Lately...

This week has been a bit of a mess. I'm excited about Valentine's Day but since I'll be working, I'll probably be doing a valentine craft and spending most of the day with the kids I babysit and my cousin I'm watching for the week. It won't stop me from wearing my lipstick print dress from Forever 21 though!


Coco sleeping

My Sperry Shearwater Boots(the fuchsia are sold out). I love love love them.

My late grandparent's cat Cali. She's 21 this year and sweet as ever.

My Valentine's gift from Ryan. 'The Perfect Flush' Blush by Too Faced.
I hope you have an amazing Valentine's Day week! I've never understood why people get so bent out of shape about being single on Valentine's Day. My family's always used it as an excuse to give a gift or two to whoever you love. Family, friends, significant other, dog, whoever. Taylor and I exchange presents and I bought a dozen cupcakes for my parents from their favorite cupcake place (Crave Cupcakes in Houston!). To be honest I haven't even looked for Ryan's gift yet. We normally just make dinner together the night of and go out to eat on the 15th or 16th to avoid the crowds.

Happy Valentine's Day!

-Becca

Review: Clarins 'Instant Smooth Perfecting Touch' Primer

Clarins 'Instant Smooth Perfecting Touch' primer
I'd seen this in a few 2012 Beauty Favorites videos and blog posts and I'm pretty much always on the lookout for a pore minimizing primer so I thought I'd give it a whirl. I LOVE it! It makes my makeup stay on longer and I feel like it has helped my skin look and feel better the longer I use it. My pores look less visible under makeup and the battle with some frustrating near-cystic acne I had caused by Boots No.7 face cream has finally come to an end. I attribute it wholeheartedly to this primer and my Clarisonic.



Before this I'd used Benefit's 'the Porefessional' and Too Faced's 'Primed & Poreless'. Personally, I preferred 'the Porefessional' over Too Faced because I felt like it did a better job of actually minimizing my pores. However, my sweet baby Taylor loves 'Primed & Poreless' and it is still a really good primer. Neither caused me to breakout and they didn't make my face any oilier.

The only drawback to using Clarins 'Instant Smooth Perfecting Touch' primer is that at $32 you only get 0.50 oz. whereas 'Primed & Poreless' is $30 for 1 oz. and 'the Porefessional' is $30 for 0.75 oz. So obviously if you don't have really big pores and you're just looking for something that will make your makeup last longer and go on smoother, 'Primed & Poreless' gives you more bang for your buck. But I'm a Clarins convert.

I love love love Clarins primer and will most definitely be repurchasing.


-Becca

p.s. I've just bought NYX Pore Filler, so once I've tried it out I'll post a review. I want to try their green tinted Studio Perfect Primer next...we'll see.

Valentine's Day Beauty Wishlist

1. Too Faced 'Sweetheart Perfect Flush Blush' - $29 USD

2. MAC Veluxe Brow Liner in 'Redhead' - $19.50 USD

3. MAC "Archie's Girls" Veronica Powder Blush in 'Prom Princess' - $22 USD

3. MAC "Archie's Girls" Betty Lipstick in 'Girl Next Door' - $16.50 USD


Seeing as how Valentine's Day is one of my favorite holidays and I can always seem to find about a thousand things I want, it was hard narrowing this down to just a few things.

That being said, I'm super excited about the MAC "Archie's Girls" collection coming out in a few days online (Jan 30th) and in stores (Feb 7th) especially since they're pretty obviously Valentine themed. White with red hearts?? Come on, how can I say no?

You can't find the products from the Archie's Girls collection on the MAC website until the 30th of January, but if you're interested in looking at swatches or photos of the products, both Makeup and Beauty Blog & Beautezine are a great resource.


-Becca

photo sources for MAC "Archie's Girls" collection: www.beautezine.com

Cranberry Eyeshadow

This season cranberry/oxblood/burgundy/whatever you wanna call it is really "in" & I had been freaking out over getting the perfect cranberry eyeshadow. So I spent a lot of my free time looking up dupe videos and blog reviews. Judge me all you want.

In an attempt to be thrifty I bought the NYX eyeshadow in "Rust" which is supposed to be a dupe for MAC's "Cranberry" and I was ultimately pretty happy with my purchase. NYX has great pigmentation in everything I've ever bought from them (blushes, eyeliners, lipsticks, eyeshadows) and this was no exception. But when I went to the MAC Glamour Daze event a few weeks ago I couldn't resist picking up "Cranberry" while I was there.




As I drove home I was so mad at myself since having two eyeshadows that are exactly the same seems really ridiculous to me. But low and behold when I got home I realized that they really aren't that similar.



Left: MAC "Cranberry" // Right: NYX "Rust"
In the pan they look nearly identical but once they hit skin they look pretty different. "Cranberry" is definitely less orange and rusty and more of a true cranberry/burgundy/oxblood color. But I will definitely still be using "Rust" regularly this fall. Both are great eyeshadows that I'm thrilled to be adding to my super small eyeshadow collection (I literally have five eyeshadows-- including these two).

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Here are a few ways to wear cranberry eyeshadow from around the web & a few of my own ideas:


source


& here's a tutorial pixiwoo did of this look!
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source

The above are two different looks worn by Karen Gillan-- one using the cranberry dusted just under the eye and the other complimenting the copper tone blended along the outer corner of the eye

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This is the way I've most often used it. I normally use my normal liquid liner and then go back over it with the cranberry eyeshadow. It creates a subtle look that's pretty but not as intense as Kristen Stewart's look.

Hope you enjoyed this! Finding different cranberry eye looks was fun and more challenging than I thought it would be.

Have you jumped on the metaphorical oxblood/cranberry bandwagon?

love,
becca

Denton

denton courthouse on the square (photo by me)
After seeing a few friends post this article on fb I thought I would post it here.
Recently the town I live in (Denton, TX) was voted #1 Best Small Town in America by Business Insider!

In other news, Baltimore was voted #48 in "Most Dangerous Cities in The World" by the same website. Can't say I'm surprised seeing as I lived there for 3 months and it was what brought my Generalized Anxiety Disorder to a head.

But anyways, yay Denton!

Autumn & Winter Makeup Wishlist

1. NARS Blush in "Sin" - $28 // 2. TOCCA "Stella" Perfume - $68 // 3. SUGAR lip treatment in "Berry" - $22.50 // 4. NARS Eyeshadow in "Lhasa" - $24 // 5. LORAC PRO Palette - $42

love,
becca

MAC Glamour Daze

A few weeks ago I attended a MAC event with my friends Taylor & Katy. The invitation said it was to be an unveiling of a new line of products by MAC (the Glamour Daze Holiday Collection) --the night would include cocktails, food and entertainment.

(image belongs to MAC)

Our MAC is honestly too small to have housed the amount of people that RSVPed so we had to stand in line and go into the store in shifts. There really wasn't that much alcohol or food and while the collection was really pretty--most of it came in really expensive sets or you couldn't get around the groups of people in order to even see the displays.

Ultimately it will probably be my last "event" I go to unless it's something I'm really looking forward to but these are the things I bought from the Glamour Daze collection:




MAC "Girl Trouble" Nail Lacquer & MAC "Pink Freeze" Eyeshadow

"Girl Trouble" Nail Lacquer







"Pink Freeze" Eyeshadow







(No pictures of me wearing it yet--I'm still a little perplexed by how to wear it)

Strangely enough, I normally really hate anything that looks "frosted", haha never mind both items I bought are frosty as hell. Most of the pieces from the Glamour Daze collection weren't frosted, these just happened to be the two things I thought looked really pretty on. Plus I love metallic pink for winter so I guess that's why I was drawn to them. I don't know really. All I know is that I like 'em.

So I guess go check it out before the collection sells out!

-Becca