Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Today's Look

Here's what I used today:
Urban Decay Primer Potion
NYX Jumbo Eye Pencil- Dark Brown
Jesses Girl eye shadow- Hi-Ho Silver
MAC eye shadow- Go
Bare Minerals eye shadow- Charleston
MAC eye shadow- Vanilla
MAC eye shadow- Next to Nothing
Andrea Eyelashes- # 305
L'oreal Carbon Black mascara
Palladio eyeliner
MAC Mineralize Skinfinish- Cheeky Bronze






















































Sorry I haven't posted in a while!
I'll be doing a nail polish review in the next day or so.
Let me know if a "Today's Look" series would be interesting to you all!!

Wednesday, September 22, 2010

China Glaze: Rich & Famous

China Glaze is my absolute favorite nail polish brand. Their formula is awesome, and application is usually easy. The best thing about their formula is that it has a built in nail hardener. I have fairly weak nails that crack and split easily, but since I've been using China Glaze my nails are in better condition.

I'm going to try to post pictures each time I paint my nails, as I have a fairly large collection of China Glaze polishes (I own other things too that I will of course post as well). :)


Rich & Famous, a lovely mid-toned creme pink. This color has no glitter or shimmer at all, so for you pink creme lovers, you may want to try this out!!

This is part of China Glaze's permanent selection.

The formula for this polish was a little runny compared to their other shades. besides this the color came out nice and even, not streaky or gooey.














Without flash















With flash





































With flash, on a different background















With flash
















My fingers are a bit messy, but who is perfect?



Overall, I love this shade. It's the perfect pink. That's why I purchased it ;)

Monday, September 20, 2010

Beauty Beginners

So, you don't have much in your stash, what do you do??

It can be a bit daunting watching tutorials and reading reviews. Especially when people are throwing names around like it's their business (However, sometimes it IS their business). But don't let that scare you!

Here are a few suggestions to get you started:

Watch Videos- Chances are, you're already doing this. But, watch them in a different way. Take away useful skills, tips, tricks, and ideas. You don't necessarily have to replicate exactly what the video is showing. You can replace any color that you don't have, with a color that you have readily available.

Go Shopping- I'd say about 90% of the time it's not what brand the makeup is, it's how well it's applied. Yes, there are a lot of brand snobs out there, but don't let them intimidate you into thinking that you need to rush out and buy the most expensive department store brand out there. I, personally have a wide variety of brands. A lot of times it's not what you pay, but for some things it's definitely worth it. Example: Foundation. Never skimp on that. If you need to pinch pennies, buy all drugstore brand shadows, mascaras, eyeliners lipsticks, etc, but your skin is something you will have your whole life, so treat it well with a good foundation. The second thing is skincare. This goes back to the whole, taking care of your skin thing. This however can become pricey, as every one's skin is different.

Experiment- Take a day when you're not planning to go anywhere, and play with the makeup you do own. I can't tell you how frequently I get asked, "How do you know what colors will look good together". The honest truth is, I don't. I put colors on, blend them, add more, and see what I have come up with. There are absolutely NO right or wrong color combinations. If you're too nervous to just apply the colors straight to your face, swatch them together on the back of your hand to see what they will look like. Come up with new ways to use products. Makeup is an art, and should be treated as such, so enjoy it!!

Be Confident- My second biggest tip to newbies. It's like anything else you do, if you're not confident, people can tell! Wear your makeup with the utmost confidence.

Be Open Minded- This is the biggest tip I have to dish out. You might admire certain colors, like bright blues, yellows, greens, ya know, the 'scary' stuff. Go outside of your comfort zone. You might end up adoring how it looks on you! You never know until you try.
Of course no one said you have to put them all together, or all over your lid. Use them as an eye liner, or a crease color with a light neutral shade on the lid.


With all of that aside, I have some recommendations!

1. You should own at least one brush. If you do a lot of work with eye shadows, then getting a brush for that is ideal. Or if you do a lot with your face, foundation, bronzer, blush, etc., then owning a brush for that type of application is a good investment.
If you're unsure about brushes here are a couple links to my brush overviews; http://impassionatevanity.blogspot.com/2010/08/weapons-of-mass-creation-part-one.html
http://impassionatevanity.blogspot.com/2010/08/weapons-of-mass-creation-part-two.html
2. Find a store with a good return policy. The last thing you want is to get stuck with a product that you totally hate. So do your research and see what companies will take returns on cosmetics. Many high end counters have good return policies.
3. Buy palettes. It's a good way to get a decent variety of colors. Some drugstore brands that offer reasonably priced palettes are: Maybelline, Covergirl, Wet 'n Wild, and L'oreal, just to name a few. These come in a few forms, quads, trios, duos etc. Some offer more colors, and some offer colors within the same shade as each other. A lot of time the quads and trios have instructions of where to put each specific color in the palette. Those are great for beginners, and as you become more comfortable with application you can mix colors from other palettes or switch up where you apply those colors.

I hope this helped, and if you have any questions, feel free to contact me! :)

Saturday, September 18, 2010

Blogging from my phone

This might be a cool way for me to post on the go. I will see what I can come up with for on the go posts :)
Published with Blogger-droid v1.5.9

Thursday, September 16, 2010

Mini Rite Aid Haul

I have a small haul I'd like to share with you!

I purchased four new Jesse's Girl eye shadows, and I am very excited. The shades are; Rouge Flambie, Secret Weapon, Hi-Ho Silver and Majestic Green. You probably know how I feel about this brand already, but if you don't, here's a link to my review; http://impassionatevanity.blogspot.com/2010/09/you-know-i-wish-that-i-had.html

Secret Weapon and Rouge Flambie












Majestic Green and Hi Ho Silver
















Bottom to top: Secret Weapon, Rouge Flambie, Hi Ho Silver, and
 Majestic Green


































Secret Weapon, Rouge Flambie, Hi Ho Silver and Majestic Green



















It's so hard to pick up on the true duo-chromatic nature of these shadows. For example, Secret Weapon is a pure white base with blue and teal reflects. It's amazing, and I totally understand why it's called 'Secret Weapon". Hi Ho Silver has an almost rainbow effect to it. Either way, I'm really stoked about using these in a look soon.
They look a bit Christmas-y together... oops :)




The last thing I got was the New Physician's Formula Shimmer Strips gel eyeliners for green eyes. I am looking forward to reviewing this product fully for you since these seem pretty promising. The set comes with three gel eyeliners (my fave) that are meant to bring out green eyes. There's a medium to dark green, a dark purple and a black with teeny green flecks. The kit also comes with a cute brush, so for those of you that use the excuse of "I don't have a brush for gel eyeliner", you have no excuse!! ;) These come in shades for green, blue, brown and hazel eyes. There are also corresponding mascaras and eyeshadow palettes.
These run $10.95 at Rite Aid, and honestly, it's an amazing deal. $3.65 a piece!
I have a soft spot in my heart for Physician's Formula. After a horrible bout with pink eye in 2006, my eyes became extremely sensitive to lower end brands of eyeliner and mascara. Physician's Formula was the first eyeliner I used after that that didn't make my eyes a mess. The eyeliner was called Flatliner, and it was AMAZING, but I can't find it anywhere anymore. So, Dear Physician's Formula, bring it back!! Thanks.























Friday, September 10, 2010

Sunday, September 5, 2010

You know, I wish that I had......

Jesse's Girl!!

I'd like to review one my most favorite drugstore products on this earth; Jesse's Girl Loose Eye shadows. These retail for about $3.99 for 2.5 grams of product. These are highly underrated products that are easily accessible!

The first thing that I want to address is I own nine of these eye shadows, and four of them are the new packaging. What this means is, the five older eye shadows lack a sifter. In the new packaging they added a sifter, and since these are loose eye shadows, I greatly appreciated that addition.

The second thing I want to mention is that my old colors have no names on the packaging. So I cannot provide you with the names, and I am not sure that they still carry these colors.

The third and last thing is, they seemed to have improved their formula (for the better) between changing their packaging, and I appreciate that too.

OK!

When I first bought these I got them home and immediately tried them out. I was seriously disappointed. All I got was a crappy wash of shimmery color over my lid. A couple colors worked fabulously so I stuck with those and set the other colors to the side for a year or so.

And then I found out....

These eye shadows are fairly pigmented on their own. However, I prefer to use them with a sticky base such as a MAC paintpot, a concealer, an NYX jumbo eyeshadow pencil, or any other creamy product. This helps the color payoff to be much greater than it is on their own. I know it kind of sounds like a pain in the butt, but believe you me, it's TOTALLY worth it.

The texture of the shadows is great, they blend amazingly. They are some of the smoothest drugstore eye shadows I have ever used. The old formula was OK. Not great, but OK. The new packaging and formula are good, and it was almost like they were two different products. Now remember, of course I am only speculating that the formula was changed, or perhaps I learned how to use them better. Also, the lids on the new colors seems to be easier to remove and put back on, this may sound trivial but I don't like fidgeting with something that can spill all over my bathroom!!

Overall I don't have issues with these, the dark blue in the old packaging fades off of my lids from time to time, but since I learned how to use these, I love, love, love them!

If ultra shimmery and glittery shadows aren't your cup-o-tea, you will probably want to take a pass on these.

Swatch time


The old colors that I have no names for. You can see how sheer the first three are.





































Old packages without the sifter
Metallic mid-toned pink, and a metallic medium to dark blue.

More old packaging, you may notice that the red shade is different, this was a limited edition Christmas shade from about three or four years ago. It only contained .7 grams of product! :(
Shimmery teal, a dark yellow-gold with green duo-chrome(FANtastic) and metallic red-orange.

Sparkling Gold (glittery yellow-gold) and Ultra Violet (a slightly pinked purple color with light purple duo-chrome). Sparkling Gold is so sparkling it almost broke my camera! Haha

Antique Green(brown base with intense green duo-chrome) and Blackstar Blue (blackened blue base with blue duo-chrome)
These can be purchased at your local Rite Aid store, or at this address; http://jessesgirlcosmetics.com/

Friday, September 3, 2010

Tutorial: Yellow, Gold and Brown



I'll get the hang of this soon, until then, I'm probably going to look and sound awkward.

Wednesday, September 1, 2010

Vibrant Blue, Purple and orange look




This video is basically just the process that I go through when I put my makeup on, super condensed (this video before editing was 31 minutes long!). I know that this isn't a super wearable look for a lot of people. Any feedback is welcome.