Sunday, January 17, 2016

Products I've Used Up/Empties Vol. 5

After my last empties, I decided that instead of piling up my empty products I am going to blog about them after I have just 4-5 of them! But guess what, I did pile them up and ended up with this BIG FAT list of empty items to talk about. But hey, at least I am being good about using up my stash :-)


Not Your Mother's Deja Vu 'Do Style Extender (4 fl oz, $7.99): I got this in an Influenster VoxBox (reviewed here). The main idea here is to lock the oil in your scalp and keep your hair oil-free so that you can elongate the time between washing your hair. This definitely helps in restraining my hair from getting super oily between washes. It also has a strong fruity smell which does not linger a lot and it does not bother me much, but I am not a fan either. Also, I don't get my hair to shine if I use this. I happily finished this tube, but I don't think I will repurchase.

Parachute Coconut Oil: This is going to appear in almost all my empties posts :-) I have been religiously using it for deep overnight conditioning of my hair once a week as long as I remember :-) it helps in maintaining the moisture in my hair. I cannot live without this and I hardly ever shampoo my hair without using this overnight. Holy Grail product! :-)

It's a 10 Miracle leave-in Plus Keratin (4 oz, $20): I absolutely love this leave-in conditioner! It’s been much more than a year since my last hair-straightening treatment and hence my original hereditary crazy waves are coming back! May be because of that its effect has not been as mind-blowing as before. But it still does a great job in managing my uncontrollable wavy hair and makes them look smooth and presentable. I will continue to use it.

Equate Beauty Nourishing Nail Polish Remover: This is a super-affordable nail polish remover, I bought it quite some them back, so I don’t know if it’s still available. There is nothing great to talk about this but it definitely did the job! Of course, it needs a little more work to remove glitter polishes with this. But if you use the "aluminium foil" trick, it works wonders. I will definitely repurchase.


Lavanilla The Healthy Deodorent (0.9 oz, $8): It is a natural deodorant; as mentioned in their website there are "no Parabens, Petrochemicals, Phthalates, Silicones, Propylene Glycol, Mineral Oils, Synthetic Dyes, Sulfates, Chemical Sunscreens, or Aluminum". The scent is to die for! It's very relaxing, moderately sweet and peaceful. It's white solid stick type; glides on very smoothly, takes just a minute or two to dry and does not transform to the clothing. The longevity is not super impressive though! It gives me decent wear time during my normal work hours or when I am running just a few errands. Based on my experience, I don't think it will be 100 % effective for long time wear during heavy-duty tasks!! I reviewed it here a few months back, and I stated that I will repurchase, but I have changed my mind. After a few months of use, the product broke off inside the packaging and it became absolutely cumbersome to use it. Eventually I had to give up without being able to completely finish this. I am very dissatisfied, even though I enjoyed using the product itself.

Tarte Pure Maracuja Oil (1.7 fl oz, $48): I bought this with so much hope; it is such a loved product in the beauty community; I thought it will be the cure for the dry skin on my face. It is a good product but did not perform miraculously on me. I did like it while using it but after 6-7 months, the oil started to get thicker. I just recently ran out of it, I will observe if it is something that I horribly miss in my routine but otherwise I would not repurchase.

Ole Henrikson Truth Serum Vitamin C Collagen Booster (1 oz, $48): I finished up a tiny bottle of this in my last empties post. I do like the serum, and I have gone through almost 1 oz of this, but I have not seen anything phenomenal about it yet! At least not on me! Sephora Favorites Sets generally includes this in smaller size; If I repurchase, I will definitely get those instead of buying a full size.

Algenist Complete Eye Renewal Balm (0.5 oz, $65): To be blatant, I hated this balm. It did absolutely nothing and that’s sad for such an expensive product. It was very thin and sometimes it could not even take care of the dryness under my eye, let alone improve my “fine-line” situation. Also, as you see, the label on outer side flaked off completely, and I was always worried that those flakes will fall into the balm eventually getting in to my eyes. Definitely will not repurchase.


Fresh Sugar Lip Treatment Sunscreen SPF 15 in “Tulip” (0.15  oz, $24): I am so glad that this fancy but horrible product is finally over. I literally abused it in order to get it done with! I know Fresh lip balms have very loyal fans but this particular one did not work on me at all. I don’t know why! May be I got a bad batch or something. This was a very thick and super heavy lip balm. It just sits on my lips. I have tried their original formula and it much better than this. When I apply it, it makes me feel moisturized but yet I could see skin from my lips peeling off after 1-2 hrs. It’s a tinted balm, but the tint is quite strong and I always end up getting the lip balm all over my teeth, I have been embarrassed many times at work; I would just put it on mid-day without using a mirror and then later somebody will point out that I have lipstick on my teeth. I am never buying it again, not at least this shade.

Lakme 9 to 5 Flawless Creme Compact (9g, INR 500): Wohoo! My very FIRST big makeup empty (you know, if I ignore mascara and lip glosses). I am super excited! I posted a full review here a few days back. As much as spend money on skincare and beauty, when time demands, I can live very frugally. Plus being a bank manager’s daughter we were always encouraged to respect the value of money. So, when I see something getting TOTALLY used up it gives me immense joy! This is a cream to powder matte foundation and it was my very first base type of product. I used the shade "shell". It does not give full coverage but I liked the sheer to medium coverage I could get with this. My skin is much drier now so I do not like to use it on my face anymore. But I love to use it on my neck; the sponge applicator that came along, made it very easy to apply the cream on my neck super-fast and super-easy. For last year or more, I am exclusively used it for that purpose. Now that I have finished it, I am definitely missing it in my routine.  I may pick it up when I go home next!

Dior Addict Fluid Stick (.18 oz, $35): Now this is just a sample, but I have to talk about this! I got this sometime back from Sephora and I have loved each of the shade. The formula is so very comfortable on the lips, its so opaque and a pleasure to apply. It is slightly glossy in finish and it stays for a long time! If I already did own an unhealthy amount of lip products and if it was not this expensive, I would have bought at least one shade long time ago.

Make Up For Ever Setting Spray (4.22 oz., $30): Another sample that lasted for 3-4 usage. It is not enough time to tell if I really, really enjoy it. But I think it did work in some ways to make my makeup last a little bit longer. May be someday I will invest in this.

Buxom Lash Mascara (0.37oz, $20): Yes, this is also a sample. I am not typically picky about my mascaras, I don’t like hard rubbery kind of bristles like Benefit’s “They’re real”. But this one was very soft and I did really enjoyed using it.

Dior Diorshow Mascara (0.33 oz, $27.50): Like I said, I don’t really look for a lot in my mascara. I am fan of natural lashes, and it did serve me good. But I am not going to spend $27.50 for a mascara :-) 

Maybelline Moisturizing Mascara Remover (, $4.99): I bought this in some kind of a deal, so it was quite affordable. It does a decent job in removing the mascara but it leaves a lot of oily residue. I am using up my second bottle without much complain but I am not going to repurchase; my search for the absolute PERFECT mascara remover will go on!

Makeup Remover Cleansing Water (6.7 oz, $28): It is a simple and light makeup remover; certainly not for heavy duty makeup. When I reviewed it here, I did not like it that much, but after all these days I think I really grow fond of this. I use it to clean up the very last traces of makeup aound my eyes. Its so very gentle and almost soothing. I will surely repurchase.

Philosophy Purity Cleanser (32 oz, $55) : Overall, I think this is my very favorite cleanser by far. I love that you can really use this around your eyes without irritating them, if I were heavy eye makeup it is difficult to remove everything at one go. So, first I use a makeup remover to remove my mascara and then use Purity. I love the result. It is been few weeks since I finished it up, and I am definitely missing it in my routine. I have a 2 backups of this. But I have a different cleanser that I am using to finish up :-)


Treehut Shea Sugar Body Scrub (18 oz, $7.49): I got this in a bigger size during a sale. I love it, very very much. It’s a clean, summery and very fresh, very invigorating smell. It gentle scrub, but it works great to get rid of all my dead skin. It is really nice on my dry skin. I actually used it up long back, but I was repurposing the bottle. I think, last winter, I used it almost 2-3 times a week and it was really forgiving on my dry skin. I will definitely repurchase.

Soap & Glory The Righteous Butter Body Lotion (16.2 oz, $12) and Clean On Me Creamy Moisture Shower Gel (16.2 oz, $10): I loved both of this products last year specially the lotion and I have a detailed review here. The lotion has a very faint smell and I really enjoy it. It is an excellent moisturizer; very easy to apply and absorbs quickly. I have extremely dry skin and it works great on me during slightly warmer weather or between season changes.  But for heavy snowy winter here in my city, this alone is not quite strong enough. But I do LOVE this stuff and I already have backups.

The Clean On Me Shower Gel has a moisturizing product in built so it’s definitely feels moisturizing. It has the typical Soap & Glory signature sweet smell to it which I really enjoy! It is a good shower gel and I do have another bottle to go through that I will happily finish that up. But I don't think I will be repurchasing as I do love some other shower gels more than this. 


I am quite happy with the products I could finish this time. Hope you enjoyed the reviews too :-)

Love
~Arrru

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