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Coastal Scents Open Box Review!

Take a look at all the goodies I received in the mail and find out about my opinions on the products!

Ebay False Eyelashes Review

Finally! A more affordable way to buy beautiful quality false lashes!

Easy, Quick, Everyday Makeup Routine!

All you need is 15 min and you're ready to take on the world!

The Ultimate Wish List!

What I really want, and what you can give me.. ;)

Boxing Day Treats!

This is what I decided to pick up during this shopping madness...

Saturday, November 10, 2012

Open Box: Coastal Scents [Pic Heavy!!]

Suuuuuper excited when I got out of class today and my boyfriend messaged me saying my massive box of makeup got here!

So I rushed back and found a bright hot pink box marked "FRAGILE" sitting on the kitchen counter!

This is an open box post; I will be showing you the products that I ordered and my initial thought of them!


Box was SUPER cute, and the colour was a gorgeous shade of hot pink! 


The products were packaged very neatly, and very professional looking. Nothing was damaged during shipping; quality of packaging is quite high.


First, it's the 22 piece brush set. This set comes complete with almost every brush you'll need to finish a full face look. The brushes are a mixture of natural hair brush and synthetic fibre brushes. I was extremely surprised by how absolutely SOFT these brushes are. I have previously ordered Coastal Scents brushes, but they were nowhere NEAR as good as these ones! Really excited to try them out. 



The smaller individual items came really nicely wrapped up in Coastal Scent's tissue paper which I thought was very pretty. I had also ordered some individual brushes that were not a part of the 22 piece brush set, but are useful when I'm working with clients. Alongside, I've also picked out their shadow primer, gel liner (WHAT HAPPENED TO ALL THE WONDERFUL COLOURS THAT THEY USED TO HAVE~?!?) and some hotpots.


The individual brushes are again very very soft, they're made to be really good quality and are very professional looking! These brushes have silver ferrules rather than black ones that the 22 piece brushes have and they look more or less like MAC brushes. The white blending brush is especially similar to the MAC 217 brush. 


The Coastal Scents hotpots are their version of the refillable eyeshadow pans. They are the exact same sizes as the MAC single refillable eyeshadows and they will fit in the MAC Pro eyeshadow palettes. I do personally like Coastal Scents eyeshadows, but more for the neutral colours. They give a fairly good colour payoff but they're not incredibly pigmented as compared to MAC or MUFE...(although there are certain colours in the Coastal Scents selection that have amazing pigmentation as well; I've chosen some bright colours to try this time and I hope they work well!) They're a little bit less creamier than the MAC eyeshadows, but again it depends on the colour that you've chosen and the formula that they've used to make the product. Coastal Scents also makes an empty MAGNETIZED 28 slot eyeshadow palette, and it's retailed for approximately $10; a very good option if you're looking for affordable palettes to store your MAC or Coastal Scents eyeshadows in.


I decided that I wanted to try their eyeshadow primer, and I actually did dab a bit of this on the back of my hand when I opened the package...it felt a little bit oily and runny, and what it did was when I tried to layer an eyeshadow over it, it did make the pigmentation more intense, but it's more like...powder-sticking-to-liquid-sticky-to-the-touch kind of intense and not a dry intense payoff from the shadows. I don't want to be too judgemental on this product before I fully put it to the test yet, but I'll let you all know later. 



Last but not least, I picked up the the 28 neutral palette. I do a lot of pageants and bridal work, so most of my clients are looking more for emphasizing and changing the contouring of their features instead of colour. Since the pigmentation is a medium payoff, that works out well in terms of neutral colours; it makes it buildable and very blendable, and more importantly it give a subtle and meticulous wash of colour instead of intense pigmentation. I've yet to try this palette out, but I have high hopes of it, and it should fit really nicely for the needs of most of my clients. 

Other things that I wanted to mention:

I am NOT affiliated with Coastal Scents in anyway. I have purchased every single item with my own money, and I was not sponsored or paid to advertise for Coastal Scents. This is NOT an advertisement! I am giving my honest opinion and feedback about these products and the reviews are written 100% in my own words!

Shipping was fairly quick. I live in Toronto, these were shipped through Florida. I got them in the mail in about less than a week which was really good considering Toronto was sort of hit with Sandy as well. I did get charged custom fees, which I've never had in the past couple of times that I've ordered from Coastal Scents, but it's not really an issue to deal with the company. Again, nothing was damaged in the mail, all of my products were in perfect condition! If you have any questions you're more than welcomed to leave me either a comment, or to email me directly. 

Thanks for reading guys!

Happy Weekend~
Helen.










Wednesday, November 7, 2012

Ebay False Lashes -- Trial and Review [Text Heavy]

Hello everyone,

It's been a while! I've been doing some personal reconstructing in the past while, and so I apologize for the lack of my presence on planet blogger!

Today I wanted to talk to all of you about buying false lashes on Ebay, and to give you a first impression/initial review of these babies!

If you live in North America, it is often very difficult to get good false eyelashes for a more affordable price compared to someone in Asia let's say! In Toronto for example, you could either go to Pacific Mall and pay at least SIX TIMES the actual price for the lashes, or you can buy off of private dealers that sell them for no less than THREE TIMES the actual prices! Sadly, these are more or less the most convenient ways of getting your hands on these wonderful makeup tools, and unfortunately, for a freelance makeup artist like myself who constantly need to replenish these products, the high prices can get very frusting and expensive on the business!

So recently, when I was ordering disposable mascara wands off of Ebay, I thought to myself "why have I never considered ordering lashes off of Ebay?"

And the truth is, I never did because for the longest time, Ebay products were kind of "sketchy" (for the lack of a better word choice) to consumers, and this is especially true when it comes to health and beauty related product that could make you sick!

But, curious to explore for more options, I decided to search up "false eyelashes," and BOY was I happy that I did!!

To reduce the risk of ending up with an irresponsible or scam seller, I stayed with the Top Seller picks that Ebay recommended and came across a seller named "butterflybeauty168" and below is the link to his/her store:

http://stores.ebay.ca/butterflybeautytoworldwide

This seller had TONES of beauty products in her store including, nail art products, brushes, makeup, lashes etc. I couldn't tell you exactly about the quality of the other products, but when I received the lashes in the mail today I was VERY SURPRISED!

Here's a snapshot of the lashes:


So below, I've broken down the whole experience in a couple different categories for you all to read.

SELECTION:
This seller had a HUGE variety of lashes to choose from! All different makes, styles and brands.

PRICING:
I used to purchase my lashes from factory distributors whenever I got the chance to go to China. However that was very burdensome, because I would have to lug about 20 packs of lashes in my luggage, and not to mention I would have to bend over infront of the dealer's little section in almost a flea market kind of setting, for hours to pick out the lashes that I wanted!! A little off topic but the point being, those where the cheapest prices that you'd be able to get for good quality lashes, and I must say that I was really satisfied for the similarity in pricing between this seller and the pricing that I would've received had I bought lashes directly from China.

SHIPPING AND DELIVERY:
Shipping was wonderful because it was FREE!!! The seller is actually located in HongKong, but the product got to me within ONE WEEK!! and I didn't have to pay for anything extra which was AMAZING!

PACKAGING:
I wanted to say that I was taken back by how pretty one of the packaging looked (the pink one)! When I first opened the envelope, for a second I thought it was Dollywink lashes...

QUALITY:
This would be the BIG topic that everyone is waiting for!
I'd like to start off by saying, these will not be the softest or the most delicately and carefully made lashes you'll find on the market, but they ARE the best quality that you will get for the pricing if not BETTER!
The seller claims that these are hand made lashes, but I will let everyone know straight up that they are NOT. This is the somewhat controversial aspect of buying off of Ebay. If you decided that you wanted to buy these lashes for the sake of the handmade quality, then you'll feel like you got scammed the money. However, with the price that they're sold at, no one should really be expecting hand-made lashes, simply because it would not be practical to produce handmade lashes with the cost of labour and material AND shipping at the labelled price!
Some may argue that the seller lied about the product description, but from my stand point, I would not be bothered by this detail, because despite what the product description claimed, the pictures that were posted with the product listing were VERY TRUE TO THE REAL THING
The lashes are very sturdy (as in they are made to last and can be re-used) but they were still relatively soft! 
Would I use these on my clients? DEFINITELY YES!!

Overall, I am REALLY glad that I took the chance and ordered these from Ebay, and I definitely recommend this seller for furture purchases!

I will post below the 3 styles of lashes that I purchase and if you have any questions feel free to either leave me a comment or email me directly at: analabasterdream@gmail.com!

QQ-19:
http://www.ebay.ca/itm/140874089021?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1439.l2649#ht_5146wt_1220

1061A:
http://www.ebay.ca/itm/280931977291?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1439.l2649#ht_5325wt_1220

CRO-8:
http://www.ebay.ca/itm/140813119663?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1439.l2649#ht_5483wt_1220


Thank you everyone for reading, and I hope you all have a wonderful week!

Stay Warm~
Helen. 




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