Please keep my bother-in-law in mind tonight. An ambulance ride to the trauma center. Possible stroke. 39 years old.

Pray if you do.

Random musings of an accused diva

First let me say that I actually consider it a joke when my husband calls me a diva. I am far from a diva. I'm just "girly", in the traditional sense. And I do mean traditional sense because believe me, I don't honestly believe that make up or nail polish or frilly dresses has anything to do with true feminity. That comes from within and cannot be seen. It has nothing to do with 'pretty' at all.


But I digress...


Some reviews on the products I bought yesterday.


The Urban Decay Lip Envy in Envious. I put this on at about 9am. It's 4:25 and it's still there though faint. Not bad. The color is pretty rich. One coat was dark enough, two coats would probably be too much. I applied clear Fusion gloss over this a couple of times througout the day and it still held up. I would buy this again.



I tried the Liquif-Eye product. Love the actual product, don't love the brush. It's very small and harshly angled. It's pretty stiff, too. The line you get is very thin. Some people like that. I guess it's better to have too thin a line than too thick as you can always adjust and add more. It does dry very quickly. Work fast with this product! Also, as with just about any powder shadow, it will appear 1-2 shades darker when applied wet. So, keep that in mind when selecting a shadow to use as a wet liner. But the good news is the color still remains over 7 hours later. (though i do credit that mostly to the Urban Decay shadow potion)



I'm loving the NYX baby pink shimmer powder. I think it is now my favorite base lid color as it works under browns, purples, grays, taupes. I wouldn't do it with any blues, though. It's very pastel. Mixing that baby pink with any visible blue would be a color clash like a tacky baby shower. I'll pass on that.... But I will be buying more NYX products. The price cannot be beat.



Today's loot (yes, another loot) comes fresh out of Sephora.



Remember I said I was a sucker for packaging? I wasn't joking at all. I bought Too Faced's Mood Swing lip gloss, The Smurfette edition. I've used the TF Mood Swing gloss before so I know I like it. I just couldn't resist the Fa-la-la-la-la-laaaa in my head. Really, I'd buy Fraggle Rock gloss if they sold it. Idea! Voltron Shadow Palettes! ha!



Behold: a product marketed to suckers like me:


You know you think it's cute...





I got a hell of a deal on a Smashbox gift set. Separately, the colors
and brushes in this set would retail for about $230 or so. The 'special' price was $60. A Christmas leftover, it was clearance priced. 8 duo shadow pots and brush #15 and brush #32. I am ridiculously excited over it. I need more hobbies because this shouldn't be what makes my day.

I think the colors may vary...


I also picked up Sephora brand Lip Last (a sealing top coat for lipstick/lip color) and Sephora brand Lip Peel. My dry lips could stand it. We'll see how they perform.


Also on the sale table was a Sephora brand lip palette. 6 shimmery colors ranging from white (top coat) to deep red. Three of the colors look really pretty and the testure is light and feathery, not heavy at all. I like that in lip gloss. For under $10, there is no going wrong here.



As I checked out, the sales associate talked up La Vanilla's Vanilla Coconut scent. It sounds appealing enough but 20 minutes after getting a free sample vial (she was pretty freaking adamant that I take it!) I hate it. I want to shower right now and get it the hell off me. I smell like a sugar cookie that was baked in a tanning salon - no pun intended. That might sound okay but just trust me, there is nothing great about reeking like your grandma's week old macaroon. You know, the ones you eat because there are starving children in China who would appreciate the stale cookie. (they wouldn't!)

Today's loot....experiments in Too Faced

Today I made my bi-weekly trip to Ulta. I always intend to pick up one or two items. I always buy 20.

Today's loot includes:

Too Faced's Tricks of The Trade kit

This kit offers a 5ml Lash Injection Mascara. I've used this product before with no complaints, we'll see how I feel about it this time. It has a lot to live up to as so few mascaras can compare to DiorShow.

Also included are a full sized Lip of Luxury Lipstick in Totally Nude. It's a pale mauvey-nude color. I don't know what I'll think of it. Looks like it might work as a great base under gloss, we'll see. My jury is still out on Too Faced lipsticks as I've had plenty of positive experiences with thier glosses and Lip Injection colors. (all worth checking out).

Included is .35g Shadow Insurance. Now, I am a die-hard Urban Decay Primer Potion user. I am, however, willing to try the Too Faced eye primer. I'm game for it. I will use it tomorrow and do a full eyejob and see what happens. It has a true cult following so we'll see if it's all hype! Something tells me this is a seriously quality product and I'm pretty excited about checking it out.

Included was a full sized Too Faced Absolutely Invisible pressed powder. I'm not much of a compact user but I'll give this a week to impress me with it's mattefying abilities. It looks so darn cute what with the little diva singing on the cover. I fall in love with these things on sight. I am SUCH the consumer. You can totally sell me on packaging. I mean, I almost fell for the Smurfette stuff...that says it all.

Next up in the kit is Too Faced Eye Shadow Duo in Totally Toasted (see image). Two semi-shimmery pink based brown nuetrals that look, at first glace, to be usable for everyday makeup. I am liking the every so slightly glittery finish of the darker of the two. I can see these colors will have many uses for me.



Not too shabby for a small kit....all that ran me less than $40.00 I've never really been disappointed with Too Faced before so I'm sure my money has once again been well spent.



Next up, ahhhhhhhhhhh a confession. Please don't laugh.Really. Don't. I bought HaraJuku Girls' Baby.







Now, I am not going to lie. It's meant for teens or at least those young enough to 'live on campus' and party all night. I know.





But it harkens back to the dark and mysterious (lol) 1980s when we all wore Love Baby'Soft. Harajuku Baby does in fact remind me of 8th grade, smelling like alcohol and fake baby powder. Something was enchanting about it then. And it's enchanting now, even if for no other reason than nostalgia. Thankfully, they's made a better formula, a slightly more sophisicated version of the '80s drugstore throwback that is probably best forgotten. But I freely confess to liking the scent, juveunile in nature or not. One needs not exude pure metropolitan sophistication at all times. That's not what scent is about. Sometimes, it's about spraying your wrist and taking a whiff and thinking, "wow...remember back in '85..."





So, sue me. I like Harajuku Baby and I check off the "35-40" demographics boxes. That's right. I'm owning it!!
...



Also pick up today-

Urban Decay Afterglow blush in Exhale....the name promises to make you look flushed and dewey and just right-out-the-sack rosey.

Well, we shall see about that! The color looks a bit drab here but it represents well in person.

Another Urban Decay score: Lip Envy in Envious. I do love a good lip stain. I really like a color I can swipe on and forget about. I am not such a fan of matte finishes for myself (love the look in general) so this will almost definately be worn under gloss. The color is hot, though. Just red enough to be seen and not so red it's obvious.

And now we're back to Too Faced. I got the cutest little eye color set...with a twist. Liquif-Eye.

The idea here is not new. I've used powder-to-liner products before. Last time I bought a product specifically for this I am 99% sure it was by Smashbox. It didn't include an applicator brush. I like that this one does. I think I will like that.

The colors in the palette can surely be worn as regular powder pigments/shadows. There is a good variety going on in here. Mattes and shimmers, brights and nuetrals, they do give plenty of color options for the price.

I restocked two of my go-to brushes, as well. Smashbox #20 and #15. I swear, with the right base (like Urban Decay Shadow Potion) and the right tools (like these brushes) eye color application gets 100x easier. It's sometimes the prep and the tools and not the color, you know what I mean? With a good primer and some quality brushes, I can do a bang up job with anything, from Cover Girl shadows to Chanel eye quads.

Speaking of shadow, I picked up NYX shimmer baby pink. Since I have heard great things about NYX and I often use a pearly baby pink as an all over base lid color, I'm going to try it. It's hard to find the right combination of pigment and shimmer. Too light looks white, too dark and it looks like I've been crying. Too matte and it looks unnatural. Too glittery and it looks like it belongs on my 17 yr old stepdaughter or a drag queen becuase let's face it, teenagers and queens are the only ones going to make glitter 'cute'.

So that was basically it, save for standard everyday needs like new Tweezers (Tweezerman only!) and other little things. I'm prepping for a black tie event tomorrow night so at some point today I need to drop into my usual haunt for a mani/pedi. That brings me to polish colors and that's a whole other entry.