Rimmel Lasting Finish 25hr Foundation | Review

As most people who take their make up addictions seriously, picking up a new product can be somewhat of an endeavour. There's a lot of research involved with buying a new item and I think this mostly comes down to the fact that there are just SO many choices.

Could you imagine if there was only one or two brands available in total and we could only buy whatever it was they had to offer? I suppose this scenario would be great in a sense. It would save us a lot of time, money and energy having such limited options - chances are if this were the case we would already know what we liked and didn't like and what worked for us. We'd never have to stand around swatching things to see if they colour matched us, we wouldn't really have to shop around for the best price and we certainly wouldn't spend as much time as we do on blogs and Youtube to see what other people thought of things.

But on the other hand, having as many different brands and genres of make up that we do - and at a million different price points - does have a certain advantage, doesn't it? It's FUN! We get to stand around swatching things and seeing which brands have the best colours, best textures and of course, best prices. We have the luxury of finding out what others think of a certain product with the click of a button and nowadays with another click of a button we can even have it delivered right to our doors!

So with all of that rambling being said, I've spent the last 4 or 5 days poking around the Internet, trying to decide which drug store foundation I should buy. While I do dip my toes into the high-end spectrum of foundations once in a while, I have to say, I've had excellent luck with drug store foundations which only makes me want to try a new one each time I finish another.

It was eventually an old Wayne Goss Youtube review he recorded back in 2011 that convinced me to pick up Rimmel's Lasting Finish 25hr foundation. Albeit now it's been repackaged into something a little fancier and (thank god) with a pump! To top it off I ended up buying it on sale for $7.99 with it's original price being somewhere around $12-$13. But alas, this high was not to last...

As soon as I got it home I peeled off its protective plastic and not realizing its lid removed so easily picked it up by it's top only to have it fall to the ground and shatter its heavy glass bottle on my ceramic floor. And to add insult to injury, cleaning foundation off of a floor is ALWAYS a bitch.

I did manage to salvage a little of what was left in the bottle into a tiny Tupperware, dammit I was determined. So after wearing it all day long out of its new home, Mr. Tupperware, am I going to replace the bottle? The short answer is No.

While I never expected Rimmel's Lasting Finish 25hr foundation to actually last 25 hours, I did expect to get more than 6 or 7 hours out of it. Granted it was a bit of a humid day, by hour 5 I could tell it was starting to break apart, more noticeably around my nose and chin. Not a pretty look. I also had a small dry patch around the side of my nose that this foundation just loved to cling to, making it look even worse. Blending this stuff was also a nightmare, I typically use the Sigma F80 to apply foundation and usually it does a great job, but not this time. This foundation turned my face into Streak City.

I didn't find the shade range with this foundation to be very good unless your fair like I am, so with that being said, I did find that the colour I chose (Ivory) matched me just fine. But if that's the only positive thing I can say about it, I guess that's not very good.

I would rate this a 3/10. The only upside to this foundation is that I have so little of it left that soon I'll be able to buy a different one. Let the research begin...again!

Revlon Colorburst Laquer Balms | Review

Can we talk about the huge trend that we've all been seeing over the last year or two? Giant lip crayons! At first when all the drugstore brands came out with them one after the other I was pretty sure they were all going to be crappy knock-offs for the Clinique Chubby Sticks. But every new expansion in the budget friendly lip crayon realm keeps impressing me.

I swear my bathroom looks like I'm hoarding bunches of Crayola jumbo markers, but I'm addicted to these things!

The newest addition to my crayon pack is Revlon's most recent offering aptly titled "Laquer Balms". At the same time of their release, Revlon also gave us the "Matte Balms" and I have one of those, too. Although while I find the Matte Balms to be quite drying on their own, under a good lip balm they work nicely and have some powerful colour payoff. But it's the Laquer Balms that really have me jazzed, which is a nice surprise since I'm usually drawn to anything matte.

While the Laquer Balms come in a wide range of shades from light pinks to plums and firey reds, the one that drew me in was the shade 'Demure'. For starters, it's a little glittery. Nothing too intense, while you can't feel the "grit" of the glitter like with a lot of lip products, the glitter is certainly noticeable. Secondly, the colour - Demure is a light peachy pink (this is a running theme with me, I know) but it's so flattering! Probably my favorite thing about it is its ease, because the Laquer Balms are sort of glossy (and also moisturizing)  you don't need a mirror to apply these for them to look amazing and can feel confident that the product isn't smeared all over your face.

One thing to note is like the original Revlon lip crayons (which I also have in like, every colour) there is that lingering minty/menthol feeling. It doesn't really stick around, so it's not a big deal for me. Lastly, these also twist up to dispense more product which is awesome. I've been wanting to pick up the Nars Velvet Matte lip pencils because they have about 50 amazing different red shades, but the fact that you need go sharpen them yourself really gets to me. I don't know what it is...something about paying close to $40 for something that makes ME work for THEM and not to mention sharpening the product wastes about half of it! Urgh, Nars, why do you do this to me?

Anyway, I would rate Revlon's Laquer Balms a solid 9/10.

Have any of you jumped on the massive lip crayon band wagon?