*MAX FACTOR Facefinity All Day Flawless 3 in 1 Primer Concealer Foundation SPF20

10 Fair Porcelain

Max Factor became the second brand to send me a foundation that's actually pale. In fact they sent me the lightest shade I've ever tried and I can't believe I'm saying this, but it's a bit too light even for me, which is a totally new experience. Facefinity All Day Flawless has an impressive shade range 40 shades, sadly we only get a portion here since our stands are so narrow, but luckily there are online shops. I'm not sure if any other affordable drugstore brand has such a pale shade, but it's lighter than Essence's #insta perfect 10 #cool porcelain which was previously lightest in my collection. The shade matches my neck, but my face is darker, so my best match is closer to Essence and Maybelline Dream Cover 095 if I don't want to look a bit odd, but this will come so handy to mix with darker foundations. If you're looking for something truly pale, Max Factor has got you covered and the shade is neutral. The formula appears nice too. It's my type of foundation, so a feather-light formula with light-medium coverage. Sadly I haven't been able to wear foundation in months now (sucks so much), so can't give it a proper test because everything I put on my face now looks flaky, cakey and just in general awful (Bourjois Healthy Mix fares best, still I'm having the worst skin days of my life so I don't wear anything on most days or just Maybelline Eraser concealer). I hope it passes soon as I'll get to test this properly, as it looks very promising. I had the primer in the same packaging and I remember it was thicker. It's been a while since I used up my bottle, but it was (possibly still is?) my favourite. Max Factor also generously provided me with samples of other shades that I think are sold here (shade 10 very likely isn't), so I could do comparison swatches.

  14.69 €

MAYBELLINE Fit Me Matte + Poreless Powder

090 Translucent

Since I'm a fan of foundation with the same name and I like their Fit Me Loose powder, I wanted to try this too, thought it wasn't my first choice, as a version for dry skin exists too, it's just not sold in Slovenia (this is the only Maybelline powder we have). Reviews for this are fantastic and I was most intrigued by the promise of blurring pores. Like I said above I'm currently really struggling testing and wearing makeup because my skin is alternating between ok-ish and very dry with flakes + spots. When my skin is normal it looks like a great powder, smooth, a tiny bit blurring (but not as good as Fit Me Loose version) and velvety matte. On dry days it, of course, creates the appearance of a thousand dry patches like everything I put on, but I won't hold this against it because it looks like a nice powder when used on normal skin with an oily forehead. I think this one might be a bit more effective than Rimmel's Stay Mat when it comes to holding back oil, but it's hard to say for me in winter. We have four shades here, I got translucent since I so pale and it leaves no white cast. There is a sponge and a mirror in the bottom compartment. 

Müller, 5.89 €

CATRICE Prime & Fine Poreless Blur Primer Goodbye Pores

I got this despite the more dry looking texture of the tester compared to Revlon's Photoready 002, which I wanted more, but it's very expensive for drugstore. I actually got it a few days before my skin became mega dry - I just can't believe my luck - so I've only used a couple of times "normal" skin. It's a whipped balm type of texture, which doesn't make much sense, but it's a typical high silicone content primer like Clinique's Pore Minimizer and the likes. On good skin days it glides smoothly on the skin, though to prevent it piling and shifting too much during application I find it's best to tap this one in. The finish is completely matte. On bad days it flakes like crazy, so if your skin is dehydrated, flaky and/or dry, stay away from this one. It's not terribly effective when it comes to its primary task, so hiding/blurring pores, at least when looking close up, while it tends to look better in the pictures. Pores don't look much different after application and it's not as good a Revlon's which I tried a couple of times, plus foundation over it looks more cakey on some areas like the sides of my nose. I'm just not impressed by this one.

Picture can be enlarged like all in this post. 

Müller, 5.39 €

*CATRICE Glow & Care Primer

I've been checking this one out in the drugstores for a while because I liked it has glycerine so high on the list, so I hoped it's nice for dry skin and because the texture looked so smooth when blended. I didn't see much glow in the shop, but it definitely has it. It's got the same level of glow as Charlotte Tilbury Hollywood Flawless Filter and to me they are so similar, I don't want to say dupes, but on my skin they look almost the same side by side. CT has a bit of coverage and Catrice has a faint peachy tint, the textures are different since CT is annoyingly thick and Catrice is an easy to blend liquid, but the biggest difference is that the shimmer in CT is all equally super fine, invisible, but in Catrice's there are some larger shimmer particles visible under strong light. To some this is a difference worth 32 € and to some it won't be, but they are definitely very similar. I prefer Catrice's version now when my skin is very dry, as it doesn't make the makeup over it cakey unlike CT, but again my skin is so weird right now, I feel it's pointless to even write about these products right now.

 5.39 €

L'OREAL Glow Mon Amour Highlighting Drops

01 Sparkling Love

This is one of the strongest liquid highlighters I've tried and it's the reason I wanted it. We have three shades here, this pale champagne one and a coral-rosy one, I'm not sure if there are more shades of these. The glow is pretty strong and wet looking, but not full metallic, so it's not going overboard. You only need a tiny dot of the product on the cheekbone, while applying more tends to not layer well, it just spreads the product on a larger area. It wish this were more dry to the touch, but it's more oily, which makes it easy to blend, but it also shifts on the skin. It's not perfect, but I like it because the glow is lovely, not glittery, instead it has a fine shimmer. I hate the packaging, though. It's got a dropper which is ok, but there's no stopper/scraper, so there's always so much product on the dropper and it's easy to get the bottle very messy. 

 Müller,  10.99 €

*WET N WILD Megaglo Hello Halo Liquid Highlighter

Halo, Goodbye

I got this sent after I bought L'Oreal and neither feel perfect to me. I prefer the champagne shade of L'Oreal, but the formula of this feels nicer. It's not as oily feeling, so it doesn't shift as much at application. The strength of the glow is comparable, yet L'Oreal's looks a bit better. Shimmer is fine, so it looks like a natural enough highlighter and the shade is somewhere between warm and cool, with a warm-ish base, but some cool looking particles among shimmer. It suits my skin tone just fine. The big applicator feels nice to use, but I don't like the packaging overall because it feels like tester and not a full size product.

 5.99 $

*CATRICE Glitterholic LE Eyeshadow Palette

C02 So Vain

There are two versions of these, both are a collection of different types of finishes, but the centre stage is the glitter. There's a few mattes and satin shimmers, all are more pigmented than is usual for Catrice and you can get a great colour payoff. The copper glitter shade is a cream texture with big shimmer particles suspended in a clear base. It swatches so intense, but it's very hard to apply it evenly and it does not stay put. It landed everywhere a couple of hours in, so it ended up looking absolutely abysmal both times I've worn it. The regular eyeshadows are nice, great even though the palette doesn't feel complete to me in terms of shades, but the glitter needs something to stick too and it's just very messy. 

Look with no glitter and the glitter look after a few hours. You can see it freshly applied in the L'Oreal Mon Amour picture above. On the left I'm also wearing Glitterholic LE Highlighter Palette, middle shade.

*CATRICE Glitterholic LE Highlighter Palette

By now I'm used to Catrice launching excellent highlighters. This is basically L.O.V. GLOWrious palette with the third shade that's actually useful. The first is a classic neutral-warm champagne shade, then the second is the rose gold and the last a peachy glow. All super wearable, all have fine shimmer and a good level of glow. Excellently done. I've been wearing this one instead of Colourpop Flexiterian, thought that one is still my all-time favourite.

BALEA Erfrishendes Waschgel

My standard gel cleanser that I've been using as a second cleanser for years. I took the last one and I haven't seen new stock in a while. I know there's a lot of complaints that this new version is way worse than before, which I disagree, but maybe they decided to bring those back? We'll see.

DM, 1.99 €

BALEA MED Ultra Sensitive Intensivcreme Urea

I recently read how underrated urea is for repairing the barrier and since I had none such products I got one from Balea to include in my routine which already features ceramides and other great things. 7% is maybe a bit high as urea in high concentrations also acts as an exfoliator and Balea has 5% version as well. It's nice moisturiser, I've been using it for the last month and though it's not as effective on dry skin as Mixa's 5% panthenol or Cerave Moisturising Cream, I appreciate that's it's not a thick balmy texture, instead it's a like a regular cream that sinks in eventually. 

DM, 3.95 €

YEAUTY Eye Pad Mask

Deep Hydration

There are two versions of these in my local Müller, aside from this one is a gold set of patches which I think are anti-ageing, but they were out of stock so I didn't check the ingredients. I got this because like liked it has glycerine, aloe vera, hyaluronic acid and vitamin E as the first ingredients after collagen. These are just like K-Beauty hydrogels. There's plenty of extra fluid that you can use all over the face and it smells faintly like cucumber. I can't say these did a miraculous job, but they feel nice under tired eyes.

Ingredients.

Müller, 0.99 €

 

PANTENE Hair Biology Grey & Glowing Illuminating Mask

This is my third out of three and I'll just say it - they are all exactly the same. Same texture, same scent and same effect. All of course brilliant for my dry hair, but no different than the cheaper Repair conditioner. Based on the description I expected a purple mask because it's meant for grey hair which tends to turn yellow, but this is a regular clear mask. So I just mixed some Subrina Colour Refresh Diamond Blonde and got the added toning effect. The last I have to try is the Reconstruct version, but I'm sure it won't be any different.

ARTIST Professional Colorcreme 

Yeeha Lila

My hate for this could not be deeper. Subrina Colour Refresh introduced me into the world of temporary colour, so I've been experimenting a lot in the last months which was so easy because those always washed off completely. Since Subrina sadly doesn't have a lavender shade, I picked up this one from a Müller brand. Had I known it's be such an obnoxious colour, I'd stay away from it, however, it has some good characteristics, it's just not what it claims to be - a temporary colour. It wasn't washing off, not even with my trusted & foolproof technique chelating, so I had to bleach it out (bleach bath with a mix of bleach 6% developer and shampoo) and it still didn't get it all out from a couple of strands, so if you're looking for temporary, this is not it, at least not on a bleached base. Now granted, maybe my hair is so porous that is took in the colour too well (a very likely explanation as I haven't done any protein treatments in a while before using this) and I suspect the result on natural blond hair would not be the same, but I'm still unhappy about it because so far I've only had great experience with temporary colours. If you're looking for something that won't wash off fast, which I think most people look for, this is it. Ironically when I first posted about it on IG, I got a message that the pink version of these washes off with one wash, so I guess it depends on the shade. Formula is not nice. It more liquid than regular colours and has no care capabilities at all. My hair was very dry after use and I had to use a lot of leave-ins + coconut oil to make it feel less coarse and dry, though I suppose most people won't have such problems, since my hair is just naturally so very dry. This stains like a MOFO. It immediately tints skin or furniture, so you have no time to wipe it off and get it off easy, instead I had to use bleach on my bathroom furniture (I had it protected with paper, but with this being such a messy product, I couldn't avoid smudges) and I could not get if off my skin for days. As expected the colour is a much darker purple than on the front of the box and to achieve that shade you have to mix it with a conditioner and the base hair colour should be much lighter than mine, however, it's also a lot warmer. It's not the cool purple shade I expected, instead it's a reddish purple, similar to Subrina's Violet, yet not quite as pink. I liked the overall result, even though I used it undiluted on my darkest parts and partly diluted on my ends. You can see it created a look of purple highlights, but also the rest of my hair got a mix of cool brown (it toned out some of the orange parts) and on some it just went more orange-red. The colour was pretty, even though I expected a much cooler result and also better coverage. This is supposed to be applied on dry hair, which makes the application less even and slower compared to Subrina, you also use more. I left it on for 15-20 minutes, I don't know exactly because I was freaking out about the staining of the bathroom and looking for a cleaning supply that would work, but it was around that time. Unlike Subrina's Colour Refresh which start washing off with water alone, this needs shampoo. Regardless of a lot of shampooing and chelating, like I said the colour just wasn't going off, which I actually kind of expected as soon as I saw the staining. This left me with a lot of work and fixing up. I'm sticking to Subrina.

Base colour was this one, so a medium-dark blonde. Obviously for a proper violet shade the hair need to be lighter, but I got much better colour result with red and magenta from Subrina and I used a weaker mix with conditioner. 

Müller, 3.49 €

L'OREAL Elseve Extraordinary Oil Nourishing Shampoo

My standard shampoo. It's not the only one I use, but this is my all-time favourite because it's the only one that leaves my hair like I just used some conditioner. It leaves that silicone smooth feeling that my tangy, dry hair really needs. It's only for thick, dry hair and not best on fine hair because it can weight it down (based on feedback I got from some), but I love it and have gone through many bottles. 

2-3 €

PANTENE PRO-V Intensive Repair Shampoo

A repurchase. It's doesn't leave my hair quite as smooth as L'Oreal, as it doesn't have silicones, but it's still very impressive and my second favourite in the drugstores.

2-3 €

SUBRINA Colour Refresh Mask

Diamond Blonde

My 4th tube. This is the most reliable quick, non-fussy toner (in a sense there's no need to mix it with a developer), so I use it a lot, even though it's not ideal for orange strands, but it's much stronger than Ice Cream No Yellow shampoo (which is already very strong as some pale blondes report) and Schwarzkopf Professional Blondme Tone Enhancing mask in Cool. On very pale blonde hair it can be tricky to use because it's very strong and it can quickly tint the hair blue-grey. I tend to use it straight from the tube on my darkest parts and mix it with a conditioner for my ends. 

Müller, 4.99 €

 AliExpress knock-off of Revlon One Step Style

Honestly this is nothing revolutionary, simply a non-rotating hair brush with a dryer inside the barrel - I don't know if I saw a non-rotating version from other brands around here, but as much as I'm intrigued by the rotating ones, they kind of scare me too. This basically just eliminates the need of having to hold a hair dryer and a round brush because it does the same thing. It makes it so much easier and faster, especially since the brush is big enough that you can work with large sections of hair at once, but it won't dry the hair close to your scalp, so it's best you let you hair air dry or use a hair drier before until it's 80-90% dry and then just add volume and straighten the hair with this. It's also light and it doesn't feel heavy even when you use it for a long time. It's worth the purchase if you're looking for something easy to used and quick, however, my Moroccanoil round brush 55 mm and ancient Remington hair dryer do a far better job of making the hair sleek than this. I just don't get the same effect that I've seen so many girls get on YouTube - Lucky me. Like I read in reviews low and high are exactly the same speed and medium is lowest, the difference is the heat. On medium it doesn't feel too hot and it's also not terribly loud, but it's comparable to a regular hair dryer. I got the EU plug and so far it works ok, but we'll see how long it last. The box it came in was torn to shreds, but the product was without a scratch or fault, so I guess it can survive a beating even though it feel so light. 

AliExpress, 17.20 $

 *REVOLUTION Feed Your Face Toffee Apple Face Mask 

This is a moisturising mask which interestingly has glycerine on the first place among ingredients, while water is way down. However, I still haven't used it because I see nothing special in it and even though I don't mind fragrance, it's third on the list which is not good. I'll see if I ever try it, reviews look good, so I might give it a go. It smells nice, like caramel. 

Ingredients.

Ličila.si, 10.99 €

*O.W.N. CANDLES Happy Holidays Vegan Wax Melts

This made the whole parcel smell like cinnamon and they are shaped like roses, so they are cute, but when I used one it smelled terrible, like plastic and nothing at all like when solid. The fragrance was strong and it filled the place.

Ličila.si, 3.99 €

*NOELLE Brush

A nice, medium thick and soft brush for foundation. It could be a bit denser, so it would blend faster without having to fix the streaks, but it's decent one and I know I'll use it often.

Ličila.si, I can't find this brush, but they have plenty others.

*GLOV On-The-Go Hydro Cleanser & Quick Treat

This is a glove for removing makeup with no cleanser, just water. I had a similar microfibre cloth many years ago, so it's nothing new, though the material of this one feels better and softer. Cleansing glove is said to contain "refined, star-shaped fibres up to 30 times thinner than a cotton pad, which boast superior electrostatic properties to absorb makeup, dirt and excess oil like a magnet."  In practice its ok, but no magic. It removes most of the makeup while damp, but it fails to completely remove mascara, at least I don't want to be too rough around that area and with this I have to rub quite hard to get everything off. It's not a faster way for me, especially since you have to clean it after every use, so after the first week, I now rarely use it. The Quick Treat is a mini finger version for quick fixes when doing makeup. I also got bunny ears for holding back hair while cleansing and applying skin care. 

I could have taken pictures of removing makeup from one half of the face, but I didn't feel like it, so I made this mess on the arm using all the usual makeup: foundation and concealer as a base and then on top cream eyeshadow + powder eyeshadow over it, eyeliners, mascara, blush, highlighter and lipstick. Mascara was waterproof (Essence I <3 Extremes) & lipstick is Deborah Fluid Velvet 02, so one of those tough-to-remove ones. This took a lot of rubbing, the same as on the face, so it's not like using a cotton pad + a micellar, but for a simple, natural makeup it's enough.

Ličila.si, just the Cleansing glove 12.99 €. I can't find the same set, but a similar one is 19.99 €.

*ORIFLAME Women's Collection Delicate Cherry Blossom Gift Set

This smells so similar to L'Occitane's cherry fragrances, which just about every women I know loves or at least likes a lot. It's the same lovely spring floral that's so easy to wear in any season and is appropriate for almost any occasion. Though it's similar to light body mist that tend to disappear fast, it actually manages to last several hours. It's a really nice one. The body lotion has a more creamy scent, but again like cherry blossoms. 

Oriflame, just the fragrance regular price 22.90 €.

CATRICE Kaviar Gauche Mini Lipstick Set & ESSENCE spread the magic! brush set

I think neither of these are still available as they were both a part of LE (unless there are some leftovers in DMs). The lipsticks are super cute small ones that are perfect to throw in the bag and the formula is as is usual for Catrice great. I got two brushes from a set that might still be sold in some places. I don't use the eyebrow one because I don't touch my brows, but the blush brush is a nice one. It's super soft, a good small-ish size for my face and it picks up colour well for an Essence brush. It's become my primary brush for applying brush and highlighter for those few times I managed to wear makeup in the lasts weeks. 

I'll talk about all those hair products you might have seen on Instagram in my next new in, since I haven't had a chance to use them all. Have a great day!