If a makeup item could be a superhero, this is it

I can't believe I am taking a break from reading to post something. My friend Kristen has gotten me hooked on the Hunger Games books, that's all I've been doing when I'm home is reading them. I'm also making my mom ready them so we can see the movie next year (no matter how bad some of the casting is imo) 

A couple of days back, I felt like playing with my MAC Graphic Garden palette again. It's probably my favorite palette they've ever done both with the print on the outside and the shadows they selected. No, this is not my superhero product, but it is pretty awesome. I found mine at the CCO (Cosmetics Company Outlet) a couple of months ago. I didn't do anything too fancy, Matt and I were just grabbing dinner and going for a walk by the water. 

Here's where my little miracle product comes in. I spritzed with Urban Decay's All Nighter setting spray ($29 from UD for a full size or $11 at Sephora for the travel size) before heading out as it's summer and makeup does this odd melting off your face thing if you don't set it. 

When I finally got home, I was kind of exhausted, so I did something bad guys. Real bad. I went to bed. In my makeup (ok I won't lie, I do that a lot actually...) BUT, here's the miracle of the setting spray. Look at my eye makeup in the morning:

This is with not even the tiniest itty bitty touch up. Nothing. Not a swipe of mascara. Doesn't it look almost exactly the same? For kicks, I actually wore said makeup (sans touch ups) out that day. Just to see what people thought, you know? No one told me it looked like day-old makeup, in fact I got a couple of compliments. Now I'm NOT telling you to wear your makeup to bed. It's one of the top frowned upon things in the beauty world. I did it for science.... totally. 

FOTD (If I Could Turn Back Time)

Apologizes for not listing what I used on this one, but I've been doing variations of this same look for about 2 months now and I can't remember which incarnation this was. These are actually the last pictures I'd taken on my camera before Teddy broke it. If I'd uploaded them before I left the house, I probably would have realized my liner was wonky and fixed that before I left. Ah well.

I know the lid color was from the Lorac Private Affair Palette. My eyebrows were from the depths of all that is awful, ignore those while you're ignoring the wonky liner. I mostly just wanted to express my love for this color combination. I was inspired by this photo of the amazingly beautiful Scrangie. 

I wish I could do winged liner as good as this, liner is definitely not my forte. In other news, I did my first makeup on a bride this past weekend. I feel like I can do so much on myself, but working on others is a whole different game. All the same, she looked beautiful (almost too perfect for the wedding being on a pony farm) One wedding down, one to go.

The Mascara Chronicles (part 4)

And you were all thinking I got bored of this, didn't you? Don't you worry, I have more. Much more! We'll dive back in with Buxom Lash Mascara. 

The manufacturer claims: 

Bigger is better. Buxom Lash Mascara intensely volumizes for bigger, fuller lashes. The vitamin-enriched formula deepens, darkens and thickens from root to tip. Our curvy, talented, hourglass-shaped brush holds the ideal amount of mascara to ensure every lash is coated evenly with our silky, clump-free formula.

The product:

I think the most noticeable thing about the brush for this mascara is how chunky it is. Like, it's pretty darn big. And it's amazing. I love chunkier brushes as I think they give great lift and separation with just one pass. They may not be ideal for those who use the same mascara on their bottom lashes, but that's not me. 

With little effort, I got lots of color, length and volume. The formula on this mascara is not at all dry, but quick to dry once it's on. I suppose it's no more amazing than a couple of other mascaras I have reviewed, but that's just because I have lucked out to find more winners than duds.

This is after about 12 hours of wear (and the removal of my contacts, lol) The color may have faded a little, but not much. It probably would not have at all if I'd had a setting spray and my face wasn't melting off in the heat. 

My conclusion:

I think this mascara did live up to all of its claims. My lashes were bigger and fuller and the brush did hold the ideal amount of mascara for an even and clump-free application. I have one complaint, though, the price tag. 

You can pick up Buxom Lash Mascara through the Bare Escentuals  site or Sephora for $19 (full size tubes only that I can tell) This is pricier than I would prefer my mascara be, especially considering mascara is a product you're supposed to replace every couple of months. 

FOTD/NOTD (Happy Birthday to my mom)

My mom's birthday isn't technically until tomorrow, but weekends are always better for celebrating. I'm getting ahead of myself, though. On Friday, Matt and I went out seeking a Barnes and Noble as they started their 50% off on Criterion sale and he was ready to get several things he's been looking for. I don't even know what Criterion is and I don't really like wandering the overpriced B&N movie section, so I just wandered in circles around the books for a while. At least I got to show everyone what I thought was my cute makeup (Anything involving my MAC Toxic Tale lipstick is cute)

And my Happy Birthday nail polish from Apothica was in action (over China Glaze's Refresh Mint). I love this stuff (and it's been a huge hit with strangers... just what I was looking for?)

Saturday was nice and busy. We started early by going to the Providence Place mall where I found one more last minute gift for my mom (and I may have found a last minute gift for myself at Nordstrom) After making it home, I had a little time to get ready before we took my mom out to dinner at the Steak Loft in Mystic (which was actually our second choice, the first choice was blocked for a parade) Not my favorite makeup by far, but whatever.

Today has been filled with watching Degrassi and doing laundry. I woke up at 3am for some reason and feeling like it's almost bedtime already. I can't believe the weekend is almost over.

Late to the (feather) party

No, that's not some sort of kinky fetish party. Everyone knows I'm a bit of a prude. Matt and I joke that I can only watch PG movies with the occasional PG-13 if someone is able to supervise. The party I am late to (or at least late to posting about) is feather extensions. I decided the right ones for me were the clamp in where you get a bead with some silicone in it (to keep it from totally killing your hair) and use it to clamp the feathers onto a strand of hair. You can also glue them on (which was a little too permanent for me) or clip them in (but the clips all look so bulky)

I chose to use Etsy for my search and found a color combo I liked available from Featherthyme. Unfortunately it looks like his shop is all but empty now. Too bad as he was a good seller. My extension came quickly and with 2 clamp beads (which is good because I messed the first one up) All you do is run the bead up your hair, shove the feather end in there too and then crimp with something like needle nose pliers (or in my case literally my dad's nasty rusty pliers) I put mine in the day before Matt and I went to NJ for the horror convention and it's still going strong (I think the bead is a little lower on the strand over time, but with hair as long as mine it's not making me worried it will slip out) The neat thing about these things is you can wash, condition, blow dry, flat iron, curl and douse them in hairspray. You treat it just like it's a strand of hair.

When you put it in, you hide the bead in a mid-layer of hair. From there you can pull the feather to the top layer if you want to show it off:

Or leave it blended in the mid-layer for something slightly more subtle:

I think I would tray another color after this one comes out (I love this color, so I'm letting it last as long as it can) but obviously need to find another good source. Anyone have any recommendations?

Guess who's back, back again

Today was the day! My other baby (my camera this time, not the ferret) came home again!

For those who weren't with me a month ago, I had some technical difficulties when my ferret decided to yank my camera off my dresser. I spent a week or two mulling over what I wanted to do, repair or replace. After some serious internal debate, I decided on repair. The company I chose to use was Precision Camera as they were on the Nikon list for authorized repair places. They also have a branch in CT (though it turned out the CT branch is only repairing SLR's, so I had to send mine to TX)

The process of using this company was easy, breezy and more beautiful than Cover Girl. Right on their home page you can select the make and model of your camera and it tells you how much they estimate repairs to be. For my camera, it was about $130. Seeing as it was an original investment of about $600, this seemed like a reasonable enough price to make repairing a good option.

Once you have your quote and place your service order, you get instructions on how to package and ship your camera back. You can also opt to use a mailing label they can provide, which I did do. Unfortunately I didn't realize they use FedEx ground. I haaaaate FedEx ground, they are so so so slow. In fact having to ship by FedEx was my only complaint about this whole process.

My camera arrived to the repair place towards the very end of June. It actually went into repairs on the 4th (surprising as I wouldn't expect movement on a holiday) and was back out and shipping by the 8th. A few business days later, it's back and seems to be working great (the lens goes in and out again, yay!)

I'm totally ready to get back into the swing of things (I had been trying to do Mascara Chronicles on my Mac, but it was terrible) Thank you for those of you who have stuck with me over the last month of stupid posts and to the couple of new people who have found me in the time. I can't wait to show you I can give more than blurry pictures of semi-identifiable objects.

I'm a winner (finally someone besides my mom says so)

A couple of week back, one of my favorite bloggers (Hillary of by hillary) had a giveaway sponsored by Apothica. I happened to be the lucky winner (really lucky, I don't win things) and thought I would share with you what I am getting.


Deborah Lippmann "Happy Birthday" nail polish:

Essie "Borrowed & Blue" nail polish:

Originally when I entered the contest, I was going to use it to try out some Mario Badescu skin care stuff. Of course I assumed I wouldn't actually win, so I went out to Ulta and already bought what I wanted to try from that line.

In other exciting news, my camera is almost back home! The repair place shipped it back on Friday and it should be to me on Wednesday. I'll probably post more about where I sent it and my thoughts once it's here (obviously I want to make sure all seems repaired before I say too much) That means I'll be able to share the pictures I took right before Teddy broke it, too! 

I leave you with some really awful Photobooth pictures of my makeup yesterday (seriously, they're even granier than the ones I took on Photobooth a few days ago) Matt and I went to visit some family friends (human and canine) and then over to Mohegan Sun so I could pick up one more thing for my friend's wedding.