Ulta3 Lipsticks Review and Swatches: Rosa, Plum Purple, Deep Red Rose Matte, Sahara Rose

Like Max Black (Kat Dennings) of the show 2 Broke Girls, I’m crazy about lipsticks and all lip products. Also like her, I’m on a tight budget, so much as I love to play around with beauty products, I really can’t afford to unless it’s the sales.

On the plus side, after playing around in my local MyChemist, I think I’ve finally found a collection of lipsticks worthy of Max’s approval: lipsticks by Ulta3.

Anyone who has been in Australia for a while would have noticed how easy it is to find Ulta3 nail varnishes in various chemists, so it is quite interesting to note that the brand has branched out into various other types of make-up too.

Being a huge fan of the red lip look, I couldn’t resist getting hold of Deep Red Rose (matte) as my first purchase for $3.95. On my lips, it kinda felt the way all matte lipsticks do: sits ok, with deep colour and just a little on the dry side. Given that I tend to prefer my lip stuff to be a little more on the moisturizing side, I found myself picking up another one in Plum Purple a week later for $2.95. This one is shade that is really similar to Deep Red Rose but is a tad more moisturizing as it is a standard lipstick. So, obviously my lips has to be well moisturized already when wearing them, as otherwise they pick up on the flakiness like crazy, but luckily don’t seem to ‘bleed’ on me…

Later, after having to throw out my beloved Revlon lip butters, I decided to buy two more lipsticks that felt a tad closer in colour to the two that I had to throw away. Enter Rosa and Sahara Rose. At $2.95 each.

All of the lipsticks have a good deep colour and sits and feels like other lipsticks I’ve swatched from higher-ended brands like Max Factor, so it kinda makes me wonder just what it is that makes them so cheap? I haven’t been able to find the ingredients for Ulta3 lipsticks anywhere but I figure that they are pretty similar to the ingredients of other lipsticks in general…

Well, at least they’re really great for lipstick collectors as Ulta3 has a huge range of lipstick colours, has all the features of high-end lipsticks, and are at very purse-happy prices.

Priceline Haul!

Cotton tips are essential for cold sore care, and a small plastic tub for making lip scrub...

During my last trip home, I forgot to pack my travel mirror so I picked up this mini manicare one from the chemist near the bus terminal. Unfortunately it turned out to be made from relative flimsy plastic and so broke really easily when it fell off my desk and onto the floor.
so I figured I might as well get a spare...

 

Don't knock the supermarket: Woolworth's homebrand concealer brush

The trouble with living in Australia for any girl who loves hair and beauty stuff is that it’s very expensive to get hold of – which is why I like to buy products during sales and from the supermarket homebrand department.

Woolworths (my local supermarket) sells this concealer brush for $5.99 which is about $1 less than most brushes from chemists. That being said…I LOVE it!

Mine has turned out to be the perfect brush for achieving the smoky eye look with my hooded, monolid Asian eyes. All I do is use the ‘edge’ of the brush to ‘line’ my top lid and the lower outer corner of my lower lid. I then use the ‘flat’ part to shade in the same shadow about 1/3 inwards from the outer corners along the top lid. A little mascara and I’m good to go!

Symbolic/Sentimental Things I’ve Given Away 2

15/09/2013

Today I got caught up in one of my usual feelings that getting rid of stuff has a cathartic effect on me – also influenced by the fact that I was in one of those moods that something I barely used was in a better position of being loved more than I did.

So it was off to another trip down to Vinnies to drop off some things. Namely:

The gold studs that I had first gotten my ears pierced with.

The first silver bracelet that I bought myself as a replacement for my first bangle.

The blue swallow brooch that I’d bought in a tourist trap gift shop – was really funny that the shop was advertising that it’s products were made by local artists…in this case where ‘local’ could apply to ‘the world’ and can be bought online http://www.annekoplik.com/product/PN-BLU/PN5254.html

Maybelline Baby Lips: Berry Crush – Comparison to Revlon Lip Butters

Before I made the mistake of using my precious lip butters on my cold sore outbreak, I had the brainwave of keeping a tinted lip balm aside for times when I was sick.

Enter Maybelline Baby Lips in Berry Crush. Which is pretty much Maybelline jumping on the tinted lip balm bandwagon, in my opinion.

As far as I can tell, the formulation in terms of colour depth is pretty similar to the lip butters – the difference in that the Maybelline Baby Lips one made me feel like I had something close to paw paw ointment/vaseline on my lips. The disappointment factor in that all 3 items tended to be not that moisturising – but at least a tad more moisturising than lipstick…

Colour wise, Berry Crush appeared to be a shade that was somewhere in the middle between Berry Smoothie and Cherry Tart – but on the wrong side of ‘red’ for me.

The benefit in pay-off in this case is that you can get Maybelline Baby Lips: Berry Crush at my local supermarket for $3.99 AUD, whereas the lip butters tend to go for $21.95 AUD.

Revlon Lip Butters: Cherry Tart and Berry Smoothie (swatches)

Ok. So admittedly I may have come onto the Revlon Lip butter bandwagon a little late, but I absolutely LOVED my ‘butters’ in Cherry Tart and Berry Smoothie.

In the lipstick vs lipgloss debate, I would say that I prefer lipstick in how they are packaged and lipgloss in that they are slightly moisturizing. So to me, they are the best of both worlds - In that they are nicely pigmented lip balms that have the really classy packaging that you get with lipsticks.

Cherry Tart being a universally flattering red shade that applies quite sheer and so is ideal for me in that I like to wear makeup that makes me still look like ‘me’. Berry Smoothie gave me the perfect ‘me but better’ shade  - which with me making the huge mistake of applying it directly on my lips during a cold sore outbreak means that I have no choice but to throw it out…it’s also possible that I have made the same mistake with my Cherry Tart one as well…

That being said, I just found out at my local pharmacy today that the entire range is being discontinued, which is why I found all of them on sale. This leads to the question of what Revlon is coming out with that is a replacement for these lip butters, as I see no reason why you should discontinue a perfectly good thing…That being said, the one thing I do find fault with these lipsticks is the casing, ie that the lid 'sticks' to the base when you try to pull it off...

 

Treating Cold Sores and Lipstick

It is common knowledge that it is possible to catch cold sores from lipsticks and other lip stuff that has been used by someone who has had a cold core outbreak.

After consulting with a nurse, I also know now that once you have the cold sore, you cannot be reinfected ever again – kinda like chicken pox.

BUT there is one thing that I’ve learnt the hard way…although you cannot reinfect yourself by using a lipstick that you had used when you had a cold sore, using the lipstick again does cause you to have another outbreak. So now I have to throw out one of my favourite lipsticks.

This is not to say that you cannot wear lipstick when you have a cold sore though…

All you have to do, is apply your chosen lipstick with a Q-tip/cotton bud, but you cannot double dip the stick into the product.

NB. Re treatment for said cold sores, I tend to use a lot of the betadine products re health related issues as they seem to work quite well for me - both in the cream/gel formulation and dabbing the liquid onto the affected area using a cotton bud. In the course of the past week in trying to clear up my outbreak, I've found out (via a google search) that dabbing a little nail polish remover using a cotton bud n the afflicted area every hour or so, does in fact seem to work.

According to my bio chem buddy, the reasoning behind this is that acetone has the chemical ability to kill organic cells - which does explain why my fingers and nails feel so dry after I remove my nail polish.