I’ve always wanted to try out the Burt’s Bees range. To my knowledge, Burt’s Bees is not available in Malaysia just yet (please correct me if I’m wrong), yet I’ve heard so much of it at Viva Woman. To my delight, this is available here. I discovered (and purchased) a few Burt’s Bees products at David Jones. First item in my shopping list, and something relatively safe to buy, would be the lip shimmers. The one I bought was in the Fig shade.

Description:

A kiss of colour and pearlised shine perk up our world famous 100% natural lip balm, while natural ingredients like vitamin E and coconut and sunflower oils moisturise and soothe your lips. Choose from 11 yummy, all natural shades: Champagne, Raisin, Merlot, Rhubarb, Watermelon, Nutmeg, Fig, Cocoa, Toffee, Guava and Papaya.

Ingredients:

Castor oil, sunflower oil, beeswax, candelilla wax, peppermint oil, lanolin, cocoa butter, tocopherol (Vitamin E), carnauba wax, rosemary leaf extract. May contain iron oxide, mica, carmine, titanium dioxide.

Lip Shimmer in Fig

Oh my, have I just found yet another holy grail of lip balms? Granted, this one has a hint of colour in it, but oh my goodness, this is one good lip balm. I absolutely LOVE it. The lip balm glided smoothly on my lips, and kept my lips hydrated in the increasingly chilly weather. It also contains peppermint oil, which leaves a cool, tingling feeling on my lips.

The hint of colour was also very much welcomed. Before applying lipstick or lipgloss, I’d normally apply lip balm on my lips liberally before applying my lip colour. With the lip shimmer, there was no need to. It’s positively tiny in size, and so easy to carry around with me. I can’t wait to get the other colours.

Burt’s Bees Lip Shimmer retails at AUD11.95, and is available at David Jones (Chadstone).

What I like about it: Pretty hint of colour, keeps my lips properly hydrated, and love the minty-tingly effect on my lips.

What I did not like about it: Nothing.

Thanks (or is it no thanks?? :p) to Cheeeezie of You’re My Saturday, I got to know yet another online makeup shopping site, Cyberemporium. This time, it’s an Australian site, and sells a lot of MAC makeup. I’m not a fan of MAC, but I managed to snag a few other goodies from the clearance bin. Thanks to the postieman, my stash arrived this morning. Whee!

I ordered 3 Borjois Regard eyeshadows – 2 pearl eyeshadows (Violet Fascinant and Praline Astral) and 1 matte (Bleu Surprenant). I think these are discontinued items, because these eyeshadows are now sold under another name (Ombre A Paupieres), but with similar packaging. These colours are also no longer available. Also in my haul are three Too Faced eyeshadows in a set, Too Faced Peep Show.

I have yet to try any of these out on my eyes, but I’m really liking the baked shadows by Borjois, especially the Violet Fascinant and Praline Astral.

As for the Too Faced shadows, first impressions were that these were very shimmery eye shadows and caused a bit of a mess in their cases. A little too much shimmer, not enough pigment.

Still, I quite liked the colours, especially the green and gold.

Each of the Borjois Regard eyeshadows was priced at AUD5, and the Too Faced Peep Show set was AUD15 (i.e. AUD5 per duo eyeshadow). I took advantage of the 30% discount off everything on sale, so overall my stash cost me about AUD20. A pretty good buy for so many colours.

Do check out the Clearance Bin when you check out the site. Sometimes you get Stila, Smashbox or Duwop goodies sold at really low prices. I’ll be updating this entry with pictures once I try them out on my eyes. I can’t wait to see what I can do with the pink and green combo (Steel Magnolias) :p

Stay tuned now!

I’ve heard so much of Everyday Minerals when I was in Malaysia. I ordered a sample kit then, but the powders came in ugly green jars without sifters, which caused a huge mess everytime I used it. The thought of the mess I had to encounter everytime I used the mineral foundation really really turned me off. The colours did not suit me either. In the end, I ditched the kit.

That was over a year ago.

When I came to Australia, I stumbled upon Everyday Minerals again. This time, the jars looked much better, and thought I’d give it another try, and ordered another sample kit. The postage fees came up to less than USD10, which wasn’t expensive. I’m really glad I decided to give it another go, because I finally found the perfect shade of foundation for my skin tone.

There are 5 items that you can choose from in the sample kit – 3 foundation powders, 1 concealer and 1 blusher. I’ll be reviewing the foundation for today, and will review the rest soon. I bought a large sifter jar as well to mix my foundation in.

DESCRIPTION
Everyday Minerals foundation comes in 6 different categories for skin tones – warm, golden, cool, beige, buff and olive.

WARM – yellow or red, peachy complexion
GOLDEN – deep rich yellow color or sheen of gold
COOL – pinkish and soft red undertones
BEIGE – pale brown with tinge of yellow or pink
BUFF – natural yellowish brown undertones
OLIVE – yellowish green undertones

Since I am a Chinese with olive undertones, I picked out two samples of Olive Fair and one of Light Olive from the Olive category. I took a shot on ordering these shades because, let’s face it, online shopping for makeup (for makeup only available on the Internet and not retail) doesn’t allow you to test the colours before buying.

Olive Fair was a tad too light for my skintone, but when I mixed in the Light Olive, I was absolutely delighted to discover a perfect match. It was a 2:1 mixture of Olive Fair to Light Olive respectively. It was a good thing I threw in the large sifter jar from EDM (USD2) as well, because it was much easier mixing in a larger jar. Plus dispensing the foundation on the large lid made it practically mess-free.

Everyday Minerals foundation also comes in four different formulae to cater to different skin types.
SEMI-MATTE – ideal for normal to combination skin types, giving you a creamy matte finish with a subtle shine while controlling oil
MATTE – For normal to oily skin types, giving you an essentially shineless yet silky smooth matte finish while it controls
INTENSIVE – For all skin types, providing an extra boost of lasting intensive coverage with a silky near-matte finish. This formula controls oil where needed without drying the skin.
ORIGINAL GLO – Ideal for dry to normal skin types, providing you with a dewey glow and youthful appearance.

I chose the Matte formula as I needed something to really control the shine on my T-zone, especially my nose.

TEXTURE
The mineral foundation is pretty fine-milled. It is not as fine-milled as the mineral foundation by Silk Naturals, but I like this more because it controlled the shine better. Without the use of finishing powder or mineral veil, I get less shine on my T-zone with Everyday Minerals compared to Silk Naturals. The coverage is good, and does not feel cakey.

A funny thing about the mineral foundation is that I would not see the effect of the foundation on my face immediately after application. However, after a half hour or so, it seemed to set in nicely, thus giving my skin a lovely, flawless look. Of course, with this little oddity, it was very easy to mistake the amount of foundation used on the skin, and I’d tend to pile on more because I thought it didn’t give me enough coverage. That was a boo-boo I made when I first started with this mineral foundation. Talk about an inch thick of foundation :p

I also love the fact that you only need so little powder per application.

I normally do two applications of foundation; first application – one cheek and chin, and second application – the other cheek and T-zone. This gives me good coverage. A tip – always apply your mineral foundation on the T-zone last, to avoid product built-up and to reduce shine.

I apply the powder using the Everyday Minerals long-handled kabuki brush (USD10) which I purchased with the sample kit. This is probably the best face brush I’ve ever used. It’s very soft (love it against my skin), and picks up the foundation very well.

VERDICT
I really like this mineral foundation, so much so that I’ve actually ditched my MAC Studio Fix Fluid. I’ll still use the latter for strong coverage for the evenings; other than that, I’m sticking to my Everyday Minerals foundation. I would definitely repurchase once my supply of mineral foundation runs out (which could be ages due to all the sample foundation I bought from other brands of mineral makeup!)

Everyday Minerals foundation is available at the Everyday Minerals website. 2.5g would cost you USD5, and the 8g USD12. I think it’s a very good buy, as the larger jar would last you donkey years.

What I like about it: Good coverage, little shine (very important!), light and very breathable on the skin, and inexpensive.

What I did not like about it: Not as fine-milled as I’d like it to be.