XXL Products I've Used Up // April

I should have written this post weeks ago - then it would not have been this long. I have been collecting these products for a while now and it is time to talk about them before there are just too many for one post.
 

Herbal Essences Shampoo Oriental Dream: This shampoo was in a haul of mine ages ago. I liked it but did not love it. That is generally how I seem to feel about Herbal Essences shampoos (while I do not really like any of their conditioners at all) but I still try them again and again because I always get sucked in by their packaging (which they seem to switch out every two weeks).

Dove Advanced Hair Series Youthful Vitality Shampoo: Both of the shampoos of the Dove Advanced Hair Series that I have tried worked really well with my hair. I generally cannot use one shampoo for too long before it loses its effect on my hair. That is why I always have two shampoos in my shower that I alternate between. When I use this shampoo I can almost go three days without washing my hair and that is really good for me. I am not sure whether this series is no longer available or whether Dove has just changed the packaging.

Garnier Fructies Conditioner Oil Repair 3 Wonder Butter: I used to love the Garnier Fructies Oil Repair 3 Hair Mask so I thought I might like the conditioner as well. I did like this conditioner but I did not love it and I will not repurchase it. It works fine with my hair but it is not as moisturizing as other hair products I have used and on top of that I used up this product very quickly. I had to use a lot of product to cover my hair - don't ask my why - and so in the end it is not even as cheap as it appears to be.

Guhl Conditioner with Tucuma & Oil: I am a big fan of Guhl conditioners. They all work really well with my hair and make it feel all soft and well taken care of. I used to also love Guhl shampoos and I still have one in my shower I am currently using up but those generally contain hormonal substances I do not want in my beauty products and that's why I only use their conditioners anymore.

alverde Shower Body Scrub Magnolia & Shea Nut: I don't think I ever used up a body scrub this quickly. It has a rather slippery, thin consistency and there are not a lot of exfoliating particles in the scrub so I tended to use a lot of it at once. The scrub was moisturizing to the skin and the scent was subtle and light. The big downside to the product  - at least to me - was that it did not exfoliate my  skin that well. If you want a light scrub and you have sensitive skin I think you would like this. I personally prefer a more intense scrub and therefore I did not repurchase this body scrub.

 

Balea Creme Oil Shower Scrub Berry & Magnoila: This product I did not actually use up - I decided to throw it out before I did. I liked the scent and the packaging and all of that but all these things do not matter when the product does not help your skin or - like it did in this case - makes your skin even worse. Even if this product was not the ultimate cause for my skin getting worse it still did not help. So in the best case scenario this is still a useless product and that in itself is enough of a reason not to recommend it.

alverde Shower Gel Vanilla Mandarine: This has to e my favorite scent alverde has ever done. They used to sell a body butter with this scent and I adored that one. I highly recommend you try alverde shower gels - they have an amazing scent selection, they foam up nicely and they do not dehydrate your skin.

alverde Winter Love Shower Creme: This was the most awful shower gel I ever used. The product worked well on my skin - the big problem I had with it was just the scent. It is strange that I loved the corresponding body butter but I just detested the shower gel. The scent was just disgusting to me and I used it up as quickly as I could.

alverde Winter Love Body Butter: This is the body butter I was just talking about. I liked it so much it even made it into my January Favorites Post. It definitely did not have the same scent as the shower gel and I did enjoy this one a lot more. I still prefer the vanilla-mandarin scent by alverde that I also talked about before but this one was still pretty good.

alverde Body Butter Cinderella: Can you tell I like alverde's body butters? This was my favorite body butter from the Limited Edition Fairy Tail Forest Set so far. I loved the scent and the texture and they way it moisturized my skin - please bring this back as a full size body butter, alverde!

Labello Lip Butter Raspberry Rosé: I used up a labello lip butter before but I don't feel like it took this long for me to do that back then. This one took forever. I only use lip butters at night because they leave a milky, shimmery color on my lips and I do not like that finish. This lip butter does help with my dry lips and it is definitely among the most effective lip balms I ever used.

 

Catrice Multi-Color Rouge: This is another one of those products I technically did not use up. This is by far my favorite / most worn blush - but not my favorite highlighter. That is why the packaging looks like that now. I also have the newer version of this blush - that I love just as much - and so it just no longer made sense to hold on to what is left of my former favorite blush.

Catrcie Glam & Doll Mascara Waterproof: This is a well known, much loved favorite waterproof mascrara of a lot of people - and that is precisely the problem I have with it. It is sold out everywhere!

Rexona Pure Fresh & NIvea Fresh Natural Deodoran: There is not really much to say about these. I like my deodorant to smell fresh and that is it. I do not want vanilla or tropical coconut in there - the simpler the better. That is what these represent to me. They worked fine for me and I probably will repurchase them. When it comes to deodorant I just tend to buy whatever scent I like that contains no aluminum and that is about as far as my research goes before purchasing one.

What products did you use up this month? What are the reasons for you to throw out products before they run out? What are your deal breakers?

Nail of the Day // Astor

Astor Quick & Shine Nail Polish 204 Life in Pink

Astor does quite a few amazig nail polishes. This is the newest addition to my collection and I do not have any other color like this. The color in the bottle looks exactly like the polish on the nails. To me this is the perfect pink for everyday wear because it is not too bright but still vibrant. You could get away with only one coat of color with this nail polish but I applied two. I also wore a base and a top coat and the nail polish lasted few days on my nails without chipping.

What is your favorite pink nail polish?

Beauty Haul // March

Apparently I am really into pink right now ;) This month I did not actually repurchase a lot of products but decided to give some new ones a try.

Balea Hand Soap Soft Touch Elder & Cherry: I am obsessed with this scent! Balea hand soaps can actually be quite drying to the skin but I just always fall victim to their packaging and scent combination. 

Balea Limited Edition Creme & Oil Shower Scrub Berries & Magnolia: The scent of this body scrub is lovely. It has been a long time since I used a Balea body scrub and I am looking forward to using this. I tend to like scrubs with oil so I am excited to see if I found a cheaper alternative to the more expensive oil scrubs I used before.

Astor Quick & Shine Nail Polish 204 Life in Pink: It is pretty ridiculous how long I have been debating about buying this nail polish. I have set a goal for myself to not buy anymore than three nail polishes in 2017 and this is the first one on that list. The color is just beautiful and I am generally a big fan of Astor nail polishes.

wellaflex Curls & Waves Hair Styling Mousse: This kind of product was very popular when I was a teenager. Nowadays people talk more about how mousse is not the best for your hair because it can make it look crispy and stiff and so I have not used a hair styling mousse in years. Then why did I buy this? I was looking through old pictures of me and I actually really liked my hair from back then. I am trying to use less heat on my hair and since my hair is naturally wavy I thought I would try a styling mousse to make it more curly without using heat on it.

alverde Anti-Spot-SOS-Serum: This spot treatment is not a holy grail to me but I repurchased it because I feel like it did help and worked just as fine as all the other anti spot treatments I tried before. Do you have any recommendations?

Merz Spezial Perfect Skin Face Mask with Silkproteins & Riceoil: Can you tell I have skin problems? Right now my skin is actually pretty good but that is probably not going to stay that way for too long (at least it usually doesn't) and I want to have products that help quickly ready to be used when my skin does act up again.

What did you products did you try this month?

Beauty Favorites // February

This month I did not shop for any new products (which I am very proud of) but focused on the products I already had. That is why all of these products I have owned for a long time or - in the case of the perfume - have been around the beauty world for a long time.

Christina Aguilera By Night Eua de Toilette: Didn't I just talk about how I am not the biggest fan of perfume? Well, I guess it means a lot then that I included one in this months favorites. This perfume smells exactly like what it looks like - at least to me. It s a rather heavy vanilla scent which usually isn't my thing but I really like this one. The warm scent comforting to me and it lasts really long on my skin while not being overpowering.

essence I Heart Nude Eye Shadow 03 Crème Brûlée: This is a beautiful, shimmery nude shade that is really close to my skin color. I like wearing this all over the lid or on the inner corner.

essence I Heart Nude Eye Shadow 05 My Favorite Tauping: This taupe color has a more of a satin finish I either wear all over the lid or in the crease and at the bottom of my lower lash line.
 

essence Cookies & Cream Trend Edition Eye Shadow 03 Last Night A Cookie Saved My Life!: This is a wonderful, deep brown with a satin finish to it that I love to use to darken my crease.
 

I loved combining all of these shadows together and wore different looks like that all throughout the month. I wore  Crème Brûlée on the inner third of my lid, My Favorite Tauping on the rest of the lid and on my bottom lash line and Last Night A Cookie Saved My Life! in my crease. When I felt like wearing something a little darker I liked to add a little smudged, dark brown liner to my top lashes.

The quality of these eye shadows is good but not amazing. I did all of the swatches on top of the Urban Decay Primer Potion because that is what I always use when I want to wear eye shadow. When I compare these shadows to MAC, Inglot or Urban Decay they cannot keep up. They do not last as long, they are not as easily blendable and the color pay off is not as good. All that said, I still like them. The price is a lot lower that all of those high end products and they work fine for everyday wear. When you try to layer up My Favorite Tauping to get a more intense color it can get a little blotchy so I would not recommend you do that - but because all of these colors are lighter neutrals you cannot see their weaknesses as well.

What are your ffavorite rediscoveries of the past month?

Products I've Used Up // February

Over the past few months I only did Products-I've-Used-Up posts every two months so I could talk about more products in one blog post. That worked out fine at first but the latest blog posts just got too long because there were too many products to talk about. That is why now I have simply decided to do them whenever I have accumulated enough empty products to write about. That might make them a little irregular but that is just they way I will go about it for the next few months to test it out.

XX by Mexx Perfume Wild: Wild is the perfume of my teenage years. I believe this is my second bottle but I have not used this perfume in years because I was scared to use it up. It is no longer available in stores and so I am very sad I cannot repurchase it anymore. There is a little bit of perfume still left in the bottle but it has sadly gone sour (which is no surprise considering how old this bottle of perfume is).

Schupp Shower Gel & Shampoo Happy Holidays!: This shower gel is very out of season now and I am sure I would have enjoyed a lot more would I have used it in December. I never used it as a shampoo so I cannot say how it would have preformed as such but I rather liked it as a shower gel.
Garnier Fructies Hair Mask Oil Repair 3: This used to be my favorite hair mask. I still love the way it moisturizes my hair but since I found out it contained hormonal substances I decided to not repurchase it again.

deep steep Argan Oil Sugar Scrub Peppermint Vanilla: This was the strongest peppermint scent I have ever experienced in a product. The scent but also the scrub itself was very intense. This is the first deep steep product I ever used but I would like to try some more of their products.

 

alverde Clear Face Scrub & Mask: I do not like throwing away products that I have not used up this face scrub / mask has been sitting on my shelves for too long now. It has sadly expired before I could finish it. In the beginning I used to really like this mask but as my skin got dryer and dryer it just no longer fit my skin type. I also happened to discover another face scrub by alverde that I now use instead.

ISANA Limited Edition Heart Warmth Bathing Pearls:This is one of the few bath products I really did not like. The scent of the water when I used these bath pearls was not strong but what little I could smell I did not like. It did not do anything special for my skin and overall I just did not enjoy this product.

 

ISANA Nail Polish Remover: Considering how much I change up the nail polish I wear I would think I would use up nail polish remover more regularly but it actually takes quite some time for me to do that. This is my favorite nail polish remover. It works well, it is not expensive and it does not smell too bad.

How often do you check the products in your collection for their expiration date?

How often do you have to throw out products before you can use them up? 

alverde Eye Creme for normal skin // Review

The alverde Eye Creme For Normal Skin has been my favorite everyday eye creme for quite a few years now. I tried other brands and other eye cremes from alverde themselves but this is still by far the best I ever used.

My skin is generally dry and especially after I take my make up off I need moisture to be put back into my skin. The area around my eyes is rather sensitive and easily irritated by products. This eye creme actually helps my skin when it is irritated and red. It calms down my skin, moisturizes it wonderfully and sinks in quickly. Even the alverde Eye Creme For Dry Skin was not as moisturizing as this one for normal skin is (apart from that my skin got heavily irritated by that eye creme).You do have to wait a few minutes after applying it until you can start to put on male up though but that is not a big issue to me because any eye creme I ever used was like that.

On top of working really well this is also one of the cheapest eye cremes I could find. Eye creme can be very expensive but so far I have never found one that I thought was worth spending so much more money on.

I try to only use natural cosmetic products in my everyday skin care routine and this has been a staple in said routine for years now. I would generally recommend this eye creme for every skin type and every age. The only downside to it is that it has no SPF but that is generally hard to find in drugstore skin care products.

What is your favorite eye creme?

New Valentine's Day Products // February

Last year right before Valentine's Day I did four posts about products that make me excited for the holiday (if you can call it that). Valentine's Day is looked down upon by many people because it can seem ridiculously materialistic. That is why I wanted to look at my collection of products that I already owned that reminded me of the holiday. I divided the posts up by color last year. I did one about purple, berry, pink and last but not least the obvious red ones since these are the colors typically marketed for Valentine's Day. I did not add nearly enough new products to my collection over the last year to do four posts again but I thought I would do one big post about the same topic again.

These are some of the products that I did not talk about last year but I did not buy any of these especially for this post. I generally try to be more mindful of what products I buy and so it only makes sense to look into my own collection before even thinking about getting anything new. I often rediscover old favorites or even find products I once bought but never really used before.

KIKO Mirror Nail Lacquer 629 & Astor Perfect Stay Gel Shine Nail Polish 502/302 Crème Brulée: I love both of these colors all year round but they feel especially appropriate right now. Crème Brulée is an exciting alternative to wearing baby pink (a Valentine's Day classic) by wearing a deep pinky nude instead. Another great new interpretation of pink is simply wearing rose gold on your nails.

Catrice Glam & Doll False Lash Mascara: Usually I prefer waterproof to non-waterproof mascara but when I want to wear non-waterproof mascara this is the one I go for. I just wrote an entire post about this mascara last weak, so I am not going to talk too much about it hear again.

Fleur de Force Eye Shadow Quad 020 Lunar Rose & Inglot Freedom System Eye Shadow 397: Can you tell I am really into rose gold? I know it has been a trend for a long time now but I am still very much in into it. The top right color in the Fleur de Force eye shadow quad is a true, deep rose gold shimmer color that translates perfectly to the eye. It pairs amazingly with all the other colors in the palette and the quality is great, the Inglot eye shadow is still a bit better when it comes to quality (it is also a lot more expensive). This is wonderful peachy-pink, shimmery eye shadow perfect for everyday wear. It is very close in color to All that Glitters by MAC but the Inglot eyeshadow is a lot more cool toned.

Astor Soft Sensation Lipcolor Butter Matte 027 Elegant Nude & 018 Pretty in Fuchsia: Even though these lip products are from the same range by the same brand they apply and wear very differently. Elegant nude has a mat finish and can be a little drying on the lips. Whereas Pretty in Fuchsia has a more moisturizing formula and a shiny finish. It also stains your lips quite a bit which Elegant nude does not do at all. They are both long lasting and I wear them both a lot.

Tom Tailor Eau de Toilette East Coast Club Women: Perfume is the one 'beauty product' I don't really get. I like the 'idea' of wearing perfume but in reality I hardly wear it. I am in my early twenties now and sometimes I feel like I should start wearing 'grown-up' perfume but I just like the cheaper perfumes better. I honestly never smelled a high end perfume I really loved but I do like a lot of the cheaper perfumes. (I also do not think buying an expensive perfume would be worth it for me because it would probably go bad before I would ever use it up.) East Coast Club is one of those perfumes that I feel is marketed towards younger girls than me but I still really like that. It has a fresh, fruity scents that I love to wear in the spring / summer time (if I ever wear perfume).

What is your favorite Valentine's Day perfume?