Sephora Play! May 2017

Last night I attended an anniversary event for Sephora Play! and was reminded of three things: How much I still love their beauty subscription service, how I will shamelessly show up time and again for stupid free shit I don’t need (I now have a Sephora laptop bag), and how much I use to enjoy reviewing their boxes on my old blog. Makeup is fun and creative and a hobby of mine, so I’m bringing those reviews back. Monthly recaps, swatches, and product testing will now happen here. Thoughts will be real and unflinchingly honest because I am not a professional beauty blogger that has to kiss the ass of cosmetic corporations who send them free stuff in exchange for flattering reviews. If I hate it, I’ll let you know. If I love it, that’ll be true. And if you see it here, no one's paying me to say it or use it. I'm just a lady with too much free time.

Sephora Play May 2017
Box Variant #264
Play launched in September 2015 where I was lucky enough to be one of the inaugural beta members from Boston. The first few boxes we received were stuffed with shredded crinkle paper which I reused when wrapping everyone’s Christmas presents that year. After realizing that was wasteful and expensive, Sephora transitioned to small cloth bags with ribbon drawstrings. Those were cute and more environmentally friendly (I loved the one black bag, I pack my underwear in it when I travel), but I have a year’s worth of them pilling up and no clue what to do with them all. So I was pretty stocked to see the plastic pouch in this month’s box. It’ll be a great splash-proof beach wallet for my sunscreen and lip balm this summer. Not sure what I’ll do with twelve of them but we’ll cross that bridge next year.

This month’s box theme is "The Rising Stars." It rarely correlates to anything but I’ll note it here just in case it does one day. Also worth mentioning is the info booklet that accompanies the samples. I usually rip the Play Pass off and toss the rest, but this month I actually examined the insert because it looks like the artist Gemma Correll illustrated it. I can't find any info on that because there's no artist credit. >:(

Anyway, reviews below and swatch gallery at the end. Click on small photos to embiggen.

Christophe Robin
Cleansing Purifying Scrub With Sea Salt | $53

Did your hair go on a bender over the weekend, have one too many vodka tonics, and is now chugging green kale smoothies before hitting the gym later to sweat out all the toxins? No? Neither did mine. So it certainly doesn’t need a detox treatment. This is not a thing that needs to exist. This is scraping the barrel for new revenue streams. But here we are, so here’s a review for it. The marketing suggests this hair scrub provides a deep cleanse and soothes sensitive/oily scalps. My scalp is pretty healthy and I don’t use any products aside from hair color, so this is a bit of a non-starter for me. But I tried it anyway in the name of science!

To start, this stuff is super thick. If I didn't know better I'd use it to scrub at hard water stains in my tub. Anyway, I wet my hair in the shower, dug out a tablespoon's worth with my fingers, worked it across my palms (challenging because it's quite stiff), then spread it across my head. It was very hard going for the first 10-15 seconds as I attempted to massage what felt like grout across my scalp and I began to imagine what sort of wigs I'd buy after my hair fell out. But then it suddenly foamed up and my worries subsided. The salt crystals dissolved and I got tons of lather. Which seemed like a good sign until I tried to rinse it all out. The scrub left my strands completely stripped from roots to ends and tangled in knots. I let my hair air-dry after rinsing because it was in too a fragile state to even comb through. The end result: super dry, straw-like hair that feels crispy to the touch. DO NOT WANT. The remainder of the sample went straight into the trash. It's not for me. Your mileage may vary.

SUNDAY RILEY
Ceramic Slip Clay Cleanser | $45

I’m slightly familiar with this brand, having sampled the Good Genes Lactic Acid Treatment on several occasions. That was a good exfoliant, but it costs a hundred freaking dollars, so I filed Sunday Riley under ‘I’ for Insane and left it at that. By comparison, this Ceramic Slip Clay Cleanser is priced reasonably at $45. Product info says this stuff balances oily/combo skin, deep cleans without stripping moisture, and tightens pores. I have normal/slightly dry skin (or “mature” skin, as the Macy’s counter lady once informed me as she patted an anti-aging serum around my eyes), so this is not targeted to my specific needs. If you do have oily/combo skin because you’re still glowing in the peak of youth and your face hasn’t begun the slow process of mummification via collagen loss, this might be just the thing to balance you out. But since it won’t reinvigorate my dried husk, this sample goes into the pile of Things To Gift My Millennial Friends.

Nudestix
Magnetic Matte Lip Color | $24

Beauty brands seem to be really fixated on bringing back that 90's era brown-rose lipstick right now. The latest is from Nudestix, a brand I have never sampled before. Which is quite a feat, as I can spend three hours in Sephora smearing everything onto the backs of my hands out of sheer curiosity. Trying a new line is exciting times indeed. My first foray into their brand is this lip crayon that bills itself as a three-in-one lip stain/color/liner. I’ve never bothered with lip liner but I’m glad I’m still saving time in my routine by continuing to not bother with it. This particular sample has a matte finish and comes in the shade Greystone. It is neither grey nor stone colored. It’s a soft pinky brown. The perfect shade of a butthole. I’m sure it’s flattering on someone somewhere but it looks weird as hell on me. Like I’m walking around with a sepia filter on my face.

Swatch of Nudestix Magnetic Matte Lip Color in Greystone.

On the positive side, Nudestix is super pigmented. The color is deep and rich and one coat is all you need, should you find a shade that’s flattering. And when you do apply it, it’s there until you take it off. This stuff doesn’t budge. No smearing or transferring. The trade off is that it feels a bit tacky and on the dry side. So I’d say if you’re looking for a matte crayon, skip this one and try Bite Beauty matte lip crayons. Bite has a creamier formula that’s comfortable to wear and way more shades to choose from. Or for better nudes try Kat Von D's Everlasting Liquid Lipstick (swatches at the end of this page).

trèStiQue
Highlight & Perfect Multipurpose Stick | $34

Highlighters for me are hit or miss. Most of them are either darker than my skin by a mile or way too yellow-toned, so it’s tricky finding a good match. TrèStiQue’s entry into this category offers up a shade called Maldives. I’m not really sure how champagne pink ties into an archipelago in South Asia but that’s a mystery for another day. What I do know is that the shade is actually good match for my cool-toned pink skin. Unfortunately, it’s almost an exact match, so you can’t really tell it’s there at all. Once you blend it in to soften the edges, it basically disappears. There’s only the faintest suggestion of illumination and you really have to twist your face in the mirror to see it (swatches at the end of this page). If you try to build it up, it gets cakey. And finally, it doesn’t really have staying power. After about six hours the highlight was completely gone. So, if you’re on the cool/fair complexioned side and looking for a noticeable highlight you can wear all day, this isn’t it. My personal fave: Becca’s Shimmering Skin Perfector Pressed Highlighter (in Pearl if you're pale).

Grande Cosmetics
GrandeLIPS Hydrating Lip Plumper | $27

This is one of those tingling lip glosses that supposedly make your lips swell up and look fuller (spoiler: they never do). The packaging for GrandeLIPS plumper claims it will deliver instant plump in 3-5 minutes. It does not. What it appears to do is deliver a good deal of moisture and shine without being sticky. There’s also a slight cooling sensation upon application. It’s not quite as strong as the tingling you’d get with Buxom lip creams or Dior lip plumpers, but it’s worth noting. I didn’t find it irritating or drying to my lips at all. It actually absorbed after two hours and I forgot about it. But there was zero plumping action. Which is perfectly okay. I do not need voluminous, bee-stung Angelina Jo-lips that may be used for a flotation device in the event of a water landing. I’m fine with just a plain ol’ lip gloss as long as it performs well and looks nice. Which this does. GrandeLips Hydrating Lip Plumper seems adequate. It’s neither a knockout product nor a failure. So for me, that puts it firmly in the No Need To Ever Buy This Stuff category.

MAISON MARGIELA ’REPLICA’
Beach Walk | $28-$126

I have approximately three vials of Beach Walk sitting on my dresser at this moment. One of which came in my Sephora Play box last March. So I guess they’re pushing this one real hard. And I get it. It’s a lovely scent. It smells exactly like salty beach air and sunscreen lotion. Summer nostalgia in a bottle. Low projecting, wholly inoffensive, casual and soft. Beach Walk is a precisely calculated crowd pleaser. I actually enjoy wearing it from time to time, but since I have three vials of it with the strong likelihood that Sephora will send me more (or offer freebies in the form of 100-point perks), I’ll never ever run out. So thanks for keeping me in constant supply and saving me lots of money, I guess? (If I ever do run out, I'd consider buying a bottle of this.) Perfume notes for the frag heads: Bergamot, Pink Pepper, Lemon, Ylang Ylang, Coconut Milk, Heliotrope, Musk, Cedarwood, Benzoin.

SWATCH GALLERY