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!