Clarisonic Mia

Okay, I think I've had enough time to formulate an opinion about the Clarisonic Mia. I think I've had it for a few weeks now. Who knows. My sense of time is so wacky. I always know the date and day of the week but for some reason things that happened two days ago feel to me as if they happened several weeks ago. Odd.

Moving on.

I went to Ulta after several... weeks (and I'm pretty sure real weeks, not fake day-weeks) of watching YT vids and researching, like the good little analytical researcher that I am, and they had pink and gray. 

Serious? Good thing I like gray. Which is apparently the "boy" model that comes with a normal brush head versus a sensitive one and a trial size of the Refreshing Gel Cleanser. After being some what passively aggressively harassed by the checkout girl for purchasing the gray model I went home to use it. Oops. Forgot I had to charge it FOREVER before using it. Insert sad panda face here. I did not charge it for that long though. I charged it until the thing buzzed twice after removing the charger, indicating that it was ready to sluff the gross shit off my face. Hurray!  

I also must admit here that I frequently get my hopes way, way too far up for pretty much everything, including the results of this product after first use. Shocking how fast a minute goes. That really can't be enough time to do anything of significance. So I was bummed when my face wasn't a glowing mass of photoshopped quality perfection. I kept using it anyways, twice a day. I am going to see results damnit!

So, in one video that I watched, she said that be prepared for it to cause breakouts due to the amount of gross-ness it was breaking up. While I did have break-outs in abnormal spots (re: my cheek), correlation is not causation and I can't say for sure that it did this. I was also doing a lot of work related phone calls so that could have added to that little problem.

The most significant, but rather subtle, difference is in the tone of my face. It truly does look more even and far less splotchy even in the morning when my redness can be a touch out of control. My skin is, even from the first use, really soft. I haven't been having as many problems with texture since using the Clinique Dramatically Different moisturizer, but I'm sure this has helped keep any build up at bay.  I can't say currently whether my pores are any smaller in size; however it does seem to keep my pores from collecting.... whatever pore clogging stuff is called... and turning in to "blemishes." Another little tip is to use a cream or gel cleanser rather than a liquid one. I try and use the St. Ives Green Tea liquid cleanser and it ended up dripping in to my eye. Less than fun.

I'd like to say it's amazing. I won't. I think it's decent possibly even good. The company has a 90 day money back guarantee that I may or may not use. I can't decide if I could get the same results with different products. Another downside is that the recommended life of the brush head is 3 months and replacements heads are $20 a pop. Not that I'll change them that much. Shiz, I don't change my contacts for months on end, same with my toothbrush. I feel no need to start now.

Anyone else have thoughts on this baby? Or been underwhelmed? Did you keep it or return it?

Thanks for stopping by!

7 deadly sins of beauty

I do love a good quiz/questionnaire so I'm going to do this one. Fun and not too long!

1. GREED - What is your most inexpensive beauty product? What is your most expensive? 

    My least expensive product would be my E.L.F. gel eyeliner at $3. My most expensive is the Naked palette and the Clarisonic Mia.

2. 
WRATH - What beauty products do you have a love/hate relationship with? What has been hardest to find?


    Again, the Naked palette because it's so beautiful but I only use a few colors since I feel rather inept at applying the darker shades. The hardest to find for me is a good mascara that gives some volume without clumping the poo out of my lashes.    


3. GLUTTONY - What are your most delicious beauty products?

    I've recently bought the Neutrogena rainbath which I think smells amazing. I'm not super in to the fruity scents and this has a sort of amber smell that I really like.


4. SLOTH - What beauty product do you neglect due to laziness?


    I'm really, really bad about putting lotion on. I always put it on my face, neck and the bottom part of my legs, but that's it. It never fails to bite me in the ass when summer comes around too.


5. PRIDE - What beauty product gives you more confidence?

    I'd say concealer and mascara. It helps me feel like I look awake and fresh faced.


6. 
LUST - What attributes do you find most attractive in the opposite sex?


    I do love a good beard. Especially when it's a little grown out but has been tended to... so like no neck beard. 


7. ENVY - What item would you most like to receive as a gift?
    Honestly, I just love gifts in general, since I don't receive them that often. So anything is a nice surprise.

Lip things

So, here I am. Bored but too "je suis fatigué" to do anything about it. I really want to go shopping, but I was too busy today helping the boyfriend set up a cardboard display in a movie theater (frack the piss out of that thing... really who makes such complicated things? Sadists, that's who) that I didn't get up the energy to go shopping until after things were closed. I still don't understand why shops still close early on Sundays. I think I'll hit up the trifecta tomorrow (Ulta, Sephora, Target) and maybe Rite Aid to see if I can be suckered in to any holiday deals.

To pass the time until it's an appropriate and not too embarrassing time to go to sleep, I've been skimming through some of the blogs I've been following (see links below). One pattern that seems to be reoccurring, especially on the beauty related YouTubes, are lady's obsessions with lip products. Now some may prefer gloss to stick or sheer color versus highly pigmented. But still, everyone has loads of lip things.

It makes me want but that has been one area that I really don't care about. Lip things just don't make me all tingly. Every now and again I'm like "yeah, lip gloss" buy something and then stare at it taking up counter space in the bathroom. This, much like my hesitation with mascara, goes back to my glasses wearing days. I would have on lip gloss and then my hair would get in it and then I'd have a line of gloss on my glasses. GAH! It never failed. So right from the start it was always more trouble than it was worth.

Add to this my color challenges. I suppose I could say I'm all about the natural look and when I wear anything that isn't "me but better" I just don't think it looks quiet right. My lips are fairly pinkish naturally and so trying to find a "me but better" is a pain in the ass. I mean, they're pink, but like, dusty pink... maybe.

Let's face it, I'm an incompetent mess when it comes to choosing lip stick/stain colors. I can pick out a decent sheer/gloss, since the color isn't as pigmented and is harder for me to mess up. But now with watching and learning about all these amazeballs lip sticks (they have matte lip things?!?!) it makes me think that maybe I'm missing out. And still I hesitate. When would I wear them? Certainly not to work. Maybe out, but that's not often. I also have the bad habit of licking slash biting my lips which also diminishes the lasting power of even the longest lasting of lip wear.

Oh gosh, decisions. Any thoughts? Anyone else new to the lip product world and care to share your experience?

Lovely blogs:
Zoella
Essiebutton
Chelsea Wears

"Sprucing" up dinner

I love to cook. I want to cook... most of the time. My biggest barriers are energy, creativity and talent. Not to say I'm not a good cook, but I don't have the natural ability to just throw things together and have it turn out well.

On the days where I'm hungry as fuck and just WANTSFOODSNOW! such as tonight, sprucing up box meals (in this case pizza) softens the blow to both my wallet and boost my ego (look there's veggies).

Tonight I bring you pizza: a study of bad and good. I happen to have some red peppers, onion, garlic, tomato, cheese and peps (or pepperoni to some of you). Takes a regular old kinda boring box pizza and turns it into something I can pretend is healthy and gourmet. Lovely.

This does not show the extra cheese that I put on, because I'm an idiot and forgot to put the cheese on before it went into the oven.

Additional bonus: the leftover veggies, if any, make for a great appetizer.

Maybe it doesn't taste as gourmet as a fancy gourmet pizza place, but hey, it tastes better than if all this crap wasn't on it.

*Note: garlic makes for some KICKIN breath, so don't add if you want to get it on with a new person.*

Loves, or at least enjoys

I, apparently, have fairly high standards for the results of the products I buy. Which one would think that since I really only purchase drugstore brands, I wouldn't expect much and be super excited when something performs relatively well compared to the price tag. But no.

However, I have found some lovely products that I quite enjoy. Most pretty inexpensive, one less so. Let's explore together:
    *please note I did not take pictures since it's dark-ish currently, I'm lazy and I don't want to get kicked off for using interwebs pictures*

1. L'Oreal Everstrong Deep Replenishing Mask
    I slather this on my hair once a week and it makes my hair smell amazing for a least two days even with washing and makes it silky smooth. Almost to a default because, as if I don't have enough difficulties styling my hair, it's so... conditioned, or healthy, or whatever, that it won't even stay in a ponytail well.

2. Ban Roll On Deodorant
    This is seriously the best deodorant I'ver ever used. And I have used quite a few. BUT! Only the roll on kind, screw those solid ones or any solid ones for that matter. The only problem I have is finding the scents I like. Other than that, serious anti-pitting power.

3. Clinique Dramatically Different Moisturizing Lotion
    Okay, so remember that spiel I gave, like, 4 paragraphs ago? Well this baby lives up to the hype. One of my good friends recommended this lotion and it's the only one that I found does what it says. My skin tone evened out and so did the texture. I have the one for very dry to dry combo and I love how it absorbs quickly while not feeling greasy. It just feels like nice skin.

4. St. Ives Naturally Clear Green Tea Cleanser
    I also enjoy the scrub version of this, but the regular cleanser is what I've bought several times only because I've found the ones that foam do a better job of removing all of my makeup, especially around the eyes. It also seems to have evened out my skin tone, dialing back the redness and helped with breakouts. Plus I really enjoy the scent. Bonus.

5. Style Elements Flat Iron
    After my "nice"  re: expensive flat iron bit the dust several years ago I hemmed and hawed about what kind to invest in. I finally gave up and just bought one a Big Lots.... for $12, and it works really well. It gets really hot and hasn't pissed out on me. Sad to say I think this flat iron has been with me the longest since my introduction to the tool. It does snag some hairs, but my nice ones did that as well, so it's not too much of a con.


So there you have it. Maybe when I learn the rules of the blog-o-sphere better or I have a bored moment, I'll post some pictures (I won't). Until that possible moment, I hope this was at best entertaining and at worst helpful.

E.L.F. tinted moisturizer and volumizing mascara

There is seriously something in my walls... it may be birds. Kinda freaky.

Moving on.

I got a sample of Laura Mercier's tinted moisturizer from Sephora a few weeks ago but still can't make myself bite the bullet and straight up buy it. Mainly because it's just, so... whelming. It isn't amazing, it isn't wretched. It just is.  So I went to stalk the makeup department at Target. Now, I have a few E.L.F. products that are also marginal, but for $1-3, I have less difficulties if I buy something and don't like it.

Previous visits to the E.L.F. section of Target has been rather slim but it's apparently gaining popularity since more products were there. Including a tinted moisturizer.

Not only is it a tinted moisturizer, it practically is fool proof with choosing the correct shade since it has a description on the bottom of the box. "For light to medium skin tones with yellow undertones." THAT'S ME! Sold.

I've also felt that my lashes have been a wee bit sad looking so I wanted to check out a volumizing mascara. I had originally picked up a different version of my current mascara (Maybelline Great Lash) Maybelline's Lots of Lashes. I put them back after discovering E.L.F.'s Volume Plumping Mascara.

So the next day I got ready for work and slapped on my new finds; only to be really disappointed. The moisturizer is fairly runny and quiet orange.  I put it on anyways. The places on my face where I had blended it in, I couldn't even tell I was really wearing anything and the places it wasn't so blended, I looked like I was a quarter Oompa Loompa.

Mascara was also a sad face. My lashes (which are pretty long, just thin) looked less full with this than my regular mascara and it smudged quite a bit by 2pm (I put it on about 6:30am).  I mean I can handle some smudge, I seem to have this place under the corner of my right eye that is ALWAYS getting smudges, but this was under both eyes. I looked five days into a fight and really worn out. 

I didn't think the tinted moisturizer held up very well either. I have pretty dry skin but this just didn't seem to stay put. Even with powder. I don't think it oxidized on me though and the directions recommend using a brush to apply. So perhaps I'll try that. I used it again today and still don't have positive feelings about it. Neutral at best.

Moral of the story: maybe splurge on the nice tinted moisturizer. The sample was fairly small and I still have some, several weeks later so it will last. 

Sooo, what am I?

I have never been proficient in choosing foundation colors; which is most likely why I stopped wearing it all together. However, with my resurgence of love for makeup, I am now again asking myself what is my skin tone? I'd like to narrow it down to a range so that I can decrease the probability of buying a poorly matched shade. And so begins the quest of  Am I Warm or Cool?

I started as I begin 95% of all attempts to answer a random question: with Google (duh). The first two websites I found were helpful in explaining how to determine if you are warm or cool and provided several tests to use.

1. The Vein Test
    Look at the veins in your arm. Do they look blue or green? If they are blue, you have cool undertones to your skin, if they are green, you are warm. The yellow in the skin with warm tones cause the veins to appear green.

Me: Do my veins look green? Boyfriend: You're asking the color blind person?

Those look.... green....ish? Moving on.

2. Metals

    Do you look better in silver or gold jewelry?  Cool undertones looks better with silver/white while warm looks better in gold. 

I don't even think I have any gold jewelry. I do have a white gold ring that looks okay, but I can't say it makes my skin "glow" or anything. 

3. Colors

    Get fabrics in orange, blue, black, brown, white and cream. Hold/ drape each fabric around your neck. Which colors are more flattering? Warm undertones will look best in orange, cream and brown. Cool will look better in blue, white and black.

This is tricky. I feel like I look good in white. When looking at my clothes (which conveniently are in a pile on the kitchen table) I wear colors that are darker hues: browns, dark blues, etc. but I also wear a shit ton of gray. I have no idea why I love gray, but I do and wear it as much as possible. I like purple as well, because it plays well off my green eyes... 

4. Genetics

    If you are fair skinned and:

       - burn easily, difficult to tan

       - look pink rather than peach

       - look brown/bronze when tanned

       - eye color is light blue, grey, dark brown, or black

       - hair color is ash blond, dark brown, or black

Then you have cool undertones

     

    If you are fair skinned and:

       - tan fairly easily

       - look peachy rather than pink

       - look golden when tan

       - eye color is amber, golden brown, hazel or green

       - hair color is red/golden brown, golden blond, red, strawberry blond or black 

Then you have warm undertones

I have green eyes with light brown hair that looks pretty red in the sunlight. I tan really easily, but I can't say for sure whether I look "golden". My mom always told me I have olive skin, but it looks like she was not correct in her assessment, in that I'm not a true olive skinned person. 

Well I guess this means I have warm undertones. Mystery solved!

Sites I found helpful and referenced:

Lesson 1: Skintone

Do you have a warm or cool skin tone?

Warm vs. cool

OMGNAKEDPALETTE

So beautiful, so sleek, with colors practically made especially for my skin tone..... and I still manage to make myself look like a toddler did my makeup. Is it the brushes? Is it my technique? Is it the fact that I don't wear darker colors often and it's just my imagination? 


It seems to be a common theme where I just don't feel that I look right with a dark shade in my crease. To me it makes my lashes look.... underwhelming and my face only half done. Taking in to account I went to the Ulta store straight after work then came straight home and slapped it on my face, maybe I'll cut myself some slack right now. 


Still totally stoked. More burning questions to come.

Another generational thing I'm late to....

The Blog-o-sphere. I'm pretty sure I started one in college and mainly used it to express all my feeler feelings to the two friends I also knew on there.  But that is not what this shall be. I really just want a place to put my thoughts and experiences during my foray in to all things beauty for (maybe, hopefully) others (who care) to read. Dream upon dreams, I would like it to be helpful as well.


While I've been wearing makeup since my teenaged years, I really had little idea what I was doing. I just wanted makeup and I wanted on my face. I didn't even get into mascara until I was in grad school, mainly because that's when I finally got contacts and I didn't have to put up with my eyelashes smudging the shit out of the lenses. Nothing irrationally enrages me more that smudges on my glasses. 


Anyways, I will be writing about products I've tried, attempting to upload pictures of swatches and the Birchboxes that I get. I may also throw in anything else that I'm trying to improve, such as cooking and such.


Thanks for indulging me.