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California, United States
Hi! Thanks for visiting ^_^ My social media platforms: Instagram: meowmier Youtube: http://goo.gl/U5SnNM (formerly under the username francesvlogs but I don't have access to that anymore). I don't really do videos anymore simply because I think blog posts are more informative. Hope you enjoyed your time here! :)

Saturday, October 12, 2013

Kett Fixx Creme Foundation Review

Hi guys!

Long time again LOL. What can I say... I totally jinxed myself and I've been stupid busy. Still busy at the moment, but I am SO SICK of studying studying studying alll the time I just can't anymore. I figured I should come up here and do an update before my blog rots. Haha.

So let's get right into it. You guys already know I got curious about the Kett Fixx Creme foundation because of Bubzbeauty.

I swear this will be the last time you see me referencing this video. Promise! XD

I think I was extra extra intrigued about this foundation because of the phrase "chosen wedding foundation"... when you hear those words O_O+++++ it's like the strongest advertising words you can use, hahaha!

So since Bubz mentioned Wayne from Gossmakeupartist, I checked his video too to see his thoughts.



And while I was looking up reviews for the foundation, I came across this video which I thought was pretty helpful too:

She mentioned she got cystic acne from this foundation O_o That did scare me a bit not gonna lie. So the first time I tried this foundation I only used a little along my jawline just to make sure I didn't get any reaction from it. I also thought I would be a between color--between N1 and N3 like her, but surprisingly N3 matches me okay. But I have to say N3 is a little darker for my face. It matches me in the sense that it makes my face match my body-- my body got quite tanned over the summer, but my face paled back to its original color pretty fast due to the skincare products I've been using. So anyway, if you're NC20, it might be just a tad dark for you. Not to the point you can't pull it off though. But I think N3 is between NC20-25, but not quite NC25. So I guess if my body wasn't as tan, this foundation would've been a bit dark for me.


Anyway! Just thought I'd put up some other ppl's videos in case you guys are curious about other ppl's opinion.


I bought a small Z-palette for this foundation
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Which... isn't all that worth it because I am planning to put this foundation on my blog sale. But I guess I can still use it for travel *shrugs* As a side line review, I feel like the small Z palette really doesn't fit much in there at all. It's really too small to fit more than 1 blusher. So it's pretty much only good for eye shadows.

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When I first received it it didn't have these little bumps/bubbles. It only happened after I started dipping my wet beautyblender in it. Didn't affect the quality of the foundation though.

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This is probably the most true to color shot. My color is N3.

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And this. It does look quite dark in the pan.

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Very creamy.

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Doesn't look all that flattering on the back of my hand, but it does perform better on my face.

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I do use a beautyblender to apply it. Now Sam (the girl from the third video I posted) mentioned this foundation kind of ruined her beautyblender because she really had to dig the beautyblender in it to get the products. I don't find it to be true, the product came out pretty easily onto my beautyblender. Maybe she just got a drier batch???

Now onto application photos. I have to mention that because of the color of this foundation, it offsets the whole color balance on my camera, so all my photos look quite orange except the first photo, which only shows my bare face. So just keep in mind the color of the photos lean more orange than real life.

Bare face
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Now here comes the orange pictures XD

Half face application (left side)
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Half face
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The other half that doesn't have the foundation
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I'll admit when I first applied the foundation I was very impressed and can immediately see why Bubz and Wayne raved about it. It does look natural and gorgeous. I have to say it does photograph extremely well-- I do think it looks even better in these pics than in real life, haha!


Full face.
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Okay the rest of the photos were taken on a different day, but it was after like about 4 hours of wear?

So this is after about 4 hours of wear
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At first glance it doesn't look too bad, but if you look more closely under my eyes... (and excuse the mascara fall-out on my cheek lol)


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There was TERRIBLE caking underneath my eyes. The MOST TERRIBLE I've ever experienced actually. Even my SK-II essence-in foundation, which is also a cream foundation, doesn't settle in to my fine lines.


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Besides the terrible undereye-caking, the other major thing I noticed is that on my nose where it's oily, the foundation kind of turned transparent. It's weird because the foundation definitely didn't wear off, it's still there you can see it, but it has become transparent and I can see my blackheads through the foundation. Not even my blackheads peeking through, it's like you can see the blackheads through the foundation. I really don't know how else to describe it. You don't see my blackheads really well in this photo because the light is kind of reflected off my oily nose XD but it's quite obvious in person. (You didn't see blackheads in my first bare face photo because that photo was taken a few days after these photos--when I had cleared out my blackheads).

So those are the two major problems I have with this foundation: The undereye creasing, and the see-through blackheads upon getting oily.

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Again, just to illustrate how badly it settled into my fine lines. You can scroll up and look at the initial application pictures, my fine lines were there, but not even close to as bad as these pictures. Also, the two days I wore this foundation out, two days people commented on how tired I looked. So I can definitely tell you guys it is NOT my personal paranoia or imagination, that this foundation really does accentuate my undereye fine lines LIKE CRAZY and make me look aged. You might also notice it looks a bit cakey around my nose, but that's because I used a little too much that day LOL. Usually it's fine. I have tried to blend/wipe my undereye area to make sure there aren't excess foundation, but sadly the creasing problem still persists.

By the way I didn't powder in this pictures, but personally I do think this foundation needs powdering if you want it to last longer.

So yeah those are my thoughts on this foundation. I'm glad I tried it out, but too bad it really just didn't work for me. Really wanted to love it =( If you have similar problems underneath your eyes, I suggest you avoid this foundation.

By the way guys I'm thinking about going organic with my foundations. I have to make a commitment here and now that I will not buy anymore foundations until I have used up all my current ones. And after that I'm gonna go organic =D

Hope some of you found this review helpful! Now I shall go back to the never ending hell of studying. Hopefully I can blog more as October comes to an end. October is the worst month as far as academic calender goes -_- Hope you guys are doing well!




<3 Frances

Saturday, September 21, 2013

Marc Jacobs Genius Gel Super-Charged Foundation Review

Hello hello!

I'm back =D After a grueling week of classes, quizzes, lab, and case presentation... cannot be any happier that the weekend is finally here! I feel like I had been too relaxed since third year started, so even though this week wasn't so bad, it was still a hard kick in the butt for me XD I think it's mainly because of my group case presentation yesterday, but our group did a really good job so I am in a super super good mood now ^_^ I was basically eating sleeping and breathing on the case for an entire week, so after hearing the how positively the professors respond to/agree on our medical decisions, it was SUCH. A. HIGH. Okay I'm sounding like a freak. I'll talk a little bit more about my case at the end of this post, but let me get started on the review for now :)


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**image credit goes to Sephora.com!

Okay so I don't own this foundation, but I did get some samples from Sephora :D

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One on the right is 22 Bisque Light, one on the left is 26 Bisque Medium. Inside Sephora under its terrible lighting, I couldn't really tell which one would work better for me, they both looked like they could work so I got samples for both shades. It turns out 22 Bisque Light is more suitable for my MAC NC20 complexion, because it's more neutral/yellow. I noticed later that 26 Bisque Medium has a little red undertone.

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Sorry for the inconsistent lighting... the way my window is positioned it's really hard to find the best lighting.

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See what I mean about 22 is more neutral/yellow, and 26 is more red? I haven't tried 26 on my face but I honestly think it wouldn't be so different since it's not too red. I think both shades can work for me.

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This is probably the most true to color swatch.

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Face application. I had to take my foundation off and took the application pics again because when I took them in the morning, it was too dark to see anything, so that's why my makeup is already done in these pics.
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Application on half face.
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Shade used here is 22 Bisque Light.

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Upon blending this foundation into my face with my fingers, it reminded me simultaneously Chanel Vitalumiere Aqua foundation and Giorgio Armani Maestro foundation?? I'm not exactly sure why, I feel like it's as if someone added a tiny tiny drop of GA Maestro foundation into the Chanel VA foundation and then try to blend that out. It's weird because the texture of Marc Jacobs foundation is more like a gel and nothing like the GA and Chanel one, but there is definitely a silicone feel to it when you rub it in. Not as heavily silicone-y as GA, so I guess I would say imagine the Chanel VA with a more silicone feel??? Am I even making any sense?? Haha.

Half face application.
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Applied with fingers. As you can see, coverage is sheer.

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The coverage kind of reminds me of my TonyMoly CC cream, but slightly better (or maybe because my skin has been relatively even these days).

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Honestly... for days like this when my skin tone is pretty even, I feel like this foundation almost makes no difference to my skin. I mean yes it does enhance it, but I don't find it necessary. I just cleaned out my blackheads too so I was unable to see if it can actually cover them up -_- may come back to update this.


Full face effect:
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These were taken before I took the foundation off, after about 2-3 hours of wear:
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No oxidation.
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As you can see, after 2-3 hours of wear, it got a little bit shinier, which is normal/expected, but still holding up pretty well!

So my overall thoughts?

I have to say I wasn't expecting much from this foundation because I generally have no luck with gel formulation because of my combination skin (example of gel foundation: Chantecaille Future skin foundation). But I'd say think about this foundation as a silicone-gel foundation? I was surprised at how well it held up. With Chantecaille, it started fading and breaking down and got so patchy on my skin, but not with this foundation!

I really like the finish of this foundation, but in general I'm a sucker for any foundation that makes my skin look glowy. And I do think this foundation still looks pretty good at the end of the day (I didn't powder my face at all while I was testing it out). The coverage is sheer to light... which, I guess if your skin is great, you might like it. But with that said, some days when my skin is truly in great condition (when I have minimal redness), I feel like this foundation is redundant and I'd rather go bare faced to give my skin a break lol. As for the smell, I was so surprised that it doesn't smell like anything! I thought they're gonna put in some Marc Jacob signature smell or something XD Givenchy foundations all have this gorgeous scent to it, and Chanel foundations all have a rosy scent too, so I don't know, but I was surprised, haha. Not a bad thing though! Most of the time I prefer my skincare/makeup to be free of fragrance.

I feel like foundations these days are so well-formulated, it's impossible to pick a favorite one anymore LOL. I do love the gorgeous finish/glow/radiance it gives, but I will not be purchasing the full bottle, because if I want to spend so much money, I'd really like to have something with higher coverage for the days I need it. For people who have great skin to begin with and just want something to even out redness/add glow to your complexion, I do recommend looking into it!

That's all, I hope this review is somewhat helpful. I feel like I didn't say much, makes me sound so dispassionate lol, but I do like it. Just don't feel the I-HAVE-TO-HAVE-THIS urge lol!!


Okay now, for those who are actually interested in my academic life XD if you're not feel free to skip this paragraph, since it has nothing to do with the foundation!

So even though it was just a case preparation, I found it so much more stressful than preparing for exams. Our case assignment was on how we're gonna manage the poorly controlled pain in an elderly Asian patient who has stage 4 breast cancer, post-hip surgery. In a nutshell, we have to identify what kind of pain it is (nociceptive? inflammation? neuropathic), assess severity, and decide the best therapeutic regimen for her. And for each therapeutic agent, we have to consider how it's metabolized (believe it or not, your race actually influences how your body metabolizes medication due to different genetic make-up), how it's eliminated (because patient might not have enough kidney/liver function), dosing, drug-drug interactions, comorbidities, toxicities, contraindications, does it have active metabolite?...... blah blah blah blah blah... filter through all the available medication and come up with the most appropriate for this specific patient. And of course we have to develop a plan to monitor how effective the medications are and some most common toxicities that we should look out for.  And of course there are always discrepancies between drug databases vs. actual clinical observations; for example:

Drug database: all opioids can cause respiratory depression even when used at recommended doses.
Professor: in real practice you never see respiratory depression unless it's an overdose. Respiratory depression is always dose-related!

Lol, but seriously, how are we gonna know since we have like close to zero clinical experience? So we had to comb through guidelines, lectures, and any clinical teachings and a ton of literature reading to come up with a plan. One thing they are teach us in school is that we cannot rely on textbooks/databases. You always have to look for literature/guidelines for more clinical information. Our group kept going over every little detail because we want to make sure we cover everything, but at the same time we have to determine what is the most relevant and most important information. I won't bore you guys with the details, but I'm really starting to appreciate the magnitude of the practice of pharmacy.

Hope you guys have a fantastic weekend, and as usual, thanks for taking the time to read my blog ^_^



<3 Frances