Review: Glory Boon Highlighter, Concealer, Foundation & Lip Scrub

Some time ago, I ordered from Glory Boon, and while I swatched them ages ago, I've been procrastinating on compiling everything into a post. I finally did it. So proud.

Here's what I got from them:

• Natural Liquid Foundation samples: Fair/Light, Luna ($2 each)
• Heal & Conceal Concealer ($12)
• Howdy Highlighter ($12)
• Popcorn Lip Scrub ($8.99)

International shipping was $11.74.

This is how my order arrived:

Yup, something exploded.

Most of it is gone.

Not sure if you can see it, but this leaked too and the whole tub is oily. This frequently happens with scrubs though, so it's nothing new for me.

As you can see, everything came leaking. I love the fact that all the products except for the foundation samples came shrinkwrapped, though!

Everything's shrinkwrapped so that's a plus.

Customer Service

I contacted Glory Boon about the leaking products and Alexandra gave me a coupon code for free shipping on the next purchase.

Here's the TAT:

• Ordered: 26 July
• Shipped: 30 July

For reviews, let's start with the good parts first...

 Popcorn Lip Scrub Review

I love this scrub. It tastes like buttered popcorn and is so delicious! It comes shrinkwrapped, and as you can see from the previous photos, it's pretty generous in size. I do notice a waxy aftertaste in the scrub, but I'm not sure if it's from the flavouring or the scrub formula.

So on to swatches:

The formula melts easily, so this is just 1-2 swipes with minimal pressure. 

None of the foundation shades were a match :(

Foundation Formula Review

I didn't find my match, but mixing both colours together gets me relatively close to my skin tone. I noticed a lot of separation in the formula when I first got it:

And yes, it's very oily.

The foundation is pretty oily so it hates the oily parts of my combination skin. I had a hard time applying it, because it just slips around on my face and ends up like this when I applied it with a foundation brush the way I usually apply my liquid foundations/BB creams:

See my gross face.

I find that the best application is to dab it on with a sponge, and patiently wait until the first layer is dry if you want to build it up. As you can see from the previous pictures, the coverage is pretty sheer and streaky, so you do need to build it up a bit to get even coverage. Here's the result with dabbing:

I'm personally a bit impatient, and way prefer my Dior Hydralife BB cream that has smooth & even coverage even when applied with my fingers, so I'm not a fan of the work I have to put into making this foundation work.

After a few months, it dries to this cakey texture:

It's cakey.

It actually becomes easier to apply when it's cakey. I tried it out again at the cakey stage and it's definitely far less streaky. I compared it side-by-side with my usual Dior Hydralife BB Cream by using Glory Boon's foundation on half my face and the BB cream on the other half. Left is before, right is after:

Sorry about the different lighting, I only realized there's better lighting available after I was done putting on make up.

From afar, it's hard to tell which side is which, but zoomed in, you can really see a difference:

The Glory Boon part is 3-4 layers, dabbed on using a sponge (took 5 min). The Dior Hydralife part is one fast swipe applied with my fingers (took less than 30 seconds). 

Despite my slapstick application of Dior's Hydralife BB cream, it ends up with a much better coverage than Glory Boon's. Honestly, I can't see a different IRL in my complexion using Glory Boon, and my red veins are still just as prominent. The only difference is that my face is now more cakey.

Heal & Conceal Concealer Formula Review

So here's what Glory Boon says about their Heal & Conceal concealers:

Screenshot taken on Apr 20, 2015

As you can see from the swatches above, it's so not true. It's much darker than my skin tone and as a result it doesn't conceal much for me. The formula is also really oily, so it ends up sliding around and being hard to build up on my oily face. When I do build it up, it ends up getting cakey on me. This is the foundation dabbed on top of a concealer used in an attempt to cover up some pimples:

Ok, so maybe that pimple was really bumpy and makes concealing harder, and the oils on my face didn't help either. So I tried concealing a light brown discolouration I have on my upper thigh (0 oil!) and  here's the result:

Closely cropped to prevent accidental porn.

Yup, it doesn't cover much.

Howdy Highlighter Formula Review

As you can see from the swatches, the colour is pure white, so it may not be suitable for all skin tones. Again, the formula is really oily & melty, so it ends up really streaky on me:

 It's a bit better after I pat it down with a sponge:

Troubleshooting Advice

If you want Glory Boon's highlighter + foundation to look really smooth, I suggest dipping a kabuki brush in finishing powder & really buffing your face. Here's the result of buffing with a finishing powder:

Oooohh...smooooth...

So, final B&A!

The before pic is with eye make up done...I prefer doing my eye make up before foundation and stuff.
The after pic is with Glory Boon's foundation, concealer & highlighter, and Tarte's Park Ave Princess Bronzer.

And here's my finished look:

Using my fringe to hide most of my break out XD

Review: Ripe Lip Balms, Lip Scrubs & Perfumes

I ordered from Ripe sometime ago and only got around to reviewing them now.

So here's what I got:

• Perfume Oils
• Ambrosia
• Dirty Gardenia
• Ginger Milk Tea
• Solid Perfume
• Chocolate Cake
• Lip Scrub
• Coffee
• Honey
• Lip Balm
• Honeycomb
• Taro Milk Tea
• Tiramis

Customer Service Review

First of all, everything came beautifully packaged and shrinkwrapped!

Shrinkwrap makes me feel safe...

Their TAT is also freaking awesome:

Ordered: June 27
Shipped: June 27
Arrived: July 1 (at a US address)

Anyway, on to reviews...

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Perfume Oil General Review

These perfume starts off at a throw of about faux whispering distance and lasts this way for around 30-50 min. Afterwards, the throw is about intimate whispering distance for about another 1-2h before you have to get close to your skin to catch a whiff. You can get traces of it for about 8-9h.

As always, all scent reviews are done blind until the TL;DR's written. I write an overview if any notes surprise me.

Ambrosia 

"RIPE signature fragrance! Creamy coconut, summer cantaloupe, violet blossoms, and clementine orange - if you love fruity scents like me, this one is perfectly ripe."

This is a candy-like scent. Definitely a chewy candy since there's that chewy candy smell to it. The smell reminds me a lot of a Starburst candy. I can't really identify the flavour of this Starburst, but it's definitely one of those medley of fruits sort of flavours. For the first 5-10 minutes, there's also a very slight icy flavour (like mild "cool" candies..think Relaxa if you're in Indonesia).

It's nice enough, but teethers on smelling very artificial at times. Full disclosure, while I do like grown-up candy scents like Haunt's summer scents or Ten Three Labs' Artificial Angels, straight up candy tends to be a nope for me. I'm 26, I can't smell like a 6 year old who ran around unsupervised in a candy store. If you like candy scents though, you'll probably like this.

After about 10 minutes, it starts teetering on turning soapy and the dry-down has a bit of a sunblock smell. I'm guessing there's a coconut note in this since coconut notes often turn into sunblock.

TL;DR: Cool, fruity candy.

Overview: I knew there's coconut in this, I think the coconut is the one causing that chewy candy sort of smell. The violet may be the ones causing the soapy scent.

Dirty Gardenia

"Rich, floral blossoming gardenia and an undertone of freshly dug earth (this is a strong scent for true gardenia lovers)"

I'm actually not sure how gardenias smell like but I like this. The "dirty" part is more like the bitterness of lilies so no worries there if you don't like the smell of dirt. I'm guessing from this scent that gardenias smell like sophisticated, almost woody, light florals.

Unfortunately, at around 30 min, the smell gets lighter and lighter until it smells like a chemical I've smelled in a science lab before. It's a sweet scent, light scent that makes me think of balloons. Ether. It smells almost like ether.

TL;DR: Lillies & gardenia turning into ether.

Overview: I'm still not sure what's causing that ether smell. It's definitely a chemical smell.

Ginger Milk Tea

 "A creamy and spicy ginger with notes of sugared milk, black tea and nutmeg"

This just smells like a citrus soda. In the beginning, it has that slightly drier citrus that almost smells dusty. I'm expecting ginger milk tea and can't smell anything. I think the dry, sour smell may be the tea note they use. After about 10 minutes, the sourness eases and I get a citrus soda-scented soap.

TL;DR: Citrus soda-scented soap.

Overview: It's definitely the black tea that's turning into dry, dusty citrus on me. It's pretty overwhelming and I can't smell anything else. Nope, no milkiness at all.

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Solid Perfume Review

 The presentation is a bit messy but oh well, it happens with hand-poured items.

This is a waxier formula so it definitely feels sticky where you applied it. One thing I'm impressed with is that it starts off with a long throw - up to faux whispering distance! Unfortunately, by 5 min, my skin eats this up and I have to get close to my skin to catch a whiff. Oh, and there's a waxy scent that keeps threatening to overpowers the perfume by then. You can get faint traces of the scent on your skin for about 5-6h though. 

Chocolate Cake

"Milk chocolate cake with notes of vanilla and a thick layer of white frosting"

This scent is just straight up chocolate. It's not a complicated scent. One thing I like is that it doesn't smell like the highly artificial, way too sweet chocolate that some perfumers use. It's bordering on turning completely artificial but never gets there. It's a tad on the sweet side, but not cloying. Overall, I'd recommend it if you want an uncomplicated chocolate scent.

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Lip Balm General Review

First of all, I looove the presentation. Look how neat it is!

Smoooooooth....

These lip balms are definitely waxy. They definitely glide on easily, but it's still waxy. I think my lips don't react well to lip balms with higher wax content because these ended up making my lips crack. They're unsweetened, but Honeycomb seems to have some honey sweetness to it. I don't know if it's my mind tricking me, though. These also have a very waxy scent that tends to be overpowering.

Honeycomb

My only win out of the batch. This tastes exactly like fresh honey from honeycombs that you get in hotels. Delicious!

Taro Milk Tea

Wtf is this. It's just old wax. Sour old wax. I had to ask another indie owner who makes lip balms because the scent of this worried me so much. Turns out it's probably too much flavour oils since that can cause sourness.

Tiramisu

It's a sour, old wax scent and I don't get any of the creamy, coffee deliciousness of tiramisu. It just smells like a less sour version of Taro Milk Tea.

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Lip Scrub General Review

This is brand new and unused.

As you can see, unlike the lip balms, the lip scrubs are less smooth presentation-wise. They're still sealed though, so I'm happy.

These lip scrubs use fine granules of sugar, and there's more balm than sugar granules in it, so I find that it doesn't scrub as well. It feels more like a sweetened lip balm where they used sugar instead of stevia. The balm part melts easily:

This is with one light swipe over my lips. My lips ended up caked with the balm.

So it's definitely messy - I recommend using this over a sink.

Coffee

This is coffee beans - bitter, unsweetened and slightly acidic. It's not romanticized coffee at all. Again, the sour wax scent that the lip balms have is present in this.

Honey

Delicious! It's a much sweeter version of the Honeycomb lip balm!