I Won Beauty Crazed Canada’s November Favourites Giveaway!

I mentioned in my last post that I won one of Beauty Crazed Canada’s monthly favourites giveaways, and I’m finally posting my pictures! I haven’t tried some of these products out enough to do proper reviews, but I’ll give you my first impressions on most of them.

Also, I just want to warn you that this is a very long, and picture heavy post… you have been warned!

The haul:

imPRESS Press-On Manicure from Broadway Nails:

After trying these out, I couldn’t understand why people were complaining they’re short. Then I went to the store to take a look at the other patterns and colours, and realised that these are clearly an extra long set for Halloween. That said, they were oddly comfortable. I have tiny, oddly shaped nails, and previously, press-on nails have hurt to wear, but I got to wear these for the whole week it predicts on the box. They’re also super easy to apply. I’m not sure I’ll ever get to use the normal sets though, since they are really short. I would have to have a pretty serious nail melt-down in order for my nails to be shorter than the normal press-ons.

Karl Lagerfeld for Shu Uemura Nail Polish in Shu Shu Red:

It’s just a basic red, not something I’d bother to buy from such a high-end company, since you could easily get a basic red from OPI or Essie. Still, nice to receive and it came with these cool/odd little nail stickers as well.

Avon Super Drama Mascara:

First of all, it’s so odd to me that the mascara itself is lighter in colour than the wand. I must be so used to colours like “very black” and “blackest black” that regular black just isn’t dark enough! Anyways, it’s hard to tell from this picture, but instead of the usual bristles, this brush is made up of wider plates. It’s somewhat like a comb, and the bristly-plate things are pretty hard and scratchy if you get it too close to your eyelid, which I’m kinda used to doing to get my mascara on the roots of my lashes, so that’s something to watch out for. Also, this mascara isn’t waterproof, though I haven’t noticed much flaking or movement when wearing it, except that it’s completely gone after a shower, rather than my waterproof mascaras, which cause major racoon-eyes! I’m not sure this mascara provides “super drama,” but it is a good mascara. It’s somewhat volumizing, not clumpy, and maybe a little bit lengthening… at least after you get used to the odd brush. I probably wouldn’t purchase again, but I do like it while I have it!

Quo Smoking Hot Eye Palette in Purple:

Purple isn’t exactly my colour, and tends to make me look bruised, but I’ll try to work this in to my makeup, or else hand it over to my sister. I also tried to take swatch pictures for you, but without putting them over a primer, there was so little colour in the swatches that it just seemed like a waste of all of our time. The colours are pretty, however, and over a primer I may be able to do something with them… except maybe the top colour… that looks lie the perfect colour to make me look bruised and a little dead!

Elancyl Multi-Firming Body Care Luscious Cream:

To be honest, this is one of the things in the box I was least excited about, and I have yet to try it out. It’s clearly a firming body lotion, which I don’t think really does anything. I’ll get around to it eventually, but, since I’m not a dry-skin person, lotions just don’t excite me.

The Body Shop Lip Balms in Ginger Sparkle, Vanilla Bliss, and Cranberry Joy:

These look, and also kina feel, a lot like an attempt to duplicate the eos lipbalms. I’m honestly not enamoured with the eos balms as lots of there people are. They come in some nice flavours, they’re cute… sure, but I don’t think they’re more moisturizing than some other great balms I’ve tried. These are at least as good as those, with the addition of a little sparkle! They also smell wonderful, with the exception of the ginger in my opinion, which I gave to my sister, because I just couldn’t do it. That may have been partly because I’d had so much ginger tea around the time this package got to me, since I had a bit of a stomach bug/flu/thing, so maybe I was just sick to death of ginger. I love love love The Body Shop’s cranberry scents, however, and I’m a major fan of all things vanilla, including Body Shop’s wonderful holiday vanilla spice scent, which this is, so I’ve been loving these balms!

Gratiae Lifting Moisture Cream and Facial Serum samples:

This is another product I wasn’t all that thrilled to receive, and thus I have yet to give it a try. Even if I like it, this product is so tiny I won’t really know if it does anything anyways, but I will try it out eventually.

Revlon Midnight Express Cream Eye Shadow Palette:

These are fairly well-pigmented, but I’m not a huge fan of cream shadows. I just don’t really get how to use them best. The one time I used these so far was as a base under my New Year’s Eve makeup. The silver definitely helped to punch up the colour of my silver shadow, and it  didn’t make my makeup crease, which is good. I have also tried to make a look entirely from these shadows, but I had a hard time blending the colours, without dulling the pigmentation, so I suppose I’m stuck using these aw a base. The white shade at the bottom would probably also make a good highlight, and the black might make an passable cream liner, but I haven’t tried this product that way. So far, I’m still just meh on this palette, though some of the colours are gorgeous!

Maybelline Colossal Volume Express Cat Eyes Mascara:

Like the Avon above, this mascara isn’t waterproof and is only a simple black. That said, this is one of the products I was most excited to receive, largely because I really enjoy Maybelline mascaras! I didn’t like this much the first time I used it, because me and curved wands don’t really get along, but the formula is good, and as long as I do most of my swiping and wiggling with the convex side of the wand facing my lashes (basically, using it backwards), then we get along. I would like to have tried this in a waterproof, to really test it against my current favourites, but even so I’m really liking it! It doesn’t clump on me and I love the separation and volume it gives my lashes!

Rimmel Vinyl Max Lipgloss in Glorious:

The colour on this is nice (I have swatches of all the glosses below), and it smells as good as I’ve come to expect Rimmel lip products to smell, since they pretty much all smell like chocolate or candy! The funniest thing about this gloss is the jumbo wand and doe-foot applicator! It makes the wand look so stubby, almost like a mini since it’s so wide. It’s supposed to be a one-swipe applicator, but I pretty much ignore that, in order to properly spread the product on my lips. This also seems a tiny bit plumping, but I might be wrong.

Burberry Beauty Lip Glow in No 18 Vintage Gold:

Look at that product and tell me the colour doesn’t look more like an eye product than a lip product! I was scared that this expensive product would be completely wasted on me, since it’s such an odd colour, but after trying it on my lips, I love it! The bronze shimmer is so odd, but over natural lips, it just gives a cool copper shimmer. This also might be cool over a red lipstick. Also, this gloss is non-sticky and feels pretty moisturizing on the lips. I like it, aside from the very classic lipstick scent, which I’m not sure I’m a fan of… If you don’t know what I’m talking about, think about using your mom’s lipsticks when you were a kid… that’s the scent.

Maybelline ColourSensational High Shine Lip Gloss in Electric Shock:

I was fairly meh on this product even after swatching it on my hand. The colour is passable, and it doesn’t smell too bad, but there’s not much special about it. I was kinda wrong, though. When I first wore this on my lips, I noticed that the colour lasts forever, even after the gloss shine and feeling had faded, I still had a good bit of colour on my lips. It isn’t a stain, and doesn’t fare as well through a meal, and will get all over your pop can if you’re stupid like me and reapply after eating, but before you’ve finished your Pepsi, but the colour pigmentation is great on the lips, and I’m pretty impressed with the staying power.

Lip colour swatches:

Gold: Burberry. Light pink: Maybelline. Deeper pink: Rimmel.

Veil Cosmetics Illuminating Complexion Fix:

Luckily, this product is very close to my right colouring, and blends in perfectly! I don’t have much in the way of dark circles (I know, I’m kinda lucky that way), and I don’t like to use un-medicated concealers on zits, but I will get some use out of this concealer anyways. It’s very lightweight, and you don’t even feel it on the skin once it’s set, and it blends really nicely. I’ve used this a few times not so much to cover up circles, but just to help brighten my eyes on tired mornings. It’s a good concealer, even if I wasn’t the right person for it to end up with.

And that’s everything! I’m so glad that I won this giveaway! I know I’ve shown you other giveaways that I’ve won, but this one is a lot bigger than those were, and I’m super grateful that my name was chosen from all the entries. Also, I won’t be needing any mascara or lip products for a while now!

Have you tried any of these products before? Let me know what your thoughts are or were, and also remember to leave any ideas for prizes for my first giveaway coming up soon!

Thanks for reading! <3