Top 5 Favorites

Hey guys! So today I’m going to talk about the five makeup products I cannot live without. In the past, I did a post about my favorite current products but today I only get to choose the top five in my collection. This is hard for me because I normally use about 10-15 products on my face every day. This post includes makeup brushes because to me, if you have a good applicator then your makeup is more likely to look good!

My first product is definitely my Beauty Blender, it’s super useful and I use it everyday to blend out my foundation, concealer, bake my face (put powder on my face) and so much more. I have the black one which in my opinion, is far superior to the other colors. For whatever reason it seems to blend things so much better. My next favorite is the best product I’ve ever purchased. It is the Maybelline Lash Sensational Mascara! Literally makes my lashes so long and fluffy. I’ve tried so many drug store and high end mascaras and none come close to this one. I always end up going back to it the moment my other mascaras run dry. None of them come close to how good this one is.

My third favorite is a pallet. Now for pallets, it is constantly changing because certain pallets have the shades I am loving for a specific season and whatnot. So currently, I’m loving the Too Faced Sweet Peach Pallet. It’s fairly compact, so during the holiday season it is easy to travel with. As well as smelling so good, it has a lot of neutral shades that can be paired with bold lips (a personal preference during the winter months). It also has one specific color called “Nectar” that I am absolutely in love with!

The second to last product would have to be the Laura Mercier Translucent Powder, although slightly messy, this powder completely sets my base makeup without looking cakey or powder-y. It also smells really clean and does not have any flashback (making your face look pale when cameras flash). And last but not least, my favorite concealer is the Tarte Shape Tape Concealer. In the winter months, my skin tends to start to lose my summer tan as well as also staying up late to study. With that combination, my dark circles are 10x more visible. The Shape Tape is a super full coverage concealer that takes away any imperfections or dark circles and leaves a flawless finish. I personally think that the Airspun powder and Shape Tape concealer work together like a dream!

All of these products definitely work well together I would say. I use them on a day-to-day basis and I have always been nothing less than impressed with how my makeup looks when using these 5 products. I hope you enjoyed reading this! I would love to know about other people’s makeup interests as well as what are some of the best products for the winter months when skin tends to go dry and matte products don’t seem to work as well as they used to.

Happy Holidays! 

Christmas Makeup Look

HAPPY FIRST WEEK OF CHRISTMAS

 

Well…kind of. For me, the Christmas season officially begins on December first so to celebrate that I thought I would do a fun Christmas Makeup Look.

To start off, I did my face makeup by using a primer and then blending the foundation into my skin with my beauty blender. After that, I concealed any blemishes and added concealer under my eyes to add brightness and cover dark circles. I then proceeded to add a cream highlighter (always add cream products before powder!) to the tops of my cheeks and tip of my nose and cupids bow. I blended that all in with a concealing fluffy brush and set my entire face with a loose translucent powder. Once my face was set, I was able to start adding color and depth back in; I took my NYC Sunny Bronzer and blended it on the hollows of my cheeks, my temples, and around my jaw line. After that I added Milani’s Luminoso blush to the apples of my cheeks and blended it back into my bronzer. Finally for the face I sprayed a large fluffy eyeshadow brush with setting spray and added highlighter on all the places I put the cream for an extra glowy look.

After the face was done, I moved onto eyes which are fairly simple. I used my Morphe 35O pallet and took a medium darkness orangey-brown shade and blended it into my crease and packed it onto my lid. I then took a champagne colored shimmer shade and put it in my inner corner and on my brow bone to highlight. I filled in my brows (slightly darker than normal to add to the dramatic look) and added a thin line of brown eyeliner onto my eyes. Finally, I added a few coats of mascara on my top and bottom lashes!

I’m sure this doesn’t seem too Christmas-y so far but to complete the look, I wanted to use a bright red lipstick. The hard part was finding a red lipstick that wasn’t too pink and wasn’t too dark. So, to create my perfect red color I mixed NYX’s “Kitten Heels” Liquid Lipstick and Revlon’s Liquid Lipstick in “HD Romance”

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Favorite Products!

Hey y’all! So while this post won’t have a specific makeup look, I want to show some of my favorite products I’ve discovered from throughout my years of doing makeup. I was originally going to do both makeup and skincare, but I have already told y’all some of my favorite products for skincare in a past post. So this will basically be a run down of all of my most tried-and-true makeup products starting with primer and ending with eyeshadow!

To start, I’ll go with the products used specifically on my face. For primer, my favorite has to be Maybelline’s Baby Skin Primer. Not only does it smooth your skin and cover it from makeup clogging your pores, it blurs over any lines or texture on your skin giving you a smooth base. The next product I love to use is Garnier BB Cream for Shine Control. This paired with the Baby Skin primer takes away any oils that could shine through your makeup during the day. To make sure my skin has a little extra coverage, I like to go in with my Maybelline Fit Me Concealer in the shade 10 for blemishes and the shade 15 for under the eyes (to brighten and conceal darkness). After I finish my base makeup, I like to set it all down with Airspun Loose Powder or Maybelline Fit Me Loose Powder (for more coverage). These are all drugstore products so they are super cheap and can be found at any CVS or Target!

The next products are still face related but are more fore dimensional effect rather than a solid base. My favorite bronzer is definitely Too Faced Chocolate Solei bronzer because 1. It’s a matte bronzer that is perfect for my skin tone and 2. IT SMELLS LIKE CHOCOLATE! To pair with the super-sweet bronzer, I love to use Milani’s baked blush in the shade “Luminoso.” It is a light pink with gold reflects and shimmer that make your skin constantly look like you’ve been outside. The last face item is ColourPop’s Supershock Highlighter in the shade “Churro.” The golden shimmer pairs amazing with the blush.

Last but not least is eyes and Lips. For my eyes, my all time favorite pallet is the Morphe 35o. It has thirty five eyeshadows for only $23!! Not only is it cheap, the quality of the eyeshadows is amazing and the color range is so diverse. For eyebrows I honestly just use a dark brown eyeshadow from that pallet to fill them in. I have found the holy grail of mascaras not only is it a drugstore brand (cheap!) it is also one of the most high quality products I have ever used; Maybelline Lash Sensational is by far the best product on this list in my opinion. And last but not least; lips. While the majority of the time I wear Chapstick or Vaseline on my lips, when I do go out I reach for either “Lolita” by Kat Von D or “Velvet Teddy” by Mac. Both are pink-toned nudes that go perfect with basically any look.

 

Spooky Looks!

As Halloween looms closer, we are frantically looking for different DIY costumes! But the older I got, the less interested I became in costumes and the more interested I got with the face makeup! As a college student, I don’t think I will be going to a Halloween party dressed in some extravagant costume but rather a simple “costume” with some sick face makeup! While it may be the typical “college girl” look, I personally think any sort of animal-print makeup is a fun and easy way to look both cute and spooky on Halloween. Last year I went as a deer and this year I’ll be going out dressed as a cat- I know, basic). But honestly both costumes were super easy once the makeup was done. Just an all black or all brown outfit and ears (or antlers) and I was good to go! Here are two easy outfits to go with either deer or cat makeup.

I will admit, sometimes costumes aren’t the easiest thing to pull together but doing something slightly Halloween-ey is what really counts…right? That’s why I think spooky or cute makeup works for just right for the occasion- even without the costume! The next two looks I did were strictly eye makeup and while they were a little time consuming, the results were totally worth it. I loved how cute the Jack-o-lantern turned out and how cool the contrast between black and orange looked on the spider look.

Honestly, Halloween is all about having fun and creating a new persona for yourself (also CANDY – duh). So any type of makeup or costume is going to be great if you feel and look confident in it. So walk out with pumpkin covered eyelids and or a gory skull face. You go girl.

Caring for Your Skin

So far all I have talked about is the fun, creative side of makeup but one thing that is equally important is SKINCARE. Your face is the most important factor when doing makeup and without it, you’re kinda out of luck. It’s like when you’re painting; you make sure to take care of your canvas and keep it clean but, if you get your canvas sticky or dirty or muddy your paints are not going to go on as nicely. This is the same as your makeup! Some may think that skincare is a hassle or a chore but I’m here to tell you that skincare can be fun!

From face masks to pore strips, there are many different ways to keep you face clean and healthy. For an every day clean, I recommend a gentle facial cleanser that also removes makeup. These can be found at drug stores or high-end beauty stores. Personally, I use First Aid Beauty’s facial cleanser but my favorite drug store cleanser is Clean and Clear’s deep action cream cleanser. Both are amazing cleansers, but the Clean and Clear leaves your face feeling cool and refreshed while the First Aid one makes your skin feel clean and glowing. Apart from the basic cleanser; spot treatment, pore strips, and face masks are also things you can do for special occasions or tougher breakouts.

My favorite spot treatment medicine is the Clean and Clear Spot Treatment (is it obvious that I love Clean and Clear?!) because you can automatically feel it cleaning out the infected spot on your face. Pore strips can be super painful but super worth it if you’re needing a good cleaning out of all the gunk on your nose. Not only are you cleaning out dirt and makeup, but you are also cleaning out the deep set blackheads that have arose from the dirt and makeup. A good brand is the Biore Charcoal Pore Strips as well as the normal pore strips. My last and favorite thing to do whenever I wanna clear my skin (or even just a fun little pick-me-up!) is face masks! They come in all different types and all different colors and scents. There is sheet masks, peel off, clay and many, many more! My two personal favorites are peel off and clay masks. I’m not sure why, but I just feel as though my skin is cleaner afterwards! Some really cool masks are Milkpiggy Hellpore Mask (EXTREMELY PAINFUL but totally worth it) and Kapulet’s Dry Pink Clay Mask (I like this one mostly because it’s pink).

I hope you enjoyed my tips about skincare and everyone please TAKE CARE OF YOUR SKIN! Masks, face washes, moisturizers, treatments, etc…do not take your skin for granted! Here’s some fun face masks pics that I hope you like!