Skin Care Routine

Hello!

So I've finally found a skincare routine that is working pretty well for me which is really exciting so I thought I would share it with you guys! Now do keep in mind that what works for me may not work for you and are mere suggestions! Here we go! Also, I have mild to moderate acne, and pretty oily skin.

1. Face cleanser
Lush Fresh Farmacy soap

This is a pink bar of soap that you can buy from a Lush store/ counter or online and it contains all natural ingredients such as chamomile, lavendar oil, tea tree oil, etc. It is meant for oily acne prone skin. I wash my face with this soap in the morning and before bed.

2. Toner
Witch Hazel + Body Shop Tea Tree Oil

I simply bought a plastic travel spray bottle from target, filled it with witch hazel (which by the way is very cheap for a huge bottle), added about 8-10 drops of tea tree oil and shook it up. I have a bottle in my gym bag and one in my bathroom and this is amazing stuff!! Witch hazel is great for acne prone skin! It's an antibacterial so it kills all the bacteria on my face. I simply spritz it all over my face after washing my face and dabbing the excess water off, and let the witch hazel air dry. Air drying your face allows it to constrict your pores.

3. Day Moisturizer
Neutrogena Healthy Skin Tinted moisturizer

This is an amazing product! Granted I've started using this recently, I absolutely love it! It is the perfect base for my makeup. I do have to say after following this routine and especially because it is winter, my skin has become very dry. This is very new to me since I've always had very oily skin. But for now I am glad to see my skin on the drier side. (afterall we always want what we dont have right?) Well this moisturizer does a good job adding that moisture back to my face before applying my foundation so that my makeup doesnt appear powdery or flakey. It contains retinol to prevent wrinkles, 25 spf and moisture all in one! The color is obviously sheer, since it is a tinted moisturizer and isnt meant to cover anything up, but the light color gives my face an even color before I apply my foundation which I like!

4. Spot Treatment
Rare Mineral Blemish Therapy Kit

This product can be used as a night treatment, which I do as well, and also you can apply it under your foundation as a concealer as well as a skin therapy throughout the day. It contains sulfur and tea tree oil which is very good for acne. I apply it with the brush provided, on my active pimples as well as any spots I feel acne coming. It also does a good job of minimizing the pores around your nose/cheek area. After doing this step, I would put on my foundation (Revlon Colorstay) with my coastal scents badger brush. 

At night I wash my face again with the Lush Fresh Farmacy, spritz toner and let it air dry, and then the following,

5. Night Moisurizer
Lush Vanishing Cream

Honestly there is nothing special about this moisturizer and it is quite expensive and I simply use it at night to finish it up. When this runs out I will not be repurchasing and will look for a moisturizer that will give my face the moisture that it needs since my skin is starting to become really dry lately.

6. Night Treatment
Clearasil 10% benazil peroxide on the spot treatmenet
I then rub a thin layer of this clearasil spot treatmenet all over my face to prevent acne and concentrate it into the actual acne spot I have. Now bear in mind if you have drier skin this will really strip the moisture from your face. My guess is that this is what has made my face dry over the last month. I used to have extremely oily skin and now I actually have some dry spots lately. I didnt mind because my skin was already so oily, but if you already have dry to normal skin, this may be too strong for you.

Some Masks I use occasionally:

Tumeric Powder + Besan + Milk
I'll make a post on this later!

Lush Cupcake Mask
really tightens my pores, does good for my acne. smells great! made for teenage acne prone skin.

Hope this was helpful!!

Rimmel Stay Matte VS Revlon Colorstay Foundation

Why Hello Girlies!!

It's been wayy too long! I'm sorry. I hope everyone is having a happy, and healthy holiday season.

Yesterday I was at CVS and they were having a huge sale on various drugstore makeup products. Many products had 50% off or 75% off stickers on them and so I picked up a few things for quite a bargain. One of the the things I got was the Rimmel Stay Matte Foundation; so i thought I would do a comparison on it with my all time favorite foundation, Revlon Colorstay. So lets get started!

Rimmel Stay Matte (~$6)

Now this foundation claims to be a 16 hour, matte, full coverage foundation

Pros:
-The consistency is not too thick and not too runny, so easier to blend in
-the easy  squeeze tube is easy to use and you can control the amount of product needed
-you dont need a brush to apply it, fingers will do
-price is very affordable

Cons:
-It wasn't full coverage for me
-my skin was not completely matte after putting on a layer

Overall Grade: C+

Revlon Colorstay (~$12)

Pros:
-Great coverage and easy to build
-two unique formulas for dry and oily skin
-many shades of colors to choose from
-gives a long lasting matte finish all day long

Cons:
-packaging is heavy and there is no pump
-dries quickly and needs to be blendedin quickly

Overall Grade: A-

Final Comparison
I had heard great things about the Rimmel foundation and was optimistic to try it, but to be honest I like my Revlon Colorstay a lot better. Most people that review foundations have very good skin and thus most products work fairly well on them. However, me having moderate acne, got a better feel of the amount of coverage in these foundations. While Rimmel isnt bad if your skin isn't too blemished, I feel the colorstay gives me more coverage. While Rimmel sticks with its' claims, revlon excels in all the factors that truly matter in a foundation. (i.e. coverage, color, buildability)

Bottomline: If you have pretty good skin and just need a light wash of color to even out your face, Rimmel will be great for you. But if you have imperfected skin like the most of us, and need a good coverage long lasting solid  foundation, Colorstay is the way to go!
And that is what I think! Hope this was helpful for you guys!

Tutorial: Urban Decay Book of Shadows 3 smokey look

Hey Ladies!

Here's a nice smokey night look I did today with the BOS III. Hope you like it!

First I primed my eyelid with the urban decay primer potion that comes with the kit.

Next, I took a flat shader brush and packed on some Maui Waui to the entire lid. This is a dirty light gold with some gold glitter in it

Next, I took a 219 pencil brush and starting at the corner of my eylid and into my crease, I drew in some Rockstar (dark eggplant purple color) I dragged it all the way in towards the inner corner of my eye and followed the shape of my eyebrows as a guide

Finally I packed on a little more rockstar to my blending brush and blended in the color into the crease

Then I curled my eyelashes, added some of my favorite mascara (covergirl lashblast) and lined my upper and lower lashlines with revlon's colorstay pencil eyeliner in black.

Product of the Day Rave: Revlon Colorstay Eyeliner pencil

Hello lovelies!

 I just wanna take a moment to rave about the Revlon Colorstay eyeliner pencil in black! To start off, it is super dark black which I love! And let me tell you, it doesn't move at all; in fact, when I went to take it off tonight, I couldnt even remove all of it! Now that's staying power! I put it on around 12 this afternoon and got home from school around 930 PM. Typically my eyelids get very oily by the end of the day and my eyeliner is pretty much broken down, smudged, and barely there. But the colorstay eyeliner was exactly how it looked this morning, even though my eyelids were oily as usual. And get this, it even has a really cute sharpener in the back that pops out. Even though the eyeliner is mechanical (twist it to get more product), the sharpener allows you to make the tip pointy since all liners get rounded tips after frequent use. It runs about 6-7 dollars at the local drugstore and comes in black, blue, dark purple, and brown. I need to go back and pick up some more colors because this eyeliner beats all the high-end ones I've ever used including urban decay 24/7 eye pencil and mac kohl powerpoint, both of these melt away by the end of the night.

That's all for now! until next time! good night!

Current Favorites!

Hey girlies!!

I know it's been FOREVER since I've written anything and it really kinda annoys me when blogs that I follow regularly aren't updated often so I'm sorry I'm doing the same thing! Anywho, I thought I would do a Fall favorite post. These are a bunch of random items (not all beauty related) that I've accumulated this past summer and fall that I'm absolutely loving! So hope you guys enjoy!

1. Michael Kors Jet Set Tortoise Watch

Oh My! I am in love with my new watch! I must say I have never been a watch person. Only recently since last year had I started wearing a watch all the time and even then it was a very untrendy basic thin silver seiko watch. But after seeing michele from youtube's haul video with this watch, I decided to take a look at it while I was browsing in Macys one day. After trying it on and having mixed feelings, I somehow ended up giving in to my impulses and decided to buy it. Great move! This watch grew on me so much and now I adore it! I always get compliments when wearing it too!

2. Victoria's Secret body mist in Tease

This is apparently an alternative dupe to Viva La Juicy perfume, but I personally like this spray better! It smells so great! I'm not even going to bother trying to describe the scent because I don't think it really helps, but I fell in love with this scent when a store clerk sprayed it in my shopping bag. I couldn't stop smelling my bag the whole entire time and ended up going back and purchasing the spray the next chance I got. Talk about marketing-win! LOL

3. Starbucks Pumpkin Spice Latte

YUM! I must say I am not a huge starbucks fan. I mean I like their lattes mostly and will grab one every once in a while, but it is seriously so overpriced and in my opinion a fad; Dunkin Donuts does it just as good for me! However, currently they have the fall season limited edition drinks and the pumpkin spice latte is so delicioso!

4. Bath and Body Works vampire blood antibacterial pocketbac

As their halloween specials they have some funky flavored antibacterials being promoted in scents such as, marshmallow, spider web, cotton candy, and I believe there's one other. The vampire blood is my favorite. It is supposed to actually smell like plum! Grab it before its gone! It's a bloody bright red color too! I hear it's supposed to glow in the dark!

4. Book of Shadows 3: I <3 NY
I am not even going to get started on this item because there are simply way too many reviews and articles on this product so I'm thinking a simple picture will suffice!

5. iPod Touch 4

I am in love with my new iTouch. I love love love that it has a high quality camera/ video which makes it as easy as a touch of a button to snap photos and videos and email em out. With a new baby in our family. this is super convenient to send out pics of the new bundle of joy! :)

6. Trendy necklaces

I have never been one to be into jewelry. I usually keep it simple, but lately I have really been getting into pulling off some accessories and a trendy necklace is the perfect way to dress up a regular outfit. Forever 21 has some great very affordable (5-8 bucks) long trendy necklaces that are a great and quick way to fab up any outfit!

7. Milani Bare to Wear nail polish in Bare to Wear and TeddyBare

This is such a pretty purply taupe color and a brownish taupe color. Very fall-y beautiful colors! Milani has really stepped it up!

So that is my "loving it" items at the moment! I hope you guys enjoyed that and I hope to keeping posting more often! So until next time, Ciao

Review: LUSH cupcake fresh face mask

Hey guys!

Hope you all are doing well and enjoying your summers! Lately amidst all my travels, I've discovered a lovely way to stay cool and give your face a yummy treat that'll keep your skin looking tight and glowing in this heat! It is the newest LUSH fresh mask called cupcake!

This mask is so fresh that it needs to be kept in the refrigerator and expires in about 3 weeks. It's made of all natural ingredients and looks just like chocolate icing! It contains some cocoa butter, cocoa powder, peppermint oil, tea tree oil and other ingredients that are aimed at teenage, oily, acne prone skin!

It smells pretty good and really feels nice and cool on your face after a long day! I like to put it on every other night for 10 minutes. It dries up and after rubbing it off with warm water, my face is left feeling dry and squeaky clean! I can also notice any pimples shrink in size by the next morning.

To conclude, though there isn't any drastic magic in this fresh mask, it is a great pick-me-up and does give the face a deep clean that can be great especially in this crazy hot heat that makes us all oily and sweaty.

Plus, 5 free black mask (and other lush product) containers gets you a free mask, so save your containers!

I've been heading out to LUSH very often lately and have been picking up a lot of goodies and I'm really enjoying these products! So go out and check out your local LUSH. (They have free standing stores, and some Macy's have LUSH counters as well)

Thats all for now folks!

-A

China Glaze: Something Sweet

Hello Lovelies!

I painted my nails this morning and thought I'd share! I'm usually not a fan of whitish pinks, but I love this shade! It reminds of Easter. Such a pretty shade. This color was in the Spring 2010 collection so I don't know if you can still find it stores, but you should be able to find it online. I got mine from Sally Beauty Supplies. Such a nice springy color! :)

-A