Elf Studio Small Stipple Brush review

After seeing Elf's small stipple brush from the studio line on EmilyNoel83's Beauty Broadcast Youtube channel all the time, I had to give it a spin. Stipple brushes feature bristles of two lengths - the longer hairs feather product onto your skin and the shorter, more dense, hairs buff and blend. The Elf studio line comes with black handles and ferrules, while the standard Elf Essential line comes with white handles and silver ferrules. Most of the Elf Studio brushes are $3 while the essential line is $1. I picked mine up at Target almost a year ago for $3, but my Target has recently raised the price to an oddly specific $3.04.

Tony Moly Easy Touch Coloring Browcara 02 Grey Brown review & swatches

Tony Moly Easy Touch Coloring Browcara is a tinted brow gel. Tony Moly is a South Korean beauty brand with a wide range of products, mostly around a drugstore price point. I purchased this item on Rose Rose Shop for around $5.

Easy DIY Project Idea: Makeup Brush Roll

I admit, I'm not an accomplished seamstress, but I was motivated to make my own brush roll out of leftover fabric scraps from my bag when I saw how expensive branded brush rolls are. All of these pieces were from my scrap bag, so I'm not sure how much fabric I used in all. You can use any amount of fabric you like, because you can scale this brush roll to work for your brush collection!

Storing makeup brushes in a brush roll can be a great way to keep the dust off and is also a compact storage solution. I made my brush roll for traveling to ensure my brushes don't lose their shape or get dirty in my makeup bag. Pro tip: brush rolls are also a great place to store eyeliners, lipliners, and other makeup items when you travel!

Bare Minerals Multi Tasking Stars Kit review & swatches

I admit, I'm a total sucker for value sets. I saw this in Sephora and had to pick it up! The Multi-Tasking Stars kit from Bare Minerals is a limited edition set that sells at Sephora for $49. The set includes:

- A pink neoprene padded bag, 9" x 6.5"
- Natural Light Mineral Veil Finishing Powder, 0.07 oz (mini)
- Lash Domination 10-In-1 Volumizing Mascara in Intense Black (full size)
- Spring2Triple Take Color, Gloss & Stain in Coral Pink, 0.12 oz (exclusive, full size)
- 5-in-1 BB Advanced Performance Cream Eyeshadow in Candlelit Peach, .1 fl oz (exclusive preview, full size)
- bareMinerals Ready Bronzer in The Skinny Dip & Cheek Tint in The Endless Summer Duo (exclusive, full size compact)

Before this set, I had tried only a few items from Bare Minerals before - their classic mineral foundation and a Ready eyeshadow quad, so I was excited to try out lots of products from the brand! Let's break it down:

Maybelline Dream Lumi Touch highlighting concealer pen in Ivory 320 review & swatches

I have been curious about highlighting concealer pens, so I picked this one up at CVS. I ended up paying $1.28 thanks to CVS extra bucks and a coupon! I chose the shade Ivory, # 320, which is the second lightest in the range. Radiant, the lightest option, looked very pink (almost like color correcting pink) so I passed and chose Ivory.

Dream Lumi Touch has very standard concealer pen packaging - you click the bottom of the tube a few times to push a bead of concealer up through the attached brush tip applicator. The clear cap fits securely over the brush. The writing on this tube is poorly adhered and already is starting to flake off.

I usually like Maybelline concealers (still sad about the discontinued Maybelline Minerals concealer) and this one fits into the pattern. Like its sister product, the Maybelline Age Rewind concealer, this one has an overly complicated name and a frustratingly stupid applicator. I ripped the gross sponge tip off of my Age Rewind concealer long ago, but this brush tip isn't easily removed. Granted, the brush tip looks easier to clean than the sponge, but a squeeze tube or mini pump would be an asset to this product.

Milani Brow Shaping Gel in Clear review

I bought Milani's clear brow gel because I saw a review of the product that mentioned the small brush. Most clear brow gel products at the drugstore, like Ulta Eye Brow Gel, Essence Lash & Brow Gel, and elf Lash & Brow Clear Mascara, have large wands that end up depositing too much product on your brows (and usually smearing some on your forehead). Milani's Brow Shaping Gel comes in an opaque black tube with a gold cap for $4.99 for .15 ounces, which comes out to $33.27 per ounce.

Packaging:

Unlike most brow gels on the market, Milani's comes in an opaque tube. On one hand, it is nice not to see how gross brow gel gets when you use it frequently - nobody wants to see your cloudy taupe brow gel. On the other hand, you can't see how much of the product is left.

Brush:

The brush on the end of the wand in this product is substantially smaller than every other drugstore brow gel I have tried. It has a tapered triangle shape with bristles that spiral around the wand. I did buy this product for the brush, and unfortunately the brush is the reason this product is a total fail. The bristles are so widely spaced out that the product collects in between the grooves and does not deposit evenly in your brows. The brush always pulls out of the tube with way more product than you need and overloads your brows with gel, creating a wet looking crunchy brow. Even if you wipe the excess product off of the brush, the widely spaced bristles leave little tracks through your brows, leaving you with unattractive linear clumped stripes.

Formula:

This formula is mediocre. By my lunch break at work, I feel like I need to reapply to make sure my brows stay in place the rest of the day. Not the worst formula I have tried in a brow gel (that spot goes to Ulta's store brand Eye Brow Gel), but the best I can say is that it is adequate.

The bottom line - Don't buy this unless you want clumpy, wet looking crunchy brows that will only keep their shape until lunchtime. I love Milani, but this product lets down the line.

New Eos Visibly Soft Lip Balm - Coconut Milk & Vanilla Mint review

I didn't care for the original Eos lip balms because I found them more waxy than hydrating. I recently saw the two new lip balms from the Visibly Soft line, Coconut Milk and Vanilla Mint, at Target for $2.99 so I picked them up. I bought these because the packaging advertised them as being more moisturizing then the original formula and the stripes are cute.

Inglot Freedom System Blush # 20 (Matte Pink) review & swatches

Inglot freedom system blushes are a great value - .21 oz (6 grams) for $10, which is $47.62 per ounce. They are sold in individual rectangle shaped pans and are labeled by number. As with all Inglot Freedom System products, you can buy a compact or Inglot palette to go with it. I keep my Inglot blush with other blush depots in my MAC palette. I keep my depotted blush pans safely in place with magnetic tape, which you can see here.

When I originally looked at the Inglot blush offerings, I wasn't too impressed - most of them looked shimmery and many colors looked much too deep for fair skin. Shade #20 won by default - an inoffensive matte neutral pink. I admit I was overwhelmed by all of the options and had a hard time keeping all of the numbers straight while I was browsing online. If you can look at these at a counter, do it! Inglot does make quite a few shades, so I think there is something for everyone in the lineup.

Is it a dupe? Urban Decay Walk of Shame (WOS) vs. Wet N Wild Brulee

Battle of the beige! As a self professed nude matte eyeshadow junkie, when I saw an online reference to Wet N Wild's single eyeshadow in Brulee duping Urban Decay's Walk of Shame (WOS) in the Naked Basics palette, I had to investigate.

Warning: this is a long one with lots of pictures! Get some popcorn :)

Anastasia Dipbrow Pomade Medium Brown review & swatches

Anastasia Beverly Hills' new dipbrow pomade claims to be a pigmented, smudge proof, and waterproof product for brows and eyes. I am always on the prowl for long wearing versatile everyday products, so I had to pick it up to see if it is worth the hype. None of the original shades in the line appealed to me, but when I saw the shade medium brown as a new release, I couldn't resist. Anastasia's dipbrow pomade comes in a glass pot with a shiny black plastic lid and .14 oz (4 grams) of product. I picked mine up from Sephora for $18.

Welcome to averymae!

Hi and welcome to averymae! I am a makeup and beauty lover and I have toyed with the idea of starting a blog for a long time. I will share my honest reviews and opinions of products, with plenty of photos and swatches.

A few things about me:

- I love (LOVE) matte finishes

- I have very fair, cool toned skin and am always on the hunt for products that work well with my skintone

- I always love tracking down a good deal - coupons, sales, GWPs, membership rewards, you name it :)

- I appreciate edited and sophisticated packaging, but product functionality rules all

- My favorite shades at the moment: pink toned cream nudes, bright peach, & dark bronzed brown

I hope you like this blog - let me know what you think!