GOSH: Long Lasting Lip Marker Review

Funny product, this.

Right, I know there are many lip marker products on the market these days but this Long Lasting Lip Marker by GOSH is my first one. And probably my last one.

I don't get this one. I've had this for some months, used it a few times, didn't like it and put it into cold storage. I thought I'd give it another go, have been using it a few weeks and gaaah, I still don't like it!

To those ladies who can work well with lip markers, good for you. I probably have whacked lips.

This GOSH Long Lasting Lip Marker:

• is weird
OK, this is just the inherent nature of such a product. It's literally a marker pen. I never thought I would be using that on my lips one day! It even makes a slight rustling sound quite like when you write with a marker pen on paper. The pen tip, by the way, feels cool on the lips.

• is difficult to apply
On the pen, GOSH says to use on clean and dry lips. No kidding. This marker pen won't draw well on wet/moist lips and on lips prepped with lipbalm. In my case, even if my lips are dry, the marker doesn't draw properly sometimes. The colour won't take. I end up having to draw over and over and over and over again to get the colour to transfer. Shaking the pen helps somewhat to get the liquid inside to flow to the tip.

• is not longlasting
Sure, the colour sinks into the lips leaving a nice stain (it's pigmented but don't expect full-on colour). It doesn't stay intact for very long on me though, about two hours. It doesn't transfer too much from drinking but most of it does go if I eat.

• does not fade evenly
To make matters worse, it fades unevenly leaving an awful outline on the lips, especially when used alone. Really awful.

• is not moisturising
As mentioned above, the colour sinks into the lips, into every line on the lips. There is some hydration but I can feel my lips shrivelling a bit within an hour. To counter that, I would use either a lipbalm or a lip gloss over it. If a lipbalm is used, try to apply it with your finger. Otherwise, be prepared for stains on your lipbalm stick.

I can say one good thing about this lip marker though. It smells/tastes sweet. It has the sweetener, sorbitol.

Ingredients

The shade that I have is 003 Berry, a lovely fuchsia red (OK, that's the second good thing). I've seen two other shades in the stores, Chocolate and Red. I'm aware that there is a fourth one called Pink.

Without lipbalm

Strangely, there is no information on this product on the GOSH website. So, I got this from the website of Superdrug:

Now it is possible to make an even more precise application of lip colour. The pen-like tip gives complete control over the application.

The lips will stay hydrated and refreshed and the colour will last for hours.


Yeah, right! I'm sorry but this is going to the waste of money bin. You get 2.5g / 0.1 oz of product but it's a waste of €7.49!

Look: Fallen Leaves

This is the look I wore the other day. It's, as usual, a very easy look.

Note: The links given in this post would direct you to my previous reviews/features (including swatches) of those products.

I used the following four products for the eyes:

Eyes
Catrice Made to Stay Long Lasting Eyeshadow - Lord Of The Blings(metallic beige)
Catrice Made to Stay Long Lasting Eyeshadow - Metall Of Honor (metallic khaki brown/brass)
GOSH Velvet Touch Eye Liner - Black Ink
Make Up For Ever Aqua Smoky Lash Mascara - Waterproof Extra Black

With a narrow flat brush, I applied the two Catrice cream eyeshadows - brass on the entire lid fold and metallic beige on the inner quarter. I deliberately didn't fade out the edges. I then lined and tightlined with GOSH Black Ink and applied two coats of mascara. The bottom lash line was left bare except for a bit of mascara.

These two eye photos were in fact taken indoors and about three hours after application. The Catrice cream eyeshadows looked pretty much as good as when freshly applied. No eyeshadow primer was used.

GOSH: Eye Look With Metallic Brass

For neutral looks, it’s always the usual blacks and browns, but it can get monotonous after a while. One way to spice up such a look without venturing too far from your comfort zone would be to use a very dark olive green/brown.

For this, I highly recommend the much loved Metallic Brass from GOSH. I will tell you now that Metallic Brass is my favourite, my very favourite, my very very favouritest eyeliner.

Slight digression: I forget now who it was but someone once mentioned it and I agree wholeheartedly that GOSH should consider making a nail polish called Metallic Brass.

The Velvet Touch Eye Liners from GOSH are not only affordably priced but they are also longlasting and are waterproof. There are many colours in its range but Metallic Brass is the one I find most intriguing. It’s a dark olive green/brown with fine gold shimmer specks. Neutral with pizazz.

I use it to line my eyes after I’ve applied eyeshadow but more often than not, I like to just use Metallic Brass as the sole source of colour on my eyes. It’s a quick and easy look and as it is a pencil eyeliner, it’s much more convenient to apply than with a liquid eyeliner.

For this look, I used:

Top to bottom:
GOSH Velvet Touch Eye Liner in Metallic Brass
Stila Smudge Pots gel eye liner in Black
GOSH Wonder Volume Mascara in Black

1. Draw on a very thick line of Metallic Brass. Do a thick but gentle wing.
2. Smudge slightly the upper edge of the thick line with a sponge-tip applicator.
3. Tightline with the gel eye liner (alternatively, tightline with Metallic Brass).
4. Curl lashes and apply mascara.

Leave the lower lash line totally bare so that the thick line of Metallic Brass stands out even more.

This is my favourite look when I’m short of time (and that’s often!). Give it a go. Eye looks don’t always have to involve eyeshadows.


More information:
My review on the GOSH Velvet Touch Eye Liners
GOSH Cosmetics website

Adorned Nails: GOSH Ocean

You've probably seen Ocean one time too many on the internet but well, this just happens to be what I'm wearing this weekend. I'll keep this post short and sweet.

In my world of firsts, Ocean was the first GOSH nail polish that I acquired. I have in fact shown my nails with Ocean before, waaaaay back in 2009, in a tiny photo. I'm setting that right this time with proper pictures.

I've always liked the quality of GOSH polishes. Not only are they a pleasure to apply, but they are also quite reasonably priced (less than €7 for 8ml). Simply said, Ocean is a shiny, shimmery, metallic turquoise green. A real eyecatcher, this one!

The other GOSH polish previously featured: GOSH Green Hawaii

GOSH: Eye Look With Funky Violet And Purple Stain

A look done with only two eyeliner pencils and a mascara. It's simple and yet, it stands out because of the vivid blue-violet.

I used the following for this look:

L-R
GOSH Velvet Touch Eye Liner (Funky Violet)
GOSH Velvet Touch Eye Liner (Purple Stain)
GOSH Wonder Volume Mascara (not shown)

To me, Purple Stain looks violet. When applied thickly, it comes across as a blue-violet. With a thin, smudged out layer, it looks purple-violet. On the other hand, Funky Violet looks plummy. It's funny how brands name their colours sometimes.

Getting this look:
Top lid
1. Colour thickly the eyelid fold with Purple Stain and smudge out the edges with finger. Do it quick as the colour dries fast on the lid.
2. Lightly apply Purple Stain in the area above the intense colour of Step 1, and on the outer corner of the eye. Again, smudge the edges with finger.
3. Line and tightline with the plum shade of Funky Violet. Wing it. Smudge the wing slightly where it meets Purple Stain.

Bottom lid
4. Line the inner half/three-quarters with Purple Stain and the outer half/three-quarters with Funky Violet.

5. Curl lashes and apply two coats of mascara.

I'm not terribly fond of using too many products for my looks, so for this one, I totally meant it when I said that it's simple.


More information: GOSH Velvet Touch Eye Liner Review

GOSH: Velvet Touch Eye Liner Review

It's funny when I think about it. For many years, I never owned a single eyeliner. Not pencil, not liquid, never even heard of gel!

So, isn't it weird that I now have these to show you?!

These are all from GOSH. The first GOSH Velvet Touch Eye Liner that I bought about a year ago was in the shade Metallic Brass and I remember being very taken by the gorgeous, unusual colour. Other colours gradually followed as there were often enticing deals to be had at Kruidvat. That's the Dutch drugstore chain that stocks GOSH Cosmetics products.

For the longest time, I never had any plans to write a review on these eye liner pencils. It seemed to me that GOSH Velvet Touch Eye Liners have been featured and swatched to death on the internet. In fact, my measly lot of eight here is nothing compared to what some others have. I've however had a change of mind recently when I realised that I was using these pencils more and more in the eye looks that I feature here. So, I suppose it would make sense to share my quick thoughts on these pencils.

The Basics
GOSH Velvet Touch Eye Liners are available in twenty-odd shades, which is a mind-boggling range to choose from. Price: €6,49 each, 1.2g / 0.04 oz US.

According to GOSH
• Extremely waterproof and durable
• Fantastic colour pigmentation
• Contains vitamin E and jojoba oil
• Contains no perfume

In order to protect the pencil from drying out it is most important to put the cap on the pencil again after use.

Ingredients

My Thoughts
Texture
These pencils are creamy and quite soft, allowing for easy application. There is a little dragging, but nothing too annoying. Because of the softness, one has to be careful not to press too hard especially if the tip is sharp. It might break at the tip.

Durability
Before it dries on the skin, you can still smudge it a bit, but do it quick. Once dried, it stays put. Personally, I find using the finger to smudge to be easier than using a brush or a sponge-tip applicator. I love it that it is waterproof. It doesn't fade or smudge. It resists creasing for a reasonable period of time - in my case, I see the first signs of minor creasing in the inner corner after six to seven hours. That's good enough for me.

Tightline
I do use it to tightline. I may have used it once for my waterline, but my eyes didn't like it that much.

Swatches
These Velvet Touch Eye Liners are very pigmented, but I can comment on only the dark/dark-ish shades that I have.

Pencil Shavings
My friend, Gail of ooglemakeup, loves this eyeliner pencil too. If my memory serves me correctly, I think I had chosen Metallic Brass in my first ever GOSH purchase based on Gail's recommendation in one of her Youtube videos a long time ago. I believe it was also Gail from whom I got the tip about picking up the colour from the pencil shavings, to be used on the eye. Waste not, right?

I thought I'd demonstrate how much you'd waste from throwing away the shavings. Shown on the right is what you'd get from one round of sharpening. I smudged out the shaving of Black Ink with my finger and I got this one-inch-diameter patch of intense colour. That's not bad at all!
A note however: If you haven't used your pencil for a long time and you're now sharpening it, it's best to throw the shavings away. They say, the best way to sanitise your eyeliner pencil is by sharpening it.

Removal
Obviously, as it's waterproof, you'd need to use an oil-based eye makeup remover to wash it off.

Conclusion
These eyeliner pencils are close to perfect. They would be perfect if they resisted creasing for several more hours. They're reasonably priced for the quality you're getting (get them when they are on offer). I love the amazing range of colours available. Metallic Brass and Funky Violet are my personal favourites.

This is the simple eye look that I wore yesterday. Only two products were used: GOSH Velvet Touch Eye Liner in Black Ink (a matte black) and GOSH Wonder Volume Mascara. I suppose this look would work best for Oriental eyelids.

I will feature more eye looks later using these eyeliner pencils, with more detailed description of the individual colours.

See Metallic Brass in a previous look: Rituals: Another Eye Look With Double Jade
More information: GOSH Cosmetics website

Adorned Nails: GOSH Green Hawaii

“Een kikker met glitter” is what I would call this. That’s Dutch for “a frog with glitter”.

Would you believe it if I told you that this is my first ever glitter nail polish? Well, it’s true. My life is full of weird, incomprehensible choices made, so having this little green frog as my first glitter polish just fits right into that pattern! My hubby didn’t think I was in the right frame of mind when I bought this bottle.

But you know what? I think it looks good on nails, and even better in the sun, as shown in these pictures. The glitter particles are quite sparse, me thinks, compared to some other glitter polishes that I've seen on your nails. That's fine by me.

I applied three coats, forgot to use a top coat (aah, the story of my life!) and got a dent in the corner of my index finger in no time (you can see it if you looked at the first photo closely). Duh, lesson learnt when applying glitter polish!

Okay, I now understand the fascination for glitter nail polishes. It’s the colours reflected in the glitter particles, isn’t it? At a glance, you would see mainly yellow glitters in Green Hawaii but if you look closely, you’ll see blue, turquoise, red and even orange specks.

I never thought I’d ever say this but, gee, this is one pretty glitter kikker.

Winner of Sharing the Fun: Vanity in the Dark

As mentioned previously, I would announce the winner of Sharing the Fun: Vanity in the Dark on my Mum’s birthday. Well, that day has finally come. Happy Birthday, Mum!! Everybody, bring out the balloons!

Right, it gives me great pleasure to announce the winner of the Etos All in One Party Colour Kit and the GOSH Light'N Shine Lip Glaze. Thank you so much to all the ladies who joined in the fun!

There were a total of forty-four qualifying entries between the two Vanity in the Dark posts. Entries across the two posts were placed in chronological order. The number given by my dearest Mummy Number Generator is Number 1 and the winner is.....

Mz. More of The Glamorous Gleam!

Congratulations, Mz. More! It certainly pays to be early with this one. Expect my message in your mailbox soon!

To the rest of my lovely companions, please don’t despair. There’ll be more little giveaways coming your way. You just never know when they'll come!

Vanity in the Dark: GOSH Light'N Shine Lip Glaze

Super glossy lips and I haven’t even turned on the lights! And if you’re wondering.....no, this isn’t with flash photography.

Illuminating Product No. 2
GOSH Light’N Shine Lip Glaze
Shade: 02 Pink
Volume and Price: 6ml / 0.2 US fl oz for €7.99

I like this lip gloss. It’s very pigmented and, as you can see, the gloss factor has been cranked up to the max. Sensuous, dare I say? GOSH calls it “High Shine” and they really aren’t kidding! You can actually see the tiny specks of glitter in the gloss as well.

It smells slightly sweet and it leaves a pleasant jelly texture on the lips. Well, at least for me it was pleasant. It’s a tiny bit sticky, but nothing annoying. It wears off after a couple of hours, so re-application would be necessary, unless you’re fine with the by-then dulled gloss.

What I love most is this shade that I’ve chosen. It’s a shade that makes a statement, what I would call a cross between fuschia and red.

Of course, there are the lights that come on when you twist open the handle. Better still, there is a mirror on the side of the tube too. Now you have every excuse to indulge in your vanity in the dark!

Sharing the Fun
Ah yes, I’m sharing the fun with these two products featured under the Vanity in the Dark posts. The other product – Etos All in One Party Colour Kit – was featured in a separate post, just before this one. I went back to the stores to get another set of these products and will be giving them away to one lucky lady. This is open to all who are following my journey (as seen on Google Friend Connect), so, of course, it’s open internationally!

If you are following my journey privately, I respect your wish for privacy.

To participate in Sharing the Fun, I present you with two options:

Option 1
Please leave a relevant comment under this post and a relevant comment under the previous post, Vanity in the Dark: Etos All in One Party Colour Kit. It would only be fair to give you two entries for your extra effort.

Option 2
You may leave a relevant comment under one of the two Vanity in the Dark posts but this will give you only one entry.

The choice is yours. If you have already commented on the previous Vanity in the Dark post, then you would have already chalked up one entry! Me, sneaky? Nooo!

Comment like how you normally would if there wasn’t a giveaway but please, relevant comments only. Comments about, say, the horrendous weather in the North Pool will not be taken into consideration. Please let me know via email if you’re unclear about anything.

You have until Saturday 9th January 2010 11.59pm (Central European Time) to leave your comment(s). One winner will be chosen randomly by the Mummy Number Generator and I will announce the winner sometime on Sunday 10th January which also happens to be my Mum’s birthday!

If you’re befuddled and are wondering what a Mummy Number Generator is or why I’m doing this, then perhaps you missed my Sharing the Fun, Sharing the Love post. And if you have only just joined me on my journey of beauty awakening, I bid you welcome!

Right, enough said! Good luck, my lovely companions!

GOSH: Intense Lashes Lengthening Mascara Review

I wrote a post about a month ago on a mascara promotion that GOSH Cosmetics was having here in the Netherlands. The old-mascara-for-new exchange promotion was such a huge hit with the mascara-mad ladies (yours truly not exempted!) that the GOSH mascara shelves in the participating stores were cleared out within a few days. Some stores ran out of GOSH mascaras even on Day 1!

Anyway, I mentioned getting the GOSH Intense Lashes Lengthening Mascara, which I believe is relatively new on the market. There seems to be very little written on the internet about this mascara and the little that I could find was in Polish. So, I've decided to share my thoughts on this mascara.....in English.

Product

Name: GOSH Intense Lashes Lengthening Mascara (Black)
Colour choice: Available only in black
Volume and Price: 12ml / 0.4 fl oz for €9.99

Physical description
Glossy black and red tube with red lettering. The mascara brush is made of red nylon.


According to GOSH (excerpts)
The revolutionary new, red nylon brush provides fabulous and easy application. This nurturing mascara is also rich in B5 pro-vitamin and features a softening, natural wax that gives your lashes added vitality, strength and suppleness.

· Extreme length
· Added intensity and definition of your lashes
· The nylon brush separates the lashes and provides a beautiful, even application
· Nurturing effect (pro-vitamin B5 and natural wax)
· Gives extraordinarily long lashes
· No perfume and parabens

My thoughts
Packaging:
The tube looks very sleek with the play of glossy black and eye-catching red. The screw-on top a.k.a. the brush handle is pinched in at the waist which allows for a secure grip during application.

Applicator:
The wand is neither too stiff nor too flexible, which suits me fine. The brush looks pretty standard with a tapered end. I had no problems getting to the inner and outer corners of my eyes. The brush did a good job of separating my lashes with no mess and I could easily get to the roots of my lashes.

Mascara:
The formula has a thick-ish consistency.

I always catch a whiff of a chemical scent while applying the mascara. I had never noticed the smell of other mascaras before during application, not unless I deliberately hold the mascara to my nose! The smell is very faint, so it’s not such a big issue.

This mascara does well in giving lovely long fluttery lashes and it's not too bad with volumising. I’ve been using this mascara for the last three weeks. There was no clumping in the first two and a half weeks when the mascara was new but it’s now starting to show signs of slight clumping. I haven’t experienced any smudging.

I gave it a durability test last Saturday. I had it on for the whole day when I was mostly outdoors and after 14 hours, it still hadn’t smudged or flaked! I was impressed as this isn’t even a waterproof mascara. However, I felt that my lashes, while still having the length, had lost most of the curl in the course of the day.

Conclusion
GOSH has delivered on its promise. True to its name, it is indeed a lengthening mascara. For the price, it’s a pretty decent mascara and I like it that it’s long-lasting with no smudging. However, someone like me with stick-straight lashes would need more than just a lengthening mascara to save the day. So, I would say that the GOSH Intense Lashes Lengthening Mascara would work very well for those lucky ones already blessed with naturally curly lashes.

Lipstick: Lashed By The Mascara

I remember mentioning in my inaugural post that I went from owning zero mascaras about a year ago to having six mascaras this year. That was back in June and I didn't take into account my clear mascara. Well, I’ve gleefully added one more to my precious collection this week.

GOSH Cosmetics is currently having a promotion here in the Netherlands that’s gotten the Dutch beauty blogging community buzzing with excitement. You see, for these two weeks, GOSH has teamed up with a major Dutch drugstore chain called Kruidvat (pronounced krowd-vaat) to offer one free GOSH mascara of your choice (full-size, I might add) in exchange for your old mascara! Isn’t that a fantastic deal? Tuesday was the first day of the promotion and I didn’t waste any time because I knew such promotions always receive overwhelming response.

So, there I was in the store with my half-used and long-abandoned Collection2000 clear mascara that I bought in the UK way back in 2005 (eeek!!). Clear mascaras.....who needs them? Thank goodness I hadn’t thrown it away! It was quite a task deciding which mascara to get because GOSH has numerous types! The evening before, I had tried looking up on the internet for reviews on GOSH mascaras but there were so few of them! Anyway, I ended up choosing the one pictured in the promo brochure, with its sassy red and black tube. In Kruidvat's press release, it was mentioned that this mascara exchange promotion was to promote GOSH's new mascara, which is the Intense Lashes - Lengthening Mascara, the one I chose. At the counter, I passed my Collection2000 mascara to the young sales assistant. She had obviously never seen a clear mascara product before and I couldn’t blame her! She looked at the tube and said, “But this is a lipgloss.” I promptly replied and pointed at the wordings on the tube, “No, it’s not. It’s a ‘No Colour Mascara’. See?” “Oh!” she said.

And that was how I came to own my seventh mascara.

Since the whole range of GOSH cosmetics was on sale, I decided to buy me some other makeup items as well. My first GOSH purchase, I confess. I’m so excited!

I thought I should also mention that in April this year, the same drugstore had another mascara-related promotion. This time, it was with Rimmel mascaras. All you had to do was buy two of the listed promo products to get a free full-size Rimmel mascara of your choice! It was quite funny because the listed promo products were totally unrelated to makeup, for example, dishing-washing tablets, stain removing washing liquid and fabric softeners. That was all right. I got my first Rimmel Sexy Curves mascara and that was all that mattered.

It is indeed interesting to note that for this year alone, there have been two promotions offering free mascaras. Why mascaras? Why not lipsticks or eyeliners? I was suddenly reminded of a news article that I had read many months ago about the correlation between mascaras and economic health.

In December 2008, there was an item in the Wall Street Journal about sales of mascaras bucking the trend in the economic downturn. Perhaps you had read it too in your local papers. According to the article, in a research conducted in the US by NPD Group, mascara sales rose 4% in the month of October that year despite a general decline in sales of makeup. The study found that mascara is the most used makeup item among American women with about half of them using it at least once a day. The contrast in the proportion of women who use mascara and those who use lipsticks was also noteworthy. 83% of the women questioned use mascara as opposed to 64% who use lipsticks.

So whatever happened to the Lipstick Index once proposed by Leonard Lauder of Estée Lauder in 2001?

Note: Gail of oogle makeup wrote an excellent intellectual piece not too long ago about makeup shopping behaviour. In it, she also made a mention of the Lipstick Index, critically questioning its existence. Have a read!

According to the Lipstick Index theory, there is an inverse correlation between sales of lipsticks and the economic climate. Women would stay clear of luxury items but were willing to spend money buying lipsticks in times of recession, like in the Great Depression, the 1990s and after 9/11 (the autumn of that year saw an increase of 11% in the sales of lipsticks in the US). Lipsticks were seen as an affordable luxury to stay attractive. Maximum impact with minimum spending. However, this theory has lost credibility over the years as other research studies have found inconsistencies in it and even no correlation between the two variables. Is mascara then the new lipstick?

There was an article in a Dutch daily, De Pers, in April this year that supports the popularity of mascara. The article stated that according to a research conducted in the Netherlands by Nielsen, sales of mascara rose 12% (and foundations a credible 10%) in the first three months of this year compared to the same period in 2008, back when 'credit crunch' wasn't a catch-phrase yet. Sales of lipsticks, on the other hand, fell 7%. It was, it seems, the only makeup item whose sales dipped.

In an article in another newspaper, De Telegraaf, earlier this month, a spokesperson for the Dutch Cosmetics Association (NCV) said that the popularity of lipsticks has been declining over the years. It is the mascara that creates the buzz these days with innovations in the brushes – materials used, the shape, oscillating – and in the mascara itself – collagen-infused, volume-boosting, curling, lifting, lengthening, you name it. These days, mascaras are the driving force in the makeup market in general. When a new mascara is launched, you gotta have it!

So, I suspect this was the motivation behind the earlier-mentioned free mascara promotions. Women. Cannot. Resist. Mascaras. Update: Checking the Dutch blogs and forums, it seems that many Kruidvat stores have already run out of GOSH mascaras! Those ladies who haven't got their hands on a GOSH mascara have resorted to writing in forums desperately asking if anyone knows which Kruidvat store still has stock! GOSH Cosmetics must be enjoying monitoring all this.

Anyway, I do wonder about the so-called decline in the popularity of lipsticks and its fate. Firstly, it isn't really that women are totally ditching lip beauty. There are after all many other lip products as alternatives - lip balms, lip stains, lip pencils and especially lip glosses. Glossy, juicy lips have been in in recent years, so surely the rise in the popularity of lip glosses has helped compensate for the fall in the demand for lipsticks (Lipgloss Index perhaps, Mr Lauder?). Secondly, the studies mentioned above were carried out this past year. This period does especially coincide with the nude lips trend where emphasis has been on the eyes and less on the lips. Well, aren’t we now seeing colour back on the lips on the runways?

I hope we will herald the return of lipsticks with pomp. It deserves better. While I find the mascara an absolutely fascinating tool, I still love the old-fashioned unabashed poise of the lipstick, whatever the colour. What about you?