Tag Archives: #cosmetics

Discontinued and Limited Edition Products That Should Make A Comeback

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Three years ago, I created a post called 10 Things I Purchased Purely For the Packaging. These were items I loved, even though in most cases I hadn’t even used the makeup inside.
My typical gauge for determining whether a product had been worth buying in the long run, is to calculate how frequently I use it. So, those items in the post should have fallen into the category of purchases I regretted, but they didn’t.

Keeping my Project Pan and Low Buys in mind, there have been so many times in my reviews this year that I’ve written, “I like this, but I could have skipped buying it,” or “this doesn’t add much to my collection.”
This has been my attempt to counterbalance some of the hype out there and help others feel less FOMO over things that aren’t as special in person. However, there are still products from time to time that I acknowledge as something I’m still glad I bought, even though I won’t get much use out of them.

My purpose for this post is to feature the products in my collection that are no longer available to purchase, but they had such good formulas that I wish everyone could have tried them. These are products that if I had a much smaller makeup collection, or if the shades were perfect, I probably could have hit pan on them.

Essentially, I want to focus on makeup that still brings me joy to own, even if I stopped using them today. In doing this, I hope it will serve as a reminder to myself of what kind of products ended up being worth it to me under different criteria.

I won’t be including items from defunct brands, or else Becca’s Skin Perfectors and Bite Beauty lipsticks would be on this list.

Armani Neo Nude Melting Color Balm Blushes – Original Review

This launch is still one of the weirdest I’ve ever experienced. From Armani barely giving these any promotion, the consistency of each shade being different, one of the pans falling out, retailers getting only certain shades and them being added and removed within days from websites, etc.
However, the best formula (which was for Shade 30), was so creamy, blendable, and truly melted into the skin. The range of colors were subdued and natural, which is actually not as common to find, especially for those with dark skin.

Initially, I thought the reason Armani put hardly any effort into marketing these was because of a combination of formula production issues (Shade 60 was hard as a rock) and low inventory (not even Armani’s site ever had all nine in stock at the same time).
Upon reflection, these blushes were released around the same time as Suqqu’s Melting Powder Blushes, which the brand announced shortly after would be discontinued due to raw materials shortage.
The shades between Armani and Suqqu were not dupes, but at least close enough for me to notice similarities, not just with their names. They might not have been made by the same lab (Armani’s were made in Korea vs Suqqu’s in Japan), but perhaps they shared some of the same ingredients with sourcing issues.

It may be foolish, but I still have hope that Armani will reformulate these and bring them back. If they don’t, I am at least happy that I have a few in my collection as a reminder of this product’s strange place in makeup history!

Pat McGrath Skin Fetish: Ultra Glow Highlighter (Divine Rose) – Showcased Here

Excluding the Skin Fetish Sublime Skin Highlighter (aka The Hockey Puck), I have tried every Pat Mcgrath highlighter formula. The one above is the best they’ve ever made, but it was limited edition and only came in one shade.

There are a lot more baked gelee products available these days, so perhaps I should just be content with the few I have that are a better shade match for me. However, I think it’s normal for someone to want a holy grail product to be made by their favorite brand because it’s their favorite brand.

This may be a strange analogy, but if we put this in terms of Harry Potter (and let’s leave the conversation about JK Rowling aside), if someone gave me Hufflepuff merch, I would be happy because it’s something from the world of Harry Potter. If someone gave me Ravenclaw merch, I would be even happier and more excited because Ravenclaw is my favorite of the Houses within Harry Potter, so it has overall more value and meaning for me.
Even though I own Tom Ford’s Shade and Illuminate Highlighting Duo in Tanlight, which is super close to the quality and performance of Pat Mcgrath’s Divine Rose highlighter, I would still absolutely love my perfect shade to come from Pat Mcgrath. Not only was hers less expensive than Tom Ford’s, but it also comes in a compact I consider to be prettier. The other highlighters from PML are nice, but if someone asks me to recommend the most standout products from the brand, it wouldn’t be them. It’s a shame that their best highlighter formula could only be experienced by a small range of people. The current Pat Mcgrath highlighters are likely less expensive to make and they’re certainly easier for other brands to replicate.

Pat Mcgrath Baked Blushes (from the Bridgerton 2 Blushing Delights Blush + Highlighter Palette) – Original Review

I honestly believe the only reason this product flopped was because it came in bulky packaging. Even I felt the need to depot the blushes and highlighter!

What’s disappointing about us never getting additional blush shades, or even singles of the blushes, is that PML could have competed with Hourglass on the baked blush front. With the exception of At Night, I like PML’s Aphrodisia more than all of the Ambient Lighting ones from Hourglass. I continue to buy Hourglass holiday palettes each year because I like their baked products, so imagine if Pat Mcgrath gave us the kind of colors I am still itching for Hourglass to make, and in a gorgeous shimmery finish that I prefer. I would buy them so fast!

The Hourglass At Night blush is the only baked blush to make it into my Project Pan (of favorite products). The reason Aphrodisia didn’t is because I didn’t have it at the time. I left it in the US out of fear of breaking the delicate powder in my luggage. I also assumed PML’s baked blushes would eventually make a return in normal palettes or single form.
I’ve given up that dream by now, so I finally have Aphrodisia back with me (as of April 2025).
My reason for bringing this up is that I am not a baked blush lover (not including baked gelee). I often have a problem with them looking too pearly on my skin and/or too dry. I only like specific shades of MAC’s Mineralize Blushes. Ilia’s Soft Focus Blurring Blush has potential, but they don’t have the exact tones of the kind of shades I like. Sephora was onto something with their Microsmooth Baked Blushes, but they don’t have a lot of shade options either. So, the fact that PML had my favorite, but kept an entire formula limited edition is truly unfortunate!

I’m sure there will be people surprised that PML’s baked special eyeshadows are not on this list, but I don’t enjoy their flaky texture. I liked them being in the palettes because it felt like their presence justified the cost, and the finished looks on the eyes were beautiful, but I didn’t enjoy actually using them. So, I don’t mind them being gone.

Natasha Denona Mini Gold – Quick Review

This palette represents everything I love about eyeshadows. There’s the brow and edge-blending neutral shade, a deepening shade in a stunning brown color, a beautiful gold, a wearable green, and a fun dimensional shimmer. It’s versatile enough because I can create multiple types of eye looks, it’s in a mini size which keeps the cost of the palette low, and the gold toned trim makes it aesthetically pleasing to look at. I can use the gold for an intense sparkly look or keep things subtle by sticking with the mattes and dark satin brown. The eyeshadows are blendable, buildable, and soft. They last all day without fading, have a normal amount of kickup, I don’t get much fallout (I just need to spray the gold), and there’s no creasing. There’s a reason this ranked at the top of my Natasha Denona Palette Post.

I don’t wear makeup enough days out of the week to have hit pan on this or any of the eyeshadows in my collection, but I can see where there are indents.
Anyone who has the Bobbi Brown Jadestone palette might not need something like this, and this year has been the year of the green eyeshadow. The Mini Gold color story isn’t as unique, but that shade Antheia still is! That color is one of my favorite greens in my entire collection, so this is why I wish this color story hadn’t been discontinued.
Mini Gloom might actually be a better mini representation of the original Gold Palette, but Mini Gold is still the best suiting color story for me from ND.

Huda Beauty Glowish Bronzer – Featured Review

I said I wouldn’t include defunct brands on this list, but because Glowish was under the Huda Beauty umbrella, I’m allowing it. I assume they own the rights to the formula and could still bring it back if they wanted to, but who knows. I’m not sure if these sold well enough to make a return.

What I liked about these bronzers were the tones and depths available, the colorful swirl pattern (which added to the ability to slightly tailor the shade), and the fact that these felt and performed similar to baked gelee powders, even though they weren’t. I liked this formula more than so many other traditional powder bronzers. It was priced at $31, but they released a few shades of mini sizes when the brand was nearing its end.

From what I recall, people who tried these liked them, though I don’t know if they liked them to the same level as me. Had these been in higher end packaging, I think they still would have been better received. Perhaps even a wider shade range or different combination of swirl colors could have gotten more people to like these. This product had so much potential!

Chanel Blush Lumière in Brun Roussi – Featured Review

I’ve reviewed blushes from seven different Chanel collections, and this one consists of my favorite formula (tied with the Joues Contraste Intense Cream to Powder blush). It is a little harder to pick up with a delicate natural hair brush, but my densely packed fox and goat ones work wonderfully. This is one of Chanel’s more pigmented blushes, but the amount of powder that coats my brush enables me to build up the color in a controlled fashion, so I never overdo it.

This lasts all day on my cheeks without fading. I love the deep red-brown color and that gorgeous warm gold finish. Nowadays, it’s uncommon for Chanel to give us a shimmery blush. So many of the ones intended for those with deeper skin tones have been orange and berry colors. There is actually a void that the return of this blush would fulfill. There are so few deep nude blush colors, and even fewer that are still available for purchase.

I don’t own the blush called Brun Rouge from the brand’s permanent line, but based on photos I saw on Temptalia’s website, it’s the closest option Chanel currently has. To me, this isn’t a good enough substitute because the finish is matte, it’s slightly lighter, and I have found the formulation of Joues Contraste Blushes to get harder to pick up on my brush after a year or two. My Lumiere blush still works perfectly three years later. So, it’s the superior formula.

Even if Chanel decides not to rerelease this particular color, I would still love to see additional dark-skin-friendly shades with this formula.

Kosas The Sun Show Moisturizing Baked Bronzer (Original Formula) – Featured Review

There was a point in time that this was my number one favorite bronzer! I was obsessed with the glowy sheen it had. I liked how well it blended into my skin. The color was a bit strong on the orange side, but I loved it anyway. So many people loved this too, but it was the strong frying oil smell that turned everyone off to this product. One of the more troubling aspects was the inability for anyone to tell when this “clean beauty” product had gone off, if it didn’t have a pleasant smell to begin with!

When Kosas reformulated these bronzers into the yellow packaging, I was disappointed by the return of the smell (just less intense) and the huge shade gap between Escape and Paradise, making my old shade in Deep (which fit right between them) still the best color match. Plus, the new ones had so much more shimmer that it was too much for me.

I love this original bronzer so much that I couldn’t bear to get rid of it, even though I’m afraid to use it. The lack of preservatives in Kosas products is the downfall of this product. I could bet money that if they fixed the smell issue, it would be a huge hit again and then more people would be willing to experience it.

*Honorable Mention #1 – Clionadh Cosmetics Mattes – First Mention

This makes the list on a technicality. Clionadh still has matte eyeshadows in some of their palettes, but they haven’t brought back their matte singles in quite a few years. The initial reason customers were given as to why the brand stopped making them was because the eyeshadows were breaking too much during transit. The eyeshadows were being hand-pressed at the time and they wanted to find a way to keep the logo embossing on the eyeshadow without compromising the stability. Eventually they bought two (I believe) pressing machines. They hired a few additional workers. I recall seeing a comment on Instagram that they were close to being able to bring them back. Well, I’m still waiting!

They didn’t have the best formula on the market, but I liked how uncommon it was. The eyeshadows were pigmented, but buildable. They were incredibly soft (probably due to how they were pressed), finely milled, and felt slightly dry yet silky. They had such interesting tones in colorful, yet muted shades. The mattes from many indie brands are fully saturated and tend to be pressed pigments, for the most intensity on the eyes. Clionadh’s mattes were thin and a little powdery, but also opaque.

*Honorable Mention #2 – Dior Powder No Powder – Finalized Thoughts

I wholeheartedly believe this deserves to be on the list of makeup that should be brought back, but I didn’t want it to be featured front and center out of acknowledgement that there were a significant number of people who didn’t get on with this product. It was surprisingly polarizing, with most shoppers either absolutely loving it or thinking it was terrible.

This has been my holy grail finishing powder for so many years now. It’s the only powder I’ve ever hit pan on, let alone been close to using up completely. I’m obsessed with the amount of sheen and blurring this product is capable of producing.

I wish it had no scent, but this fragrance is at least tolerable. I think it’s pleasant.

I have backups of this powder, so I don’t have to be without it for many more years to come. However, I still consider it unfortunate that one of the greatest makeup items in my collection isn’t available for new people to be able to discover and potentially love (or hate)!

This ends today’s post. I hope it was enjoyable to read and that you’ll join me again next week!

-Lili ❤

Lisa Eldridge Pinpoint Concealer Review

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The first pencil I bought has been in my hands since January 9th, so I’ve had enough time to test this out in various ways and solidify my thoughts on this product.

The primary purpose of my posts are to show how products look on me in order to help someone get a better idea of how the shade(s) might look on themselves. Let’s do that right now.

There aren’t any exact matches between the pencils and the base products I have from the brand, but I don’t mind since I don’t have a perfect foundation shade from them either. They’re all just close enough.

The charts can be found by scrolling to the bottom of their product page.

My secondary goal is to give as much information as I can to help anyone on the fence trying to decide whether they want to buy the product right away, skip it without the fear of missing out, or figuring out if it’s worth waiting for a sale. I try to factor in the ingredients, talk about the accuracy level of the brand’s claims, mention anything strange I’ve noticed, etc.
Right out the gate, I’m going to say that this pencil was worth it to me to buy for a very specific task. I do not know how many people reading this will feel the same way, but I will describe the pros and cons I experienced.

For starters, I watched Lisa’s video on how to do the pinpoint technique using her product. I think that her way is in fact the best way to utilize it.
I don’t have acne, but I have moles, scars, and a ton of discoloration. She says that this product is not meant for large areas and not intended for full-on concealment of dark under eye circles. Considering those are usually my biggest concerns, I thought this might be a makeup release that I should skip. However, two aspects really sold me on this product: the idea of being able to use it on bare skin to metaphorically erase blemishes in a less detectable way than traditional means and/or with a full face of makeup to perfect any areas that need additional help with concealing.

To satisfy my curiosity, I still used this on the lowest section of my under eyes to see if it would last, and although it works, it looks and feels too drying there. So, I must patiently wait for the brand to release other forms of concealer better suited for my dark circles.

The photo above demonstrates how I can get the product to look how I hoped. On barely moisturized skin, the side that I used the concealer pencil looks improved and is very hard to tell makeup was used. On a face with a buildable coverage foundation, the pencil is able to camouflage the areas where darker discoloration was still partly visible underneath.
I also don’t recommend putting other products on top of the pencil. It worked best for me to put foundation and liquid concealer first before adding the pencil as the final concealing step.

The brand website specifically states that this is good for, “camouflaging broken capillaries and blemishes to lifting micro-shadows….waterproof, budgeproof, all day wear.”

The issue I ran into is that I can only get all day wear on bare skin, and even then it’s not always perfect. If my dry skin has the minimum amount of moisture (and by that I mean that it just has a serum, hydrating spray, essence/milky toner, or a lightweight moisturizer on it), I can use this pencil with no issues. If my dry skin has some flaky parts, this concealer will cling to it in an obvious and unflattering way. It looks scaly.

So, I have to balance between having enough moisture on my face for the product to glide onto the skin smoothly, but not too much moisture that would cause it to not adhere as well to my skin or accidentally make the product break down quicker. Sure, it’s waterproof when it’s not in contact with that many other products. However, waterproof products are susceptible to oil breaking them down. If my moisturizer, primer, foundation, or accompanying concealer contains too much oil, I cannot get this to last on my face for as long as it should.

Getting it to last all day on emollient skin is one challenge, but it’s even harder to get it to stick to the spot in the first place. I draw over the discoloration, tap it with my finger to blend, it melts too much into my skin and I have to draw over it again, tap it and the tiniest bit stays put but most is gone again. I essentially have to draw, tap, and blend on repeat 3-5 times for it to be fully covered. Now, it becomes even more clear why this isn’t supposed to be used in large areas. I was concerned I might run out of product in just the testing phase alone!

Using this on dry skin with minimal skincare gives me the best outcome. If I want to use this with other makeup products as the final perfecting step, I have to be careful about which products are used so it can actually last. That being said, the best I’ve been able to get on a full face of makeup is 4-6 hours. I have a stubborn smile line that all other concealers migrate from within a few hours, re-exposing the shadow. The coverage I get with the concealer pencil lasting double or triple the length of time I usually get when trying to cover that line is the sole reason I bought additional pencils and felt this expense was justified.

Being able to practically scribble away imperfections seems like a dream, but it triggers my perfectionist side in a way that is really not good. Obviously, this product will be a godsend for some people. For me, when I finish tackling the darkness around my mouth, then I look at the birthmark spot under my eye (another fairly large spot) and cover that. Then I start covering each individual mole, every scar spot, and then suddenly I’m spending fifteen to twenty minutes being hyper focused on my flaws that my eyes normally just glance over. If I put makeup on and look better than before, I consider that a success and I’m usually happy enough with just making improvements. During the testing process though, I felt so compelled to keep going and scribble out every little spot, to try and photoshop myself in real life. I cannot afford to spend so much extra time inspecting and correcting my face. Nor do I think it’s good for my mentality to fixate so heavily on imperfections and how choosing not to make those corrections left me feeling dissatisfied with my makeup overall. This is why I love my favorite finishing powder so much, because it creates a blurred veil that I know if I’m in a rush and didn’t blend my makeup perfectly enough, I can just quickly buff it everywhere and don’t have to think any further about it.

So, I decided to set limits for myself so that I could incorporate this pencil into my routine in a realistic and positive self-image affirming way. By making my main target the smile line, I am making myself happier to be able to improve that spot while only adding an extra minute or two to my makeup application time, and I get satisfaction from having found a use for this product that it excels at above all other concealers.

This circumstance with fixation is not going to be a problem for the majority of people, but in this day and age with social media and how it can affect people’s perception of themselves, I felt it was important to include in this review.
I’m forewarning that this is not the low effort product that it’s proclaimed to be.

Regarding the issues of applying this on bare skin versus skin with product on it, as well as the time consuming nature, I recommend watching Hannah Louise Poston‘s review. She also has dry skin and is able to demonstrate and explain so well the phenomenon I experienced.

I chose Shade 11 with a “Neutral Terracotta Undertone” because it leans orange, which has color correcting effects for my areas of discoloration. As I mentioned before, I have chosen to keep its task limited to covering my smile line.

Shade 10 with a “Neutral Golden Undertone” only works on the lightest areas of my face. Since these pencils can be used to lift shadows, highlight areas, or clean up spots, I have additional uses for this specific color. Essentially, Shade 11 was too dark and warm toned to look natural on top of my birthmark in that lighter surrounding area, so I designated Shade 10 for this task. I prefer to use my normal liquid concealers for cleaning up edges, and I also prefer highlighting or cleaning up the brow area with the Lisa Eldridge Liquid Silk eyeshadow in the shade Phoebe. It feels a lot more comfortable because the dry down isn’t as stiff. In fact, the Liquid Silk eyeshadow is the reason I got so excited for the brand to release concealers because it has a wonderful smoothing quality, self sets, and doesn’t budge. If they can put those same qualities into a liquid concealer, I’ll be over the moon with happiness! But as I was saying, Shade 10 is for my birthmark (plus a bit of 12) and if I tried to use it for the other aforementioned tasks, I’d run out of product absurdly fast.

I purchased Shade 12 in a “Neutral Undertone,” (plus a backup of Shade 11) from Niche Beauty during one of their sales. 12 has a similar depth value as 11, and it’s still a bit warm, just not as warm as 11. Although it makes for a better skintone match, I have to use even more product to cancel out the darker spots on my face, particularly without the color correcting aspect that Shade 11 provides. As seen in the photo below, using it in my eye area that is void of skincare means dealing with the unflattering texture problem.

What this color is good for is doing touchups on the go. It can make a good skin match for areas where my liquid concealer is starting to fade or even when I need to touch up wherever I added Shades 10 or 11. Having product already underneath it allows Shade 12 to fill in the gaps in coverage and glide on more smoothly than it does on bare skin.

The reason I needed a backup of 11 so soon was actually due to my own mistake. It’s a bit embarrassing, but maybe sharing this will prevent anyone else from doing it too!

I didn’t know until it was too late that these are twist up pencils!

Lisa Eldridge’s lip pencils require sharpening, and the twist up ones I use from other brands are in the kind of plastic packaging that is way more obvious that they can’t be sharpened. I knew the white “sharpener” at the end was just for getting a crisp tip, but I didn’t know the shade colored strip rotates! I thought it was just a clever design feature to distinguish between the shades without having to uncap them all.
And to be clear, I only used the white piece one time for science. I will never use it again because it removes too much product, precious product that this pencil has so little of already.

Because these pencils are intended to be waterproof and the exposure to air should be limited, I was concerned that mine would dry out much faster, despite how careful I am to keep them capped tightly, so that’s why I bought the backup of Shade 11. Thankfully, my butchered pencil is still working perfectly fine.

In that photo I included, you may have noticed the severely faded lettering on the pencil. The logo and details on the other side rubbed away by day two. I don’t know why or how it happened, but it did! So, I’ve been handling the rest with kid gloves!

Onto the topic of how quickly someone can go through this product, the photo above shows what a brand new pencil looks like compared to the one I used on and off for about a month. One third of the concealer is gone, however, a lot of it was wasted during the sharpening debacle. I was also testing it in large places sometimes, which is not recommend. So, I believe one sixth of it being gone would have been the expected result after a month of use.

I wore makeup about 2-4 times a week in January. My best guess is that I used that pencil twelve times between January 9th and February 4th. I estimate that a single pencil could give me at least 72 uses total. If I wore makeup every day, this would be unacceptable and I would never buy it again. Since those 72 uses should get me though six months, which is the same amount of time it takes me to use up some of my liquid concealers and liquid eyeliners, this is acceptable for me. My situation will not be the same for everyone, and I think it’s 100% understandable and fair enough that a lot of people don’t think it’s worth the price per grams, don’t think it’ll suit their needs, or say that they already have products that accomplish these tasks, etc.

I like this product, but I cannot give a sweeping glowing recommendation to someone when its usefulness to me is so specific. I won’t be replacing Shades 10 or 12 when they run out, and I already have my backup of 11, but how embedded into my routine this product gets will determine whether I’ll keep repurchasing Shade 11 indefinitely.

That’s all for today! Thank you for reading.

-Lili ❤