Tag Archives: make up forever

Buying Stuff: Episode 18

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Today is my husband’s birthday, and to celebrate, I bought myself some stuff.  Because I have to go take him to see that dang Planet of the Apes show, and I tried to convince him it’s cool to go the the theater by yourself but he wouldn’t agree, so now I am forced to watch a boy movie for 11 hours straight.  Give or take 9 hours or so.

In other words, all things below immediately and undeniably JUSTIFIED.

First up:

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I was running out of cleansing milk – you know, what they call an emergency – so I thought I’d try something new.  Picked up the Le Couvent des Minimes version.  I haven’t used it yet because per usual, I think I’m about out of a product so I rush around to get my replacment ready, when suddenly my almost empty tube replicates itself and I get another two weeks of use out of it.  I did smell it, and it’s a very delicate rose scent.  I squeezed a little onto my fingers to discover the consistency is quite loose.  Not sure how I feel about that, as I like a thicker cleansing milk, but we’ll see.  I’m almost certain I have only 1 or 2 days left of my current product, as long as the planets are aligning properly as they should.

Then I got the Lorac Pro 2 eyeshadow palette.  I already have the first one, and it’s amazing and beautiful, so naturally I had to grab the little sister.  This time around, the shades are quite colorful versus the more neutral shadows of #1.  And as expected, this palette is perfect.  Using the same concept from before, there is a row of mattes and a row of shimmers.  The shadows are pigmented, buttery, smooth, glorious.  I am so happy I bought it.  If you have just $42 and you’re wondering what to do with it, stop thinking and put this in your basket.  No, I’m serious.  Do it right now.

Fine, here’s a close up first:

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I have been using Light Brown or Nectar in my crease, which are both great.  And the shades Rose, Chrome and Jade are beautiful lid colors.  Love Cocoa, Plum and Navy in the outer V.  Honestly, you won’t regret getting this palette unless you hate perfection.  I mean people are weird, sometimes.  But if you are a normal human and do as I tell you, you’ll be sitting home on Saturday night playing with your makeup while all your cool (stupid) friends are out having “fun.”  Such fools.

Perhaps one of the funnest (most fun?) lipglosses I’ve ever owned is Bare Minerals Marvelous Moxie in the shade Hypnotist.  It looks like the future, like something Judy Jetson would wear.  That’s not even a joke.  Look:

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How pretty is that?  Who doesn’t want an iridescent lipgloss? (Crazy people.) However, I will say that this lipgloss doesn’t do a whole lot on it’s own. It’s mostly clear with shine. It fares slightly better on top of lipstick. Gave my nude lipstick a bit of extra dimension although nothing crazy. In fact, it’s more of a novelty than anything else. I don’t mind it. It’s pretty to look at, smells like mint chocolate, and feels good on the lips. I will most likely repurchase cuz I enjoy spending money on pretty things that don’t work. You probably should too.

I know. I’m ridiculous. But my lipgloss is holographic so try arguing with that. (You can’t.)

Picked up this batch too:

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I’ve never used any of the Body Shop body butters before, and Ulta had them on sale for 40% off. And naturally I can’t walk away from a good coupon, so I put the coconut one in my basket. This smells so good, like summer and the beach. Can’t wait to start using it, but as usual I’m constantly trying to finish up other products first. Hopefully I’ll get to it by the end of the month.

I’ve been feeling a little oily this summer so for the first time in my life I’m buying products to fix it. I have a few sheets of some Tatcha Japanese blotting linens left, and I really love them. Figured I’d try something different, especially cuz the Tatcha ones are kind of pricey. Decided on these little NYX matte ones. And guess what? Do not like. Of course I wouldn’t since they’re practically free compared to the other ones.

First of all, the packaging is awkward. It’s not easy to remove the papers. I have to unfold the whole packet and then put it all back together. It takes too much energy. If the choice is to remain oily or break a sweat fiddling with the dang packet thing, I suppose oily isn’t such a bad deal after all.

And second of all, I’m comparing them to the lovely texture of the Tatcha papers, and there’s just no comparison. Granted, the NYX ones are cheap, and Tatcha has made me spoiled.

Long story short, I bought some Boscia papers so I’m gonna try those instead.

I also picked up another NYX Butter Gloss. I own like 7 or 8 of these. That’s probably not a lot compared to some, but I carry them all in my purse so they take up a lot of space. However, I didn’t have a brown so what is there left to do but buy a brown? Got the color Praline and it’s so pretty on top of my nude lipstick.

Then of course at the check out counter they had these sample tubes of Peter Thomas Roth peeling gel. It says right there on the package that your dead skin will roll right off your face. I challenge anyone not to want to buy 15 tubes of this stuff. Seriously, dead skin. Rolling. Right off your face. I can’t even.

I used this the other night, and it really is quite amazing. After washing, apply this gel to your face in circular motions. Quickly, little balls of product and dead skin starts to ball up and fall into the sink. Then afterwards you literally feel as if you replaced your old face for a new one. It’s fantastic. I have a suspicion I’m about two seconds away from buying a full size.

Have you ever wanted a purple lipstick so bad that you ended up buying a purple lipstick? I did, and it was the Make Up For Ever one in #15. Now, the color is gorgeous. It’s true purple. There is a lovely pearl finish. However, the drawback is the formula. It’s so incredibly dry it practically drags across your lips. I have to do extra extra swipes just to cover all the surface area evenly. It was cumbersome and effortful. I had a lot of thinking to do.

Decided to go with it anyway cuz did I mention how bad I wanted a purple lipstick? Sometimes I do things against all practicality. However, it turned out alright in the end. Here is me wearing purple lips topped with the iridescent Hypnotist gloss mentioned earlier:

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Ooooh, purty! Totally worth it. I don’t even care about the formula anymore. I will spend the rest of my life applying this lipstick if the end result looks like this every time.

Last haul is this one:

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Another emergency – I was running out of eye makeup remover. So I thought I’d give this Mario Badescu one a try. It’s a gel, not a liquid, so it’s kind of weird. Also you have to really enjoy smearing black mascara all over your eye socket cuz that’s how you remove it with this stuff. But I will say it works really really well. And when you get it in your eye, it only stings for like 5 seconds. Success!

Then as a gift with purchase, I got this teeny sample of the Mario Badescu glycolic face wash. I had every intention of using it, but you know how I have like 7 or 8 tubes of cleansers in line already? One more might send me into an anxious fit. My daughter has it now. I have to bribe her for two-armed hugs you know.

Replacing my dried up pot of Maybelline gel eyeliner, I got the Napoleon Perdis China Doll one. I used it and it’s very creamy and easy to apply. I like it. Plus it was on sale at Ulta for $15. If I didn’t buy it at that point, I’d be accused of a mental imbalance, for sure.

Got a beautiful matte balm stain from Revlon called Sultry. One of my YouTube beauties raved about it so naturally it went on my wish list. And then about two seconds later I went ahead and bought the dang thing. This color is one of the prettiest I own, and I literally own a billion. Give or take. And this matte formula was not drying on my lips at any point, which was a nice surprise.

And finally, I bought a nail polish. No,
you did not misunderstand what I just said. I thought this Revlon color in Chameleon was so unique, I knew I had to have it. I love how the gold turned to green in different angles. I had never seen another color like it.

Well, sadly, it wasn’t quite as pretty on the nail. Mostly it was an antique gold/bronze and the green wasn’t that evident. A bit of a bummer really. I mean, I freaking bought nail polish; the least it could do was be amazing. Hmmmphf.

Well that’s it. You’re free to go about your weekend as you please. Bye!

Buying Stuff: Episode 17

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You ever have those times where you think you are doing so good at shopping, not spending too much, then on the way out the store you see something you most desperately need and end up ruining all your good work?  Except you technically didn’t ruin anything because now you have something amazing, therefore you go home feeling like you quite literally saved the world from a stock market crash.  Well here is one of those times:

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It’s a cute little mask set from Peter Thomas Roth and I am in love.  Even if you don’t like masks, you could buy this cuz it has pretty colors, and who doesn’t love that? (Crazy people.)  I’ve been wanting to try the two gel masks for awhile, so finding this kit made me var var happy.  I didn’t know the pumpkin one existed, so that was a bonus.  Although I’m not a huge fan of pumpkin smells.  The last pumpkin thing I had was a mask from Michael Todd, and it had the consistency and appearance of baby food.  Not necessarily a bad thing if you love pumpkin; however, I do not.  But this Peter Thomas Roth thing is an exfoliator and the opposite of baby food, so I think it will be fine.

And remember how I saved the world from a stock market crash.  So everything mentioned in this post, including the pumpkin scrub, is immediately justified.

Below is a small Sephora haul:

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I love it when I run out of something cheap like body wash or makeup remover.  I have a legitimate shopping excuse at that point, and anything else that happens to find their way into my little basket is just a hazard of the emergency.  I mean, what can you do without body wash?  You can’t take a bath, that’s for sure.  So probably “emergency” is too mild a term to describe this situation, but “catastrophic misadventure” is much too long to type.

So I picked up a Philosophy body wash (that triples as a shampoo and bubble bath) in the scent Melon Daiquiri.  It smells like summer in a bottle, and I really like it.  They have tons of scents to choose from, and I spent an obnoxiously long time sniffing each and every one of them.  I almost bought all of them at one point, but finally decided on the melon.  But the Animal Cracker and Coconut scents are probably my next buy.

Wanted to try one of the Too Faced La Creme lipsticks because YouTube haunts me about 95% of my day.  Lots of my gurus talk about how they like the formula of these lipsticks, and I am easily persuaded, so there ya go.  I swatched a few of them in the store, decided on Pink Chocolate, and proceeded to walk around with it in my hand for about 45 minutes.  Right before checkout, I had an attack of conscious and realized I didn’t need to buy another lipstick.  I put it back, then stood in line at the register behind a lady taking an extraordinary amount of time signing up for the rewards program.  Or just long enough for me to ignore my rudely interrupting conscious and grab the lipstick off the shelf again and put it in my basket.

Well.  People need to be quicker in dealing with their transactions, that’s all I’m saying.  Hardly my fault.

Also got suckered into buying the Sephora #55 airbrush foundation brush because I am helpless and need a psychiatric evaluation.  Honestly, how many foundation brushes do I need?  In my defense, none of them say the word “airbrush” in the title, and I don’t know about you, but that word sucks me in almost 97.90567% of the time.  As evident by the fact I bought the dang thing.

I primarily wanted it because back in May when Sephora opened, the sales girl applied the Kat Von D foundation on me using this brush.  The finish was spectacular, which prompted me to buy the foundation.  Since that day I have not been able to duplicate the finish.  In fact, I almost hate the Kat Von D foundation because it is so thick and dry that applying it is about zero fun.

So now that I have this brush, one of the first things I did was apply the Kat Von D.  I read the directions of how to use the brush, and it says to dip it in the product, swirl it on the back of your hand, then apply to your face.  I did all that, and I still didn’t get the finish I was looking for.  Drat.  Perhaps I am not the makeup artist I pretend to be?  Perhaps my brush is broken?  Whatever the case, I have yet to achieve the look of airbrush, but I’m still working on it.

And then for no reason whatsoever, I needed to buy the Becca Beach Tint Shimmering Souffle.  For one, it’s a new product and there was a lot of excitement circling the Becca aisle because of it.  And two, the texture of this is pure fun.  It’s like the bubble wrap of makeup – you can’t stop touching it.  Whoever decided to call it a souffle gets an award, because that’s the perfect name.  It’s cushiony, airy, light.  Here’s a better close up, complete with finger indention.  Not a big one cuz I didn’t want to ruin it right off the bat:

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This is the color Guava/Moonstone.  It’s a cream blush – but the easiest application of a cream blush I’ve ever used.  It’s no fail.  If you get circus cheeks from applying this, then you need to sit down, as messing this up would be nigh on impossible.  The color payoff is very sheer and subtle, which could be a good thing if that’s what you’re looking for.  Beachy and glowy is what it is and var var beautiful.  Now, this is the only color I’ve used.  The others may be completely different.  You may get circus cheeks out of them for all I know.  But the Guava/Moonstone is golden and sunkissed – probably works best as a highlighter since the coral in it does not pop like you might expect.  I also have medium light skin, so depending on how dark or light you are, this may or may not be your dream blush.

How’s that for a review?  Maybe, maybe not, could be, could not be, yes, no … You might just need to swatch them for yourselves cuz I ain’t getting sued for misleading information.  All I’m saying is I like it.  Mostly because it’s squishy in its jar.  I dare you not to want to stick your fingers all in this stuff.  If you are somehow able to refrain yourself, you might need to take that show on the road, because that amount of willpower is downright inspirational.

Next up is this horrible picture below.

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I can’t even pretend there’s not cat hair all over this blanket.  I’m sorry.  What can I say?  They lay about as if they own the place.  And I guess that’s somewhat correct since my girl cat poops wherever she feels like and we still let her live with us.

The only thing in the picture I bought was the Bobbi Brown blush – the rest I got for free.  Perks of being VIB Rouge, y’all!  Which did not cost me a small fortune to begin with or anything (you know, in case the husband is reading this).  But back to that Bobbi Brown blush.  I got the color Sand Pink, and it’s a really nice medium shade that looks good with my skintone.  I’d say it’s pretty pigmented, but right now I’m distracted by how much cat hair is on that blanket and I can’t think of anything else.  I need to page-down real quick or something.

So all that Fresh lip care stuff was a little sample set.  It includes the lip polish, two lip balm treatments, and a sugar shine gloss.  I am really enjoying these products.  Aside from the weird brown sugar smell, that is.  I don’t prefer it.  But I believe the scrub is the best one I’ve ever used.  It keep my lips exfoliated the longest.  Which is quite a feat because I have the flakiest lip skin in all the land.  I don’t even understand why.  It couldn’t be because I sleep with a fan blowing in my face for 8 hours or anything.

The lip balms are nice as well.  The Rose one has a slight pink tint, but it’s not super evident, so don’t expect a whole lot.  I do like the way they feel on the lips; very moisturizing.  The shine gloss is just a top coat.  I probably won’t use this as much, but it’s not a bad product.  I just don’t wear a lot of clear glosses.

Then I cashed in a couple hundred rewards points and got the next two things.  First one is the Aqua Eyes eyeliner by Make Up Forever. I didn’t realize when I got it that it was a brown pencil, but I’m kind of happy it was. I have a lot of black liners, but very few brown ones. I was mostly interested in it cuz I needed a really good liner that stays put in my waterline. And even though this one is waterproof, my eyes somehow, miraculously, couldn’t give a shit. So this isn’t the one, needless to say. Still searching. Story of my life.

Last product is the Too Faced Chocolate Soleil bronzer. I know I’m the last person aside from nomads and cavewomen to own this bronzer. Better late than never. I can’t own all the things all at the same time ya know? Anyway, I thought this bronzer would be too dark for me cuz it kind of appears that way in the pan. But it’s PERFECT. Goes on lovely, blends fantastically, and smells like chocolate. Plus it’s matte so old people like me can wear it with confidence. Yayuuuuuus. In short, it’s my favorite bronzer now.

Congratulations, you’ve reached the end of this post. Your reward? Another post tomorrow.

You’re welcome.