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Category Archives: Eyes
Dollface Reviews: Fade Out Anti-Shadow Brightening Eye Cream
So, can we talk about the dark circles under my eyes again? Oh, come on, it’s been at least 24 hours since I last mentioned them…
As you may recall, I’ve been using Fade Out’s Anti-Shadow Brightening Eye Cream on the offending area for the past few weeks, and I have two main observations to make about it, one good, one not-so-good. We’ll start with the good, shall we?
The Good:
This does exactly what it says on the tin tube: it brightens under-eye shadows. When I started using it, I’d been without a dedicated shadow-blaster for a few weeks, and I was starting to look a bit like this again, only considerably less cute:
Happily, the Fade Out cream got to work fairly quickly, and by the end of the first week I was able to once again move from three under-eye concealers (none of which disguised the shadows) down to just one again, and sometimes, on a very, very good day, to skip the concealer altogether. Victory was mine! But…
The Not-So-Good:
After a couple of weeks of use, I started to notice that while this product was still keeping the shadows at bay, the skin around my eyes was starting to look drier than usual. Switching back to my regular eye cream resolved that problem BUT brought The Shadows (not the group) back with a vengeance. I went back to Fade Out… and back to dry skin. In fairness, the skin around my eyes is prone to dryness anyway, and I had similar issues with the last anti-shadow cream I tried, so for now, I’m alternating Fade Out with another cream, which seems to be doing the trick, and may well be the way forward for me.
Want to give this a go? It’s £8.59, and you can click here to buy it.
(Disclosure: this was a press sample)
Dollface Reviews: Eyelure Eye Candy Individual False Eyelashes
It’s another day, so it must be time for another Eyelure Eye Candy review! This time I’m trying out the brand’s individual false eyelashes, and for the benefit of those of you who’re looking for a more detailed guide to how to actually apply these, I provided one here, so go and read that and then come back and read this.
It’s OK, I’ll wait for you.
Back? OK, good. The first thing to note, then, is that these are a different type of individual lash from the ones in my tutorial. Those ones were the “single lash” type, while these ones come with the lashes bunched together, like this:
Dollface Reviews: Skin Doctors Instant Eyelift Eye Lifting Serum
If you’ve been following this blog for any length of time at all, you’ll probably know that I have a bit of an obsession with my under-eye area going on at the moment. This means I’m more or less willing to try ANYTHING that claims to make that area look better, so when the lovely people at Fragrance Mad offered to send me something from the Skin Doctors line to review, Instant Eyelift was my product of choice.
In retrospect, this probably wasn’t my wisest move ever, and, in fact, using this product has allowed me to realise that what I have under my eyes isn’t actually “bags”. Nope, they’re just very dark shadows. Sure, they may look a bit like bags, but it is but an illusion caused by the dark stripes that run underneath the eye sockets (or at least, they do when I’m not using something that gets rid of them – more on that subject next week), but they’re not, so an eye lift isn’t exactly what I need, as tempting as it sounds.
This is a shame, really, because if your eyes ARE in need of a lift, this product may well be of interest to you. This is a clear serum which comes in a pump-action dispenser, and is applied under the eyes to lift and smooth them. It’s an instant effect, but not a permanent one, so while it’s claimed that this will make your under-eye area look better within a few minutes of application, it won’t stay that way. In fact, it’ll last for about eight hours, before returning, Cinderella-like, to normal.
I’ve tried this a few times now, following the instructions on the box, which tell me to shake the bottle thoroughly and then apply a few drops of serum under each eye. Importantly, you’re not supposed to use your facial muscles any more than necessary while it’s drying, which will tale 2-3 minutes. What’s actually happening here, you see, is that the serum is forming a “film” over your skin, which will tighten it and hold it in place, creating the illusion of smooth, non-baggy eyes. In other words, it effectively “freezes” your skin in place, although the word “freezes” is misleading here, because a) it’s not cold and b) you will still be able to move the skin afterwards – it’s not going actually immobilise anything. The reason they tell you not to blink your eyes too much, or screw up your face, say, while it’s drying is that if you do that, it’ll just seal the expression lines you’ve just made in place instead, and no one wants that, do they?
Naturally, as soon as I knew I wasn’t supposed to move my face while I this serum was drying, that was ALL I could think about doing. I kept getting an almost-irresistible urge to screw my face up into the most grotesque shape possible, just to see what would happen. Well, you would, wouldn’t you? Thankfully, I managed to restrain myself, and sat out the three minutes with my face as expressionless as an ACTUAL doll face. As I waited, I could feel the serum starting to take effect. It’s a curious kind of sensation, and a little bit like the feeling of a clay face mask drying on your skin: you can feel the skin tightening as it dries.
Once it was done, I looked in the mirror, expecting to see someone several years younger staring back at me. Nope, it was just me. In fact, I didn’t really see much of a difference at all, although I have to point out that this is probably because I don’t really have “eye bags” as such. From the tightening I could feel going on, I have a feeling this would have a much more obvious effect on someone who DID have pronounced lines or sagging under the eyes, although I’m curious as to what would happen at the end of the eight hours: does your face just suddenly dramatically collapse, I wonder, causing you to age instantly in front of whomever you happen to be talking to at the time? That would be… well, kinda cool, actually, as long as it wasn’t ME doing the ageing. I do enough of that already, thanks.
I was a little worried that I wouldn’t be able to wear makeup on top of this, as it basically creates a “film” on the skin. To my relief, though, my makeup went on as normal, so I was able to apply my usual trowel-load of foundation and under-eye concealer. (I still looked like a raccoon today, though. I seriously need to get more sleep.)
Here’s a before-and-after shot from the Skin Doctors site, to give you an idea of what this SHOULD do, and I just want to stress that this is NOT ME:
Pretty dramatic, huh? And this reinforces exactly why I’m still in the wrong age group to be able to really tell you whether this works or not: my eyes don’t quite look like the “before” shot yet, although just give me a few more months and I’m pretty sure I’ll get there.
If you’re there already, however, and you want to try this out, it’s currently £9.99 at Fragrance Mad: click here to order it.
Frownies Under Eye Gel Patches
Last week, my ongoing search for products designed to help get rid of (or at least reduce) the dreaded 11s between my eyes led me to the Frownies website.
Now, Frownies, as I’m sure you know, are the little patches you stick onto your face overnight in order to relax the muscles and temporarily get rid of lines. I’ve actually tried them before, and wasn’t particularly impressed by them, but looking back, I was trying to use them at a time when I didn’t really have any lines to speak of (oh, those halcyon days!), so no wonder. I may well be driven to give them another go, if Mr Dollface can be persuaded to stop laughing at the sight of me coming to bed with bits of paper stuck to my face.
That’s not what I’m here to talk about today, though. No, you see, while I was on the Frownies website, I found a few other products which I had no idea they made, including these under-eye gel patches. These aren’t just about wrinkles, either: they’re also designed to address that other major bugbear of mine – the dreaded Dark Circles O’ Doom – and they do this by boosting circulation in the eye area, rebuilding collagen under the eyes, and smoothing out lines.
All of this sounds pretty good to me, and the fact that they cost £29 per box of three only puts me off the idea very slightly. I mean, if it works, right…? (Yes, OK, I’m desperate. I know.)
I’m still a couple of weeks away from payday, so if you want to try these out before me, click here to buy them. Then come back and tell me if they work.
More Eye Candy False Eyelashes!
This is the second set of false eyelashes I received from Eyelure’s new Eye Candy range last month, and as you can see from the packaging, these promise to give you “thicker, fuller lashes”. Well, let’s just put that to the test, shall we?
Here’s what they look like out of the packet:
Dollface Reviews: Eye Candy by Eyelure Natural Look False Eyelashes
Just a quick post today to show you these new false eyelashes by Eyelure which I’ve been testing out. These are part of the new Eye Candy range from the brand, and I was sent a few different styles to try last week, so look out for more pictures over the next couple of weeks as I work my way through them all!
This particular set promised to deliver a “natural look and length”, so I figured they’d be the easiest ones to get away with on an ordinary Friday afternoon, which is when these photos were taken. Here’s what they look like in the box:
Soap & Glory Arch De Triumph Eyebrow Shaping and Highlighting Kit
I’ve written more than enough recently about my ongoing attempts to tame my eyebrows into submission, and while I’m currently perfectly happy with the GOSH brow products I wrote about last week, I’m always keeping an eye(brow) out for the next weapons that might join my beauty arsenal.
For some reason, brow products can be quite expensive, so Soap & Glory’s Arch de Triumph seems like a pretty good deal to me. The pack contains a double-ended pencil (I have an almost identical one from Anastasia, which cost a lot more), plus a set of eyebrow stencils, and together these will cost you just £7.50. I’ve paid more than that for stencils alone, so assuming these are of good quality, I think it’s a good price. The pencil has a brow shaper on one end and a highlighter on the other, and the stencils come shaped for petite, medium and high brows: you can buy it at ASOS.com, or anywhere else that stocks Soap & Glory.
Dollface Reviews: GOSH Brow Kit and Defining Brow Gel
A couple of days ago, I received a bag full of GOSH goodies to try out, and as soon as I saw these two brow products, I leapt upon them with an enthusiasm that only the straggly-browed among you will be able to understand.
My brows are a nightmare. As well as my oft-mentioned uni-brow, they’re also long, thick and super-straggly: I could tweeze them into the most perfect arch imaginable, but without the aid of some kind of product to practically glue them in place, they’ll still look spiky, straggly and just downright messy. My last brow gel (An Anastasia one) ran out a few weeks ago, and I haven’t got round to replacing it, so I decided to try out the GOSH gel right away, and while I was at it, I took the Brow Kit for a spin, too.
First up, the Brow Kit:
Dollface Reviews: Max Factor Smoky Eye Effect Eye Shadow in Bronze Haze
I don’t often wear eye shadow. This week, however, I’ve become something of a convert, and have been wearing Max Factor’s Smoky Eye Effect Eyeshadow, which (disclosure coming up!) was sent to me as a press sample. As you can see from the image, this aims to simply the smoky eye, and takes a two-pronged approach to doing so. On one end of the tube, you have your base colour:
Dollface Reviews: Hylexin eye cream for serious dark circles by Bremenn Research Labs
Ever wondered who actually buys all of those expensive skin creams you see in Sephora et al? The ones which carry too-good-to-be-true style claims on their boxes about how they’ll get rid of your dark circles, or make you look 16 again overnight?
Yeah, that would be me.
In my defence, I don’t buy all of them. I have, however, more than once been described as the “ad man’s dream”, and this means that I will linger too long in front of those stands, looking at the shiny rows of products and thinking to myself, “Well, if it works, it’ll be a bargain, really!”
This is how I came to find myself standing in line at Sephora this summer, waiting to purchase a tube of Bremenn Research Labs Hylexin: the new wonder cream for dark circles under the eyes. Well, that and the fact that I was desperate. Totally desperate, people. As long-time readers will know, the last year or so has been a never ending battle between me and the dark circles under my eyes. Actually, the phrase “dark circles” doesn’t really do justice to what I have. They’re more like dark canyons, which people could get lost in for days. They make me look ill and exhausted, and by the time my summer holiday rolled around, I was ready to try just about anything.
I have to back up a bit here, though: earlier this year, as you may remember, I’d had some success with Nivea’s Aqua Sensation Anti-Shadow Eye Cream, which I’d been pretty pleased with for the price, although it hadn’t totally shifted the circles. It had long since run out, though, and by the time I reached the bottom of the jar, I’d started to find it much less effective than it initially had been. It was clear that something much stronger was required in my fight against dark circles, and as I wandered around Sephora, carefully avoiding all the mirrors so I wouldn’t have to see my vampire-face looking back at me under those harsh lights (Pretty sure they do that to convince you to buy more makeup, by the way. It totally works.), it became clear to me that the “something” I needed was going to be Hylexin.
Now, this costs $59, which is a lot for me to spend on an eye cream, and an indication of how much I wanted it to work. Before leaving on my trip, I had actually done quite a bit of reading about this product, and had discovered mixed reviews of it: those who loved it seemed to REALLY love it, while those who hated it said it did absolutely nothing whatsoever for their dark circles. On balance, however, I’d found more positive reviews than negative ones, which was why I decided to take the plunge. Oh, and the fact that there was actually a photo of my under-eye are on the box helped too:
