Bourjois Paris 123 Perfect Foundation Review (#51)

I was walking through the Shoppers Beauty Boutique I regularly go to when one of the sales associates came up to me and said "Hey! We have a brand new foundation in that will suit your skin tone! It works on my daughter and I know you have the same issues she does with foundations!". I of course had to immediately head over there. I was also of course holding an 18 inch pizza (because who DOESN'T have a massive pizza box with them at 730am?) making the shopping trip very awkward. But I was excited by the idea of a new foundation! And a foundation that only cost me $28? Awkward or not, I was trying this out!

Long story short, I bought this foundation. And I have NO IDEA if I like it or not. What they say about it:

Tested and approved by 97% of women,* the “new generation” foundation for a rested yet radiant complexion and a flawless, even result for up to 16hrs**
Its formula:
3 colour correcting pigments:

1. Yellow pigments – conceals dark circles for a rested look
2. Mauve pigments – corrects dullness for radiance
3. Green pigments – neutralises redness for an even out the complexion

Soft and smooth formula for an undetectable, second skin finish. Availble in 9 natural shades to suit all skin types.

And it’s good for my skin!
- 24hr hydration**
- SPF 10
- Cotton Flower – hydration & anti-shine
- non comedogenic, lets skin breathe

As you an see, it leans a little yellow. Normally a first strike equivalent to three in my books. And normally an automatic pass.

But it sheers out nicely and doesn't look overly yellow on the skin.

Now here is how it looked on my in the store. Awful lighting throughout, but different awful lighting in every corner so I was able to get pics in all kinds of harsh and unforgiving lights. 

And outdoors.

As you can see, the shade is a bit too dark for my skin as my neck is obviously a few shades lighter than my face. But not too bad.

PROS

1. This is a really big pro. The colour correcting pigments WORK. Can I say this enough? I am wearing NO concealer, NO green foundation under this as I normally do (really, the Shiseido green foundation stick is a miracle worker) and I do not look red. It actually DOES cancel out all the red! And did quite a decent job on the dark circles as well, which is impressive as I have at this point in the day been up for 17 hours!
2. While extremely pricey for a drugstore foundation (which is what Bourjois actually is), its a downright steal here in Canada compared to middle of the road brands such as Stila and Smashbox ($28)
3. The wear seemed quite good. I had this on for only about 6 hours, but I did take a hot bath in that time and there was no wearing or patching off. And this was all with NO primer and NO moisturizer over top. No setting powder either. I am wearing the foundation and a benefit blush in these shots and no other anything. 
4. It feels completely light weight. It may be a medium to heavy coverage, but it feels more like a tinted moisturizer. 

CONS

1. Lousy shade selection. While they do have this very light shade (51) they only have 5 options. Meaning you are very unlikely to find your perfect shade. This is Light Vanilla and its a shade or two darker than it should be but manageable. But good luck with only 5 options!
2. It ever so slightly oxidizes on the skin. The one who sold it to me was adamant it didnt, but it went from being the perfect shade on me to being about a shade in a half to two shades darker than my neck within 30 minutes.
3. It leans yellow. 
4. Very limited availability within Canada. Only available in Canada at Shoppers Drug Mart as far as I know, and only 2 or 3 locations in my city have it. Making it slightly obnoxious to get if you aren't lucky enough to be close to a store that carries the line.  
5. Now this is a pro for many, a minus for me, but it DOES have SPF in it. Making it not ideal for any events or functions which might include photo ops. 

Now, I am not sure where to put its packaging. I find it a plus, but many call a glass bottle a minus. I love the glass bottle, feels more sturdy and higher end, and I love that it comes in a pump. 

Overall, I like it, I don't love it. I will wear it (though it looked better on my mom when I made her wear it this morning than it did on me) but I am not ready to sing its praises. Its............. fine? I have to give it a better shot, with primer and my own brushes and such. I do however LOVE its ability to hide redness and dark circles.

Let me know if you have tried this and if so, what do you think?

Bourjois Blush Exclusif - Swatches

Can I just stop here to rave about how much I love this product and to ask why on earth its taken me so long to try it?!!

It kind of darkens as you apply it into a gorgeous pink. Its a soft creme that is just a gorgeous texture and blends and applies so easily and lasts all day.

Such a gorgeous, natural matte pink glow. I freaking love this. At $20 its not cheap, but its certainly not Dior or Chanel pricing.

Bourjois Paris Smile Enhancing Gloss

So quite thankfully I got this product as part of a gift with purchase when purchasing other items from Bourjois Paris. I say thankfully because this item was used once and then I tossed it in the trash.

This is a two step product. A quite unremarkable lipgloss which is perfectly average. Not good, not bad, just there. Nothing that would make me want to grab it again, but nothing that would make me go "OMG this lipgloss is trash" It also comes with a tooth whitening gel. And that tooth gel is why this product is currently sitting in my trash can.

And the evil evil whitening gel. Now to be fair I should first explain my teeth. My teeth are missing some rather important layer of enamel (I should no better exactly what it is, but that would involve listening to the dentist when I see him). This causes me no pain or problems other than the fact that my teeth stain much easier than that of the typical person and I have rather coffee stained teeth (diet coke, not coffee, but same result) pretty much always. Each time I go the dentist they tell me they arent likely going to get them white, and then they do. And then we repeat the process.

But yes, anyways, very hard to keep clean teeth, yet not sensitive at all. Crest whitestrips are my BFF and even the stronger ones that bother or hurt others seem to have no unpleasant affects on me. I have actually NEVER had tooth pain from any product before. So you can imagine my surprise when within seconds of putting this product on it started to burn so much I was near tears. No matter how hard I tried to wipe off the residue from the product (not that there was much, I put on a very small amount) my teeth ached for the afternoon. At $21 for this product I would have been REALLY upset and probably taken it back had it been purchased.

So for anyone who has ANY sensitivities at all, I would stay as far away from this as possible. And even if you dont have any sensitivities, maybe try on a tiny spot on one tooth if you came away from this review thinking "I must try this product!!"

Bourjois Paris Rouge Edition Lipsticks and Color Boost Lip Pencils

So about a month back during a Beauty Gala at a Shoppers Beauty Boutique I picked up these three lip products. The lipstick was $20 and the pencils $18.

Now I have never tried Bourjois products before (other than one mascara reviewed previously on the blog) and had no idea what to expect. The one thing I can tell you I INSTANTLY dont like about the lipstick is the name is on the sticker only. The number is printed on the lipstick,  but once I peel the sticker off (and I will as I HATE the look of stickers on the products) the name will be gone.

Aside from that, there is NOTHING about this product I can complain about.

This is a coral leaning pink and it is soooooo moisturizing and applies beautifully
. 

This is a quick swatch on the lips with no mirror and no balm or scrub put on first.

Next up are the Color Boost pencils in 02 Fuchsia Libre and 03 Orange Punch. Now these have NO NAMES OR NUMBERS on them other than on the stickers. Insert angry cry here!

Now when I bought these I thought they were like a Clinique Chubby Stick or one of the other 349.493 gloss balms on the market. I was wrong. These are like the Revlon Just Bitten Balm Stains. They are balmy, and hydrating but they really do STAIN the lip. Not as much as the balm stains, but far more than any other balm I have. AND..... they are more moisturizing than most of the others also!

All three swatched together:

And all there after scrubbing my arm with a makeup remover wipe. Notice I cant get all the product off?

And with my purchase of $50 or more I got to choose a little mesh bag of items as a gift with purchase. I chose this bag mainly because I thought the shadow would make a nice highlighter. All three of these products are full sized. The smile enhancing gloss is $21 alone. The shadow is $17 and the duochrome eye pencil costs $17. So for the $56 I was spending anyways, I got to try another $55 in product! Not to bad!

Now of these, the only thing i have tried from the gift with purchase so far is the smile enhancing gloss. I am actually missing a layer of enamel or something on my teeth (dentists told me years ago, darned if I remember!) but it leads to my teeth yellowing FAR faster than most people. So I am all about Crest white strips and figured this would be a great product for me. WRONG! I tried the gel ONCE. And only once. And it instantly HURT! So much so that I immediately wiped it off, and it still hurt for quite awhile longer. Will NOT be using or recommending this product. And having used white strips for ages, I have never had such a reaction to a product before.

 

Have you tried any products from Bourjois before? What do you think? So far I am BEYOND impressed and a little confused as to why we don't hear more about the brand! I will certainly be trying more!

Bourjois Paris Twist Up The Volume Mascara In Black Review

I know a lot of friends and lot of beauty bloggers who carry with them two mascaras to use at the same time. They combine multiple formulas to get the perfect combination. But the truth is at least in my opinion that the formula is the SECOND most important part of a mascara. To me, the brush is the most important thing. So this is pretty much a two in one Mascara. you twist the top towards the one for a lengthening mascara, and then turn it to the two for a volumizing mascara. 

So if you look above, the lengthening one looks like that, and then when you turn it to the volumizing option it looks like the image below:

So now the big question. Does it work? How do I like it? Well, I guess this is going to be an odd review. Because OH MY GOSH DOES IT WORK! And at the same time, OMG DO I HATE IT!

Lets start with some before photos:

As you can see, I have very light reddish leaning dirty blonde lashes (or light brownish) that are VERY short and VERY hard to see from a distance. 

Now to be fair, I don't gravitate towards black mascaras because I find them too harsh on me. So part of my not liking this mascara to be fair is that it is the wrong colour. So I knew LOVING it was going to be a tough task for this mascara. But its one of the newest offerings from the brand and I wanted to try it, and since it didn't come in brown, black it was! 

Now after applying one coat on each eye with the lengthening followed by one coat with the volumizing, this is the result:

Now this picture does not quite show just how drastic this made my lashes look. It really makes my lashes look like false lashes. Now this is not a bad thing for a mascara. Its actually what many woman WANT in a mascara. For me, I like a natural, neutral eye and I want a mascara to make my lashes look great without making them look false. This is simply TOO MUCH for me. I am beyond impressed with how this mascara works. I can't say this is for me, I really hate it on MY lashes, but I cant stress how great a mascara this is for people who want the look of big fat long lashes. 

Bourjois Paris Twist up the Volume mascara can be found at Shoppers Drug Mart for $20!