Review: Cibu Curl Care

Disclaimer: A few months back, I received a few samples of Cibu Spring Roll curling hair products. Though I received these products for free, my opinion of them is entirely my own and uninfluenced by any other person or company. I believe in honestly reviewing beauty products and I refuse to give a false review of any product just because it was gifted. That said, onto the review.


I had never heard of Cibu before receiving an email asking if I would be interested in trying out a few products. If you aren't familiar with the brand, Cibu is a line of hair products aimed at "inspiring you to towards your healthiest, most beautiful hair self." Inspired by East Asian botanicals and featuring cute names like "Spring Roll" (for curls), "Dry Kwon Do" (dry shampoo), and "Origumi" (hair paste), each hair product is addressed for specific hair types and needs. Because I have hard to manage curls, I was excited to give the Spring Roll line a shot. It was my hope that the gentle ingredients would help me control frizz and define my curls.


This was what I received in the mail:

Spring Roll Moisture Mist

 Shaping Creme

Soft Curl Gel

The Shaping Creme is a thin white cream that you're supposed to work in your palms before applying to damp hair. Like most curling products, you scrunch and allow it to air dry.

The Soft Curl Gel is a watery clear gel that you run through damp curls. The first time I opened the bottle it actually leaked all over my bathroom floor. I mean it when I saw this stuff is watery! It was hard to take the following picture because it kept dripping down my hand. 

To be honest, I really don't like the Soft Curl Gel. It's too wet and I really feel like like it's ineffective when applied to damp hair. on it's own, it didn't do much by way of forming curls, and it didn't really control my frizz. When it dried, it left my hair feeling hard, almost crusty, with the consistency of straw. It's not moisturizing at all, at least for my hair. 

I also hated the smell of the product, but fortunately the smell faded soon after application.

Note: You can use it in conjunction with the Shaping Creme, but that just felt too heavy and sticky for me, so this bottle just sits in a drawer in my bathroom.

I do not recommend this product.

Grade: F

The Shaping Creme is ok, but speaking straight up, the curls just don't last. I really liked the way the creme made my hair feel: it was nice and silky. It was quick to form curls. However, most of my curls fell out after only a few hours, and my hair ended up just looking wavy. Admittedly, I have thick and heavy hair, so maybe that's more the fault of my genetics than it is the product. But for a woman with naturally curly hair to see her curls loosen up when USING A CURLING PRODUCT, well....that's just wrong.

(In the morning, right after application and while hair is still drying)

(Two hours after applying product, hair completely dry)

The Shaping Creme, in my opinion, is alright. It doesn't work the miracles I was expecting, but it did give my hair some nice texture. I did some some really lovely curls form, and my hair felt voluminous and bouncy. It also left my hair feeling soft. Unfortunately, the curls didn't make it through the day. This was a little disappointing, but to the product's credit, even after the curls disappeared and my hair went wavy, my hair still felt managed and relatively controlled.

I recommend this product if you're interested in wave control. Maybe it'll work better for you than it did for me. There seems to the the potential  for curl there, but I think my hair just proved too much of a challenge for it.

Grade: B-

I went to bed without washing my hair, to see how the curls would hold up the next day. When I woke up, my hair had a ton of texture to it, but it was really unstructured and in need of some serious maintenance. 

This is where the Moisture Mist came in handy. The Moisture Mist is supposed to "refresh and reshape" curls. You give some generous spritzing to your battered curls and some serious scrunching, and viola! Insta-curls! I also gave my dry curls a quick once-over with the Shaping Creme, just to bring the frizz under control.

(Immediately after applying Shaping Creme and Moisture Mist; 20 minutes later, after hair has "settled")

(One hour ago)

I really like the Moisture Mist. So much so that I've been known to carry it around in my work bag for some quick hair help during the day. The formula is a bit thick (almost like a serum), but it really works and it doesn't leave my hair feeling gross or filmy, like some hair spray products might.

I totally recommend this product!

Grade: A

If you're interested in checking out more of Cibu's products, you can visit their website, their Facebook page, or send them a tweet (@Cibu17).

Thanks to Caitlin for the opportunity to review these products! It was much appreciated.

Revlon #85: "Minted" Nail Polish Review

The beauty blogosphere has been ablaze with reviews of Essie's Mint Candy Apple nail polish for months now.

Image Source: Temptalia

Mint Candy Apple was released as part of Essie's 2009 Winter collection and has since become heavily covetable. That means the color is nearly impossible to find in drugstores, and I definitely don't have the patience to wait while sites like Amazon and ULTA restock their products.

I'd read that Revlon recently made a similar shade called "Minted" and that it was almost always easy to find in CVS and Walgreens. Unfortunately the reviews for "Minted" haven't all been favorable, so I wasn't really in the mood to spend $6 on a product I was already hesitant to try. However, I recently found a $5 off coupon and so I decided to pick a bottle up the next time I came across it. For $.84 I felt I couldn't complain if it turns out to be a total bust.

In the bottle this shade is a very pale sea foam green color with white and blue undertones. It's a suede finish, meaning there are no small glitter particles in the formula. Which is really the only positive thing about this formula.

The rest is crap, for lack of a better word.

"Minted" = Nail. Fail.

It's incredibly watery and streaky. I had to apply five coats before I had opaque color. The formula doesn't dry quickly, but rather becomes extremely tacky. The brush also adds to that problem, because it tends to grab the previously applied tacky polish and pulls it back off the nail bed.

(My nails after two coats)

(Five minutes after applying, and still tacky!)

I really wanted to love this polish. The color is really pretty and in theory should look wonderful. Unfortunately, it was messy to work with and just took too many coats just to achieve the color as it appears in the bottle. 

I will say that I've owned many Revlon nail polishes before (I love, love, LOVE Siren!) and they've always been fine, but this particular polish is a total miss for me. I suppose it is workable if you're patient and committed to building the color. I don't know that I am, so we'll see if this polish hangs around or ends up chucked in the waste bin.

I totally should have bought a Hershey's bar with that $.84. That certainly wouldn't have gone to waste ;)

What nail polish brand do you use? Is there a nail color you're dying to try?

Elizabeth Arden Review: Velvet Plumtones Color Intrigue Shadow Quad

Last night, I came home from the airport to see a brand new Elizabeth Arden eyeshadow quad palette on my kitchen table. My very sweet sister-in-law Emily, who was housesitting for us while we were gone, left it for me because (in her words), she "knows how much I love to play with makeup." She obviously knows me very well, and I was so excited to receive it. So here's a big blog shout out: thank you for enabling me, Emily! ;)

When I was in high school, there was a general store in my hometown that sold sample sized makeup products from Clinique, Estee Lauder, and Elizabeth Arden. Mostly it was lipsticks or powders, but occasionally you could snag an eyeshadow duo if you were lucky. I remember one time when I got a single shadow from Elizabeth Arden. I don't recall the color, but I do remember thinking the texture of the shadow was wonderful. Years later, judging from these shadows, it seems to me that the formula has not changed much since then.

The packaging is wonderful. A black square with gold trim, it features a built-in mirror and a space for an applicator brush. The applicator is dual-tipped. One side is a traditional foam-tip, while the other end is a shadow brush.

The palette is called "Velvet Plumtones" and it consists of four matched shades of purple, grey, and pink. The first shade in the top row is a grey-toned eggplant purple, and the second is a frosty baby pink. The bottom two are varying shades of grey, the first of which has a pinky-mauve undertone, and the second of which is a blue-based dove-grey.

What's unusual about this palette is that the colors seem to change depending on the light. In natural light, the shadows have pink and brown undertones, and the slight shimmer in the shades is more apparent. In darker lighting, the purple and grey colors in the shadows are more prominent.

When I swatched these shadows, I immediately noticed how silky and creamy they feel going on. They spread and blend beautifully. More so, the colors are very pigmented. You can swipe the brush across your lids once for a sheer and simple wash of color, or you can build the color up with just a little more shadow. This palette will last a good long time because the color pay off is so immediate and you only need a little at a time to create a defined look.

The dark purple and the mauve shades are matte shades, and the dove-grey is a satin finish with a very subtle bit of shimmer. The baby pink shadow is very frosty and is meant to be the highlighter of the group.

The purple and the dove-grey are fantastic for smoking out a look, whereas the mauve works wonderfully on its own as a simple wash of color to add slight definition to the eyes. The dark purple also makes a great liner when you use a damped liner brush.

These are lovely shadows for anyone with green or blue eyes. The colors will go a long way to bring out  all the variations of those two colors.

I'll do a FOTD using this palette when I'm not entirely jet-lagged. My eyes are sporting some rather unattractive bags and dark circles right now.

Thanks again, Emily! Maybe sometime soon you'll let me do your makeup with this palette? ;)

UPDATE: Revlon Custom Eyes Mascara Review

Remember the recent review I wrote on Revlon's Custom Eyes Mascara, the super gimmicky new product that seemed to do the trick well enough?

I tossed it. Into the garbage. Never to be purchased again. Rage and hate.

Allow me to rant for a moment, if you don't mind.

First of all, this product completely dried out after four uses. Four uses. Strike #1.

If you'll also recall, I predicted that the wand was the sort of the wand that would begin to pull a large amount of product out with it after only a few tries. Well, I was absolutely right. Not only did it pull out massive amounts of clumpy goop, it failed completely to full cover my lashes with any of the mascara. The roots were a clutter of dried mascara bits, and the ends were totally bare. Running the wand through my lashes only made it worse. The dried formula did a number on my lashes, too. Some of them actually broke off. I know I frequently complain about my thick lashes, but it's that whole, "you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone" thing right now.

In short, I was Spider-Lash Lady, except in this case, the title didn't come with a jazzy costume or freakishly acquired superhuman powers (lame!).

Sounds like a winner, right? It gets worse.

The bristles on the wand started to snap off! Which is interesting, when you consider how soft I mentioned the bristles were in my last post. In theory, soft, bendable little bristles should not just snap off. But there you have it; solitary wand bristles in my mascara. Can you imagine the massive amount of suck that would have come about by getting one of those bristles IN your eye?

Which in turn brings me to the flaking. I know I previously mentioned a small amount of flaking when I initially reviewed Custom Eyes, with a flippant, "meh, it's not that bad" attitude. But once the formula started to dry up, it was like I had smeared ash beneath my eyes. It was everywhere; working itself into my pores, creating non-existent black eyes, even flaking off and smudging my notes during class.

I hate you, Revlon Custom Eyes. With all the fiery passions of Hell. Never again will you find your way into my makeup bag, coupon or not.

This experience sours me against Revlon mascaras as a whole, which might be unfair, but honestly, I don't care. Revlon makes lots of great products, so it's not like Revlon as a whole is a massive miss when it comes to makeup. The mascara needs a serious overhaul, though.

I'll definitely be sticking with my Cover Girl Lash Blast Fusion. It is hands down the best drugstore mascara out there; it absolutely reminds me of Givenchy's Phenomon'Eyes mascara, which is the best mascara I've ever tried in my life (even if the head of the wand does look like some Medieval torture device).

New grade rating: F.