A New York City Health and Beauty Blog

Review: EVER Skin Smooth Stick Lip Tint

EVER Skin Smooth Stick Lip Tint Swatches

As you may know, I’m a lipstick junkie! SO when EVER Skin released a new product, EVER Skin Smooth Stick Lip Tint I had to give it a try. EVER Skin is known for conscious beauty, using good for you ingredients that benefit your skin. And their new lip tint is no different. Here’s whats keeping your lips moisturized: Sunflower Seed Oil, Castor Seed Oil, Shea Butter, Jojoba Seed Oil

There are two lip tint colors: Soft Pink and Berry. Check out the swatches below.

EVER Skin SMOOTH STICK Lip Tint

“This holiday season, pucker up and get mistletoe-ready. Smooth Stick Lip Tint smoothes, softens and hydrates lips in party-perfect colors that let the rest of your makeup shine. The multi-benefit treatment formula delivers a healthy burst of nourishment through shea butter and natural oils for extra kissable lips.

Achieve youthfully smooth, soft and hydrated lips with a natural tint. This multi-benefit treatment formula delivers the ultimate nourishment through shea butter and natural oils for more youthful-looking lips. SMOOTH STICK Lip Tint was inspired by the hydrating butteriness of SMOOTH All Over Beauty Balm.”

Now as I mentioned EVER Skin is good for you beauty so these are double duty products, here’s the tea:

DEFINE: Active peptides are clinically proven to visibly reduce the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles.

SMOOTH & SOFTEN: Luxurious natural oils (coconut, argan, camellia) and Shea Butter moisturize lips.

PLUMP & DEFINE: Hyaluronic acid promotes the look of fullness.

EVER Skin SMOOTH STICK Lip Tint
EVER Skin SMOOTH STICK Lip Tint in Berry

This limited edition lip tint is $24 or 2 for $39. Shop them here.

Caring for Your Makeup Brushes in 4 Easy Steps

The Body Shop synthetic cruelty free makeup brushes

Makeup brushes are an absolute essential if you want to master the art of contouring, coloring, concealing. Even top-of-the-line makeup products won’t give you your desired results if you don’t have a set of good makeup brushes. That being said, taking care of your makeup brushes should always be a top priority or you’ll just end up buying more replacement brushes than you should.

Fortunately, taking care of your makeup brushes is not a difficult task. As long as you know how to do it properly, your brushes will be able to last longer before you have to replace them. Here are a few tips on how to take good care of your makeup brushes.

1. Don’t Get Them Caked Over

Over time, residue from various makeup products will accumulate in the bristles of your brushes. If you don’t pay enough attention to it, these residue can get mixed with oil or moisture and eventually turn into gunk. The buildup will have a bad effect on how well your brush can apply your makeup. To make things even worse, the gunk can even become a breeding ground for bacteria that can cause acne and other skin irritations.

Fortunately, keeping your brushes clean only requires a bit of consistency and effort. For example, you can use Missha Brush Cleaner to clean the bristles in your brush before applying makeup. This is good enough for regular cleaning, but you also want to thoroughly wash your brushes every once in a while.

2. Avoid Soaking

Some people might be tempted to soak their brushes to get rid of stubborn buildup. However, keeping your brushes submerged for a long time can actually do more harm than good, especially if you’re using brushes with wooden handles. Water can seep in this material and cause it to rot or even cause mold to grow on it.

Instead of soaking your brushes, clean them using running water. You may also use a bit of soap to get rid of oil-based residue, but be careful not to use harsh cleaners as they can damage bristle fibers. Also, be careful to keep the bristles pointed away from the source of water.

3. Don’t Wring Them Out

You don’t want your brushes to stay wet for too long. However, you might get tempted to speed up the drying process by wringing them or pinching them with your fingers. While reshaping the brush heads with a few gentle strokes is fine, wringing out the brush can cause you to accidentally pull off the brush bristles and damage them.

There’s no other way around it: if you’re going to dry your brushes, you need to have them air-dried. After washing them by hand, set them on a dry towel or tissue paper. If you can, prop them up with the bristles pointed down so they can shed water faster. Make sure they are completely dry before storing, or they risk becoming a hotbed of molds.

4. Keep Them to Yourself

Because of how much they come in contact with your skin, makeup brushes can be considered very personal items. There’s really no reason why you should let anybody else use them. In fact, letting others use them is a good way of getting them contaminated because you don’t know if the other person is using your brushes on products that you may be allergic to. Also, the borrower might apply too much pressure when using the brushes, causing the bristles to get frayed or damaged.

If it can’t be helped and if you really have to lend your brushes, at least make sure that they are thoroughly cleaned before you use them again. The last thing you want is an outbreak of pimples because your brushes were loaded with stuff that can irritate your skin.

Even a cheap, well-maintained brush will work better than a neglected high-end one — and it will also last a lot longer. Just like how a good artist takes care of their tools, you should always take good care of your brushes, since applying makeup is also a form of art.

How Beauty Product Claims Come to Be

How Beauty Product Claims Come to Be

Eight out of 10 customers recommend! Ninety percent of users saw results instantly! Effective for 80% of participants!

We’ve all seen the claims that come stamped on the side of beauty product packaging and emblazoned in glossy magazine ads. They lend credibility to the product and entice us to make a purchase. But where do those claims come from?

The origin of the claim is just as important as the claim itself. The same holds true with statistics. Data can be read a number of ways and the entity behind the data could have a vested interest or lack real credentials, making their claims suspect.

Some things are easy to gauge on your own, like finding makeup that compliments your skin tone. But for the times when the benefit isn’t so obvious or isn’t a sure thing, it helps to know where the marketing hype comes from.

Third Party Product Testers

Leading market researchers like The Benchmarking Company help determine the effectiveness of products and customer satisfaction. Product testing can be conducted within controlled parameters to assess the efficacy and account for variables. Those findings are what become the beauty product claims.

When you see claims that note what percentage of users saw a certain result after using a beauty product, it likely came from a third party product testing company. The company creates standards and benchmarks that are used to accurately measure results compared to a baseline. The results from each participant are compiled together to reach the overall percentage.

In addition to the visible results, duration or length of time may also make its way into the claim. The results from third party testing can be phrased in different ways to highlight benefits, but in general, these types of claims tend to be the most reliable.

Expert Beauty Resources

Sometimes beauty publications or professionals will take a closer look at products to determine which ones are worth buying. Often they test out the product themselves and then rate the product or give it a seal of approval.

One common example of this is the Allure Best of Beauty Awards. Allure is a women’s magazine that focuses heavily on beauty products, makeup techniques, and the latest looks. Every year they award Best of Beauty designations to products in 16 categories largely based on their editor reviews. Many companies prominently display the Best of Beauty badge on their packaging to back up their efficacy claims.

User Evaluations

When you see a claim that includes a phrase like “4 out of 5 women surveyed,” that’s an example of user evaluation or self-assessment. This information can be collected in a number of ways.

Third Party Facilitator – A third party can conduct self-assessment surveys and polls for a company, which helps add legitimacy to the findings. The facilitator will recruit users, have them use the product for a specified period and then ask the users a serious of questions.

Company Surveys – Other times the product manufacturers will conduct the user surveys themselves. However, these aren’t as reliable since the company has a vested interest in getting positive results.

Beauty Sites and Resources – Allure also uses reader reviews to give out their seal of approval. In February, online surveys are sent out to subscribers who vote for their favorite products. For 2017, 49 beauty products were given the Readers’ Choice award. Beauty stores like Ulta and Sephora also collect thousands of user reviews that find their way into marketing claims.

The makeup industry is a significant segment of the global economy. The latest projections estimate that the industry will jump from $460 billion in sales in 2014 to $675 billion by 2020.

The increase is in large part due to the rapid increase in products being brought to market. Not all of those products are worth the money that’s spent. Pay careful attention to the claims that are made and who they come from to determine if a product is worth the investment.

 

 

Are you a College Student and Need Some Extra Cash?

Are you in college and need some extra cash?

Would you love to be able to do it all online?

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Work your business online while going to college!

I know how precious your time is because I’ve been there. Ever single dollar counts! Working through college was some of the hardest years of my life. I wish that I had an opportunity like EVER Skincare. So I’m paying it forward and sharing it with you!

Our team will give you all the tools you need to run a successful business.

  • EVER Skincare Facebook Party Scripts to use
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  • And more support than you can ever imagine with the best team in the company!

If you’re ready to join:

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Nicole Dantzler,

 

Review: Maybelline The City Mini Palette

480: Matte About Town

I received this sample of Maybelline The City Mini Palette from Influenster, thanks guys!

From Maybelline:

Make a lasting impression with Maybelline’s six-shade mini eyeshadow palette, The City Mini Palette Downtown Sunrise.

Benefits:

  • Perfectly curated shades in a miniature six-color eyeshadow palette
  • Pure color pigments melt onto the eyelid for dramatic impact in a single sweep
  • Create your own amped-up look in an instant
  • Super-saturated color pigments deliver a long-lasting finish

Maybelline is a drug store favorite, always easy to find and reasonably priced. However, Maybelline is unfortunately not a cruelty free brand.

I found the colors to be quite beautiful, these are all neutral shades that are very flattering. I found the acutal shadow to be quite powdery and not that buildable. But the shades do apply smoothly, which I liked a lot. The shadows are not as pigmented as some other brands but that’s not necessarily a bad thing, especially if you’re not into the heavy eyeshadow look – I’m not.

influenster review

Swatch #2

Overall the palette is quite beautiful but requires a bit more effort than other eyeshadow palettes. There was more time spent on blending and there’s the eyeshadow fall out to consider as well as the pigmentation but if you prefer a softer eye look then you may love this palette.

Have you tried The City Mini Palette?