Maychiri's Thoughts: December 2023

Balea Geschenkset Mindful Meditation Review

December 27, 2023

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Ebelin Naturally Beautiful Make-up-Korrekturstäbchen Review

December 27, 2023

The penultimate review for today is something small and humble, but very practical! These are the Ebelin Naturally Beautiful Make-up-Korrekturstäbhen (Make up correction sticks, in English)!

I did not originally plan on buying these, but they were 50% off and I never had any reusable swabs prior to these, so why the hell not! They cost less than a euro and I wanted to finish the set as much as I could anyways so I bought them. I’m sure they’ll be useful... at some point. Now, let’s see if they are any good!

Packaging: simple and rustic, like the rest of this LE. The packaging definitely looks like it’s been recycled. The swabs come in a (~~recycled?~~ Yup, says so in the back haha) paper sleeve with a cutout in the front so that you can touch the swabs to see how the feel. Not hygienic at all! Who knows how many people touched them already... oh well, they are washable so it doesn’t really matter in the end!

The swabs look very rustic, just like the rest of this LE! They have a light rosy handle that looks like it is sprinkled; recycled materials, especially paper, usually look like this, so I’d be inclined to believe them when they say that it was made with 50% recycled wheat.

The tip of the swab is pure white, which is very pretty, but it will very quickly become stained, especially if you use it to perfect the shape of say, red lipstick or deep black eyeliner. I love how rustic and vintage they look!

The tips are relatively flexible, but don’t bend them too much or they will snap off. I like that they have some flexibility to them, makes them easier to use. The tips are made of this super soft plush material that feels only slightly hard. It’s not the type of plush you’d find in reusable makeup remover pads, it’s a stiffer, slightly harder type of plush. But it still feels wonderful on the skin. It’s just hard enough for you to be able to press down if you need more force to remove products.

Speaking of usability, these are incredibly easy to use. Thanks to both the flexibility of the head, and the rigid centre of the head. And because they have a doe-foot shape, this makes them very precise. Of course, a pointed tip would be better, but a doe-foot gives you a flat surface that you can use if you need to fix larger areas. This allows you to really precisely fine-tune the shape of your lipstick or a cat-eye, or anything else, really. You don’t even need to (strictly speaking) use makeup remover with them; you can use them dry, or wet or with a makeup remover. Of course, it’ll be easier to fix mistakes if you drop a few drops of micellar water onto the swabs, just make sure not to apply so much that they are soaked.

And, because they are reusable, you can just wash them and use them again later! They can safely be washed with hand soap, it won’t ruin the plush material. So just wash them as you would anything else, no need to be extra gentle either, as these swabs are pretty robust. Of course, if you used the swabs on a very intense colour, particularly anything in the red part of the spectrum, expect to have a lot of trouble removing it fully.

I used one swab with a red lipstick and was unable to fully remove the red colour from the swab. This doesn’t affect the swabs negatively, but it ruins the pristine white colour of the tips.

All in all, I am pretty happy with these! These were my first foray into reusable swabs, because I was kinda tired of wasting a ton of swabs just to fix small mistakes, and it’s not at all eco-friendly either. These are eco-friendly because you can reuse them many times before the material deteriorates too much. The tips are soft but relatively hard, which is good because that allows you to press harder with the swab if you have something that it really stubborn and doesn’t want to come off. They are also relatively flexible! The doe-foot shape allows you to really get into the smallest nooks and crannies and fine-tune the shape of eyeliner, or lipstick, or eye pencil or, well, anything! They are also pretty easy to wash, and you don’t need to be super careful washing them because they are robust. Hand soap cleans them nicely. Now, is this some genius, never-seen-before invention? No, but it is hella useful and practical! I mostly bought it out of curiosity, but I really like them! They’re also surprisingly high quality! So yeah, eco-friendly and high quality! I would recommend them, they are awesome! But sadly, as all Ebelin LEs, they were gone less than a month after they arrived... shame, I would like to have another package.

Rating: 8.5/10

Would buy again? YES

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Blush Brush

Ebelin Naturally Beautiful Rougepinsel Review

December 27, 2023

Alright, the next review is the Ebelin Naturally Beautiful Rougepinsel (eng: Blush brush).

I had already bought the other Naturally Beautiful brushes by the time I bought this one, so of course I had to buy this one too to complete the collection! Bonus: I managed to grab it 50% off! Of course, this brush was part of a limited edition that was gone in only a couple of weeks, so I was terrifically lucky to find it marked down. I like natural, recycled items, and the handle of this brush is made of 50% recycled materials, which is very good. Some people might scoff at these ‘natural’, recycled beauty products, but let’s first see how good it is before we judge it!

Packaging: it came in cardboard packaging that only covered the hairs and ferrule; the handle was left sticking out so that you can feel the recycled material. It’s good that the hairs were protected by a plastic window, it’s much more hygienic than when people can touch the hairs.

The brush itself has quite a rustic, natural appearance: it has an off-white speckled handle (made of 50% recycled wheat!), a hidden ferrule (you can only see the very end of it which is rose gold) and hairs that have the softest gradient from dark brown at the base to soft brown at the tips.

The ferrule is quite large! The handle feels very robust despite being made from 50% recycled wheat! The hairs are synthetic and a bit shiny, but they don’t look at all cheap; in fact, they look rather expensive! The hairs are cut almost perfectly evenly although there can be a bit of fraying on the edge hairs. I had no fall-out or crimping or any other problems with the hairs; they are really high quality! The hairs are wonderfully soft, even when using a stippling motion. So wonderful!

This brush is way more than adequate for both blushes and highlighters. It applies a generous amount of pigment and blends it out so easily, which makes it exceptionally easy to use! I know that it is definitely too wide for highlighters, but it is actually an incredibly precise brush: I can tap on just a bit of highlighter to my cupids bow with ease, despite it not having a tapered tip. It is equally great for blushers and you can get a beautiful, even wash of colour on your cheeks with this brush.

It honestly blew my mind just how great this brush is to use! Though I wouldn’t use it for contouring, it is too fluffy for that.

This brush is super easy to wash and doesn’t absorb a lot of shampoo, making rinsing it a piece of cake! The hairs don’t lose their shape and can be reshaped easily when it is wet.

Conclusion: Ebelin rarely disappoints with their makeup brushes, and this one is no exception! Its hairs are super soft and very well-made and allow for both a subtle wash of colour across a large area of for a precise, intense look on a smaller area. It was primarily designed to be used for blushers and its shape definitely fits this purpose: a fluffy, slightly flared out brush with a surprisingly precise tip. It’s ideal for blushers, but also, surprisingly, for highlighters, too! The shape is nowhere near ideal but it applies highlighters so wonderfully, making them look perfectly blended out yet still very intense! Of course, with blushers, it is super easy to get a precise, extremely natural look and it is just as easy to build them up to a more intense finish! This brush is exceptionally good at blending, which honestly, is a necessity for blush brushes. The extremely soft hairs and ease of blending out pigments means that this brush is a joy to use; it is also a joy to wash as it takes barely more than half a minute to get it sparkly clean! So, to all the naysayers who claim that ‘natural’ or recycled brushes are inferior to ‘normal’ ones, this brush proves that that claim isn’t always true! Sometimes, ‘clean’ products are even better, like this brush! If only it wasn’t a limited edition product, then I would wholeheartedly recommend it! But as that LE was discontinued quite a long time ago, the chances of finding this amazing brush are very, very slim. Such a shame, as it is truly incredible!

Rating: 9/10

Would buy again? YES

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Ebelin

Ebelin Naturally Beautiful Make-Up Ei Review

December 27, 2023

The next review is the Ebelin Naturally Beautiful Make-Up Ei (Make up Egg, in English).

I bought this blending sponge on a whim, as I was only using brushes at the time. I did think I would eventually switch to using sponges, so I wanted to have a couple of good quality sponges to get started with. This one was 50% off its regular price, and it has apparently been infused with green tea, so it seemed like it would be good for my sensitive skin. And since I am quite eco-friendly I also really liked the fact that it was made of 50% recycled materials! It was part of an Ebelin limited edition, called Naturally Beautiful, which also included brushes, reusable makeup swabs and a couple of other things. So I had to decide whether to buy it quickly, or it would be gone forever in a week or two, like all limited editions from Ebelin!

The sponge came in cardboard packaging that had a cut-out that allows you to touch the sponge to feel its texture. That’s not too hygienic but, ah sure, whatever.

This is a greenish-brown coloured sponge; the colour reminds me of green tea. There is an embossed Ebelin logo, but besides that there are no other details. This is a classic egg-shaped sponge: pointed on one end and rounded on the other end. It’s pretty average sized, if a tiny bit small, but it is still definitely big enough to be easy to use. It’s big enough to blend out foundation on my cheeks and forehead quickly and precise enough to properly blend out foundation or concealer in the undereye area. The texture of the sponge is pretty fine, but still visible and looks so soft! Also, this sponge had a noticeable green tea scent while it was still fresh. It has since lost that scent after a large number of washes, but it was quite interesting to me that it was green tea scented! There must’ve been quite a lot of green tea inside it!

The sponge is super soft when dry and equally soft when wet. The softness is ideal for my sensitive skin as it lessens the chance any irritations might occur.

This sponge feels a bit, hmm, stretchy, or flimsy when wet; I don’t really mind it, but it is much more stretched out than my previous sponge, which felt firm when wet. I guess it’s due to the recycled materials used? Anyways, that does not pose a problem for how well it blends, as it blends very well! It’s not the best at blending, but it is far from bad. I can blend out foundation or concealer in less than a minute and the result is super natural and soft. It’s definitely a lot less coverage than when using a brush, which isn’t a bad thing necessarily!

The sponge is really easy to use, even though it doesn’t feel as bouncy as the previous sponge. At least it feels velvety soft!

This sponge is extremely easy to wash; it takes approximately the same amount of time to wash this sponge as it does to wash a foundation brush. It’s much easier to wash than the previous sponge! It also doesn’t absorb a ton of shampoo, which means that it takes a really short amount of time to wash it properly. I don’t need to keep squeezing shampoo out of it as most of it comes out in the first rinse.

This sponge is really durable, especially when you take into consideration that it is made of 50% recycled materials. It might seem like it is a bit flimsy, but that’s not actually true: even after a month of regular use it still looks and feels identical to when I first opened it. The texture of the sponge is the same, and it performs the same, too. So, it is quite good quality!

Also, the water was green the first time I washed the sponge. I assume this is the green tea infusion. Given that the water isn’t green anymore when I wash the sponge that probably means I washed all the green tea out. Perhaps there is still some left, who knows?

All in all, this is actually quite a good makeup egg sponge. I like that it has been partly recycled and that it is infused with green tea, which is known for its skin calming properties. It’s big enough to be used on the larger areas of the face and super soft, so that it doesn’t cause any irritations. It is quite good at blending and doesn’t leave a blotchy finish, although the finish is very light and natural. I do prefer a heavier, fuller coverage finish, this too is good, especially when I don’t have a lot of time to do my makeup. It’s also super easy to wash, and can be totally clean after a minute of washing. The only thing I don’t really like is how stretchy it feels when it is wet; it’s not that bouncy, firm feeling that I had gotten used to, so this softness kind of bothers me. Unfortunately, this sponge was part of a limited edition, but if it were still available I would recommend it! It is a great, eco-friendly sponge perfect for sensitive skin.

Rating: 7.5/10

Would buy again? Probably YES (if it wasn’t an LE)