Sparkled Beauty

It always excites me when I come to learn more about Canadian brands, as you have seen quite often on this blog. When I was contacted by Elizabeth Grant to try out one of their products, I was really stoked.

Introducing Elizabeth Grant's The Socializer, one of the best sellers of the brand.

If you haven't heard, it is called the AM and PM Under Eye Treatments, including 2 click pens (Bright Lights and Late Nights) in one metallic looking paper tube, 2gr each. What they do: illuminating, dark circle erasing and depuffing actions, all for $40.

According to the site, both products are dermatologist tested, fragrance free and contain Elizabeth Grant's exclusive moisturizing compound "Torricelumn" - a blend of vitamins, minerals and nutrients to restore the skin's elasticity, for a smooth and vibrant skin. Sounds good?

Bright Lights ingredients: Aqua, Glycerin, Caprylic/ Capric Triglyceride, Mica, Polyacrylamide, Aloe Barbadensis Leaf Juice, Allantoin, Ulva Lactuca Extract, Sodium Hyaluronate, etc. Mica is a mineral light diffuser, Oil of Wheat to smooth and brighten, and peptides to reduce the appearance of fine lines.

Late Nights ingredients: Aqua, Glycerin, Caprylic/ Capric Triglyceride, Polyacrylamide, Aloe Barbadensis Leaf Juice, Allantoin, Ulva Lactuca Extract, Sodium Hyaluronate, etc. Ulva Lactuca helps the eye area look awake, peptides reduces the look of fine lines, chamomile sooths, vitamins B and E promote luminosity of the skin.

I like the convenience of the click pens with the brush applicators, but to get them started, you will have to click multiple times. After that, a few clicks are enough for the under eye area. The products are in light-weight lotion form, white in colour but disappear after being massaged in.

Bright Lights is used for the morning after lol, you know, when you wake up from a late night. It's supposed to hydrates, cool, sooth, and depuff. One thing I particularly long for is that it can brighten dark circles, as I hate seeing the grey shadows under my eyes every morning, late night or not.

Late Nights is one step before Bright Lights. You apply it before going to bed, hoping you don't look terrible waking up :)

Both sound wonderful and exactly what I need. Now I don't have many chances to party late, but I love the quietness at night after Squirt is in bed and found myself up late so often when I lose track of time. Always beat myself up about not going to bed earlier, lol.

Now let's see if the products work for me.

This picture is taken after I did my eye makeup, but before foundation. There's only moisturizer on my face, no other eye cream/ concealer. Late Nights was applied to my right eye (the eye on your left) the night before, and then Bright Lights on the same eye in the morning.

Depuffing effect is obvious, right? I like the subtle highlight of it too, and the eye with the products feel lighter and more relaxed. I still can see the dark shadows though, as the lightening effect sure take a bit of time to work.

And this is after foundation, still no concealer. The foundation helps with covering up the shadows a bit, but I admit I still need the extra work of a concealer to hide the "darkness" if I want to. I mean for daily makeup for work, I sometimes skip the concealer. Not good, I know, but time is short sometimes.

I'm braving up showing you a full mug shot, lol. Don't pay much attention to the horrible spots on my forehead. I told you I broke out, didn't I?

This is after I apply Bright Lights to the other eye, added powder to set the foundation, then blush. Just want to show you how the products look with the rest of the face.

All in all, I like the idea of having some emergency on-the-go help with the convenience of click pens, whenever you need it. Bright Lights certainly comes in handy for those mornings that you don't even want to look at yourself in the mirror, and Late Nights is an extra step at night for a not-as-bad look the next morning.

The products are available on Elizabeth Grant website.

Note that the products are not miracles to just erase all the flaws under your eyes but they can help. A good sleep is still the best medicine for your look, when we can manage to have one.

I always stop in for a quick look whenever I'm near a Winners. Sometimes I found some cool stuff for a blog post, sometimes walked out empty handed. My latest trip was a productive one :)

First, elf lip gloss sets. There aren't new at all to Winners' racks, but I found them at clearance. The Hypershine Gloss set was on the top, and the Super Glossy Lip Shine Berry Yummy set was on the bottom, CAD4 each (reg. CAD8.99).

This might sound like regular price to those of you who are in the US, but to us Canadians, Elf doesn't mean $1 a piece lol. Elf did come to Zellers around here, but cost about twice as much what Target offers. Winners has better price but doesn't carry everything elf. We normally opt for online shopping when there is a promo code, but then are hit with shipping. Can't win either way.

As you probably know already, Winners normally has fixed price range for same line of products within a brand. So quite a number of elf brushes (regular line, studio lines and mineral line - the latest) are priced the same or $1-2 different max. For that reason, it would make more sense buying more expensive items at Winners, to get your money worth. Just my 2 cents.

A year or two ago, I was hauling Elizabeth Arden, the Intervene line, like crazy during their BOGO sale, especially when the staff said the company would no longer offer that kind of promo from then on.

Look what I found: a set of Elizabeth Arden Intervene for CAD24.99, with:
- Timefighting Radiance serum (4.5ml)
- Radiance Boosting Moisture cream SPF15 (50ml)
- Anti-Fatigue Eye cream (7ml)
- 3-in-1 Daily Cleanser Exfoliator Primer (30ml).

The Moisture cream is full size, retails CAD68 already, so this set is well worth it. I'm glad I found it. There was another Intervene set with different product combo too, if you are looking.

And last but not least, Elizabeth Grant! Yay, a Canadian brand at Winners. I noticed more local (Canadian) brands there now - Annabelle, Marcelle, and now EG. It is a happy place to be :)

Anyway, I was really excited to see EG products, and knowing Winners' price scheme, I grabbed 3 items, and came home to check on the reg. prices. Here're the deals:
- 24 Hour Eye Smoothing cream - Torricelumn Plus Exclusive (20ml), CAD7.99 (reg. CAD40)
- Collagen Firming Eye Pads - Torricelumn Intensive (6x5gr), CAD7.99 (reg. CAD35)
- Collagen Miracle - Torricelumn Intenstive (30ml), CAD8.99. I can't find the exact product on their site. What they have now is the Collagen Re-Inforce Miracle Concentrate, retails CAD75.

So for the savings, I'm stoked. But I have only tried one product from this brand (review coming soon), can't say for sure I made good product choices. If you have tried any of these EG products before (or any EG products at all), please leave me a comment. For that price range, if there's any must-haves from this brand, I'd want to stock up.