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Welcome!

This is a blog I've created as an outlet for not only my passion for beauty, books, movies and T.V., but also for writing. I love to write, and I don't ever want to be tied to one style. On a blog you can express yourself however you see fit and that's exactly what I intend to do here! 

Check out my most recent posts below! 

Review - Clinique Dramatically Different Moisturising Lotion+

Last year I tried out the Clinque Dramatically Different Moisturizing Gel and really liked it. Back then my skin was transitioning from oily to dry, and after a while I wasn’t able to use it because it wasn’t hydrating enough. I moved on to other moisturisers and kind of forgot about it. Then a few weeks ago when I used up the last of the moisturiser I was using I decided to give the Dramatically Different Moisturizing Lotion+ a go.

It’s a very light consistency, quite unlike most other lotions I’ve tried recently. I like this because it’s easier to apply makeup over a light moisturiser than a thick one. Actually the consistency isn’t too different from the gel, it’s only slightly thicker. It spreads easily and does give a decent amount of hydration. It doesn’t have a terrible scent, it just smells like normal Clinique products. Honestly, that’s the most I can really say for it though. I haven’t noticed it doing all that much for my skin. It hasn’t irritated it or anything, but it also hasn’t improved it in any way.

It’s really just kind of blah. Sure it hydrates somewhat, but you expect something called ‘Dramatically Different’ to do something a bit more than just simple hydration. Especially for the price. The small 50ml tube costs $29. I’ve used other moisturisers that have hydrated and done other things like brighten and smooth. The Aveeno Daily Moisturiser, for example, was one I found to be more effective than this one and it’s $20 for more than double the product.

When I had oily skin and was using the Gel formula of this product I noticed a great difference in my skin. It got less oily through the day and makeup lasted longer. Apart from the fact that it’s a lotion, I don’t know why this one is so much less impressive. I was hoping that this one would counteract the dry patchiness I sometimes get around my chin throughout the day, but it really hasn’t changed it at all.

This isn’t a terrible product by any stretch, but it’s not one I’ll repurchase. If it did a bit more I’d feel differently, but mild hydration isn’t enough to tempt me. There are definitely better products out there.

Review: UD Ultra Nourishing Lip Gloss - Walk of Shame

I have bought a few Urban Decay products recently and this gloss was the first (not including the Naked Basics, which I purchased last year). It was $30 from Mecca Maxima and I picked it up on UD’s opening day at my local store. I gave a few thoughts on it in the feature I did a couple of weeks ago on the opening day, but I thought I’d jump on here and give it a proper review. I’m also planning a new series of posts with a one-brand focus and one of those brands will be UD so stay tuned for that too!

This is by far the most I have ever spent on a lipgloss. Usually I stick to the drugstore brands, but it was UD’s opening day and I couldn’t help myself. It called to me. I have the shade Walk of Shame and it’s just a nice nude pink. It does have a little shine to it, but the shimmer is so fine you can barely notice it, which I like. I can’t stand when glittery glosses are all chunky and you just feel like you coated your lips in shimmer. The packaging is sleek with its shiny gold exterior and peek of the shade at the bottom. I love how the ‘Naked’ part is actually cut out of the gold part too. It just looks so cool and luxurious.

I cannot tell a lie. This stuff stinks to high heaven. It smells more strongly of paint than the foundation does. When I swatched this next to the foundation I just thought it was the Naked Skin making my hand smell. I get the gloss home and realise that it’s the culprit, not the foundation. The foundation actually becomes fairly odourless once it sets. With the gloss though it really wouldn’t have hurt UD to just pop a hint of vanilla or something in the formula to make it smell yummy. Pretty much every other gloss I’ve ever owned has smelled yummy, I thought I could expect that from UD too!

 

Despite the terrible stench it’s actually a fantastic gloss. It’s long-lasting, moisturising and simply beautiful on the lips. It works alone, on top of lipstick or even just on top of tint or lip pencil. Walk of Shame is a classy shade, in spite of the name, and it was the best shade to try as my first gloss from them.

The question then becomes will it be the last. Quite possibly. Although it’s gorgeous on the lips, part of me can’t get past the smell. It stinks so badly and I just truly believe that glosses should smell good enough to eat. You are putting them on your lips after all.

Review: Jurassic World

I finally got the chance to see Jurassic World on Friday with my cousin Wendy. We were both pretty excited, being big Jurassic Park fans. I was also a little worried about it, especially when I think about how the third one disappointed me. Don't get me wrong, I don't hate the third one, but I wouldn't miss it if they had never made it. So this movie had me really hoping that they would make up for the third movie. It didn't disappoint at all.

The story picks up 20 odd years after the events of the first movie. The park has been opened for a while. It was rebranded as Jurassic World and gets 20,000 people through the gates a day. In order to maintain numbers the scientists at the park cook up a hybrid dinosaur in their lab. It quickly becomes obvious that this was a huge mistake because the dinosaur they created is highly intelligent and vicious. It breaks loose in the park and wreaks havoc. Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howards star in the movie as park employees trying to bring the dinosaur down and save the day. Bryce Dallas Howard plays park executive Claire, who originally oversaw the creation of the dinosaur and who is desperately trying to track down her nephews amongst the chaos. Chris Pratt plays Owen, the Velociraptor wrangler. He has trained the Velociraptors to view him as their alpha. Owen teams up with Claire to track down her nephews and bring down the dinosaur.

Right off the bat the movie’s storyline is far better than that of the third movie. The third movie’s storyline was fairly weak and it relied too heavily on making the big bad dino scary. The storyline in Jurassic World is strong and the scariness of the big bad is more an added bonus than the saving grace. I especially loved that this movie didn’t rely on the T-Rex and Velociraptors to be antagonists. They took these dinosaurs in a different direction and gave them protagonist-type roles. It was a refreshing change from the other movies. I think if they had of followed suit with the other three movies with those dinos it would’ve been old and uninteresting.

Despite the fresh take on the dinosaur storyline this movie took, it still managed to retain the classic style that the first two movies had. The banter, dino interaction and filming style all seemed to reinvigorate that 90’s style that I and many others loved so much. The creators of the movie clearly had a lot of respect for the original movie and made sure they didn’t bastardise it in any way. I will admit that it still isn’t as good as the first two, but it comes pretty damn close. It’s a bit slow at the beginning of the movie, but it picks up quickly and is pretty much non-stop for the rest of the time. I don’t think they could’ve have got any closer to the original movie quality-wise as they did.

All-in-all this movie was everything I was hoping it would be. It completely made up for the third movie and I’m so happy that everyone who worked on it seemed to carry a great respect for the original movie because it’s what made the movie so enjoyable. Huge thumbs up from a loyal Jurassic Park fan!

Review: City of Bones by Cassandra Clare (The Mortal Instruments: Book 1)

For my birthday this year my beautiful friend Carol bought me the first two Mortal Instruments books by Cassandra Clare. I’d been wanting to read the series for age but never got around to buying them for myself. I finally got around to reading the first in the series, City of Bones a couple of weeks ago and couldn’t wait to have time to get on here and tell you guys my thoughts on it.

City of Bones revolves around Clary Fray, a girl who discovers that she comes from a family of demon hunters called ‘shadowhunters’. She teams up with other shadowhunters when her mum goes missing and discovers the world that her mum kept her sheltered from her whole life. There are demons, werewolves, vampires and more that Clary and her friends face. She also has to face Valentine, a shadowhunter who was thought to be dead. He terrorises the shadowhunters in the search for the ‘Mortal Cup’ and his self-assigned mission to eradicate the ‘downworlders’ (werewolves, vampires, etc.). Through her battle with Valentine, Clary finds out more about her family’s past than she ever expected to.

I actually really enjoyed this book. I ended up watching the movie when I was already about six chapters in and got really worried because I didn’t really like the movie that much. I kept reading though and I’m so glad I did. The book is so full of storyline and information that I was quickly able to see why the movie didn’t work well. The story was intriguing and fun to read. I really like these supernatural or post-apocalyptic types of books. I love to see the different versions of the world that authors can create, mainly because that’s the type of story I like to write myself.

Overall I think it’s a really great book for its genre. It’s not anything ground-breaking, but it’s easy enough to read and the story is compelling enough that it has me excited to read the rest of the series. If you’re into this genre of book then I definitely recommend giving it a go!

Review: Wild by Cheryl Strayed

I’ve been making a point to make more time for recreational reading lately. I lost the taste for it over the last couple of years with all the uni reading I’ve had to do. By the time I’d finish reading a chapter on global security, Australian law, criminal psychology or American politics the absolute last thing I used to want to do was read anything else. The past couple of months I’ve found books that I just haven’t been able to resist though, and Wild by Cheryl Strayed was one of them.

I reluctantly went and saw the movie adaption of the book earlier in the year. I ended up absolutely loving it. It was one the best memoir-based movies I’d ever seen. I couldn’t stop thinking about it so I went and picked up the book. It didn’t take me long at all to get through, even with the myriad of assessments I had to get through. For those of you who don’t know who Cheryl Strayed is let me explain. In the early nineties Cheryl’s mother died suddenly of cancer. I believe it was about 45 days from her diagnosis to her death. Her mother’s death destroyed her and she put herself down a path that ruined all the other facets of her life. She turned to drugs and extramarital affairs. Eventually she realised what she was doing to herself and she set out to change. She decided to walk the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT) for three months by herself. She walked from the Mojave to the Washington/Oregon border. Approximately 1,100 miles.  

The book isn’t really written in chronological order. It follows Cheryl along the PCT but also flashes back through times spent with her mum and family and the terrible times she went through after her mum’s death. A poorly written book would have felt disjointed when structured like this, but luckily Wild is very well written. I absolutely loved it. I was actually really worried because I’ve fallen in love with movies based on books before only to find out that the book is kind of crappy. I’m so happy to report that I didn’t have that problem with Wild. I was also really happy to find that the movie hadn’t veered too far off the path of the book.

The more I read it the more I became invested in Cheryl’s story. She didn’t tiptoe around anything that happened to her or anything she did to herself and the people around her. I found the story inspirational but kind of in a more gritty way than a lot of other books in its genre. I find it similar to Lena Dunham’s book in that way. Now, before you all start thinking I’m crazy because those two books are completely different, I know they’re nowhere near the same. What I did find the same was the way I felt their stories were told and the inspiration I took from them. Lena Dunham’s book was also very raw and honest in the way it portrayed her and her experiences. I much prefer when people are able to unabashedly show the ugly things along with all the good things that got them where they are. It shows the rest of us that everyone experiences ugly times, but you can get through them and be better for it (ugh, now I’m getting mushy!).

All-in-all this was a fantastic read. It’s really well written which makes it easy to read and even though she went through heavy stuff and she’s real about it, the book isn’t a downer. It makes you think about life and what you can do to make your own just that little bit better. If you’re looking for a good memoir-type book then definitely give this one a try!

Bookfest June 2015!

Hey guys! 

I went to the Lifeline Bookfest here in Brisbane the other day. I went with a clear list and unfortunately none of the things on my list were found. I did pick up four others though, which I'm happy with. As you can see from the pic I got three Star Wars books (I know, they're old and kinda geeky but I don't care!), and a Buffy one. I could only find the second in the series of the Buffy ones, but since I never even knew they existed I'm not complaining. In the pic you can see the last four Mortal Instruments books. I had to find these on Gumtree because I scoured the Bookfest tables and couldn't find them, but I thought I'd add them into this post because I bought them on the same day. I got the first two of the series for my birthday from my lovely friend Carol and I've already read the first and loved it so I'm really excited to read the rest. I've gotten really behind with my post, especially my book reviews because of my crazy uni schedule this semester, but I'll start playing catch-up this week, I promise! I mainly wanted to get this little post up to give a shout out to the Lifeline Bookfest because it's an awesome fund-raising event. You can find some awesome books for such a little price and the proceeds go to a good cause. It's final day is tomorrow and if you want some more info here's the link to their site: http://www.uccommunity.org.au/lifeline-brisbane-bookfest

I just wanted to also add that I'm planning on moving the site to a different platform as soon as I can figure it out (or afford to pay someone to do it for me!), so if there's some weird stuff happening with the site over the next few weeks that's why. :)

Little message from me

Hey guys,

My posting has been really few and far between of late because of my intense uni commitments, but I just wanted to say that regular posting will resume no later than the 8th of June. I've had the busiest, most assessment-filled semester of my entire uni experience and it's been hard to make the blog a priority when I've had so many weekends with 2 or more assessments due at a time. It's nearly over though and I'll be able to put this blog back on the top of my list of things to do. Please bear with me until then :)

Cassie xx

Review: Avengers: Age of Ultron

The other night I went and saw the new Avengers movie with my sister. I had been really looking forward to it since I've loved pretty much all the previous ones in this Marvel universe. The premise of this movie is basically a follow on from ones like Captain America 2, etc. and continues on with the 'Infinity Stone' storyline. 

In this movie they introduce two new characters to the series, Wanda and Petra Maximoff, or Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver as their known in the comic book world. In the comic books the characters (from my understanding) are mutants, but since another movie company has the rights to that term, in the Avengers they are referred to as being 'enhanced'. The story deals with the consequences the heroes face when Tony Stark and Bruce Banner (Ironman and the Hulk respectively) cook up a new form of AI called Ultron in their lab. They use the power from Loki's scepter from the first Avengers to bring Ultron to life. Just when they think that Ultron didn't work he comes to life and harnesses a part of the scepter the heroes didn't know about, which is one of the six Infinity Stones. Ultron becomes crazy powerful and vows to dominate and destroy humanity. Basically the heroes then have to stop their own creation to save the world. The Maximoff twins are both enemies and allies throughout the movie and they brought a different type of storyline to the series. 

I want to also add one little disclaimer before I get into my actual thoughts on the film. I have seen how bat-crap crazy people have gone over this movie and the perceived 'sexism' etc. in it. I will not be playing into any of that except to say this. I didn't find anything sexist or horrible about the movie. I think Joss Whedon is a great writer and director. If you read this an disagree with me, that's fine, but just remember we're all allowed our own personal opinion and this is mine. I in no way support sexism or any of the other themes this movie is accused of promoting, I just personally didn't find any of those themes in the movie.

I really enjoyed this movie. I love how all the Marvel movies have a healthy balance of humor, action and drama in them and this one was no exception. It was total action from the first second and continued through the whole movie. There was barely a restful minute in the whole movie. I also loved how this movie explored some of the characters we haven't had a chance to see much of yet. I love the Hawkeye storyline and how the Hulk played a bigger part. Whedon was really able to show that Hulk isn't as useless as he may seem. I mean, sure he's huge and strong and green, but he's also unreliable and super angry and I think this is one of the first movies to make real use of him. Even the Hulk movies haven't really explored his usefulness the way this movie did. 

Probably my favourite part of the movie was the addition of the Maximoff twins to the storyline. I loved that most of the time you didn't know which side they were on. I love how they were portrayed by their actors. Quicksilver was awesome. He was a bit of a larrikin. I loved him and Hawkeye sort of riffing off each other. It gave Hawkeye a different dimension to his personality. Scarlet Witch is just awesome. I loved how they showed her powers in this red flurry of air (yep, that was the worst description of something... ever). I love that she was strong and honest and powerful. I really look forward to seeing more in the next movies!

Personally I really just enjoyed the movie. It was easy to watch and had amazing action scenes. I love the superhero movies and this one did not disappoint. 

Review: Elizabeth Arden Ceramide Lash Extending Treatment Mascara

I was excited to get this from my sister. She got it in a big Elizabeth Arden makeup gift set and never used it. It’s the Ceramide Lash Extending Treatment Mascara and it’s the first high-end mascara I have ever tried. Usually I stick to Maybelline. My favourite mascara of all time (so far) is the Maybelline Mega Plush Waterproof stuff. This stuff however does come pretty close.

First of all let’s talk about the packaging. It’s so sleek with its sort-of-matte/sort-of-shiny gold exterior. It’s quite thin and I like that it’s not oddly shaped. It’s just a regular old cylinder which makes it great for travel.

Now the formula. Yep, this review is going to be pretty short! It’s a great balance between being a wet and dry formula. It applies and builds nicely and doesn’t go clumpy on my lashes. I generally use mascara just to add the black colouring back after they get coated with powders and whatnot. I’m lucky have quite naturally voluminous long lashes and I mostly just like to deepen the colour of my lashes rather than add any length or volume. The wand seems to be the fibre-bristled type and is a nice density. I hate the wands that are large and in charge because I’m very clumsy with mascara and without fail always poke myself in the eye with the big wands. I haven’t done that yet with this wand, which is awesome. It’s always a good day when you don’t almost blind yourself with your mascara wand!

It long-lasting on my lashes too, but it also doesn’t fight me when I go to take it off at the end of the day. I’ve had it for a little while now and it hasn’t shown any signs of running out, drying out or generally changing in consistency at all yet, which I love. I hate when mascaras dry out quickly and you have to constantly replace them. I think it would be especially crap when they’re high-end products because no one wants to be always forking out $30-50 for new ones. I just looked this one up on Myer’s website and its $47! That’s expensive! Now I know the price I’m thinking I might tell you that you should only cough up that money if you really want to! It’s a great product, don’t get me wrong, but the drugstore brands make mascaras that are of equal quality, so maybe try them first. 

Review: Models Prefer Retractable Brow Pencil in Dark

I have been struggling with my brows for a little while now. I have so much trouble finding products that fill them in without being too strong. I’ve tried gel, powder and pencils to little or no avail. I have very dark and full eyebrows and honestly it’s only been in the last year or so that I’ve really taken the time to fill them in. Even now I don’t always feel the need to do them. Because of how intense my natural brows can be it’s so very easy to end up with the crazy brows we all want to avoid. I’ve also been a little averse to paying too much for my brow products. The most I’ve spent was the $38 on the Benefit Gimme Brow, which I love and have already repurchased once, but I don’t use it to fill my brows, I just use it to set them.

I’ve been interested in the retractable brow pencils for a while now. I have a great dislike for the normal pencil ones because they just make my brows look messy. I don’t know what the hell I’m doing wrong, but I just can’t get them to work on me. The retractable ones were appealing because you don’t need to sharpen them. I’d seen EssieButton on YouTube use the Hourglass one, but it was a little out of my price range. While browsing the Priceline website one night I saw that Models Prefer made a retractable pencil and it was only about $12. I picked one up the next time I was in a store and went home and tried it immediately.

I got mine in Dark and the shade is a warm deep brunette. It’s actually a little too warm on my brows. My brow hairs are black when you look closely at them and because I’m au naturel with my hair at the moment and my natural colour is more golden brown, the warmth of the brow pencil can look a little unnatural. It is a very long-lasting product. I’ve worn it all day on 37 degree (Celsius) heat and it hasn’t budged at all, even when the rest of my makeup was a hot mess. I usually paired it with the Gimme Brow, but I have worn it by itself and it lasted equally as long. I really like the spooly it came with too. It’s quite soft and thick which makes it easy to be gentle as you brush through your brows.

As I type this I have already decided that I won’t repurchase this. In fact, I probably won’t even finish the product. I was lucky enough to receive Mecca Maxima gift cards for my birthday last week and after I bought the Urban Decay Naked 2 palette I had enough left over to pick up the Hourglass pencil without having a panic attack over the cost. So I treated myself to some brow luxury and even though I’ve only played with it a little, I can already tell that it’s much better than the Models Prefer one. If you’re on a budget and can wear the warmer shades in your brows, then I would definitely go for this before I splurged on the expensive stuff. If I’m being honest, I would probably have never bought myself the Hourglass one if it weren’t for the gift card. I would have just put up with the warmer shade made it work. It’s not like it looked awful, it just made it a little fiddlier because adding too much made it look really red. Like I said before, it’s super longwearing. It’s also a really nice texture which helps it glide on smoothly and allows you to only need a light hand. This is definitely not a bad product by any means. As far as ‘drugstore’ brow products go, this is by far the best one I’ve tried so far. If you can find a match to your brow colour, I say go for it!

Review: Essence XXXL Lipgloss

I’ve been getting back onto the lipgloss bandwagon lately and I’m all for finding great drugstore lip products. I don’t own or buy a lot of high-end lip products because I would rather spend that money on my base products. I love the drugstore lip products and most of the ones I’ve tried as just as good, if not better than high-end stuff. Essence is a fantastic low-cost brand that I have loved for ages. I have nearly all the lip pencils from them and I think they are some of the best lip pencils I’ve ever owned, so when I decided to try out a couple of lipglosses I went straight for the Essence stand in Priceline.

I picked up two of the XXXL Shine lipgloss in the shades Cute Pink and Pure Chic. They were super inexpensive and seemed like a decent quality in the store. They are quite thick, but not in a bad way. They spread easily enough across the lips and I think the thick consistency helps you to not use as much product. The Cute Pink one is not my favourite. It’s quite glittery and unfortunately the glitter feels chunky on the lips. In the bottle/tube thingy it is shiny, but doesn’t seem chunky, but as soon as you press your lips together you can feel the glitter coating your lips. The Pure Chic one is far better. It’s a clear gloss with not glitter in it at all. It sits nicely over lipsticks and I’ve even just worn it over a tinted balm and it just made my lips look healthy and pouty.

The wand applicators on these glosses are really cool. They’re the flat ones that are flexible at the top so it curves over your lips nicely.

Overall these are worth the $4 or whatever they cost. I don’t like the glittery one, but I would absolutely pick up the other ones without the glitter. They’re smooth and last well enough as far as glosses go. For such a low price, who cares, as long as they look nice! I’m so glad I added these to my collection!

Review: L'Oreal Nude Magique BB Blush

I love blush. Aside from foundation, it’s my favourite base makeup product. I would reach for blush before I would reach for a bronzer/contour or highlighter. Personally, I feel that on my skin if I can only do one or the other, I think I benefit more from blush than I do bronzer. I used to only really like powder blushes because I had quite oily skin and liked a really matte face when I did makeup. Now however, I have more dry-to-sometimes-combo skin and prefer a more luminous, fresh and natural finish. This change in skin type has led me to discover the wonder of cream and liquid type blushes as well as the cheek and lip stain products. I’ve tried the E.L.F. cream blush stick, the Benefit cheek tints like Posietint and Chachatint (Benetint is on my list of things to try), the Australis cheek and lip stains which are like a cream/stain hybrid. I love all of those things, they all have beautiful finishes. The L’Oreal Nude Magique BB Blush seemed like the perfect thing to try next, so last time I got a points voucher in the mail from the Priceline Sister Club I decided to put it to the test.

I’ll get the negatives out of the way first. The first thing is that there only seems to be one shade. I looked around my local Priceline a bit to see if they had more, but I think there’s only the one. I think it might be one of those products that claim to match any skin tone. The shade is called Universal Rosy Blush. It’s a very bright pink. It seems fairly neutral in tone, but it is bright! The other main negative with it is that it can be difficult to work with. It’s sort of an odd formula. It comes out mostly transparent and as you work with it is turns into its true colour. The problem is that you have to work really fast. It dries fast and acts the same way a stain like Benetint does. I found that I can’t just dot it on and then blend it out like you would with other products, I have to blend it immediately after it touches my skin. It’s also extremely easy to use way too much. The first time I used it I made it so bright and pigmented that I end up having to go in with more foundation to tone it down. I looked absolutely nuts.

Now on to the positives of this blush. Once you figure out how much to use and the best way to apply it, the blush looks so pretty on the skin. It’s almost a gel consistency which makes it quite thin compared to a cream. Because of this it sits nicely on top of foundation. Once I got the hang of it I was able to achieve a beautiful fresh finish with it. It’s not sparkly at all, but because it’s a gel-like formula it really glowy on the skin. It would be absolutely wonderful in spring and summer when you don’t want to wear too many powder products. I personally like luminous products all year round so I will wear this all the time!

After all that do I like it? The straight answer is yes. The long answer is yes, but I could definitely have survived without it in my collection. I’m glad that I finally bit the bullet and tried it out, but it’s not something I will repurchase or even miss when it’s gone. For me it was just a little too much effort in the beginning. I know there’s a learning curve with any ‘stain’ type product because they can be quite sensitive and tricky but this was a little too much. It took me at least four uses to get any kind of confidence with it. Honestly, after my first use I put it at the back of my drawer and almost forgot I had it. The time between my first and second use was at least two weeks. I like easy products. I don’t want to have to fight with a product, I just want it to bend to my will. This is a nice product that’s good in theory but there are heaps of similar products out there that I fell are far easier to use. If you don’t want to fork out the cash for the Benetint products (which would be understandable because they’re not cheap!), I think the Australis Lip and Cheek combos are great. I’m fairly certain you can only get Australis in Australia and maybe New Zealand, but if you can get your hands on them, I would recommend them over this L’Oreal one. 

Review: Urban Decay Naked Skin Foundation (Shade 0.5)

A couple of weeks ago I uploaded a post covering the opening of Urban Decay at Mecca Maxima here in Australia. Until then I had only tried one product from the brand, and now I’ve managed to get my hands on a few things that I’ll be reviewing over the next few posts. I’m also planning a new series of one-brand focus posts and UD will be included in the brands I’ve got planned so far. The first review, as the title of this post says is for the Naked Skin Weightless Ultra Definition Liquid Makeup. A big name, I know.

As I’ve mentioned time and time again, I have a really hard time finding foundations that sit nicely on my skin that also match my skin tone properly. The best one I’ve found so far is the NARS Sheer Glow in Siberia. The first experience I had with the Naked Skin was during a free 45 minute makeup application from Mecca Maxima that I received for my birthday as part of their Beauty Loop membership. The girl did a beautiful job of my makeup, but the foundation end up being a little dark. She used shade 2 on me and by the time I got home I could see how dark it was. Luckily I had got my hands on a sample of the lightest shade, 0.5, a couple of days before so I could try it. Now, I will say that it is not a perfect match for me. I think it might be a smidge dark, but mostly I think it’s just a bit too pink. Usually I wouldn’t even entertain a shade I wasn’t completely satisfied with, but it’s manageable and as you read further down you’ll see why I don’t mind.

My holy grail foundation has been my Sheer Glow for a while now. It’s the perfect match for me because even though it’s really yellow, it helps to counteract the intense redness I can sometimes get. It has great coverage and works for me pretty much year round. The only thing that’s been bugging me about it lately is that it doesn’t seem to be sitting as nicely around my nose, upper lip area and chin. It goes a little patchy after a couple of hours.

Enter the Naked Skin foundation. This stuff just melts into my skin. It sits beautifully on my skin nearly all day. I swear, if I could have the shade of Siberia from Sheer Glow mixed into one bottle with the finish of the Naked Skin I would have my 100% HG foundation and I would never want to try another foundation ever again. Barring that wish coming true I’m happy to mix them. I can wear the Naked Skin by itself, and actually have done for the last couple of days with no real problem, but I really love the way it looks with the Sheer Glow. Because it’s so pink in its undertone the Naked Skin can start looking a bit dark as it starts to show a bit of wear. Once I re-powder it looks fine again, but sometimes there just isn’t time for a retouch. When I pair it with the Sheer Glow the colour becomes nice and balanced and seems brightened.

Now let’s talk about the consistency and finish. It’s very runny (and smelly, but it goes away as soon as you apply it). I definitely recommend giving it a good shake before you use it. Despite it being so runny you honestly don’t need that much to cover your face. Granted, I don’t have particularly problematic skin. I mainly just have redness and a couple of scars to cover. I usually do two pumps to get a medium or one pump if I’m feeling lazy and just want light coverage. When I pair it with the Sheer Glow I’ll do a pump of each. Sometimes I use a pump and a half of the Sheer Glow to really brighten the Naked Skin.

The finish of this stuff, both by itself and with the Sheer Glow is beautiful. It is by far the nicest finish I have ever been able to get on my skin with a foundation. It just looks so natural. It evens my skintone (despite being a little on the pink side) and has great pigmentation.

The positives of this foundation on my skin far outweigh the couple of negatives, such as the bad smell (it’s kind of like paint) and the slightly off colour. I’m just so impressed by this stuff. Honestly, I was pretty sure that I’d never find a foundation I liked as much as I like my Sheer Glow. I also love how well they pair together. If there’s something I’ve learnt in my search for the ‘perfect’ foundation it’s that there’s no such thing (so far), but there’s also nothing wrong with combining two different ones to create the perfect product. 

Review: Hourglass Modernist Eyeshadow Palette in Monochrome

Hourglass is one of those brands that are so luxury that I feel financially guilty every time I even dare to think about purchasing a product, but at the same time everything is just so damn gorgeous that I can’t stay away from the stand each time I go to Mecca Maxima. This Modernist eye shadow palette in Monochrome was no exception. Currently I only own three Hourglass products, but I know I want so many more. They have beautiful packaging and everything is such amazing quality it almost makes you forget the price tag… almost!

When I bought the Modernist palette I actually had intended to pick up the Too Faced Chocolate Bar palette, but as soon as I saw the Monochrome one on display I knew it was going to come home with me. Let’s be real, the Chocolate Bar palette would have been the more logical choice. It’s $65 for 16 shadows whereas the Modernist palette was $76 for five shadows. Excessive, I know but I just could help myself. The shades are beautiful pink and purple tones and are so creamy and pigmented! The way they are packaged is amazing too. They’re not in individual pans like normal palettes. As you can see from the photo, they sit all together with a lovely wavy pattern across them. Just divine!

This palette has shades unlike any other that I own, which was my main justification for spending that ridiculous amount of money. My other justification was that it would travel well because it’s so compact.

I literally have nothing bad to say about this palette. I mean, I could sit here and complain about the high price tag, but obviously I think it was worth it because I bought it and here I sit, gushing about it. Yes, Hourglass is expensive, but I’m yet to test out a product that sucks. It’s so easy to see how much time and effort goes into making these luxury item as luxurious as possible. I probably won’t go out and buy all the other palettes because I’m not made of money and Monochrome was the only one I knew was unique for my collection and would get used enough, but if you’ve got a spare $76AUD to spend on a new palette I would highly recommend these palettes. It is one of the best palettes I have ever bought. 

Review: Brut Tattoo Builder

I’ve been meaning to write up a review on the Brut Tattoo Builder for ages but I’ve been trying so many different things and have been so busy with the new uni semester that it just hasn’t happened until now.

I kept seeing ads for this and another similar product from Brut. I think it was called Tattoo Guard. Anyway, I kept seeing ads for them and being the proud owner of a wrist tattoo I was somewhat intrigued by the premise. I will also start off by saying I think I should have bought the Tattoo Guard instead of the Builder, but I’ll explain why in a minute. They were advertised as being treatments to preserve the original colours and crispness of your tattoos.

Here’s why I think I bought the wrong one. From what the packaging says, I think it might be designed more for newly acquired tattoos. I started mine in 2010 and finished it in 2011, so it doesn’t really have quite the vibrancy it did when it first healed. Don’t get me wrong, it still looks beautiful, and if it has faded it’s not all that noticeable because I chose quite muted colours anyway. But basically it’s a few years old now and that’s why I think I should’ve got the Guard instead of the Builder.

With that in mind, I didn’t notice any difference to my tattoo at all. I don’t feel like it was detrimental to its condition but I also don’t feel like it did anything but add temporary moisture to the area. I don’t know what the Guard one claims to do in comparison to this. I might have to pick up a tube and try it out.

As for the application, a little definitely goes a long way. It’s very runny and thin. It feels cool when you apply it, and even though I didn’t like the smell, I wasn’t overly offended by it either. The moisture it adds leaves a nice sheen to the area and until it wears down it does look somewhat vibrant but let’s face it, normal not-ten-dollar moisturiser will do the same thing and will probably last longer.

I don’t know how this will work on fresher tattoos, I guess I’ll have to wait and see if I ever get the chance to get one again. For me personally though, I just don’t really feel one way or the other about it. I honestly haven’t picked it up in weeks. I couldn’t even tell you where it is right at the moment. It’s a very uninspiring product for me, but then again, I might just have bought the wrong product in the line. 

Review: Too Faced HangoverX Primer

I’m not going to lie. I wrote this review a while ago and for some reason I didn’t post it. I could’ve sworn I did but obviously I was wrong. So here it is for you in all its late glory.

I bought the Too Face Hangover Primer a few weeks ago and have pretty much only used it since I got it. It’s a silicone free primer that has coconut water and a bunch of other good stuff for you skin in it. It’s $44AUD. I got mine from the Kit counter in Myer and you can also pick it up from Mecca Maxima. I know $44 is a lot to spend on primer, especially for someone like me who doesn’t really use primer all that much, but I’d heard so much about it in the weeks leading up buying that I just couldn’t resist.

I really wasn’t sure about this primer during the first few days of using it. I felt like it wasn’t hydrating enough for my dry skin, which at the time was crazy dry for some reason. I was expecting this to be almost serum-like because of the coconut water and electrolytes it’s supposed to contain. On my cheeks, nose and forehead it was perfectly fine, but my upper lip and chin areas seemed a little patchy. I was actually considering returning it in its first few days in my care. The only reason I didn’t was because of the longevity it gave my makeup.

I don’t like a lot of primers because I feel like they sit funny and cling to my dry patches. Before buying this primer I really only used primers in my T-Zone when I went to events or knew I was going to be out an about on very hot days. Most of the time I just slapped some moisturiser on and I was good to go. Honestly, priming just felt like another unnecessary step.

After forcing myself to give this a real go and switch up my moisturiser rather than return the primer I realised that the problem was more that my skin needed more TLC and not so much that the primer was crap. I have never used a primer so much in my life. I have pretty much used this every time I’ve worn makeup since I bought it and now I absolutely love it.

It smells amazing and feels so lightweight and fresh when I apply it. It wakes my tired cranky skin up. I’ve actually just put this on with a little bit of under-eye concealer on some days when I just need to pop up to the shops and it worked a treat. The beautiful coconutty scent and the fresh cool feeling it gives the skin is invigorating in the morning when everything feels like too much effort. I put this on and I feel okay about being out of bed and having to get ready to face the day. Seriously guys, it just feels good. It feels more like skincare than a makeup primer.

Once I got the hydration of my skin sorted this stuff works beautifully. I don’t get the dry patches I was getting in the first few days anymore and it’s hydrating elements makes my foundation look smooth and bright. Even when I mattify my foundation it still looks luminous and fresh.

Like I said before, I know that $44 is a lot of money to spend on a primer but I really recommend this one. I’ve tried a lot of primers and that’s why I generally shy away from them, but this one has just about reached HG status for me. I never thought a primer would do that for me, but I should’ve know that if there was a brand that was going to do it, it was going to be from Too Faced. Too Faced are seriously my favourite brand. I think I’ve loved everything I’ve tried from them so far. If you’re like me and you tend to shy away from primers because they cling to your dry patches I recommend at least getting a sample of this stuff, it may just surprise you!

Urban Decay Launch at Mecca Maxima!

It’s official! Urban Decay has finally landed in Australia! Mecca Maxima online store and their stores all over the country launched the brand at 9:00 am this morning. I went to my local store at Westfield Garden City here on Brisbane’s south side and was lucky enough to be able to have a chat to one of the beautiful staff members, Tamara. She was kind enough to let me ask her a few questions and I had a chance to browse and give in to one of the lip glosses (more to come about that in a minute!). Just a warning: this is going to be a long post. Today was a very exciting day for me!

I was thankfully stuck in a uni lecture this morning and missed all the craziness of the opening at the Garden City store. According to Tamara there were over 100 people waiting by 8:00 am. “We had people turning up at about 5:00 am, which was commitment, you know we weren’t expecting people to really turn up until about 7:00 am,” she said. I can’t even comprehend a crowd that big for a makeup brand that is launching permanently. I’m glad that it was far less crazy when I went this morning.

The setup is fairly standard for Mecca stores, but this isn’t to say it wasn’t beautiful. They had everything sorted in a way that made it look shiny, appealing and basically just fabulous. I was very pleased with the range of products they had. I really didn’t know what to expect. Mecca was very good at being coy about what products they were getting. The advertising was heavily focussed on the Naked line. Mecca has most of the things that most people would be wanting to try out. They of course got the Naked stuff like the three big palettes and two Basics palettes, the foundation and concealer, the powders and the Flushed palettes. Bright colour lovers will fawn over the Electric palette. Here’s what Tamara had to say about the Electric palette:

“It definitely can look a little bit scary at first. The colours are beautiful and so workable as well. And you can use it in multiple ways. I’ve used it as a hair chalk. I got to play around with that a little bit and turning them into lip glosses or lip stains. So they’re super pigmented, but used in all those different ways, it’s just amazing. Even taking that electric green, because I know it can be a little scary looking at that, it’s so bright, but it just adds that pop of colour to everyday wear. Lots of people like to use the white in the inner corner, but that green just opens up the eye and just makes it pop. I like it because it’s really whatever you’d like it do. If you’d like to make your own lip glosses or stains, or if you’d like to use it as hair chalk. I mean, even in dark hair it’s so pigmented.”

After hearing her thoughts on the palette my thoughts are cemented in my desire to have it in my life… and soon!

 Until today I’d only ever tried one UD product and that’s the Naked Basics palette which I got last year. It’s one of my favourite palettes of all time though. It’s just amazing, so I knew I was in for a treat with any products I bought in the future! I asked Tamara what her favourite products were. Understandably it was a very hard choice! “I love it all! I’m excited to try the foundation. I haven’t had the chance to try it yet, so that’s one of my must-tries. I’m loving the Naked 2 palette and also the All-Nighter setting spray. Just using it multiple ways as well. It’s definitely a setting spray for 16HR wear, but I also like to spray my eyeshadow brush and then go in with my shadow and it just makes it more pigmented and really just lovely and creamy to work with,” she told me.

I personally wasn’t overly excited about the Naked palettes. I know, I know! How could I not be?! Honestly, I was all about tracking down the original one for ages last year, but then I found the Chi Chi Nudes palette and I lost interest in the UD one. The Naked 2 and 3 didn’t interest me all that much either just because I didn’t find the shades to be ones I would use regularly. Cut to me checking out the real life palettes in-store today. I was right about the Naked 2. I just wouldn’t use the shades, but the Naked 3. Can we just stop so I can take a moment to picture it again in my mind. It is exquisite. It’s filled with rosy and rose gold-y shades. I never imagined that I would love it so much, but now I desperately need it in my life!

 

Let’s talk about pricing. I know Australia has become notorious for having ridiculously price makeup, among other things. This is why I’m happy to see that Mecca has made UD reasonably priced. It may seem expensive at first glance, but when you compare it to U.S. pricing and factor in the exchange rate it works out fairly even. “It’s somewhere from I think maybe a $2 to $6 difference and with some products it actually cheaper. When you think about having to buy it online and then you have to think about shipping and the exchange rate, I know it’s a struggle sometimes. You can’t even get shipping to Australia sometimes and you have to use external shipping. It can become super expensive just to have it shipped here. It’s nice to be able to give our customers a nice easy way to shop,” Tamara said when I asked for her view on the pricing. Check below for a little list of UD products and pricing from the Mecca website.

Eye look using 24/7 Pencil in LSD

The products I got today were: Naked Ultra Nourishing Lipgloss in Walk of Shame, 24/7 Glide-On Eye Pencil in LSD (sample size) and a sample of the Naked Skin Foundation in the shade 0.5. I’ll do a first impressions on the foundation sometime next week, when I get the time, but I was able to try out the gloss and the pencil this afternoon before I head back to uni. The gloss, which I purchased myself, is a beautiful peachy/coral shade. It’s not completely sheer, but it just gives a nice flush to the lips. I wore it on the top of my nude Essence lip pencil. I’ll write up a full review on it over the weekend once I can wear it a little more. The eye pencil is a great colour too. It’s a deep dark blue with lighter blue shimmer through it. I really loved how it looked with the eye look I did. I swiped it across the upper lashline, smudged it out and then added a little bit of Crave from the Naked Basics palette over it. This colour pencil has helped me fall in love with blue/silver eyeshadow looks again!

Finished look with Pencil and Gloss

My last question for Tamara was about which product she would recommend to a newcomer to makeup. This is what she had to say:

“Honestly, I’d probably start them off with one of the eyeshadow potions, purely because it makes such a difference. And for someone just starting out and learning how to do their eyeshadow it just makes it so much easier to work with. It just creates a really blank canvas. Some of the potions, like Sin, which is beautifully champagne and pigmented then adds that colour without you having to do a lot to the eye look. So, I think starting yourself out with one of the eyeshadow potions is great because I think your going to find it easier to work with, really simple to build you confidence as well and just to see that longevity and have it stay there all day makes it a good one to start off with.”

Overall it seems like the UD launch at Mecca was a success. Mecca has done a great job in their advertising, pricing and in obtaining a fantastic variety of products. I want to say a big thank-you to the girls at Mecca Maxima at Westfield Garden City for always being so helpful and kind. And a massive thank-you to Tamara for taking the time to talk to me on such a crazy busy day! You were absolutely beautiful to chat to and I really appreciate it!

If you live in the area pop in and check out UD at Mecca Maxima Garden City and say hi to all the wonderful staff members! If you don’t live near a Mecca Maxima store there’s always the internet. You can check out UD and all Mecca’s other awesome brands at: www.mecca.com.au

Here’s a list of some of the products Mecca launched today!

Naked 1,2 & 3 palettes - $78 each

Naked Basics 1 & 2 - $42 each

Electric palette - $70

Naked Skin Foundation - $56

Naked Skin Concealer - $36

Original Eyeshadow Primer Potion - $30

All Nighter Long-Lasting Makeup Setting Spray - $44 (4.0 fl oz.)

Naked Ultra Nourishing Lipgloss - $30

24/7 Glide-On Eye Pencil - $30

There’s a ton more products to check out on the site and in-store!

What are some of your favourite products or some of the products you’re dying to try out? Let me know! 

+Mecca Maxima 

Chats: Happiness Jar

On Facebook I follow Elizabeth Gilbert, the woman who wrote ‘Eat, Pray, Love’ and over the last year or so I’ve noticed a lot of feeds about Happiness Jars. The concept behind these jars is that at the end of every day you write down the best thing that happened to you that day on a small piece of paper and put it in a jar. It’s supposed to help you see that even the crap days have positives, or at least show you how to pull a positive out of a pile of negatives. It also helps to dig into it on terrible days and pull out a random positive thing to remind you that this bad day is just one day in your life and there have been and will be more positive things.

 

Over the last few months I’ve been feeling really down and was fearful of falling back into the depression I’d spent years crawling out of. So on January 1^st I decided to start my own Happiness Jar. Initially I had more of a Happiness Tin because that’s all I could find. I just write my positives down on Post-Its, fold them up and put them in my tin/jar.

Its affect it had on my mood was really surprising. By forcing myself to find positives in each and every day I found myself feeling happier and less negative. Of course there have been days when it was harder to find the positive, but that made the discovery of one even more rewarding.

I know this all might sound really wishy-washy. I know it did to me every time it came up on my Facebook feed, but it has really done wonders for me in the last couple of months. I haven’t missed a day and it just feels good to think about the positive things that have happened throughout each day. I’m also finding myself feeling more relaxed and thinking more positively in general. This is not just from the Happiness Jar alone, but I know it has been a major contributing factor. At the start of the year I made myself a list of goals and maintaining the jar was one of them. I’m so proud of myself for sticking to it. It’s such a simple goal and it would’ve been really easy to give up on it. I’m glad I didn’t.

I’m thinking about doing a sort of belated New Year goals post soon to kick of a series about how I’m going in achieving them. I’d love some feedback to see if that’s something that would be interesting or not! Until then I’m off to write up today’s positive!

Review: Insurgent

After many months of waiting I finally got to see ‘Insurgent’, the second instalment of the Divergent series last Thursday. I loved the first movie so much it prompted me to head straight to the book store and buy the pack of three books plus the additional book she wrote from the character Four’s perspective. I read the three Divergent books in about a week and still craved more. Of course now I’ve seen the second movie I’m still left unsatisfied because there are two more movies left. Yes that’s right, it’s just another series squeezing as much money out of us as possible by splitting the final instalment into two parts.

Before I get into my thoughts on the movie I’ll give those of you who don’t know a little bit of info on what it and the series is about.

The series surrounds the story of main character Beatrice ‘Tris’ Prior, a young girl living in a dystopian future. She resides in an old destroyed Chicago where the population believe themselves to be the last left in the world. Their society is divided into factions based on their dominant personality traits.

The factions are:

Abnegation – the selfless faction;

Amity – the kind faction;

Candor – the truthful faction;

Dauntless – the brave faction; and

Erudite – the intelligent faction.

Each faction has its duty within the society in order to keep it functioning properly. When each person comes of age they must undergo a test that will tell them their most dominant personality trait, information they then take with them to the choosing ceremony. In the choosing ceremony they decide whether they will remain in the faction they grew up in or move to another, forsaking their familial ties.

During her test Tris discovers that she actually has at least four dominant traits making her a Divergent. Divergents are considered a threat and are being systematically eliminated throughout the first and second instalments. In ‘Divergent’, Tris chooses Dauntless and learns to be strong while discovering her own unique bravery. She works desperately to not only prove herself to the faction leaders, but also to keep her divergence a secret for fear of being killed. Everything comes to a head when the leader of the Erudite faction makes a power play and begins actively seeking out Divergents.

‘Insurgent’ picks up pretty well straight after ‘Divergent’. Tris, her boyfriend Four and a couple of others have taken sanctuary in the Amity camp. In this instalment you meet the factionless and discover a lot more about them as well as getting to see the inner workings of Candor, which was previously undiscovered territory in the first instalment. Erudite has taken control of the city and are hunting down Divergents. She has made Tris and her group public enemy number one and they now need to find a way to stop her and clear their names.

Now I’ve rambled enough about the plot I guess I should get into the review part of this review.

I have a warning to those who have read the book and have not yet seen the movie. It has some major plot differences from the book. In fact the main Erudite mission in the movie is completely different from the book. In the movie Jeanine and her Erudite and Dauntless followers are trying to open a box found in Tris’ parents’ house in Abnegation. She needs a strong Divergent to accomplish this. I won’t go into too much detail because I don’t want to have to add *Spoiler Alert* at the top of this review. As those who have read the book would already know, the box isn’t in the book and the thing that is inside it is something Jeanine is already aware of and desperate to keep hidden. Her mission in the book is to create serums that work on Divergents like the ones each faction as created for their own people. That’s just one of the many changes that the moviemakers made to the story.

Now you’ve been warned I can tell you how much I actually really liked the movie. I spent a better part of the movie not being sure about whether I liked it or not because of all the noticeable differences from the book. The second book was definitely my favourite of the three and it was a little shocking to see it so picked apart and changed. Honestly, it really wasn’t even until after it was over and we were driving home that I began to feel some sort of appreciation for it. On the way home I was talking about it with my sister and cousin, who I’d gone to see it with and I found that the more I talked about it the more I liked it.

It’s been a few days of mulling it over now and I have to say that I really, really like it now. I’m not going to go as far yet as to say that it was better or even as good as the first one, I think that will take at least one more viewing, but it definitely has grown on me. I think I was unsure about it initially because of all the changes. There were characters left out and even a main character who remained nameless throughout the movie and only played a small role. I mean, at least he was in this one since he wasn’t in the first one but was in the books from the start. Also, if I think about it too much it kind of feels like the major plot change only happened in order to give Kate Winslet a bigger role. Don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing more with giving her character more screen time, it adds drama plus she’s awesome (Winslet, not Jeanine. Jeanine’s kind of a bitch). The thing I wonder is that if that was a defining part of the decision to change the plot why couldn’t they have just played around with the original plot to give Jeanine more story time?

I think this movie follows on really well from the first. It doesn’t feel disjointed from it, which would have been hard to avoid with all the changes they made. Nothing feels incomplete except the end obviously, because there’s two more movies to come. If you haven’t read the books you won’t notice anything odd about the flow of the story at all, which I think is a definite plus. There are so many movies out there that alter book stories so much they become unrecognisable and they are just poorly executed. I’m really happy to report that this is not one of those cases.

The movie is definitely not devoid of action, which is awesome. There’s a lot of battle-type scenes both in reality and the serum simulations just as with the first movie. Despite the fact that the whole mystery box plotline didn’t happen in the book, it’s actually a really good plotline. It brings about a reason for Tris to face the serum simulations again and this time they are even better than before.

I’d better wrap this up before I make it five pages long. Overall I really did end up liking this movie. Yes it’s very, very different from the book, which sucks a bit, but the movie people made up for it a bit by making the new stuff really interesting. If you feel pretty adamant about movies that change the book too much I might suggest giving this a miss, but if you can keep an open mind about it I would definitely spend the money to go and see this on the big screen. It’s truly a good movie and really the only thing that has let it down a bit for me is the difference from the book. For this movie though, I’m willing to suck up my pride and give it my praise.

Review: VO5 Give Me Texture Powder

Today’s beauty related review is of the VO5 Give Me Texture Instant Oomph Powder. Basically it’s a little 7 gram bottle of texturizing powder. It’s supposed to give extra texture and instant volume. I’ve been using this powder for a while off and on, so I feel like I have a pretty clear view on how I feel about it.

One really good thing I notice about it right off the bat, looking at the bottle right now is how slowly it goes. I’ve had mine for close to a year and I’ve only used about a third of it. I’m sure I would have used a bit more if I used it more frequently, but still, it’s impressive.

Now onto the powder itself. It seemed like a really light powder in the bottle, but on my hair it feels sort of heavy and can be a little greasy feeling. Let me say this though, I do get greasy hair quite easily, so this is of no surprise to me at all. It definitely gives a good amount of volume when I aply it to my roots, although I’m not impressed by its ability to texturize, or lack thereof as it were. I’ve much better products for texturizing than this product, but if you’re more looking for volume without the need of hairspray this might be worth a try.

Overall I’m not too fussed on this stuff. It’s not horrible by any stretch of the imagination, but I definitely won’t bother repurchasing it once I run out. It definitely gives me the volume I want, but I don’t like that I end up just using my Rough Texturiser to get my desire messy look. I honestly think there are better products out there, for me at least. I just think this one makes my hair too greasy and doesn’t do enough to outweigh that negative.