Makeup I'm Done With #1

Sometimes I buy, inherit, or happen across makeup that I think I'll like or use, then it ends up sitting in my makeup drawers gathering dust for weeks, months, or even years. I don't want to throw these products away, so I don't. But eventually I need to make room for more desirable makeup, so I've decided to dispose of some products.

Most of these products have at least been used once, some of them have been fairly well-loved. But it's time to move on.

This little Stila tinted moisturizer sample was given to me by my sister, the first time I tried it I realized that it's not the right color for me (why I ever thought a product that is called "medium" would work for me, I don't know). The L'Oreal Paris BB Cream was my mom's originally, she gave it to me because she didn't love it. I liked it alright, until I tried other BB creams. This BB is too greasy for me (I have an oily nose, but this product makes my whole face look like I rubbed butter on it). And the color is just a little too dead-looking for my skin tone. I'm olive-y (side-note: in my opinion, telling someone they have an olive skin tone is just politely telling them they're green, but I actually DO have a green skin tone, so I'm never insulted, they should just tell it like it is and say I'm green), and this BB cream is clearly made for someone with a cooler undertone.

The Be a Bombshell Gloss in Hot Mess is the only product I haven't ever used. I'm not a gloss fan, and I got it in a subscription box, so I don't feel bad that it's gone unused. These two Julep lipstick colors (Tea for Two and Satin Doll) also came from a subscription box, and while I like them well enough, they're both sheer enough that they're just not worth keeping around. If I want to look like I'm not wearing lip color, I'll wear chapstick. Finally, the Burt's Bees Lip Shimmer in Caramel is a product I probably bought (I don't remember it anymore), but at this point, I have a million lipsticks and lacquers I'd rather wear. And I don't like a lot of shimmer in my lip colors.

All three of the pressed eyeshadows that I'm getting rid of are from Victoria's Secret. The two on the left are Beauty Rush Shadow Duos in Smoke & Mirrors and 24K Gold. I bought them for traveling for Mock Trial, but now that I have palettes in all shapes and sizes, I don't need these. And they're VERY poorly pigmented. 24K Gold was at lease useable, Smoke & Mirrors was flat out impossible. The shadow on the right is Very Sexy in Sizzle. I bought it at least four years ago, I've broken the closure so it opens when I don't want it to, and I have this color (or very similar) in palettes.

These two pencils are Sephora eyeliners in Coffee and Midnight Black. I used to think that Sephora eyeliners were pretty decent. Every eyeliner I used smudged, and I thought that was just par for the course. Then I started using more legitimate eyeliners like Urban Decay 24/7 or Stila Stay All Day Liquid Liners.

Let me just say that I am NOT a fan of loose pigment powders. All three of the ones I'm getting rid of I received in various subscription boxes. I was going to open them and take pictures of them, then this one started getting absolutely everywhere. I refused to finish opening it. The colors are all very standard and boring, two skin tone colors, one light pink. They're just not worth the mess they make.

My makeup drawers feel lighter, not significantly so, but enough that I can actually fit my new makeup in them, so hurrah! I've succeeded at throwing out old/sad/bad makeup.

Sephora Haul #1

Every once in a while, I do something that I really shouldn't do, and I spend an insane amount of money at Sephora. Usually it has something to do with rewarding myself. That's true of this week's Sephora purchases. I've been holed up with 40 other Resident Assistants and our bosses for approximately the last week, doing training and staff bonding and such. Today, we moved some 500+ freshmen into their dorms, a HUGE accomplishment. I personally helped about 50; there were a lot of boxes, a lot of microwaves, and a lot of my personal sweat. But I survived, and to reward myself, I bought a bunch of stuff online at Sephora a couple of days ago knowing that they would arrive today. So after finishing up with the freshmen, I headed over to the mailroom and picked up my swag!

All the boxes.

Because I'm a VIB Rouge, I get free shipping on any order from Sephora.com, so I broke up my purchases so that I could get the maximum number of free samples possible.

I basically bought everything that had been on my "Loves" page-everything from masks to lip lacquer and eyeliner to eyebrow mousse.

I've had the old versions of the Urban Decay 24/7 Glide-On Eye Pencils on my wish list for so long, it's not even funny. I think spending $19 on a colored eyeliner that you'll only wear once in a blue moon is silly, but dock those suckers down to $6 each, and I'm all over that. Since I already own a teal Kat Von D eyeliner (Waterproof Autograph Pencil in Eyegasm) and a liquid Stila mint eyeliner (Stay All Day Waterproof Liquid Eye Liner in Turquoise), I figured it was time to purchase some purples. I bought Crash, Lust, and 1999.

I think that 1999 is going to turn out to be the most wearable (in fact, I'm wearing it as I type this), and Lust will probably be the one I use the least. But they're all beautiful, and I love increasing my makeup collection.

Crash, Lust, and 1999 on my hand. 

Directly after doing this swatch, I washed my hands, then took a bath, then a nap. And there's still a faint smudge of 1999 hanging out on my hand. They really do mean 24/7 when they say it with these eyeliners.

Then I picked out the Too Faced Ready.Set.Prime duo. I'm a faithful user of the LORAC Behind the Scenes primer, it's one of the best and cheapest eyeshadow primers at Sephora, but I just can't turn down a great deal. These primers are .17 oz each, combined they're .34 oz. It's a $12 set. For comparison, the Too Faced Shadow Insurance retails $20 for .35 oz of product. Needless to say, this was a phenomenal deal. And who knows, maybe I'll love them.

I've been researching brow fillers for quite a while. If you've looked at any of my posts where I've included a picture of myself, you know that I don't have thin or sparsely populated eyebrows. I'm half Greek, so I've always had eyebrows that, to a certain extent, had a life of their own. I think my mom sat me down when I was probably twelve and taught me to tweeze them. And thankfully I avoided that middle/high school issue of overplucking eyebrows. Instead, mine have always been full and I love them that way. They're pretty low maintenance these days, but I've been looking for a way to make them look just a little bit more "solid," I guess. It's a hard thing to describe, but I've been wanting them to make a little bit more of a statement and make me look a tad more put together.

Then I found the Tarte Amazonian Clay Waterproof Brow Mousse in Rich Brown. At first I was a little worried, I have BLACK eyebrows, and I was worried that this would make them look awkward and mismatched. But it's such a dark brown that it blends right in with my black brows. And it's such a great product. It doesn't look harsh like a pencil filler and it doesn't look chalky like a powder. I love it so much I may have to do a separate review of it.

Oh, Ren, how did I live this much of my life without discovering the beauty that is your products and packaging? I recently bought the ClearCalm 3 Clarifying Clay Cleanser and I fell absolutely head over heels in love. It's important to note that I don't even have acne anymore, I did in high school, but I've long since gotten over it (save the occasional stress pimple and the blackheads that refuse to leave the pores of my nose). But I can't get enough of this line of products. I got a sample of this mask from Sephora a couple of weeks ago, and I can honestly say that it's the only mask that I've tried that leaves a NOTICEABLE difference in my skin. The night I tried this mask, I had a stress-related pimple on my forehead. It was red. It was angry. When I washed this mask off, I honestly thought magic had happened. The pimple was significantly smaller. It wasn't red at all. Basically, this is about to become my holy grail of spot treatment masks.

I also decided to try this Shiseido Lacquer Rouge in RD305, or Nymph. I've fallen in love with lip lacquers, and I can't wait to see if this one lives up to my expectations.

It's a beautiful blue-rose color, although it's sort of difficult to see because my camera only wanted to focus on the books in the background. In case you can't tell, I (a) love to read, and (b) I'm a history major (although I'm also a religious studies major).

The Lacquer rouge on a human hand. I'm so excited about this product that I actually almost put it on before my bath/nap. Review to come.

The last product that I actually spent money on: Boscia Clarifying Detox Mask. I got a sample of this from Sephora a couple of weeks ago, and initially when I applied this mask, I didn't think I was going to like it. But I loved the tingling as it dried, it make my skin feel minty fresh. Also, considering that I spent $45 on the Ren mask above, I was thrilled by the $25 price tag on this one.

Sample time! I got four samples of different foundation primers. I'm only 20 and don't struggle with keeping my makeup on my face, so I can't justify spending money on foundation primers just yet, but if offered a sample, I will always accept.

Another thing I love in sample form: shampoo and conditioner. This stuff will definitely come in handy when I travel.

I'm about to run out of my favorite foundation (well, to be honest, it's a BB cream), Garnier Skin Renew BB Cream Combination to Oily Skin in light/medium. I'm worried that once I lose my slight tan from the summer, it'll be just a tiny bit to dark/orangey for me. And I've sort of developed a crush on the Urban Decay Naked Skin liquid foundation. It comes with four different samples in a range of shades, I'll probably fall somewhere in between the included 2.0 and 3.5, but it'll give me an idea on whether I like this foundation enough to spend $39 on it.

The final set of samples that I picked were the Philosophy Full of Promise Treatment Duo, mostly because it was the only remaining sample that I was even remotely interested in trying. I got four samples, each with .14 oz of product, so in total, I have .56 oz of product (.28 of each: the day cream and the night cream). The full size version of this product retails for $75 and you get 1.0 oz of product. If you do that math, that means these samples are worth $42. I love it when samples turn out to be worth that much.

Finally, the random samples. I'm not really sure how I ended up with these, we'll see if I ever use them.

Overall, I love Sephora. An inappropriate amount. I really wish I was in my dorm room playing with all of my new makeup.

Lush Seanik Solid Shampoo

Has a shampoo ever changed your life?

I'll start from the beginning. For years, I suppose I've been in a shampoo/conditioner rut. For as long as I can really remember, I've used the Aussie moist line of hair products. I use them, my sister uses them, we even keep extra bottles of the shampoo and conditioner at our mother's house for when we're home.

I've never had an issue with the Aussie moist line, but for at least the last year or so I've noticed that my hair didn't really shine quite like it used to when I was a kid. And I figured that I was just getting older, more stressed, and I was getting less sleep than I used to. I shrugged my shoulders and continued using a average shampoo and conditioner.

Fairly recently, when I fell in love with Lush Cosmetics, I wanted to start getting into some of their various products. Not really their makeup, I still by far prefer Sephora and Ulta. But some of their bath and body products. Eventually, I worked up the nerve to try one of their solid shampoos, and boy, am I thrilled that I did.

Lush's solid shampoos are mostly marketed towards folks who travel frequently. One of the great things about their solid shampoo and conditioner is that they are (obviously) solid, which means you can pack them in a carry on and they don't count towards your liquids limit. That's not really why I was interested, I was more intrigued by how a solid shampoo and conditioner would work. How does is get spread throughout your hair? Does is create suds? I spent days trying to decide which one, eventually settling on Seanik.

Seanik smells like "mimosa and jasmine oils," according to Lush's website. I don't know that I would quite pinpoint those exact scents, but it definitely smells delicious. It's supposed to give your hair body and shine, and I've definitely noticed a boost in both of those, but we'll get back to the shine part later.

Seanik, living its life in my shower.

The first time I used Seanik, I followed the directions included on the website. You basically wet your hair, dampen the bar of shampoo, then run it along the length of your hair a couple of times. Put the bar down and lather. And OHMYGOD it was amazing. I know some people have issues with sulfates in their shampoos, but the sulfates in Seanik are definitely worth it. My hair lathered so beautifully. I rinsed the shampoo out of my hair, used that Lush Big Solid Conditioner next to Seanik (I don't love the conditioner, I'll definitely go back to liquid conditioner once I've run out of the solid stuff), and got out of the shower. 

At first I didn't notice a huge difference in my hair, but as it dried, my world changed. My hair was so damn shiny! It was beautiful! Then, I went to sleep. Usually I shower at night, because even though I wake up usually two hours before I have to go anywhere, I don't like giving up my coffee/TV time to shower. Additionally, I'm not one of those people who styles their hair. I just let it dry, and it'll do what it wants to do. I don't have the time for blow drying/straightening. 

So I woke up the next morning. Usually when I've showered and then slept, any shine that my hair had sort of dulls by morning, with me rubbing my head against my pillow and all. But after trying Seanik for the first time, I woke up the following morning and my hair was still shining like crazy. My hair was still beautiful! 

I've been raving about how great Seanik is ever since. I made my mom and sister try it when they visited; anyone who has asked about what shampoo they should try next has gotten a serious earful about my obsession with Seanik.

I also bought this handy tin for when I choose to travel with Seanik. I anticipate this shampoo will come very much in handy on mock trial trips throughout the coming year. 

I'm already trying to decide which solid shampoo I'll try once I've run out of Seanik. I think I'll try the Godiva and Ultimate Shine next! But seriously, if you're in need of a new shampoo, try one of Lush's solid shampoos. Now that I've fallen in love, I may never go back to regularly using a liquid formula.

Get Them Before They're Gone!

When it comes to makeup, the only thing that I like more than products themselves is organizing them. Sometime soon I'll do a post on how I organize my makeup, especially since it's expanding at a pace that almost makes me uncomfortable.

When I travel, I also like keeping my makeup organized, which means that I have a series of smaller bags that fit into a larger makeup bag (my large makeup bag is the bag from the Summer 2013 Sun Safety Kit and I love it).

Travel makeup organized in this way is pretty
much straight out of my worst nightmares.

I'm constantly on the lookout for new makeup bags. I've had my eye on the Sephora Summer Bag Collection since they appeared on the website months ago. Truth be told, I bought the Round the World in Seven Brushes Travel Clutch months ago.

I still can't get over how much I love this pattern.

Shortly after I got my hands on this brush set/bag, I fell in love with the matching bright pink bags that were also part of the summer collection. But considering that I already owned plenty of makeup bags and I'd rather spend my money on actual makeup, I didn't buy any of them.

But now they're on sale!! They disappeared pretty quickly on Sephora.com, but if you're lucky, you can still find them in stores. For example, I went into Sephora last night to get a couple of samples of products I'm considering purchasing, only to find these two bags.

When these were full price, I definitely almost bought both of these. The smaller one either for bringing makeup with me during the day (I sort of live off-campus now, so I can't just run back to my dorm to fix makeup anymore) or to store lip products during travel. The larger bag I'm planning to use as my main makeup bag for weekend trips once the school year picks up.

If I were you, I would definitely head to your local Sephora to see if they have any of these left in stock!

This Nail Polish will be the DEATH of Me.

I'm a Julep Maven. For those of you that don't know about the Julep Maven program, basically I pay $20 a month and receive either two nail polishes and one bath/body product or three nail polishes. It's a subscription, and you're able to skip months. I've skipped the last two because the colors didn't really stand out to me, but a few months ago, when I was regularly getting these boxes, something awful happened.

This color entered my life. It looks innocuous enough, right? It certainly doesn't look like it will wreak havoc, but wreak havoc it did.

Payton is this gorgeous grass green. It was so bright and summery, I couldn't resist using it immediately. And so I did.

Forgive the chips. By the time I took a photo of this
color, it had been at least 2-3 days.

It applied great, like nearly all Julep nail polishes. As a rule, they tend to apply evenly, reaching near-opacity with just one coat. I'm not the sort of person to skip a second coat, but sometimes I can with a Julep polish--they're that good. Additionally, I've found that they defy chips in a way that Essie just doesn't.

Then I took this nail polish off. AND MY NAILS WERE YELLOW. Like, awful yellow.

And it isn't like I skipped a base coat. I take my base/top coats very seriously. I spend the money on Essie base coats, and recently I've gotten into Butter London's Flawless Base Coat.

Now, I can understand when a deep red/plum turns my nails a little yellow. There's just something about reds that do it, and I accept them for what they are. But a green? I've never in my life had a green turn my nails yellow.

This happened to me just about two months ago, and my nails still haven't outgrown this nightmare. When it first happened, pictures didn't do the color justice. Because the entirety of my nails were yellow, there was no normal nail to contrast it with.

But now, you can see what Julep Payton did to my nails. They are the colors of the sunset at this point. It's frightenly unattractive. Thus, ever since the nail massacre of June 2013, my nails have been painted 100% of the time, with no sign of the end near.

While I would wholeheartedly recommend an array of Julep polishes, this one is not one of them. If I'm ever brave enough to use it again, it'll definitely be just as an accent on top of a color I've already painted (ex: the leaves on a flower). If you find yourself tempted to purchase this color, don't do it. Take the sunsets on my nails as a cautionary tale.

Where I've Disappeared to...

I may have just recently begun blogging, but I do know that disappearing for more than two weeks isn't so great.

After my last post, I drove back to Memphis, slept and worked like crazy for 36 hours, then headed out again, this time to Dallas to meet my boyfriend's family. I was pretty freaked out (the family of my last serious boyfriend absolutely hated me--I wasn't Catholic and I wasn't terrified at the very thought of being alone in a room with their son--basically I was a harlot). Basically, I went to Dallas all sorts of a hot mess. I was obsessed with the clothes I was bringing (I wanted to look cute, but not like I was trying too hard). I worried about my nail color, my makeup, what I would tell them about my family.

Like I said, I was a WRECK. But it went great, his family loved me (and I loved them)!!

My God, Ian's hair is so long and floppy. I've forced a haircut on him
since we got back from Dallas.

We hung out around his house, he took me to this freakishly giant mall (where I hyperventilated in the Lush I was so happy), and his mom dragged us downtown to take couple-photos of us. 

Then we came back from Dallas, and I went back to working like crazy/preparing to move. And Ian and I got haircuts. Probably the weirdest date of my life: we went to a delicious local Thai place, then went to Aveda Pavo and got our hair cut by my favorite Memphis stylist, Mary Cullen. Ian's hair looks amazing, and now I'm split-end free. 

Me, waiting while Ian gets his hair cut and taking a selfie for
my mom.

 Then I geared up for my move from my summer housing to the dorm that I'll be in for the next year. Jen and my mom came out to help get me moved, and now I'm all settled in my new place.

I finally got to hang the nail polish rack that I made!

 One of the great parts of this move: now I have my own studio apartment. Which means I'm DONE with communal bathrooms. I cannot even begin to explain how excited I am to have my own bathroom, mostly for the beauty-product space that I have now.

Another shot of my new room, my desk area!

And now that I'm back home, and all settled into my dorm, I'll get back to posting more regularly! I have a ton of products I'm excited about writing on!