Heads Up: The Hourglass Travel Size Ambient Lighting Powders are bullshit

I noticed the other day that Sephora had added travel sizes of all of Hourglass's Ambient Lighting Powders to the selection, which seems, on the surface, like a good option if you have been considering trying one of them but not sure how much you'd like it. Previously they had Dim Light in this size, but not the others. They're $22, less than half the price of the full-size powder ($46).

But check this out: the full size contains 10 g/0.35 oz. of product and the travel size contains 1.4 g/0.049 oz.! So you get about 15% of the product for almost half the price? In other words, the regular powder is $131 per ounce and the mini is $449 per ounce. Um, no fucking thanks. I get that sometimes the price per ounce/gram isn't that important factor to consider if it's a bottle of nail polish or a lipstick that you think you'll never finish, but these are supposed to be everyday face powders that you presumably would use up and replace. It's worse than their holiday palette.

Just in case you ever doubted that the cost of the product itself makes up much less of the price than the cost of the packaging (not to mention arbitrary profit margins).

I noticed how tiny these things were a couple of weeks ago, but this post I saw while browsing the Makeup Rehab subreddit today inspired me to write about it.

(I've tried the ALPs from samples I got from So Choix, where you get five samples for $15. I wonder if that would come out to 1.4 g between the five, but I don't really have a way to weight and calculate that. I'd say I get at least a dozen uses per sample.)

Choix Subscription Box #3 (with mini reviews of Kevyn Aucoin Sensual Skin Enhancer, Chanel Le Vernis in Vamp, Hourglass Ambient Lighting Blush in Ethereal Glow, Tom Ford Matte Lip Color in Pussy Cat, and Laura Mercier Baked Eyeshadow in Black Karat)

Disclosure: Affiliate links.
For more information about this subscription, take a look at the detailed review of my first two boxes. For now, I'm going to jump right in to the products I sampled in June (I'm already way behind, since I got my July box over a week ago already). This subscription is a fun way for me to test and review some higher end products that I normally wouldn't pick up.

My third box was full of surprises--things I liked more that I expected, and things that made for disappointing swatches but worked much better in actual use. Here are the samples I picked this time:

Chanel Le Vernis in Vamp and Kevyn Aucoin Sensual Skin Enhancer in Sx01.

Hourglass Ambient Lighting Blush in Ethereal Glow, Tom Ford Matte Lip Color in Pussy Cat, and Laura Mercier Baked Eyeshadow in Black Karat. They actually managed to preserve the "bacon" marbling in the Hourglass blush when repressing it! Impressive.

I also got these applicators, which as usual I could pretty much do without. I actually have no idea what the third thing is. This is the second time they've sent one of those. Any ideas?

Many, many photos below!

A $25 Eyeshadow Single? Review and swatches of Rouge Bunny Rouge eyeshadow in Delicate Hummingbird

Disclosure: Affiliate links.
You may be thinking, "Wait a goddamned minute. Why are you reviewing a $25 eyeshadow on a blog with 'cheap' in the title?" Why indeed. That's a fair question. After all, I recently debated whether or not $8 was too much for a single eyeshadow. Well, let me tell you a story. I ordered this eyeshadow from BeautyKind late last week when they had a fantastic promotion with no apparent expiration date posted. I used someone's referral link and got a $25 credit to use, no minimum purchase required. So I just had to pay $6 shipping for the $25 eyeshadow. Score! It arrived Monday evening, so my plan was to test it for two days, and then blog about it, to share the amazing deal. So I tested it for two days . . . and then when I woke up this morning, BeautyKind had changed their rules. Now the deal is a $25 credit to be used on a minimum purchase of $50 when you sign up through a referral link (here's mine). That's way less exciting than a free $25, but I guess 50% off (if you spend exactly $50) is still something.

BeautyKind has a bunch of brands that aren't super-obscure but aren't available everywhere, including Juara, Laura Geller, Butter London, Lipstick Queen, and, of course, Rouge Bunny Rouge. They also donate a 5% of your purchase to a charity, and you have a choice of a few options that change periodically. I chose the American Cancer Society. Of course, if you really want to be charitable, you should just donate your money directly to a cause, rather than treating yourself and then feeling smug and self righteous for doing a good thing. But if you were going to buy the makeup anyway, it doesn't hurt that a couple of bucks are going to charity. BeautyKind also sent me three samples in foil packets, which was a nice bonus, even if one of them was this fat girl bullshit that I posted on Instagram and then threw away without using.

So that's the story. I'm sorry that I don't have a more spectacular deal to share with you, but I thought it would be a little tacky to post a referral link when I hadn't even properly tested the product. Now it's too late. I already took photos of this eyeshadow, however, so I'll go ahead and review it anyway. It makes a good pendant to my recent expensive lipstick review.

Rouge Bunny Rouge When Birds Are Singing Shimmer Shadow in Delicate Hummingbird

Rouge Bunny Rouge has a reputation for beautifully pigmented and creamy powder eyeshadows, so I was interested in how they compare to the many other, definitely cheaper, shadows I already own. The texture is certainly nice. It's pigmented enough that you don't need to spend a lot of time building it up, but not messy, and it's easy to blend. I think it's closely comparable to the shimmer shades in the classic Wet N Wild Color Icon trios, which is high praise. The wear time is also good. I tested it without primer, and it actually lasted a few hours before creasing and didn't fade dramatically. Everything creases on my oily eyelids eventually, so I wouldn't actually wear it without primer, normally.

I chose the shade Delicate Hummingbird, which is described as "cool, dusky, sugar-frosted plum, iridescent with pink shimmer," because it sounded like I wouldn't have a dupe for it in my hoard. Most of my makeup was still in disarray from moving, however, so I didn't actually search through it to make sure before placing the order. (Or was I just too lazy?) The description is basically right, though I think the purple itself is a little warm - and almost brownish ("dusky" I guess) - and a good deal of the metallic shimmer is silvery rather than pink. It's also pretty shifty, depending on the light. A lot of the photos I've seen almost make it look like it has some gold shimmer in it, but it doesn't.

I was successful in not duping anything I already had, so that's good. Here's a comparison with Urban Decay Gravity, which is more pigmented (to the point of being annoying), definitely purple (not plum), and has more silver glitter in it; the purple shade from the Pixi Eye Glo Cube palette, which is lighter and cooler and much less pigmented; and the discontinued Maybelline Color Tattoo in Pomegranate Punk, which is much warmer and redder (next to the others here it looks brown here, but it's really not). I looked at a few other purplish eyeshadows in my hoard, and nothing else looked comparable either.

Swatches of Rouge Bunny Rouge Delicate Hummingbird, Urban Decay Gravity, purple from Pixi Eye Glo Cube, and Maybelline Pomegranate Punk

I find purplish eyeshadows in general tricky, because if they lean at all toward the red side, they make me look ill. Pomegranate Punk, for example, is one of those reddish plums that I simply cannot wear (I pulled it out of my reject pile to swatch). Delicate Hummingbird is right on the line. It's almost the exact color of the dark circles under my eyes (+ shimmer,) so concealer is definitely required. With sufficient care, it's pretty, but not spectacular on me (though if you want to see a really lovely eye look using this shadow, check out this post from Rocaille Writes).

Now the real question: is it worth $25? Um . . . no. Maybe if I had picked a more flattering color, I would have been more blown away, but I'm not convinced. It's a quality eyeshadow, thats for sure, and the packaging is sturdy. If you like to travel with eyeshadow singles, I guess it would be useful to have one with a mirror, and I think the container is refillable. But I also think you can get just as good eyeshadows at a fraction of this price - based on comparison with just this one shade, admittedly, which seems to be among the most popular Rouge Bunny Rouge sells. I'm not immune to expensive beauty product related FOMO from time to time, but it's unfounded. My position is consistently reinforced that there is very little correlation between quality and price when it comes to makeup. True, you might get more attractive and sturdier packaging at a higher price, so if that's important to you, it's worth considering. But as for the products themselves, there is a similar range from terrible to excellent at all price points. There's absolutely nothing wrong with treating yourself to something pretty or luxurious, but don't delude yourself that just because you're spending a lot of money, you're automatically getting something better than the poor schlubs at the drugstore.

If you're interested in Rouge Bunny Rouge, then the $25 off $50+ (plus shipping) from BeautyKind may be the way to go. The shipping was very fast, just a few days. If you do use my referral link, you should know that I also get a $25 off $50+ credit and some points. Their point system confuses me, but you can read about it here and try to figure it out yourself, if you want.

I'm also curious if anyone else has already shopped at BeautyKind, and what your experience has been like, since the site is new to me.

Primer vs. Primer: Comparison and review of e.l.f Mineral/Studio Eyeshadow Primer and Nars Smudge Proof Eyeshadow Base (plus Wet N Wild Fergie Eyeshadow Primer)

Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links.
Here is a quick comparison of a couple of high and low end eyeshadow primers to supplement my previous post on the subject. This time we have e.l.f. Mineral Eyeshadow Primer, which sells for $3 for 0.15 oz., and Nars Smudge Proof Eyeshadow Base, which sells for $25 for 0.26 oz. (I got a mini tube as a gift-with-purchase). The e.l.f. primer is labeled "Mineral" on the tube, but confusingly listed under "Studio Eyeshadow Primer" on their website. It's the same product. I have it in Sheer.

I swatches these two primers next to Wet N Wild Fergie Take on the Day Eyeshadow Primer in the shade that is ridiculously and unhelpfully named For My Primas. It's the sheer version with no shimmer. This is my favorite primer, so it serves as a good basis for comparison. You can see it compared to other primers in the old post.

These are the things I look for in a primer, in order of importance, since I have fairly oily eyelids: (1) prevents creasing; (2) prevents fading/prolongs wear time; and (3) intensifies the color/opacity of the eyeshadow. So these are the criteria I use to judge a primer, which you can keep in mind if some of them are of less importance to you.

Here are swatches of the same eyeshadow alone and over each of the primers. I gave away the blue Covergirl shadow that I used last time, but I still have this equally crappy one, because the gorgeous color keeps me hanging on: Covergirl Eye Enhancers in Turquoise Tempest. As you can see, it barely shows up at all without primer, so it's a serious test for a primer.

Comparison swatches (left to right) with no primer, over Wet N Wild Fergie Take on the Day Primer, e.l.f. Mineral/Studio Eyeshadow Primer, and Nars Smudge Proof Eyeshadow Base.

You can see from the swatches that the WNW outperforms both the e.l.f. and the Nars in terms of intensifying the shadow. It also outperforms the other two in both other categories as well. No creasing and little fading for 8 hours+.

The e.l.f. primer helps with creasing a bit, but it's not great. By that I mean I can go an hour or two before creasing instead of 15 minutes without primer. It does not make eyeshadow last much longer in general - most of it has worn or faded away after a few hours. It also only slightly improves the pigmentation of eyeshadow. It isn't completely transparent, either. It has some pale pigment in it, which affects the color of the eyeshadow, making it a little lighter. It's hard to tell on my very pasty arm, but if you look at the few millimeters surrounding the swatch, you may be able to see a light halo. This could be a problem for people with darker skin than mine.

The Nars primer does prevent creasing pretty well, so that's good. It helps prolong the wear of the eyeshadow a bit, but not all day. And the intensification of the eyeshadow color is good but not great. It's completely transparent when it sets, and it does create a smooth surface for your eyeshadow, if that's something that's important to you. I don't really care about that, personally. I like that it's not sticky, but I don't particularly need smoother eyelids.

I can't really think of any good reason to spend $25 on this Nars stuff, unless you really like a completely transparent or smoothing primer and have a hard time finding one. It has a lot of positive reviews out there, so I guess it's doing something for someone. I wonder if they are from people who haven't tended to use primers in the past (since it's certainly better than nothing) or who are mega-fans of Nars.

This e.l.f. primer should be skipped entirely. If you want a super cheap primer, go for the $1 e.l.f. version (also reviewed here), which is much better  If you want a very cheap primer, buy the Wet N Wild. I still haven't found anything better, especially when you take the price into account!

What's so fucking special about Crème de La Mer? With dupes! (From Of Faces and Fingers)

I have a couple of longish review-type posts (remember when I used to write those regularly?) that are half finished, but real work has been preventing me from completing them. Soon that real work will be over, and I'll have time to post those in between desperate job searching.

In the meantime, check out this fantastic comparison between the exorbitantly priced Crème de La Mer and some other, rather basic, and much cheaper moisturizing creams. The upshot is that, unless you believe the plant extracts in La Mer actually do something (follow the link above to find out why they probably don't), all these products are similar. There are some decent moisturizing ingredients in La Mer, but they aren't exclusive or expensive. I've reviewed the Curel Intensive Healing Cream before, and it's a brand name version of the stuff that hospitals or pharmacies provide to diabetics in huge tubs. Effective, for sure, but very utilitarian and certainly not worth its weight in gold.