Beauty and the Packaging

During the past years I have been utterly seduced by beautiful high-end products and innovative packaging designs, I splurge with the idea of using all of them although clearly I won’t manage to use up everything !

I did rave about these products in the past but there is also a dark side to them that I sometimes only notice afterwards, when facing a more intense daily usage.  If I didn’t care about the product itself, I would simply not repurchase it. However, the items I will show you below are items that I will repurchase no matter what -providing I can still find them and I can afford it- because the product is so good that I am ok to compromise and I will find a way to live with the inconvenience incurred. But, love doesn’t always need to come with pain !!! so if there is any way for the Companies to neutralize this pain, I certainly encourage it ! 🙂

The purpose of this post is to :

• share some tips and tricks in case you are experiencing the same situation with similar products, if you do and you have some advice please also share back with us!
• marketing teams are sometimes scanning for reviews or for feedback from customers, if you have an opinion on these items, either agree or disagree, please also kindly share !

Below some incriminated products that make me question their design, you may recognize some of them  :

Ellis Faas

If you have already tried their products there is a big chance you loved them too. I really deeply love the texture, blendability, staying power, colors, everything about the content is so spot on. The only problem for me it’s the packaging, it is an amazing idea but…. You are meant to twist the back of the pen and that action will push the product out through the middle of the pen’s brush. It works fine the first few times but then with time it starts to get more difficult. There is no way to adequately twist the pen and smoothly control the amount of product you need so you may waste a lot in the process.

I don’t want to soak it and leave it soaking in anything because if I do, the liquid could eventually enter the pen and alter the product, but I have tried washing the brush and it didn’t help a lot, so I snipped the brush with scissors. It hasn’t really solved the problem and it made the pen look… horrible. Even without the brush, the product is not released properly.

There is no way I can manage to not waste product with these pens. The packaging is sexy, unique and a brilliant idea but that does not work really well for me. I have to try to find a way to either depot the product or do something that allows me to use it more economically.

Even though they come with a brush, you still need to use a separate one to blend IMO, you can use your fingers but I don’t like that. Maybe some kind of built-in tube dispenser inside the pen (without the brush tip) would be more appropriate.

If you found a way to use them easily and clean them efficiently, I would really be happy to know how you do it.

I don’t experience problems with the pen for the blushes and the lipsticks but the eyeshadows are a total mess ! I am relieved that they have the foundation also available in bottles because today this is my HG.

If I find a way to solve this problem, I will be really happy and I will probably use these on a daily basis, today the practical aspect of it is the only reason why I don’t use them even more often but I already use them several times a week and I have gone through quite a lot of them already, I still repurchase… but I hope someday they will become easier to use.

I have done a little post about them some time ago if you want to see more.

Serge Lutens

The packaging is simple and sleek, I don’t use the sponge applicators so all that space for 3 sponge applicators… well… I’d rather preferred if the rest of the space could be used to store their blush or foundation refill, I tried, it wouldn’t fit anyway. But that’s not what drives me insane with this palette. What I really have issues with is the width of the eyeshadow pans. You won’t really be bothered until *mess* day, when you have finished your application, are ready to leave then you decide you “just-want-to-add-a-tiny-bit-more-of-highlight”, you dip your eyeshadow brush, you apply your highlighter … and instead you get a racoon eye !!!  I screamed like a beast ! I was so upset because Lutens eyeshadows once they are applied, they have to be removed with strong make up remover so I had to start the whole eye make up all over again and I was already late…

The pans are so narrow that any base or highlight brush you want to use will have problems fitting in. For the darkest colors it doesn’t matter much but for the lightest one, placed so close to such a dark one, it’s just not very handy at all to say the least.

What I did after this episode is move the white shadow further down in the palette where the risk to touch it at the same time as a dark one is minimized !

I wasn’t so concerned at the beginning but when I started to use the palette more often, it turned into a recurring problem.

You can buy refills but just for the white one, so I thought there was a way to move it… It’s very easy, with a knife you lift the 4 eyeshadow pans (you can see the hole at the front and in the middle of the palette), then you can simply pop the white eyeshadow out (little hole to push the pan out). The palette is not that sexy looking now but the stress level is now under control.

Rouge Bunny Rouge

They have a nice formula, just 3 colors I think, I wish they had a few more. They are long lasting and that’s something I tend to go for in priority.

These are expensive pencils, I can’t believe it’s not possible to retract them once you have twisted them out, I don’t know … maybe you want to take a picture of the color to show in your blog or maybe you want to check how much product is left… well, no, don’t do it because you’ll regret it.

For now I will probably not repurchase because I can find other similar colors with Addiction or Chanel, but if they had colors that Addiction didn’t had, yes, I would certainly repurchase. I am just disappointed that for the price they haven’t included that basic function !

RBR make amazing highlighters, they come in huge bottles and they will last you a life time. Well… sort of. If you feel bad about wasting product, you will feel pretty horrible with this. When you press the pump, the amount of product that will be released corresponds to at least 5 applications… If you try to gently press the pump and dose the quantity of product you want, good luck with that !

In the little plastic pot, the contents of just one pump (for me it’s probably enough for 5 to 10 applications) :

You can try to depot some and keep it in a little sample pot, you probably will end wasting less product.

By Terry Ligne Blackstar

I love this eyeliner, it’s not that easy to apply unless you are used to this type of applicators, very directional and sharp. But once on, it’s like a tattoo.

The problem I have with it is that it dries. Not because it dries on its own, but because when you think it’s closed, IT’S NOT. You have to push it really hard to hear a second “click”.

The one at the top is not closed, of course you can see that, but if you don’t pay attention and don’t look, it may remain half-closed.

Mine is dry, doesn’t work anymore. When I bought the purple one, I already had experienced the problem with the black one so I paid more attention and the purple is still working fine.

At the beginning, what I did is remove the tip, turn it over and use the other end…  It won’t solve the problem at all but it will allow you to use it for a little longer.

Again, they are not cheap, so I was really sad that it dried so fast, specially when I noticed it was also my fault. Just be careful if you buy them and make sure they are fully closed when you finished with them.

I have to go buy a second black one because this thing is a laser !

Armani or other similar compacts

The new Eyes to kill compacts have two layers, one with the eyeshadows and one with just the applicators. Since I don’t use the applicators, I removed the plastic insert at the bottom of the compact and I store some setting powder instead, or a bronzer or a blush. I do that for many other compacts too, I have just a little beauty bag with me and this allows me to optimize any space available.

It’s not that it drives me crazy, but I highly prefer smaller compacts and if possible without sponge applicators, so this doesn’t only applies to Armani but to any other compacts.

I don’t use the brushes that come with them, sometimes they are good but I often find that the brush they pack with the product is not appropriate for the product it’s meant for. For example La Prairie bronzer, it’s a thick dense (not that soft) brush which to me is good for blush or contour, but not the best option for the finish I want to achieve with this bronzer so I don’t really understand it, but it’s probably just a personal preference. The only applicators I find really good are the ones included in Suqqu or RMK, all the others are discarded, well, not really discarded but kept in a plastic bag for whatever silly reason…

Some compacts are easy to depot, RMK, Suqqu, are meant to be depotted so if you see a little hole, you usually can insert a paperclip and push the pan out. Others like Illamasqua, Dior, use very light glues and can just be lifted from the compact with a knife. My recommendation is : don’t force it ! if it’s not easy, don’t risk it !

My recommendation if you do that : Keep the modified compacts separated from other items otherwise it’s the best way to lose track of where you placed your blushes or eyeshadows !

The Duwop gave me the idea to mix some products like bronzers and blushes, I can show you some that I like to mix together :

Sorry that the pics are sometimes showing the items twice… 🙁

You get the idea, I save space mixing the pans and using very soft double sided tape to keep them in place, if the tape is too strong you won’t be able to easily remove them, avoid casualties !

Nars Longer than Life

A fantastic and long-lasting formula, love love love it.

The problem with these… you have to twist the back of the pencil to get the product out, but you don’t know how much product is left. I use them on a daily basis and I like to see the remaining product as I use it…

I have used a sharpener thinking that this will solve my problem, I thought I would be able to sharpen it as any other pencil since I didn’t care about the twisting… NO. It does not work. Spot the one that has been sharpened :

You see that the beige is not “safe” anymore, I still use it but I have to be careful not to stab my eyes with it. I may try to repair it with something sometime in the future but I’ll probably finish it before anyway.

The idea of the “non-necessary sharpener” is nice but there should be some kind of sign to show where the spring pushing the content is located, or anything similar… Hope you understand what I mean 😉

By the way, you can remove the end and use it to sharpen the point in case you hadn’t noticed.

Rae Morris

There are several reasons why I am a bit upset about this #23 brush, if I didn’t care about it, I wouldn’t be so sad but honestly I love this brush to pieces… well, not really because not the handle 😀  but just the head. It’s soft, gentle with my dry skin, no exfoliation whatsoever and it’s just the right size. When I ordered the Rae Morris set, this was the brush I was most excited about when I saw it in Jodi’s video 10:53. Imagine my surprise when I received the set and it was a different #23 instead.  The #23 they sent me was a mess, shed like crazy and it’s really not worth it at all.

At the top the one I hate, at the bottom the one I love :

I also hate the magnets in the ferrules, they drive me insane and make me not want to use the brushes at all but again, that’s personal. Another thing that I dislike : some of the brushes rattle (the magnet is unglued). It’s irritating. Despite all that, I still want a backup of this particular one… but it doesn’t exist anymore.

Since this exact #23 was not in the first set, they sent me another set, that’s why I could still get my hands on it… after having paid 250 euros in custom taxes 🙁 yes, they were kind to send me another set, but honestly if I knew I had to pay that much at the customs I wouldn’t have asked for a new set…  In conclusion, that was quite an expensive brush to get !

Ordering something and getting something else it’s just wrong, specially when you find something that is so great and then it’s replaced with something not even close.

Le Metier de Beaute kaleidoscopes

The first time I saw this kaleidoscope packaging, I was amazed ! such an innovative idea ! but it comes with some drawbacks …

The first drawback is maybe not that relevant, the design is cool but you have to slide your pans so not the fastest way to use a palette. But the design is fun so I can live with it.

Second drawback, is that they are very fragile, so even though there is a hole to depot them, the glue is often too strong and there is a high risk of breaking them, just be aware, if they resist, I wouldn’t push it…

I have received a few kaleidoscopes with eyeshadows broken so since there is no way for me to return them back to sender, every time I order one I pray 😛

Bottom line

Despite the pain and the difficulties encountered with these items, I still love them -a lot- and I will repurchase them but I honestly think there is room for improvement. I think I could enjoy working as a product design tester -A LOT- !! 😀 Would you ?

Do you have this kind of experiences with beauty products ? How do you deal with the issues ?