Coastal Scents Haul!

I've been in dire need of a new gel liner for months now, and I'd read about Coast Scent's gel liner on a few blogs ages ago. The main thing stopping me from immediately purchasing is $50 needed to get free shipping. I didn't rack up $50 worth of purchases, but I figured this mini lot would make it more worth my while.

Really appreciated how CS just used a box large enough to hold everything. Not like all the other companies that use huge oversized boxes.

CS Divine Line Eyeliner- Black

The packaging is bulky, but I like how there's a brush attached. Unfortunately it is quite thick and my lines become uneven. It has been compared to MAC Fluidline and rated to be similar by other bloggers. The application is extremely smooth and the color is indeed a nice black. Unfortunately it does smudge with a big of water, and gave me panda eyes by the end of 8 hours. If you do check up/ touch it up throughout the day I think it should be no problem though.

CS HD Foundation

I was extremely interested in this product, but if you know me then you know my skin tone is weird. So I purchased 3 of their sample sets. I'm so glad I did get the Fair set after all- at first I thought I wasn't that light. People claim that the stock photos misrepresent the colors, and that the colors are actually lighter irl. I found the opposite to be true. The colors were darker irl for me.

The overall texture is nice, and would work for those with slightly oily skin to slightly dry skin. It does indeed give a nice appearance for photos.

I really don't understand the numbering. And some colors were so red and unfortunate looking.

Left to Right: 01, 02, 03

Left to Right: 3B, 04, 4B, 05

Left to Right: 2B, 5B, 06, 08

Top Row, Left to Right: 01, 02, 2B, 03, 04, 4B
Bottom Row, Left to Right: 05, 5B, 06, 08

I googled to see approximately which color I should be and arrived at the answer ST-4B for NW20 skin. When I first applied, I mentally screamed in horror as the color looked too dark and yellow. However, I'd forgotten that I tanned these past few days! The color is still a tidge too yellow for me, but it's barely noticeable.

I mixed 4B with the pink toned 01 and got something that would work for my winter color.

Coastal Scents Silica Powder Spheres

This product does help is smoothing out the look of the pores, but as you can see, it also has issues with flash. I'm lighter, so the effect is less harsh, but you will want to blend this product in very very well.

Coastal Scents Fragrance Oil- Sweet Musk

I think I must really be unable to detect musk. I do get a "woodsy" and candy "sweet" scent, but they are very faint and I smell nothing else.

Coastal Scents Fragrance Oil- Gardenia

Smells floral =), not the heavy cloying scent.

The other things I will maybe review another time!

Coastal Scents Mini Haul: Finally

So some of you may have read my post about my attempt at a Coastal Scents haul. Well I've finally done one. Overall, I have to say, their shipping is reasonably timed. I've since forgotten how long it took, but it wasn't more than a week i don't think.

I got some 4 oz containers, .10? spoons, African Soap, and some brushes (hearts tissue paper).

Here are all the brushes! Plus they also added in a sample of blush "Sunkissed" or something.

The two lip brushes come with these caps.

The two lip brushes and the two smudger looking ones look the same. I only used the black lip brush and the pink smudger. For me they work pretty well. The pink smudger I use to spot conceal. Since I haven't used the pink lip brush or the black smudger you can buy them from me (I don't really want two of each and they're taking up desk room lol) in my shop. I'll sell them for $2 each or $3 for both.

This is proof of why you should always wash your brushes, again my camera washes it out, but you can still see how I got a bunch of yellow coming off of the eyeliner brush!

I tried the eyeliner brush and as you can see, it works pretty well, it's a pretty thin line in my opinion. The only thing is that this brush they crushed in the middle (so that the hairs won't fall out, it's how they hold them in: see pic of all brushes above). but they pushed it in too much in the middle, so i have a dip in the middle of the brush now, and somehow it doesn't seem like the application is as smooth as it could be. I still like this brush though and use it daily.

The African Black soap I tried. It's supposedly from Ghana. Not the fake stuff they dye black. This stuff is supposed to be fore those with sensitive skin, apparently it works great for clearing up problem areas. My skin isn't the sensitive kind, so to me it really just felt like I was using glycerin soap. You get the really squeaky clean feel. This stuff has a scent that smells like..a lot of medicinal stuff put together. Don't get me wrong, it's not  a bad smell. I found though that i ended up getting a bunch of super surface breakouts, I'm not sure if they're new created by me using the soap, or it's just that they were deep down and this stuff brought them to the surface. I heard that that's one of the things it does.
Anyhow, since it doesn't really seem to have any huge effect on my skin I'm also selling samples of this stuff in my shop because it doesn't seem like I'll ever get through it all lol. When it comes it's this really porous stuff that you squeeze together before you use. I figured for those of you who want to try it out first before you buy the whole big thing, I can help out. I'll sell them in batches of 2 oz for $2. I'm using about 2 oz right now and it's plenty, enough for a couple of weeks- 1 month.

Attempt at Coastal Scents Order

So, I guess this is kind of a rant post. I'll make it short. Today I tried to order from Coastal Scents since I've been planning a spree since forever. I got an email saying that they were having their 25% off sale, so that got me really excited. Unfortunantly I'm about a year too late, and they hiked the free shipping up to $75 instead of the original $50. But a sale is better than no sale. So I go to put items in my cart, am annoyed by how every single time I put something in the cart, I'm taken to the cart, and have to refind my original shopping page over again, every single time.

But that's not the dealbreaker- even the exhorbant shipping wasn't (my shipping was calculated to be equivalent to half my purchase amount, woooow)- the dealbreaker was this: EVERY THING I WANTED TO BUY WAS SOLD OUT! How can this be? Seriously, you would think that such a big company would have the good sense to not be out of so many items at once during their discount times, or is that the point?

Basically, a planned $50 spree (not including shipping) was reduced to a mere $12 + $7 shipping. HOW LAME.

So I thought, if I order now, then do a second order later, wouldn't I just be blowing money away on shipping? The little discount I get here doesn't even cover it. Forget That.

Now onto more pleasant things:

I was also interested in their Undercover HD Foundation, despite the shameless plugs on Youtube by the two they sponsor. I mean, come on, at least try to sound a little less like an advertisement even if you are on, thought my ear was gonna fall off. From what I can tell I'm between the 04 and 05, really hard to tell which would be better. I liked how one of the girls showed each of the colors, it gives a slightly better idea than the website. Even better though would be if they swatched all the colors on a sheet of white paper and took a pic with a true to color camera. Seeing as how I don't have the $33 needed to buy both of them at the same time (nor the need- I only need a bit of foundation to cover forehead discolorations) I'll just wait until more reviews/ swatches come out to decide if it's even worth it.

I really do want to like Coastal Scents, despite the feelings that my posts give off, but so far, no dice. Maybe one day when I do successfully pull off a buy and receive my items, I'll be able to post about how much I love them or something.

Coastal Scents E- Book: Loose Mineral Makeup Secrets Revealed

I've been itching to try and make my own mineral makeup ever since...well I found out that you could. Only thing is, it's kind of hard poking around the internet for little scraps and pieces. So I decided that I'd jump in blindfolded and buy Coastal Scents's Ebook, Loose Mineral Makeup Secrets Revealed. At $30, the book is steep for my limited funding, so I wasn't sure whether to purchase it or not. I searched the internet in hopes of finding some kind of review, good or bad, so I'd at least know what to expect. I found next to nothing. Which is why I decided to write this review.

Still hesitant, I didn't purchase this book until the sale this weekend, which gave 50% off all ebooks. $15 is still too much in my opinion, but I figured, if it truly did contain extremely useful information then it would be worth it. So I bought it.

Unfortunately I found that this book only contains the most basic of information. THE MOST BASIC. Stuff that you can find poking around online. Basically all it does is tell you what micas, oxides, and a handful of fillers are and their uses. Which is all you need I guess, but come on! For the price, I expected some kind of wow factor. While the information on the properties for each of the fillers is useful, and it includes various recipes for veils, shadows (the colors are UGLY), and even lipstick, I can't say the information is worth my $15, or even it's original $30.

If you're really lazy and have money to throw around, then yes, go ahead and purchase this, but if you're a poor person like me, save your money and just poke around online.

For the content, I'd say the book should be at most $7. Seriously, most cookbooks with more recipes come at about that price. $30 is way too much!

What a disappointment. And it's an Ebook, so you can't even resell it as an electronic copy. =/.

Save yourself.

**EDIT**

I noticed that quite a few people have visited so I thought I'd add some additional information. After all, it's not fair for me to not let you make your own decision whether or not to buy this. I've compiled all the colors that are given. Many may very well think that these are worth the money. I wish I had known what I was buying so I'll tell you what you basically get.

There are 2-3 recipes on the bases for foundation, eyeshadow, blush, and a lipstick one along with properties of each additive. The page that says "Eyeliner", HA. It tells you to add water to your eyeshadow. Who didn't know that?

As for these colors, really, you don't need somebody to tell you how much color to add to get what color, experiment! (In small quantities first of course =P).

To be honest, I haven't looked at the book since the day I bought it.
One last note, is that you have to download/ print out the book within a time limit because the link does expire! (to keep people from giving it away I suppose).

Have Fun!