In the last few months I've been busy receiving packages. I love the thrill of hearing the doorbell ring, jumping up from my seat and welcoming the postman with a grin bordering on insane. :-D (I swear, it's only those few bucks I give him every once in a while that convince him to still approach our door. He would have fled ages ago otherwise...) And then, I like to dance around my pretty little package before opening it and dancing a bit more.

Today I got my Moleskine 18 month weekly planner, so that was reason enough for me to be cheerful all day. (Will review this one too. Until then, read about my Moleskine Plain Notebook here.)

Another package, namely my Pure Luxe sample package, arrived about a month ago, and since Grayburn was interested in reading about Pure Luxe's Eraser, I decided to review that and their Silk Dust first. (The latter one because I've been planning to hiss at Everyday Minerals for their stinky version of silk dust for a while now.)




Let me start my saying that I have pretty oily skin. Let me also tell you that ever since I started using Everyday Minerals' eye-shadows, I haven't been able to make them stay on longer than a few hours. I must admit, finding that my carefully applied make-up had once again sat into my creases and was reading a good book on how to annoy human beings made me pretty surly towards Everyday Minerals for a while.

Enter Pure Luxe's Eraser, and I soon found every single micronized particle of my eye-shadow stand at attention, laziness forgotten and ready to rock. :-)

If you look at the picture of the Eraser on Pure Luxe's website, you will get a pretty good, but unfortunately inaccurate idea of what it is like. Instead of being opaque, pigmented and beige, it's a thick, orange, unscented, semi-transparent gel which, when applied to one's face sparingly, becomes completely transparent and practically glides onto the skin. (See my pictures above for reference!)

It's very easy to work with, spreads really easily and dries down into a velvety finish after about 30 seconds or so. Once it's dry, it optically smoothes out your face and gets rid of fine wrinkles around eyes. (At least, it got rid of mine, but hey, I'm only 25 and should still be relatively wrinkle-free.) The Eraser is no miracle product, however, that will magically erase all your wrinkles: consider it's wrinkle-hiding properties a bonus, and don't expect to see... well, a miracle.

What Pure Luxe's Eraser does perfectly, however, is prime your skin so that make-up can stay put on it for much longer than on bare skin. For me, "much longer" means an entire day (at least 16 hours) without my make-up sliding off my face or my eye-shadow going on vacation, and as I said, my skin is very oily. (I wash my face in the morning, apply every mattifying product under the sun, and two hours later I look as if someone had pushed a slice of buttered bread into my face...) Unfortunately, it does all this without actually keeping my face oil-free (another high hope going to the drain...), so you might want to hold on to your mattifying products at least until you try it.

It is also capable of enhancing your make-up, like it did with my eye-shadows: they are much more vibrant, colorful and sparkly when applied on top of Pure Luxe's Eraser. By ordering a sample you get a fairly decent amount of product (perhaps not in the "Everyday Minerals sample" range, but close), so if you only use this on your lids like I do, it'll last you at least a month with using it every day. You really don't need much: for one eye-lid I use about the size of 1/6th of an average green-pea.

Prices:

Sample: 1/4 teaspoon in a sample jar = 2.5 $
5 ml airtight jar = 8 $
10 ml airtight jar = 16 $


Thank heavens I plucked up my courage and ordered Pure Luxe's Silk Dust! After a disastrous encounter with Everyday Minerals' Silk Dust (or more like Stink Dust...), I was afraid I'd never be able to try silk on my face.

You see, the first time I applied EDM's Silk Dust on my face, I did it with a wet brush. Almost seconds after application, I began to smell something very akin to the disgusting smell that lingers around public toilet facilities in the subways of Budapest. For a while I thought it was something seeping in through the open window, but after a while it dawned upon me that it was I who smelled this way. Pretty soon it also became obvious that the only new addition to my routine was EDM's Silk Dust, and after I washed it off, I put a tiny amount into the palm of my hand which immediately mixed with the natural moisture content of my skin and produced the same stinky smell.

Into the bin it went, along with all the paper tissues I used up while mourning something that could have been a great product otherwise and maybe a solution to my oily skin problem.

It seems I'm not the only one who had this experience with EDM's Silk Dust. I've found a few reviewers on Makeup Alley who were complaining about the same thing. Maybe it was just a bad batch, or maybe we have strange noses, but one thing is sure: I'll never buy silk dust from Everyday Minerals again, and I strongly encourage you to try that of Pure Luxe instead.




When it comes to the way these silk powders perform, I can only tell you about the one Pure Luxe makes, as that of EDM didn't stay on my face long enough for me to test it.

Because I have olive skin, it's very important for me that a product like this remain translucent and invisible on my skin, otherwise it'll turn my complexion beige, which is something I try to avoid at all cost. (Hey, I love my olive skintone and prefer not to look like a ghost!) Well, Pure Luxe's Silk Dust is easy to work into my skin and doesn't leave a whitish cast, provided I don't overload my brush and that I apply it layer-by-layer. Check out picture below!




When it comes to actually mattifying my skin and controlling oil... Well, I've already told you about my oily skin a bit earlier (I guess if my skin had a pet name, it would be "Buttercup"...), and my futile attempts at making it behave, and yes, this one's been a disappointment too. Maybe, just maybe, it does make my skin matte an hour longer, but that's it. Nothing special, nothing to rave about here.

Still, I like to put on a thin layer under my make-up, as silk has an antibacterial property, which is always welcome by me, but a little less so by my zits...

I haven't noticed any graininess with either of these products, but if I had to vote on which one is smoother, I'd say Pure Luxe's Silk Dust is more finely milled.

So. Does anyone have any suggestions on how to make skin that likes to run amok chill out a bit and lay low? If you have, you're more than welcome to share the secret. ;-) Also, tell me if you've tried these products, and let us know how you liked them.

Cheers!
Izar