Bite High Pigment Lip Pencils

From left to right: Quince, Rhubarb, Cranberry, and Madeira.

From left to right: Madeira, Cranberry, Rhubarb, Quince.

BITE is a Canadian company, run out of downtown Toronto - yay Canada! Their products are all-natural and they want to make lipsticks that are high performance but still healthy enough to eat. All the ingredients are food-grade quality! Their thing is "Edgy, Edible, Innovation for Lips". These are lipsticks that will give you absolutely no reason to not love them!

Unfortunately for me, BITE is not available in Japan. However, I was lucky enough to open this holiday set of four at Christmas, they made it into my Christmas Haul video. These are miniatures of the matte High Pigment Lip Pencils. They don't contain any parabens, sulfates, synthetics, petrochemicals or byproducts, phthalates, GMOs, tricolsan. They DO contain the antioxident resveratrol (5 glasses of red wine worth!) which helps fight free radicals and has anti aging benefits. Wow! Like I said, a lipstick a girl could really commit to!

This little set comes with four colours, which I know you can see because you have eyes, but I'm going to describe them anyway! It comes with Madeira, a nude-pink, Cranberry, the perfect deep holiday red, Rhubarb, a plum rose, and Quince, a rose berry. These lipsticks are super pigmented, long lasting, creamy, and make my lips happy. I wore Quince out to an izakaya (Japanese-style bar) a couple weeks ago, and it lasted all evening, through beers and bar snacks. 

I love this lipstick and finally have a lipstick that loves me back.

Photo Shoot

Last weekend I was playing with my makeup and my camera. I wanted to get an interesting photo for the outshot for my youtube videos. I love setting up makeup and taking photos of it. It's just so pretty! Here's the final result and a few other playful, behind the scenes shots. I took the first two with my iphone and the rest with my Canon PowerShot SX40 HS.

And, here it is!

January Favourites

Look who got it together this month and finished her favourites on time! Aren't you proud of me? I know I sure am! Haha. Thanks for watching! Enjoy!

Lipsticks: The Red Edit

I was feeling artsy (again) this weekend and wanted to take a different approach to a post about lipsticks. As I'm sure you've already deduced (clever reader) this post is about the reds. These are all the reds in my collection and I thought it would be neat to display them in my sketchbook. It really highlights some of the differences in tone and texture of the products. Let's start in the top left with the sheer, more pink-toned reds. 

Kate UNLOCK Bloody Lacquer RD-1. The sheer red with cool undertones. I featured this in my monthly favourites - video coming soon! - and have been wearing it a lot lately. It's a new release from Kate this month. This red is really easy to wear. It's buildable so you can sport a more subtle lip, or a bold one. The aspect of this that I've been the most impressed by is how moisturizing it is!

Lavshuca Lav Fake 01. The stain/multipurpose red. I wrote a review of this when I first picked it up. You can read it here. It looks really similar in colour to the Kate red, but is more of a stain that a lipstick. It's more long lasting, and less moisturizing. It's really versatile though, since it can be used for lips, cheeks, and eyes.

Rimmel Volume Lipstick in Gold Digger. The red with gold shimmer. This made it into my lipstick challenge back in October, where you can read a full review. 

Revlon Super Lustrous Lipstick in Red Lacquer. The sheer bright red with orange undertones. I didn't realize how orange this lipstick was until I put it next to all my other reds. I've talked about my disappointment with this before. It just doesn't last. I still love the colour though!

CoverGirl Natureluxe Gloss Balm. The tinted lip balm. Read my review here. Nice for on the go. It's pretty moisturizing. I would recommend this for people who don't like to wear lipstick.

Canmake Stay-On Balm Rouge. The sheer rosy red. Read my review from September here. These things are great! They're really similar to the Revlon lip butters. One of my students told me I looked like Taylor Swift when I was wearing this a little while ago. Yet another reason to love it. This red has more of a dusty rose tinge to it than any of my other reds. 

Elizabeth Arden Ceramide Ultra Lipstick in Brick. The bold red. This lipstick is a statement piece. It's really pigmented. I think this dark red would be flattering on everyone. It's not for the faint of heart and is sure to make the wearer the center of attention. It looks very similar to Wine with Everything on the page, but Brick has more pink, where the other one has a bit more orange.

Quo Poppy. The rusty red with shimmer and hints of burnt orange. You can't see it in the photo, but this has much more shimmer than the other reds in that corner. The shimmer is finer than in Gold Digger. This red is great for fall, and I recommend it especially for red heads. It really complements my hair and green eyes. This colours has great coverage and pigmentation, and lasting power. 

Top Shop Velvet Lips in Velveteen Ribbon. The liquid lipstick. This is a matte liquid lipstick, with cool undertones. It lasts for days. Seriously, I can't say enough good things about this. I like to use a lip balm before I go in with this, since the formula is a bit drying. 

Bite High Pigment Pencil in Cranberry. The lip crayon. This colour has a little raspberry in it. The coverage is great and it's lasted through dinner and drinks, with only a minor touch up. It also smells great!

Revlon Super Lustrous Lipstick in Wine with Everything. The go-to red. This has been the red I reach for on a night out for years. I love the colour. I always get compliments when I wear this. The wear is great, it's not too drying for something so pigmented. This is another colour that I think would look great on anyone. I though I'd lost it when I was putting together all my reds for this post, and had a mini panic attack. I know I have 10 other red lipsticks but I adore this one, and I have so many good memories of nights out with it. Also, the name is perfection! It's like it was made just for me!

That's it! Well done, if you've made it through all those reds. What do you think if this kind of post? Should I do more with corals, or neutrals? Leave me a comment! What's your favourite red lipstick?

Dry Brushing

I've been hearing about (reading about) dry brushing lately and decided to try it. There are tonnes of people out there who swear by it. I bought mine at Tokyu Hands for about 500yen.

It feels really nice and has lots of health benefits including improving circulation, minimizing the appearance of cellulite, and is rumored to help with lymph drainage (gross).

The trick is to brush towards your heart. I start at my feet and brush up. Brush before you shower, it will help clean off all the dead skin you've loosened while brushing.

You can also check out what The Beauty Department has to say about dry brushing! It's one of my favourite blogs, and I was so happy to see this post today!

:D

This is my life.

Review: Canmake Lasting Multi Eyebase WP

Canmake is coming to be my favourite Japanese beauty brand. Although the Lasting Multi Eyebase WP's name is a bit questionable side of the Engrish spectrum, the product is great! It's a white paste that turns clear when applied. First we'll get into what it claims to do.

It's waterproof(WP) formulation promises to prevent your eyeshadow, and eyeliner, and even eyebrow makeup from bleeding, fading, creasing, smudging, or running. It promises to boost the lasting power, and colour of your shadows and liners. Basically everything you could expect and eye primer to do, it does. 

Lately I've been having some problems with eyeshadows creasing on me. This is not something I ever noticed until just before Christmas. This base solved all my eyeshadow problems. Seriously. I was not expecting much and am totally impressed. Also, it was only 500yen!

I'm going to put it to the test this weekend with a black MAC kohl eye pencil that smudges so much I stopped wearing it. Results to come! I haven't tried any of the cult eye primers like Urban Decay's Primer Potion or the NARS Smudge Proof Eyeshadow Base, but I'm not going to be in a rush to get either if this baby keeps performing so well.

I highly recommend this, and I will be most likely buying some of these to send home.

Have you tried this? How does it compare to some of the high end eye primers?