost matte

05: turquoise shimmery

06: medium warm brown with gold tones, shimmery

07: white-blue, velvet finish

08: forest green, matte

09: dark warm brown, matte

10: baby pink, velvet finish

11: deep purple, matte

12: vibrant teal, matte

13 & 14 are the liners, 13 is a dark brown/black and 14 is gray. 

The shadows have to be applied with a primer otherwise they are not gonna show their true colors in any case. Some of them can be pretty powdery (the matte,velvety ones) but with a primer there is no problem whatsoever (at least for me). Even though they are somewhat powdery I didn't have problems with fallout (in any case I usually apply my eye makeup first and then face). They also last pretty long, I use the "I love stage" eyeshadow primer, also by Essence. I will now show you the difference on the intensity of the colors between using primer and not.

Excuse the silly face. In this look I used nr.10 and nr.8 WITHOUT a primer. As you can see the colors show but they are not super intense and you can see my skin color coming off through them.

For this look I used nr.12 and nr.9 WITH a primer (I love Stage eyeshadow primer from Essence) and you can see that the colors show way more intense and needless to say they lasted all day even after I had sweated!

Overall I ADORE this palette. To be honest when I first told my friend to look it up for me and I saw swatches from people on other blogs I thought I made a mistake wanting this but paired up with an eye primer these eyeshadows rock and I actually got a lot of compliments using this palette. I don't know if it's still available, my information about this palette is really limited and I apologize, but if you somehow can get your hands of it grab it, I can easily say it is one of my favorite palettes to use, it has so many colors that you can create tons of different looks and the quality is pretty nice.

Do you have this palette? What are your favorite palettes to use?

As always take care, especially now in the winter!

Much love!

xo Heliana xo

Maybelline's "The Rocket" Volume Express Mascara REreview!

Hello my dears! So you probably remember that I have already done a review for this mascara about 3 months ago? And the truth is I might have been a bit too cruel to my old review. I don't remember for how long I had been using it back then before I made that review but obviously now I have been using it for a much longer period of time and my opinion has changed totally for this mascara.

First of all, what contributed a lot to my first negative review was the fact that it has a plastic wand which is very susceptible to accidents "poke your freaking eyeball, don't laugh it happens" so I was scared to use it too close to the lash line. Once I started being more careful I was able to apply it better without any problems and that helped me see better results as to what this mascara can do for the lashes.

So here are my eyeballs with lots of makeup and the mascara applied on:

Now, as usual, I can't say whether a mascara gives length or not to the lashes because my lashes are very long but I CAN say whether it gives volume or not because I  have sparse lashes and they are also blonde so they are barely visible if i don't wear mascara. Forgetting for a second the lower part of my lashes because of the eyeliner (it might make it hard to see the results) but even at the length of the lashes you can definitely see that it actually gives amazing volume and great separation! The more I got to use this mascara, the more it grew on me and I can actually say that from disliking it, I now LOVE it! 

That plastic wand that I first was frustrated with actually grabs my lashes so nicely, even those smallies which is so weird because some of the bristles are so short that they are almost not visible but they do work really well!

It still is relatively hard to remove but I'm trying to be more patient when taking my makeup off, letting the cotton pad on my lid so that the remover will soak my lashes so I won't have to rub the crap out of them and rip them off. 

I've also notice like every single Maybelline mascara, that their formula changes in time and that also gives greater results. For some reason when I first got this mascara it was hard to work with but after a while it was possible to play more with it and being able to apply more coats. Btw on the photo I have 2 coats on and not generously put since my mascara is at its end.

Having used this mascara almost until its last drop I now have a more complete opinion about it and I have to say that I was wrong at my first review. I will let my first review up for a little while if you are interested to see it but in the future I will take it down since it doesn't do justice to the product. This mascara is now one of my top 5, believe it or not! I will definitely repurchase it.

I hope you found my review helpful, I promise to you and to myself to give more time to new products before I review them so I will see their full potential (I usually review them after a long time anyway but it seems like I needed more time on this particular product).

Anyways, as always, take care and I'll talk to you later gators! ;)

xo Heliana xo

My problem with the "Join this site" gadget.

Hi guys! How are you? I am AGAIN getting a bit cold so I am trying hard to resist it :P
I wanted to make a super quick post to let you know that the reason that I didn't have the "Join this site" choice on my blog all this time is that since google plus, my blog was very messed up with the options and for some reason it was just refusing to install it.

I wanna thank everyone that gets my updates from google plus and now I finally have the gadget on after I tried some technicalities. So please join my blog and do leave me comment if it's not working again :P.

I will be back with more posts soon!

Much Love!
xo Heliana xo 

p2 Cosmetics - 18 Eyeshadow Palette Review and Swatches.

Hello there! I hope you're having a great weekend! I caught a stupid cold but other than that I am okay :P. Yesterday I watched the Maleficent movie and I adored it, I love how they altered the story from the fairy tale and Angelina was pretty badass as Maleficent! :D And her makeup up was pretty excellent too!

Anyway, to get to the point of this post today I will swatch for you the eyeshadow palette from p2 cosmetics. P2 is an Austrian brand that is also sold in Germany at the DM stores (as far as I know, if I am mistaken then my friend should correct me). It is a drugstore company that has all the certificates for their products' safety and they are dermatologically tested. They have a huge range of products, from foundations to nail polishes. From my personal experience every product I've tried so far was satisfying and of great quality especially for the low prices that they have. In fact, p2 is one of the VERY few companies that has foundations that don't flare up my skin and that, to me, means a lot since my skin is super sensitive to foundations and creams. To make a long story short, until now that I got this palette I hadn't tried their eyeshadows so I didn't know what to expect. 

If I'm not mistaken this palette was a limited edition but fortunately my friend made sure she got it for me to try it :). As mentioned on the title, this palette has 18 shadows of 1.2 grams and of various finishes.

The palette itself as a container is of the classic plastic black ones with a firm closing section, little hard to open, sort of like the Sleek makeup palettes (if you have one, you'll know what I mean).

As for the eyeshadows I should try to explain each of them individually starting from up left moving to the right and then going to the line down and so on.

01: pale pink, matte texture with fine and very sparse glitter, it basically comes out as matte.

02: goldish, definitely super shimmery.

03: frosty pastel mint green, shimmery, pretty weak color payoff, the least pigmented in the palette.

04: icy light blue, shimmery.

05: orange toned brown, shimmery

06: pinkish red, it looks shimmery in the pot but applied it looks to me like a matte with fine glitter

07: olive green, shimmery

08: turquoise/teal, super shimmery

09: medium warm brown, matte

10: orange with somewhat gold shimmer

11: pale lilac, matte, the second weak from the palette

12: teal green, shimmery

13: sea foam blue, frost, not very strong either

14: dark cool toned brown, matte with some glitter

15: warm brown, matte

16: purple, slightly frosty

17: olive green, shimmery

18: navy blue, somewhat frosty 

Here are the swatches in 3 different light conditions:

In general, the shadows perform better with a primer or a sticky base to show a good color payoff. Most of them swatched well on a base except probably 02, 03 and 11. 

They are pretty blendable and you can create a LOT of different looks. Overall I am pretty happy with it. I believe you get a pretty good value of this palette as a color variety and quantity per shadow and price ratio. My only complain is that the brand doesn't sell internationally so we would all be able to grab these goodies whenever we want! :) I pretty much adore p2 cosmetics, they are definitely my favorite drugstore brand. :) 

Here is my review on one of their foundations if you are interested: p2 foundation review

That is all for now, I will try to come back soon with other reviews and I also need to wrap up my summer haul, no? :) don't worry I have them all written down even if it goes till December. :P Ahahah

Take care!

xo Heliana xo

Benefit "They're Real!" Mascara Review (and video in Greek).

Hello to all! I hope you are doing well! I'm trying to keep up with my posts and even videos. I have to manage to think of something to upload vids both in Greek and in English but I still haven't figure out my plan. We'll see.

So, as the title says, today I will tell you my opinion about Benefit's mascara "They're Real!". From a quick online research I found out that on Benefit's site it's sold for 23 dollars, around 22 euro at Sephora in Greece and around the same in Sephora in Romania (I will get back to you about the last one). The normal tube has 8.5 grams of product, I believe. Mine is a deluxe sample that has around 3 grams of product and was inside "The Bronze of Champions" that I showed you here.

The wand is plastic as well as the bristles (which is not my favorite kind) with a sort of constant size (slightly decreasing towards the end) ending in a "spherical" shape. All over the applicator the bristles alternate to short and long ones.

The formula of the mascara is dry which I prefer to the wet formulas. It's pretty easy to apply  but not very easy to apply multiple coats because it makes the lashes too stiff. It does give a pretty curve on the lashes and some volume but nothing too extreme. It also separates the lashes in a nice way but only for the first coat, after that it starts clumping up.

Pros:

Easy application

Nice formula

Gives separation

Gives a nice curve to the lashes

Cons: 

Not to easy to apply multiple coats

Can clump up

Relatively Pricey

- Overall, do you like this product?

- Kind of.

- Do you recommend it?

- Maybe.

- Would you (re)purchase it?

- Probably not. I believe there are better mascaras for a smaller price out there but I will enjoy it if it comes in other sets that I might buy in the future,

My rate:

source of "B+" image

For my Greek readers, here is the video/review/demo:

Have YOU tried this mascara? What's your opinion? Let me know:)