Ilia Beauty Tinted Lip Conditioner "Nobody's Baby and Crimson & Clever" ::: Review & Swatches!

I bought this "Modern Romance Gift Set" from Ilia Beauty around this time last year, so it is about time I review them 😀! This set contained 2 full size Lip Conditioners in Crimson & Clover and Nobody's Baby. This conditioners typically come at an expensive retail price individually. 

I have used up one full tube of this lip conditioner (in Bang Bang) previously so I am very familiar with the formula. I think that might be the reason why I kept forgetting that I wanted to review the set here on the blog officially.

Availability: I bought this set from Sephora, but of course it is not available now. I do see it still here on the Dermstore website. But both shades are from their permanent range so you can still find them in Sephora, Ilia Beauty and Credo Beauty. I believe Crimson & Clover is out of stock right now but Bang Bang is a pretty close shade.

Shades:  

Nobody's Baby- This is a very pale neutral pink. If you are a few shades lighter than me, this will be the perfect nude shade on you. I can wear it alone, but I have to be careful. I will explain in the following section how I typically love to wear this shade. 

Crimson & Clover-  This is a beautiful poppy red. It is so vibrant! Whenever I wear it, it instantly brightens up my face as well as my mood.  

Formula, Quality & Staying Power: As their name suggests, these are lip conditioners; so you will not get FULL opaque color. But they still pack a punch.

I love this formula; I was never someone who liked tinted lip balms (which is what these essentially are), but these converted me. It has such a set, smooth consistency. It remains on the lip, rather than almost immediately slipping/sliding off my lips and ending up on my teeth. This was the problem I had with some other tinted lip balms I have used before. I find the formula to be quite moisturizing! It prevents my lips from feeling dry for at least 4-5 hours. The color also hangs on. 

My most favorite way to wear this conditioner is to mix it with other colors and formulas to create custom colors. Because of the smooth consistency but not-too-emollient of a formula I find it very easy to layer it on top of other lip products. I have gotten a lot of use out of the Nobody's Baby. I am wearing a lot of colorful eye makeup past few months and often times all the nude lip shades I have end up showing too pink or brown on my skintone. I use Nobody's Baby to mix it with the color, which will make the original color a little bit neutral. I also love the Crimson & Clover to layer over my matte red shades in the middle of the day when the lips get a little bit dry, it adds just the right amount of moisturization without disturbing the original color all that much. 

Price: The lip conditioner individually retails at $28 which seems really expensive, personally for me. Which is why I always buy them in value sets or during sale. This set cost me $38.

Packaging: I absolutely loved their gold packaging, it looked so fancy, but I believe they have changed the packaging now? I haven't tried the new packaging but as long as the formula is same I do not care much about any change in the packaging.

Have you ever tried these? Is there a particular lip conditioner that you absolutely enjoy?

Love

~Arrru

KOSAS Color & Light Palette in "Velvet Melon" ::: Review & Swatches!!!

Today I am talking about the Color & Light : Cream in Velvet Melon from Kosas!

I got this in the Limited Edition Set: Clean Beauty 2.0 (reviewed it here) from Birchbox a couple of months ago. I did have a first impressions type review in that post but I thought I will talk about it separately today. 

This is the first product I have tried from Kosas; their philosophy is to design color cosmetics with active skincare benefits. This blush and highlighter duo is aimed to provide youthful vitality and juicy dewyness 😃. This is one of the brands that I personally would consider a conscious brand. You can read more about their philosophy here. This product is vegan, cruelty free and gluten free - those are definitely good things.

Let's talk about the product!

Shade: BLUSH - The blush is a light peachy shade! It really is beautiful and dewy. This color however is just a little bit light on my medium tan skin-tone. I can make it work and wear it alone, however, it is not the most flattering shade on me (as I said, this was part of a value set so, I didn't get to choose the shade). One really commendable thing about this product is that it is available in a two levels of intensity. One regular and one high intensity. I think the blush in the higher intensity version would have been a better color choice for me. 

           HIGHLIGHTER -The pictures on the shopping websites show the highlighter as a darker shade but in reality it is a gorgeous pale champagne shade. It is really pretty and work well on my skintone. While the blush has a very natural-everyday-dewy vibe going on, the highlighter is quite strong! There is a little bit of shimmer; I do not mind that even a little. What I am trying to say is that when I wear it, it looks like I am 'wearing" a highlighter, not a glow-from-within look! And I am quite okay with that.

Formula, Quality & Staying Power: As I mentioned before, I really do enjoy the formula. It is very emollient, which makes sense as it has rosehip and jojoba seed oil as ingredients. It is easy to apply and blend, my fingertips does the job but I prefer to use a beauty blender to blend it out. What I absolutely love about the blush formula is that it is very easy to layer another formula on top of it. I have been mostly using it as my base blush and then applying different powder blush. It adds a glowy finish and a different interest in the look; I love it. It also definitely makes my blush last longer.

I must admit that I wear the blush more than the highlight. I think I have other highlighter formulas in my collection that I favor more! But whenever I do wear it, I love the look! Eventually I will probably use up the blush sooner than the highlighter.

As far as the staying power is concerned, I find that the highlighter stays put for the whole day. I am not sure about the blush! These days I am mostly staying at home and I do see it on my cheeks at the end of the day but then again, I haven't had the chance to test it out under a more challenging environment 😉. 

Price: The retail price for this is $34 for a total of 0.32 oz/9g of product. It does sound a bit expensive however if I compare it with other cream products in terms of cost vs amount of product, it does not seem that expensive. I would still personally prefer to buy it at some kind of discount/sale. One thing to note here is that the shelf life is only 6 months which seems like a short span for a product this size. 

Packaging: Simple, clean black durable plastic packaging. I like it. The mirror is also decently sized.

Availability: This product is available in Sephora, Credo Beauty and from Kosas website.

Overall, I like both the products and I am getting a lot of use out of the blush as a base blush. I am not wearing the highlighter as much but I do enjoy it whenever I wear it.

Do you have any shade from this range? Let me know!

Love

~Arrru

EMPTIES VOL. 20 ::: THE TALE OF RESURFACED EMPTIES:

So, I was cleaning my room the other day and I found a box neatly packed and tucked away in one of my shelves! I looked high and low in both my blog and here, I did not put these in any of my blogposts. I think these empties were from late 2018 or very early 2019. LOL! My life was in shambles around that time and I stopped wearing makeup! I actually took a break from IG that lasted more than a year! So, I think these empties are from that era. It has a lot of my favorite products and they are almost all full-size, so I thought I will go ahead and give myself the credit I deserve. 

MAC Prep+Prime Fix+: This is a classic makeup spray and it is still the one I love the most. It removes any kind of powdery-ness that may come from applying too many products. And it adds a very healthy but not overdone dewy-look. I have 1 full size that I using and may be 2 travel size backups, but after that I am going to be torn because I am not sure if I would want to repurchase; MAC is not cruelty-free.

MAC Paint Pot in Layin' Low: This was my MOST favorite eye primer! It performed so well for me. I have dry skin but occasionally my eyelids can get oily. It really works for me but again, MAC is not cruelty free! Plus, I have been using Smashbox Primer for the whole of this year and it actually is working for me. So, I will not repurchase this till MAC becomes cruelty free! Lol, if & when that happens?

LORAC TANtalizer Highlighter & Matte Bronzer Duo: I did not care for the highlighter but I loved the bronzer. It was deep enough for me, the formula was quite easy to work with. But I do have other bronzers that I love more so no need to repurchase.

REVLON Colorstay Foundation in 320 True Beige: This is the first foundation I bought in USA. I think this was my second bottle? I am not sure. I care very less about foundation and concealer but this served well - especially for a beginner. I will not repurchase.

PALLADIO Herbal Primer: There was a time I loved silicon primers. I have fond memories of this product but I did not repurchase.

MAKE UP FOR EVER Ultra HD Foundation: This is my current go-to foundation (actually my only foundation). So I keep collecting and using up these tiny samples which are/were good for travelling.

URBAN DECAY Primer Potion: Do you remember this old packaging? I do not remember anything about finishing this or how I felt about it. But I do have a free sample right now that I somehow accumulated.

MAKE UP FOR EVER Hydrating Primer: I had it and used it up. Didn't dislike it but it was not the best either.

BARE MINERALS Lip Gloss in Party Starter: I absolutely love the pretty coral color of this gloss, but I am not a big lip gloss person. It is a miracle that I finished this.

STILA Stay All Day Liquid Lipstick in Beso: This is my absolute favorite (red) lipstick, I have already purchased the full size which I think is almost half gone now. 

ULTA Juice Infused Lip Oil: I really liked this - it wasn't a sticky formula like a lipgloss. I started using this more as a makeup but I eventually ended up using this as a lip-care product. 

MASCARAS (MAKE UP FOR EVER Smokey Extravagant Mascara & Excessive Lash, TOO FACED Better Than Sex, Lancome Hypnotize, MARC JACOBS Mascara): I guess I did not like any of this, cause I did not repurchase any of this.

KATE SPADE LIVE COLOR FULLY eau de perfume: This is my fav perfume. It has dominant floral notes! I absolutely love the smell and it lasts a very long time on me. Also, the name of this fragrance kind of speaks to my color loving soul. And yes, I have already repurchased this. 

DEBORAH LIPPMANN Mermaid's Dream: This was my favorite shade of nail polish! It had so many pretty blue teal glitters in a seafoam blue base. It was very unique to my collection. I could see myself repurchasing this someday! But right now I do not want to! 

Love,

Arrru