TopBox has sent me some Burt's Bees products to review, and I'm about to spill the tea on their makeup. I wanted to love the products that TopBox sent me because it's Burt we're talking about here. The brand is super popular and mostly known for their lip balms. They also don't test on animals, and their products are formulated without parabens, phthalates, SLS, petrolatum, talc, or synthetic fragrances. But the products didn't wow me, and one particular product was so awful that I'm debating tossing the bottle in the trash. And I hate wasting products.

Burt's Bees Goodness Glows Liquid Foundation - $20.99

Burt's Bees 100% Natural All Aglow Lip & Cheek Stick - $20.99

I had a slightly better experience with their 100% Natural All Aglow Lip & Cheek Sticks. I received the shades Suez Sands and Dahlia Dew. Their lip & cheek sticks retail at $20.99. I've never tried a cream blush or a stick blush, let alone one that doubles as a lip tint. This product tries to be versatile, but that makes application dirty and germy. If you're using this product on your face then your mouth, you're going to have to wipe it off between uses otherwise you're applying a cesspool of germs onto your lips. I wouldn't recommend using the stick directly on your face (which is literally its sole purpose as a stick product) because it will move your foundation around relentlessly. I found that the best way to apply it to my face to swipe a clean makeup brush against the stick, then to dab it onto my cheeks. You can also use your fingers to transfer the product from the stick to your skin, but the lighter you dab (which is easier with a brush), the less likely you'll be disturbing your foundation. Paired with the Goodness Glows foundation, blending the two were difficult, and if not done correctly, will make your foundation patchy all over. As a lip tint, the product applies well and will last an hour or so. And I'll admit, as a lip tint it does feel nourishing. Colour-wise, Suez Sands is a dusty rose colour and applied very lightly, which looked natural on my cheeks but not opaque enough to be noticeable on my lips. Dahlia Dew is very red and I found it to be too dark to look natural on my cheeks, but added a nice darker tint to my lips.

Burt's Bees 100% Natural Highlighter/Bronzer Stick - $20.99

The Burt's Bees 100% Natural All Aglow Highlighter Stick and 100% Natural All Aglow Bronzer Stick retail for $20.99. You will need to apply it the same way as you would the cheek/lip sticks: with a brush or your fingers. If you use the sticks directly on your face (more specifically, with the Goodness Glows foundation), you will smear all your foundation underneath. They have one highlighter shade called Opal Mist, which is a soft and opal/cream colour and applies lightly and gives a more natural and subtle looking glow. Their bronzer sticks have two shades, Golden Shimmer and Bronze Splash, which can be described as gold and darker gold. I received darker gold, and it applied like a gold highlighter. I wouldn't use this as a bronzer because it's too shimmery, but I'd definitely use it as a highlighter, especially for warm summer days.

Burt's Bees 100% Natural Nourishing Mascara - $14.99

Lastly, I also received their 100% Natural Nourishing Mascara, which retails for $14.99 and comes in the colours black brown and classic black. It's made with jojoba oil and glycerin to nourish lashes, and is supposed to be delicate for your eye area. I've seen many reviews saying that they thought it was clumpy and flaky. Personally, I didn't see any flakiness whatsoever. As for clumping, maybe a teensy bit, but that can always be rectified by twirling the mascara wand as you apply the product. This is a trick that I use with all my mascaras to create a flawless, clump-free finish. It also didn't hold up very well with water, so if you happen to shed a tear while wearing this mascara be prepared to have it run down your face. This product wasn't the best mascara that I've ever used, but it wasn't the worst. It didn't make my lashes look lengthened or anything, but is good for a more natural lift for my lashes. It was meh, but it's budget friendly for anyone looking for natural makeup products.

I wanted to love these products by Burt's Bees. I wanted to love how they were made from natural ingredients. But I feel like these products missed the mark for me. I can learn to use all the stick products so that I can apply them more expertly. The mascara I can work with. But these products were all meh. Not incredible, but not horrible either. And for meh products, I don't know if I could justify the price points. If you want to make better consumer choices by purchasing natural products, then maybe this is the product line for you. However, the foundation was absolutely horrid and I would never recommend it. Maybe it works better on people with different skin types than me, but this product is definitely not meant for anyone with oily skin unless they want to look oilier than they already are.

P.S. This is the look that I created using all the products (minus Bronze Splash). If you can't tell from the picture below, I suck at selfies! I'm not even smiling. My house has poor lighting, so you can't really tell, but my skin looks super oily/shiny because of the foundation. Opal Mist didn't give much of a highlight, the mascara looks average, Suez Sands didn't make my cheeks look very rosy because it was too sheer, and Dahlia Dew did an okay job adding some tint to my lips, but it didn't last much longer than an hour or so. Overall, the look is very natural. So with the exception of the foundation, I may keep some of these products in my arsenal of makeup for days that I want to look more natural (ie. when I do a no-makeup makeup look).

When my friend who works at Shoppers Drugmart told me that GOSH was being discontinued from their stores, I was a little sad. Their metallic liquid liners were amazing and I rocked the heck out of them when I was in high school. But I'm 26 now, and need to rock some more "adult" makeup looks for when I go to work. GOSH has been pulled from Shoppers Drugmart's stores and has since been replaced with a new brand called Nude by Nature — a brand that boasts being made with 100% natural ingredients and is cruelty-free. The products are all free from parabens, silicone, siloxanes, phthalates, sulphate, PEGS, triclosan, phenoxyethanol, carmine, talc, and bismuth. 

Nude By Nature Cashmere Pressed Blush - Desert Rose - $26

Nude by Nature Natural Definition Brow Palette - Blonde - $30

Nude by Nature Natural Glow Loose Bronzer - Bondi Bronze - $30

Nude by Nature Travel Brush 10 - $28

Nude by Nature Contour Brush 04 - $33

This week, I received Lise Watier's HydraForce Hydra-Protective Comforting Creme to test and review from Glam Sense (Please note that I received these products for free to test and review from Glam Sense. The following review and opinions are solely my own.). I was mostly excited to receive this product because I needed a better facial moisturizer. I'm currently using one that I like, but don't quite love. It's a basic, unscented moisturizer that does it's job: it moisturizes. But if you recall, I'm currently using the Bioré Baking Soda products for my face wash and scrub, and it does leave my skin a bit dry. I needed something more hydrating than my current facial moisturizer. So you can see why I'm really excited to try a high end facial product.

The Lise Watier HydraForce Hydra-Protective Comforting Creme (gawd, what a mouthful!) retails for $45 CAD and is a formula for normal to dry skin. Lise Watier also sells HydraForce Hydra-Protective Creme-Gel for normal to combination skin. What's interesting about these products is that they use Gaspé algae extract to combat extreme weather conditions and maintain healthily hydrated skin. According to Vanessa Craft from ELLE Canada, the Gaspé algae (also known as Laminaria saccharina) "helps to reinforce the skin's protective barrier and prevent water loss." (read her short article about this 'miracle' algae here). Craft says that the Gaspé algae is a "seaweed found along the cold northeastern part of the Atlantic coast" that "develop[s] a highly efficient system in order to survive in [extremely cold] conditions. If harvested in the fall, it contains a higher active molecule concentration than at any other time of the year." I don't know about you, but I thought that this was really neat. In addition to this 'miraculous' seaweed, according to Lise Watier, this product boasts that 100% of women claimed that their skin felt more hydrated after use (this information is based on an evaluation for 25 women after 28 days of treatment with HydraForce).

Think the algae was neat? I haven't even gotten to the most interesting part about this box. With my facial moisturizer, I received a little device that plugs into my phone's audio jack and tells me how hydrated my skin is. It's a cute little gadget with what looks like two small, silver angel wings. First, I had to download the free Hydra-Detect app by Lise Watier onto my phone, then plug the little device in. When you open the app, you have five tabs. One is the main testing page, which is followed by tabs labelled Hand, T-Zone, Cheek, and Moisture Levels. You click the tab of the area that you want to test, hold the little angel wings against your skin, and wait for your phone to buzz and tell you what your moisture levels are. The Moisture Levels tab is handy because it tells you what the percentage of hydration your skin is — ranging from Dry to Normal, Hydrated, and Exceptional.

I have tested this app several times by deleting the app and reinstalling it to clear my data and start fresh. This is why, for those of you wondering, why my results from my unboxing video and the pictures I've attached to this blog post are different.

For my hands, my levels before moisturizing were 37.5%, and after moisturizing my result was 60.7%. The first time I tried this test, my level before moisturizing was 5% (ouch!). I guess even the app realizes that I have eczema on my hands.

   

Next, I tested my T-zone, where my results were higher than I expected. During my first tests, my results pre-moisturizing were much lower. I should note that I used this device after washing my face. I felt like washing my face before taking these tests would strip my skin of its natural moisture, but compared to my first results, if anything it boosted my moisture levels.

   

Last, I tested my cheek. These are my results:

    

My moisture levels for my t-zone and cheek were surprisingly high for the pre-moisturizing tests. During my first test, my results were lower than 50%, so I feel like washing my face definitely skewed my results.

If you are interested in learning more about Lise Watier's HydraForce products and want to test your hydration levels as well, there are HydraForce events happening in several Canadian cities. If you don't live near these locations like me, you can also test your hydration levels at a point of sale near you. The cities that are participating in these events are Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Toronto, Montreal, and Dartmouth. If you would like to learn more about these events, click here.

Please feel free to tag me on my Instagram and Twitter (@blondiesnails) and share your HydraForce experience. Just be sure to use the hashtag #GetInTheBubble!

I am so, freaking beyond excited! TopBox started a new product review program called Glam Sense, and I was eligible for one of their first campaigns! The campaign that I was eligible for was Teeez Trend Cosmetics. To be honest, I had never heard of this brand before I joined the Glam Sense program. I did some digging around online and found out that it is an online based makeup company, and the products are often featured by TopBox and in Ipsy subscription boxes. According to Teeez's site, they were launched in 2004 and are a European brand that is high-end and focuses on self-expression and individuality.

I received my package in the mail today, and I am so stoked with the product that I got. The product arrived in a box like the one in the image above, and inside was a lipstick. I don't know about you, but I fracking LOVE lipstick. However, my boyfriend doesn't like it. I try to wear lipstick out of the house when I'm not with him whenever I can because of this.

The lipstick that I got was Teeez's Read My Lips Lipstick in the colour Roulette Red. The Read My Lips Lipstick, according to their website, retails at $22 USD which is pretty decent considering that they are considered a high-end cosmetics company. The lipstick applied surprisingly effortlessly, and had very good pigment. I was actually blown away by how easily the product could be applied for the amount of pigment that it gave. The product boasts a long lasting, 8 hour formula, a unique satin matte finish, and highly pigmented coverage. Also, according to the product page, Read My Lips Lipstick contains added coconut oil extract to nourish and hydrate your lips. Let me tell you, this product was not a let down, and I am really impressed with it.

After receiving my product, I explored the Teeez Trend Cosmetics site to try and find a link for the lipstick to share with you. However, despite my best efforts, I cannot find it. I found only one Read My Lips lipstick listed on their site, and it was not the Roulette Red that I received. Instead, I found the colour Killing Me Softly, which in and of itself is still a really beautiful coral colour. I thought that perhaps it was a new colour, hence why it isn't listed yet. However, I searched the far nether-regions of Google and have found that beauty bloggers have been discussing this product since October. I'm kind of disappointed to find that this product isn't more easily accessible to purchase. And to top off my disappointment, I looked at their shipping page only to find out that the company only ships within the continental United States. Well ain't that just peachy? I personally don't understand why TopBox chose a product for their Canadian campaigners to get excited about when we can't purchase it for ourselves, unless of course we happen to have American postal boxes.*

*Update: Teeez Cosmetics can now be purchased at Hudson's Bay which is great news for any Canadians who are interested!

I'm still really impressed with this lipstick. I'm glad to have been apart of this campaign and to have tried this product. I love this lipstick and if it ever becomes more accessible to us Canadian beauty bloggers, I'll be sure to boost this product to any lipstick lover that I cross paths with. In the mean time, if you're from the States and reading this, you're in luck! This lipstick is amazing and I envy you, your postal service, inexpensive shipping rates, and that you can have everything that I love and I can't. I hate you. JK. But seriously, why do you guys get all the good things in life? I'm seriously jealous.

Overall, I love this lipstick, and I recommend it to anyone who loves long-lasting, beautiful pigment. Thank you again to TopBox, Glam Sense, and Teeez Trend Cosmetics for letting me be a part of this campaign and for letting me try this product. I love it so much and can't wait to possibly be part of your future campaigns. #TeeezinGS