So I completely put off writing this review for 3 months. Sometimes when I get a product that I was really looking forward to, I can’t wait to review it. This time, however, I was so disappointed and I felt like I wanted to make sure this cream had the fairest hearing it possibly could before I reviewed it.
On that note, I’m going to keep this fairly short and sweet.
1. It didn’t moisturize. For a night cream that’s pretty fatal.
2. It didn’t improve my skin. It was supposed to tighten and tone skin but I found it did nothing. Bee venom usually tingles on the skin; this did nothing.
3. It didn’t have a great texture. It was just too thick, it was more like a near-solidified jelly and it sat on my face like a layer of tile grout or spackle.
Given those three points I decided to stop using it in favor of some of the other creams I’ve been trying on my face lately, such as the Olay Regenerist 3 Point Cream, the Elemis Pro-Collagen Marine Cream, the Manuka Doctor Replenishing Facial Oil, and I’ve even had better results with the bog-standard Aloe Vera Gel from the pharmacy (I can’t remember if I’ve said but this stuff is like plant botox). If I had to rank the Manuka Doctor Api-Nourish Night Cream (with purified bee venom) against all those other creams, it would be at the bottom of the list. I’m not even going to Amazon link it because (and I don’t think I’ve ever said this about a product in the 2 years I’ve had a beauty blog) it was a complete waste of money and didn’t do what they said it would do. Maybe I got a dud, but when cream is £29.99 for a jar, they shouldn’t be making duds.
Don’t you just love discoveries? The perfect face cream was right in front of me this entire time, and I didn’t know it! I am so in love with the Olay Regenerist 3 Point Cream (the day cream) that reviewing it has been really hard! I don’t know how to talk about this cream without just raving about everything I love about it.
Olay 3 Point Regenerist Day Cream.
Consistency: Thick but not too thick, and still easily spreadable. I lightly run my finger over the surface of the cream and gently rub a small amount onto my face. Scooping it out and plastering it on would be a bad idea!
Scent: It is perfumed, but it’s a pleasant scent that doesn’t overwhelm you or irritate skin, and once the cream is absorbed, the scent disappears. When I have a cold, the scent doesn’t irritate my sinuses.
Effects: Firstly, it obviously moisturizes skin. My skin is usually normal-to-dry, and I find that a layer of this cream makes my skin look less dry. Secondly, it plumps out expression lines aka fine lines. I don’t know what it does on deeper lines or full blown wrinkles because I don’t have any to test it on. I like that it also seems to help with the redness I get between my brows, and I would say that it does seem to give me a more even-toned complexion when I wear it. Another effect of this cream, which I’ve mentioned before, is that it helps get rid of blue under-eye circles (I don’t think they intended this use for this cream, but it’s a life-changer), and I discovered recently that it also works well on brown under-eye circles (I’ve got some other fixes for those, so I’ll write an article about that soon). I’ve been using it under my eyes for about 18 months but I hadn’t really used it on the rest of my face much until I ran out of Sanctuary Spa Covent Garden cream and now I’ve been using the Olay regenerist 3 Point cream regularly on my face and neck, I have so much love for this cream! There was an instant anti-ageing effect, and it took about a week for my skin to start showing noticeable results. When I stopped using it for a week, my skin looked tired again.
Feel: It doesn’t sting my skin, but I use it sparingly because it’s quite potent stuff. It makes my face feel fresh.
Compared to other Olay products: I’ve had some bad experiences with some of Olay’s other creams, with their Beauty Fluid being about as ineffective as not wearing face cream, and I was a little hesitant the first time I bought this, but from the first use I really liked it and will keep buying it. I buy mine from Amazon, and it always arrives in a plastic-wrapped sealed box, with an outer lid and an inner lid for the jar of cream.
Olay 3 Point Regenerist Cream consistency.
Compared to other face creams: It was a bit like the Sanctuary Spa Covent Garden Active Reverse Day Cream, except the Olay 3 Point Regenerist doesn’t have any SPF. This is the biggest problem with the Olay 3 Point Regenerist, and for this reason I use it with the ROC spray on sunscreen, which I will review separately, but it’s not the ideal solution. UV damage can cause all sorts of beauty problems and I like to keep my skin protected even in the Miserable North of England where I’ve been stranded for a few years.
It was thicker than the Elemis Pro-Collagen Marine cream and I thought the Olay 3 Point Regenerist was better than the Elemis Pro-Collagen Marine Cream in a couple of ways. Firstly, it makes my skin feel more moisturized. Second, it makes my skin look better overall.
It wasn’t as thick as the Manuka Doctor Api Nourish Night Cream, and I liked the thinner Olay 3 Point Regenerist better because it glides on easily and doesn’t need to be teamed with an oil or similar to keep my skin hydrated.
Science: The Olay 3 Point Regenerist cream is a peptide cream that contains pentapeptide (matrixyl). This increases collagen production in the skin and thickens skin, helping to plump out lines and eliminate veins and blue circles. When used with an exfoliant (such as glycolic acid, which dissolves dead skin cells and increases cell turnover in the skin) the effects are even better.
The bottom line is, this is my favorite face cream, and definitely replaces the Sanctuary Spa Covent Garden cream I was previously using. The only thing I don’t like about it is the lack of any SPF. You can get it here on Amazon.com
Have you tried Olay Regenerist 3 Point? What did you think of it?
I wasn’t supposed to buy the Too Faced Naturals Pallette. I didn’t plan on buying this and yet I couldn’t leave without it because the moment I saw it, I fell in love with the amazing colors in this pallette.
Too Faced Natural Eyes Pallette
Price: £32.50. I got it from: Too Faced counter, Debenhams, Oxford Street, London. What you get: Nine eyeshadow colors, including 3 matte shades and 6 highly pigmented shimmering sparkling shades. They are presented in a metal tin with an extensive leaflet detailing how you could use these colors.
Too Faced Natural Eyes Pallette
The reason I bought this eyeshadow pallette was because I adore neutral shades, and I especially love shimmering neutrals (my go-to eye makeup before I got this Too Faced pallette was a blend of the Laura Mercier Baked Eyeshadow in Ballerina and the Bourjois Eye Shimmer Pot in 07 Ambre, both over the top of the Laura Mercier mono eyeshadow in ginger). It’s nice to have more sparkling shades to get a more dramatic eye look for those times when I want my make-up to show up on camera.
Those colors… sooo good!
What do they look like?
I swatched them on my arm and photographed them, and the only editing I’ve done to that was to write the color names under the swatches, because as everyone knows I hate using photoshop and have to look up tutorials on YouTube every single time I need to do any image manipulation! As you can see in the second set of swatches, a couple of the colors aren’t very visible in the camera although IRL they were a little bit more obvious. I fiddled with my camera settings a lot but those colors just wouldn’t show very well. That’s worth bearing in mind for any events where you might want to look photogenic!
Too Faced Natural Eyes Pallette SwatchesToo Faced Natural Eyes Pallette Swatches. Heaven is the whitish one; Silk Teddy hasn’t really shown up (I took like a million pictures so oh well).
How do they wear?
I’ve only used these eyeshadows twice so far, but both times I really liked the way they came out, the blendability was a complete joy and the color went on creamy-soft, color payoff was maximum! I used the Urban Decay eyeshadow primer under the colors and I feel this gave a lovely blank canvas to make these colors come out beautifully. Next time I use this pallette I will get photos.
What do you think? Do you have any of the Too Faced Pallettes? Which is your favorite? Let me know in the comments!
I am SO late to the party with this it’s unbelievable! What can I say? I live in a miserable backwater in the North whose only make-up counters are the ones aimed at the landed gentry, usually of the over-60s variety!
While I was in London before Christmas, I was SO EXCITED to pick up this eyeshadow primer! It’s been on my wish list for 3 actual YEARS.
Urban Decay Eyeshadow Primer Potion in Original
What can I say about it? It comes in a purple tube that’s shiny with an applicator in the lid, yada yada… I got the large tube because a small one was £10.50 but the large was £16 which was twice the amount of product and I foresee myself using this a LOT and not being able to buy more for possibly 3 more years (actually, it depends where I emigrate to, but Ireland’s not known for its availability of make-up brands, and neither is New Zealand). Having said that, I’ve seen it for sale on US Amazon for a reasonable price (it’s disgracefully expensive on UK Amazon), so now that I know I like it, I will probably just get it off there after I emigrate to wherever I end up going, because aside from delivery to the UK, Amazon.com tends to be pretty good at international delivery.
I got the original; I didn’t ask the counter assistant what the difference was because I got this a few days before Christmas and the stores were literally heaving, and I was all like, “gimme makeups” like some sort of chemically deficient crack whore that needed a hit. If you’re wondering about getting into make-up, be warned that this will happen to you despite your best intentions at moderation and temperance! Joking aside though, the assistants were rushed off their feet and I didn’t want to waste their time and add to their stress by asking inane questions about products, so I just went with original since I was fairly sure I’d be happy with any. …And I am SO happy with this product! If you’re uncertain which version to get, go with the original purple one!
Urban Decay Eyeshadow Primer Potion glides on the eye easily, turning pretty much invisible once it’s on, and it also does the following things that I liked:
It makes the eyeshadow colors stand out more.
It makes the eyeshadow colors blend more easily.
It makes the eyeshadow colors MUCH easier to remove at night with less crappy residue under my eyes after using my micellar water.
It makes my eye area look fresh and vital.
I don’t know how it does all this, probably some sort of mysterious voodoo magic or something, but whatever it is, I am in LOVE with this product. It was always going to be a gamble, getting a product that I’d wanted for so long, but in this case, it DEFINITELY lived up to all my expectations.
I’ve seen a lot of people claiming that the MAC Pro-Longwear Paint Pots are a better base for eyeshadow, but having used those in the past, I could not disagree more. The Urban Decay eyeshadow primer potion is much kinder to the eye area and looks way better under eyeshadow, and it gives better blendability too.
Thank-you, Urban Decay, for making the most fabulous eyeshadow primer ever!
