A Mask, A Haul and a Good Witch.

I tried out one of my sample size masks from Walgreens. It was for one use only. It was by Studio 35 Beauty, a Walgreens brand. It had Dead Sea Mud and Seaweed Salts. I could feel the cleansing working. I loved it. BUT, it only comes as this single use pkg. and if I want a bottle, it is not available. Makes me sad. But it was a good mask and I enjoyed it. Here is a small picture of me in the mask.

No, that is not my Halloween costume. It is me getting all cleansed and gorgeous! :)

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Here is my Glinda the Good Witch palette.

After doing my cleansing mask, I decided to get ready for church and had seen a video that spoke of a makeup palette based on Glinda the Good Witch in the movie, The Great and Powerful OZ. Of course, Urban Decay palettes are a tad out of my price range, so I decided to pile together CoverGirl and Maybelline single shadows to make up for my lack of the Glinda palette. I matched as closely as possible and watched a YouTube Guru Pixiwoo do the look. Here was me attempting the look myself. Do I look good witchy?

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I do have a bit of a haul to report. I was fascinated and intrigued by the CoverGirl Eye Enhancers quads Sugar Coated and Goldmine. So, I had to pick those up at my local Walmart along with a slew of Maybelline quads in browns, golds, pinks, purples and coppers. I am obsessed right now, I tell you. I'm going to have to go on a NO BUY NOVEMBER!

Then at Walgreens I picked up two cute E.L.F. products. The smaller one was three dollars and the bigger one five. I have heard good things about E.L.F. products and I was excited to try more of their line. They are the guys who created the Disney Villain Look Books I spoke about in a previous blog post. They have a whole slew of stuff in Walgreens. So, if you are looking for a makeup product to give for a Christmas gift, Walgreens is the place to be.

Well, that is all for my latest adventure in beauty. I am really honing in my skin care routine. I am moisturizing and using my Neutrogena face wipes and Neutrogena Eye Makeup Remover religiously. I need to remember to use the toner more often.

I have been washing my face with a nifty little bar soap in Lemon Verbina from Yardley London. It is amazing and I love it so much. I used it every chance I get. I also have it in Lavender and Honey Almond. Love it, love it, love it. You have to try it too. I picked this up at Walgreens. You can get single soaps and that was around $1.50 per bar. But so worth it.

That's all for now. 

Stay beautiful.

Friday Favorites in Beauty & Mini Hard Candy / Profusion Cosmetics Palettes Haul

This is my first ever Friday Favorites blog entry. So, please be gentle with me. These are the things that this week have been rocking my world. Plus, I am also adding a mini haul to the mix.

I will start off with the favorite nail polishes of the past two weeks. I am really digging the green nail varnishes these days. And the one pictured here is Wet n Wild FastDry Sage of Days. Wonderful color, great stuff with this one. It's a bit more sheer than the Wet n Wild FastDry SaGreena The Teenage Witch (not pictured) which I wore most of last week. I have also been rocking the purple Halloween themed Wet n Wild FastDry Buffy the Violet Slayer. When I wasn't wearing SaGreena, I was wearing Buffy. So, I am loving on these two polishes. They go on with one coat and if you don't want to do a second, you'd be good to go. But a second really helps with any chipping. My nails are a mess right now and are peeling like an onion and hunks keep chunking out of them. It is not pretty. But these polishes really hide the imperfections in my nail care.

The polishes I have been wearing for the last two days are Wet n Wild Megalast in the gold color called Deadly Dose. It's another color they had out for their Halloween promotions. Love it. I also adore the Gold Album nail color that is in their Fergy line but I have a heck of a time getting that color to come off my nails when I want to change my look. On my middle finger I added a sheer coating of the Spoiled by Wet n Wild in the color I'm Ba-roque. It is very sheer so I had to put Deadly Dose on first and then put the Ba-roque color atop it in a couple of coats to give me a little bit of a featured nail look on my middle finger nail. Barely discernible difference from the other nails but I like it.

 Here are the other products that I have been Jonesing for this week. Two body sprays by Body Fantasies Signature in Twilight Mist (a great somewhat Bath and Body Works dupe for Twilight Woods) and Vanilla. This Vanilla is the best Vanilla I have smelled in a spray in any that I have tried. I just love it! But my current everyday smell to put on like perfume is Twilight Mist. I just adore this dupe and I am a Twilight Woods lover.

These Cover Girl eyeshadow quads have been my go-to look for the last two weeks. These quads are in County Woods, Urban Basics and Coffee Shop. I love the variety of browns and coppers and light amber shades they have in their line. Some people complain about their sheer application, but I didn't find that to be the case for me at all. I just loved using them this week and they make me want to peruse the CoverGirl section and find more lovely eyeshadow quads. I have been using aCover Grl Lip Perfection Jumbo Gloss Balm crayon that is in the color Rose Twist. It is pretty close to the color of my own lips if only a share or two darker. This formula is very creamy and lovely. I definitely have to pick up more of these at my next drugstore venture.

I have a bit of a mini haul to report. I picked up three Hard Candy eyeshadow palettes at Walmart recently. They were only $6 each and a great value for the amount of shadow you get. I got the palettes Green With Envy, Naturally Gorgeous  and Smoke Out. I think I need to pick up the pink one in the color Pinking of You because pink has really been a shadow color I don't have much of at the moment.

The U Adore Me palettes 02 and 03 I just picked up from Walgreens. They are made by Profusion Cosmetics. And I picked up their BARE palette of ten shadows and just adored it, pardon the pun. So I figured these shadows would be a good fit for my tastes. Each U Adore Me palette was $2. Who can beat that price? Love!

Well, these are my current favorites and my little mini Haul. Check them out at your local stores and the tell me what YOU think.

Stay beautiful.

Another Mini Haul - Walgreens & CVS

I picked up a few items at both Walgreens and CVS in the last couple of days.

At Walgreens I purchased a $3 Mini Makeup Travel Kit with 8 eyeshadows and 2 blushes. All the eyeshadows are of a metallic glittery kind. I guess I don't understand the whole fascination with everything metallic and shimmering. But there is a good variety of shadows in this kit. I especially like the light and dark copper colors. This kit is by Giordano Colors. It's small and compact enough that you can put in your purse and have a small offering of makeup if the whim should ever suit you. And that mirror is tres great! I love the size of the mirror and will keep it in my purse for that function alone. The fact that I can play with makup only makes this a plus. Winner Winner Chicken Dinner! Great product. Great Price

Along with that I also picked up a gift pack of 5 scented lipglosses called Midnight Rose scented lip gloss by Mind, Body, and Soul Co. Limited. If you don't like smells to your lip products, you probably won't like this one. While the gloss is good and glossy, the scent about puts you off of using them. I keep thinking that my gloss has gone bad. If it had been unscented, they might have had a winner here. The color pigment isn't too pigmented, it is more of just a gloss to put over a separate lip product.

At CVS, I snagged these two lip balm lip butters by Nivea. I had tried a shimmer stick and the smell really put me off of that one as well. I totally dig the shine of the Nivea Kiss of Shimmer Radiant Lip Care, I put it back on the shelf when I smell the product. Another fail. If I don't want to smell it, I'll never use it.  But it has good gloss and moisturizing effects.  The Lip Butters, boy howdy, these are TONS better. I love the two scents I picked up. They did these lip butters right. Mine are in Caramel Cream Kiss and Vanilla & Macadamia Kiss. Both are lovely, creamy and awesome. Gold star!

These are some great products. Some of the smells put me off on the lip glosses and lip balms but if that doesn't bother you a fig, then these are all winners in my book.

Neutral experimenting

I have been doing A LOT of experimenting with neutral shades of eyeshadow these last few weeks. Colors just seem to flummox me currently. I love watching eyeshadow tutorial videos. My favorite YouTube Beauty Guru is Emily Eddington from Beauty Broadcast. She is just awesome. Plus, she went to school at my Alma mater SIUC. And I believe she still lives in Carbondale which is awesome again. Gives me hope that I can acquire some of the great items that she gets her hands on. Check out her channel on YouTube:

www.youtube.com/user/emilynoel83

Here is a great Autumn eyeshadow tutorial she did using one of the limited edition Maybelline eyeshadow quads in the color Autumn Dreams.

Autumn Dream Eye Tutorial (All Drugstore!)

I have acquired a lot of great neutral eyeshadow quads (this means there are four eyeshadows in each packet. They are coordinated together to make a nice eye look.) Cover Girl and Maybelline are my current favorites. I did get two Revlon eyeshadow quads that I really like but haven't used yet.

Walgreens has a lot of great cheap makeup that you can give for gifts. Proforma Cosmetics has a great BARE palette that is 10 coordinating eyeshadows in a neutral theme that is really worth the $5 asking price. They even have a SMOKY palette too.

Today I am rocking the Urban Basics eyeshadow quad by Cover Girl and yesterday it was the Country Woods. The day before was my Coffee Shop quad. All of these are great and definitely worth checking out especially if you are into neutrals or just a boho girl at heart. Today I even used my Color Tattoo eyeshadow in Inked In Pink. These creme eyeshadows are just awesome in my opinion. I have four shades right now. And these you can even pick up at your dollar store if you are lucky. Bad to the Bronze and Bold Gold are two other Color Tattoo favorites.

Well, that's all for now. I hope you're all having a wonderful day.

Stay beautiful!

My Beauty Adventure Continues...

This last week was an entire Week of Makeup. Or as I have come to call it the W of M. I did learn a lot of things makeup wise this week. It has been fun and challenging and really getting my artistic side stimulated. Makes me want to delve into watercolor or drawing more often.

One of the things I learned this week was that my brow bone looks like a crazy neon light when I use a light shimmery shade. So I picked up a CoverGirl single eyeshadow in French Vanilla to use on my eyebrow bone when one of my eyeshadow trios or quads doesn't provide one. No one wants to look at neon brow bones! At least, I don't. Is it just me or are most eyeshadows now a pool of shimmer? Where are the matte shades?

Maybe I am the only one but it was a challenge to look at myself. I have used little mirrors to view only a fraction of my face. I guess I am pretending I don't look like I do. But I have gotten more comfortable with my appearance over the last year. I can at least look at myself in the mirror again, a full mirror... with the light turned on. Ha Ha. I developed this ability by doing my daily oracle and tarot card videos. Sounds crazy, huh? But it's not so crazy. When you make a video you are forced to look at yourself. Every day. Day in and day out. Eventually, I got used to the image of me staring back at myself. In my mind's eye, for years, I didn't see myself as I was now. I was focusing on the image of me back in college which is the image I still hold in my mind as the "true image of me." It's heck realizing that time moves on, isn't it?

This segue's me into skin care. I have also been adding skin care to my makeup regime. My main focus is my flaky dry eyebrow bone, dry upper cheek area and baggy under eye circles. All these areas have their own issues. I have been washing my face nightly after I remove my makeup with my Neutrogena wipes and eye makeup remover. Skin care hadn't been on my radar at all for years. Sad, I know. People on-line talk about SPF this and SPF that. I hadn't been SPFing anything since I was in college. Why is it that some of us discount our appearance when we get out of college and others embrace the journey?

So, needless to say, my under eye circles are more pronounced than any normal human's. From neglect, mainly. But my biggest problem is that I rub my eyes quite a bit due to allergies and sometimes I swear it looks like I have a black eye. Concealer is a new adventure for me. I think it really accentuates my fine lines while it also covers up the worst of the under eye baggage.

I have actually built up quite a collection of makeup in this last month. But I have stuck with my Maybelline FitMe Foundation stick in shade 115. I believe I may have to break down and get the Concealer from that line as well. The ones I have now I am not totally happy with.

The eyeshadow has been the greatest adventure for me. Back in the day, I pretty much only used pink and brown shades of eyeshadow and usually the same exact look every day. I wasn't too adventurous in my makeup application back then. But I am enjoying the vast plethora of eyeshadow choices there are now. But I have noticed that my go-to look lately has been the completely natural look with a nude-ish lipstick or gloss. Dark lipsticks make me look harsh and make my eyes look hard, maybe it's my imagination.

I am showing a few items from one of my latest hauls. The ELF Cosmetic's Villain's Look Books are really cool and they have a whole lot of stuff in each of them that you need for your makeup collection. I bought three different ones. The Evil Queen, Cruella de Vll and Malificent. There is also a look book for Ursula but I wasn't fond of the eyeshadow colors in that one. Maybe you are. So definitely check it out. $9.99 at Walgreens. Favorite eyeshadow quads have been from CoverGirl, Maybelline and Wet n Wild.

That's all for now. More later. 

Enjoy this new fun-ness and I hope you are experimenting with your own look. Take the makeup adventure/journey with me.

CVS Mini Haul

Welcome to the Armchair Beauty Sleuth. And if you are a newbie like me, you can tag along and learn stuff as well.

I popped by CVS this morning on the way to work. Sheesh. All this focusing on makeup sure makes me go all OCD on buying stuff. But that IS how it is with me. I get a hankering to delve into something and I just go all in.

Today I bought two different eyeshadow trios by Wet n Wild. One in Knock On Wood and the other in Silent Treatment. These two trios could definitely make up their own palette. It's all warm and rosy and wonderful. I can't wait to use them. I also have the huge Fergie makeup kit that retails for $30 at Walgreens. It is jam packed with awesomeness. In addition I have the trio Cool As A Cucumber and two large eyeshadow palettes with 8 colors, Petal Pusher and Comfort Zone.

I have to say, Wet n Wild has sure changed since I remember it back in the early 90's when I was still wearing makeup. The company really upped its game and in a big way. A HUGE way! I mean, great, great stuff. I plan on getting one of their blushes but I am really looking for a color that I had in a blush back in the 90's that was from CoverGirl in a blush duo Heather/Heather Glow. I have not found a color comparable to that and I am definitely wanting to find that color again. It was my go-to blush back then.

I have picked up about 6 of these Baby Lips Lip Balms. Some tinted, some not but all really keep that pucker area really moist and chap-free. This one pictured is in 90-Minty Sheer. I particularly like the Peach and Peppermint flavors/scents/whatever.

Catch you tomorrow. Chao!

Novice Me - I'm The Armchair Beauty Sleuth

I am pretty new at this whole beauty thing. I haven't been wearing makeup or really taking a good look at my appearance for over 20 years. 

It all started with nail polish. I guess that is the only natural way to start. And I played around with that for months before I ventured into a different area.... candles and wax melts.

When I get my attention onto something, I kinda go hog-wild. I bought a whole slew of candles and wax melts, mostly from Walmart, enough to fill a little tub. The wax melts, not the candles. And after a month or so of that, I got my attention onto Bath and Body Works. I had bought something from them the year before and had barely made a dent into the lotion I bought. I bought small travel sizes of Sweet Cinnamon Pumpkin lotion, lotion and mist of Honey Autumn Apple and a large lotion of Twilight Woods, my favorite scent. But this go around they were having their fall sale where you buy 3 get 3 free and I got some large lotions for not too much money. And I have been LOVING THEM!

This has all led up to me exercising more in order to lower my blood sugar. I have made a good dent into that one. After one week of exercising, my blood went from 130 to 114. For a fasting blood sugar, I think that is a huge win for me. Yay!

As I began exercising I had gotten some travel sizes of Ponds Rejuveness lotion and one for dry skin. And this has really helped my skin to look so much more luscious. That in turn led to makeup. I had a few items that I rarely used, mainly I steered clear of foundation. It was something that really scared me. And don't talk to me about concealer... what is that? Who knew it was so important these days.

I am forty-five years old as of this year, so I have a bit of catching up to do in the beauty department. I began searching YouTube for videos to help assist me and I had no idea there was such a big booming business of beauty bloggers. Oh, my goodness!

From them I learned that it is no longer taboo to go to the dollar store and buy make up. AND some of it  even rivals the name brands. I learned that "department" store makeup is the type you buy at Walmart. And that is the "cheap" make up. Most of these people throw names like Mac, Bobbie Brown, Sephora, Ulta, and others like they are the easist things in the world to find. I had no idea the beauty biz was so complex.

I took EmilyNoel83's advice and started looking into dollar store makeup and I made some good hauls. I love watching haul videos. I think I have a new obsession. Take a look at a few of my finds.