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!

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.