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Benefit Ultra Shines Lip Shine
by sparkle1004
I don't particularly like wearing lip stick but my lips look so pale and boring without anything on them. Luckily I am a big fan of the old lip glosses and even though I have plenty of them, there is always room for more. I love Benefit and all of their product and so I purchased the Ultra Shine Lip Shine.
What does the ... product do?
The product is essentially a lip gloss which promises to give the lips a lovely splash of colour with a beautiful shiny finish. It claims that it doesn't have the stickiness that is often associated with lip glosses and that it is 'loaded with crystal brilliance'. It comes with a silky brush which promises to allow you to quickly, accurately and easily apply the product leaving you will lips which shimmer and glimmer.
How do you apply the product?
The lip gloss is to swept onto the lips. It can be worn over a lipstick or alone. It is best applied to lips which are in a good condition so you need to use a balm regularly so that it doesn't highlight any dryness or flakiness.
Shades
Each shade comes with a cute and lovely name, and I wouldn't expect anything less from Benefit. They have names like Spiked Punch, Back to the Fuchsia, Wild Child and Dancing Queen. They comes in a range of shades that are many pinks, corals and nudes so there's nothing too out there and some of them include a sparkle which others don't. I chose back to the fuchsia which is unsuprisingly a fuchsia pink shade which has lovely bits of shimmer in it.
Packaging and Price
The product comes in a lovely black and white box and the lip gloss itself is contained within a circular tube through which you can see the product inside. It has some black swirls on the tube itself and a black band across the top. You unscrew the lid and find the application wand inside. It has a clear stick and the applicator is a brush rather than the usual sponge that you find with lip glosses. The length of the brush is really short. Each of these lovely glosses will set you back around £14. They can be bought from department stores which have a Benefit counter such as Boots and Debenhams, as well as from a range of online websites.
Application and Performance
The product looks lovely and expensive so I don't mind being seen using the product in public. When you unscrew the lid, you will notice straight away that the product has quite a strong aroma for a lip gloss but it is a lovely fruity and sugary one. It may be too strong and sickly for some as you apply the product directly beneath the nose but I really like it. Even if it's not up your street, the aroma does fade away shortly after application. It doesn't really have a taste at all which is a good thing as it stops from being tempted to lick it all back off again.
The short length of the brush really does make it easy to accurately apply the product without you having to worry about getting it on the skin. The product is silky on soft and it feels really nice on the lips. A good amount of the product comes out on the brush and the lip gloss has a thick consistency. The product does glide easily on the lips without pulling or dragging on the skin. It feels completely comfortable on the lips and although it is a bit sticky, it is probably one of the least sticky and tacky glosses that I have ever used.
The shade which I bought is actually quite sheer but I like this in a lip gloss. It does add a bit of colour to my lips making them pretty and pink but it isn't over the top or in your face. It does however add a lovely glassy finish the lips leaving them looking beautifully shiny and glossy. The shade that I chose always has a bit of shimmer included so it has a lovely glittery effect which is not like a disco ball or childish in anyway. The lip gloss is suitable for both night and day wear. The gloss has quite long lasting results and will stay put for about three hours, even when eating and drinking. Reapplication is easy and quick, even without a mirror. The product isn't drying on the lips and they still feel soft and in a good condition even after it has been removed.
Conclusion
All in all, this is a lovely lip gloss which gives my lips a lick of pretty colour and has a beautiful shiny and glassy finish. Mine comes with a subtle shimmer which makes the lips look lovely. It has a fruity aroma and no taste, and has the least sticky finish out of the lip glosses I have used. It sticks around for quite a few hours and when it has gone the lips are still left feeling soft and looking healthy.
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Benefit They`re Real Mascara
by chrisandmark
Benefit isn't a brand I know much about - other than the fact that their packaging is generally fabulous, the prices put me off considering I've tried a couple of their items which haven't actually been all that impressive. I'm definitely Benefit-curious though, so when I spotted a free They're Real mascara on the front of Elle magazine ... recently I decided to buy the mag - I'm a little obsessed with mascara anyway and these free with magazine freebies are proving an excellent way to try out brands which I wouldn't usually have bothered with (or even seen to be honest, They're Real had passed below my radar until I saw it on Elle).
The packaging of my sample size mascara looks to be pretty much the same as what you could expect if you bought the full size version - it's a little less metallic and quite stunted looking (after all, it contains only 4g of mascara) but looks great on my dressing table alongside other less interesting looking tubes of eye make-up. When I remove the lid I'm confronted with a brush which looks slightly different to other mascara brushes; the bristles jut out at angles to create a slightly chaotic appearance, the brush doesn't appear to pick up much mascara with each dip into the tube but don't worry about this as looks can be deceiving and it actually collects and holds just the right amount for me to 'do' one eye without overloading the lashes.
There's a knack to using They're Real, you don't just grab the brush and slap the mascara onto your lashes as you usually would - rather you hold the wand straight and wiggle it against your lashes working from the root to the tip. Only after you've completed this first wiggle should you grip the mascara in the 'correct' way and sweep the colour along the length of your lashes. This strange application method works a treat and is seriously the best way of applying this particular mascara to ensure you get good coverage AND the mascara does everything it promises - I got used to the wiggle pretty quickly and now it's automatic whenever I reach for this mascara, I really can see a huge difference in the volume of my lashes using this method and can confirm it's not just a gimmick.
I usually apply two coats of They're Real, or just leave it at one for daytime wear when I'm after lashes which aren't particularly full and brimming with sex appeal. The key is ensuring the first coat is dry before applying another one (takes two minutes max, you can get on with another beauty job while you're waiting) to prevent the worry of your lashes sticking together - this isn't a huge problem for They're Real if I'm honest, but applying any mascara over a coat which hasn't quite dried is always dicing with danger (in relative terms of course). One coat is thickening enough and the intensely black shade would probably make it too strong for a lot of people during the day, I have a reasonably full fringe and pretty long lashes anyway so a deep mascara such as this suits me regardless of the time of day and doesn't make me look comically wide eyed as some can. With two coats my lashes are visibly thicker, appear longer thanks to a pretty decent curl which appears after application - this is definitely an evening look for me, it looks fantastic but always strikes me as overkill for the school run or popping round to the newsagent!
I'm not sure it gives me the look of wearing false eyelashes, and I'm glad as this mascara promotes a heavily made up but still (semi) natural appearance. My lashes don't feel caked with make-up or stiff in any way, but they DO appear glossy and full of colour - lengthened without being made to look ridiculously long to the point where they'll begin to droop and look muttonly stupid on my thirty seven year old face, likewise the volumising aspect gives them a gorgeously thick look but doesn't encroach into the Chantelle Houghton 'style' of lashes so thick I can barely keep my eyes open.
I did a massively amateurish comparison using six mascaras over the course of four days and found They're Real to provide me with the best finish as far as looking natural with lashings of colour went, it wasn't the longest lasting (Clinique was by far the winner of that test) and was joint 'easiest to apply' with a cheapy mascara my daughter gave me from budget brand MUA. The one thing Benefit were head and shoulders above the competition in was the ease of applying the mascara in layers without ever having to stress about your lashes sticking together or balls of mascara clumping at the roots - the mascara is just so lovely to apply that it glides along my lashes, surprising really considering it has a thick and (this sounds odd, but...) dusty consistency which really should be dragging my eyelashes during application not feeling as gentle as a cream as the colour transfers from the brush.
There's a negative to using They're Real for me, and that's the fact that the mascara makes my eyes gritty and sore sometimes. I wear contact lenses and suspect this is the reason as the soreness tends to lessen when I remove my lenses, it doesn't go completely once it's begun until I've removed the mascara and even then I'm left with a feeling of irritation in my eyes. This isn't a flakey mascara at all and I've never noticed 'bits' of mascara on my skin while wearing it, but when I clean my lenses sometimes I can see tiny specks of black on the surface which shouldn't be there - it's got to be mascara as it only happens when I'm using this and one other brand, unfortunately the fact that They're Real actually causes pain means I'll sometimes opt to use something else even when I really fancy the lash effect I can obtain with this one.
This isn't enough to put me off though, I've been wearing contact lenses for twenty years and mascara for longer than that - I'm pretty confident in my relationship with my eyes and know when they're going to need another mascara for comfort reasons. In fact I've already ordered myself a full size tube of They're Real with some money I had for my birthday, £20 on a mascara is more than I'd usually pay but I feel I'm getting value for money with this one - and also the lashes I should really have been born with in a fair world.
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