All Used Up August, September and October 2017

Wow, it’s been a while! Usually I try to get one of these posts up once a month or every other month, but whatever. It’s going to be a bit longer, then. Here’s the stuff I emptied in the last three months:

Benefit They’re Real mascara: this mini was part of a set and of course the mascara went way before the other products. At first I really liked the mascara and thought I’d buy a full size aferwards. I mean I still ike it but I have found other mascaras that work just as well so for now I won’t repurchase it. It gave my lashes length and volume and didn’t smear.

Chanel Le Volume Rouge Noir: You will notice a trend here. Some people really hate these mascara wands made of plastic (or whatever it is) with short bristles and I really, really love them. I absolutely adored the Rouge Noir color, which sadly was a LE. The Le Volume doesn’t give length, but it does add a lot of volume. This has the effect that lashes droop a bit and won’t keep the curl. My lashes are naturally curly so it works out for me despite the weight. When the Le Volume is new it is very wet and will be a pain to use. I have found the key is to open it once and then put it in the drawer and forget about it. Several months later it will have the perfect consistency. And no, the mascara won’t go bad in the meantime (just don’t leave it lying about for years). Le Volume does not smear on me (once it had some time to dry) or crumble.

Two small masks: Balea Reparierende Maske and Balea Reinigende Maske. These are supposed to be one time masks, but there was so much product in them that I used each for four or five days. Or rather, nights, as these are leave-on masks. Hence the sleepy face. I liked both, they were refreshing (both have a gel texture) and they plumped up my skin quite a bit. The next day there were visibly less fine lines. I don’t think they did anything else though. The blue cleansing mask didn’t result in less gunk in my pores or anything. Still, I liked them. I’m not sure if they were LE, though as I haven’t seen them in stores anymore?

Ingredients for the green repairing mask.

Ingredients for the blue cleansing mask.

Nivea two phase eye makeup remover: It was okay. I had removers that got the makeup off faster than this one, but on the plus side it did not feel that oily and left not much residue on my eye. Might repurchase if I find nothing better.

La Roche Posay Toleriane cleansing milk: my go-to cleanser for makeup free skin. It does claim to be able to remove makup, but don’t fall for it! It’s terrible at removing makeup! It is okay for a normal gentle cleanse, though. I take a blob of this (it has sort of a weird texture) and rub it all over my face. Then I take it off again with a wet cotton pad. It could be taken off with a dry pad but that leaves on too much product for my taste. This cleanser will leave residue, though, even when removing it with water. This is supposed to happen! The cleansing milk leaves a film of moisturisation on the skin while removing the gunk and dirt. Thus, I can skip the regular moisturizer and go straight for sun protection.

Batiste Cherry dry shampoo: am still on my mission to try allll the dry shampoo scents. I like this one here a lot, it smells a bit like Guerlain LPRN… So far Batiste is the brand that gives my hair the most fluffing up, which is my main reason to use dry shampoo (my hair is very limp). Repurchase of this one is highly likely.

From left to right: Lush Lemony Flutter, Colab dry shampoo tropical and a sample of Cavalli perfume.

I don’t like the smell of Lemony Flutter at all, but I love what it does to my skin so I buy it from time to time despite the scent. But the scent is really something. I use Lemony Flutter on my hands, cuticles, feet and sometimes elbows. I put it wherever I need heavy duty cream. It leaves my hands a bit oily for a few minutes, but I think that’s worth it. I do wish they offered a different scent. For now, no repurchase.

Colab tropical has a faint coconutty scent. It smells good, but nowhere near as strong or good as ‘paradise’ from the same brand. It truly does not leave white residue, but it also gives me less fluff than Batiste. And it left my hair feeling a bit sticky. Sorry, Colab I love your scents, but I’ll rather deal with white residue than sticky hair. No repurchase.

Roberto Cavalli by Roberto Cavalli is a massive powdery orange blossom scent. I like it enough to use up the samples (this isn’t my first) but not enough to go for a bottle.

Piz Buin Allergy Lotion: Haha, can you see where the writing wore off? It didn’t survive the combination of heat and sticky hands. Okay I love the formula. It smells good, it protects really well and it does not give me angry, dry red spots on my skin (this happens a lot to me when using the wrong sun care). Thus I bought two more bottles long before I ran out of this one. Only after that I realized how terrible the packaging is! Once you used up the first half the product refuses to come out of the bottle. The opening is tiny, the lotion very thick and the bottle very sturdy and hard to squeeze. I hate it! So I will use up the bottles I stupidly already bought, but after that I’ll only consider this again if they change the packaging!

List of ingredients for Piz Buin.

This is almost the whole list as right now I realize I forgot to photograph a shower gel I used up. I’l put it in the next post. This brings us to the end of my empties for now. See you on the next one!

All Used Up February 2016

February is short (even if this year is a leap year) and my list of empties for last month is also short:

Clinique All About Eyes: Clinique’s famous eye cream is really good at moisturizing. I’ve already repurchased it. While this is among Clinique’s lighter eye creams I still find it plenty rich. I only use it at night because I am afraid it might make my eye makeup slip or smudge.

Secondly I ran out of my beloved men’s shampoo, Nivea Pure Impact. They have overhauled their whole line and this shampoo is not available anymore. Boo! I don’t even know what it was but nothing made my hair look and feel as good as this one. I would have repurchased this until the end of days, but now I am on the search for the perfect shampoo – again!

Last item: I discovered an older sample of YSL Baby Doll and it was still good, so I sprayed with abandon, thinking I could buy a bottle anytime. Ha! Foiled yet again. While the internet claims it’s still beind produced, every Austrian retailer tells me it is not available anymore. 😦 Baby Doll used to be huge many years ago. I can’t believe they’d discontinue it. It smells of grapefruit and candied rose. I am not the biggest rose fan, but this cute scent totally did it for me. I was recommended “In love again” as a replacement, but while they are similar, Love lacks the candied rose aspect. It’s just not the same.

And this concludes my empties. 🙂 I am still working on reducing my stash of shower gels and face creams. Of everything else I have usually only one or two items. I’m being good when it comes to skin care. Not so much with makeup, haha.

All Used Up Feb 2015

After no empties last month, I got a few of them this month:

Alessandro Hand Spa Sun 50: a hand cream with high SPF. It was pretty good, maybe not as nourishing as I need it, but my hands seem to be unusually needy. The sun protection has worked very well, the one age spot I have on my hand even got a little lighter. The cream itself leaves a white cast due to the SPF 50. On my face that would annoy me, but on my hands I didn’t care too much.

Two items from Nivea: First, the day cream (feuchtigkeitsspendende Tagescreme) with SPF 15 for normal skin. I may have reviewed this before, not entirely sure. It’s a rich face cream. I know it says ‘for normal skin’ and there’s an even richer one for dry skin, but this one is already pretty rich and I would only recommend it for dry skin. It worked well for me during this winter. The sample was surprisingly long lasting; I used this from the december  holidays all through january and part of february.

The other item is my new favorite shampoo: Pure Impact. I chose it for the short list of ingredients, because I don’t like silicones in my hair and the last few shampoos left my hair overwhelmed. Only at home I realized I had picked a men’s shampoo!

List of ingredients. Sorry for the blurriness. 😦

Luckily the scent wasn’t cliché man-shampoo smell. In fact it’s very fruity. But not overwhelmingly so. This shampoo does exactly what it promises. It gets you clean in a gentle way. And that’s it. No volume, no extra shine or conditioning. It is a relief, I tell you, after all the gunk women’s shampoo has left in my hair! My hair has never been so soft and managable. I barely use conditioner anymore. You see, my hair is especially unruly and almost impossible to comb. Yes, it is also completely straight and it looks like it’s manageable, but it is not. Until now. I heart this shampoo! Repurchased already.

Clinique Airbrush Concealer: Favorite under eye concealer. Perfect balance of pigmentation and highlighting. Already repurchased, the package you see here is from my new one.

Balea Q10 Anti-Aging Hand Cream: Best hand cream I know. Have not repurchased yet, but will. Comes with SPF 10, that could be higher. Otherwise perfect.

List of ingredients.

La Roche Posay Toleriane Cleansing Milk: I already talked about it here. At the risk of sounding like a broken record, already repurchased. I guess I ran out of a lot of favs last month.

A bad pic of the ingredients list.

And now, this is technically cheating because I ran out last week, but I don’t want to wait until April to talk about them:

Rexona Aloe Vera Deodorant: yes, I use the evil, evil aluminium. Except it’s actually stable aluminium salts and I think it’s laughable the way people get worked up over aluminium that’s applied on the skin while they take in that much more with food. /rant

Last item is Lancome‘s La Vie Est Belle EdP. If you want a representation of what this smells like, please watch this video. The smell is highly similar to Armani’s Si, but more rounded and grounded with a deeper streak. That didn’t make me like it more, it made me like it less. It’s like having overeaten. I don’t mean to say it’s a bad perfume, it’s like the epitome of a fruitchouli, a landmark. It’s just not for me. La vie est belle was created by Olivier Polge, Dominique Ropion and Anne Flipo.

Douglas Box of Beauty Juni 2014

This is how you beauty box:

As an extra I received a sample of a Terry de Gunzburg perfume, Bleu Paradis.

The actual box.

A sample of Artdeco nail growth activator.

Nivea sun protect & bronze sun screen SPF 30: hurray, I’ve been hoping for sun screen, because I was about to run out!

Dolce & Gabbana Pour Femme eau de parfum. A big box for a small sample, haha. It’s a sweet oriental, I like it.

Annemarie Börlind Lifting Serum: a 10 ml sample.

And finally, Shiseido laquer gloss in baby doll (PK 304)!

Swatch! It’s a subtle color on the lips and it feels great.

 

The douglas box is still not a subscription box in Austria. It is available six times a year and everytime you have to make the conscious decision to order it (and then you have to be lucky enough to get it, it is very limited). I think that and the low price of 10 € including shipping makes it the best box available in Austria. Plus the fact that out of the three boxes I ordered so far, none contained hair products! (There was at least one box that I didn’t order because it said there was going to be shampoo in, so the infos you get beforehand are pretty useful as well).

Every other box service, take notes!

All used up: this summer

I’ve been slacking off with these posts so here’s a big compendium. I’m trying to keep it shorter than usual. I think it’s pretty amazing how many things I use up in three months, even if most of them are samples.

Clinique repairwear laser focus: a good serum, not as wowing as the biotherm blue therapy serum, but almost. no scent. big plus: can be used on the eye area and I didn’t need additional eye cream.

Biotherm aquasource nuit: a nourishing gel. I used it day and night, it was lightweight (unlike your average night cream, but since it’s a gel – perfect). would certainly buy full size (if I ever run out of samples to try that is)

click to read the ingredients on full size.

Biotherm aquasource 24h cream: this is for normal/combination, there’s also one for dry skin. it’s okay, but I liked the nuit version better.

ingredients.

Biotherm blue therapy cream spf 15: I was very impressed by the blue therapy serum, but the cream is average imho.

ingredients (sorry for the blurry pic)

Balea Q10+Omega Handcreme: this is an anti aging hand cream with SPF 10. very nourishing, very cheap and I’ll probably repurchase.

Balea Young body cream Zuckerschnute: oh my. like the picture tries to tell you, this smells of candy, but not fruity as one might believe, more like nutty things? Sorry I can’t really describe, it’s a very fake sweet scent. my 12 year old self would have loved it. my adult self will not repurchase and remember next time that Balea Young IS for 12 year olds. as body creams go, it was good and rich.

Nivea Aqua effect Reichhaltige Tagescreme SPF 15 for dry skin: I also had the sample for oily skin, which was very drying. this one here is really good for dry skin. it’s a typical nivea cream product in my opinion. typical smell, typical feel.

Aldo Vandini shine&volume: despite the name, this is not a hair product, it’s a pink tinted lip gloss. I found it nicely moisturizing.

Florena anti age hand cream: Great cream, sadly no SPF which I would expect in an anti aging product for hands.

Kamill Hand&Nagelcreme anti age: this on the other hand, claims to have sun protection, but lists no SPF. not sure what to think about that. a little thinner than the Florena one up there, the scent is super sweet. and yes, that means I go through 75ml hand cream per month. what can I say, I am neurotic about hand washing and that makes my hands super dry. I think I should try to buy bigger sizes.

Kamill ingredients.

mentadent white now mouth wash: a disappointment. it claims to make your teeth whiter, while admitting the effect is temporary only. the product was electric blue so I guess it tried to cover the yellow in teeth with the blue. I saw no difference at all and only used it up because I am stubborn. would not recommend this to anyone.

And for last: Vichy Capital Soleil after sun lotion: this only came in my Glossybox in June and I am sad to see it go. very useful product, slightly cooling, great smell, very moisturizing. can be used all over the body including the face. instead of taking any face cream to my vacation I used this. big recommendation.

 

Aaaand that was my huge post of used up items. you can see, skin care is my biggest contributor here. help, am I obsessed? it is certainly the part where my Glossybox subscription comes in most usefully. I wish they sent more hand cream. all hand and body products were also used on my feet, which are somehow much softer than my hands, by the way.

All used up in May

I’m not allowed to buy more skin care products until I’ve used up the stash that’s been collecting in my drawers. This month I made at least some headway in this department.

The one thing I am allowed to buy since I constantly run out of it is hand cream, though. Here a sad empty pot of Absinthe Purifying Hand Butter by the body shop can be seen. This was very helpful with my hands and nails too I believe. Or maybe it was the body shop nail file I purchased along with it. I liked that unlike most body shop products the scent of this wasn’t so in your face.

Alverde Pflegedusche Vanilleblüte Mandarine (shower gel): This has been in the back of the drawer forever. I finally put it in the gym bag and used it up. I liked the gentle sweet smell. But since I had it for so long I don’t even know if this exists anymore. I often have this problem with Alverde or Balea products…

Kiehl’s Powerful-Strength Line-Reducing Concentrate: Includes 10,5% of Vitamin C. Here is a sad blurry pic of the ingredients list:

Vitamin C (Ascorbic Acid) is the third listed ingredient, which means, yes there is a whole lot of it, even more than silicone. Usually you get mostly silicone. It did feel very silicon-y though, kind of dry. But I could use it all over with no additional moisturizer, so it’s good. Yes I know it says it’s a wrinkle concentrate but I really can’t be bothered applying a cream only in certain areas, also I advocate the use of anti-aging products against acne-prone skin. I think it did well in this regard. I didn’t have many spots while using this at all, not even during that time of the month (but note that I am on acne medication – the best face cream in the world cannot help me without that). Sometimes my face was a little red after applying it, but not always. My skin always warmed up right during application though, so not good for very hot days. The feeling stopped after a minute or two. It took me a while to realize it but this also creates a metallic smell on the skin. I think it’s the Vitamin C getting to work? *shrug*

Biotherm Homme Aquapower: Since the Kiehl’s product made my face red sometimes I needed something gentle for the mornings because I don’t want to look angry red before I leave the house. Aquapower proved to be great for mornings. It is a light gel, you can’t feel it at all after application and it moisturizes nicely. I was surprised how much I liked it, despite the scent that I found to be strong. I don’t have a thing against manly men perfume, in fact I like it lots, I am simply no fan of scented face products. List of ingredients, also blurry I am so sorry:

There’s a whole lot of stuff in there that I do not know what it does, but some of it is nice and moisturizing, like Urea and that Parkii Butter stuff. Anyway, since it’s a product targeted towards men it says it can be applied right after shaving. Minus the perfume, which is at least the very last ingredient, I enjoyed this cream a lot and am tempted to buy a full size for myself – should I ever run out of face cream which I am not sure will happen. Being a glossy box subscriber doesn’t help in that regard…

Nivea Q 10 Anti-Falten Augen Roll On (anti wrinkle eye roll on): It claims to cool and reduce swelling but I wouldn’t agree here. As an eye cream it’s good though. When I applied too much, my eye area would be puffy the next day. I think it’s because it tries to reduce the appearance of wrinkles by puffing the skin up from the inside. So while a little product is good, it was hard to control how much product to get out because of the roll on. Sometimes there would be nothing, and then way too much.

CD Q 10 Dusche (shower gel): I swear I didn’t buy Q 10 products on purpose, but they were both 50% off… Don’t have much to say about it, it’s a good shower gel.

List of ingredients for the shower gel.

Sensodyne Fluorid: mostly as a joke, my tooth paste. I heard it’s how you gauge internet fame; if people care about your tooth paste you made it. 😉

And very last, a sample of Nivea Aqua Effect Mattierende Tagescreme (mattifying day cream) for combination to oily skin, SPF 15. It says it’s combination to oily, but it’s very drying so I can only recommend for skin that is oily all over.