Hidden gems (underrated inexpensive makeup)! Part I

These are the things that no one ever talks about in the beauty community that I think deserve more hype! I'm only mentioning 2 right now because I'm really trying to include only things that I really like/suggest buying and whatnot.

1. E.l.f. all over color stick in spotlight: $1

Yep, $1! This shade acts as a highlighter. It's an almost-white color and you can swipe it on and blend it in with your fingers. What I like about this as a highlighter is that it's not frosty or too shimmery, it just gives your cheeks a nice sheen. It's a really good simple, inexpensive highlighter. It might not highlight to extremes, but it is noticeable in my opinion.

2. Maybelline shine free oil control powder: around $5

I've only heard one other person in the beauty community talk about this (emilynoel83). I randomly bought this one day without knowing anything about it and it's been basically the only powder that actually does anything good for my skin. I've tried more popular powders that didn't seem to do anything for my skin or even made it more oily! I'm so glad I found this one. Though it comes in a few different shades, it's basically translucent. I do still have to touch up throughout the day but that's just my oily skin's fault. This has been the best powder I've found. It comes in both a pressed form and a loose form.

That's all for today!

Top 5 fall lipsticks

I've been seeing everyone doing this and I was thinking about the fall colors that I really like in my collection and decided to do it as well because I have some lipsticks worth a mention! These are all somewhere in the purple family (including berries and mauves) because I'm not quite a red lipstick person.

From left to right:

Maybelline color whisper in made-it mauve: I actually didn't expect to like this as much as I do considering that it looks kind of blah in the tube. It's a darker brownish mauve. It's pretty tame but still a bit darker and not boring. Even though it has a bit of that browney nude-ness to it, I still really like it on my pale skin! I love the color whisper line.

Maybelline color sensational lipstick in magnificent mauve: this is such a nice purple. It's a really happy medium because it's not so shockingly purple but it still is definitely a nice lightish purple. I've had this for quite some time now and still like it. I suppose it's the least fall-ish here because it's not a deep purple but it would be nice for someone wanting to venture into the purple section of lipsticks.

Maybelline color sensational lipstick in mauve mania: one of my new favorites, this is such a nice brightish-but-wearable berry mauve shade. This lipstick line makes pretty nice no-fuss lipsticks and is a really good place to find purple lipsticks - they carry way more than the average drugstore lipstick line does.

Rimmel kate matte lipstick 104: I really like the rimmel kate matte lipsticks and this color especially. These have a kind of fruity scent but not in a bad way (in my opinion anyway). Anyway, it's a really nice medium nude berry color. I don't find these to be drying and they actually have a near-matte finish instead of being totally matte. This color looks really boring compared to the other lipsticks swatched on my arm (especially the fergie one) but I swear it's not! It's more of a berry color on my lips. Almost a bit different and edgy while still being pretty wearable.

Wet n' wild fergie lipstick in Ferguson Crest Cabernet: I just love the formula of these lipsticks as they're  creamy but not the type of creamy that's too slippery and thin either. They're really opaque too. I was really scared of this color at first but it's so pretty! What I personally do (because I'm somewhat of a sissy when it comes to dark lipsticks) is after I put this on I blot it with some tissue, and that tames down the color just a bit while not wiping the lipstick off. In fact, when I was wiping the swatches off my arm, this lipstick really left a stain while the others wiped away much more easily. I also personally think the packaging on these lipsticks is really cool.

New (and some clearance) makeup spotted at walgreens

I just wanted to tell you guys some of the makeup I've been seeing in walgreens in random places. I think some people might not have noticed so I thought I'd share! I was at one of my walgreens and they had the limited edition wet n' wild tough girl eyeshadows wayyyy in the back past where the deodorant and eyelashes and stuff like that is. Like if you were to follow the makeup wall all the way to the back corner there was a random cardboard stand - I didn't even know they put stuff there! Then, I went into the hair care aisle and there were a couple new makeup items hanging from little hangers near the hair items (namely a new l'oreal collagen volume mascara or something like that - I didn't pay that close attention). I never usually go to these parts of the store so I think maybe some other people don't either, but they could have new makeup there if your walgreens is like mine. Also, if you didn't know, they have clearance makeup. They put clearance makeup in a bin on the end cap of the aisle next to the makeup wall at my nearest walgreens, and at another walgreens I went to it was in the toy aisle. I'm gonna be keeping a better eye out for sneaky new/discounted makeup at walgreens because I always used to look in the same place and I didn't notice this before.

What's in my school makeup bag

I have 6 hour days a couple days a week for college so I like to take a couple of makeup items with me to touch up. I keep them in a basic black bag I got from target for 3.99. Some of these are necessities and some are just things I like to keep when I feel like touching up.

Blotting sheets and powder: These are the most important things to take with me. I've always had a super shiny, oily face and even though I love my maybelline shine-control powder I don't think any powder could keep my face matte for more than a couple hours (sigh). I bring one of those basic powder puffs to apply it since bringing a big brush with me would be inconvenient. My e.l.f. blotting sheets also do the trick. They're the only ones I've tried, but I think blotting sheets are something that it doesn't matter if it's high-end or just basic, they're a really simple item. Blotting sheets are good because if you were to keep constantly applying powder to cover up the oil on your face, the oil can end up mixing with the powder and become cakey and sludgey, so it's good to actually take off some of the oil with blotting sheets.

 Bath & Body works wild berry tulips fragrance mist: this is one of those 3 ounce mini things. I live in Texas and it's really hot and I just want to make sure I smell good. I love this scent. I don't know if bath & body works carries this size anymore because they keep getting rid of their smaller, travel-sized items (annoying!).

Next I have a maybelline color whisper: I have a bunch of these but the one I choose to take with me is "made-it mauve". These are actually really moisturizing while still giving quite a bit of color (depending on the shade). Made it mauve is a dark-ish nudey mauve while still somehow being really wearable and looking nice on my pale skin. Sometimes my lips just look kind of dead and "blah" so I like to bring some kind of colored lip product with me to change that.

Q-tips: I'm paranoid of my eyeliner smudging so I keep these in case it happens.

                                       

Jordana fabuliner: I doubt I'll have to use this but I'm paranoid about my eye makeup! In case my eyes get watery and ruin my eyeliner or something, I threw this cheap eyeliner in my makeup bag in case I ever need to use it. It doesn't take up much space!

Mini mirror + hairbrush: You can get these things at wal-mart. If my hair suddenly looks like crap or something I can always pull this out to brush it.

Bobby pin: Just in case my hair is driving me crazy.

Wet n' wild limited edition trio "enlisting for beauty" from the tough girl limited edition line swatch and photo

I bought this trio from the limited edition tough girl/beauty army line from wet n' wild at my local H-E-B. It was $2.99 on an end cap where most of the new/limited edition items are. I chose this one because the other ones either looked too similar to colors I already had or were colors that I don't really wear.
These three are neutral colors and although I have almost all of the wet n' wild neutral colors in their permanent line, I thought these looked a bit different from the colors I already had. The top shade is a matte warm tan color, the middle color is a very dark matte brown, and the bottom shade is kind of a light brown, almost taupe shimmery color.

Swatched with no primer.

July favorites and fails

Time to talk about the things I liked and didn't like throughout July!

Favorites:

Nyx roll on shimmers are really neat. Not too messy and really pigmented! The color on the right, in particular ("salmon") is a really nice color.

I don't know why I hadn't tried these revlon just bitten kissable balm stains, but I love them! I like them better than the infamous revlon lip butters - these are less messy, feel better on the lips, and last a bit longer. They're pretty moisturizing too. I wish they had more shades! I love both of these shades, "darling" (left) and "sweetheart" (right).

I have had maybelline color whispers before and decided to get another one because I like the product and this color really stood out to me! This one's "mad for magenta". It goes on smooth, doesn't settle into lips at all, and I think actually lasts longer than the other color whispers I have. I like these because they don't feel like you're slathering butter on your lips like some of the revlon lip butters feel like.

Not too exciting, but I rediscovered EOS lip balms and I've been really liking them. They're convenient to put on before you apply lipstick because it only puts a little product on your lips, instead of making them slippery and smothered in lip balm. So you can still put lipstick on top of it.

I bought the maybelline great lash lots of lashes mascara in the blackest color, the non-waterproof version. This gives your lashes a LOT of length and a bit of volume. The only thing is, ironically since it's named "lots of lashes", it can make it look like you have less eyelashes. I comb through my lashes after using this with an eyelash comb to try to separate my lashes again as well as I can, but this is definitely the most lengthening mascara I've come across.

I'm surprised more people don't talk about this nyx waterproof concealer. It had really high coverage without looking cakey which is great. It stayed pretty well too. It's also creamy and I like it for both my under-eyes and acne scars.

I hopped on the bandwagon and bought this real techniques expert face brush. I think I even like this better than my sigma f80 brush, and this one's cheaper! It's really soft and makes my foundation go on smoothly and I also noticed it does a good job at keeping foundation from settling into my pores all weirdly.

Fails:

I'm actually returning both of these. Good thing I kept the receipts.

Milani ultrafine liquid eyeliner...yeah, no. With this on, my eyeliner was crunchy and crispy. It dumped eyeliner onto my eyelids, and instead of having it be a flat, sleek line, my eyeliner was like this raised bumpy crunchy mess. Plus,despite it being waterproof, pieces of it would flake off soon after applying.. Taking it off was uncomfortable too because the eyeliner gripped to my lids! Somehow the pieces that actually stayed on were like grabbing my eyelids and other pieces were falling off. Okay. I've heard so many other people talk about how much they liked this so I'm kind of confused - maybe I got a "bad one"?

Yeah, this "magic de-crease" didn't stop my eyeshadow from creasing. Granted I have really deep weird eye creases but with my wet n' wild fergie eye primer my shadow would last all day without creasing, and this only lasted a couple hours before my shadow creased. It was kind of a weird goopy consistency too. Gonna stick with my wet n' wild fergie eye primer.

This vs. that: maybelline eye studio lasting drama gel eyeliner vs. mac fluidline

Maybelline eye studio lasting drama gel eyeliner:
Price: $7.94 at walmart
Color: I got this in blackest black. Like the name, it is very black.
Performance: It went on nice and creamy. It did take a good few minutes to "set" or "dry", which was personally a little annoying because I curl my eyelashes after I put on my eyeliner and I get close to the base of my eyelashes, and if my eyeliner hasn't dried then the eyelash curler can rub up against the eyeliner and actually smear it off. It stayed on pretty well but if you were oily or got water on it, it could smear a little.
Extra things to consider: it comes with a brush, which is actually pretty decent. I was able to do winged eyeliner with it. Obviously it isn't exactly the best brush, but everyone has different preferences for brushes and this one isn't too bad if you're new to gel eyeliner and don't feel like going and buying a separate brush.


Mac fluidline:
Price: $16.00 U.S.
Color: I got this in blacktrack. It's actually a soft black when compared to other black eyeliners I have. I know that a lot of people prefer their eyeliner to be as black as possible so this could be a potential downfall.
Performance:  It was nice and creamy going on like the maybelline one, but maybe a little thicker. It dried fast when you put it on, which in my opinion is good - who wants to wait for their eyeliner to dry? It also stayed really well.

Overall verdict: I bought the mac one because I was wondering if it was better, and also my maybelline gel eyeliner actually dried up in the pot before I could finish the whole pot (I ended up buying a new one). I wondered if the mac one wouldn't dry up so I could use the entire thing. Turns out, it dried up too. It seems like it's a common thing among gel eyeliners for them to dry up before you can use the whole thing. I've read about how you can add eye drops to your gel eyeliner and mix it around to make it not so dry and thick anymore, so I'll probably end up trying that. Anyway, recently the number of drugstore gel eyeliners has been at an all-time high so while the mac one is pretty good I'll be exploring my other drugstore options before running out to repurchase mac fluidline anytime soon. If you really want your eyeliner to set fast and stay in place and don't mind that the mac one isn't a really dark black, then you might go with the mac.

Nyx soft matte lip cream review

I purchased the nyx soft matte lip cream in antwerp.



Like the name, it is a matte lip cream. It has a doe-foot applicator and the product is creamy and has a smell which was kind of like a pasty or cupcake or something which sounds nice but I thought it smelled kind of strange. Not bad enough to where I didn't want to use it, but I wasn't the biggest fan of the smell. It gives nice pigmentation. The application is okay. Not as easy as say, putting on a nice lipstick, since the formula is so creamy. But I didn't have problems with it or anything. The big problem with this was the lasting time. I put this on before I went grocery shopping for 1 1/2 or 2 hours, and by the time I got back it had started fading - and it's one of those products that's ugly when it fades. The color was gone from the center of my lips. The bottom of my top lip and the top of my bottom lip were my natural lip color while the rest of my lips were still the color of the soft matte lip cream - and I put 2 layers of this stuff on which, you'd think, would make it stay better! I didn't eat or drink during these 1 1/2 hours and didn't lick my lips a lot or anything. I LOVE the color, in fact I've gotten compliments on it from other people too. The website describes it as a "mid-tone yellow-toned pink". I didn't think it was a true pink as much as a soft, wearable red with some peachy pink in it. I want to find a lipstick in this color, partly because I don't like this but I love the color, and also I'm wondering if this lip cream would be nice to layer over a lipstick of the same color. Maybe if you got a lipstick of the same color and wanted a matte lip, you could put this over the lipstick to achieve a matte lip and then it wouldn't look bad when it fades. This is one of those products where you're like "ugh, this could have been nice, if only _____!". In this case the big flaw was the lasting power and the ugly way it faded. Some people say this stays on well for them, which I can't really grasp because I tried this multiple times and it just wouldn't stay for me. I wish it did.

Quick deep conditioning recipe!

I have dry hair that gets ridiculously frizzy and the hair conditioning treatments I've been trying lately just haven't been doing much - until I found out about the olive oil hair conditioning treatment. You just mix 1/4 cup of your regular hair conditioner with 1 teaspoon of extra virgin olive oil, leave it in your hair for 20 minutes, rinse, and it should leave your hair much smoother and deeply conditioned.

Review - Nivea lip butter

I'm a fan of nivea lip products so I was excited to try this. I finally found these at my local grocery store after looking everywhere for them! Everyone was talking about how good the caramel scented one is, but I have all three and actually like the vanilla & macadamia kiss one best. This has a couple of potential cons, but overall I really like it.


It's very moisturizing! I'm someone who struggles with really dry lips and am always looking out for something that will actually work for me. I've tried LOTS of moisturizing lip products and this one really does fix up my lips. It feels really creamy when you scoop it out of the jar and it's kinda fun to put on. Also smells great. The problem with little pots of lip product is that you have to use your finger and you're probably gonna have extra product on your finger after you put it on your lips so that's a small downside. I've heard some people commenting about how it doesn't necessarily "stay" on your lips. If you're the kind of person who wants your lips to always feel like they have something on them, then this might be a con. But it doesn't matter to me, it moisturizes really well even though it seems to sink in really fast and "go away". This isn't entirely transparent, it's a little bit white but it's not gonna make your lips look white unless you pile on too much. There's not too much else to say!

Lecosmetique blending sponge review

I had never really found a way to apply my foundation that I was really satisfied with before trying this product. I've tried using my fingers, a stippling brush, a regular foundation brush, a flat top brush, etc. etc.  Everyone was raving over the original "beauty blender", but it's $20, and I just wasn't willing to pay that for a sponge. I looked for dupes, and like one or two people were raving about this one, so I decided to buy it since it was only $5.95. They're available on http://www.lecosmetique.com/ in several different colors.
I don't know what it is with my skin but I have to try pretty hard for my foundation not to look cakey and weird on it. I wasn't sure what to expect from this but I was very impressed. I soaked it with water and squeezed out the excess (using it damp works better than using it dry) and applied my foundation. It blended my foundation in so nicely. It made my skin look natural, but it didn't sheer out the foundation to the point where it defeated the purpose of even putting foundation on. It gave me coverage but totally prevented it from looking cakey. It really made my skin look like my real skin but better, not my-skin-covered-up-with-foundation. I haven't tried the original beauty blender but I'm quite happy with this one. It's my new favorite way to apply foundation and I probably won't be applying my foundation with a brush again for a long time. One slight con - after a few days of using it, I noticed a very small tear near the top. I wasn't  rough with it or anything so I was worried that it was going to fall apart. Update: 2 months after having this, I noticed a tear in the side as well. I'm not happy with the slight tearing but it's minor enough to where I can still use it just like normal. I'm hoping it will hold together and I won't have to buy a new one (although they're not too expensive to buy new ones if I need to!).

Revlon colorstay: normal/dry skin versus combination/oily skin

Revlon colorstay foundation comes in two types -  normal/dry skin and combination/oily skin. You might think "well, I'm just going to buy whichever one fits my skin type so why do I need to read a review on them?". I thought it might be useful to tell you guys the differences between them in case you have in-between skin or you have oily skin in summer and dry in winter.

First of all, the combination/oily skin one has a strong scent to it that smells pretty similar to wall paint. Yeah, like the actual paint that people paint their walls with. If you don't like strongly scented makeup it might be a problem. I could smell it on my skin even after I put it on and it set. This one also made me break out a bit. The sensitivity of my skin to breakouts is about average, but different ingredients in makeup break out different people so it really depends on the person. It also dries VERY fast when you apply it, so you have to work with smaller areas of your face at a time instead of just putting it all over your face and then blending.  If you're not careful putting this on, it can also look a little cakey. Also, the coverage of this one is a little bit more full than the normal/dry skin one. Finally, it did stay on really well. I wore it when I went on vacation to Hawaii and was doing a lot of outdoor activities and hiking. In warm weather I have oily skin, and I was surprised at how matte this kept my face without even reapplying powder or anything. It really does stay on until the end of the day. Be sure to take off your foundation completely at the end of the day if you use this or any long-wearing foundation.

The one for normal/dry skin goes on more easily. It doesn't dry super fast when you apply it and looks more natural. I wasn't too impressed with its staying power compared to the combination/oily skin one, but my skin gets a little oily throughout the day so if you do have dry skin it'll probably stay on better. It has an average foundation smell instead of smelling like wall paint. It did not break me out. It had a little less coverage than the combination/oily skin one.

As for application tips, I think a damp sponge works best for the combination/oily skin one since it does dry so fast and can look a little cakey using the average brush. You can use the average wedge sponges you get in a bag at the drugstore, or a beauty blender/beauty blender dupe. Also, even if you have oily skin, moisturizing before putting on the combination/oily skin one will help it to look more natural and go on more easily.
The normal/dry skin one doesn't really require any special tips as it's more easy to work with and closer to the average foundation formula that most people are familiar with.