Long Live the Rimmel Scandaleyes Eyeshadow Stick!

Hi guys! Long time no talk! Turns out my nine year old being home for the summer didn't offer me quite the amount of time to blog that I'd hoped. But, I'm looking to get back in the game, so let's get started!

These three beauties are the Rimmel Scandaleyes eye shadow sticks. And they were fair to good quality - the gray was hard to blend, the gold and purple went on like dreams. I've talked about them before, and I've even Instagramed about them:

https://instagram.com/p/6idvQYNfsz/?taken-by=beautybytheresa11

and 

https://instagram.com/p/5SN3v5NfsO/?taken-by=beautybytheresa11

(And by the by, I'd be super pumped with a like on either pic. It's a public account, you don't even have to follow me to do it...although I'd be super pumped if you did that too, haha...)

I also noticed that I was seemingly always seeing these on clearance, but I could never put together why. A lot of times when you find makeup on clearance, they're either discontinuing that particular shade, or maybe changing up the packaging. But they seemed to be always marking these down. What was the deal?

I just logged on to the Rimmel site tonight, and figured it out. Long live the Rimmel Scandaleyes shadow stick, cause these guys are goners. Liners, shadows, cream shadows, they'll have them all. But if you're a fan of the chubby pencil format, you'll want to stock up, cause when they're gone, they're gone.

Like eye shadow? Me too! I talk about it all the time!

Mani Monday: Minty Edition!

Rimmel 60 Second nail color in "Mintilicious". These bottles are smaller than most, but they also bear a smaller price tag than most ($1.50, and Rimmel frequently puts out coupons, so you can get it cheaper than that even).

Dries fast and well - I've tried other polishes that were several hours in, and still smudging. I've not timed it, so I don't know if the 60 second promise is true, but you're dry and ready to go, really fast.

The finishes tend to come out really true to the bottle, as you can see here. This is two coats, using a white base coat. No surprises, Rimmel delivers exactly what they promise.

Until next time, beautiful!

When last we were all together...

We learned that the good people at NYX Cosmetics have never met a pale person. But boy howdy, the staff at Rimmel sure has!

So I did a bit of a "second verse, same as the first" gig here. You'll see the NYX Stay Matte But Not Flat powder foundation, Enigmatic Illuminator, and Matte Bronzer in light. The ELF Brow Powder also makes it's debut appearance in the testing.

Here I am, washed, prepped and primed. I was recently part of a product test for a company I won't name, just to keep myself covered, and I used one of the face washes that I tested, the Olay Long Live Moisture! moisturizer from the last test, and L'Oreal Miracle Blur just like last time as well. And yes, I'll be waxing my brows in the morning. :D

I used the Rimmel Stay Matte mousse foundation, that everyone raves about. I used Light Ivory, which is their second lightest shade.

Is much better, yes? I initially was using my beauty blender, and couldn't get it blended down enough that I was happy - I've got weird flakiness in my t-zone that never goes away (serious, I'm freshly exfoliated, still look that flaky. It never leaves me!), and the beauty blender seemed to be drawing attention to it, rather than detracting from it. So I kicked it old school, got my foundation brush out, and smoothed it down as much as I could with that.

Then I added in the bronzer, powder, whole shebang, and got this; I messed this pic up a tiny bit, because I wanted to check my contouring work, so I turned to get a bit more of a straight on effect. It also gave me a little shadow. And I tried to brighten it up, but couldn't brighten without it looking overly fake. 

See, a little shadow-y. But also a considerably better match for my skin than the NYX was, I think we can all agree!

I've now had this foundation on about 5 hours, and I'm not yet confident in it's long term wear - I've got some settling in to the large pores around my nose. It's not visible unless you're looking really close up, which of course, no one but me would. But the problem remains.

I used Light Ivory, which is the second lightest foundation they make, and guys? If you are a pale girl...meet the good people at Rimmel. This is pale enough that there were times that it started to feel a little kabuki mask line. I really had to work with it, to get it where I was satisfied. This matches my neck and all, but in truth, I maybe even could have stood one darker.

So right now, I'm giving this a solid "probably". It's got full coverage - I don't think anything is showing through this stuff! It's matte, exactly like it advertises. It comes in a wide variety of shades, feels light going on, but really stands up to the test. The "long lasting" issue is the only one that's stopping me from fully, enthusiastically signing off on it. The settling in to the pores is giving me a little pause. But I'll keep testing, and let you know soon!

See you later, my lovelies!

Bite Sized Reviews of Rimmel!

We're talking Rimmel Scandaleyes eyeshadow sticks!

I talked about one of these a little bit once before, here, and had a real Murphy's Law type of experience with it, so I was hopeful this one would go different.

I used two of the colors, Bulletproof Beige. Bulletproof Beige is a nice, shimmer gold, that if you're fair skinned, could easily double for a highlighter. Then we revisited my old nemesis, Paranoid Purple, a matte royal purple, which is also the one I had so much trouble with in the post that I linked.

Pleasantly, the trouble I had was not duplicated. I had no trouble getting the lid off, no breakage, no nothing! Great!

These are uber-simple to use - if you can use a crayon, you can use these. I was interested to see how well multiples blended together though. Awesomely, as it turns out. I'd tried the Almay stick eyeshadows (read those details, here...), and they didn't blend at ALL, and I admittedly expected the same from Rimmel.

I set the bar too low, as it turns out, because these colors stayed nicely, blended well, and layers together great!

Here's a few snaps. I ran out of daylight before I could get daylight snaps, so all of these are swatched indoors, which isn't great admittedly, but I did what I could do for you, right? :D

The product on. See what I mean? Blends really well, looks nice on.

The colors swatched on the inside of my arm. That's Bulletproof Beige closer to the camera, Paranoid Purple farther away. Bulletproof Beige could easily work as a highlighter in the Highlight and Contour step (for fair to medium skin tones. After a medium skin tone...probably not as much, hah!). Paranoid Purple also makes a nice eyeliner, if you sharpen the pencil to a nice point.

You know, had I been left to my original experience to decide whether or not I'd recommend this product to you, I'd give it a solid "...meh? Maybe?", but I was much more impressed with the product - in terms of wearability and longevity the second time around, so I'd give this a solid yes. This is an impressive product for the cost!

All that, and my google spell check is still in one piece!

It's "Test a tip off Pinterest!" Week!

This week on Pinterest, I read a tip from a makeup artist that said that people should be wearing PURPLE eyeliner, because purple will help the eye pop, better than black or brown liner. I went "What, really?!", and promptly went out to look for some purple liner to test this little tip out for myself.

To make sure that it was genuinely my eyeliner that was making my eyes pop, and not my eyeshadow, or something of that nature, I kept all my makeup exactly the same over the course of this little experiment.

My little helpers:

From top to bottom, we have;

Boots No. 7 eye color duo in "Royal". It's a gold, and what I think is purple. And I say "I think", because it's one of those shape shifter colors. In certain lights, it looks like a real deep purple, in certain lights navy, and on my pale skin, it looks black. It's really rad. I think they've changed up their products, but I hope that's one I can find again.

Rimmel Scandal-eyes mascara in black. While I do like it (and I do - goes on smooth, doesn't clump, regardless of how many layers I put on), it's not as exceptional as Rimmel would probably want you to believe. Everybody wants to talk about their mascaras like they're exceptional...they aren't.

Rimmel Scandal-eyes eye shadow stick in Paranoid Purple. And if you'll let me go off on this one for a second - this one had a CRAZY tight lid. I'm perfectly healthy, getting that liner off shouldn't have been that hard! And I got halfway through lining my first eye, and the point BROKE. And of course I can't find a sharpener to keep going, so I end up painting the shadow on with a q-tip. Irritating, for sure! I'd be a little bit pressed to buy another one of these, even as much as I liked it, just because of all the trouble I had with it!!

Rimmel Scandal-eyes waterproof Kohl-Kajal eyeliner in black. I got this in a GWP with the mascara, and this, I like. It's like the kid sister to the new L'Oreal eyeliner that's out right now. Nicely pigmented, long lasting. I feel like I'd buy this one again if I ran out of it.

Lastly, Wet N Wild Color Icon pencil in Purple. I let myself get a little intimidated by this one, and I really shouldn't have. The pencil makes this look like it was a REALLY vivid purple, and I kept looking at it, and getting eighth grade royal blue eyeliner flashbacks (we were all there once...), and talking myself out of wearing it. In reality, it's a nice royal purple, and wears nice. It was much better than I had imagined, which is always a pleasant surprise. :D I'd buy this one again, for sure.

So I tested this out three different ways;

Just purple. This is the Rimmel purple, because I hadn't yet convinced myself to go Wet N Wild. And I had quite the Murphy's Law experience with this one (I already spoke to some of it, in my description of the pencil, so I won't go over it again, haha...), but I'm not disappointed. My eyes are blue, and I felt like the purple actually made them look lighter, and greener, which was a surprising development.

This is the Rimmel black liner, with the same eyeshadow/mascara combo. There's nothing to hate here, but you don't get quite the same POP that you get from the purple.

This look was the purple and black put together. I used the Wet N Wild purple this time, rather than the Rimmel purple. I put together the entire look, with the black liner, and then drew the purple liner, up over the top of the black. This might have been my favorite look of the three. At first, when this was fresh, this felt like an absurdly large amount of makeup - then as it settled in to my skin a little bit, and was a lot happier with it.

I know sometimes Pinterest can be full of craziness, and impossible to duplicate tips, but I think in this case, there's no disputing - the purple does in fact pop the eye (well, my eye anyway), better than black does. Purple! Who knew, am I right?!

See ya later, gorgeous!

Yes, another pedi...

Does my current nail polish obsession know no bounds?!

And will I ever remember to trim my finger nails, so I can paint them too?!

Let's find out together!

This weeks find was 60 Second Nail Polish, by Rimmel, which promises to dry in only 60 seconds. I hardly got out a timer, but it did seem to dry pretty fast. So, on the question of "does it live up to the promises?" My answer is a solid, "Um...maybe?"

The color I selected is called "Red, Steady, Go!", and is a bright, neutral red. Not especially warm, or cool. Bright, and solid. The color has a nice brush, and goes on smoothly, evenly, and streak free. It's really a fun color, another one that was a little outside of my realm. My seven year old picked it out - he's got a real eye for color, he wanted me to try this one. I like it! I might let him pick more often!

The packaging is clearly written, and easy to read. The bottle, like most, is the color of the product inside. Which means for a bright, neutral red, this one would be easy to find, just about anywhere! The bottle is small though. Like, surprisingly small. But having said that, I'll tell you this. Actually, I'll tell you two things:

1)This polish is cheap. It retails for $1.50 (USD) at my local Wal-Mart. So they're charging the right prices, not to mention, for that price, you can change your polish a lot!

And 2)Rimmel puts out coupons a lot. Like, a lot. In fact, the whole reason I bought this color was because I had a good coupon. I had a coupon for $1 off any Rimmel product, so I got this tasty little viddle of nail polish for 50 cents! Can't beat that!

The beauty shots:

The bottle! Easy to read, easy to find in the dark (lol...)

The polish, on my toes. Goes on smooth and extra glossy. My husband and son, both of whom profess to not be nail polish guys, have really enjoyed my testing out all these colors, and I've only had on this color about 10 hours, and it's already drawn both of their attention.

Will update next week with the chippage alert!

Until next time!

Chip Update: 6 days, which actually puts it right up with some of the best that I've tried from the drug store. Although, there was some staining on my toes when I took it off, and that's no good. It prompted the joke that I'd been "stomping strawberries" at the Memorial Day Cookout my family had. So pretty, long lasting, gonna stain your toes. You take the good, you take the bad, you know?