Clinique Pops of Happy Lip Glaze & Perfume Coffret | First Impressions + Weekend Chicago Trip Ramblings!

Clinique Pops of Happy Lip Pop Glaze Lip Colour & Perfume Coffret

     Hello again!! 😁💛Wow, I'm soooo incredibly happy to be back on the bloggie! Phew, long hiatus there, right? So, *awkwardly clears throat* aaaaaand - begin riff: Uh - It's been a long time...I shouldn'ta left you - without a dope beat to step to.....step to - step to - uhhuh - step to.... boom. Ok...I'll stop embarrassing myself now. 😄😝I could've left you with a travel blog post, or something a bit more interesting than a measly book review, damn. Well, let me stop there....because I just recently took a short weekend trip to Chicago for some discoveries and urban dwelling and inspiration (and possibly a new beginning soon!) so there will be an entire account of my wanderings in the heart of that city! The photos are being curated, and will be up on my blog soon!

     So, Chicago: It's difficult to express my feelings whilst being there, but I may as well open up about them - they were convincingly synonymous with a...go ahead, laugh...eh, something akin to a past life, I guess? Eh, I'm not one to jump to immediate conclusions like that, but the streets of Chicago just felt so incredibly...familiar (for lack of better term) to me, as if I had strode down East Chicago Avenue and down to the Navy Pier and taken boats from the dock countless numbers of times before. So here's what's up: When I first approached Navy Pier, I knew I had this odd notion that I had seen it before and been there before, but that what I was looking at was through a different lens or something. Has anyone ever had that feeling before? Like, whereupon visiting a place that should for all verifiable reasons be unfamiliar, turned out to actually be quite the contrary? I'm kinda getting the shivers right now! If you have an experience with that, I would love it if you shared that experience! 😀

More About My Chicago Trip - I Get Back to Talking About this Clinique Set Eventually...

I admit, it was a strange feeling, and it was a familiarity I've never felt with any other place I've visited any number of times in my life: New Jersey, Tennessee, Florida, Philly, Georgia, Arizona...And it was only the second time I had ever visited the downtown Chicago area, and most certainly my first time ever visiting Navy Pier! In my current city, Cincinnati, in the downtown district, I still always need a GPS for walking navigation, as well as other cities I've visited where I have family and long-distance friends, but in Chicago, taking a 50-minute walk back to my hotel from the Contemporary Art Museum on East Chicago Avenue (which was just one of many outings while there, all of which were in the daytime 😉), I hardly needed my GPS at all on the way back, and I got some seriously weird flashbacks whilst walking to Armitage and Fullerton stations. I used my navigation all the way to E Chicago Ave, but it all felt so familiar. Weird is an understatement for how I was feeling. Try spooked as hell? LOL. My feet just led me once I was going back north to my hotel, and I found almost the entire way back as if from a type of memory, or something, more pronounced even than eidetic memory. My hotel was a couple blocks away from the Fullerton bus station. Might I add, that my sense of direction is absolutely atrocious in most scenarios. So there, I had no idea that this is apparently phenomena that many people experience at least once in their lives, and then they immediately look into conclusions of past lives and that realm of mysticism lol, which is what I'm basically doing, I suppose, but once I looked it up after the fact, I guess I opened my mind to the possibility of past lives, even if just a bit. Brings to mind Daughtry's song, Home? - eh, it's kind of a cute pop song that resonates with a lot of people, especially soldiers going back to their families after months or years stationed overseas.

Clinique, We Are Back to You! 😊

Back to it! Anyways, we have this beautiful little Clinique perfume and lipstick coffret to look at! I must say I'm rarely excited by anything Clinique releases, but I found this on clearance at Ulta for just under $20. Is "first-impression" now an unofficial verb now in the beauty community? Because I dearly hope not, and I almost used it as such. 😂

Clinique Pop Lipstick Swatches

Swatches from the Top (one swipe each): 06 Poppy Pop, 10 Punch Pop, 02 Bare Pop

The Lipsticks!

Poppy Pop
My personal favorite, this is a mid-toned orange red - this one applied with full opacity, yet still due to their nature, this formula yields a bit of translucency on the lips

Punch Pop
Bright, sleek, modern mid-toned fuchsia pink with a cream finish - goes on with smoothly with medium opacity and a slight shine, but there's still some translucency when these lipsticks are applied, fyi

Bare Pop
A caramel nude with slight pink undertones and tons of gold shimmer - can be built up from light to medium opacity

Lipsticks - Overview & Thoughts

I had tried one of these lipsticks before...two years ago, I decided to purchase one of these Pop Lip Colours in the beautiful red-brown shade called Cola Pop. I promptly returned it after a couple days, because as much as I loved the slightly hydrating feel, as well as the shade itself and how long-wearing it was for such a creamy lip product of its kind, the scent I was getting from these lipsticks was absolutely repulsive. When I went back to the counter to exchange it, I was in disbelief to find that they all had the same gross smell, which led me to thinking, "How do people not notice this?!" Although Clinique has always had a leaning towards unscented beauty products (these in particular), these still had a strong chemical scent that reminded me of a lipstick that had turned and expired. 

But now, I'm happy to say, that this is certainly not the case with these anymore, as I can detect absolutely no scent with these! 

I've only worn each of the lipsticks in this set two or three times, and the first thing I noticed is that these lipsticks don't have much slip to them, and if you don't apply balm underneath, they're pigmented, but can skip a bit while applying. Two of the three lipsticks in this little collection last beautifully throughout the day: Poppy Pop and Punch Pop. Those lasted about 4 hours before I felt I needed to touch up, for the sole reason that my lips were looking just a tad bit dry - the colors had left an even, apparent, smooth-looking stain on my lips after the initial formula had worn off.

The neutral in this collection, Bare Pop, had some texture issues throughout wear time, and only lasted up to 2 hours on average. This one had the most slip to the formula of the three in the set, and Bare Pop applied quite smoothly and evenly. One gripe I have: It started to feel just a bit gritty after about an hour of wear (but not to the point of being uncomfortable to wear), and that's just due to the shimmer and slight sparkle in the color's formula. This one also retains its subtle shine and gleam throughout its short life on the lips, whereas the other two shades settle down to something akin to a demi-matte finish on the lips after being worn for an hour or so. 

Perfumes - Overview & Thoughts

Clinique perfumes always used to read as a little too 'commercial floral' for me, even as a teen, so after being a bit disappointed with the wear time and the development of the highly coveted, yet loud and intrusively synthetic-smelling Clinique Happy after a few hours on the skin (I had sampled it from a magazine, not from an actual bottle at the counter, which was bad testing on my part; I also remember testing it during the autumn season instead of the warmer months), I must say I got nothing out of the experience, save for a headache. So, needless to say, I had from then on diverted myself from the white science lab coats at Clinique fragrance counters. 

Now, however, I'm certain that my body chemistry has changed, because although Happy probably won't become an everyday staple for me (it's still quite sharp, but has a vibrancy on my skin, whereas before, I just smelled like alcohol-laden floral, and the grapefruit note still isn't really my favorite, as it sticks out on my skin, and I'm not really fond of grapefruit to begin with), it really does work on me, if in the right environment and season!

Happy in Bloom just sadly smells like cheap bathroom potpourri on me. It lasts a mere 2 hours, at that. An easy pass-along on this one, to someone whose chemistry it might work better for. 

Happy Heart is surprisingly one that I've taken quite a liking to! This scent is much warmer than the other two, and I adore the hyacinth and mandarin melody of notes. With this, upon first spray, I read the slightest of slight reminders of Nest Verde fragrance on my skin, just much more of a synthetic green - it's a green leafy note (Cedar? Pine? I'm not sure, but this note in Happy Heart is far less woodsy and, as I mentioned, is much more of a synthetic green note than Verde) but the note quickly fades away. This fragrance hugs the skin nicely, it's cozy and fresh, and I have been wearing it for almost a week straight! And just in that week, I received about a dozen compliments from people I know and from strangers saying I "smell nice." Never "what perfume are you wearing?" with Clinique fragrances, which I've only come to expect. 😉This one stays close to my skin after the sillage fades (about 4 hours). 

Do you all like Clinique fragrances? Tell my why you do or why you don't! Thanks for reading, and have a lovely weekend, everyone!

💋Cailee