Is it just me or has this year flown by super fast?  We are in the 5th month already, people!  What is happening to time?  Someone’s got their finger on the fast forward button or something and they need to STOP IT.

Okay, it’s empties time again.  Go take your potty break and grab a bag of Doritos – the whole bag – cuz we gonna be here for awhile.  In fact, whatever you had planned today, go ahead and cancel.

Let’s get started.  Here’s the first batch:

If you like the smell of fruit, specifically grapefruit, you will love this Gud Red Ruby Groovy body wash.  It is a tropical vacation in a bottle and makes you have delicious skin.  I also have the matching body lotion, and the two together are a powerhouse.  I just love fruit smelling soaps and lotions.  That is all I ever want, in case someone is thinking about getting me a gift set.  I am not interested in anything in Ocean Breeze or Cotton T-Shirt scent.  Fruit (or chocolate) all the way.

Which is why I also loved this body lotion by Ahava in pineapple peach.  The scent was quite delicate; not overpowering which was kind of nice.  It absorbed pretty quick as well.  I would buy this again if I didn’t already have 93 other body lotions stashed under my sink.

Then there is the En Root volumizing shampoo by theBalm.  It has a matching conditioner, but of course I would finish the shampoo first and render the conditioner virtually useless.  Does that happen to you?  Annoying, right?  Anyway, was this shampoo volumizing?  Wellll, not like in a super obvious way.  Like I didn’t use it and then suddenly I had supermodel, wind machine, riding on a horse in the surf sort of hair.  But I didn’t hate it either.

How about some face cleaners:

This Alba Botanica face cleaner smelled so good.  Straight up pineapple, like the best realistic pineapple smell you can imagine.  But I will say I did not like the formula.  Now that I’ve been trying so many face cleansers, I know what I prefer, and this loose gel consistency is not it.  Many times I pumped this stuff into my hand only for it to slide right off my palm and plop into the bath water.  So I won’t repurchase, even though this certainly wasn’t a bad product.  I’m just really really really hard to please.  Sorry, not sorry.

Finished up the little travel size bottle of Koh Gen Do Cleansing Spa Water.  I did really like this.  Thought it was very effective in removing mascara.  However, waterproof mascara is the devil and this product did nothing to help alleviate that.  Unless you just like rubbing your eyelashes off in one fail swoop.  But for basic mascara, this is your man.  It has a nice refreshing feel to it, like spa water presumably.  I would totally repurchase this.

I wish I could tell you more about the Nia24 face scrub other than the fact that I used it, it exfoliated, and then I moved on.  Because there is actually a lot of science involved in this product.  It probably does something really fancy to your skin that a lot of times gets lost on me.  But then again, I had a sample tube with about 5 uses in it, so what can really go on in 5 uses?  Not an instant miracle, I’ll tell you that much.

Now for eyes:

So I went to the Macy’s counter to pick up the Clinique dark circle corrector because it had won an Allure beauty award for being amazing.  When I get there, the lady proceeds to tell me it’s an ongoing treatment serum not an instant dark circle perfector, and I pretended I knew that already, and bought it anyway.  Dangit!  About got caught looking stupid, but I saved myself at the last second didn’t I?  Unfortunately, I had really hoped for an instant satisfaction sort of situation so I was slightly disappointed.  I used this for about 2 months or so before I got bored and started using something else.  Did I notice a difference in those 2 months?  Hell if I know.  I only know one speed:  instant.  Everything after that gets ignored.

How not to like an eye cream – have a watery consistency that you can tap into your orbital bone for days. Enter Perricone MD High Potency Eye Lift and tap your ever-lovin’ life away.  Seriously, I think I grew extra gray hairs while waiting for this stuff to disappear into my skin.  Okay, slight exaggeration, but I don’t have time for all that tapping nonsense when my nighttime regimen is 17 steps.  I prefer thicker, sturdier eye creams.  Like the StriVectin one, or that Glytone one that seemed to replicate itself every time I thought I was nearing the bottom.  Those were actual creams, and I loved them.

I threw away makeup.  I’m not ashamed:

First of all, the ybf lipgloss was really pretty and had a delicious watermelon scent.  But isn’t that the teeniest sample you’ve ever seen?  Didn’t last very long, and then the brush inside might’ve been too short to reach the bottom.  So there’s probably oodles of product left in the tube, but I have zero energy left to try.

Massive fail alert.  Did anyone who received the Chella indigo liquid liner in their Ipsy bag have the same problem as me?  The nib dried up during the actual act of applying the liner.  I had to continually wipe it on toilet paper to try to reactivate the color, but it became more trouble than it was worth.  Such a shame though.  The indigo color was really pretty.

Received this Grande Lash MD mascara in my New Beauty Test Tube, and I decided I don’t want it.  The sample was really tiny and the formula was looser than I like for a mascara.  It gave me anxiety thinking about putting this on my eyeballs.  So I took matters into my own hands and threw it away like I’m the boss of me.

I had a little eye issue a couple weeks ago.  One eye was pinky-red then the other went pinky-red.  Don’t know if it was just allergies or if I had an actual contagious thing.  But I had to throw away the Clinique High Impact mascara just in case.  It had wet eye juice contamination, so I figured that was the proper and most grown-up thing to do.  Luckily it was just a sample tube that I didn’t even pay for instead of my $45 Charlotte Tilbury one.  Because I’ll just be honest:  I’ll risk a pink-eye epidemic before I even thing about throwing away a Charlotte Tilbury.

Last item is the L’Oreal Magic Lumi primer.  I finished off the entire tube, and it was a nicely textured primer.  Went on smooth, wasn’t greasy.  Absorbed quickly.  However, the whole point of this primer is that it has illumination in it, and using it is supposed to impart some sort of mystical glow about your face.  Even the primer itself has a lovely white pearly color.  But it didn’t transmit one bit on my skin.  I looked as normal and drab as ever.  So I don’t know if it’s just me or maybe I’m just too picky, but I won’t repurchase.

Gawd, are we done?  Almost.  Here’s moisturizer-y type thingies:

Back to the Nia24 stuff, this time in the form of their Skin Strengthening Complex.  I wasn’t sure what this was, so I had to do a little research.  Turns out, it’s just moisturizer.  Could’ve helped by listing that on the tube and saving me some time, but apparently I’m not in charge.  Anyway, this had an amazing consistency that made me look forward to moisturizing at the end of the day.  How dorky am I?  Very.

You may or may not recall how much I loved the Coola sunscreen that I got in my Birchbox.  So much so that it about usurped my love for the Cotz suncreen.  Well, immediately following this very tiny tube, I went and purchased a full size of this stuff.  I am so excited to use it because the satiny texture of it is to die for.  Except my Cotz tube is proving to be quite the value for the money because I’ve been religiously applying this for the past 6 months, and I’ve just now reached the halfway point.  See you in about a year, Coola!  Hmmphf.

And the pointless product of the year award goes to Renu Lip & Eye Active Lift.  I received this in my Glossybox, and I was not the least bit excited.  But I used it anyway because it physically hurts to waste something like this.  I applied it to the lines around my mouth (per instructions) which was supposed to give a nice plumping effect.  I did this every single day for over a month – it was the sample that would not die – and my mouth lines not one time looked any different than they have my entire life since I got old enough to have mouth lines.

On a side note, the Renu won a British beauty award of some kind.  Obviously something is very wrong with me, because they wouldn’t give an award to a product that doesn’t work.  And now I’m forced to have Juvederm injections because of it.  Drat.

I feel we should end on a high note, so pay very close attention to these final two products.  The Sisley Paris Black Rose Cream Mask is super luxurious, elegant, and everything you’d expect a mask from France to be.  Had a lovely rose smell although not overwhelming at all.  However, I’m not sure I used the product right because it was so creamy and soft, I felt like the “mask” was nothing more than moisturizer that I ended up rinsing off in 15 minutes.  Perhaps I was supposed to leave it on, even though the instructions said to wipe off the excess.  Maybe rinsing with water isn’t what they meant by “wiping”, and I wasted all the good work this mask was supposed to do.  I’ll never know for sure now because the full size is $158, and I will never ever ever buy it.

(Insert sad, pathetic face.)

But if I could go back in time, I would apply the product, leave on for 15 minutes, then wipe off the excess with a tissue.  And then of course feel very highfalutin for the next 3 days.  Oui oui!

Last item is one I’ve already reviewed before, but I finished another tube.  It’s the REN Hydra-Calm Global Protection day cream.  It’s a moisturizer with this lovely velvety texture that I challenge anyone not to get addicted to.  Like it goes on as a normal moisturizer, but as it sinks into your skin it turns into silky satiny softness and actually stops you in your tracks like, whaaaaaa?  But then again, I’m heavy into texture so maybe it is just me that does that.  Either way, I still think you’d love it.

Okay, carpal tunnel is setting in so I gotta go.  Hope you enjoyed this post.  And that you aren’t fast asleep right now.  Catch you all tomorrow for more fun stuff.  See ya!