Shoppers Drug Mart Made Me Do It!! REALLY!

This is what happens when I run in to Shoppers Drug Mart to buy a bottle of hairspray. Yes, One bottle of hairspray. But in my defense, it wasn't my fault!! I am totally blaming Shoppers for this!

First, I picked up two body sprays. They were $1.99 and $1.49 each from an original price of $8.49.

And then, the Herbal Essences (all silicone free) were on sale for $2.79. But.........

All the hair sprays had $2.00 OFF or $1.50 OFF coupons attached!!

As I said, It wasnt my fault!!!!!

Clinique GIft With Purchase

I am one of those crazy people who does not really like gift with purchases. For some brands, such as Estee Lauder, its great. But in general, for me at least, I would rather stock up at Sephora durring a Friends and Family or VIB sale and get money off. Money is always better than free stuff in my opinion.

I will however admit I TOTALLY bought these because of a GWP. I was out of my toner three weeks ago and when I went to pick it up I got something else instead of this to try. I am not loving it, and I will be going back to my Clinique. I will probably alternate, so to actually not throw out the other, but I will be using this the majority of the time. So while walking through Sears the other day, I was looking at the skincare debating if I should pick some more up now or not. The girl at the counter said that if you bought any two clinique items you could choose any 3 samples you want. And I was about to say "no thanks" when I spotted what the samples were.

MY MOISTURE SURGE INTENSE!!!!!!!!! When she said pick any 3 I said "Well, OBVIOUSLY I am getting one of these!!" and her response was "get 2 or all 3 of them if you want!". I did. She asked if I was serious. Of course I was. Its what I use daily! Now she thought I was crazy and that it was a boring free gift (I say practical, she may say boring) so she added in a 4th sample of a little palette. Then she realized she was out of shopping bags and asked if I minded if she put them in a makeup bag instead of a shopping bag. So I got FOUR deluxe samples and a makeup bag free. Now Moisture Surge Intense is $43 for a 1.7oz jar. These are .5oz!! That means that I BASICALLY got a free $43 moisturizer for buying my toner! $38 worth of moisturizer if you want to be precise.

That kind of math makes gift with purchases a Polish Jinx kind of thing! And I am no longer almost out of moisturizer!

Summer Collections Now In Stores!

So right now I thought I would go over some new collections currently available for sale. The first one is the clinique water based polishes. I have to say, I am really not feeling any of these. Nothing seems special or exciting to me, and I passed on them all. But they are in department stores all over by now and if you want some, here are the limited edition and the base line colours:

Next up is the Butter London Summer Collection. I can not even remember if I got three of them or four of them, but they are here and I have to get them swatched and posted soon! So stay tuned!



 
Next up is the YSL Saharienne Collector collection for Summer 2013. I am quite proud of myself that I have resisted all of these (even though Vert D'Orient is calling my name)

So that is just a few of the summer collections now out in stores. What summer polishes are you exited for? Which ones did you break down and get? Any you have resisted but feel your resistance breaking down?

Starlooks - Customer Service Leaves A Bad Taste In My Mouth

Oh my gosh! The shit really hit the fan! My last post about Starlooks I thought was a fair and balanced post. I explained how/where they got their product. It was not a "DO NOT BUY" post in any way shape or form. The issue had come up on facebook and it had really upset a lot of subscribers who were under the impression that it was an indie brand with an in house chemist formulating everything himself. I can see how if you thought that, you might be upset to find out otherwise, but I see nothing wrong with that.

I DO see something wrong with how Marci (the owner of the company) has dealt with the issue.

So it started off with a post saying "hey, all these brands sell the same items with the same names in the same packaging with the same ingredients". The discussion goes on as more and more brands are uncovered selling the same stock products (everything but brand logo is the same) with IDENTICAL ingredients in identical order.

Then Marci comes in to clear things up. And at least in my opinion, she answered nothing. She should have said, "yes, this is how we do it, but we only choose the products we are in love with. We carry a limited amount of their items because only so many meet our high standards"

I think her entire intention was to baffle with bullshit because she just went in circles never giving specific answers.


Here is the discussion from the point Marci joined in trying to "answer" our questions.

 

Now, to add insult to injury, while all this discussion is going on, this is how she updates her facebook status:

The thread goes on, but that was the owners part of it, until her big statement.

Now aside from the fact that Coke and Pepsi DO taste completely different, they do not have the EXACT SAME INGREDIENTS, nor do they even have all the ingredients in the same order. She is full of crap about a few things in that long post.

There is NOTHING wrong with how they run their business. But they apparently advertised the brand by saying that they had an in house chemist who used to work for MAC formulating MAC's items, and now he was with them. I kept repeating my questions, and Marci KEPT refusing to answer them. So with that said, and NONE of my questions answered, I posted my questions on their facebook wall.

Now just to be clear, here is my comment zoomed in.

I do not think I was rude, I do not think I was out of line (other than for some reason calling the tipsy lipliner I want an eyeliner, not sure what was going on in my head with that) and it was promptly deleted.

I have a BIG issue with posts being deleted from Facebook walls. Its one thing to ignore something (though it looks bad if you dont have an answer) but deleting it is to me, dishonest and offensive. Marci obviously had NO intention of answering my questions (she said in the facebook page her statement would answer them and they did not) as she just deleted the comment off the wall. It no longer exists, she is no longer held accountable to answer the questions.

Now let me be clear, I am NOT saying you should not buy from them. I am however suggesting you all ask her some questions. She says they have altered many of their products (fine tuning or tweeking in such miniscule amounts that it doesnt once change the order of ingredients or add or delete any ingredient in) and yet refuses to give ONE example of a product they have tweeked. If they have such a wonderful chemist working for them that used to develop for MAC, that would be an added BENEFIT or ADVANTAGE of the product and they should be happy to tell us such. I am not asking for privileged information, I am asking for basic information. If you are going to make a claim, you should be able to back it up, especially once your credibility has been questioned.

I will not be purchasing ANYTHING from the brand (and I sadly had a shopping list I have been procrastinating with) until I get at a minimum an answer to my questions. I am at the point now where I am guessing that they alter NO formulations whatsoever. If they did, I am thinking they would have an answer or two or me. 

My questions:

 

OPI What Wizardry Is This And OPI Jinx

I think most everyone knows how much I love the liquid sand polishes by now. And I also think most people know by now that I am not an OPI fan. That being said I LOVE OPI LIQUID SAND POLISHES!! I really do. They wear like iron. I have tried a Julep one as well and I just love all the liquid sands. They wear longer than anything. I have not used base coat or top coat with any of the liquid sands and I can get at least 4 to 5 days without any chips or dents or wearing. LOVE. LOVE. LOVE!

StarLooks - A Look At The Brand

A Facebook friend of mine, Sarah, posted this picture on Facebook. While we all know that many different brands can buy their packaging from the same place, she found it really weird that her colour she got from Starlooks was ALSO on the list of available colours at Studio 277. "The black box the Studio 277 came in is identical to Starlook's black packaging too" she pointed out.

So that seems like a little bit too much of a coincidence. A little further digging reveals that liners, blushes, and other items also are identical in both lines. So how does it happen?

Well, as it turns out, both brands purchase their stock from Modern Basic Cosmetics. What this means is, brands can go through a big long stocklist of items from Modern Basic Cosmetics, and choose which products they want. They then pay for special custom brand packaging and resell it as their own products.

Now this is by no means an unusual thing. MANY brands do this. The thing it DOES mean is that the brand has no input on the products formulations. They choose the products they like, but they are not involved in the formulating of the items. Now this information IS written in teeny letters on the packaging. They are not denying it.

Now Starlooks has this in their FAQs:

Now, Modern Basics has factories in BC, ON and California. So if you consider the statement from Starlooks "our manufacturing" as where their manufacturing comes from and not as their own that they personally own, its not a lie. It may be misleading, but really, what brand would ADVERTISE this? This does not take away from the quality of their products by any means. But it does take away from the exclusivity of the products.

Above is the Studio 277 blush in Cuty Peach which can be found HERE. And here is the SAME blush from Starlooks as seen in their January Starlooks box. The ONLY difference? Starlooks charges $17 for the blush!

Now as already mentioned, Studio 277 also sells the same products under THEIR logo. Who else does? My guess is scores and scores of companies. Here are a few more product shots from different brands:

Heidi D Cosmetics uses the same supplier too:

Now all the above blushes have the following ingredients.
CPC INGREDIENTS: talc,mica,magnesium stearate,titanium dioxide, methylparaben, dimethicone,BHT (butylated hydr-oxytoluene),[may contain:yellow 6 lake(CI15985),red 27 lake(CI45410),iron oxide (CI77491,CI77492,CI77499),red 7 lake(CI15850)]

STARLOOKS INGREDIENTS: talc,mica,magnesium stearate,titanium dioxide, methylparaben, dimethicone, BHT (butylated hydr-oxytoluene), [may contain:yellow 6 lake(CI15985),red 27 lake (CI45410), iron oxide(CI77491,CI77492,CI77499),red 7 lake(CI15850)]

As you can probably guess, the Stuido 277 blush as well as other all have the exact same ingredients. 

Now do I think that this means that you should NOT buy Starlooks? No. This changes nothing about the brand. Except it gives you the knowledge and the power to shop around for the best price. The same foundations, concealers, lip pencils, glosses, lipsticks, blushes, shadows and palettes are all available under MANY different brand labels even thought they are the same product from the same company; made in the same place.