Target – This Looks Shopped

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It is widely known that advertisers retouch their photos before publishing them, especially in the clothing industry. This isn’t to talk about whether or not I agree with that practice, but instead to suggest that they either a) hire qualified graphic designers/retouchers or b) beef up their proofing process before publishing photos:

Target - this looks shopped, wouldn't you say?

Hrm… this looks shopped!

Golly gee, something doesn’t look quite right here. Are you SUUUURE that’s a normal model right there? Call me a skeptic. It seems as though Target is batting 1000 lately between not having beefy enough protections in place to protect customers’ credit card information, and now, bad awkward Photoshop work.

A lot of people and news outlets are up in arms about the whole thigh gap thing – and while I definitely do think it is stupid and not realistic (also, not to be crude but having an unnatural crevasse separating one side of your body from the other looks, well, unnatural) but that’s not what I’m fired up about. I am, however, utterly baffled by how ridiculous this is. If there is a proofing or double-checking process, clearly it was missed – and if there isn’t, they desperately need one. Oh yeah let’s just lift the center of the model’s crotch up a good inch or two. That doesn’t look absolutely ridiculous at all. One other thing is that people commenting on this ‘shop fail seem to be disregarding how silly the model’s hand looks – look at the left side of the image. Oops.

The product, which used to live here, has since been taken down. Hopefully they’ll reshoot or upload an image that wasn’t butchered. Damn it guys, cut it out and get a better graphics team if you must retouch your photos because this flavor of marketing is just embarrassing. This doesn’t even just look shopped, it looks like it was done with mspaint.exe. This doesn’t fool anyone, and isn’t even aesthetically pleasing from a narrow-minded Barbie-esque view of beauty.

Biore Self Heating One Minute Mask Kit & Review

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I love when companies revive products that they killed years ago, and the Self Heating One Minute Mask from Biore is no exception. I used the original years and years ago and it disappeared from the market circa 2010. Recently relaunched as part of their Charcoal / Don’t Be Dirty line, the Biore Self Heating One Minute Mask looks like this:

The new variety contains four foil packets (though oddly spelled, “packette,”) for $7-8 and is available at drugstores, mass merchants, and drugstore.com. Back in the day (at least circa 2007), it looked like this:

Biore Self Heating One Minute Mask - old retail

The mask came with eight single-use blister-packs and retailed for roughly $7 (a better value than today!). You were instructed to wash your face, leave it wet, open a blister pack and smear the contents onto your face. Once it made contact with the water, a chemical reaction would occur and warm your face. After a minute or so, it would turn blue to show you when to rinse.

I actually received a sampler kit of the Self Heating One Minute Mask courtesy of Biore’s Prove it Rewards program on Facebook. They had a temporary offering where you could redeem a ludicrously low amount of points to get it, so I jumped on it. A couple weeks later, this arrived:

Biore Self Heating One Minute Mask - kit packaging

Let’s crack ‘er open!

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Sonia Kashuk Couture Shower Cap

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So this is old news by now, but I have long hair. Long hair takes longer to dry, style, etc. As such, I wash my hair every other or every second day – there’s the added benefit of not over-washing my scalp, too, so it seems happier about the status quo.

I use a shower cap with varying luck. My scalp still manages to get wet sometimes, and it frustrates me. I had about as much luck with the free caps they provide in hotels as I did with various Conair and other random drugstore ones.

I window shop online just for kicks and came across this Sonia Kashuk Couture Shower Cap. It looks pretty sturdy and has good reviews on the site, so I decided to pick it up on my next Target trip. A little hard to find (it wasn’t with the rest of that stuff, instead it was on a Sonia Kashuk endcap in cosmetics and bath products), I picked it up for $4.99 and laughed to myself about the use of the word, “couture.” Here’s the packaging – this also threw me off because I had no idea what the packaging looked like – but now you know! The exterior plastic was a little scuffed from transport, but no big deal!

Sonia Kashuk Couture Shower Cap packaging - front

The back is a little scuffed, too, but hey – it looks shower-cap-esque! Elastic and oh look! Terrycloth.

Sonia Kashuk Couture Shower Cap packaging - back

Because the people in charge of packaging are sadists, this is one of those twelve-thousand-tabs that you have to untuck, slide this-way, lift-that-way, click-your-heels-together-three-times-and-say, “There’s no shower cap like–”
Okay, that’s enough.

Sonia Kashuk Couture Shower Cap packaging - open

Here’s what it looks like out. The exterior is a thick-feeling vinyl, and the interior is a soft, plush cotton-terry. I’m not entirely sure why they went with that for the lining, but it feels nice enough and does not wreak havoc on curls.

Sonia Kashuk Couture Shower Cap

Here’s another, with my hand to show scale – the measure from the tip of my middle finger (not nail) to the heel of my hand is about 6.5 inches. It is gigantic. One of the reviews I read complained about this, but I think they are a goof – this fits all of my nearly-waist-length hair without me having to clip it up – though if I do clip it up, it happy obliges an over-sized alligator clip.

Sonia Kashuk Couture Shower Cap

As for the practical test, it was comfortable! The cap was neither too tight nor loose; it held its position confidently and I did not have to adjust it a single time (awesome). None of my hair got wet unlike some other caps that simply didn’t sit right. It appears to have no issue drying, but if you’re concerned you can always turn it inside out just in case. At just under $5, the Sonia Kashuk Couture Shower Cap comes in at less than some other drugstore options and appears to be holding up better (I’ve had it for about a month, now).

Though I find their marketing odd – Target says,

Now one can step in and out of the shower in style while keeping hair perfectly dry and protected. A black shower cap with cozy terrycloth lining and a fashion attitude.

Why do I need to step in the shower with style? Why can’t I just step in the shower? Who is the judge here – and if I do it with style, do I get a 10/10 for wearing this cap? And I don’t particularly want my shower cap to have a, “fashion attitude;” I want it to perform – and fortunately, this does! I strongly recommend it if you don’t care to wash your hair daily and definitely will repurchase if I ever wear it out/lose it/it falls victim to spontaneous combustion.

Stila Hydrating Finishing Powder

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Today, in Things That Make Sense…


Stila Hydrating Finishing Powder

I was browsing the beauty section of Amazon the other day and came across this finishing powder. While I am currently happy with my current one, I was skeptical but intrigued and clicked through to the product. After all, how can a powder hydrate? After all, Google says:

pow·der

noun
1. fine dry particles produced by the grinding, crushing, or disintegration of a solid substance.
verb
2. reduce (a substance) to a powder by drying or crushing it.

Common theme? Dry.

I use a finishing/setting powder to absorb the extra oil that my T-zone produces and hold my foundation in place. (If I didn’t have that to contend with, I honestly wouldn’t bother. And since I do not wear foundation every day, I do not use powder every day.) Why? Powders are drying – that’s the whole point.

I did some poking around and found that they offer only one shade of this product. It is not translucent (it is pigmented!) but Stila says the Hydrating Finishing Powder is universal. Reviewers disagree – I found several that said it was too warm, specifically, too orange. I am not a particularly pale person (even when I am pale for me) and that looks like it would be too dark/too orange for me to enjoy.

The Stila Hydrating Finishing Powder page suggests that it can be used as an eyeshadow base and that it is a, “great option for individuals with oily eyelids.” As someone with reasonably oily eyelids, I can’t say I buy that line. If I want more than a couple hours out of much of anything, I need a primer – which this is not. Furthermore, if it is indeed as hydrating as they would have you think it would not make the best eye base for oily-lidded folks. If you have dry lids? Sure, it might help. But I wouldn’t bank on it, and I would still recommend a primer.

Stila says it helps to protect the skin – but it isn’t boasting SPF. Naturally, my reaction was, “How?!” To my delight, there’s some actual science here – the third ingredient, which is ectoin (ectoine?), is a compound present in certain bacteria. Don’t freak out – used in skin and sun care, it helps protect from UV rays. It apparently also helps with dryness somehow, but I’m not sure how – the mechanism is unclear. It is advertised to release this stuff via time-release, but I think that might require me to suspend my disbelief a bit more than I’m willing to.

In all, coming in at $32, I will pass on the Stila Hydrating Finishing Powder. In general, I prefer translucent powders but I especially do not like a one-size-does-not-actually-fit-all medium orange-y hue. Bottom line is that if your skin needs a moisture boost, you should look at your skincare routine and hydration habits – not a powder that perches precariously atop all the other goop we slap on our faces. If you’re looking for a decent finishing/setting powder, I recommend Rimmel Stay Matte. The line carries a translucent and several pigmented shades and is available for $3-5.

Disclosure: Hey! There are some affiliate links in here, thought you might want to know. There’s more info on the About page.

Sephora’s Urban Decay Event Report 2/15

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In the scheme of things, Sephora is pretty new to me. I did not live particularly close to one until they opened one in my local mall’s JCPenney store. They did not have events and classes right away because they opened right before the madness of holiday shopping struck. Now that things have settled down, they started offering events – I had shopped there, but never attended one.

On a whim, I checked earlier this month and found (to my delight) that they were hosting an Urban Decay event. I recently reconnected with a friend who I knew was also a UD lover, so I gushed about it to her – we made plans to go. After that, I realized I had no idea what to expect and the only information listed on Sephora’s site was:

Enjoy a complimentary makeup application featuring Urban Decay’s iconic Naked collection. Receive tips from our beauty experts–and get a free gift.

It also said you had to be enrolled in Sephora’s Beauty Insider program to participate (but you can enroll at the store!) and that because space is limited, you should call to make sure they aren’t already full. Fair enough – I called, was greeted by a friendly employee who took down our names and the time we would be coming in. Cool, I jumped that hurdle.

But what else should we know? Should we come in bare-faced, or are they just going to do an eye look? How long does it take? Are we expected to spend a certain dollar amount in order to participate?

A friendly acquaintance from high school is actually a makeup artist for Sephora these days, albeit in a different city. I asked him what he would prefer from clients – though it is best and easiest for everyone to come in clean, moisturized, but otherwise bare-faced, they will be happy to hand over a makeup removing wipe.

Because I don’t like wasting effort (or product), I arrived bare-faced. We arrived at our appointed time and were greeted and welcomed to Sephora Urban Decay Event by the (awesome, might I add) artists; they let us get settled at the vanity and decided on a look together. There were a few template looks, or they said they could create something unique. I felt adventurous and went with the unique option – my artist applied a full-face including Urban Decay’s facial primer (if there are more than one, I can’t remember which) actually, here’s a list:

  • Naked Skin foundation
  • 24/7 Concealer pencil
  • UDPP
  • Naked3 palette for shadow
  • 24/7 liner pencil (I cannot for the life of me remember which shade)
  • Big Fatty Mascara
  • Naked Flushed for blush
  • Naked Skin Ultra Definiton Pressed Powder
  • Revolution Lipstick in Naked
  • All Nighter Setting Spray

My artist was attentive and made sure I was comfortable the entirety of the time – colors, intensity, etc. Once complete, the finished look was great – it took maybe a little over a half hour from start to finish. The women in our store even went so far as to bake and decorate UD-themed cupcakes which I found to be a very nice surprise. We weren’t pressured to buy anything, but we were invited to shop around afterwards and that they’d hold our gifts at the register before we left. They were in reach when we had questions (except for a brief moment when they were all helping others, which is fair), but it never felt as though they were crowding us.

I definitely did expect a little pressure to buy so the lack of it was very nice – I’m thrilled to share that it was not the case. We obviously talked about products, but it was a legitimate conversation, not pushing; not being sold to. Granted, that might depend on the employee and the local store but if you were avoiding an event like this for fear of sales pressure, give it a shot and approach it with an open mind.

Once we finished up, we were given our gifts, which I talked about here. Here’s a look – it is one of their full-sized polishes and a TSA-approved clear plastic travel bag. Though the polish didn’t blow my mind, it is still a neat gift (that I was definitely excited to try out – and write about!)

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In the past, I’ve heard a lot of sass about Sephora employees being too sassy, judgmental, etc. and that some people have been deterred from shopping there – this made me nervous before my first time in my local store. Obviously YMMV, but I had a great experience with the event and with every time I’ve been to mine. If you enjoy Urban Decay products and your Sephora is hosting an Urban Decay Event soon, I recommend checking it out.