Thursday 14 April 2011

ebay, I love you.

I was on ebay on Sunday and spotted some expensive make up on the cheap. I managed to bag an Estee Lauder lipstick compact for £1, and a Stila illuminating liquid foundation for another £1. With shipping it came up to about £6 total. They arrived about half an hour ago and that Sigma brush still hasn't arrived having been shipped over a week ago!

My first impressions:
The first thing I did was test the foundation to check that I had the right shade. It seems 10 Watts is in fact the perfect shade for me, but my celebrations at finding such an awesome priced foundation that matches my skin tone were cut short when I smelled the back of my foundation covered hand. It smells rank. Like paint that's gone off, I mean, I like the smell of paint but this just doesn't smell right. I realise I don't know how old this foundation is, and when I opened it, it had clearly been used at least once. Has it gone off? Or does it just smell that way?
It holds none of the usual clues to a bad foundation: separation of the ingredients in the bottle, lumpy or strange consistency, and I'm not sure if it just smells like that because it's an oil based foundation. I shall have to try it on my face and see how it goes. I may post about this again later. I am glad I didn't may $38 just to try it. After the conversion rate that's still around £22.

I've just tried out all four of the lipsticks in the Estee Lauder palette. They are Pure Colour Long Lasting Lipsticks, and one of them is a Pure Colour Crystal shade, 303 Crystal Pink.  The others are 166 Candy, 161 Pink Parfait, and 182 Pinkberry.

When I was really young and was just messing about with makeup, I remember my brother Michael giving me an Estee Lauder gift bag. I think I used to think of it as granny makeup because it was all browns and a bit boring for a kid to play with. I had two lipsticks, two trial sized mascaras and a small duo colour eye palette, and as I grew up I used those lipsticks more and more often for daytime looks. The lipsticks eventually went off, as all oil based things eventually do, but those eyeshadows are still in my make up drawers, still wearable, still beautiful, still smelling new. Michael died around this time eight years ago, but his gift is still here, usable. One of the best things he ever got me. I never bought another product by Estee Lauder until that turbo lash vibrating mascara came out, the most ridiculously expensive mascara I've ever bought. I always remembered those lipsticks for their amazing quality, something that is apparently still there today. The thing I notice is that the difference between colours is a subtle one, in most cases.

Here are my lipsticks:
161 Pink Parfait

182 Pinkberry
303 Crystal Pink

116 Candy
Like I said, the difference is subtle on the lips. They look different in the compact.

They are very lovely lipsticks, they feel really creamy and moisturising, they look beautiful and if I had bought each of these to try as full sized individual lipsticks at £18 a pop it would have cost me £72, and I wouldn't have had a lipbrush or a mirror. I think it highly unlikely that I will use these up all that quickly, as I prefer brighter colours or just a balm on my lips most of the time, but I will use them. I feel happy with this £1 purchase. Actually, I'm ecstatic.

Less than 24 hours left to enter my Eyeko giveaway. Subscribe and comment "enter me" and I pick the winner tomorrow afternoon. 

TTFN

Hell Thirteen xoxo


3 comments:

  1. Oil based or not, it shoudnt smell how you say it does. I would say DONT try it on your face, if its gone of it could cause havic for your akin!
    Please be carefull =]

    Klayer x

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  2. I found, under sunlight, that it is actually a bit too dark for my skin anyway. I just didn't like it too much, it didn't feel good on my skin and it smelled weird. It annoyed me that I didn't have any reference point to compare it with, Stila wise. Thing is it takes about 2 years to go off, and I doubt it's as old as that.

    Guess I'll be sticking to Infallible by L'Oreal for now, and e.l.f. tinted moisturiser on my low coverage days.

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  3. But the whole going off thing is to do with temature its stored aswell, as bacteria is happier in warmer temps =]

    ReplyDelete