Are they worth it? I don't know...

I wanted to briefly talk about a few items I've acquired over the past several months. Some of them go as far back as last winter, spring and summer, others I got about a month ago. I'd had great expectations about all of these, but for some reason they've just been underwhelming, or straight out frustrating. For reasons only comprehensible to a fellow crazy person, I can't bring myself to call any of these a fail, I keep wanting to give them more and more chances, hoping there's a trick to making them work, even though there might not be. None of them are so bad that they're useless to me and I will do my best to use them up, but they're just, how shall I put this nicely – disappointing.

The item I've had the longest is the Smashbox Be Legendary Lipstick in Posy Pink. I liked the sleek packaging and gunmetal bullet housing the product, as well as the warm toned pink colour of the lipstick. I bought it back when my skin was still unbelievably dry and I couldn't actually wear it on my perpetually cracked lips until months later.

I received a lot of compliments on this lipstick whenever I wore it, but I didn't care for the chemical taste of it, and the creamy but rubbery/tugging formula. I felt like it turned more rusty on me as it dried and made my lips look irritated and windburned. Though initially I liked the colour, it looked much lighter in the store, in fact, on me it was a solid medium dark shade and I hate those. I either like very light, soft colours or very dark vampy ones. The midrange makes me look 10 years older. I know some people would disagree, but it's how I feel that matters, and to me it felt unflattering.

I did my absolute best to wear this religiously every day to work during the summer and am pleased to say there's barely any left. I'm not sure if I'll go through the trouble of scraping out the last of it with a lip brush, I might not. But I'm fairly confident I will not be buying another Smashbox lipstick.

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I had such, such high hopes for the Clinique Redness Solutions Instant Relief Mineral Pressed Powder! First of all, what it claims to do is exactly what I wanted. A soft powder to reduce redness, which I get. Finally, a magic yellow powder! I wanted to have it in my purse because my foundation isn't long lasting at all and as the day progresses, my skin tends to heat up, I don't know why, and get red – like if you've been outside in the cold and come into the warm, suddenly your blood feels like it's boiling. Like that. I thought it would be perfect to touch up halfway through my day to reduce the look of being flustered. It so isn't...

The pairing of that particular tone of yellow, a warm yellow, not a cool yellow, and that level of opacity, makes me look like I have liver disease. I honestly don't find that it does anything to neutralize the redness, the layer of yellow sits on top and you look like you're both colours simultaneously, which isn't a desirable look in my humble opinion. I'm not going to slam the products ability to fulfill its claims entirely, someone with a different complexion might see better results, I really can't say. I will be using this up, but only applying sheer layers where you don't really see the pigment.

What I did like about it is the blurred finish it gives the skin. However, if you, like me, have oily skin, be warned. Whenever I used it as a finishing powder, my skin would get shiny sooner than if I didn't, and if I happened to be on the go when I noticed this, I needed so much powder to look decent again, that the bluntly visible buildup of yellow couldn't be avoided. I wouldn't recommend this for oily skin because it seems to have barely any mattifying capabilities, which is odd, because I would associate problems with redness with a more oily skin type, when you actually need the powder to do it's logical duty. It's now -10C where I live, so I'm hoping to get a lot of use out of this powder during the winter.

Something I absolutely love about the powder, which makes me devastated the actual product doesn't work for me, is the compact. It's the most perfectly designed powder compact I've ever owned, and I'm a powder fiend! Okay, it gets all fingerprinty, but what doesn't?? I love how the outside is an almost perfect mirror, so when I'm out and about and just want to make sure I don't have lipstick on my teeth or my hair doesn't look mental, I can pull it out of my bag without having to open the whole case and making a scene. I just give myself a quick look and back it goes into my purse.

When you do open it, the hinges allow it to go 180 degrees, which is what every bloody compact should do in my opinion. The mirror inside is really great. You know how bloggers and youtubers say: “... and it has a really good sized mirror...” and you just roll your eyes? Because, honestly, if I had a cosmetics line, half the cases wouldn't have a mirror because they're almost always utterly useless. The one in this powder is actually very good! It's nice and big and feels like there's a slight magnification. For some reason it's the perfect size and really clear. If I actually liked the product inside, I would only rely on that mirror to do my makeup when during travel.

Also, it has two tiers – one for the powder, and then another underneath for a little angled brush. That's my favourite kind of powder case! I love that it comes with a little angled brush and not a sponge, and it's actually not a bad brush at all. It'll get dirty fast if you're using it to apply powder over an oily face though. It's rather soft, so I like to use it to run a thin layer of powder underneath my eyes, if my eye makeup might have smeared during the day, and underneath and around my nose. Detailed work, not all over. I only wish the compact was a rectangular shape so I could re-purpose it, put eyeshadow pans or something else in it, it's going to be tough finding a product matching the same dimension to put in there once it's done. One thing's sure, I am so holding on to this compact once the powder's gone!

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The Shiseido Natural Finish Cream Concealer is a bit of a conundrum. I really want to like this product, but no matter how I try to manipulate it, it just won't look good on me. The deceitfully perfect shade 1 Light, becomes much, much darker. This product sets fast to a water resistant finish, which I love in theory, but it makes working with it very difficult. Bottom line is, regardless of whether I use it on pigmentation marks or blemished, or underneath my eyes, it makes my skin look flaky, dry and wrinkly, and I have oily, young skin! I had such dreams of this being the perfect, pale yellow hybrid concealer that would work all over my face and would be great value for money because of how much more product you get than in an illuminating pen, but gosh is this dream fading away fast.

I liked wearing this on my cheeks, where I have the most pigmentation, during the absolute hottest, sweatiest days of the summer. I'm saying that, because it didn't actually look good, but wearing foundation was quite frankly useless and would have looked even worse. As I said, it darkened once it set making areas where I'd applied it more obvious, and also, I'm afraid this isn't a makeup solution that works for me. I've seen many makeup artists suggest just wearing concealer here and there on lazy days, but, as I previously mentioned, I really need at least a thin layer of something all over, because my face will get red and areas I put the concealer, will not. The result is a scarlet, flustered face, with some yellow blotches here and there. Not cute! But again, we had such a mad heatwave that it was still better than nothing.

The reason I've yet to call this product a fail, is that I did actually manage to use it. Every morning I'd mix some of it into my Le Teint Touche Éclat on the back of my hand and the result would be a sort YSL Touch Eclat pen with much more coverage and pigmentation. I don't do this anymore, it's just too tedious, but knowing that I have that option if nothing else works, makes me hold on to it.

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I've been on a mission to find the perfect brown eyeliner that could do a smoky eye, kitten flick and be worn on the waterline. Let me tell you, the mission is not doing well at all. After carefully picking and choosing, the first pencil I got was the Shiseido Smoothing Eyeliner Pencil in BR602. The colour of this pencil is phenomenal – it's such a deep, rich espresso brown, perfection! I read some bad reviews that said this pencil breaks off when you try to sharpen it. Truthfully, that did happen to me once, but the next time I sharpened it, it was fine. This pencil ends up underneath my eyes, even if I apply it just to my top lash line, there will be dark lines at the end of the day. Also, I can't wear it on the waterline. Never mind that it doesn't stay, it irritates my eyes – they get red and water and I get a headache every single time I try to wear it there.

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Unfortunately, all this applies to the next brown pencil I got – the Kanebo Sensai Eyeliner Pencil in EL02. In fact it's actually worse than the Shiseido. It'll somehow migrate underneath my eyes if I do even the thinnest little line just at the roots of my upper lashline, it's baffling. I also experience irritation and headaches when I wear it on the waterline, it doesn't last there at all, but I experience this when I wear this pencil just on on my lower lashline as well. It's a much, much lighter brown than the Shiseido. If the pencil were actually good, I'd recommend it to someone who wanted a very natural look, because that colour would work wonderfully for that. Alas, it hurts my eyes, and doesn't stay put at all. If I do a kitten flick using this, by the end of the day the pencil will have rubbed off completely from the inner corner to the middle of my eye. It's very bizarre. I do still use it because due to how light it is, the smudging underneath my eyes isn't as tragic looking as with the much darker Shiseido. I have a sneaky feeling that the black version of the Kanebo might perform differently. Unlike the brown, it's very dark a crisp, but I can't say I'd try it having experienced the brown one. I might... But yeah, the hunt for the perfect brown eyeliner has me worried it may not exist if they all give me migraines =(.

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Recently, the boutique where I shop for makeup, stopped carrying Shiseido cosmetics and now just has their skincare. This is horrible! Okay, I haven't been having the best of luck with a number of their products, but Shiseido is still one of my favourite brands, and they make one of my Holy Grail products – their eyebrow pencils are my absolute favourites! I've used them for years and had no desire to try anything else, and now I can't get them! I panicked and started looking for something, anything that might replace mine, which I was coincidentally running low on. I found what looked like a fairly believable dupe. Chanel's Crayon Sourcils Sculpting Eyebrow Pencil in 30 Brun Naturel. 

For the longest time I couldn't decide between 10 and 30 and ultimately went for the latter because I thought I could play with the colour payoff more. Honestly, both of these have much more red in them than the Shiseido. This has every potential to be an amazing product. The design of the pencil is perfect – it's sleek, the caps are made out of metal and stay on nicely, there's a clear indication with the colour of the pencil, that tells you which tip is the pencil, and which one is the spooly. That's the one thing that always annoyed me about Shiseido's eyebrow pencil – instead of a spooly, it has this useless brush like an angled brick, which I constantly popped open first instead of the pencil tip. The Chanel eyebrow pencil also comes with a sharpener, so really, packaging and presentation are a 10/10. 

Now, as I mentioned, the colour has more red than I would care for, but it's usable. What I dislike about this pencil is the texture. It's much softer and waxier, which means you can really see the difference  where you've used it on hair and on bare skin. If you have nicely shaped, thick brows and you just want to fill them in slightly without really altering the shape, this won't be a problem for you. My brows, however, need a lot of help. The first couple of times I wore this pencil it looked like I had sharp lines drawn above my brows with almost a gap between this line and my actual brows. I was shocked when I caught myself in the mirror! You have to be very careful when drawing with this pencil, you can't keep going over previously drawn strokes because it starts looking thick, dark and unnatural very fast. 

I might try this pencil in number 10 next, because it is usable, but the look is definitely that of an obviously drawn on brow. This doesn't mean that it's ugly, but with my Shiseido pencil I could do both – I could go for 50s high arched drama, but I could also achieve a look where the product was completely imperceivable. I still have a tiny bit of the Shiseido pencil left and I save it for those days when I want a really healthy, barefaced and minimal look.

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To roundup this slew of reviews I have the Cutrin Chooz Dust Matt Powder. This is the year I discovered the amazing properties of dry shampoo. This stuff really is amazing for someone with an oily scalp, like me, to give your hair a bit of volume, and help the fringe look fresh and not like it's stuck to your forehead. I've seen hair powders popping up here and there and was curious to try one. 

The Cutrin is the only matt hair powder I've seen available here. I thought this may last longer than an aerosol bottle of dry shampoo and would be more comfortable to travel with. There must be different types of this product, because the first time I used it, I hated it so much, it kept me up in the middle of the night, irritated to the point I wanted to get out of bed and wash it out. I'd used it on second day hair in my fringe to absorb the excess oils, which it so didn't. It made my fringe heavy and stick together, it felt absolutely awful! It made perfectly clean hair feel dirtier than I ever let it get! Clearly, this would not replace my dry shampoo. But I didn't want to write this product off just yet. 

I researched other uses for hair powders and found a couple of videos that suggested using it when teasing your hair for mega volume. I've now tried this a few times and I think it works! Mind you, I would not do this daily. I wash and condition my hair and I comb it. I don't use heat styling tools unless it's a special occasion, which is rarely. It's therefore highly probable this won't be a product I'd bother to use daily for extra oomph. I feel like it does give the teased hair something to stick to and allow for better hold, but it's so cold that I always wear a hat out, which destroys the effort anyway. I can't vouch for how well this effect lasts, but even when your hair's flat again, I've noticed it bounces back slightly when you juj it up again. Nothing dramatic, but definitely something! This will require more playing around with, I am sad it's not what I wanted it to be, but at least it's not totally useless. I'm an optimist after all ;).

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So that's it for some brief opinions and the products that have been more work and frustration than I'd expected them to be. Hopefully I'll have better luck with items on my current wish-list! And hopefully this overview will help someone make a decision, because some of these products don't really get talked about much. Happy upcoming December for now =).