Disappointing Purchases

Over the past year I have bought quite a few skincare/makeup products that haven't quite turned out as I expected. Some of them didn't suit me specifically because of my skin type, but others have just been plain bad! So today I thought I'd talk about the products that disappointed me the most:

1. Nivea Daily Essentials 5in1 BB Cream in Light: I'll be honest, I am not a huge fan of BB creams; I've only used a few and have never quite known how to apply them properly. I thought I'd give this one a try because I usually really like Nivea and because it was only £5.

This product comes in two shades: light and medium to dark. I went for light because I am super pale, but when I applied the cream I had to double check the packaging as I thought I'd bought the darker shade! I guess that's what I really dislike about this BB cream, the fact that the only light option is, in my opinion, not light at all, and on top of that, this products is quite patchy.
There is not much I can do with it really, and I've only used it once- good job it was cheap!

2. Smashbox Photo Finish Classic & Hydrating Primers: Out of all the products featured in this post, these are the ones I was least disappointed with. I think that for people with oily, or even normal skin, these primers can be great. But, as I often mention, I suffer from dry skin, and so these oil-free primers didn't help my makeup to stay on for very long. Even the hydrating version didn't seem to make a difference, as most days my foundation would start to come off a few hours after applying it, especially on problem areas like my nose and cheeks.
When I started using cream based primers I immediately noticed the difference; they feel much nicer on the skin and my makeup stays on pretty much all day now, so I would never go back to silicon based primers.

3. Clinique Redness Solutions Soothing Cleanser: This product makes me really sad. I spent quite a bit of money on it, and I was very excited to use as my skin is quite sensitive and very red.
I was told that all I had to do was use this cleanser to remove my makeup with cotton wool, no need to rinse after or use an extra cleanser to wash my face. As soon as I started to use this product I realised that this wasn't true; I'd find myself having to wash my face straight after as it would not fully remove all traces of makeup. It used to take me much longer to complete my skincare routine when I used this cleanser, which made it seem like a very boring chore.
However, my redness did improve for a while. I  used the Clinique redness solutions cream at the same time, which is absolutely amazing and I highly recommend.

4. Maxfactor Colour Elixir Lip Liner in 04 Pink Princess: I don't have a problem with this product, in the sense that it does its job fairly well, but it is very unpractical. It runs out so quickly that it only lasts about five uses, if that! And the worst thing is that you can't sharpen it or twist it so more of the lip liner comes out (like other liners do). I've often thought that maybe I'm  being really silly and there's a very obvious way to make the product come out, but I've asked other people to try and do it and they haven't been able to either.
So it's a total waste of money due to its durability, which is a shame because this shade in particular is really nice and very wearable.

5. Rimmel Scandaleyes Precision Waterproof Micro Eyeliner: Liquid eyeliner is more my thing, but I wanted to give an eyeliner pen a try to see if it would speed my makeup routine up: It didn't.
After a couple of uses this eyeliner starts to dry out, making it almost impossible to apply. You have to apply this liner several times otherwise you can't really see it, and even then it's really patchy and flaky; and by the time you've finished you realise that it looks like a kid has been drawing on your eyelids. And it only lasts a couple of hours (if that). Big no-no.

I really hope you've found this post helpful. Have you tried any of these products? :)
Ana xo