Cyber Black Friday?

I kind of love that there is now Cyber Black Friday AND Cyber Monday. Any additional chances to shop online and get great deals is fine by me. I've finished a good 50% of my holiday shopping already (and picked up a couple of things for myself while I was at it) 

In the comments of my last post, Larie mentioned something I have heard from a lot of people. They really like the thought of the OCC Lip Tars, but feel like they wouldn't be using them to their full potential for one reason or another. It could be that they think mixing them is hard, messy or too much thought/effort. I just wanted to show you how easy and fun it can be to invent your own lip colors!

The first method I use is the standard mixing. You squirt your colors onto something (I typically do this on a tissue for easy disposal) and mix them with a lip brush. This method would work with as many colors as you want to combine. 

I started with Queen, which looks like this solo:

And added Hush looks like this solo:

Together they made a really fun warm pink color which I was very happy with:

The second method I use for mixing colors is layering. You put on your darker color as a base as you would when using it alone and then you add a layer of your lighter color over that. This one really doesn't work well with more than 2 colors, but is less messy than the other method and you aren't wasting product by squirting it onto something.

I started with Pretty Boy which I haven't taken pictures of on its own yet, but it looks like this on Christine from Temptalia:

http://www.temptalia.com/images/fall2011/occ_prettyboy004.jpg

And added a layer of Narcissus which looks like this:

What resulted was a muted-magenta (which wasn't all THAT muted, lol) which actually got me compliments at work:

While I know it can be a little obnoxious to deal with a lip color that you need to use a brush for, OCC & Sephora have made it as painless as they can. When you buy your Lip Tar through Sephora, it will come with a tiny lip brush (free! It doesn't add to the cost) which is actually functional (unlike most brushes that come included free). From there it depends what you're going to be doing while wearing your Lip Tar. If you're going out and not planning to eat or drink, this stuff lasts hours and hours and hours. If I eat non-greasy finger foods, I don't find it changes anything. Drinking out of a cup will probably take the wear-time down to a few hours. Eating a full-on meal obliterates it, but then again what lip color lasts through a meal?

Speaking of meals, hope all of you that celebrate Thanksgiving had a nice one. I didn't do much special, just stayed at home and watched TV and then ate an awesome dinner. This is why I'm fat:

(spinach, sweet potatoes, stuffing, cranberry sauce and tofurkey all topped with homemade gravy)

Obsessed with Obsessive Compulsive Cosmetics

The title really says it all. I have recently gotten back into using my OCC Lip Tars and bought more during the recently passed Sephora VIB sale. My collection is currently only at 8, though I have 2 more coming for Christmas (from my mom) and I fully expect to get a couple of things from the recently released Metallurgy Collection. 

I posted a couple of hand swatches and one lip swatch over a year ago and then kind of did nothing. It is their time to shine again, though, so I figured I would share a couple of the new ones I've gotten.

left - right

(Hush - Trollop - Interlace - Pretty Boy - Strumpet - Queen - Narcissus - Cha-Cha)

The ones with the pointy lids are the new ones. OCC changed the packaging a little while back from the original which was more of squeeze-tube lipgloss applicator. These aren't meant to be smeared on like gloss and I think the packaging change was a good move and encourages people to use a lip brush.

Wearing Narcissus:

Wearing Queen:

In other news, look at the adorable new purse I got at TJ Maxx! I'm not a Betsey Johnson fanatic by any means, but I do have a couple purses from her brand. I like how they're uniquely cute, mid-sized and affordable. I draw my purse limit at $50 for a bag and this one came in comfortably under.

The Used (October 2012)

I seem to like posting these on the 13th of the following month. *sigh* F- for effort.

Aqua Net Professional Hair Spray Extra Super Hold: Yeah yeah my backwoods lunch lady is showing. This stuff is amazing, though. It holds, it smells good, it's not too expensive. I don't understand spending $20 a can on hair spray. It all explodes just the same if you try and set it on fire.

Caress Evenly Gorgeous Exfoliating Body Wash: Another one of my acquisitions from my summer traveling. This one took me a while to use just because I have so many different soaps/body washes/scrubs. It smells like I think I used to expect Fresh's Brown Sugar products to smell. I don't know how scrubby it is (I use a poof, so everything is scrubby), but I could feel the little micro-beads. Probably one of my favorite drugstore body washes I have come across.

LUSH Tea Tree Water Toner: My face had been breaking out a lot and I thought maybe this might help. I've used it before and thought it was ok. Still think it's ok. No miracles happened, but it helped remove excess cleanser and dirt. Not my favorite thing from LUSH, but perhaps those with truly oily skin will like it. 

LUSH It's Raining Men Shower Gel: First thing's first, I just opened this to re-sniff it and realized I hadn't fully emptied the rinsing water out before capping it back up and throwing it in a bag for over a month now. Stagnant water smell is gross. Fear not, though, this smells awesome when in its glory. It's a mix of honey and caramel and a little bit of floral. If you have ever tried the Honey I Washed the Kids soap and wished it came in a wash, this is it but better. 

Mario Badescu Glycolic Acid Toner: A freebie with an online order I'd placed late September. It was toner. Not bad toner, not anything super special. Probably won't buy a full size of this one.

Mario Badescu Seaweed Cleansing Soap: Another freebie. This one I did not like at all. I don't feel like it lathered nice on my face and it smelled too seaweed-y. I can't really fault it for smelling like what it's called, but seriously gross. 

Bath & Body Works Zombie Tonic Pocket Bac: I have about 14 bajillion of these little hand sanitizers floating around in an array of scents. With Matt being a germaphobe and me being a yummy-smell-a-holic, they are a staple. At $1.50/ea, also not a bank breaker. This one smelled like marshmallow. I don't know why zombies smell like marshmallow, but I'm all about it.

Shiseido Benefiance Concentrated Anti-Wrinkle Eye Cream: Does not actually possessing eye wrinkles make it wrong to even have an opinion on this stuff? I really don't do the whole eye cream thing, but this was another freebie (not from Mario Badescu obviously, I think this one came from Sephora) I found it thick, greasy and uncomfortable. It never really wanted to sink in. I decided to use it up by smearing it all over my face and calling it a heavy moisturizer. Meh. 

I leave you with an old picture of when I decided to try the Ciate Caviar Manicure. My mini-review is that while this stuff looks cool, it is not practical. It lasts like an hour and falls off everywhere. You can't use a top coat. It's expensive. But in the end it makes you look like you have tiny cupcakes for fingertips and I just can't hate it totally.

Transport us to Mars!

Oh hai blog, how iz u?

Sometimes something shiny comes along and I get distrac....

...ted. 

One of the things I have been distracted with recently is a hair appointment. I didn't have anything drastic done, but my ends and layers are cleaned up and I have bangs now. I miss my long hair, so I need to get creative in thinking of things to do that don't involve lopping off any more length. One fun thing was getting my hair all straightened out. I just felt like a jerk because he made it all prettyful and then I went home and watched movies by myself all night. Then I made Matt feel bad by telling him how nice I looked and he missed it (he was at some kind of post-wedding party for a high school friend) so I guess it was ok.

Alas heat styling only lasts so long and one shampoo later I was back to my normal mop. I'm mostly kidding. I love my wavies when they behave. 

BUT all is ok with the world because I found these amazing shoe carousels at Wal-Mart. They hold 16 pairs of shoes each and I got 2. Plus you can wedge 2 more pairs of flip flops in the top of each. That means only about 30 pairs had to go into storage (not counting boots which stay in their happy boxes anyway) I do not have a problem.