Maybelline Pure Mineral BB Mousse Review/Swatch/FOTD

Since BB creams were introduced a few years back, it looks like the BB trend is still going strong, and consumers remain eager to snap up more BB-themed products. With that in mind, Maybelline's latest BB-themed product, the Pure Mineral BB Mousse SPF30, is sure to be a hit.

For those not familiar with BB creams, this was the product that started off the whole BB trend. BB creams were Blemish Balms (BB), touted to provide coverage as well as skincare benefits. In practice, a lot of BB creams I've come across are similar to creamy foundations and thick tinted moisturizers, right down to the ingredients (I need to do a post on the ingredients in BB creams sometime, but I'll probably get slammed for it). Hence I've been very skeptical of the "BB" label - like the words "mineral" and "natural", to me it's just marketing spiel to sell products. And as with supposedly "natural" or "mineral" products, the wild claims made by some brands have made me, and other consumers, I'm sure, tired of the whole BB label altogether.

Fortunately Maybelline is smart enough to put a new twist on an old product. The selling point of the Pure Mineral BB Mousse (wow, two marketing keywords here - BB and mineral) is not so much that it's a BB product, although there are some skincare claims made, but rather that it's a mousse. The mousse is supposed to lend a lightweight texture and feel to the product, and is supposed to be easy to apply too. Sounds like a winner, right?

The Pure Mineral BB Mousse is dispensed through a can bottle with a pump top. It can be a bit tricky to control how much product comes out of the pump (there were a couple of times where I wanted a small dollop and I got lots of foam by pressing too hard), but otherwise, this is convenient and sanitary to use.



This is what the Pure Mineral BB Mousse looks like when first dispensed. It's a huge big dollop of foam! Although it's somewhat similar to Shu Uemura UV Under Base Mousse, in that both are foam products, the novelty value on the Pure Mineral BB version is still quite high. I mean, the foam looks fun, right?



I have to admit, when I first saw that foam, I was wondering, how am I supposed to apply this to my face? Do I just smoosh the entire dollop of foam on my face and rub? Do I apply the foam bit by bit to my face? Do I use my fingers? Do I use a brush? Man, using this foam product was harder than I thought! But eventually I found that fingers worked best, and because the foam dries fast, whether you are using a large dollop or a small dollop, it's better to work on your face in sections (e.g. forehead first, then right cheek, left cheek, nose, etc).

Here's a swatch of what the product looks like. It actually dries pretty fast upon application, and dries out to a pretty matte finish, without any shimmer or glitter. It blends out decently with my skin, especially if using a thin layer. Although the product itself is slightly more orangey and darker than my actual NC20 skintone, I found that with a bit of blending, the colour match isn't too bad. Another thing is that because this product dries matte, it does have a tendency to settle into fine lines and creases, and the effect worsens the more product is used (my under eye area didn't look too good with this product). So if you have fine lines, be careful not to pile it on!



To me, the really tricky part of using the Maybelline Pure Mineral BB Mousse was really the application. The mousse itself is pretty blendable, but once it dries, it doesn't really blend very well, so I found it best to work quickly while the mousse was still wet to get an even coat, if not the result could look patchy. But overall, I didn't have any problems with application. I found that the finish was pretty matte, which is to my preference. Here's a shot of me wearing the Maybelline BB Mineral Mousse. As you can ese, it blended into my skin just fine. I was worried the colour match would be off, but it turned out alright.



Weartime on this was also pretty decent. I found that if I perspired alot, some of the mousse on my skin would rub off unevenly, and end up looking patchy, and it's hard to fix the patchiness after that (I mean, what am I supposed to do? Put on more mousse? Cover it up with powder?). But otherwise, if I wasn't running around, I found this quite good, as it stayed on my skin and didn't move or shift. I found that if I set it with a bit of transparent loose powder, the staying power is actually quite impressive. I wore it out for half a day, and by the end of the day, mhy T-zone started looking a little oily, but the other parts of my face were fine.

All in all, I quite like this product, but I wouldn't wear it if I knew I was going to be in for a time where I would be sweating a lot. If you have a lot of fine lines, the Mineral BB Mousse may also settle into them. But if you want a matte finish foundation that has good staying power (as long as you aren't sweating), this is a good bet. The mousse foam is really cute, too, and the novelty factor is really quite fun. I think Maybelline has just found their next big hit!

(Product was sent for review. Review is my complete and honest opinion. I am not affiliated with/compensated by the company.)

Orly Galaxy Girl Dupe: Maybelline Vanishing Venus 350

Orly's Cosmic FX Collection has made waves with its unusual duochrome colours, and one of the colours in the range was Galaxy Girl. It's a deep vampy burgundy red with hints of green shimmer. Unfortunately for Orly, who had hyped up its collection to be unique (and jacked up the price to $10 per bottle along the way), bloggers have been finding dupes for most of the colours in the range for cheaper.

Now the presence of dupes doesn't detract from the awesomeness of the colour, and truth be told, Orly's collection DOES have really killer colours, but for those of us who can't spend US$10 on a polish, having the option of cheaper alternatives is always a draw. Maybelline's Vanishing Venus happens to be a cheap - and pretty good - dupe. Unfortunately, it's also been discontinued for awhile, so if you want it, you'll have to do some hunting around for this somewhat ancient polish.

Here's Vanishing Venus. Isn't it awesome? I know the texture on my middle finger is a bit weird, but that's because there's a teabag wrap on that nail. That, AND I dinged my middle by mistake while the polish was still wet, and I have neither the patience to re-do the nail, nor the image editing skills to edit it out. Oops.



I think it is quite a close dupe for Galaxy Girl, even if it's not 100% identical. It's also a shimmery vampy burgundy red, and it kind of looks like dried blood. (Hehe.) And it also has that awesome green flash, and the same kind of fine shimmer. I love it. It's a gorgeous colour. And that green flash. It sort of reminds me of RBL's Scrangie, only that this one is a blue-green flash in a burgundy red base, instead of a green-blue flash in a blurple (blue-purple) base. Few nail polish colours have this type of shimmer nowadays, so it's pretty cool for Orly and Maybelline to have something like that.

Here's a closer shot of my nails (and of said teabag wrap):



Application for this one was pretty darn good. Maybe it's one of those ancient non-B3F polishes (Big 3 Free meaning free of toluene, formaldehyde, and DBP aka dibutyl phthalate), because it has this really thin yet smooth application that is reminescent of those non-B3F polishes. Which is a good thing - it means it doesn't apply thick and goopy, yet isn't streaky because it's too thin. It applies in nice even but thin layers, and is easily built up for opacity. Of course, I've no way of knowing if this really is B3F or not, but it sure applies like one, and it's probably old enough to be one as well, which might be an issue for some users who may want to avoid non B3F polishes.

Anyway, this colour is gorgeous. If you don't mind potentially running the risk of using a non-B3F polish, I'd recommend this. If you do mind the fact that it might possibly contain one or more of the "Big 3", then the Orly option might be a safer (if more expensive) bet.

NOTD: Maybelline Banana Puddin': Pretty, but a PITA

I have a complicated relationship with yellow nail polish. I like how it looks like on others, but I've been too scared to actually try it out on myself. So everytime I consider picking yellow as a mani colour, my brain goes through this thought process: Wear yellow - Don't wear yellow - Wear yellow - Don't wear yellow - etc ad infinitum. Yeah as you can tell, I'm a deep thinker. :P

I decided to finally suck up the courage to actually try out a yellow, because I figured if I hated it on me, I need never look back, and I can finally stop vacillating over whether I should wear yellow or not. So I picked out a pastel yellow that didn't have too many warm tones in it - I figure it would ease me into the yellow shock I might have. And after scouring around, I found Maybelline Banana Puddin'.

Here is Banana Puddin' on me, taken outdoors in natural light. I actually think it's as pretty as pastel yellow can get, although it's definitely not everyone's cup of tea (I'm still trying to decide if it's mine or not):



Banana Puddin' is a colour that has long been discontinued (thanks, Maybelline), and apparently it's a HTF (hard to find) colour, and a pretty coveted one at that. Apparently it's desirability stems from the fact that it's a wearable yellow for cooler skintones. Warmer yellows can often make cooler skintones appear very ruddy and red, giving a "lobster hands" effect, but unfortunately most yellows are warm, so a cool yellow is hard to find.

I do think Banana Puddin' is wearable enough for cooler skintones. Of course it's still not going to be a colour everyone will like, but if you are going to wear yellow, this is probably one of the more wearable ones around. It's also a soft pastel yellow, as opposed to neon highlighter yellow, so it doesn't draw too much attention to itself. It's a good start if you're going to be trying yellow for the first time.



Here it is in indoor lights. You can see it's more yellow indoors.

While it's a pretty yellow, it was a total PITA to apply. Yellows in general do tend to be hard to apply though, so it was no surprise to me. Still, it's a pain when you're doing your mani, because it was sheer and streaky. These pictures show 4 coats. Yes, FOUR FREAKING COATS. If you are skilled and apply thicker coats that are even, you might get away with three, but I suspect most people are going to use four. I dinged my mani so many times while waiting for it to dry, because four not-that-thin coats is obviously going to dry slowly.

Unfortunately, my attempt to finally decide whether I liked yellow or not wasn't very successful, as even after trying Banana Puddin', I still feel ambivalent about yellow. I don't know how I feel about it, and the lousy application isn't helping. What do you think? Would you wear yellow?