Tag Archives: Make up

Benefit: Eye Bright

Picture from Sephora.com

Beware the EYES of March… because apparently they are dark and scary. Thank goodness we have Benefit Eye Bright! I am a big fan of this product. Not long ago, I felt that my under-eyes were getting much darker, they weren’t puffy, just… pigmented. Liz solved this problem by getting this for me!

This pink pencil is an eye brightener that will fix under eye darkness in just a few dabs. I literally wear this everyday. I’m really careful about not using anything too harshly around my eyes, so if you’re worried about that you can probably even put the product on your finger and then dab it under your eye. I just do a couple light swoops and blend it in with my finger.

Close-up

Here’s a close-up and as you can see it’s really light and perfect to lighten the dark eye circles. It doesn’t do anything drastic like change my skin tone. I don’t use foundation, but I picture it blending in nicely with just about everything. I have not heard anything about using this on darker skin tones though, so I’d be interested to hear any feedback regarding that.

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Benefit Ultra Shines Lip Gloss: Life On The A List

Pretty in Pink

It’s Sunday morning. Theoretically my favorite day of the week, but it never ends up actually being that cool for me. I don’t work Saturdays, Sundays or Mondays so Monday kind of turns into my Sunday so it’s like a fake Sunday and isn’t right. Anyway, I’m here with a pretty spring time colored lip gloss for you all!

I usually don’t wear stuff on my lips, minus Burt’s Bees. I know that might sound a little strange to some of our readers, but it’s slightly impractical for my life. I’m a nanny, so actually many types of make up may seem impractical for my activities throughout the day, but I still sweep on eyeshadow, blush, concealer and mascara for work. That has been my daily make up routine for the past couple months.

Don’t get me wrong though, I loved my MAC Lady Ga Ga lipstick…until I lost it. I know girls love glosses, our guest blogger Rachel is a huge Lip Glosshead, but sometimes with glosses I feel as though they don’t last very long and are gone within 30 minutes of application.

Life on the A List

I got this pretty Benefit gloss as a Christmas gift and really like it. I like that it is a light peachy / pink color and not too pigmented. As mentioned, my make up routine lately has been very light and fresh and somewhat “wintery” with lots of shimmery colors,  and I think this gloss will be a perfect finishing touch for my face.

Life on the A List

The formula and consistency of this gloss is great. It is not too sticky, which I know we all hate. It is actually not very sticky at all. I think that gloss would work well layered over lipstick too because it is not too pigmented. This gloss has a nice, fresh smell to it as well. It’s sort of peachy or apricoty. It’s not very strong so I don’t mind it, and it reminds me of springtime. Never a bad thing when it’s 20 degrees outside!

Light & Pretty

I like that this gloss isn’t too shimmery and how well it matches my lips already. It sort of looks more like a texture difference on my face rather than a color difference and I really like that. You can see the shine against my skin, not as much the color. I think this color is very versatile and can be worn all year-long.

This color isn’t very unique, but I like it as a pretty staple neutral for sure.

Where To Buy: http://www.BenefitCosmetics.com / Sephora / Ulta / Macy’s / $18

Also BenefitCosetics.com is having a sale with up to 70% off on selected items!

- Liz

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Beauty Binge Pt. 2: Nars-Fest (featuring Versailles)

 

As promised, here is my follow up to yesterday’s post with the rest of the glorious goodies I picked up in the last couple weeks. After raiding the Internet and local drugstores, you can imagine I wasn’t done shopping so I hopped in my car and visited my local Sephora…

Love Devotion, Purple Rain, and Versailles

Sorry my picture is a little wonky, I was excited at the time. I was in Sephora for awhile, definitely too long, trying on make-up and asking crazy questions. I ended up walking out with all Nars items, aside from a Sephora foundation brush and blotting papers. The lipstick is Love Devotion and the polish on the right is Versailles, both are from the Summer 2010 collection. I’m not sure if Purple Rain (the middle polish) is or not because it’s not shown on the website as being part of the collection. I also desperately wanted the Cleo duo eye shadow, but luckily for my bank account they were sold out of that (it’s a deep turquoise-grey with light blue). The lipstick is really pretty, looks like a bright coral, but is very sheer and very moisturizing; it also gives that wet look that I’ve apparently been into lately because all I buy/wear are wet-looking sheer colors. The polishes, I was also very excited about and have already done Versailles for you!

Tan-ish gold

This nail polish is sooo pretty. I know I already said this about Borghese Limoncello, but Versailles is also like having blonde nails. There are so many things to love about this polish, for one it’s kind of a golden neutral: it’s obviously gold, but it’s subtle and stunning, not over-the-top, so I think it goes with everything and is good for just about any occasion. I also think it would look striking on any skin tone, on me it’s kind of a nude with a kick and for the ladies out there with darker skin tones it would be a bright pop of gold without too much glitter (not that there’s anything wrong with glitter). As for what you probably can’t see in the photos, there is a very subtle orange-coral shimmer to this polish, you can only really see it when you move your nails through the light, but it was a pleasant surprise for me because you wouldn’t expect it from the bottle.

Now, I do love this polish, but I have to admit it wasn’t all sunshine and roses after I put it on. I discovered a big DON’T when it comes to using Nars and that is: DON’T use Seche Vite as a top coat. I was expecting to paint and then pop on a quick coat of Seche Vite and go watch True Blood on Sunday night, but oh no. As soon as I’m out the door I see that my right thumb is utterly destroyed! You can imagine my dismay, I had to go for about 2 hours before I could fix it. The next day I noticed some peeling and some major tip wear and this hasn’t even been on for 24 hours. I read the paper that came in the box with the polish and it was then that I got the impression that this was meant to be used as an all-in-one type deal and not with base or top coat. It doesn’t say that explicitly, so I think the next time I am going to try Nars polish without base and top and see how it does, maybe after a day I’ll throw on a different top coat and see if they play nicely together. I’d like to use the top coat because it made the polish so much shinier. In any event, I have some more trial and error to do with this one, which is kind of a pain, but the colors are gorgeous. The important thing to remember so far is don’t use Seche Vite.

I’m looking forward to using Purple Rain. I’m also getting ready to put some polish on this evening and haven’t even decided what to use yet! It’s almost time for a Fourth of July-themed nail so I need to start thinking about that. Is anyone doing anything cute for the holiday?

‘Til we paint again,

-Lauren

Addendum: The last time I wore this polish I took these new pictures. I ended up not liking it as much the second time, it seemed so much more tan or khaki as opposed to gold. Maybe it’s just meant for summer? I guess we’ll see

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Beauty Binge: Walgreens, Drugstore.com, etc.

Peach Petal and Summer Suedes

In the last post I may have mentioned that I was unable to post for a week or so and was dealing with a lot of issues. Well, I’m sure you can imagine how I coped with my lack of control over the universe… and now you get to see what I bought! These little beauties are from the Revlon Summer collection. I don’t normally care for Jessica Biel, but she looked so pretty in the ad for this collection that I had to have exactly what she was wearing (wow, I’m an easy target. …also, I almost just capitalized “target” as though it can only mean one thing). Anyhow, I got the eyeshadow quad, called Summer Suedes, and the colors are really pretty. The blue I wouldn’t normally wear, but am giving another chance, the brown actually has blue shimmer in it, which you probably cannot tell, but it’s so pretty and different, the light pink is a basic highlight shade, and the coral is another color I don’t have that I really liked wearing when I put it on. The only color in this quad that I probably already have in my make-up collection is the light pink, so this was something nice and different for me to pick up.

As for the lip gloss, peach doesn’t normally look good on me (just washes me out), but this is a really wet, sheer gloss that goes with everything. It’s really pretty on and I’ve worn it several times and love it. The formula on everything was really nice and long-lasting.

Goodies!

Also during the aforementioned time period, I discovered the glory of drugstore.com. Never before had I been charmed by it’s mysteries and low prices. I don’t even remember what day this was, that’s how absorbed I was. NOTE: the Jessica nail polish remover was not purchased from drugstore.com, but I’m sure you can find it somewhere on the Internet. The Jessica nail polish remover I got from a local spa, it cost about $5, I didn’t get a whole lot of product, but I needed remover and wanted to try it. It has a strange smell, not bad, but unique from other removers, and it is very strong. I don’t have anything bad or good to say about it at the moment, I have only used it once, so we’ll see how things develop.

Aveeno active naturals nourish+style smoothing shine creme: I think I’m in love… I’ve used this product for the past couple days and it’s AMAZING! Not only does it completely prevent the frizz I had been experiencing in southern Louisiana, but it makes my hair so incredibly soft, softer than I’ve ever known my hair could be. The bottle says it contains “nourishing wheat complex”, which I’m sure helps one of the effects I’ve mentioned, but it also makes this product smell really really good. I so so so recommend this product, I love it.

Neutrogena Oil-free acne stress control 3-in-1 hydrating acne treatment: Quite a long name. From the description on drugstore.com, I at first thought this was a face wash. When I got it, I discovered that it was just some kind of topical treatment and it says you need to wash your face before applying. I was kind of disappointed by that, but it didn’t cost much and I already had it so I’m using it anyway. It has salicylic acid, so it can be drying if you use it too often and unnecessarily. I’ve only been using it every other day. It feels nice on the skin and I think it will last me quite awhile, but I haven’t noticed anything groundbreaking yet.

Burt’s Bees lemon butter cuticle cream: I had heard a lot about this product and it’s a more affordable option next to lemony flutter by Lush. I used it before my mani the other day and really liked it. It’s not too sticky and absorbs fairly quickly, it also smells and feels very nice. The only thing I wondered about was why would someone make a product for nails that was so hard to open? I felt like mine would potentially snap off while trying to pry open the lid of this case to get to the cream. It’s easier to open the second time around, maybe mine was just stuck. I really like it, although I think it could have better packaging (maybe a snap-shut compact-like case), but I think when it’s gone I’ll probably splurge on the lemony flutter.

Overall, very pleased with all the stuff I picked up in the last week! The best part is that isn’t even the whole caboodle! I shall be back with more tomorrow!

-Lauren

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