Cassykins vs the Sophie-I

I had heard about S.O.P.H.I.E. / The Sophie Lancaster Foundation previously, but recently two bloggers on my regular reading list have popped up with posts about the Sophie-I and I couldn't not jump in. The cause is definitely something I can get behind, being singled out and harassed for being different. Around Christmastime I went, by myself, to Target to do some shopping. I was singled out by a group of young guys in the parking lot, they screamed at me, "Hey, fatass!" and laughed like it was the best joke they've ever told. It brought back memories of walking to the store with my friend back in high school - a car pulled up next to me, the passenger rolled down his window and asked if I needed a forklift to get me to my destination. I am very familiar with the hurt and discrimination that can come from not being like everyone else. Where I am lucky is, unlike Sophie, my harassers have never physically harmed me. 

Stories aside, I was excited to try out the Sophie-I as shown through step by step instructions on Illamasqua. I don't really own Illamasqua items (they don't sell them at my local Sephora, do they sell them at any of the stores or is it an online only thing?) so I used whatever I have on hand. Here is what I came up with:

Face

• Maybelline Porcelain Ivory Dream Liquid Mousse Foundation (w/ Beauty Blender Sponge)
• Maybelline Classic Ivory Fit Me! Pressed Powder
• NARS Sex Appeal Blush

Eyes

• Too Faced Shadow Insurance 
• MAC Prance Mega Metal Eye Shadow (lid)
• MAC Short Shorts Eye Shadow (highlight)
• Urban Decay Zero 24/7 Eye Liner (outer v/crease shape + lower liner)
• MAC Graphic Garden Eye Shadow (blending out the Zero in both places)
• Loreal Carbon Black Lineur Intense

• Lancome Maquiriche Honeymoon (???, this quad is confusing to read) Eye Shadow (brows)
• Essence Black Mania Mascara

Lips

• Revlon Strawberry Shortcake Lip Butter

In the end, I kind of lost the really defined shape of the Sophie-I. I was worried about it being too sharp and over-blended. I don't dislike what came of it, it just wan't where I was going with it. Has anyone else tried the Sophie-I? I would love to see other people share their own take!

Butter is for eating AND for wearing? Score!

Funny enough, I was more enchanted by butter when I was a skinny girl (yes, there was a time I was skinny. I was about 6 years old) I used to sneak into the fridge and take a bite out of the stick butter. Obviously I was young enough not to think the tooth marks left behind would be a dead giveaway. Just trying to debunk the rumor, though, that we fat girls sit around and eat tubs of butter. We only eat dainty little sticks.

Now as a grown-up, I have a new way to enjoy butter - in my makeup. A couple of weeks ago, I introduced you to my very first Revlon Lip Butter. I held off on buying because I'm honestly more of a lipstick girl than a gloss girl. I don't like sticky and shiny lips and I don't like sheer color. Go big or go home. What surprised me is that the Lip Butter I chose delivered a decent punch of color, a little gloss (without actually looking like I'm butter glazed) and really not much tackiness. I said I would be interested in more colors, especially if I was able to find a good deal.

That good deal came along last weekend while I was at Walgreens picking up medicine for my delightful cold (Which still is kicking it all up in my nostrils. Gross) I was trying to get in and out asap so as not to make any of the nice employees sick, but couldn't help just taking a peeksie at the Lip Butters. They were BOGO 1/2 off. I couldn't pass that up! I basically just nabbed at 2 things that looked of remote interest (didn't want to sit there picking through everything with my germies) and was off.

I wound up with shades called "Strawberry Shortcake" and "Creamsicle." I thought Strawberry Shortcake would be a nice normal pink (something I have few of, I gravitate towards hot pink and bubblegum pink) and Creamsicle looked like it would be a little more natural color (at least for me since my lips aren't naturally all that pigmented)

(Top - Creamsicle, Bottom - Strawberry Shortcake)

The first color I tried out was Strawberry Shortcake. I wore this last Sunday thinking Matt and I would be going out, but that was shot down when I wasn't any better despite my cold meds and lots of orange juice. Instead I wore this to watch a lot of cartoons and take several naps. Ah well. I was quite happy with the color and actually think it might be the closest thing I have found to a MLBB shade thus far! It also hid my (still) terribly chapped lips fairly well. You can see a little in the close-up, but I don't typically invite people that close to my face.

Monday morning, I had some spare time before work and decided to actually thrown on a whole face of makeup. I don't usually go to work like this now, though I used to years ago when I first started. As time has gone by I've just decided I don't need to make that much effort to work in a call center where only my coworkers see me. Anyway, I went with Creamsicle this time around and was very surprised at how light it came out, even on me! The coverage was also much less forgiving than the other two colors I've tried, no hiding my winter lips under this one. Still, I don't hate the color and will save it for perhaps my less cranky springtime lips.

I am still quite happy with my Lip Butter purchases and can see why they have created such a stir. I don't necessarily know why some people ended up with all the colors (does anyone look good in EVERY color from the line??) I know some people got them as samples as beauty bloggers so they could show off swatches of the whole line, but then what do you do with them? I personally am not the kind of person people send samples to, so you are limited to only the things I think will look good on me. For that I sort of apologize. Sort of.

This little guy has got serious dance fever

One of the things I subscribe to several of but rarely use are what I will call "designer discount" sites. By this I mean things like Hautelook, Gilt Groupe and Beyond the Rack (etc, etc, etc) One of the reasons is a lot of the offerings are clothing not meant for those of excess poofiness, but that is another gripe for another day. Mostly I just don't have the money to spare on things that weren't already on my list of things I "need." That said, I decided about a month ago that one of the shoe sales on Beyond the Rack was too good to pass up. What follows are my encounters... encounters of the mid-thigh boot kind.

I placed my order with BTR on December 20th for one pair of black Carrini (has anyone even heard of this brand?) boots for $14.99 + $9.95 shipping ($24.94 delivered price on boots? Pretty spiffy). How these sites work is you place your order during the sale week/ish. When the sale is over, they tally the orders and put in their own order with the "designer." When they receive their order from the "designer," they sort and ship to the end customer (me!)  I received my boots this afternoon, January 23rd. That puts my wait at about a month which is a bit more than I experienced with Hautelook, but not totally unexpected. What was unexpected was the condition of the shoe box I received...

BTR shipped my order in a plastic mailing bag with my shoes and an invoice inside. I didn't take a picture of the mailing bag, but it arrived in pristine condition via FedEx Smartpost. The shoe box inside, though?

I work in mail order and I am quite familiar with the abuse of UPS/FedEx/USPS on packages. This was NOT carrier abuse, there would have been strain marks or punctures to the mailing bag if it were. The box was like this when it was put into my mailing bag. And while I do understand that it's just the shoe box that is damaged, I like to store my shoes in their respective boxes and will not be able to do so with my new boots.

As for the boots themselves, they arrived in good condition. The fit is a little loose in the foot-area for my usual taste. I prefer my boots fit tight and then I can break them in. They are not so loose that they are obnoxious to wear, though. These are man-made material, so they aren't for those who are super hard on their shoes. I really try to stay away from real leather when I can for my own animal hugger reasons.

(pay no attention to my baggy pants, it's just what I happened to have on)

I wore the boots out a little bit ago for a shopping trip (necessities, nothing good) and they feel like they're going to be fine for me. They don't really have any support for those who might need such things. In fact the bottom felt downright flimsy to me, so I decided to dig around and see what I came out with. Literally. And this is what I came out with:

(The foot bed is just a piece of foam that angles down and stops before your toes, covered by some fabric)

The soles of the shoes also have some kind of weird velvet-like fabric on the bottom which I don't even understand. I thought it would make the shoes a little slippy (especially going out in the rain tonight) but nothing adverse happened. I don't get why you want a velvet-y feeling layer on your sole, though...

(the darker "inner" shape is the velvet-stuff and then around it is rubber)

My final opinion on these is that I do like them and am excited to add a new friend (pair of friends?) to my boot collection. Were they worth $24.94? Maybe not quite that much, especially not with a non-useable storage box. I am not unhappy with the purchase, though. As far as where to get them now, the only place I can find selling the same pair is overstock.com for $27.99 + shipping. Honestly I would not recommend them for that price, though. You can find cute mid-thigh boots all over the place, even ones for people who need wide width/wide calf are becoming more prevalent which is awesome!

Did you make it through all that? If so, tell me about your favorite boots/your favorite place to shop for boots.

I hear something I don't understand and it makes me scared

Happy Saturday (and Happy Snow Day to all my northern/northeastern friends) Luckily I had the day off from work, so I got to stay in all day and watch NY Ink (which I don't hate surprisingly). I only made it outside so far as to shovel the driveway for others in my family who weren't so lucky as to have a non-work day.

The other reason I am glad to be home is because I got my own ink yesterday, courtesy of Tim @ Off the Map Tattoo, and am kind of owwie now. Those who have been reading my blog a while might remember that name from my previous post about my sleeve in progress. When I go in, I don't really know what I'll be getting worked on. The entire sleeve is really Tim's interpretation of the general vision I presented. I trust him to basically take the focal points I wanted and then do his thing. This visit wound up being some coloring (which sounds basic, but is really involved because all the colors are custom blended, they're not straight out of the bottle) and some outlining of what's going to be heading up into my armpit area (yes, a sleeve involves the very classy area of the body known as the armpit) What follows are the best pictures I could get for you without help and using my non-dominant hand:

(Bandage-fied... or at least this is what the bandage looked like after an almost 2 hour drive home)

(check out the awesome coloring on the coral)

(it wraps around into my inner elbow)

(close-up, my arm looks huuuuge like a thigh from this close)

(armpit fish - I didn't even know that face-forward one was there until I took this picture)

I wish I could have stayed longer, but I started getting a headache something awful (and I won't lie, my arm was hurting pretty decently as well) Today I am feeling pretty junky as I usually do after getting a tattoo. Your body is working to heal all these little puncture wounds and seems to forget to take care of anything else. Thus I have been stuffy and cold symptom-like all day. 

Back to looking for some coffee or some other hot beverage for me. I'm hoping tomorrow will be nice enough to melt some of my leftover driveway snow, I don't want to shovel any more.

And Keep The Old

Last post I talked about my new friends that I have made through blogging, but that doesn't mean I have forgotten my old friends. This past week I got to see one of my bff's, Kristen, for the first time since Halloween. It was wonderful to just hang out, catch up and not be at work! We also exchanged Christmas presents and hers to me was completely unexpected...

(She painted me a picture! I love it)

Something else I did this past week is I finally broke down and bought one of the Revlon Colorburst Lip Butters that the beauty blogosphere has been going nuts over. Since I am poor and not really a beauty blogger per se, I felt ok just getting one of them for testing (plus they weren't on sale... why is it everyone else finds then when they're on sale but me?) I went with "Lollipop" which is a darker berry-pink. 

(I'll admit it, I am totally in love with the texture on the packaging)

(not exactly the best shade for helping my teeth look white, *sigh*)

(it has a great gloss to it, though)

(bonus shot of my new necklace from Charming Charlie's)

I haven't gotten to really test run the product for long, but I am very happy with it (even at full price) The color comes out even and glossy and even seems to make my horribly chapped lips (thanks Ruby Tuesday croutons, why are you making my lips chapped 3 days later??) look a little better. The wear time for me is a few hours if I don't eat or drink, so that's not bad. I would be willing to get another color, especially if I can stumble across them on sale.

On a couple of totally different notes, something very happy and something very sad have happened recently. The happy thing is one of my blogger friends, Chalkdust and Boots, has given birth to baby Booties! Congrats to her and her husband and good luck on sleeping for the next 6 months, lol. The sad news is the father/ex-husband of several of my family friends passed away unexpectedly on Thursday. I'm not attached to any specific religion and I don't really pray, but I do believe in keeping people in my thoughts in times of need. Anyone else who wants to send good thoughts their way, it's much appreciated. 

Making new friends

One of my favorite things about blogging is the wonderful people I have gotten to "meet." My irl best friends are half way across the state and half way across the country, so I don't always have someone right there to cheer me up when I'm down. Luckily I have made many new e-friends to cheer me up, make me laugh and share my interests with. So, for my one year blogiversary (which was yesterday, but shhh), I want to thank all of you for reading and for being my friends!

I also wanted to take this opportunity to share with you a gift I received a week or so ago from one of my new e-friends, Laura of the blog of worldly delights. We were doing a swap, but then she totally bested me in awesomeness and made me, well, this! :

(One of a kind Finn the Human and Marceline pins!!)

You can check out some of her other awesome creations at her Etsy shop (Just don't buy the scarf I'm eyeing. I won't tell you which it is - I don't want you going and buying it...)

I would also like to take a minute to mention that this time of year is not just my blogiversary, but today is OFFICIALLY my little brother's 21st birthday. As many a young adult coming of age does, he hustled his buns to the liquor store to buy himself a treat... only to not get carded. It's kind of a bummer when it's your birthday. The same-ish thing happened to me on my 21st. My mom brought me to the casino and we were walking into the 21+ section and no one even tried to stop me. I literally shoved my ID in the attendant's face because I wanted some gosh darn recognition! So Happy Birthday to Sean, like my card to you said - I am glad you were born (instead of your evil twin.)

(and I know you don't look like this any more, but I found it on your Facebook)

No one wants to eat dinner at a crazy lady's house

Happy 2012! My own NYE was pretty tame, Matt and I went out to dinner (nothing fancy, just delicious panzanella salads) and then watched The Last Unicorn. We started the movie so late that it went right through midnight and we didn't even notice. Neither of us had any interest in watching the countdown and we don't drink... I can see now why people always assume I'm as old as my mother.

My first day of the new year was spent going out to breakfast with my mom, watching The Simpsons and napping. I had hoped to actually do something productive, but then forgot. Oh well.

Even though my NYE was mostly spent sitting in front of a tv, I did still dress up. I don't have a lot of reason to do so any more, so any opportunity is worth taking. Here is what I did:

(2 coats China Glaze Tinsel Town and a couple of globs of Color Club Orna-Minted on the tips)

While I was painting my nails, I actually knocked my (never before used) Tinsel Town over and spilled half the bottle on my laptop (which thankfully cleaned up ok) I was sad, though, because I really like the color and now I have almost none left. Then while I was at Sally's, I found what is almost an exact dupe by Nina Ultra Pro and it's called Glamrock. Here is is next to Tinsel Town (left) and China Glaze's Some Like It Haute (right) which is also a black base, but with fun rainbow-y glitter. It's a smidge more charcoal, but the second picture shows how dead on the glitter is in both (and how cool is the rainbow???)

I kept my makeup for the night based around red lips which is something I rarely do (not because red lips scare me, I just drink a lot and red is a high maintenance color) You can see a little of my dress which is from City Chic. I don't see this particular one on their site any more, but I really love the quality of the dresses I've gotten from there (pricey, but I get them when they're doing 60% off sales) The gold belt is from Forever 21+. It was only $3.50 which is crazy because I almost bought an identical one from Old Navy and they wanted $20!

And one of my favorite parts of my "look," my new shell necklace which Matt got me for Christmas. How beautiful are the colors on this thing? 

Hope everyone had a safe holiday! Now that Christmas and New Years are down, I only have a few days until my baby brother turns 21. That makes me feel incredibly old.