What was the last product that really let you down?
MAC x Jeremy Scott Lo-Fi Eyeshadow Palette – even though I didn’t have high hopes for it, I found it even more disappointing after trying it!
— Christine
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Maybelline Total Temptation waterproof mascara. The original has such rave reviews about volume and length but the waterproof version is just…mascara. Barely does anything noticeable.
e.l.f. tinted moisturizer. It smells like straight-up sunscreen and makes me break out.
Colour pop lip glosses -holiday kit. I found the glosses to be thick and opaque in the worse way. I love glosses, but don’t like thick or sticky gloss. They were not flattering on me.
I may need to try the sheer formula.
I’m still mad about Stila’s putty foundation, which I bought in September lol. I should’ve known better than to buy without testing more extensively, but I did and now I don’t know who to pawn it off on.
Haven’t been buying enough to be disappointed more recently, I guess!
Anastasia BH Lip primer. Does nothing for comfort at all. In fact, its sole effect on me seems to be reducing wear time and increasing smearing. I’ve tried it with several different kinds of lipsticks.
Same here! It made everything worse.
Too Faced White Peach Palette! This was my final chance for TF, and the colors seemed soft and pigmented in the store. But that horrible scent was so nauseating, I couldn’t bring the palette close enough to my face to use the mirror! If I wore the shades all day, I think I’d get a headache from the smell. For something where the performance was disappointing, the Bare Minerals holiday palette comes to mind as just overall safe even for neutrals, yet large enough that something else could’ve been done!
I splurged and ordered the Tom Ford “Sheer” (lol) Blush Duo in Exotica Flora. Just received it last night and I really don’t like it ? The formula is dry and quite stiff, and extremely pigmented. It’s also described as “light reflecting” but to my eye is satin at best. I am going to return it.
Good to know – I was on the fence but I’ll pass, now. 🙂
Although I’ve always had bad experience with Pur Cosmetics, the palette junkie in me had a moment of weakness and ordered the Soiree Diaries eye shadow palette.
It was as crappy as any other eye shadow I tried from Pur Cosmetics; they just do not work for me. I’ve tossed it into my “give away” pile. Lesson learned (again).
Thankfully, I can’t think of any. I wait for reviews on here first typically and am rarely, if ever, disappointed anymore. The one that comes to mind though was a few years ago – YSL Volume Effet mascara. Great formula, great brush but I couldn’t stand the added fragrance.
Revlon ColorStay Exactify Liner with the pizza cutter wheel. I love regular ColorStay eye liner but thought the sparkly black might be fun. It barely even adhered through application, let alone for longer than an hour. And when it came off, it came off in chunks. Not even worth saving for a Shop My Stash time!
Probably Jeffree Star’s Eclipse highlighter. The reviews said it was bad but I didn’t want to believe it and I ended up wasting $29 plus shipping.
I was late for the party and I bought Modern Renaissance last year. I ended up giving it away; I just found the formula to be too soft and too powdery for my tastes. Beautiful colors and pigmentation, but the consistency didn’t work for me personally. The good news is the person I gave it to absolutely adores it! 😀
Kat von D’s I am Divine palette. I’m such a big John Waters fan that I ordered it the day it came out, but after trying several looks with it, I find it tricky to build up the colours (impossible in some cases). Given the inspiration, the shades should be very bold and opaque. On top of that, a lot of them fade and crease on me after a few hours. So sad.
Lancome Hypnose Drama mascara, everytime I wear it there are black flakes all over my cheeks. MAC Rebel lipstick because it sits in all my lip lines
I had the same problem with each of those products. I actually refuse to ever buy MAC Satin finish lipsticks because with only one exception (VG II) they ALL slip into my lip lines. Always have, ever since I was a teenager. It’s a drag, Rebel is such a beautiful shade and kind of a classic at this point.
Satins are my top favorite MAC finish. I have several and I love they way the stay perfect for so long…EXCEPT for Rebel. For some reason, that beautiful shade is all over the place when I try to wear it.
It has been awhile since I have purchased a product that I completely hated or couldn’t make work for me but the two that come to mind are the NudeStix lip in Freckle. It was so bad that I didn’t even try the other shades that came together in the box. I always wear a balm either over or under completely matte lips but even trying that this lippie sucked the life out of my lips and actually caused peeling. The second was the Marc Jacobs mascara which flaked, smeared and just looked terrible on my lashes.
Lancome Grandiose Waterproof Mascara. I didn’t love the look of it but more importantly, by the end of even a typical 8-hour workday this stuff would be ALL OVER my upper eyelids – and my eyelids are NOT oily. There were black smudges every place the tips of my lashes touched. It went back and my search for a new waterproof mascara continues!
Maybelline Blushed Nudes eyeshadow palette. I should have known better, but I allowed myself to get talked into it. Looks pretty in the palette, but it’s impossible to actually work with. Also, I bought a Morphe eyeshadow brush that looked like my beloved Sigma E25, but it’s scratchy and terrible. Thank goodness both of these products were cheap.
I’m still bitter over the NARS X Andy Warhol collection… I can’t really speak on the “quality”, as I didn’t end up buying anything from the collection (except an eyeshadow trio from a set off eBay), but the whole conceptualization/execution was a complete fail. I love NARS, and have been a Warhol fan since I was a kid, and I had envisioned so much more given the combination of the two. The *least* NARS could have done to appease myself, and many others, I’m sure, would have been to make the entire Man Ray collection available to *everyone*; I ended up with the Love Game palette, but at 3X retail…
Laneige lip mask. My lips peeled, cracked etc — opposite of desired effect.
Oh no! There must be something in it you’re allergic to. It works great for me, and is the only balm I’ve ever put on at night that keeps the line just where my lips meet from getting “harder” than the rest of my lips. I despise the container, but I’ll probably get a full-size when the sample is gone. Sounds like the Fresh Rose Mask for me — so many people swear it’s life-changing, but it makes my face red and tender.
My gawd..I thought I was the only one!
My friend recommended this for me for my dry lips problem but when I used it, they get much worse. My lips felt even more stiff and cracked. Like on the verge of splitting. Gave it a few more chance but finally I accepted that it just didn’t work for me
Probably the Marc Jacobs Edgitorial palette. The colours slmply werent flattering. Also the Jose Maran Milk argan serum stuff. It’s okay but nothing special and I’ve had much more effective products at lower price points.
Mac Prep & Prime for lips. It dried out my lips without doing much to keep lipstick from moving or bleeding. I can understand now why not all reviews of it have been glowing.
The Ordinary Vitamin C. It didn’t break me out as immediately as most vitamin C stuff, but after diligently wearing it for a week my skin is the worst it’s been in months and as blotchy as it’s been in a year. I don’t think it’s a bad product, my skin is just really reactive and it’s an ingredient I’m giving up on.
Because I was so looking forward to that collection, definitely the MAC x Jeremy Scott Collection. Lo-Fi was a heartbreaker, for real. I was just in the local MAC Store last night talking with a friend who works there. They cannot sell those palettes because nobody wants them once they swatch the tester. She was like; “those eyeshadows are pure sh*t. Yeah, the outside design and packaging are cool, but I don’t want to push those on anyone.”
As for anything I myself bought, I’m now totally sick of having my Ipsy subscription and am about to end it. Too many products that just aren’t working for me because I don’t think they really pay attention to our little reviews and consequently tailor our bags according to our feedback like they claim to do.
Tom Ford Adonis shadow. What a mess. Thank goodness I was able to return it. In fact, everything I’ve tried from Tom Ford has been a disappointment–blush, foundation, lipstick, brow color–everything. I don’t understand how his stuff gets rave reviews. Same with Charlotte Tilbury.
BH Cosmetics Bliss Lash Mascara. Awful, wet stuff that went clumpy within three days after opening. Yes, I kept it tightly closed and in a temperature-controlled environment. I’ve never had a mascara do that before. I was also very let down that BH Cosmetics never published my review of it, either. They used to publish bad reviews: I don’t know if this was an oversight or what.
It’s been a long, long time since I bought anything that I was really disappointed in – as I always read reviews here first.
However the Rimmel Fresher skin gel/creme foundation is one – the colour is right, so is the texture but it seriously doesn’t last really long without bb creme underneath.
At least it wasn’t an expensive mistake.
Hourglass Mineral Veil Primer. It made my skin look worse than if I had not used primer at all. It went back right away. And every Becca primer I have tried has been disappointing.
By Terry Game Lighter Palette in Pixi Nudes. It was soooo pretty to look at, but really meh on the lids. I think it would have been fine if you didn’t own any nude palettes, but I don’t know who that would realistically be. I didn’t find it remotely wow or interesting enough to keep, even at the reasonable price point. I also didn’t expect to find the square in square layout problematic, but it was actually really annoying to use in practice. You had to be a lot more deliberate in putting your bush in the pans; they’re more narrow than you expect and you can forget about getting a decent swatch without grabbing colors from either side. I ended up returning mine.
White Peach palette. You would think that I’d know better than to buy before your review. It had no pigmentation at all and I was so hopeful that it would be a nice spring palette. But I think I’m done giving Too Faced another chance. I’m just going to move on.
2 things come to mind. An ole henrikson dual cleanser in the pink bottle that not only doesnt remove eye makeup but even regular makeup. The other is kat von d under eye powder in petal. It was just soooo drying and the packaging was awful and messy.
I JUST had to return a moisturizer that I picked up from the brand Botanics at Ulta. It smelled wonderful and had rose in it (which my skin seems to love) and it just seemed lovely . . . until I put it on my face and I looked like I had a TERRIBLE sunburn on my face. We’re talking cherry red, burny, the whole shebang. I thought maybe it had just reacted badly with the remnants of a sheet mask I had used right before and not washed completely off, so I tried it again the next night. Same thing. It seems that whatever is in that cream HATES witch hazel, and I’m not willing to give that up (which I know works), for this cream. I have never reacted that badly to a skincare product before.
The last product that really let me down was the new Urban Decay All-Nighter Concealer. The texture and color selection just don’t work for me. I have lines under my eyes and dark circles.
IT Cosmetics Confidence In A Compact Foundation made me break out like crazy and was a total disappointment. I had wanted to try that foundation for so long, and then it was a dud 🙁
Lashblast volume waterproof Cover Girl I hate the smallest plastic bristles they could think of just silly I’ll never experiment with plastic short bristles again. So clumpy. Rimmel Scandal eyes in comparison has a huge bristle and performs. Princess is the favorite for me from Essence. I’m quite happily after after with the rest of my stash. ?
An indie eyeshadow that turned out to be really sheer and sparkly. [grump] Before that it was the Raven lip crayon from Nudestix — love the color and the name, but it goes grainy on me within an hour of putting it on, and my trick of adding a matte balm over top to revive the texture and redistribute the the color doesn’t work in this case. Boo. 🙁 It’s the only lip crayon from Nudestix that I own, so I’m assuming they’d all behave the same.
Glossier’s Solution. I’m no stranger to acids but this one broke me out horribly. I tried it around the same time I was trying a new foundation and originally thought the foundation was the culprit, but when my skin cleared up I tried the foundation again and haven’t had an issue. I know some people rave about the solution but I’ve also heard similar stories to mine where it breaks people out, which is too bad because I really wanted to love it.
Natasha Denona eye liners. Hard, rough, and color wouldn’t deposit to I lid let alone waterline!