BeautyCounter Samples + Review

Hello friends!
I always love trying out different products and sharing my thoughts with you guys.

   So a while back I received an email from a lovely lady named Katie who helps to promote and sell BeautyCounter products. She offered to send me some samples to test out and even invited me to a Facebook group to give me the opportunity to join she and other wonderful people in selling these products. I'll actually leave her discount code at the bottom of this post. The start-up cost is pretty standard to start selling, but for a college student, it's a bit over my budget to join so soon. However, I'd love to become a part of this some other time, because I really do appreciate the focus and mission of this brand.
    Their mission is essentially to sell healthy, environmentally-friendly makeup products. They're a brand who is not ashamed to let their ingredients be known because it all is safe to use. They've banned numerous harmful ingredients from their products to promote safer, healthier alternatives in beauty. You can see what they've banned by clicking here. You can also learn more about their mission by clicking here, because it really is incredible!

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   So after being delivered some samples, I was so excited to try everything out. I was only given two types of makeup, and the rest was skincare (which, if you guys read my blog enough, you may know that I absolutely love skincare products). So without further a do, I'll go ahead and give you all the breakdown of products that I received in an honest and exciting review. Side note: You may notice that I compare these products to e.l.f. products a bit. That's only because e.l.f. is probably the makeup brand that I use the most, the one that I'm most familiar with. So I'm definitely not trying to knock down either brand, I'm just comparing a new product to one that I've used in the past.
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Lip Sheer in "Petal"

   As fall has been approaching (and it's finally here, friends!!), I've been dabbling in lip colors again. So I was excited to give this one a try. Something that matters a lot to me, besides the look and feel, with lip products is the taste and smell. If it smells or tastes too cosmetic-y/chemically. Then that's a huge turnoff for me. I was already confident that this product would not be too chemically because, as I mentioned, they banned hundreds of chemicals from being used in their products. Overall, I thought that this lip sheer smells really amazing, sort of sweet (just like e.l.f. brand lipsticks do!). The tint itself was a very subtle pink, but it was still a cute product. It's similar to a lip gloss, so I can't imagine it would stay for too long, but it's certainly nice to add on to a lippy of any sort. Bonus, they added a little lip brush for me to use!

Tint Skin Complexion Coverage Foundation

   So the foundation came packaged in a group of four since, of course, Katie didn't know my exact skin tone through emails, so this pack was perfect for swatching. I ended up swatching all of them to test consistency and coverage. The four shades in the particular pack she sent to me, from lightest to darkest, were porcelain, linen, sand, and honey. They're all swatched on my decently-flawed arm (which, if you don't know why it's so flawed, you can read my post here) in that same order.  The coverage was not very strong, unfortunately. Also from swatching them, I can tell you that the smell of it was not my favorite. It actually is also very similar to the e.l.f. foundation's smell (e.l.f. foundation is probably the only e.l.f. product that I don't like, interestingly enough). So this was not my favorite product from the bunch. The consistency was pretty runny, but a little drop is easy to blend. It's just a bit too oily and liquidy for my preference. A positive is that, among just these four shades, you can see a difference in all of them. porcelain was definitely the best shade for my face (although I'm photographed with linen on my face), and the linen, as you can see below, matched my arm best. Unfortunately, the smell and consistency was a turn off of this product for me.

SPF 30 Sunscreen

   I didn't think I could say too much about this product. It's sunscreen! But it definitely smells amazing (sort of citrus-y, in fact) and it's really smooth on the skin. It almost feels like a moisturizer. Also, I like how it makes my skin look. It almost adds a nice radiant glow to my arms, kind of like a highlight.

Balancing Mask

   Okay, I've used my fair share of masks. But this one might be one of my favorites, now. It's quick-drying, pore-diminishing, and non-irritating on my incredibly sensitive skin! It also smells kind of minty or chocolate-y. I couldn't pinpoint it, but it smelled amazing. The instructions were to leave it on for ten minutes and rinse off, but it dried in maybe 5. I could also tell it was getting in my pores, particularly around my nose, because I could see a spotting in the mask around there. When I rinsed it off, my skin felt amazingly soft and fresh. Don't mind my crazy face below, by the way. I was just feeling hyped up from using the product. Also, I'm awful at applying masks neatly. So there's that.

Nourishing Skincare Line

   There were a few different products that were included in this bunch. These products included a cream cleanser, a cream exfoliator, an eye cream, a day cream, and a night cream. I'll individually talk about each item.

Cleanser: It didn't lather like I had expected, but it still did the job and left my face feeling clean!
Exfoliator: Smelled citrus-y, similar to the sunscreen. It still had a nice, not-too-overwhelming grit and worked really well, in my opinion.
Night cream: It was pretty thick but still moisturizing. It also had a very neutral scent to it.
Day cream: This is a bit lighter than the night cream, but is also has a similar scent.
Eye cream: Had a similar consistency as the night cream. A little goes a long way with this one.

Thank you guys so much for reading! Definitely do go check out BeautyCounter's website to learn more about what they offer and what their goals are. And thank you, Katie, for sending me samples and informing me of this company! You can use her discount code here:   www.beautycounter.com/katiekane

Keep on grinning!

​Lydia

* This post was not sponsored *