Benefit Pore-fessional Makeup VS the Primer

Hi Everyone!  I thought today I would talk about Benefit’s Pore-fessional Makeup and the Primer.  I love the Pore-fessional primer and on a trip to Ulta a few weeks ago, I picked up the Pore-fessional Makeup.

The Pore-fessional Makeup comes with a little sponge that fits in the bottom of the tube.  You’re supposed to squeeze the sides of the bottle and place 1 or 2 drops on the sponge and then apply it to your skin.  (My sponge looks dirty because I just used before taking the picture.)  I decided to use the primer on half my face and the makeup on the other half.  I applied my sunscreen on my whole face, just like I normally would, then appled the products.  With no other makeup on, it seemed like the Pore-fessional makeup did a better job (which I expected because it’s not just a primer.)  I then applied L’Oreal True Match foundation with a beauty blender.  I did everything that I normally would with applying my makeup.  I finished the rest my makeup-concealer, setting powder, bronzer, blush, etc.  After applying my makeup, both halves of my face looked the same, but decided to wear it for a few hours to see if time made a difference.  It did not.  When it was time for me to take my makeup off, both halves of my face looked the same.

Conclusion:  If you are going to wear foundation/full-face of makeup, I would just use the primer.  There’s no need to use the pore minimizing makeup under a full-face/foundation because it’s going to look the same as the primer.  If you’re going with a “no make-up” day or wearing a light powder foundation, then I would use the pore minimizing makeup because when I only had the pore minimizing primer and pore minimizing makeup on, you did get a little better coverage/pore minimizing action with the makeup.

I really do like bother of these products!  I’m always looking for a great product that minimizes the appearance of pores.  If you know of a product, please let me know in the comments!

Have a great day! =)

 

**Disclaimer:  I purchased this products with my own money and these opinions are my own.

Aveeno Face Sunscreen

Hi Everyone!  When I did my post about what beauty products I brought with me to Las Vegas, I mentioned that I picked up this Aveeno face sunscreen to take with me.  It was during one of my Target trips I made the week before leaving.  It is around $7.50 for a 3 oz tube.  I was happy it came in a 3 oz tube, because that is what my airline allowed for carry-ons!  I picked this particular face sunscreen for a few different reasons.  What first drew me to this tube was that it said protect + hydrate.  I was really intrigued by this because I wanted to make sure my face was hydrated while being in Las Vegas.  The air out there is very dry, plus the air on the airplane was dry, so staying hydrated was important.  It is also spf 50 which was one of the higher spf face sunscreens I saw.  I have sensitive skin, so getting a sunscreen that wouldn’t clog my pores was a must!

Review:

I absolutely love this face sunscreen!  It does not clog my pores (like it claims!) and goes on so smoothly.  It does have a scent to it; it’s hard to describe the scent, but it almost smells like grapefruit to me.  It’s not a strong scent, and goes away within a few minutes.  It also absorbs in the skin pretty quickly.  I wear this everyday under my makeup or alone.  It really does protect and hydrate my skin!  If you are looking for a new face sunscreen, I highly recommend this one!

Hope you all have a great day! =)

 

**Disclaimer:  I purchased this product with my own money and my opinions are my own.

The Cleansing Balm I Use

Hi Everyone!  I hope everyone had a great weekend!  We have been in a heat advisory for the past few days in the Chicagoland area, so I am definitely looking forward for it to cool down a bit this week!  Hopefully everyone is staying cool.

I thought I would write a post about what I use to clean my makeup off at the end of the day. I apologize in advanced for the photo quality.  This container was so hard to get a decent photo!

I use the Clinique take the day off cleansing balm!  I absolutely love it and really feel like it takes off all my makeup.  The balm almost turns to an oil the more you massage it in the skin and because of that, I feel like it really gets every bit of makeup off.  This container lasts me for a while.  I actually just bought this one and have only used it a few times and there’s still a ton of product left.  The directions say to use your fingertips and massage balm over dry skin then rinse with warm water.  I do that somewhat.  I will take a decent amount of the balm and massage it over dry skin until the balm starts to almost feel melted.  I will then run my fingers under water to get wet then continue to massage the balm.  Instead of rinsing my face with water, I take dry cotton rounds and wipe the balm off my face.  Then, for good measure, I take a damp cotton round and make sure all the balm is really off my face.

You can use this balm for your face and eyes, and I do use it to remove my eye makeup!  If I’m wearing glitter or a bright pigment on my eyes, this balm will take it ALL off.  I usually will concentrate on taking my eye makeup off first, then my face makeup and I use the same method.  I’ve taken my face makeup off first then my eyes before, and end up redoing half my face because the eye makeup went all over my face while I was taking it off.  So now, I take my eye makeup first, then face. =)

It only takes a few minutes to make sure your makeup is off and it is such an important thing to do before you go to sleep.  I used to be the girl that would go to sleep with like a full-face of makeup on then wonder why my skin wasn’t the best.  Now, I always make sure all my makeup is off and my face is nice and clean before I go to bed!  My skin is looking better and better every day!

If you have any cleansing balms you’ve tried and really liked, please let me know in the comments!

Have a great week! =)

 

*Disclaimer:  I bought this product with my own money and the opinions are my own!

Mini Ulta and Sephora Haul

Hi Everyone!  Hope you had a great weekend!  My boyfriend and I went to Mall of America for a little weekend trip.  It was a blast!  We went to the Sea Life Aquarium there and did lots of shopping.  I loved the shopping, but my credit card was not too happy about it. haha! I did go to Ulta and Sephora to look around a bit.  They were so crowded though, that I did a quick walk around and only got a few things, since I could go to those stores around my house and I forgot my Sephora giftcard! =(

I went to Sephora first. I will copy the links for the products at the end of the post!

I’ve been wanting to try the Glow Recipe Watermelon moisturizer and sleeping mask.  I was just going to get the sleeping mask first to try it out, but then I saw this set that has a full-size moisturizer (worth $39 by itself) and a 1 oz jar of the sleeping mask (if you buy the 1 oz jar, its $22 or the 2.7 oz is $45).  So, it really was a good deal to try these products out by buying the set.  I do have oily skin, and the moisturizer says it’s ideal for oily to combo skin, so I’m super excited to try it out!  I also have sensitive skin, and some products that are made for oily skin will break my face out, so hopefully this product doesn’t do that!  The sleeping mask says it’s ideal for all skin types!

I love all beauty sponges and saw a blue one from beauty blender and since my favorite color is blue, I had to pick one up.  You can never have enough beauty sponges, right?

The next thing I got is the Peace Out Acne healing dots.  I was really intrigued by this product.  The directions say you apply a dot on the blemish for 6 hours and it’s supposed to shrink your blemish.  It says, “In just six hours, your blemish is less red, less painful, and significantly less annoying.”  I’ve used the Mario Badescu Drying Lotion and really like that, but I’m always looking for better ways to shrink/zap a blemish.  The acne healing dots are a bit pricey; they are $19 for 20 dots.  I will keep you posted if they are worth the price or not!

The last thing I got, was with my Beauty Insider points.  They had this dr. brandt set for 500 points.  I’ve never used any products from dr. brandt and have been wanting to try some things (especially the pores no more).  The set includes Pores No More primer, Needles No More cream, Microdermabrasion exfoliator, and No More Baggage eye gel.  I will let you know if any products are worth buying the full-size!  If you know of a good primer, please leave them in the comments!

My trip to Ulta was very short!  It was one of the last stores we went to for the day, so it was right before they closed.  I grabbed another container of the Aveeno Clear Complexion daily cleansing pads.  I love these and they were on sale!  I probably should have bought two containers.  I actually keep this container in the shower and use them there.  It’s so convenient to cleanse your face with the pad, then just put your face into the shower stream!  Just make sure you’re not taking a hot shower!  I’ve also tried the brightening cleansing pads, but I like the clear complexion ones much better!

I picked up two Morphe eye brushes.  I’m always looking for new eye brushes and have never tried Morphe eye brushes before and thought I would give them a whirl!  I picked up the Morphe M321 Bullet Crease brush ($3) and the Morphe M514 Detail Round Blender brush ($6).  I love the price point of these brushes, but will have to see how well they hold up.  I currently use Sigma eye brushes and really like them, but these are a quarter of the price, so we will see!

So that is all I bought from Sephora and Ulta at Mall of America!  I hope you enjoyed this post and if you have any eye brushes you love, please leave them in the comments!

Side note:  Victoria’s Secret is having their semi-annual sale going on right now!  I did stop there and picked up a few items.  You can’t beat those sale prices!  If you would like to see what I bought from there, let me know!

Have a great week!!

Links to the items I talked about:

https://www.sephora.com/product/watermelon-set-P431174?skuId=2074425&icid2=products grid:p431174

https://www.sephora.com/product/beautyblender-sapphire-P431849?skuId=2074698&icid2=products grid:p431849

https://www.sephora.com/product/acne-healing-dots-P421275

https://www.ulta.com/daily-cleansing-pads?productId=xlsImpprod640004

https://www.ulta.com/m321-bullet-crease-brush?productId=xlsImpprod17681075&sku=2525495&_requestid=794458

https://www.ulta.com/m514-detail-round-blender-brush?productId=xlsImpprod17681081&sku=2525498&_requestid=799941

 

*Disclaimer:  I bought all of these products with my own money.  All opinions are my own.

 

What I Took in My Personal Bag on the Plane

Hi Everyone!  I hope you’ve been enjoying the nice weather! I know I have.  So the last two posts were what I brought with me (beauty-wise) to Las Vegas and I thought I would write a post about what I took in my personal bag on the airplane.  It’s been about 10 years since I flew, so I wasn’t too sure what to bring with me.  The plane ride was about 4 hours, so I wanted to make sure I had enough items to keep me busy!

This is what the inside of my bag looks like!

I ran to Walgreens the night before the flight and picked up the Food Network and HGTV magazines to flip through either on the plane or waiting at the airport.  I also brought my Sudoku puzzle book.  I love doing Sudoku puzzles and have a ton of different books, so I just grabbed one.  Before leaving for the airport, I downloaded a few movies on my Kindle through the Prime membership.  The flight going to Las Vegas had a screen on the back of all the seats where you could watch movies, but the flight coming home did not, so I was glad I brought it!  You never know when you want to jot something down, so I made sure to bring a notebook as well!

I kept my cords, chargers, sticky notes, pens and jewelry in this clear zippered bag.  This bag came from a set from Amazon when I bought it for my liquids.  It was a set of two bags, and I thought, why not use it for my cords so I can easily see if I have everything? I have to say, it makes life so much easier keeping everything organized in different bags.  I picked up the dual headphone splitter at Target for around $5!  My mom came to Las Vegas as well, and hates flying, so I picked this up so we could both watch a movie.  Watching a movie definitely helped to keep her relaxed!  I put all my earrings in 1 earrings case to keep them all together.  The circle container at the top are special ear plugs that are supposed to help your ears to not hurt from landing or taking off.  My ears still bothered me, but I don’t know if they would have bothered me more if I did not wear them, so I will wear them again when I fly!  I also picked up the blue headphones at Target for $10!  They were on sale and I was looking for a new pair of headphones and these have the microphone, so I can use them while talking on the phone too!

I kept my liquid makeup bag in my personal bag because you’re supposed to take the liquid bag out separately when going through security, so I wanted to make sure I was able to quickly take it out.  My feet always get cold, so I brought a pair of socks to put on during the flight!  I was soo glad I brought them with me, because the plane was cold!  I threw my deodorant and a pair of sunglasses in my bag as well.

The last thing I brought in my bag were snacks!  I went to a candy store a couple days before my flight and picked up some gummy sharks and turtles!  Yum!  I also brought a breakfast oatmeal square and almonds and walnuts packs.  For our flight, you could not take a full bottle of water, but you could take an empty one and fill it up after you get through security.  Instead of paying $4-5 for a bottle of water, I took an empty bottle and filled it up after security!

I realized I did not take a picture of my wristlet I brought.  It is the leopard wristlet at the top of the bag.  I carry a chapstick (with spf) and my wallet in the wristlet.  I bought a new wristlet at Target for $6 to fit inside this wristlet (can you tell I love shopping at Target?)

https://www.target.com/p/women-s-pick-me-up-wallet-a-new-day-153/-/A-51783577?preselect=52935877#lnk=sametab

Above is the link to the wallet I took!  I absolutely love it!  My Target had different colors available, so I got it in Teal.

So this is what I carried in my personal bag on the plane!  It took me forever to pack my bags to fly.  I looked into getting some packing cubes for my clothes, but couldn’t decide which ones to get.  If you have any suggestions on which packing cubes to get, please leave a comment below!

I hope everyone has a great week!

 

*Disclaimer:  I purchased all of these products with my own money and these views are my own.