Sally Hasen Smile Brightening Lip Treatment Review

Found this baby in the Dollar Store and couldn't resist for only a buck! A quick Google Product search places it's price range online from anywhere between $1.49 to $7.99 on Amazon! It claims to make your teeth whiter by contrasting it with yellow pigments while hydrating an conditioning lips. It come in a couple shades at the Dollar Store and I had a tough time before settling on Gleaming, a bright pink with a a purplish iridescent shine in the tube.

My thoughts: 
First off the packaging it pretty clunky. It's sturdy, cute and modern with the square shape and the raised circles on 2 sides, but it's a little big and square products never slip easily into pockets or anything. Applicator is the typical doe foot.

 Color payoff it pretty good. It can be applied thinly for sheer shine, or layered a bit for more color without getting thick and gloppy. There's a nice shine and faint sparkle/shimmer to this particular color and it's a nice bright pink (which actually doesn't work so well for me, but still it nice). The texture is good, not thick, not sticky, but just right. 

 What I love the most it the smell/flavor. It's a vanilla mint and it's like an after coffee breath mint. Nice a refreshing without being over powering. I also feel a very, very faint minty tingle like you get with some lip plumpers. I like that feeling but know some don't. I don't notice any plumping but it is moisturizing. The staying power like many glosses isn't too great and it seems to disappear within an hour or two even without eating/drinking, but there's a lot of product in the tube so just reapply. 

 Overall, not bad for a Dollar Store find. Do my teeth look whiter? Not really. Is it really a 'treatment'? Not so much. Would I pay $7 for it? Nah... But was it worth getting for a buck? Sure. So go check your Dollar Trees ladies.

Packaging: 3 of 5 (Pretty but not bulky)

Smell: 5 of 5 (Fresh!)

Color: 3 of 5
Consistency: 4 of 5
Staying Power: 2.5 of 5
Buy again?: For a dollar yea, for 7 no.

N.Y.C. Light Beam Lipgloss

Several months ago my friend got several Rimmel Light Beam After Dark Lipglosses. They're slightly chunky squares with a small mirror on the side and an LED light in the cap that can be turned on but a small button in the cap. While they are a little on the tacky gimmicky side I really liked the idea and thought it would be handy to have one kicking around my purse is soley for the light and mirror. Yes I don't really NEED a light to put lip gloss on, but it could be useful in dark bathrooms and clubs etc. I've been looking (somewhat passively) so them ever since she got them but never manged to find one.

Rimmel Light Beam After Dark Lipgloss $6-8

Enter New York Colors (N.Y.C.). During my idle visit to Wal-Mart Saturday I saw a small display of NYC lipglosses on sale. The N.Y.C. Light Beam Lipgloss looks exactly like the Rimmel version, but only $2.50 instead of $6+. I have no idea what they normally retail at, they aren't even listed on the N.Y.C. site when I looked just now, so I take this to mean they are discontinued? Anyways, for that price I grabbed one, not even expecting much out of the lipgloss itself but just for the sake of having a little emergency light and mirror in my bag. A clear gloss would have been ideal but they didn't have any so I picked up a light pink shade called Runway Lights.

N.Y.C. Light Beam Lipgloss $2.50
Little mirror on the side

Small light power button on cap

With the LED light in the cap on

Small LED light in upper left corner of cap, not on.

Overall the packaging seems a little clunky for me. The square shape is a little thick and squat, but it's lightweight. The lipgloss smells wonderful, like bubble gum! Application is on the sheer side, but still a noticeable shine and a little sparkle without being middle schooly glittery. The consistency is a little sticky but not too thick. It doesn't spread well and it took me a lot of dips back into the bottle to apply a coat all over my lips. Between the tasteyness, texture, and fainter color the staying power is pretty limited, but once again I didn't really buy this for the gloss. Overall I'm happy with it and got exactly what I expected; a fun handy container and some run of the mill gloss.

A very sheer nude color on the lips.

Packaging: 4 of 5
Smell: 5 of 5
Color: 4 of 5
Consistency: 3.5 of 5
Staying Power: 2.5 of 5
Buy again?: For the same price, Yes.

Mini Wal-Mart 'Haul'

I hate to even call this a haul as only I only got 6 items but I really needed something to finally get me started on this blog. I've had the name set aside for a bit but been too busy (ok, lazy) to actually get started on everything I want to do with it. So anyways, it was a boring Saturday and I was online fantasy shopping and racking up some very $expensive$ fantasy shopping cart bills so I needed to get out of the house to distract myself so fantasy online shopping didn't actually turn into real online shopping cause for me that DANGEROUS! There's not much where I live so I hit up my much visited Wal-Mart makeup zone. I've perused it hundreds of times, but I can still always find something I've looked over before. Here's what I ended up with today.



~Paris Presents -'Highlighter' brush (which I plan to use for liquid foundation)
~N.Y.C. - Light Beam (Runway Lights)
~N.Y.C. - Ulta Moist Lipwear (319B Violet Shine)
~N.Y.C. - Ulta Moist Lipwear (301B Cafe)
~Sally Hansen - Xtreme Wear (Blue Me Away!)
~Pure Ice - Nail Emanuel (Cheatin')

I'll review them piece by piece so stop back to check them out!