Skin Care Advice and Tips

Hi fellow makeup fans!

 

Skin care advice:

I was just watching a few videos and I stumbled upon a youtube guru whose username is DiamondsandHeels14. I just watched her video titled along the lines of why it is okay to see some breakouts when trying out new skin care products. It made a lot of sense. The skin has many layers and it can take some time to really test out a skin care product. I know that I write about how I was going to test the Clinique skin care 3-step system for two weeks and then bring down my use of the product to either use less product or use only once a day. After thinking about it some more I have decided that I am going to use the product the way it was intended for at least a month because then that way I can see if it is actually working. Then use less product twice a day to maintain clean skin.

I think I mentioned in my Clinique 3-step system blog that the Clinique website video suggests using the product for at least two weeks even if there are minor breakouts because it could mean that it is working instead of making things worse or having negative reactions to a product. They definitely prepare you for at least a couple of weeks of dealing with a really deep cleansing of all the layers of the skin all the way down. I think they do that because the first couple of weeks are all about the deep cleansing of the skin layers and then using it after that helps to maintain cleansed skin. Someone in another youtube video I think mentioned that the Clinique 3-step system also helped to even out their skin tone because they had some dark spots that really stood out, but then after using the product, the darkness didn't stand out as much. I will have to agree with that because I have noticed the redness in my skin is evening out also.

There is some debate on this topic though. There are some people that say that if a product makes you break out a little bit that it means that the product is bad and that you should stop using it because the products are not supposed to make you break out at all. No company wants to advertise that their product takes time to work and that it is going to break someone out because then they will be less likely to actually buy it. But to realize that there are no quick fixes to anything is a good thing.

I found out some information that I found very important and wanted to share with everyone!
 

My tips for testing skin care products:

 When you are testing out skin care products it is a good idea to test it out for some period of time to really get the correct idea of whether a product does what it claims to do. I would say use the product for at least a month. Definitely stop using the product if it is causing major skin irritations like burning sensations, not the light cleaning sensations that tingle, but actual burning. If it is making you majorly break out for more than two weeks. If you notice a major increase in blemishes. Any type of hurting. If there are any skin irritations like turning the skin red or if you have red skin even redder in color. If it is drastically drying out your skin. If you are not feeling comfortable with using the product I would say then don't use it.


I really hope that this post has helped you! As always, thank you for reading. Until next time!

Sincerely,
Marina

My Previous MAC mini-hauls

 

Hi fellow makeup fans!

 

My First MAC Haul, in May of 2011 (in store):

Even though I did not do a blog or a video about my first MAC mini-haul I bought back in May of 2011, I just wanted to share the excitement and the few items that I first bought for my very first MAC collection! I went on MAC Cosmetics website I think for a few months before I finally figured out that maybe I should check to see the nearest location to me was so I could actually go there. One day I thought of it. I was overwhelmed by all of the products that I saw laid out before my eyes. I was very impressed with their MAC Surf Baby Collection. I knew I wanted foundation and from the website I had a suggestion of which one so I tried the NW20 in Studio Fix Fluid. I asked the mac salesperson a suggestion for what eye shadows I should put together, she asked how many I wanted, I told her three. She suggested a white, a light brown, and a shimmery pink color. That is how I found out about the different types of eye shadows MAC has like lustre, matte, velvet, etc. I had no idea what it was all about. I already had a white eye shadow so I just bought one in Gleam and one in Quarry. They are very pretty colors. I believe I asked her about the eye primer so she suggested the paint pots. At first when I got home I found out that the paint pot is not an actual eye primer so I was kind of mad for a while, that is until I figured out that the paint pot had multiple uses and one of them was as an eye shadow primer. I did youtube research and found out that the paint pots were a lot better than the actual primers, so then I felt better once I found that out. I got the paint pot in Bare Study. I asked about bronzers so she showed me the different ones and I bought one in Golden because I wanted it look like a bronzer, but not over the top. I have light medium skin so I thought Golden would be perfect.

My first MAC makeup kit was:

• Studio Fix Fluid foundation in NW20
• Bronzing Powder in Golden
• Paint Pot in Bare Study
• Eye shadow in Gleam 
• Eye shadow in Quarry 

 

My Second MAC Mini-Haul, date unsure (in store):

A few months after I bought my first MAC products in store, it was probably around July of 2011 sometime that I went back to buy a few more items. I had been once again looking at MAC Cosmetics online website for a few weeks before going to my local Macy's to buy the products. I was very into lip liners so I was looking online for those. I went to the store with the specific purpose of buying a face primer and a lip liner. I went there once again amazed at all of the products they had at their little counter at our Macy's. I looked around at their items like I did before. I ended up trying on the Prep and Prime Skin Base Visage. It was the cheaper out of all of the face primers so I decided to try it. A few months after buying it I realized that it had glitter in it which was disappointing because I have large red pores and I had heard from one of the youtube guru's that sparkly glitter on the face draws attention to large pores. It was a bit disappointing, but I used it and I could not tell that it made my pores appear larger than usual. I first noticed the bottle was glitter on the outside because of the way the light hit it. Then I realized that the sparkles/glitter was actually in the primer.I asked the salesperson help on picking out a lip cremestick liner. She swatched them and I picked out the color I thought would be the lighter so that the lip liner would not stick out when I wore lipgloss or lipstick. I picked out the Sublime Culture cremestick. I of course had to try a MAC lipstick. I believe she also helped me to pick it out. I had seen one that I really liked, but then I forgot which one it was. We went through a lot of them to find this one. I am still not convinced this is the one I had originally picked out, but I really fell in like with this one! It was the Gleam lipstick. 

My added MAC products were:

• Prep and Prime Skin Base Visage
• Sublime Culture Cremestick Liner
• Gleam lipstick which is a Glaze (A31)

 

My Third MAC Mini-Haul, May 11, 2012, (online MACcosmetics.com)

I made my third MAC purchase online because I had started looking at their website. I found out about their fashion sets which I had been looking at a lot. I really wanted to try the colors! I did research on youtube to see the color swatches of the fashion sets, but it was really hard to find because people have different lip color which varies the colors of the lipstick and lipglass. I have always wanted red lipstick. I will admit that I also bought the Russian Red Faahion Set in lipstick and lipglass because I was born in Russia and I thought the name sounded cool =-D I knew that no matter what I was going to buy it so I did. I needed to add another two products and I didn't know which other Fashion Set I wanted, so that I could get the free shipping. I didn't have a red lip liner or concealer so I decided to try the lip cremestick liner in red enriched and to try out the Studio Finish Concealer in NW20. 

My next added MAC products were:

• Red Enriched Cremestick Liner
• Russian Red lipstick which is a Matte (A12)
• Russian Red lipglass (AB1)
• Studio Finish Concealer in NW20

   

My Fourth MAC Mini-Haul, May of 2012, (in store):

The one I wrote about this past Saturday. You can go to that one to read about this haul. 

What I bought on Saturday's mini-haul:

• Studio Fix Fluid foundation in NC25
• Fix + face refresher/finishing mist
• To Catch a Sailor lipstick which is a Frost (limited)
• Sinnamon Lustreglass (A31)

 

Random:

• Beauty Marked eye shadow which is a Velvet  

Thank you so much for reading this and sharing in my excitement about my very first MAC in store shopping experience and my online MAC shopping experience. I hope it was fun reading. I will eventually get reviews and swatches of all of my MAC products that I currently have. I do have one more eye shadow that I did not buy, but I have. 

Sincerely,

Marina

MAC Mini-Haul 05/26/2012

Hi fellow makeup fans!

Today I went to Macy's because I wanted to try to find a foundation that actually comes close to my skintone. As we pulled up I had remembered that it was Memorial day weekend and it is a Saturday= bad combination because it's harder to get the sales girls to actually focus on what they are doing. I never have a good experience with the MAC girls at this particular location. Anyway, so I was looking around. Finally I get the attention of one of the sales associates. I told her that I was looking for foundation to match my skintone. The music must have been too loud and she must not have heard me say that I was not asking for her help to figure out which MAC foundation I should buy. She asked me what kind of skin type I had and I told her that I have the oily T-zone and dry on the cheeks. She suggested that I should try the MAC matchmaster foundation because it has oil in it. I said okay. We went over so she could do the swatch on my cheeks. I am apparently a 2.0 in matchmaster foundation, or closest to it. Although, it took a while to figure out because when I first asked her she told me 33. I was confused and asked what she meant by that and she told me that was the price even though I asked what the foundation number was. Later, I figured out she was trying to get me to buy the more expensive foundation. I don't know if that was her exact reason. I asked her what foundation that would translate into Studio Fix and she looked at me as though I grew 3 heads in front of her. I had to try to figure out which Studio Fix liquid foundation came closest to my skin on my own. I was really hoping for some help. I swatched NC25 and NW25 on my cheeks. I liked the way the NC25 looked on me so I bought it and am going to play around with that to see how it works out for me. I will let you know!

This is only my third MAC mini hauls. I have had two previous ones within a little over a year before I started this blog. I will probably do a little blog or video about my small MAC collection.

I was looking for the fashion sets collection. They had a very small one from what I saw. I think they had colors that they were not supposed to have, they were Morange, Please Me and Impassioned which are not part of the U.S.A. fashion sets according to MAC Cosmetics website. They did have Snob, Girl About Town, and Russian Red. I really wish they had Myth, Spice, Ravishing and Chestnut because I would have loved to try those colors! Oh well.

I went up to the register and asked the girl working behind there for the things I was looking for. She was was friendly and helpful. I asked her if they carried the MAC Prep and Prime Skin Smoother that I saw on the website, but they didn't. They just carried the translucent powder which I already have from EyesLipsFace which I am  happy with for now. She helped me to color match a lipglass to the lipstick I bought from the 'Hey, Sailor!' collection.  

 To make a long story short. Now onto what I actually bought in my mini-Mac-haul. 

• MAC Studio Fix Foundation in NC25
• MAC Fix+ Skin Refresher/Finishing Mist
• MAC 'Hey, Sailor' Collection Lipstick in 'To Catch a Sailor' (not part of permanent collection)
• MAC Lustreglass in Sinnamon

I am very excited to try these out, show you swatches of the products, and can't forget to review them =-) I will try to post pictures some time later. Yesterday my digital camera decided to die on me and I don't have double A's. But we might be going out later so I will pick those up!

I was a naughty girl. I promised myself that I would stay away from buying MAC's special limited collection items because I am the type of person that when I like something I want to have the option of buying more of the product, but I could not resist buying this lipstick. It is very cute. Oh I did some swatches of some of the lip liners from the 'Hey, Sailor!' collection. I liked those, but I stayed away from buying them. I swatched Shore Leave and Saunter on my hand. I really liked Shore Leave! It is a very pretty color. The blue eyeshadow was pigmented, but I was not super impressed with it.

Sincerely
Marina

Clinique 3-Step Skincare (After 1 week)

Hi fellow makeup fans!

Today I am going to be talking about the Clinique 3-Step Skincare system that they have. I bought mine in skin type 2 which is the dry combination with oily T-zone. It took me a while to figure out which skin type I was. I was confused by the fact that my T-zone was oily, but the rest of my face tended to be on the dry side until I started looking further into the Clinique 3-Step Skincare system. It made me realize that it was possible to have dry skin with some oil problem areas. I went out and bought the Clinique 3-Step Skincare system last Saturday, May 19, 2012. I paid $53.14 with tax for all three products. I got a 20% discount for signing up for a Carson's department store credit card, otherwise it would have been over $60. I brought it home and immediately started using it. I have been using it twice daily, the first sometime early in the day when I wake up and then second at night before going to bed. I must say that I am very impressed with what it has done in just about one week. After the second use my skin became very soft. I have had issues with large red looking pores on my cheek areas and sometimes my nose on the sides would get large red pores. It was very embarrassing. I will admit that I do have redness to my skin, especially around the cheek areas. It is not quite rosacea. I want to say that I never really had a redness problem until after I went down to Florida and got a very bad burn some few years ago. It seemed like after that I had redness as well as large pore issues.

My Skin Type:

Just to reiterate. According to the Clinique 3-Step Skincare system I have type 2 skin which is dry combination with an oily T-zone. To add other problems about my face skin is that I have large red pores near the cheeks and side of nose areas, and some redness to my face, especially the cheeks area, and I have had issues with dryness on my face where foundation would look cakey/flaky. I am thankful to say that besides the occasional pimple here or there I do not have any sort of acne problems. As a teenager I had very bad acne on my forehead, but since then I have not had any issues. I do have very sensitive skin, at least on my face.

How I use the product:

I am thinking in order to shock my skin I am going to use these products at maximum for two weeks, then see what happens after, and probably use less product or less often so it lasts longer. As I mentioned above I use it once when I get up and once before bed, so twice a day. With the facial liquid soap I use two pumps. It usually more than covers all of my face. With the liquid toner I usually turn it over into a cotton ball twice and hold it for about 5 seconds each. That usually gives me enough to cover my face. I use two pumps of the moisturizer. 

  

The Positives of this skincare system are:

• My face and cheeks feel soft and smooth rather than dry and rough. I am really liking the way my face feels. It feels like baby soft skin.
• My pores are still in the works, but so far have decreased in size, at least to the point of being able to look at my face to see more than just large pores staring back at me.I would even say that my face even looks smoother.
• As far as the redness is concerned I feel that it has brought down the redness somewhat. I am not going to say it took it completely away, but it evened it out. My redness is not the focal point when looking at my face. You look at it and say, "oh I notice some redness/imperfection," instead of, "what the heck happened to her face, she looks like a lobster." If my redness is caused by the very bad sunburn I had some few years ago then the toner might actually be stripping my face of the burn and turning it into a tan. Maybe one day I won't have this redness issue anymore which would be nice.
• I had 2 small pimples on the start of my nose between the eyebrows. They had started healing before I started this skincare system, but it seemed to have helped them get better faster. After a couple of days they were gone.

 The Negatives of this skincare system are:

• I did not realize how sensitive my skin actually was until I started using this skincare system. I am currently using Clinique's mild liquid facial soap and even that has irritated my skin some what. It is not as bad as it could be, but it is a bit uncomfortable. After the third use I had some pain on the right side of my cheek. I think it was a combination of the soap and the washcloth I was using that caused the irritation because when I don't use the washcloth I don't feel the burning/stinging. I was rubbing my face with the washcloth normally, I wasn't doing it very hard or anything. Now I use more of a dabbing motion. I have not experienced pain to that extent since switching from rubbing to dabbing. After I am done with this soap I might have to switch to their special extra mild soap. I will see what happens in week 2.
• I have this one spot on my face on my cheek near my nose where if I am going to get a pimple that is where I would usually get it. On Monday or Tuesday, a few days after starting the skincare system, I did notice that I had a pimple there. It seemed like a red bump. I tried to pop it, but it hurt too bad, and I couldn't get the right angle so I left it alone. Then on Wednesday I tried to pop it and it worked. There was a lot that came out. More than I have ever seen come out of me before. Apparently some more was still in there that I could not get out. I left it alone and continued with the face routine. I still have it, but it's a lot smaller and seems to be on it's way to healing. The Clinique website does say that if a few pimples occur within the 2 weeks that it is normal because it is the product working and getting things that are underneath the surface up and out. I guess we will see what happens in week 2 and I will try to update about that. 
• The smell of products, especially the mild liquid facial soap. It smells like a clean laboratory that had been disinfected. It's not an overbearing smell, but it's still there. Once you wash it off the smell goes away so it's not too bad. It could definitely be worse. Since I have dry skin my liquid toner is probably made up less of alcohol because alcohol tends to dry things out so there is a little bit of an alcohol smell to it, but mine is not overpowering. It doesn't bother me. From what I can tell the moisturizer does not have much of a smell, for me anyway. 
• The price of the products. Individually the prices are about twice the amount of drugstore products which isn't too bad, but when you buy all three products it really adds up quickly. Without my discount I would have paid about $65 with tax. With the discount I paid about $10 less, but that was a one time discount. At a month price of $65 it is pretty expensive, but if you can get it to last about 2 months then it may not be so bad. I definitely think with the liquid facial soap and liquid toner could be bought every two months. The moisturizer I'm not sure about yet. 

 

Rating:

Now I will rate this system on a 10 point scale on certain criteria. 0 being the worst and 10 being the best.

Overall effectiveness: ?

• I can't say yet

Would I buy this product again:

• Can't say yet

Price: 5/10

• I think it is fairly expensive

On pimples: 7/10

• I think this system is designed for people who don't have acne problems, they have a different 3-step for that, but for the occasional popups it works well

Smell: 9/10

• Unless someone is extremely sensitive to smell it should not be a bother

Product size: 7/10

• The product size for the liquid facial soap and toner (especially if use 1 pump which after the two weeks I might switch to or use once a day could last about 2 months)is good. The facial moisturizer is small and more expensive than the other two products. It lost some points for that.

Packaging: 8/10

• I like the packaging on the liquid soap because you can lock it to prevent it from being pumped when not using. I don't like the packaging of the liquid toner because it is really easy to spill it. I tend to be a bit clumsy though. It is kind of a cute idea that they made the moisturizer into a box, but if you don't keep the cap on then it doesn't have a stopper for the pump.

Sincerely,

Marina

Introduction

Hello fellow makeup fans!

 

 

Thank you for taking the time to read my blog! This is my first blog ever so please be patient with me as I learn the ropes of blogging. This blog will mostly be about my Mac cosmetics, but I will also include other makeup and some hair products. I will do the usual of writing about makeup hauls, products I like, products I don't like, and so on. I would like to try to review products that not a lot of people are reviewing because a lot of the reason why I wanted to start this blog and videos is because I have a hard time locating videos on certain products. I hope to help people who may be having the same issues. We will see where this goes. Thanks!

Sincerely,

Marina