Tuesday, July 12, 2016

Anti-Haul (aka, "What I'm Not Going to Buy"), Second Edition



I never thought I'd have enough products to do a brand new Anti-Haul before the summer was out, but somehow, I've managed to find quite a few things that are getting raved about. As always, these posts are not meant to make you feel bad for liking a product or spending your money; I'm just trying to think carefully about my own consumerism and maybe encourage you to think carefully about yours. Once again, mad props to Kimberly Clark for popularizing and promoting the Anti-Haul movement!

1. Jeffree Star Skin Frosts, $29 -- Let's just pretend that all of Jeffree Star's racism, misogyny, and bad behavior are not a factor in this "I'm not gonna buy it" decision. We'll focus on the product itself, which I can do because I borrowed a friend's Ice Cold Skin Frost for comparison. First, I hate this packaging. I get that uber-pink is Jeffree's thing, but these huge plastic compacts just look and feel like Barbie compacts with no heft. The look on the skin isn't my favorite, either, since there's some very obvious glitter that seems to flake all around your face throughout the day. If that's your thing, more power to you, but I like my shimmer to be decently refined and to stay where I put it. Lastly, how likely is it that you'll ever finish this powder?! It's 15 grams of product, which is equivalent to a standard powder foundation. You won't go through this or even hit pan unless you practically bathe in the stuff. Now, I might be okay with "a lot for your money" if this was something a person might buy as their only highlighter, or one of two.  But we know that's not the consumer base for Jeffree Star products--most of the people buying these Skin Frosts already have a few other highlighters.

2. Milk Makeup Sunshine Skin Tint, $42 -- I admit that I've been very critical of Milk and their gimmicks, but I've still given quite a few of their products the ol' college try. With that said, I'm getting pretty tired of the roller ball applicators. They're not very sanitary, and my experience with the Coverage Duo shows that they don't always work properly. The price is also too high for what you get: $42 for 0.7oz of product in a plastic rollerball tube. Really? Really? Most foundations and tinted moisturizers are a full ounce at that price range! As a final note, this is yet another Milk base product that appears to have a very pink-leaning shade range and a lot of oils in the ingredients, so fair warning to anybody who is neutral or yellow and/or sensitive to stuff like coconut and jojoba oil.

3. Overpriced Skin Mists Packed With Potential Irritants -- This particular "I'm not gonna buy it" moment is brought to you by my own skincare philosophies and the fact that I'm kind of cheap, so I totally understand if you disagree with me here. But really, what is with some of these face mists?! The Son and Park offering, for example, is mega-cheap for what you get (that bottle is HUGE), but the ingredients list is the stuff of my nightmares. And there's very little in the Tatcha Luminous Dewy Skin Mist to warrant the $48 price tag. My biggest disappointment, I think, is that so many supposedly hydrating mists are listing drying alcohols and added fragrance in their ingredients. I think I'll stick with my under-$20-a-bottle, short ingredient list, alcohol-free options.

4. Drunk Elephant Lala Retro Whipped Cream, $60 -- I'm totally going to buy this product, actually, but a few things are going to have to happen. Number one, I'm going to have to work up the courage to spend $60 on a skincare product that will likely need repurchased 3 or 4 times a year. $240 a year for moisturizer would be numbing unless the shit makes an angel choir sing on the dewiest, most plump and healthy skin I've ever had. Number two, Drunk Elephant needs to update the packaging. Yes, I  know, my current moisturizer is in a jar, but it's cheap as shit (I never pay more than $5 a tub) and doesn't really contain any "special" ingredients. Drunk Elephant has done such a good job formulating and packaging their other products that the jar packaging for this one is a bit of a disappointment. They're supposedly re-releasing this product with more hygienic packaging, and I won't be dropping $60 until that happens.

5. Sweat Cosmetics -- Okay, so I don't really wear powder and I dislike loose/mineral makeup. This line was doomed from the start. But what really gets me here is this awful brand name. Sweat?! How is that a cool or attractive name for beauty products?! I get that this is a range designed to appeal to athletes, but there are so many more interesting aspects to athleticism that could have inspired this besides sweating. What about vigor, strenuosity, fleet, endurance? What about mythological characters and historical occurrences that are closely tied to athleticism, like Hermes and the Olympics, or modern female athletes like Serena Williams and Tianna Bartoletta? Cripes, even a silly name like "Discus" sounds better than "Sweat."

What do you think--do you agree or disagree with me? What are some products you're not going to buy?

11 comments:

  1. I feel this with highlighters in general. Definitely not going to buy any JS stuff for obvious reasons, but at the end of the day how many variations of highlighter can there be?! I have 4 right now and I feel like my bases are pretty much covered on the highlighter front, though I could do with one more cream one. Anything else would be veering into excessive territory, I think. They just don't really look all that different once applied.

    Totally with you on the face mists too. At least some of the expensive ones have other ingredients in them, though... My work carries various brands of thermal water and I am always floored when people are willing to drop 20 bucks on a can of water. People are always raving about them, but I'm just unwilling to believe that a $20 can of water is actually lifechanging.

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    1. Is the thermal water Avene or La Roche Posay? ;) To be fair, I've known people with roseacea who say the fancy canned water is great for calming flair-ups, and at least they aren't packing it full of complete garbage and charing $50 a bottle for it. Even then, I don't know if I could buy it for my own face.

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  2. My number one "Not Gonna Buy" item is the Anastasia Moonchild palette. I'm not wild about highlighters (too oily to start with) and I have the Poured version of Becca Pearl, which is perfection, so new releases tend to roll over me. I think Phyrra posted about the Moonchild palette and I was like, "Oh? Blues and purples, you say? Cool-toned highlighters that aren't just pink?" but damn if I don't have dupes of every single shade. Thanks, indie cosmetics!

    In "totally gonna buy someday, the someday I dream about when I've managed to forget my current financial situation": Le Metier de Beaute eyeshadows.

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    1. Moonchild really is a beautiful palette and I can see why it's so tempting. But I tend to get turned off by highlighting palettes because, I mean...how likely is it that you'll like all of those shades? I think most people find one or two shades of highlighter that tend to work for them, then they get a couple of different finishes...and that's it.

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  3. Ugh, Jeffree Star is the worst. Luckily his brand aesthetic has never appealed to me, so I wasn't tempted to buy anything before I discovered what an ass he is. I think he must appeal to people who have never actually known narcissists personally.

    I'd never heard of Drunk Elephant until a few weeks ago, and I can't quite figure out what the hype is about.

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    1. Drunk Elephant has managed to create a line with relatively impressive formulations (lots of beneficial ingredients with science to back them up, no fragrance or drying alcohols or parabens, very few potential irritants added just to make the formula sound cool, etc.) in appropriate packaging. As far as high end skincare goes, that's kind of a rarity; there's just this tendency to overload each product with a bunch of unnecessary garbage. I do think the line is a little overpriced, but I've been impressed with what I've tried so far, even if it hasn't worked for me personally.

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    2. I SERIOUSLY want to LaLa cream before Fall rolls around. Excited about packaging update.

      I am interested in the Milk skin tint however as I find the Glossier one to feel a tad chalky on my dry skin...

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    3. I'm hoping the update happens before winter!

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  4. I'm also waiting on Lala Retro to appear in nicer packaging, though I'll try to hold off on actually purchasing until I've used up a few of the (seemingly) hundreds of skincare products that (seemingly) multiply in my apartment when I'm not looking.
    I made audible bad noises when I saw the packaging on the Milk skin tint. I've seen how disgusting even a little perfume rollerball gets from being rolled across my wrist or neck a few times, with little gross... bits... floating in the slowly-discoloring liquid. I can't imagine buying a face product with a rollerball applicator (see also; Herbivore Botanicals entire line of very expensive, not very well-formulated face oils in rollerball bottles.)

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    1. Why not just a little squeezy tube with a nozzle? Huh? You can still smear on tinted moisturizer on the go without the rollerball. :/

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    2. I am 100% pro-squeezy-container. I actually bought a different Milk product (the blue eye pigment) exactly *because* it came in a squeezy tube. So easy to dispense the exact amount I want! So hygienic! So space-efficient!
      I generally have a rule against any product with an applicator that can't be cleaned--even doe feet squick me out, though I put up with them--and make only pretty rare exceptions (touché eclat and knockoffs, basically.) In my dream makeup/skincare world, everything comes in an airless pump, a pump bottle, a squeezy tube, or a solid stick. I would vote for any president who added that to their campaign platform tbh (well, not really, but.)

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