Starlooks - December, Birthday & January

Hi Everyone,

***before you read this post, I have to apologize for my excessive use of smiley faces, exclamation points and the word amazing, I am just a total fangirl when I talk about Starlooks. Yes imagine a fan with balloons, a huge I heart Starlooks fan sign and the whole she-bang!***

I have been waiting SO long to share. Thanks to my friend Aleks for teaching me a SD card upload trick, I can finally post this!! (Thanks Aleks <3)

wait.. I have to thank Aleks again! She was the one who introduced me to Starlooks! Since there was a bunch of us at the same time, we did a ladder approach to referrals so I also have to thank Rebecca as I registered under her via Aleks <3

While browsing on Facebook, I read about Starlooks. It is a cosmetic brand who puts out a monthly beauty box full of their own branded products (sometimes they feature extras from other companies :)). So kind of like Julep but cosmetic related. (I am the best explainer right? haha.) On their website, they also sell an abundance of products, so be sure to take a look ;)

They are based out of the US but because they are a lovely company, they also allow Canadian subscribers to join in the fun (Thank goodness they did!!!!!!)

It's 15$ a month but for Canadians there is an added 4.50$ shipping fee...according to my VISA it's approx, 19.75$ with currency exchange, but it's still a good deal :), February I was charged 20.47, it really depends on the exchange rate but it's worth EVERY PENNY <3

Canadian subscribers cannot subscribe through their website but instead e-mail them with a completed form, or call. They will be more than happy to help you out. :)
Customer Service is AMAZING. They reply super-quick and they definitely put their customers first!

At the end of the post I will give out a bit more information because right now I want to show you my Starlooks experience.

December - Be The Light:

So there was mention about Starlooks having an amazing December box, a 99$ 15 Shadow Palette for the price of only 15$!!..
My thought was WOW,  $99 value for only $15!..equalling to $1 an eyeshadow. How can I say no..?
So as I was contemplating whether to buy it since I have a lot of eyeshadows already and eye allergies (boo!), someone mentioned on your birthday month, Starlooks also would send you a birthday box.
SOLD.  haha I am a weak-willed consumer for gifts~! Especially this year was my Dragon birthday, I totally spoiled myself :)

So I took the dive and ordered a Starlooks box. I took a peek at their palettes to see the choices they had available.

http://starlooks.com/collections/eyes/products/15-shade-eye-shadow

I was floored, they had so many options, I was EXCITED!

When I finally got my December Starlooks box, I ripped into it happily. lol
I was met with a flurry of shredded box stuffing "snow".  I had to quickly vacuum before my mom saw :) After that I finally opened the palette. It was a December Starlooks exclusive!
It was gorgeous, It had a rainbow of colour choices - shades of reds, yellows, blues, greens and purples!!!
Now I have to admit,  some colours were questionable to me like that bright matte red and the greens (on my skintone...hmm...) but with a little creative blending, they still look AH-mazing.
Most of the palette is shimmer colours except for a bright matte red and deep matte plum.

15 exclusive colours :)

Quality wise, it is amazing too!!
When I first swatched the eyeshadows lightly, it seemed sheer, so I swiped a bit more and it was SO pigmented. So this is very versatile for the look you want to achieve, a sheer soft look to a vivid intense look :)
It goes on velvety smooth and blends well.

one swipe

buildable colour!

one swipe

buildable colour!

(I was going to do a MAC comparison but the files got corrupted so I will have to repost them later)


Onto my amazing birthday box.

Starlooks offer their lovely subscribers a birthday box on the month of their birth.. (obv right haha :), another one of my great explanations) It came separately from the December box in a nice sleek back box.

I am flabbergasted! I think these items are full-sized! I tried looking on their website but it didn't say sizes but it does seem like it! :)
It came with a lipstick and its corresponding lip liner and a glitter glam!

but the best part, a handwritten birthday card from Starlooks :) it's too too cute that they decided to put in a birthday card. It really is the little things & attention to detail which makes this company special..!

thank you Starlooks :)

Here is a close up of the products:

Glitter Glam, 0.07oz in bb pink.

OF COURSE, I put it on before reading the package since it was so pretty and guess where.. my eyes of course LOL.
Then I read the package.."Glitter can be applied all over the body, hair, nails and face excluding the area surrounding the eyes." I really am the best, aren't I...?
This is really great for the body and hair (really, it's lovely for any application, except the eyes okay peeps!!! Don't make the same mistake I did hahaaa, may be dangerous, I didn't clarify the reason yet - I believe it is due to its coarse texture*)
I currently use NARS Hungry Heart Duo for these purposes since it's too light for me to be used as a normal blusher but Glitter Glam is a great substitute.
*quote from Starlooks "More course in texture than the pigments, this super shiny glitter will "bling" out any makeup look." ps. yes, there's a spelling error


Lipstick, 0.13oz in Tipsy & Lip Pencil, 2.4g in Tipsy.

Now I have no experience with Lip pencils but thank you for sending matching lip products hahaah!
The only other lip pencil I have doesn't match the lipstick it came with.. It was part of a gift basket so.. no idea what happened there lol!
It goes on pretty smooth and very pigmented, it will be nice to complement the lipstick and define my sad lips!...
At the moment, I am in love with lipsticks so I am very happy to receive this. Also in a colour I probably wouldn't pick up for myself since I usually stick to nudes, so it's always nice to get something new to try out :).
Tipsy is a orangey-pink coral colour which is quite bright.. can't wait to try it out !!
I love lipstick!! I think they look so pretty and Starlooks simple packaging with a little cap at the bottom of the colour is easy for storage ^_^.. This set also comes with a corrsponding lipgloss as well!
  ps. random fact - the lipstick doesn't have any scent, woohoo a plus for me..!


I took a look at their website and holy moly, they sure have many lipstick colours to pick from, I can't wait to try out more colours in the future ^__^...

For a free birthday box, this is AMAZING right..?
Glitter Glam ($12) + Lipstick ($11) + Lip Pencil ($9.50) = $32.50!!

Thank you Starlooks for an amazing birthday present!


January - Eden:
So after the first exciting month of Starlooks, I was dancing in my seat just waiting for January's box..
When it came, I tore in and saw a bright green box!

I looked inside and was like Elisha Cuthbert..??? haha but no, it's just Starlooks FACE OF STARLOOKS Winner Johnnie Faye Cartwright! She's so pretty :)

Anywho, this month we received a few goodies :)

Two types of eyeliners, a blush, a brush and a bracelet.

The thing I was most excited for was the blush. I normally don't wear blush so I am glad to have a chance to try it out. The colour is called Cuty Peach, pretty accurate, it's a light-ish peach and I think it matches my skintone pretty well..

in box

no flash

super duper close-up! (no flash)

Next are the eyeliners, also colours I hardly wear.. (wow Starlooks is really pushing the boundaries of my makeup collection aren't they??!) They had a normal brown eyeliner and a diamondline eyeliner in green!

without flash

with flash

The brown eyeliner is appropriately called Brown lol, it's a normal eyeliner, goes on pretty smooth but I think I still prefer wearing a vivid black eyeliner due to the way I usually line my eyes :)
I might try it out for a 'lighter' look when I just want to line my water line. The Diamondline eyeliner is super glittery/sparkley (lovee), I received the green one called Fancy.

Like I said I normally don't wear green, but I love this colour!!!! Although it's a bit too glittery for me to wear in the corners of my eyes since my look is plain. I did wear it lined with my usual black eyeliner (double-liner hehe.. I don't really  know the 'technical' name) and I find it made my eyes popped... by the end of the day there was a bit of fall out and my whole eye area was kinda glittery, it may be also due to the weather though..hmm..
But overall, it goes on pretty smooth and the lasting power is good.

Lastly, I received a small dome brush, # 858, which is a brush I usually use for putting on eyeshadow and blending. It's made from cruelty-free pony hair. It's really soft and does the job well.. One can never have enough awesome brushes!

As a bonus, Starlooks also included a handmade bracelet by Abby Rose Designs. It nicely tied in with this month's colour...green!! :) It's very cute and smart of them to make it a wrap type bracelet so it's one size fits all! :) because I am still a blogging noob, I don't have a picture of the bracelet close up but if you scroll back up, you can see it in the picture which shows the month's contents :)


Starlooks also includes 2 small crystals, apparently it is a regular feature in the boxes (minus december). If you buy a little jar/vase, you can fill it up and create a cute centrepiece.

I cannot wait for February :)

Thanks everyone for reading this long long post....!
This is just the beginning of an amazing subscription with Starlooks.
This has definitely blown me out of the water, I cannot say enough GOOD things about this company :) :) <3 <3

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:
So a little more of Starlooks...since Canadians cannot subscribe normally on their website, you have to email or call them to subscribe.

1. Call them at 1-949-679-0679 between 9:30 am and 5:30 pm (PST)
2. Request a subscription sign-up form to be sent to your address. If you do this option, once you receive it, you have to fill it out and send it back. Once received they will place your order (personally I don't like this option, hehe)
3.  Email them w/ information. This is the option I did,  by emailing : info@starlooks.com

I emailed them with the form below filled out and they processed me asap :)

Your Full Name:
Your Complete Shipping and Billing Addresses: (please indicate if they are different)
*how I did it since mine were both the same was just posted it twice under the headings Shipping: & Billing:, incase there were any misunderstanding
Credit Card Number:
Expiration Date:
3 Digit Security Code:
Phone Number:
Birth Date:
Skin Tone:
How did you hear about us? (under this please write: Referred by Miranda Cheung via Aleksandra Sokal :D



- M

Relevant links:
Aleks: http://plumpishbeauty.blogspot.ca
Starlooks: www.starlooks.com

Essie Sleek Stick

Hey Everyone,

A while ago, Essie offered a promotion to sample their new product Sleek Sticks, which is basically nail appliqués. I was pretty excited since I've never tried these types of products before.

I love their stickers and stones design! But in person, the 'stones' looked a bit too bubbled/foiled for my liking and I actually prefer their a to zebra design :)


Essie offers 12 designs pictured below:

photo credit: essie.com

Their sample included 2 stickers of 4 designs: a to zebra, sneak-e, don't cheetah on me and sticker and stones. 

The sample stickers don't really fit my fingers, my thumb is slightly too wide but the rest of my fingers are too narrow hehe, so I roughly tried it on my thumb because I'm lazy with clean up.

Application was easy enough. I just peeled, stuck it on and filed off the excess. At the base, it wasn't totally flat but after a bit of rubbing, it flatten itself out :)

Pictured here is sneek-e without a base coat, base colour or top coat.  I folded the tip then filed it off. You can't really see it but the edges aren't rough persay but it looks like it has tip wear.. Not bad for a first-timer right? :) 

The stickers are smooth and easy to apply, the price point is a tad high for my budget ($12.99 on well.ca) so I am glad I have this sample to try it out first!

Did you get these in the mail also? How do you like them? :)

My First Etsy Indie! Glitzology Blue Lagoon and Orly Shockwave

Hello all! Today I'm sharing a manicure I accidently fell in love with, why accidently? Well a while back I bought Orly Shockwave when it was on sale at Sally's. I liked the colour but thought it would look terrible against my skintone and give me lobster hands. But as a polish hoarder, I saw that it was cheap and I didn't own any royal blues at the time so I bought it and it has been sitting in my untried pile for a couple months now. So come Friday I really wanted to use Glitzology Blue Lagoon and needed a base colour and boy was I impressed with Shockwave. Not only was this colour super flattering it was so glossy after one coat of NYC topcoat. I seriously could not stop looking at my fingers.

I added an accent nail using Blue Lagoon. This was my very first indie polish brand I've purchased from Etsy. Stacy (the owner of Glitzology) has got to be one of the most nicest and dedicated sellers I've come across. Not only does she keep her store well stocked she goes well beyond her way to please her customers. From her Etsy listing she describes Blue Lagoon as so: 

"This polish has all shades of blue, from sky blue, to turquoise, all the way to navy. There's even some sage green thrown in for some extra kick! Blue Lagoon features a wide range for glitter shapes, including squares, hexes, bars, and diamonds in a variety of sizes to make for a very unique mixture."

Stay tuned for more posts featuring Glitzology polishes!

Stacy's full size polishes are sold for $8.50USD can be purchased on her Etsy page. I promise you will not be disappointed!

Annie

It's ALIVE!! - Frankening Experimentation #1

Hey Everyone!

It's been a while hasn't it? haha my apologies. My BB (blackberry) screen died then I decided to get a camera for better quality pictures but I'm still learning on how to use it so my pictures don't turn out all yellow/orange or whitewashed by the flash!! oh blogging problems..

Okay, so other than spending my time being clueless about technology..I tried frankening!! yes just call me Dr. Mir-stein.

Basically Frankening is mixing your own polish concoction. It's super easy to do.
Take a few unwanted / almost empty colours and get creative!

Some tips which might be helpful that I learned from my first time:

-Don't mix complementary colours (colours opposite of the colour wheel), such as red & green, blue & orange, purple & yellow.. you'll just end up with a grey or brown mess.. unless that's your thing..if so , then mix all the colours!!
- Always find an area which won't be ruined by polish / acetone or use a tray.
- It might get messy, so keep a bowl of acetone / nail polish remover out to dip fingers or else all your bottles etc will get polish prints on it                                                 

- for emptying polish you don't want, such as emptying a colour for its bottle, take another bowl and fill it with cotton to absorb the polish for easier clean up

- be in a well ventilated area!!! 

- don't decide to franken if you have on a manicure you just did or wanted to keep (hehe learnt the hard way) Or be smart and wear gloves lol :)

Hope some of those tips help you, there are so much more but maybe one day later, we'll have a more extensive post up. 

It's Alive!!

Anyway back to my experiment.

I went to a friend's house and she was going to throw away alot of half used polishes, so of course I took them!! I thinned some out for her and the ones she didn't want I kept. There were alot of pinks and reds...not really my style so I thought "Why not Franken!??" 

I set up my tray which included:

• A bowl for acetone / nail polish remover
• Acetone / nail polish remover
• a bowl filled with cotton
• extra cotton balls for clean up and spills
• the polishes I want to franken with
• empty polish bottles for my creations (optional) 
• pieces of scrap paper for testing (or use your nails)

During my experiment, it got really messy. Mainly because as I was pouring the mixing balls kept flying everywhere hahaa, good thing I had a lot of acetone / cotton balls!

For this particular franken, I used 3 polishes: bright teal, black, pink shimmer (all by Sally Hansen)

I took an empty NOPI bottle (15ml) & poured almost 3/4 full of the bright teal.

Then I added a few drops of black, shook it and repeated adding more black and shaking it until I reached a colour I like. Sometimes the colour you see may not be the colour it actually is, so just test it on a piece of paper!

After I thought it was boring and I had a bit of space left, so I poured in a bit of the pink shimmer & to my surprise, I really liked it. Sadly there wasn't anymore room & I didn't have much left so it's actually not noticeable on the nail .. ^_^ I will just have to add more after I use this colour for a few manicures. 

I really liked the outcome, so yay! 

Sorry for the lack of detail / pictures of my process.. just did it out of a whim..! But I posted a few pictures of the Franken below..I couldn't really capture the faint pink shimmer but oh well.. excuse the accent nails, i tried to see what looks nice and i think.. it's best plain!

Left hand w/ OPI's The Living Daylights accent nail

right hand with Joe Fresh's Twilight accent nail

application: no basecoat, 2 coats of Frankened colour, no topcoat..

just a messy manicure to show the colour :)

So tell me, have you ever tried frankening ?? what colours / types did you come up with?

I might make a few more tonight since it is a super snowy day outside!! 

- Mir

Enabler Alert! Fauxnad set spotted at Dollarama.

Hi all! We didn't forget about you guys we promise, we've just been so bad with updating. Today I have a little product review/comparison. I recently found out that Dollarama (a pretty popular dollar store around here in Southern Ontario) has been selling Fauxnad stamping kits at a price of $3 a pop. I remember my basic Konad kit, which included a scraper, a stamper, 2 image plates and 3 mini sized stamping polishes was priced at about $30 so this is an awesome deal in comparison. The packaging has a "As seen on TV" logo on the top and when I went to look on their site I believe they're referring to the Salon Express that is available for sale on the site for $10.95 or here for $10. The contents and images plates look exactly the same but oddly enough no where on the packaging does it say Salon Express nor do the stamper or scrapper have the logo printed on them. So I imagine I got the bootleg version of the bootleg version. lol

 In the kit it contained a scraper, a double ended stamper, an image plate holder and 5 different image plates.

Here is the fauxnad scraper and stamper next to the Konad stamper and scraper. The fauxnad stamper looks like a giant next to the teeny tiny Konad stamper but it is so much easier to use because you're not trying to stamp with a little bitty thing with a small handle. I like how it's dual ended, the big end for full nail patterns and the small end for smaller accent designs. The large end of the fauxnad stamp is slightly smaller than the Konad, but not by much. Another great thing is the colour of the material, when I first got the Konad stamper it was a nightmare trying to stamp with red polish! It was so difficult to see the stamped image let alone stamp it. With the scraper, while I appreciate the bigger handle I am ultimately indifferent about it because I find all metal scrappers scratch the image plates. What I like to use instead are old business cards or used gift cards.

I didn't take a picture of the plate holder on it's own but I need to add that it fit all my other Konad/Bundle Monster plates so that's a plus! Of the 5 plates included only 1 was a full nail pattern plate. The images on the plates are varied but there's a decent selection.

My only complaint is that the full nail patterns were too small for my thumbs. Which is a shame because that was my favourite plate from the bunch.

In conclusion, I would say this is a fantastic deal and for $3 you really can't go wrong. This set would be perfect for someone who is interested in venturing into the nail stamping world since contains all the basic tools and a pretty good selection of images to choose from. I had to check 2 other Dollaramas before finding this kit, I believe it was first spotted in stores early to mid December of 2012.
Hope you all enjoyed my post!

Annie