Day 3 of NaNoWriMo

It is NaNoWriMo month again! My week prior has involved many attempts to plan for an easy month, instead though I yet again fall into a "Pantser" status. Despite my heavy thinking and timeline-ing, I sit here wondering how I am going to connect all the dots in my story.

I thought I was being a planner this month. It was sitting down to write the first day that alerted me to the fact, that I rarely plan everything. I had a neat morning after Halloween. My nephew was just picked up after I took him Trick-or-Treating in the rain and playing Halo 5 until 4AM. Flash to being at work. I manned the phones at the funeral home, armed with a classy, black, boat neck dress, and my purse-sized notepad and a fine pointed BIC pen (my favorite kind of pen). I waffled back and forth to the bathroom, having downed and refilled my water bottle three times. The wind blew leaves in such a manner that they crinkled in the carport. Fall debris clattered ontop the roof. Despite the day being mid-60's and beautifully blue, I let my mind decide that I was in a funeral home on Día de los Muertos and that I should be distracted by that.

Even me writing this is proof enough how easy I am getting distracted from my writing. Part of me is feeling that a nice outline could cure this. Another part of me recognizes that, much like in the past week, my efforts of creating a timeline are fruitless.

I can get pretty long winded, but I guess my aim is to say that I need to buckle down and get myself a plan to conquer this month. I'm already floundering quite a bit.

Perhaps I will use this blog this month to document my month of NaNo. Maybe even some cosmetic gushings. Who can say. Either way, I need to get my cocoa on this month and utilize my bay window as a writing space. It would be cute.

Blogging

I dunno man. It's been nice not having to photograph everything I buy with an iPhone camera. Secondly, it seems not blogging about purchases has cut spending down. Not that I really overspent like some people. A paraphrased quote from a Facebook Ipsy/BB group. "I charged like $300 on the card. lol. I'll have to hide that from my husband". That's  another story entirely.

Notable items that I have acquired since last posting are the Urban Decay Naked Smoky. Adore it. I wore it for two weeks straight, and only now am not wearing it because I got a touch lazy and some of my brushes were actually forgotten at my parents house. Oops.

Kat Von D products such as the Ink Liner in Trooper. I adore this, but sometimes it does not have the blackest opaque appearance. Still, very precise line. Next were her Everlasting Liquid Lipsticks in Witches and L.U.V. These are fantastic, but I daresay, the ColourPop ones are kinder to me? Witches has a tendency to be sticky on me and requires a bit of layering. Still have to play with it.

ColourPop. Finally tried stuff from them. I bought three Ultra Mattes, a LippieStix an eyeshadow, and a highlighter. Of these selections I do enjoy all of them. The highlighter is gorgeous, but it crumbled a little when I was dealing with it. Still works. The eyeshadow is also great and mostly budge proof (haven't had it crease yet when wearing under powder or alone, but I don't want to speak too soon). Both of these have a texture similar to stone clay. It's almost cold or wet feeling to the touch. Love it for that reason.
The LippieStix has a scent which I appreciated, it's nondrying, and stays on quite well. The color takes a bit of building like Matte lipsticks have a tendency to. Finally the Ultra Mattes. All three are frigging amazing. Except I am paler than I was last year, and even light Solow looks dark on me. Bumble is full on vampy. Trap is perfect. Absolutely perfect in every way. As far as performance, they work on the whole nicer than those Ulta ones I mentioned way back.

I tried a Too Faced Melted Liquid Lipstick. Love it. One of my most comfortable to wear, though not totally transfer proof. Lasts a good, good deal. 

From NYX, I purchased two of the Liquid Suedes. For me, these worked better than the SMLCs. They are comfortable to wear and they last through my lunch beautifully. I bought Stone Fox and Soft Spoken. I kind of like Stone Fox better than my KVD black (though the Stone Fox is a cool, dark grey).

Lets see what else. IT Cosmetics CC+ cream was acquired, and it's amazing. BUUT.
As a low end foundation, I am using Maybelline Dream Matte Mousse. I feel like Bare Minerals fondations have really fallen to the wayside with me. The Ready foundation is cakey now, and the BareSkin is far to dark (got pale).

Not much point to this post, except that hello. I exist. I may or may not return to this, but I would rather just post a bunch of looks with stuff I already have instead of buying to review. So many blogs/vlogs seem to esteem acquiring so much products that you could never in a lifetime dream of using. I love researching a product before purchase, but I don't want to spend every dime on cosmetics either.

Ipsy April 2015 Beautifully Bohemian

JulieG 

Nailcolor in Damsel (mid-tone pink crème)

This is full size. Buy it here.

$3.99 

 

It's a pretty color, I'm just a little meh about a nail polish. It's a similar color to my one Butter London polish in Snog. Pending review, I may use this over the weekend. My work does not allow me to use polish, so it's very sparing I can paint my nails now. That's depression and I am sure that I would have been more excited had that not been the case. 

 

Pandora's Makeup Box

Pink Carnation Blush (peachy pink)

This is full size. Buy it here.

$14

 

 

For real, this is one of the most beautiful blushes I probably own. Described as a peachy pink, I would actually say it's more of a dusty peach mauve. Then again, I could just be talking out of my rear. There is no shimmer, leaving it somewhat matte. The saturated swatch shows a nicely pigmented blush, which blends out beautifully. At least until I get the hang of it, I would exercise caution as it is color rich. 

 

This is a pot housed in a plastic doodad. It does close, therefore you can travel with it. Although I am disappointed that I failed to scrutinize the photo closely. The cardboard box it comes with is essentially a throwaway. The magnetic box shown on the website is an additional $4 to purchase. Still it's nice, if you bought from them you can choose to buy three blush pans and only have one compact. That reduces waste and some folks may elect to just toss these in their ZPalette and forsake the cardboard compact anyways. They're nice enough blushes, it's something I would look into.

theBalm Cosmetics

NUDE Dude Eyeshadow Single in Fit (shimmering copper)

This is a sample size at .035 oz. Buy the full palette here.

~$3

While the color is very redundant to my collection, it is certainly gorgeous. I had hoped for the other one, but alas this will do. It is in a small magnetic compact, which is pretty fancy for a single. Inside features a preview of the full sized palette.

Texture wise it's smooth and buttery, reaching full color with little effort. Absolutely gorgeous and will be nice to work on my eyeballs with.

 

Mullein & Sparrow 

Mini Lip & Cheek Tint

This is technically full size at 0.25 oz, as it's in a duo. Buy it here.

$10

Simple ingredients. Sweet orange scent. Cocoa butter also makes up the majority of notes in this. It's slippery in texture and does give the implied dewy finish. I almost doubted the efficacy of the color delivery, as it was almost invisible.

As a lip balm, it's hydrating and feels nice, but it is very slippery. Oil heavy I suppose. It feels nice, but provides my lips absolutely no color. On the cheeks it takes a lot of building, but it's a great natural flush. I have yet to test it's longevity, but so far I like it. It's balm properties allow it to soak into your cheeks after some time eliminating some of the extra dewiness.

Overall, it's nice sized and a nice tools free addition to my purse. Some days you don't have the means to pack a blush and this will give you a little something, as well as healing lips from the salty french fries and the day of biting your lip because it was too busy at work and you were getting slammed. 

Mica Beauty 

Eye Primer

This is half sized at 4g. Buy it here.

$22.50

 

I do not have much to compare this to, but I have heard a parallel made between the MAC painterly pots? Maybe? There is a controversy surrounding this. As the nature of the container, there are divots and holes in the product. Mold or bacteria is always a concern, as the product itself can easily resemble agar. Ipsy has since emailed all recipients of the product claiming that it passed a microbiology test. I am sure that means they swabbed the suspect spots and grew it on a plate, then staining it. If that's the case then it's only hysteria perpetuating the "OMG. IPSY IS CREEPING ME OUT."

 

Full disclosure, my product had one speck. It has a green cast, but as Ipsy said it is from condensation making the indents. My product appears to have that affliction. Examining it with just my eyes, there is no colonial morphology. It does not resemble a crateriform colony and has no substance outside of the product itself being pushed in a perfect circle. My product at least seems completely safe.

 

I can not speak to the product itself yet, except that it's a thick primer creamy wax, which reminds me of Benefit's PoreFessional.  

The Bag.

I am incredibly foggy on the definition of Bohemian. I have a certain look in my head when I picture the word, and I know it's not a style I would wear. Barefeet or sandals from Jesus' time seem to be the footwear of choice, alone with earth tone dresses and braided headbands, and huge earrings. Maybe I am wrong about that stereotype. Still I can only vaguely piece this bag to that image. For all I know, the bag is a perfect representation of Bohemianism. Eitherway, it's larger than previous bags marginally. It's woven hempy-something fiber with some surprisingly non-garrish colors woven through that. It's pretty dang cute. As far as it's slightly larger size, I think this will make a better colored pencil case than my August Ipsy bag.

So my bag's value came in at a very decent $53.50. Price tag isn't everything of course, but it's nice to see that my $10 is going to things I would have less access to with a sampling approved price.

The contents are not as exciting, as say getting the Too Faced Melted would have been, but I am thankful to try the cheek tint and that perfect blush. Also primers are welcome, and metal-inspired eyeshadow is always a soft spot (even though I probably have ninety with that color..heeeh.)

It was a good month. Let's just hope that May brings me something I flip out over.

Ulta Matte Lip Cream

The I'm A while ago Ulta released their own version of a liquid lipstick, promising to dry with a matte finish. Since it has a $9 price tag, even with their Buy 2 Get 2 Free sale, I wanted to wait it out until I found some actual reviews for it. A lot that I have found so far have been limited to just that of swatches and impressions.

I missed the sales, but I could not help myself. I have seen enough that was both charming or mixed that I had to try it.

Here is dinner. My daily log about this product. Eat up kids.

10:40 
I freshly applied this. Very slippery. Very faint scent, but it likely would not be irritating. It fades within .0016 seconds. Also no taste. Another note is that it does manage to be opaque in little coats. I believe this was around one and a half coats to be sure.

 

10:47 

As you can see, it is already drying down to a matte. This still had the power to transfer, with a velvet tackiness. Really a lovely color, which seems to be growing into my signature shade.

 

11:14

Significant time has past. This dries down between 15-30 minutes. It's incredibly lightweight and feels like nothing on the lips. Compared to the NYX Soft Matte Lip Cream, this is a lighter product. It does not settle into lip lines, and pretty much stays where you put it. Provided you wait the time for the product to dry.  I've included a small blot test, in which I forcibly smashed my lips into a white piece of scrap paper. My shade is a light one, so I cannot attest to darker shades. Still, it seemed to only take away the places where I had the cream on thicker during the initial lining. Bravo.

 

12:54

This ultra flattering photo of my lips (I promise, they do not look like this in real life...) is absolute CASH. Perfectly matte and color strong. This is a full two hours after I first applied. Let it also be noted that I had not eaten or drank anything up until this point. However, I did spend a lot of time touching my lips to my hand or to themselves. Product not be blamed, but the lips are slightly dry. On a normal day though, you would apply a balm anyways after a few hours.

 

1:01

This was concerning. I ate some nasty breadsticks from the other day that were in the fridge. Hard as rock and greasy. If it had been a thing I condoned, I would have sooner just gave them to Dallas or Nightshade. While I am pleased to show that color is still there, the oil is not intending on doing good things.

2:24

After hard boiling some eggs, I wanted to enjoy a sandwich. This was before. Note the small breakdown towards my inner lip. This color is very forgiving though, but it is hard to tell. I am sure with a darker color it may be more obvious. Regardless, my lips still look fab after dabbing that nasty breadstick residue off.

 

2:56 

Post egg salad sandwich. A kinder sandwich indeed, as there is little to no additional damage to the pristine matte. 

 

3:01

The color remains, and quite well I might add. There is not halo issue. After this point though, I elected to reapply. Maybe around 4PM I decided to reapply, and there indeed was a difference. Albeit, a small difference. Maybe it's the nature of the color? Maybe it's just a great product.

 

My final verdict can only be judged on the specific shade "Artistic". It's a gorgeous color, and through eating and drinking it maintained itself well. As always though, avoid things too greasy and you should have a great color.

So far, at 7:30 PM, having had this on basically since 11AM it is doing pretty well. I touched up the main flesh of my lip around 4.

AS far as price, I would honestly wait until it's on sale. Ulta regularly has good sales (though so far through Feb and March I only saw two B2G2 sales... hmm. Not as good as usual.). I imagine this product could be between $4-5 based on how they previously priced their lip products during house brand sales. 

Now if you are impatient like me, I would suggest getting a color or two that you adore. Maybe next week I will be pulled into the Ulta tractor beam and grab another one.. NYX's is cheaper and offers more colors of course, but this is perfect for someone who has no desire for a heavy and slightly tacky lip cream. Maybe I will compare the two more in depth later. 

For now though. Dude. I just gotta pick out my next color. Maybe "Striking" or "Vivid". But really, you should try and get them on sale. 

Another final note is that I gave these 4/5 stars on Ulta's website.

Ipsy April bag impressions.

JulieG Nail Color.

Balls. Totally don't want this. Cheap $3.99 nail polish versus a $25 Elizabeth Arden lipstick or $22 Too Faced Melted... wow. Totally balanced.

Pandora's Thing Pink Carnation

This looks to be full size, and it's a refillable cardboard palette. Looks adorable, and I will always take a pressed powder blush. This is okay. $14 full size.

The Balm Nude Dude single eyeshadow.

A little lame becauses it's one random shade. I saw a complaint that it should have at least been a duo. Had it been, it would have been completely okay even if it was the same side split in half. This is not going to be very indicative of the formula. I'm not too excited about this because it's a nuetral eyeshadow. Cool. They exist repeatedly in my collection. Still, it's alright I suppose. I super hope for Flirty, because it's a darker shade.
At .035 oz this is worth about $3, as the pan is rougly the same size as the pans in the palette.

Mica Beauty Eye Primer.

This is pretty exciting. The full size is an 8 g pot of primer valued at nearly $45. First WHAT. Why? Is it laced with skin cells of a unicorn? Better be. The pot Ipsy is sending is about half that, so roughly $22.50. Price means little if it's not quality, so lets hope it's great.  The truly cool thing is that my UD Primer potion is starting to run low. I still have a few other prestige type eye primers, but eventually they're going to run out.

Mullein & Sparrow Mini Lip & Cheek Tint

My first impression was that of "Why do I have two blushes?". I love blush, as stated, but two in one bag? The product itself though is beautiful and resembles something from an apothecary. For that I do not even care if it's a repeat. It's perfect because of what it looks like. On the website this is only available in a duo set valued at $20. So this is a $10 product, but the website has a high price point. It's beautiful and has pretty basic ingredients. Maybe this is my most anticipated product.


Overall, like most people I have a miffed attitude about not receiving a lip product. I especially wanted a Too Faced lip-guy, but hey. It's on my "to try" list, and it will still be there. I can still buy it easily at Ulta, whereas it is harder to come by something like the Cheek tint or the Mica Beauty things (do they even sell that at Ulta??)

My bag will have a value of about $53.50. That's fairly high compared to recent. Lets just hope it's all good stuff. 

Bare Minerals Automatic Liners

I I have come to the small conclusion that any sort of automatic liner from Bare Minerals is destin to fail. 

First up I will talk about their Marvelous Moxie lip liners. 

Back when IpsyMe had its relaunch about a year ago, I took advantage of the BM offer which included a gloss, lipstick, and liner. It was good because I was about to buy a Nude lipstick from them. And the gloss is awesome and I have been using glosses a lot while cold weather is upon us. The liner though...

Largest issue k have with it is not entirely formula. Formula issue is that I just don't like how waxy it feels on my lips. It's heavy. The main issue is that the stick of liner inside the plastic tube is prone to breakage. When you attempt to shade with the side of the liner the whole thing twists out. 

Case in point 

I have not used this nearly enough to to have it down that far. Little chunks repeatedly broke off to where I have little product left. As far as a lip liner I do like Ulta has their brand pencil liner. The kind you sharpen is really nice. 

Now the lip liner is not my only complaint.  Their Lasting Line long-wearing eyeliner automatic pencil not only does not last on me, but my sister has the same complaint. My Perversion pencil liner was downstairs in my purse, so I reached for the BM one. I had the stick out maybe a centimeter if that, and a large chunk broke off. Additionally it tugs like a kid on their moms apron. In the Fifties. Come to think of it... So does that crayola reminiscent lip liner.

Is there a stiffness to their formula? Is it a trend across this medium of liners?

Bare Minerals, I love you. I really do. Your loose blush and foundations across the board are top notch to me. Please though, keep those liners away from me.   

Why even bother with this industry if...

Well well, Ipsy has finally delivered me a bag I felt nothing but contempt for. 

It really has been hard to drudge up the will to blog about this. Or beauty in general. I'm on a self-imposed no buy. October I bought te UD Smoked Palette, mostly because it was on sale and came with a full sized Perversion liner. It's wonderful. 

December I used Ulta points and bought the UD Full Frontal Lipstick thing. It's nice, but I haven't been wearing much lipstick lately. My new job is a little too fast paced to check that my lipstick is in place. Instead I have just been using my homemade tinted lip balm. It does the trick. 

January I purchased te Bare Minerals complexion rescue. With that I am satisfied. All my foundations have slowly descended into cake zone, starting with the BareSkin serum. Finally it was too much to even wear my favorite BM Ready Foundation. Their new tinted moisturizer does not offer the most coverage by any stretch of the imagination, but on a whole it makes my skin look great. Add the moisturizing properties and my skin is finally healing. Plop concealer where you need it. 

Additionally, most of the blogs I follow have either ceased posting or I am just taken aback by how pointless they are. Why the hell would anyone run a beauty blog and only swatch on their arm? While the reviews may feed me enough, it's pretty fecking pointless to read a blog for an eyeshadow and only see it in a stripe on your damn arm. Why even bother. 

That on the whole has discouraged me.  I am thankful for the handful of folk who actually wear makeup and blog about it, but the growing number of individuals I see who don't is beyond me.**

**while this may seem precise, it's not. I can name you at least ten blogs that I have saved to my bookmarks with this problem. It's not one or two I am singling out. 

My lack of useful content has decreased my own care. Beauty blogging in part has lost its appeal. Not for lack of feedback, as I could talk to myself easily. It's just the community seems to just receive samples and then eventually they are paid to promote car insurance and ziplock bags. The hell, people follow you because you wear matte lipstick and do that cool thing with your eyeliner (made up scenario). Or wow. That eyeshadow pairs so nicely with your arm hair. 

I want to type the expletives in my head right now. It's makes so effing sense. What is the point?

This turned into a heated rant. Please tell me I am not alone in these thoughts? That your arm alone should not wear the mascara and blush a company wants you to peddle? 

The lackluster February ipsy review can be saved for when I don't look like a garbage truck. 

Frest Start - Ipsy Unboxing January 2015

 Flippity Ippity Ipsy.

I will be honest. My enjoyment with the service is kind of - not waning? - but it's not as exponential as it was before. November gave me an amazing bag, and December's was rather decent but I don't know. Even with getting nice products I have grown stale with the blogging aspect. That's really half of the excitement; the review. I had a partial post typed up for December in addition to filming myself opening it. Watching the video it was not something that exciting. Like I used a webcam and my lighting was the bad sun-already-went-down kind.

Plus, the butter lip balm I got was quickly stolen from my purse by a pair of jerk-brothers and annihilated. Though I got the boring nude color, I actually really liked it. Dallas I'm assuming was the instigator, because he is truly the nosy one. That is despite Nightshade sporting a less cute sheltie nose, and instead a long and thin collie muzzle.

Maybe I'll finish the post for december, but it was hard to get arsed about it. Even though all the products I got were indeed pretty awesome. In fact except for the hair styling produc (and of course that cute balm..) t, I have been regularly using everything. That's kind of a definition of a great bag.

So like the theme of the bag denotes, this is a fresh start. It's time to get excited about the arbitrary blogging again. Lord knows that if a lot of my favorite bloggers are starting to poof on the internet, at least I can continue.

Let's start backwards from normal. The bag. It's blue on one side and a somewhat whitish cream (or is it just my lighting?). The zipper is salmon which is very cute in terms of color theory. It's a strange material, textured woven plastic or something. This bag is just fine. It's innocuous and the zipper works, unlike my December bag.

LashFood

Phyto-Medic Eyelash Enhancer

 0.5 ml/3 ml
one month trial supply adjusted to $13.33
Buy the full four month supply here for $80

This is actually a fairly valuable sample, because the full size is a grotesque $80. It is roughly a one month sample, so hey in a month I can share what I thought. According to the envelope it came in, upwards 85% of people had results of length and 100% of people thought their lashes were fuller and denser. This is all based on independent studies, hosted by JB Cosmetics group I'm assuming. Probably no objectivity. Also that is after four months. Perhaps this sample does not have enough juice to push into that. Either way I am anxious to do this test because what could it hurt?

This product was pointless and would only give psuedo results. It was like a sugar pill. 

Probelle

Into the Blue Nail Lacquer

full size available here for $6

After nearly a year of Ipsy I finally received a nail polish! Great timing with all sarcasm intended, as I just started a job that prohibits nail polish. It's fine for today because I need not go in to work until Tuesday and here it is friday. I can wear this gorgeous bugger for the weekend. What an absolutely lovely shade of blue, which knocks on the door of my exact favorite hue. It's an amazing cream color and reminds me of my husband's eyes, so I'm pretty thrilled.

This has been on my toes and on my nails when I had consecutive days off. I love it and it's decent in two coats. Thin in formula, it really does best with three. 

Two coats. And pretty Dallas. 

Three coats and Nightshade. With a toy he is in progress of ruining. It shortly went in the garbage. 

Elizabeth Mott

All Over Shadow Brush

full size available here for $9.99

Nicely contained packaging and an eye-catching design. The brush is dense and super soft. If I were not wearing gobs of blue and black eyeshadow, I would go upstairs and test the brush. I am sure this will work quite nicely, even as a regular fluffy brush. With this I am pleased.

I have no additional comments. It works fine as a blending brush. 

Pacifica

Natural Mineral Coconut Eyeshadow in Ethereal

Sample adjusted to $3.50
Shop Pacifica's eyeshadow here

Fugging this stuff again. By far the worst eyeshadow I had ever used came to us in May's Ipsy in that god awful duo. The colors refused to apply to my lids and barely swatched. My chintsy plastic case broke immediately.

It's very hard to find their products online. I found a larger palette with the darker color, Treasure in it, but without a size listed. I have no idea where to adjust the price on this one, so I will default the price to $3.50. That is the price of a similarly sized eyeshadow pot in their four pan eyeshadow palette that was $14.

This though is housed in it's own pretty little blue box, patterned to flow directly with the Pacifica design on their palette. I receieved the lighter of the two which is a small disappointment because I need another bronze like a hole in the head (translation. I still need another bronze because bronze). So far the comments on the product page are much more welcoming than what we had last year with Pacifica eyeshadow. 

It does actually work beautiful and has made many a neutral work-eye sparkle. 

Malin + Goetz

Mojito Lip Balm

0.20 oz/0.35 oz
Sample adjusted to $8.40
full size available here for $12

This is a repeat, and somewhat defies the fresh start theme. So far we have had a number of repeat products throughout this bag. Same song and dance samples are getting smaller and the varieties getting fewer.

This item is not particularly thrilling. I have been making my own lip balm for two years and I have loved how moisturizing that has been. It's based on a Burt's Bee knock-off recipe and I've honed it over every batch and it's a nice heavy lip balm that will stay with you for hours and absolutely superior when using before bed time. Still it's winter and my lips have been feeling the weather.

I have never tried a mojito. I cannot judge the flavor as a comparison, but it has little flavor. Slight mint. I kind of hate the Carmex type application tube, but it's worth it if it's an amazing product that can conquer winter lip stings. It feels like a really gel-heavy lip gloss, and may be a tad too sticky. Of course I am going to use this whole thing up, but I am not like dropping my pants over it. I just hope that the balm improves upon my lips winter weathering. The balm does feel soothing and will be nice overall.

I lost it recently, but it has been a luxury for my lips. 

Bag Value.

Out of the ten dollars invested on January first, I reaped products with a retail value of $41.22.

I would like to start something of a recap. Such as in February, I would like to add how i felt about January's bag. Kind of like my preface in the beginning of this post referencing to my (unposted) December bag. Let's see if i remember to do that.