Lipstick Roulette v. 3: What I'm Keeping and What I'm Tossing

Time for an overview of the lip products I selected for v. 3 of my Lipstick Roulette series. If you are unfamiliar with what a Lipstick Roulette is, I got the idea from Elle S on YouTube. It's where you randomly select a number of lip items to wear over a specified period of time (I'm doing 7 products over a 2 week period), with the goals of rotating through your products and decluttering those that no longer work for you.

Let's start with Le Metier de Beaute's Creme de la Creme. It's a milky beige gloss with a faint shimmer and works best over a lipstick, as it washes me out on it's own. I do like the formula and these cost an arm and a leg ($36), so I will be keeping it.

Le Metier de Beaute Creme de la Creme

Charming is one of the Meet Matt(e) Hughes liquid lipsticks ($17) by theBalm, and I like both the formula and the warm deep mauve color. I find it comfortable to wear, non-drying, and relatively long lasting (4-5 hours or longer if not eating). I will be keeping Charming.

Trixie by Buxom ($20) is a sheer light pink gloss with shimmer. I love the Buxom lip gloss formula, and Trixie is a great spring/summer lip topper worn either on it's own or over a more opaque lipstick (in the photos below I'm wearing it over Sweetie). I'll be keeping.

Buxom Trixie

Sweety by Bite Beauty is a limited edition (no longer available) matte creme lip crayon ($24), and the only Bite Beauty product I've purchased to date. It's insanely pigmented, comfortable to wear, and the perfect flamingo pink for hot weather wear. I'm a fan and will be keeping it.

Rendezvous Colorburst Balm Stain by Revlon (~$6) is a vibrant orange glossy balm and I really like how it looks and feels when I wear it. Another great warm weather color that I will be keeping in my collection.

Revlon Rendezvous

Peach Parfait Colorburst Lip Butter by Revlon ($8-9) is my favorite of the line, and I'm this close to finishing it. I love the soft shimmer and color gloss it leaves on my lips and find it uber easy and comfortable to wear. Definitely keeping!

Everybody and their sister/brother who shops at Sephora is probably familiar with the Velvet matte lip pencil Cruella by Nars ($27), considering it was a Sephora birthday gift a few years back. While I don't wear red lips that often, I find Cruella to be an easy one to pull off, both in terms of application, finish, and wear. I'll be keeping.

That's right, I'm tossing nothing from the v.3 Lipstick Roulette products! Now, let's see what I chose for v. 4:

1. Natural Matte Lip color by e.l.f.
2. Paiette Sparklicity Gloss by Tarina Tarantino
3. Pink Passion Pop Balm by bareMinerals
4. Femme Extra Creamy Round Lipstick by NYX Cosmetics
5. Athens Long Wear Lip Gloss by CARGO
6. Seductive Honey Pure Color Envy Sculpting Gloss by Estee Lauder
7. Pink Truffle Colorburst Lip Butter by Revlon

Empties! Items I Used Up or Tossed in March

Yes, I know it's almost the end of April and I'm just now posting my March empties, but it is what it is. I've got a fair amount of items I used up however, so let's get to it!

Estee Lauder makes some of my favorite mascaras as well as my holy grail lash primer, and I loved pairing the Sumptious mascara with The Little Black Primer (full reviews of both here). I've already moved on to another tube of The Little Black Primer  and would definitely purchase both going forward. I also finally finished the Re-Nutriv Softening Lotion, which is a nice albeit overpriced ($60) moisturizing toner. I made it about 1/3 of the way through the Re-Nutriv Ultimate Lift Age Correcting Eye Creme, but I just do not like it. I could not tell it did much for my eye and it did not play nicely with makeup, so I'm tossing. Maybe the formula went bad, as I've had it for about a year now (full review here). The black topped jar is the bareMinerals Mineral Veil, which I really like. I would purchase but I've got a mammoth jar of powder from Le Metier de Beaute I need to finish up first. The Lauren Brooke Cosmetiques Creme Foundation is a favorite, and I've already repurchased (full review here).

Sorry for the blurriness of this photo, my bad. I'm a big fan of Hask shampoos and the Kalahari Melon Oil did not disappoint. I'm currently trying a new brand, but I'll revisit Hask again soon. April by Buxom was part of my Finish 17 by 2017 project pan, and was actually part of a project pan I started in 2016. Finally finished her :-) The Galactomyces 80 Eye Cream was part of a giveaway I won, and the I raced to use it up before it's expiration date.  It's a BIG tube for an eye cream, but I also used it as a neck cream, and I liked it! No plans to repurchase. The Algenist Retinol Firming & Lifting Serum made me start paying attention to Algenist as a brand, I liked it that much. I just can't bring myself to pay it's $102 price tag.

Finished a few foils outside of my #365 Days of Samples series:

• belif The True Cream -Aqua Bomb: nice, and I think I've got some more samples to go through.
• Hask Monoi Coconut Oil shampoo and condition: I like.
• davines Oil Conditioner: I like all of the davines products I've tried and have come close to purchasing several times.  
• Klorane Shampoo with Chamomile: I liked this as well, but no plans to purchase.

These are under eye gel masks by GoToSpa. I'll be doing a full review soon so will hold my thoughts until then.

The mask standouts for me this month were the Dr. Troubex Sparkling Mask and the Donkey Milk Healing masks.  

While I'm a fan of the inexpensive bonvivant masks from Memebox, I think some of mine have started to go bad, based on smell :-(.  They are not that old - or at least I purchased them not that long ago, so that's not a good sign. The particular offenders were the Chamomile and Tea Tree Botanical Masks. I did use one and it had no detrimental effects, but the smell just seems off. I've got quite a few of these in my collection, ah yi yi.

I'm tossing two mascaras that did not work for me: Essence Forbidden Volume and Rimmel Scandaleyes Rockin' Curves. The Forbidden Volume mascara didn't have much impact and smudged, and the brush on the ? was a nightmare for my small eyes. Nothing frustrates me more (makeup wise) than getting mascara all over my eyes, and this one did just that.

Scandaleyes Rockin' Curves

I won the Aurora DeJuliis Soft Papaya & Pumpkin Masque in a giveaway and used about half of it before it went bad. It didn't make much of an impression on me and was hard to tell if it did anything for my skin.

The Sweet Milk & Chamomile Exfoliate by Farmaesthetics was nice (full review here), but it was white when I bought it back in 2012 and has now turned yellow, so it's way past it's prime. It smelled fine, but still.

Last up are the samples that I used up as part of my #365 Days of Samples series. I won't go into detail on them as I already did in the original posts. I do think doing this series is definitely helping me get through more samples than I normally would, which is a good thing!

Poupounette (108) Face & Eye Color by Paul & Joe Beaute

Paul & Joe Beaute is one of those brands that sucks me in with their cute packaging, although typically I admire from afar. To date this is only the second item of theirs that I've purchased, with the first having been one of their lipsticks, Toujours Heureux. So, let me introduce you to Poupounette, one of three Face & Eye Colors available from the Spring 2017 collection. Poupounette means sweetie or honey and is typically used to address little girls, although it can also used as slang for a certain sex act. Yep.

Source: Paul & Joe Beaute

The spring collection marks Joe & Paul's 15th anniversary, and is built around "makeup for love and romance", with a collection of pink hued makeup for the lips, cheeks, and eyes.  The Face & Eye Colors ($35) feature 3 shades in each palette that can be worn alone or blended together. When I was chosing mine there were few reviews online to guide me, but the softer tones of Poupounette appealed to me me the most.

The packaging is a sturdy cardboard, and the elastic will come in handy if you plan on keeping this in your makeup bag or traveling with it. It also comes with a decorative kitten's paw puff applicator. I say decorative because I will never use it to apply the powder :-) Here is how the tones of Poupounette is described on Beauty Habit:

A combination of cozy and neutral shades ideal for use day and night Hues in the palette include: Canal pink – a beautiful golden pearl, Cinnamon with hints of silver and gold pearl and Cream highlighted with red, gold and pearl accents.

The hearts will rub away upon first use, and each of the 3 colors are a satin/shimmer in finish. As an eye shadow they are extremely soft in color and best suited as a wash of color for natural makeup days.

Where Poupounette shines for me is as a blush/face color. I've been wearing it for over a month now and still find myself reaching for it regularly.  The powder is finely milled and applies smoothly.  I'm not someone who wears overly shimmery blushes, but this one has just the right amount for me. It's enough that I do no use a highlighter with it, but not so much that it emphasizes skin texture. It's a great spring/summer color for those with fair complexions. You can get different variations in color depending on what shades you mix together.

Paul & Joe Beaute products are manufactured by Albion, which is a Japanese company. My impression of Japanese powder based makeup is that they are more subtle and natural in finish and color, which is definitely the case here. Think "natural beauty" as opposed to "color impact".

As to whether Poupounette is worth $35, I think that totally depends on your perspective. I view items like this as both novelty and collector's item, so you are paying more for that. However, I do like the quality of the powder/formula, which includes:

• Orange Flower Water – Moisturizer  
• White Lily Extract – Moisturizer, prevents skin irritation
• Jojoba Oil – Emollient  
• Sodium Hyaluronate - Moisturizer 
• Rosemary Extract – Emollient  
• Rose Fruit Oil - Emollient 

So yes, for me it's worth it.