Project Pan Round 1 - Update #4

Unfortunately I have not been able to finish many items this month but I haven't bought any new items either :D Well, I did buy a large bottle of Jergen's Ultra Healing lotion but that was pretty much a necessity because my skin was extremely dry and itchy last week and I had a $1 coupon. I bought the large bottle for only $4 so I do not see that as a major (or even minor) violation of my Project 15 Pan :) I might do a review on that lotion since it's the first time I'm trying it out and I do like it so far. But overall, I have been extremely good at not spending money this whole month on anything unnecessary.

Bath & Body Works Moonlight Path Shower Gel -- Counts as 1/2
I liked this scent but I will not repurchase this product because the ingredients are pretty much what you'll find at the drugstore but with marked up prices. I'm trying to find more ingredient-friendly products to use (i.e. little/no sulphates, parabens, etc.) I have two more bottles of these shower gels that I purchased last year to use up as well :(

Lush Items From First Haul (HERE) -- Counts as 2
3 Massage Bars (Strawberry Feels Forever, Once a Year, Soft Coeur) and Sugar Babe Scrub
I used up all the goodies I bought during my first trip to Lush a month ago with the exception of an extra Once a Year which I gave to my mom. I reviewed the products separately so you can backtrack and read my opinions on each of the products. Sugar Babe was definitely my favorite product out of everything and I will definitely buy more Lush scrubs in the future. The massage bars were good for moisturizing but I will probably buy different scents next time since none of these were must haves for me. As for lotions I still have The Body Shop's Lemon Body Butter, the Jergen's Ultra Healing lotion, and one last tube of Bath & Body Works' Cucumber Melon. I cannot purchase from Lush until I finish my Project 15 Pan.

Urban Decay 24/7 Eyeliner (mini) -- Counts as 1/2 
I've had this liner for more than a year and although it already started off as a small liner, it has stuck it out in my collection for very long. Originally I was going to count the eyeliner as one whole product since it lasted a very very long time but  because I have broken ban a few times, I'll count it as only half a product. I do like this eyeliner and have two slightly bigger but not full size ones from the Book of Shadows (II and III). This does not last the whole day (12 hours+) on my eyelids without smudging unless I set it with black shadow but I do not mind that step since I like to go over my pencil liner with an angled liner brush anyway. I highly recommend Urban Decay 24/7 Eyeliners! They last so long and have a perfect consistency, not too soft yet super smooth. I still have a ton of black eyeliner to go so I will not need to buy any for awhile. I also tried a new (to me) drugstore eyeliner which I'm really loving so I'll need to do a post on that!

All in all, I have completely finished three products this month, making my total count 10 products out of the way! 

I have a few products which are almost at the end of their lifespans so hopefully by next month or the month after, I'll have more to add to my list :D My huge bottle of Clinique's Clarifying Lotion 2 is almost done and I got the one for dry combination skin last winter despite having oily skin for most of the year. I really want to use this up before the weather gets too hot because I can only use it for the colder months. This worked somewhat as an exfoliator, as it claims to be, I will not repurchase this because it is the wrong formula for my skin. Also it has a high alcohol content which can irritate the skin. I do not think products with high alcohol content are beneficial to skin, especially problematic, acne-prone skin like mine. This gigantic bottle will count as a whole product.

The Clinique Dramatically Different Moisturizing Lotion has about a third of product left which will last me a few more months. I have been using this nightly as my night lotion and sometimes in the day if my face is particularly dry. It is nice for dry skin but again, I do not see this working for my oily skin in the spring and summer so I will not be repurchasing. I want to try out other brands and products instead of repurchasing products that only worked okay on my skin. When this is all gone it will also count as a whole product :)

I already have a list of skincare items I want to try out from a number of brands so in a few months I will have a lot of skincare hauls and reviews to show you guys :D I have two travel sets of The Body Shop's Seaweed Line to be used. One set will replace my Clinique products when I finish them or when my skin is oilier. I have been testing out some of those products already but I want to use them consistently before I review them. If those products work out, I will be saving the other set for the summer when I go on vacation. I may break my ban next week to pick up some masks and miscellaneous Asian skincare items but I have been very good lately and my skin needs some loving :) The whole point of this project was to use up some makeup but I mostly finished skincare and bodycare items :/

I WILL BE DOING A GIVEAWAY when my Project 15 Pan is over :) It will be a very small giveaway to thank my subscribers so watch out for that!

Bath and Body Works February Freebies :)

No, I didn't break my ban and haul :P This past Thursday I headed to my local Bath & Body Works hoping I would be able to use my Membership Card (I talked more about it HERE) to redeem my freebies for the month of February. The freebies for this month were travel sizes of their body spray, body lotion, and shower gel. You can always choose your own scents as far as the last two gifts have shown. I really enjoy my Moonlight Path Body Spray but the bottle is so big that it will take me years to use it all up. I decided to try a new scent that reminded me of spring and warmer weather, Vanilla Apricot. I am not a huge fan of Bath & Body Works lotions or shower gels in general since they are made from pretty much the same ingredients as drugstore products but marked at much higher prices. But since the products were free, I picked up a shower gel in their new fragrance called Carried Away. I also got a Moonlight Path body lotion just because I like the fragrance :)

I realize I should probably not wait until the last week to claim my gift so I can report to you guys on what the month's freebies are. I'll be heading back to get my March freebies on the first week so those of you with the cards will know what to expect!

My receipt! Don't you wish all your receipts looked like that? On a side note, New York City sales tax is ridiculous :( Hope all of you that had a chance to register for these awesome deals got your February gifts :D

Drugstore Foundation Samples: Did You Get Yours?

During the past couple of days I've been getting some samples in the mail which I requested long ago. I just want to do a little post showing you guys the samples for Covergirl's Natureluxe Foundation and Maybelline's Fit Me Foundation, two new and much talked about products sweeping the nation.

Walmart occasionally gives away samples (free of charge!) to anyone who signs up and recently they had samples of the new Covergirl Natureluxe Foundation. I requested this sample several weeks ago so the offer is not available anymore unfortunately. I've heard pretty awesome reviews on this foundation so I'm excited to see how this works. I expected the sample to be the peel-off type where they have all the shades but only a tiny amount of each which allows you to find your correct shade.

Surprise! They actually inlcuded two sachets of the foundation which should be enough for an entire application. Unfortunately the shades are pre-chosen based on what Covergirl predicts to be the most popular colors I guess. This will probably be an issue for many people but at least you get a good amount of product to test out in terms of texture, finish, etc. I think the lighter shade in the sample, 320 Aspen, could possibly work on my skin. The darker shade, 340 Maple, might also work when my skin is darker towards the summertime.

On the back of the sample placard, they give you a list of all the shades available. They also included TWO coupons off the Natureluxe line, $1 off one product or $3 off two. They do not expire until the end of the year so I have plenty of time to wait for a good deal to use these :D On a semi-unrelated note, the material of the paper they printed the card on is really nice. Something about smooth, high-quality samples makes me have more confidence in the company and their customer service. Thumbs up to Covergirl!

I like how Target puts the name of the brand of the sample on the front of their envelope. I request a lot of free samples from many companies and they take quite a while to arrive so I usually forget what I had requested by the time it comes.

Maybelline also has a nice placard made of sturdy paper. The graphics are nice and the overall sample is very professional. The promotional ads for the Fit Me line remind me a lot of Gap ads for some reason.

You also receive a $1 off coupon for any Fit Me product which is nice, but not as good as the two Covergirl coupons. This coupon also expires at the end of the year so I have plenty of time to use it.

This is where the two samples differed the most, when it came down to the actual samples. This is how I expected the Covergirl samples to look, peel off tabbies of every shade in the line. I do like this method of sampling since it gives you a full spectrum of the line and it makes it super easy to find your color match. If your skin tone changes throughout the year this is also very helpful. In my case, I can be a variety of skin colors depending on the season and how much I'm in or out of the sun so this is really nice for my constantly changing color. However, you do not get much of each shade so you cannot test the foundation for wear or anything like that. That is where the Covergirl sample has the upperhand. But overall, I am very pleased with both samples and I'm very glad I snatched both of them up before they were out of stock :)

Did you guys request these samples? If you did, have you received yours yet? I won't be trying the samples out for awhile (since I'm not in the market for a foundation at the moment) but I'd love to hear what you guys think about the foundation if you've tried it!

Finally, A Lipgloss I Love

As you can probably tell from my lipstick collection post I did recently, I am not a huge fan of lip products in general and I usually do not spend much of my makeup budget on them. Well, thanks to Too Faced Glamour Gloss, my perception of lipglosses and lip colors has changed.

The shade I have is Pillow Talk and I received it in the Too Faced Enchanted Glamourland Palette. It is a nude pink with fine shimmers in it which is perfect for a nude lip lover like myself. It is quite a basic color but the opacity, texture, and feel of this gloss is what makes it my favorite gloss in my collection (so far!).

I also like that it comes with a brush applicator as opposed to a typical doe-foot applicator because it smooths out the color really well on my lips. The brush came frayed when I first opened it but after a few uses it has reformed its shape a bit. The tip dispenses just the right amount for one application and a little gloss goes a long way.

The color is milky and opaque with just a few swipes, making the lips appear lush and plump. You can see how this looks on my lips HERE. The gloss is infused with Lip Injection which is supposed to volumize the lips. I'm not sure how much volume it really adds but the sensation it gives my lips is AMAZING. Aside from the color, the cool refreshing feeling this imparts on the lips is my favorite aspect about this gloss. About five seconds after application, your lips will feel extremely cool and wet but comfortable at the same time. This feeling actually lasts for quite a while, possibly half an hour or more, which I happen to like. This gloss hangs onto the lips for a few hours and does not become sticky or tacky. It also leaves my lips without a trace of dryness or irritation which I am very thankful for.

Also, it gets points for the cute design! Amongst my tiny lipgloss collection, this is my favorite product thus far. This product (and Revlon's Lilac Pastelle) has reminded me how nice quality lip products can be and it has given me more hope in finding more lipsticks and glosses that I will love. I want to branch out and try more higher end glosses because in my experience, they have fared better on my lips.

Too Faced Glamour Gloss retails for $19 and you can purchase it at Sephora or Toofaced.com. It is a bit pricey for not a whole lot of product but it is a higher-end product. According to Temptalia's calculations, the price per ounce of this gloss is actually higher than glosses from Mac, Benefit, Chanel, Guerlain, and YSL though. There are twelve shades to choose from and I have my eyes on Barely Legal, First Time, Plush, and a few others (but the price is stopping me). Too Faced likes to include these glosses in some of their gift sets so be sure to check those out! Barely Legal is featured in their Look of Love Set which is $45 and comes with a bunch of other goodies which makes it a much better deal. I highly recommend these glosses and I'm surprised I have not heard many reviews on these before :)

The Body Shop No-Nos

I'm all about beautiful, polished skin but The Body Shop's facial buffer ($6) and facial brush ($3) are not the answer. I was gifted these two products along with the Seaweed Skincare Starter Set from my mother's friend and I was excited to try these out as exfoliating is key to achieving luminous, healthy skin.

Both of these accessories are supposed to be used with your normal facial cleanser to slough away dead skin and impurities, leaving gorgeous skin. However, I could not tell if these claims were even true because I could not bear to use these on my skin. They were just too harsh!

The buffer is extremely scratchy even when wet thoroughly. I squeezed a bit of cleanser into the mesh material and lathered it well into my hand to create a nice foam. It pretty much works like a loofah and creates some pretty great suds to get into your pores. However, as soon as I gently applied the buffer onto my face, I could feel the irritation it caused me. Even brushing the sponge over my arms was quite harsh so I binned it due to my frustrating experience. My friend was also given the buffer by the same auntie and she also mentioned to me how it was very harsh on her skin. Surprisingly, this got a 5.0 out of 5.0 review on Makeup Alley and when I googled the product, I saw many rave reviews.... Shocking.

As for the brush, it is more gentle than the buffer and it also comes with a cute little cap (not pictured). Although this is also way too harsh for my face, I keep this in the shower if I feel like exfoliating dry parts of my body. This can also be quite harsh on my arms and stomach area but it works well on elbows and knees. This is not worth purchasing in my opinion and I would rather purchase a body scrub with moisturizing properties.

I do like some products from The Body Shop but these two are definite misses in my book. For some reason these products seem to work very well for others. If you are curious you should go to the store and feel these products for yourself to see if you can use them.

Tiny Pink Lipstick Collection

Although I consider myself quit an addict when purchasing makeup, it may suprise you that I only have four lipsticks in my whole collection. That's right, FOUR! This post will feature three out of the four which are my pink lipsticks (the fourth is Soft Nude by Revlon). From left to right are Maybelline's Pink Please, Revlon's Twinkled Pink, and Revlon's Pink Pout. Pink 

Pout has been in my collection for over a year because it got very high reviews by many bloggers and Youtubers. However, it is matte which tends to be a bit drying on my lips so I definitely need to top this off with a gloss. It has a purple, cool undertone which I think looks nicer on fairer skintones.

I purchased Twinkled Pink about a year ago and it is a coral leaning pink. It's showing up as a full blown orange in the picture for some reason. It shows up as a light frosty pink with a strong yellow, orange undertone on my lips. I would like this lipstick more if it was not a Pearl finish which means it has shimmer and frost throughout the tube. Topping this with a gloss helps tone down the frost which makes it more wearable for me. It does not feel gritty though and is actually quite comfortable on the lips so if you like frosty lip colors I would recommend this.

Maybelline's Pink Please is my most recent lipstick that has been added to my collection (though my lip collection rarely grows) and it is a cream midtone pink. I talked about this before a few months ago in a favorites and haul post. I picked this up after I heard all the raves about this particular shade from the Maybelline Color Sensational Line. It is a nice color and it applies well. I like the cream finish and I can definitely see why so many people like this pink. It looks a bit darker in the tube than it applies so be wary of that. This is great for girls going for a creamy baby pink lip. This complaint does not have to do anything with this shade but the whole Color Sensational line is not wrapped in safety seal so the lipsticks are always opened and tested which makes it really difficult to find a clean, unused lippie to purchase. I've come across many nice colors that were used and abused which deterred me from purchasing.

These are the swatches on my hand in bad lighting :( I tried to edit the colors to make them appear more true to color. You can see how matte Pink Pout is as well as the frost in Twinkled Pink. Pink Please actually looks more glossy but the light did not hit on it at this angle.

Hope this post was helpful to somebody out there :) My lipstick collection is extremely small and I hope to expand it soon. To be honest, I rarely wear lipstick so I guess that explains why my collection is so tiny. I also tend to gravitate towards lighter pinks, corals, and nudes. I've been pretty into lipgloss lately though and I hope to expand that collection as well ^^

My First Awards :D

Recently I've been tagged by four lovely bloggers for the Versatile Blogger Award and Stylish Blogger Award. Clarissa, ndoodles, and Steph awarded me with the Versatile Blogger Award and Lenna awarded me with the Stylish Blogger Award. Thanks girls :D I originally started my blog just to ramble about my beauty obsessions and random life events but it is a nice bonus to have supportive readers.

The Rules (pretty much the same for both awards so I'll only do this post once)

• Share the link to the person who gave you the award
• Choose 3-5 blogs you would like to give the award to and link them as well
• Leave a message on their blog to let them know

Guidelines:

• Thank the person who gave you the award and link back to them in your post!
• Tell us 7 things about yourself.
• Award 10 other bloggers. (er, doesn't this contradict the second point under the Rules section...)
• Contact these bloggers and let them know they’ve received the award(s)

 Hm, seven things about myself... where shall I begin?

1. I'm an only child :)
2. I used to be a very hyper and energetic kid but as I got older I became less and less playful. I rarely exercise now but I try to encourage myself to be more proactive about my health :(
3. I was in my highschool's golf team during my junior and senior years. My dad loves golf so he taught me how to play when I was younger. I never got really good but being on the team helped a lot and I was somewhat decent at one point. But after the season ended I have not picked up a golf club since :/
4. One of my new favorite foods are $1 meat kebabs from street vendors ^^ I especially like chicken kebabs but lamb is quite tasty too :)
5. I enjoy looking at the latest fashion trends but most of the time I cannot find the courage (and money) to rock the latest styles. I tend to gravitate towards safe neutrals and comfortable clothing. I hope to be more outgoing when the weather becomes warmer since the icy cold weather we've been having lately just makes me want to pile on the hoodies and sweats.
6. Speaking of sweats, I actually rarely wear sweat pants and I only have one pair that sort of fits me :/
7. I really want to try a red lipstick just to see how it would look :) It would probably be something I rarely wear to go outside but I really want to branch out of my comfort zone and try more lip colors.

Many of the bloggers I read have probably been tagged already so I'll just nominate a few ^^ Oh, and these are for whichever award you gals want to choose haha... I don't think there's a huge difference but I guess you can just pick one ^^

JUSTINE
PANG
WENDY
MEIBELLE
CITRINE

There are so many more bloggers who are amazing but these are just a few who have been popping up on my subscription box a lot lately :)