Yes to Tomatoes Daily Pore Scrub- February Beauty Army

Sample- dinky foil packet

Full-sized- $9.99 for 4 oz

I’ve used several things from the Yes to Tomatoes line and liked them all so I was excited to get this. I’ve actually been meaning to try it so it was nice to get to try a sample without having to buy the full-sized thing. The whole Yes to Tomatoes line is mostly natural products. They use salicylic acid that’s naturally derived from tomatoes (hence the name). This particular product also has ginger root and bisabolol (whatever that is) to help reduce redness. This scrub is also sulfate free and paraben free which I have been into lately.

Even though this says it’s a daily scrub, I didn’t use it every day.  I use my Olay Pro-X cleansing brush (which exfoliates gently) every other day so I really don’t feel the need to use an exfoliating scrub more than once a week. This scrub uses ground up bamboo to exfoliate. I don’t know how I feel about that. I feel like this is kind of along the same lines as the St. Ives Apricot Scrub with the ground up apricot pit that rips your face apart. Okay not literally but those types of irregular, rough granules are not good for your skin. If I exfoliate I would rather use little microbeads that have a smooth surface and are gentler on my skin. Besides the fact that the exfoliants are harsh, they are also quite highly concentrated, which adds up to a super harsh scrub that is way too much for my sensitive skin. Besides that, the scrub only lasted two uses so I really couldn’t tell you if it did anything for my skin. My skin certainly felt quite soft and clean, it didn’t make my face tight or anything. It doesn’t have any smell that I could discern.

So overall, this was to harsh for my skin, even once a week. If your skin is super non-sensitive and hearty then this might be a good weekly or bi-weekly exfoliator to try but I can’t imagine anyone being able to use this every day. Its just to harsh for that.

January Empties

I completely stole this idea from Bailey at Making Up the Midwest. Just getting that out there. She has posted a couple videos she calls “My Beauty Graveyard” where she showcases some products that she has used up and gives a little mini-review of how she liked it and whether or not she would buy it again. I think this is a great idea and I’m stealing it. At the beginning of every month I’m going to do an Empties post of everything I used up last month.

There’s a couple reasons I want to do this. One, it gives me a chance to tell you about something that I might have forgotten or just not gotten around to reviewing and two, even if its something I’ve reviewed before, I can do a little mini-refresher review and plus sometimes after I’ve totally used something up I might feel differently about it then I did after just using it for a couple weeks or however long I’d been using it before I reviewed it the first time. So here goes. These are all things I used up completely and they are all full-sized products (or in some cases a deluxe sample if it lasted me a long time). I’m not gonna write one of these every time I use up a foil packet.

Yes to Tomatoes Clear Skin Blemish Clearing Facial Towelettes

You can get these at most drugstores (I think I got mine at Walmart) and they run from $7 to $8. I like to keep cleansing towelettes around just for those mornings when I get home from work and can’t be bothered to take the time to wash my face fully or for those times when my fiance randomly decides we’re going out to dinner or that he’s made plans with friends and forgot to tell me and I have 15 minutes to make myself beautiful. These towelettes smell faintly of vanilla and they clean off light makeup really well (some eye make-up and foundation as long as there wasn’t any primer or setting spray) but they leave behind a bit of a residue. Its not awful but its not really good either. On the plus side they do have salicylic acid so they treat my breakouts. Its definitely better than not washing your face at all. These are okay but I won’t buy them again.

Camille Beckman White Lilac Glycerin Hand Therapy

I know I said I wasn’t going to include samples but I wanted to mention this. I got a tiny tub of this for Christmas last year from a coworker (like Christmas over a year ago, not this past Christmas). I never really used it and it got lost in my bottomless purse until I found it again this fall and decided to start using it. My hands get super dry in the winter time so I always have hand lotion around. I love the light smell of this and it moisturizes very well without being greasy. I’m not sure if its as good as my beloved L’Occitane but its almost as good and is much more affordable. They have a whole line of lotions, bath products, soaps, and perfumes in a bunch of different yummy sounding smells. And everything is made in the US! You can find them at www.camillebeckman.com. I think at some point I may buy some other products and see how I like them.

Johnson Parker Lavender Hand Soap

This isn’t technically a beauty product but its still an empty. I got this as a gift from a co-worker. I think I got it around Thanksgiving or before. I don’t usually like a lot of lavender but this didn’t actually smell at all like lavender. It had sort of a subtle floral scent which was very pleasant. It sudses up well (if that’s a word) and cleans well without drying out my hands. As far as I can tell from looking online this is a fairly low-end brand. She said she got it at Bath & Body Works. I couldn’t find it online but I might peruse Bath & Body Works next time I’m at the mall to see if I can find it for cheap enough. I don’t like to spend a whole lot of money on hand soap but I loved this.

Yves Saint Laurent Effet Faux Cils Shocking Mascara

This was a deluxe sample gift with purchase as a beauty insider from Sephora (I love that program). This was a small tube and it didn’t last me very long and I’ve already reviewed it but I wanted to mention it again because I feel differently about it than I did when I first reviewed it. You know that saying that sometimes you don’t know what you’ve got until its gone? I’m feeling that way about this mascara. While I was using it I was like “oh this is nice” and came to the conclusion it was a good mascara but not worth the $30 a tube. Since I had to throw it away a week or so ago I’ve been using another mascara (fine I’ll say it, CoverGirl LashBlast) and I’m not super thrilled with it. Everyone else (okay not everyone) goes on about how great the LashBlast line is but I am not loving it. I miss my YSL. It was lightly perfumed with a lovely scent and made my lashes long, lush and beautiful, plus it was conditioning and made my lashes longer and fuller even if I wasn’t wearing mascara. I’ve searched around and found some of this mascara for $16.50 on a website (and I should have written down the website because now I can’t find it). I’m hoping I can find some cheaper mascara that I’m happy with but I have a sinking feeling nothing is going to measure up to my $30 YSL.

Next month I’m going to try to do this in video form so stay tuned for that!