Olay Fresh Effects BB Cream and the Great BB Cream Showdown!

It is now time for my final Influenster Review (I will have links to all other Influenster related things below)! I feel like I really saved the best for last on this one. I have tried different BB Creams but hadn’t really found one that I liked until I tried the Garnier Skin Renew Miracle Skin Perfector B.B. Cream (really can the name be any longer!!). I really liked it and was pretty committed to it until I received my Influenster Sunkissed VoxBox and got the opportunity to try the Olay Fresh Effects (BB Cream!) Skin Perfecting Moisturizer SPF 15. That is when the Great BB Cream Showdown began **PAUSE FOR DRAMATIC MUSIC**

Before we begin a few reminders: I received the Olay BB Cream for FREE from Influenster for testing purposes. The Garnier BB Cream I purchased with my own $$. HOWEVER, all opinions and thoughts are my own!

The showdown will consist of 3 main categories: Packaging, Texture and Feel, and Appearance. Let the Showdown Begin!

PACKAGING:

OLAY

The packaging for this is really adorable and young looking. I like that it appeals to a wide range of ages from pre-teens who may be trying out makeup for the first time up to someone in their 20s like me. I’m not sure if it would pack the greatest appeal for someone older just because it is so young looking and an older woman may not want such young packaging hanging around their makeup bag.

GARNIER:

This packaging is much more sleek and sophisticated looking to me and the grown up in me really likes this one too. This packaging was definitely made for women in their 20s and older.

TEXTURE AND FEEL

OLAY:

This BB Cream is incredibly light weight. It really doesn’t feel like you’re putting makeup on and feels more like a nice moisturizer. Once on your skin it feels like it just melts into it and doesn’t feel at all greasy. These facts make me love this even more!

GARNIER:

This BB Cream is a little more heavy duty than the Olay cream. It feels thicker coming out of the bottle and takes a little more effort to get it to “melt” into your skin. It also has a more greasy feeling that I’m not a huge fan of. A little definitely goes a long way with the Garnier BB Cream.

APPEARANCE:

**I kept all other makeup items the same for these pictures. I tried to take the pictures in the same location unfortunately after the OLAY picture we had a rash of cloudy/rainy days and I had to take my GARNIER picture inside.**

OLAY:

Look at how bright my skin looks!! I LOVE IT!! This BB Cream takes absolutely no extra nonsense to make you look glowy. If you needed to rush and only had time for some BB cream and mascara this won’t let you down. Better yet, the glowy-ness lasts ALL DAY!

GARNIER:

Oh, Garnier BB Cream, I love you but you take a lot of work. This just doesn’t have the glowy-ness of OLAY. But I will say with a little effort (mostly well placed highlighter and some bronzer) it can give a very nice “Oh I just got back from a tropical vacay” effect.

FINAL WORD:

I do really like both BB Creams, but if I could only buy one I would definitely go for the Olay Fresh Effects BB Cream. It’s lightweight, non greasy, and gives instaglow like crazy! I do think I may find myself reaching for the GARNIER cream during the winter months only because it is a little thicker and I tend to like thicker for the colder months (I don’t know why I just do...). Now tell me! Have you tried either of these BBs? Which ones do you like the best?

You can find both BB Creams wherever Olay and Garnier products are sold!

INFLUENSTER POST LINKS

My First VoxBox

Dr. Scholl’s For Her High Heel Insoles Review

SinfulColors SinfulShine Review

Goody Hair Ouchless Ribbon Elastics Review

Guilty Pleasure Reads

As I’ve stated before I LOVE to read (you can check out my summer must reads here). I’ll read just about anything but sometimes I just want a good silly, guilty pleasure reads. You can check out some of my favorites below and just like always the pictures will be linky to take you to where you can buy.

Shopaholic Series by Sophie Kinsella

The Devil Wears Prada by Lauren Weisberger

L.A. Candy series by Lauren Conrad

The Fame Game series by Lauren Conrad

Hush, Hush Saga by Becca Fitzpatrick

The Twilight Saga by Stephanie Meyer

Blue Bloods series by Melissa De La Cruz

Vampire Diaries by L.J. Smith

Obviously I have a slight obsession with supernatural young adult novels and chick-lit books. What are your guilty pleasure book obsessions?

CoverGirl Flamed Out Mascara Review

I’ve had this mascara for a little while now (I honestly think it might be almost empty -- YIPES) so I figure it was time to do a little review for you all!

**I purchased this mascara with my own $$ and all opinions are my own**

ONE COAT:

This mascara is designed to curl your lashes and if you read my Clump Crusher review (if not you can read it here) you already know that my lashes are naturally curly so I was a little hesitant to try this out because I didn’t want any craziness going on. But after looking at the print ad for this mascara in virtually EVERY magazine I had to cave and get it.

Seriously everything about this screams “BUY ME! BUY ME NOW!!”

Anyway...I really liked the effect that one coat gave my lashes. It emphasized the natural curliness of my lashes without going overboard.

TWO COATS:

Two coats gave me some CRAZY length, like touch my eyebrows kind of length! It did clump up a little bit but once the mascara had some time to dry I was able to straighten up some of the clumpy craziness.

LAYERED:

Naturally for the layered look I had to reach for my FAVORITE CoverGirl mascara LashBlast Fusion. I definitely really liked the results from this combo and think it looks the most natural for me. The Fusion gave me just enough definition and then Flamed Out gave me some drama. Love it!

FINAL WORD:

This will definitely be a repurchase when the time comes and will definitely be added to my favorites list. It’s almost perfect because it can give you either natural or dramatic lashes based on how many coats you slap on!

You can get CoverGirl Flamed Out Mascara anywhere that sells CoverGirl products!

Handy Dandy Nail Polish Remover Trick

I adore painting my nails, it’s totally my Sunday night treat/therapy. The one thing I absolutely hate doing though is removing my existing nail polish! I go through about 20 million cotton balls to remove just one hand of nail polish and it still feels like I haven’t gotten all of the polish off. Such was my nail polish life...UNTIL...I discovered the wonder of using makeup sponges to remove my polish! **Cue the angels singing!**

All you really need are some makeup sponges I use these ones from Ulta:

and your favorite nail polish remover! I like using the polish remover that comes in the containers that you dip your fingers because then you can really soak the sponge without making a big mess.

Then all I do is put my makeup sponge in the container, screw the lid back on and let it soak up the polish remover. When you take the sponge out make sure you give it a good squeeze over the container to get rid of the excess remover. Then swipe away at your nails!

I love this trick because not only is it quick and easy you can reuse the sponge again and again (I get about 4 nail polish changes out of them). The wedge sponges also come in handy for cleaning up your nail edges.

One word of warning is that the sponge will kind of fall apart and flake a little bit but it’s not terrible!

Let me know if you try this out or if you have any fun little nail polish tricks!

Hair Inspiration

It is getting time for me to do something with the mass of hair that currently resides on my head. It currently looks like this:

And, while I love the length I have some extremely damaged hair at the bottom from an unfortunate decision to get blonde highlights a few years ago...seriously...I don’t know why anyone allowed that to happen!

ANYWAY -- It’s time for a trim and a new color (my hair is the ultimate dirt brown color -- BLEH). I’m thinking I want to go red -- and I’ve actually been told by others that my hair should be red... So without further ado here is a little inspiration board. All pictures are linky back their original sites.

THE COLOR

THE CUT

And there you have it (yes I know there are two of the same pictures but I loved the cut and the color so it gets to show up twice) I kind of already think I’ve made up my mind but I’m not entirely sure yet. For more inspiration check out my Hairspiration board on Pinterest! I’ll be sure to post pictures on Twitter (@lilannietweets) and Instagram (@anniedannie) so be sure to follow me there AND I’ll try to make sure I do a blog post on the final results too!