Beauty Archives - Page 7 of 49 - Noire Tropical Beauty

Category: Beauty (page 7 of 49)

The 8 best volumizing mascaras that you must buy now

Everyone loves the look of full, lush lashes! We spend millions of dollars a year buying mascaras or going to the salon to get individual lashes installed. I myself cannot live without mascara and I often have at least two tubes open at any given time. I usually crave the biggest, baddest lashes. The more volume the better. I don’t really care for curling and I like length, but I love volume. So here are my picks for the 8 best volumizing mascaras that you must try. There’s a mix of drugstore and high-end so you are bound to find something that you like.

Best Volumizing Mascara – Tips

When I am picking a mascara, there are a few things that I look for:

The blackest and sootiest of blacks. Because of my dark skin, I love wearing the blackest shade that I can find. I have no time for soft blacks or browns.

Full mascara brush – I really like a traditional mascara brush. Especially if it is on the larger side. I am not a crazy fan of the plastic, comb-style brushes. I love the fullness that they give.

Long wearing – but washable. I don’t want the mascara to flake off, especially after an intense workout. I don’t do waterproof mascaras.

Best Volumizing Mascaras – Video

Best Volumizing Mascaras – The List

Givenchy Phenomen’Eyes Mascara

Givenchy Phenomen’Eyes Mascara

Let me know what is your favourite mascara in the comments.

Laters!

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How to: Witch inspired Halloween makeup using OCC “Hex” Lip Tar

October 31, 2017 / Noire Tropical Beauty / 1 Comment

Halloween. A holiday that I am not crazy about. But I love to see people dressing up in different costumes especially here in New York City, where one of the largest Halloween street parades happens in the Village.

A few weeks ago, I attended the Obsessive Compulsive Cosmetics Fall 2017 launch called “The Season of the Witch”. This is an entire collection inspired by witches, wizardry and it’s very autumnal! The stand out Lip Tar from this collection is called ‘Hex’, a very plummy, reddish-purple with gold and silver microglitter. So pretty and it looks great on dark skin. The collection also contains 5 other Lip Tars, 6 Loose Colour Concentrates and 2 nail lacquers.

“Season of the Witch”. Image via OCC Makeup

Hex Lip Tar by OCC Makeup

Swatches: Left – applied from the wand and allowed to dry. Right: Blotted down with tissue

I really wanted to incorporate Hex into a look and decided that this would be great as inspiration for a Halloween look. This is my ‘not dressing up, but still wearing makeup’ Halloween makeup tutorial. Of course you wear this with your costume, to a party, trick-or-treating or anytime you are looking for a twist on a smoky eye.

Here’s the look I came up with.

Halloween Makeup Tutorial – Pics

And here’s the video tutorial

5 simple tips for Transitioning to Natural Hair from Relaxed

October 27, 2017 / Noire Tropical Beauty / 0 Comments

Transitioning to natural hair. It is probably one of the most discussed topics in the natural hair community. Everyone has a story. So do I. So I want to quickly discuss 5 tips for transitioning to natural hair.

But first, really quick, my natural hair story.

I was natural for most of my childhood and teenage years. My parents always made sure that my siblings and I were proud of who we were, including our skin and hair. I wore a lot of canerowed (cornrowed) styles in school and when I was about 17, I wanted to do something different. I started relaxing my hair and experimenting with colour. After being totally done with the smell of relaxers, I decided in 2008 to transition to natural hair. I had no idea what to expect, or what I was doing. I also did a lot of research and experimentation into what products made my hair happy.

So here are 5 tips that I always tell people when they ask me about transitioning. These tips help me through my journey and I hope they help you too!

Let me know what are your transitioning tips!

Transitioning to Natural Hair – Video

Transitioning to Natural Hair – Transition pics!

Me with relaxed hair!

Is the Fenty Beauty foundation a game changer for people of color?

October 13, 2017 / Noire Tropical Beauty / 2 Comments

The brand that shook up the beauty world! Fenty Beauty By Rihanna. I have been in the beauty game for a long time. I have been obsessed with beauty products for an even longer time. There were times that I spent all day online refreshing the comments on my favourite makeup forums waiting for the latest leaked news on upcoming collections. I don’t think I remember this much hype and this much excitement and this much anticipation for the release of a new beauty line or product. But Rihanna’s new entry into the beauty game garnered just that. Particularly amongst women of colour. Once the promo images started coming in and word came out that the initial launch will include 40 shades of Fenty Beauty foundation, myself and pretty much every medium to dark skin women of colour started saving our pennies. People with noticeable amounts of melanin still continue to struggle to find a sufficient variety of options when it comes to foundations. And I have heard all the excuses, none of them acceptable.

This a long post, and I have a lot to say. If you want to skip to different sections, use the links below:

Background information on Fenty Beauty, click here
Tips on buying the Fenty Beauty Pro Filt’r Soft Matte Longwear Foundation, click here
Fenty Beauty Foundation – Video – click here
Fenty Beauty Review – click here

Fenty Beauty launched on September 9th in the US and 17 other countries. It is available online and in some stores. There was a massive launch party at the Sephora Times Square in New York at midnight and the Bajan Princess was there! Based on the Instagram live feeds, it was pure bacchanal and chaos! I went to the Sephora a little later in the morning (about 8 am) after the initial crowds died down. Anyone that was in the store was at the Fenty Beauty display. The entire collection is gorgeous and well done. I’m just going to let you know right now that this hype is real. This is a legitimately good quality line. I was so excited and I was excited looking at other dark skin women being excited about makeup.

This is a permanent, complexion collection with the focus being on the skin and enhancing the colour and the glow. It was more recently announced that there will be a limited edition colour release for the holidays – eye shadow palette, lip glosses etc. But the core collection is going to be around.

Top: 490, Middle: 480, Bottom: 470

I picked up two samples of the Fenty Beauty By Rihanna Pro Filt’r Soft Matte Longwear Foundation in shades #470 and 480. The darkest shade is #490. There are a lot of options for medium to deep dark skintones. The South Sudanese/Australian model Duckie is one of the faces of the brand. And the more interesting thing about the shade selection is the inclusion of the subtlities in undertones. Warm, cool, neutral, less red, more blue, less yellow, more green. This makes FB one of the more unique compared to other brands that offer that wide of a range.

Glossier Invisible Shield: Is it really invisible, powerful protection?

October 5, 2017 / Noire Tropical Beauty / 1 Comment

My search for person of colour sunscreens continues. A few months ago, Glossier came out with a new sunscreen that promises to be a game changer. There were ads all over the subway and billboards in New York. The Glossier Invisible Shield Daily Sunscreen SPF 35 is touted as a broad-spectrum sunscreen that goes on invisible on all skin tones. This got my attention. As I have discussed in previous posts and videos, one of my biggest pet peeves with sunscreens available in the US is that they often leave an ashy cast on the skin. This is partially because sunscreens are regulated as drugs (by the FDA) as opposed to just cosmetics. The E.U., Asia (especially South Korea and Japan) and Australia have access to a wider variety of sun-protecting filters. So I paid another visit to the showroom on Lafayette and picked this up, crossing my fingers. And by the way, check out my other Glossier reviews.

Glossier Invisible Shield Review – Video

For those who like the visuals, here’s my video review.

Glossier Invisible Shield Review – General Product Details

The Glossier Invisible Shield is descibed as “a clear watergel formula filled with active microcapsules that instantly absorbed into the skin with no greasy residue and zero white cast”.

It is vegan, cruelty-free, paraben-free and non-comedogenic and suitable for all skintypes and skintones.

The active sunscreen ingredients are: avobenzone, homosalate and octisalate. These are well known and used chemical sunscreen commonly used in the US. It does not contain octinoxate, which I *think* is the ingredient that gives me problems. These filters are contained in microspheres which bust as your rub this onto the skin to release these ingredients.

The other active ingredients are:

Water – yes. Water is a main ingredient and the formula is a thin gel. This makes it great for both dry and oily skin types. Water also helps the product to sink into the skin quickly. Also it contains no alcohol, which is a good solvent but can be drying on the skin.

Antioxidant Complex – These are Vitamin E and P, Broccoli and Aloe Leaf Extracts. These provide extra protection against free radicals and oxidants that are found in the air that we breathe and that surround us. Breaking up the effects of UV radiation also can pass that released energy to oxidants which can contribute to aging and cancers. The antioxidants counteract that.

Fermented Yeast and Vegetal Extracts – Fermented ingredients are very popular in Asian, especially Korean and Japanese, skincare routines for many years, even centuries. These fermented ingredients help form a physical barrier on the skin to block out pollutants.

This product also contains Sweet Orange Oil as a fragrance. It gives it a very fresh, citrus scent. For some people, this may cause irritation to some.