The Good, the Bad and the Ugly - Products I've spent recently

It's been a looong time since my last post... :( I have been very very busy with work in general and I was also traveling a lot. One big thing that happened is my trip to the US - make up wise, I bought some quite nice and interesting pieces that I will feature in a future post.

Now, this time I want to write about the products that I recently spent (they've hit the pan!) and give you my honest and personal thoughts.

First thing is Bioderma Créaline H2O which I bought in Paris last year. On the photo below you can see my first ever Bioderma bottle. Likely everyone in the beauty community knows about this product and likely almost everyone likes it. I am not the exception - I love it. In general, the micellar solutions are very gentle, odor free, meant for sensitive skin and eyes. And this is really great, especially for contact lens wearers who have extremely sensitive eyes - like me :). That being said, this is definitely not a product to reach for if you want to take off the waterproof/water resistant eye make up. But, for everything else, there is the one and only Bioderma. I am currently using my second bottle and I will definitely continue buying this product.

Last year before my summer holidays I purchased a bag of sample-sized Biotherm Aquasource products (inside the nice blue bag you could find a moisturizer, a face wash and a toner). If I remember correctly there were two different options - dry skin package and normal/oily/combination skin package. Due to my oily skin, I opted for the second bag. I think it was around 20EUR here in Germany (Link). My skin was having a small nervous breakdown at that time - what I think happened is the fact that I was resting after a stressful period during my vacation and the combination of stress-free time with sun and sea made my skin reacting badly. Initially I thought it was due to the change in my skin care routine and I blamed the Biotherm line, but I was wrong. I tried everything, reverting to the old products, not putting make up, using natural products... Nothing helped. I stopped using those products for awhile and started using them again this winter and my face was great, actually it improved during the time I was using them.

Back to make up, Catrice Longlasting Eye Pencil Waterproof in 060 Moss Undercover is a really beautiful, deep emerald green eyeliner. I remember liking it a lot and using it during spring and summer. During the winter I reached for earthy tones and deeper colors, so this little thing was left forgotten. And then, some weeks ago I felt like using green eyeliner and I reached for this one and... What to say - the product was completely dry, literally the wand inside fell out and it was dry and stiff like plastic, so I had to trash it. This eye pencil is cheap so I don't mind throwing it away, but I was completely shocked. I have some water resistant Essence and Yves Rocher eyeliners and I never had a similar problem.

Nail polishes - here are two that I cannot live without: Essie All in One Base and Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Top Coat. Essie base coat really improved my manicure - I see that my nails are in a better condition than ever (they don't chip that easily, they don't get yellow...) and the manicure lasts longer than ever (up to 7 days and even then I change the nail polish because I get bored of the color). Great buy and it really takes forever to get through a bottle! I tried using other base coats and it was horrible, most of them just sit on your nail and you can literally peel off the whole nail polish on top of it.

I have to say the Sally Hansen top coat doesn't dry your nails in 30sec, but also this is not the case for Essie Good to Go or Séche Vite. My first fast drying top coat was Essie Good to Go and it was great because of the fast drying thing, but after some time it started feeling like a glue and also the brush wand was so short that I couldn't use the whole bottle (I think they improved that now). And then I bought the Sally Hansen one and I was thrilled because it was much more liquid. True, it takes longer to dry compared to Essie, but it doesn't shrink the nail polish beneath, it is not visible on the nails (a coat of Essie top coat has slightly white edges) and longer drying time is a sacrifice I am willing to make. I managed to spend the whole bottle and now I am using my second one.

Last but not least, L'Oréal Studio Secrets Professional Primer - slightly pink, very creamy silicone based primer. In general, it does resurface your skin a bit and maybe it helps keeping your skin mat for a few hours, but then you get the feeling that the foundation is really sitting on top of it and after some time that it is sliding down. I don't know if it makes sense, but while using this I always had a feeling that my skin is not absorbing the products but that everything is sitting on top of it. I would not recommend using this during the day, because the skin looks a bit artificial, but during the night it does help the longevity of make up. Oh, and it does make your skin super soft. 

So that's it for now. As always, I hope you found this post useful... Please leave any comments or suggestions below!

Hope you had a nice and relaxing weekend! :)
~Anelei