IPSY AUGUST 2017

Hi friends!! It’s that time of month where my favorite beauty subscription arrived. I love these bags because of how I can try out so many different things, and the brushes I get are always so beautiful. I want to share with you what I recently have received in my August 2017 bag.

Items were –

• theBalm Voyage eye shadow in shade WILLKOMMEN – $5.50
• Seraphine Botanicals Illuminating Peach Gold Blush – $14.99
• Steve Laurant Black felt tip eyeliner – $24.99
• Firma Contour brush 103 – $14.99
• First Aid Beauty Deep Facial Cleanser – $24.99
• Peace, Love, Lipstick IPSY bag – $10 a month

I have to take my wisdom teeth out today, so I wanted to take some photos of my favorites in the bag instead of taking a photo of every item to save me some time to rest!!! If you want to see everything up close, let me know, and I will gladly update this post with new photos 🙂

Firma Contour Brush 103

Oh my goodness!!! First of all, this brush runs for almost $25, and that is a huge score for me with IPSY. This is such a soft brush and the perfect size just to get the right angle on the cheekbone or on the bridge of your nose.

Steve Laurant Felt Tip Eyeliner in Black

Okay, IPSY really went to the lengths to make this bag worth my subscription. This pen runs for $25, just like the brush. When I tested it on my arm, it didn’t come out as vivid as I wanted it to. I had to do about 4 swishes to get it to a good vivid black. I will say the pro of this brush is how precise the tip is. It’s so sharp, and it will really help you get that perfect wing.

Seraphine Botanicals Ginger + Gold Blush

If you know me, you know I love me some good highlighter, and this is it. This is such a beautiful color, and it is the perfect dark rose gold for my skin color. I know this says blush, but the packaging also says I can use it as a highlighter, which is what I’m going to do. They also suggest to sweep it over your favorite matte blush! It is more of a natural looking highlight (if that’s what you want it for), rather than an intense blinding light. If I were to use this, I would use my Fix+ to enhance it.

Here are swatches of the eye liner and blush!

I hope you enjoyed my quick IPSY bag review! What did you get in your bag this month?

As always my opinions are 100% truthful and honest, and I would want nothing else from anyone else! Stay beautiful and keep the highlight shine on!

-Tigerlily

Let’s clean our eyeshadows!

Hi friends! So last weekend one of my good friends, Caleigh, asked to borrow one of my palettes so she could do some makeup on a beautiful bride! Of course I said yes, but wondered if there was a way to clean my palette once I got it back. I did some researching and found a way to clean those beauty items for a low price. There are not a lot of items out on the market to clean powders or eye shadows, unfortunately. I wish there were more, but did I find at least one item. It was almost $30 to purchase for I believe a 12oz bottle. Ummmmm, I am sure it works fabulous but I don’t want to drop that much money on something when I found a much cheaper at home remedy for $3.00 Yep, for a measly $3, I can clean my products 10x more and I am so excited to show you how.

If you are wondering what eye shadow palette this is, this is the first edition Carli Bybel Palette, which is not sold anymore.

Here are the items you will need –

• 70% Rubbing Alcohol (70% cleans better because it kills the bacteria slower than 99%)
• Tissues (cut up into mini squares for whatever amount you need)
• A travel size plastic spray bottle
• Whatever sort of pressed powder you want to clean

Step 1 –

Rub your tissue gently across your shadows individually to clean off the top layer. Don’t rub too hard, you don’t want to take the whole shadow with you!

Step 2 –

Spray your alcohol either directly on top of the powder or a few inches away. It’s your preference to how much you want to spray on there.

This is how your palette will look after – and as you can tell, there is not much difference and no harm done. You are all done, now! So easy, right?

Step 3 – Let your powders dry for a couple of hours before touching. I let mine sit for about 3 hours as I ran some errands.

If you are curious how my color swatches looked before I sprayed the alcohol and after I sprayed it, here are the pictures –

First photo is before and the second is after.

I still have all my pigmentation and colors still look beautiful. Don’t listen to anyone who tells you this harms your products! I want you safe and healthy out there with your beauty supplies.

Let me know if you tried this out on your own products! I am curious to if anyone else has heard of this remedy and have used it. Thank you so much for reading, and happy cleaning!

As always my opinions are 100% truthful and honest, and I would want nothing else from anyone else! Stay beautiful and keep the highlight shine on!

-Tigerlily

 

My favorite drugstore pressed powder

Revlon ColorStay Pressed Power – $9.99

I love writing about drug store products because all of us have started out with these products and moved into the high-end brands. When we usually jump the ship from drugstore to high-end, we sometimes forget about all the products that hit those shelves. I know I did, and I am guilty of used to thinking that high-end was always better once I jumped. I have come to realize that it’s okay to go back to $10 or lesser value products because sometimes they blow the high-end out of the water.

Let me tell you about my second holy grail – an item that I do not go a day without using because it has worked wonders for my makeup. This item is the Revlon ColorStay Pressed Powder. Oh my goodness, this is an item I tell everyone in my life to use because the power in this tiny compact is so powerful! They really do call it ColorStay for a reason.

I have used this product with other drugstore products like the Wet N Wild Photo Focus foundation to the high-end Estée Lauder Double Wear and have had both outcomes be the same. Wet N Wild is a good foundation for a budget, but when I first used this product, I had used an expensive loose powder with it and was an oil slick by the end of the day. I thought maybe if I paired two products from different ends of the pricing scale, that maybe it would balance each other out- I was wrong. The next time I used this foundation, I used it with the Revlon ColorStay because it had already worked amazing with my Estée Lauder. At the end of the day, with Wet N Wild combined with Revlon, I was as matte as I was when I first applied the products at 6 in the morning. I wish I was exaggerating, but I’m not!! This is the same exact result I get when I pair this product with my more expensive foundations, and I am so shocked that this powder works with ANY foundation.

If you decide to try this foundation out, I will tell you now that there is a con. The con to this is that the powder looks a lot lighter than it is in the compact, and it will show up almost two shades darker on your skin. The powder comes in 6 colors, one of them being a translucent color. My foundation color is Estée Lauder is Tawny which is a medium tan color, so I naturally thought I could work with the color Medium in Revlon Colorstay. Unfortunately, it was extremely noticeable on how dark it was compared to my neck and foundation. You could see the powder pressed onto my skin vs. the foundation. I had to go a shade lighter which is Light/Medium to get a closer match. If you are worried about it, I would go with the translucent, it works just as well, and I would know that because I have also purchased that color. That works better for a more natural finish, and for the colored pressed powder it is a more full coverage look.

I promise you that you will not regret trying this product out. Since it is a drugstore product, you are always able to shop around and see which store is selling it for a lower price. You will save money in your wallet while having a beautiful matte face all day!

As always my opinions are 100% truthful and honest, and I would want nothing else from anyone else! Stay beautiful and keep the highlight shine on!

-Tigerlily

Ice Princess for the Summer

 

I’m a Fall/Winter kind of gal, and today I wanted to do some makeup to show my love for the cold! This look came out so icey that it even gave me the shivers.

Today I used the Galaxy Chic palette from BH Cosmetics. I know, I know, this is the second time in a row that I have used this palette, but can you blame me? The colors are AMAZING, and I don’t even need to reach into a different palette to complete my look. How exciting is that? If you haven’t made the jump to purchase this palette yet, please do! The colors are amazing wet or dry, and you can do so much with it.

Moving onto my look, I used five different colors to complete this look today. All blue and a slight hint of purple. This was also my first time using tape to create a sharp eye shadow and eyeliner line. Let me go ahead and show you my colors:

If you can’t see the names well they are

• Cosmic
• Meteor
• Comet
• Neptune
• Electra

These colors came out so pigmented, I was stunned. Considering that my skin is a light/medium tone, it was impressive that the colors looked so well.

To create this look, I did the following steps –

1. Lay your tape at the best angle for you and your eyes. One you press the tape down firmly you are ready to begin. Add your primer and white base before you move into the palette.
2. I took Comet with my small blending brush and blended it up to right below my eyebrows from my crease. Yes, I broke the rule about moving your eye shadow that, but for this look, I really wanted my eyes to make a statement.
3. With the same blending brush, I took Electra and blended that on top of Comet but saved enough room above still let Comet show. I used these two colors to create a slight teal color.
4. I took my concealer and cut a crease out as well as setting a nice base for my lightest color to lay on.
5. Taking an extra small blending brush, I took Neptune and only blended it into my crease. I worked in small circular motions across the crease, being careful to not mix this up too high into the previous shadows.
6. Taking the same small blending brush, I dabbed Cosmic right below my eyebrows and followed the blending line of Comet at just the top.
7. After, I took Meteor and dabbed into the cut crease. I put as much as I could on with this because this is what I wanted my main attention to be on my eyes. This is a white with a hint of light blue to top off the look.
8. Lastly, I outlined below my water line with Neptune and blended it out softly.
9. Don’t forget your amazing eyeliner and falsies!

 

And this is what the completed look looks like!

Hope you enjoyed my quick written tutorial for you all. Would you try out this look or even blue eye shadow?

As always my opinions are 100% truthful and honest, and I would want nothing else from anyone else! Stay beautiful and keep the highlight shine on!

-Tigerlily

 

Skincare is important, friends!

Etude House Sunprise Mild Airy Finish Sun Milk SPF50 – $10.43

Dirty Works Miracle Cream Multi-tasker 8-in-1 Face & Neck Cream – $18.85

Benefit Cosmetics It’s Potent Eye Cream – $34.00

Oh my goodness, how important skincare is to me. (Especially since I’ve officially hit my 25th year as a lady!) Let me tell you about my old routine- okay, you ready for this? I used to skip moisturizing, and even sleep in my makeup because I wanted to wake up and not look at my bare skin. Once I washed my face, I did it ALL over again. Talk about the SHIVERS just thinking about that. I did that because I hated my skin, and I refused to face the reality of it.

One day, I realized that I hated my skin because I wasn’t taking care of it. I invested in some good skin care at first. I’m talking about Nordstrom and Macy prices for almost $50 for a bottle. I was so nervous and scared that I ruined my face forever by hating it so much that I didn’t care how much I was spending. After a year or so, I backed down and realized that drug store items seriously work as well as top name brands. I didn’t have to break the bank to have better skin and my skin still loves me for it!

So as of today, like seriously this morning, I have been using these three items after toning. First one I put on is my SPF 50. Trust me readers, you want as much SPF as you can get on your face. Never walk out into that sun without sun screen on your face. Your skin will thank you when you’re older for this step. Second, I put on some eye cream. This has been my best friend for a year or so. I stocked up on this item because Ulta was having a 50% off deal on it, and I’ve been through about two of them. Major score for me. Third and last cream on my face is my miracle 8 in 1 cream. This stuff smells so GOOD. I lather it on my face and neck and wait about 5 minutes before I start my beauty routine.

So let’s talk about each item!

Sunprise Sunscreen is an item that I came across from an article listing the top face moisturizers on Amazon. It is a beauty item from Korea, and I believe you can only get it on Amazon in the US. This stuff is amazing, and the bottle is the perfect size for travel, as well as your medicine cabinet. It doesn’t leave a white residue on my face, and it’s so milky to the touch. It doesn’t dry out your skin throughout the day, and it doesn’t mess up your makeup like you think a sunscreen could. This item is also non greasy, and you can wear this with or without makeup. If you chose to try this, make sure you shake it first so that way you don’t have a separate mix of this cream on your hands.

This Benefit Eye Cream has stopped my dark circles from becoming a fashion accessory to my face. I usually put this on after the sunscreen and before the moisturizer. I can get bad creases under my eyes if I don’t use this before my makeup, so it doubles as an eye primer (not officially)! The product description does state that this product helps smooth fine lines, and what’s under your eyes??? FINE LINES!! It makes my under eyes bright and come back to life. Some of the advantages of this product are that it “Contains a peptide complex known to help restore elasticity & firmness, a blend of hydrating botanical extracts and loquat extract, known to help protect the skin from free radical damage.” So this product does not disappoint if you’re looking for a good eye cream.

Last but not least, it’s this awesome moisturizer. My skin is smooth naturally, but I have bad dark spots from acne because when I get acne, it is under my skin, rather than a simple zit. Before I used this, they were clear as day on my face and it wasn’t a cute look. Since using this product, they have faded drastically. They are not completely gone, but I have begun to feel comfortable being outside without my makeup on or light concealer. I am a patient person, so for things like that to happen on your beautiful face, you have to wait. So what are the 8 in 1 benefits? They are to improve firmness, brighten, hydrate, even skin tone, fill fine lines, diminish wrinkles, stimulate collagen and smooth skin texture. Trust me when I say that this cream does it all!

Hope you enjoyed learning a little bit about my skin care routine. Sorry it was a bit longer than expected, but I want to give you the full review on my favorite products. Thank you friends!!! Tell me what you think if you have tried these or want too!

As always my opinions are 100% truthful and honest, and I would want nothing else from anyone else! Stay beautiful and keep the highlight shine on!

-Tigerlily

Milk Highlighter

Milk Makeup Highlighter – $24.00

Happy Tuesday, my friends! Today I want to review one of my recent favorite highlighters from Milk Makeup. This is the first item I’ve purchased from Milk, and I’m very impressed with the pigmentation of this stick. I believe that they only have one shade in this product which is called Lit, and it is considered a champagne pearl finish. I will show you images of flash and no flash on the highlighters against my skin.

Let’s talk about what is in this highlighting stick that makes it friendly towards everyone. According to the Sephora site, this highlighter is infused with mango butter, peach nectar and avocado. What makes this so special is that it works with your body heat to active the glow to make it of a more natural appearance. This stick is made for more natural make up looks, and even makeup free looks.

I enjoy this because I can put on some concealer, mascara, including a slide of this on my cheek bones and am set to go! Recently, I have been finding myself to lean towards more natural of a look when I know I am going to have a short day out of the house, or running errands. I don’t want to waste all my perfect makeup for a quick stop at the grocery store, but adding this to my au natural look gives an enhancement to my dull skin.

Now here are the side by side comparisons of flash and no flash –

Flash

No flash

I added the Mac Fix+ before I slid the stick across my arm, but only to the bottom strip. As you can see, the pigmentation alone is enough to give off a glow, and the Fix+ didn’t exaggerate it that much more. This is a great highlighting stick when you’re on the go because the way you blend it into your skin is with your fingers rather than a sponge or brush.

This brings me to the one con of this product, which is applying it. I have no issues with applying it with my fingers against my MAKE UP FREE cheek bone. Those are my key words I have been using throughout this review. I wouldn’t put this on a full face unless you want to wipe all your hard worked make up off. This product will wipe away previous product, and you will not be happy. I learned that the hard way, especially on the tip of my nose. Other than that one con, this is such a great product and it is decently priced for those budget makeup lovers.

If you like to rock your bare skin, this is the everyday essential for you!

Have you tried this product? What do you think?

As always my opinions are 100% truthful and honest, and I would want nothing else from anyone else! Stay beautiful and keep the highlight shine on!

-Tigerlily

 

 

Miss for beauty lovers?

Anastasia Beverly Hills Subculture Palette – $42

Picture taken from Anastasia Beverly Hills Instagram but main source is from Rhonada California

Ask me how I spent my lazy Sunday afternoon, ask me!!! Okay, I’ll tell you – I spent it watching countless videos from well known and not so well known beauty YouTubers on their review of Subculture. When I first saw this palette, nothing came over me. No feeling of WOW I MUST HAVE IT or no feeling of consistent urgency to be the first one in line to buy it. The whole color scheme reminds me of the 70’s, and it’s hard for me to look at it, and see an image of a good eye look.

I looked up the pure definition of subculture which is – “a social group within a national culture that has distinctive patterns of behavior and beliefs”. I’m assuming here that the subculture that Anastasia named this after was beauty lovers from all over the world. It is a good choice to name a palette, but is this palette really reaching the subculture it needs to be reaching?

I noticed a pattern with all the videos I watched and it was that this palette has a lot of color pay off, but the fall out was horrible. It was getting all over peoples clothes and faces. Some were getting unbelievably frustrated, and I saw some amazing makeup artist who usually don’t struggle,struggle hard with this. Their overall look did not wow me for once, and I even started cringing during some tutorials. The two colors that were kind of more of a mess than others were Axis and All Star. I know with any blue eye shadow, it will be hard to blend perfectly, and the color fall out will always be there with blue, but oh my goodness was Axis a hot mess on these people! All Star is a maroon color that was popular in Modern Renaissance palette (Love Letter), but in this palette, it seemed to be changing colors on people when mixing it with other colors. The colors even looked difficult to blend on their own, and even worse when combined with other shadows.

For a high end brand like Anastasia, I feel like there should not be so many problems in a palette. Modern Renaissance was a beauty staple for every girl I know, and it was a hit out of the ball park. This one is still waiting for the pitcher to throw the ball to hit. I don’t think I will be spending my $42 on this, unfortunately. I know it may be the right palette for some, but just seeing it on others and more talented beauty experts, it wasn’t for me. Maybe one day down the road I will try it.  Have any of you tried it? What are your thoughts on this?

As always my opinions are 100% truthful and honest, and I would want nothing else from anyone else! Stay beautiful and keep the highlight shine on!

-Tigerlily

Burnt Orange Eye Look

 

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theBalm Appetit Eyeshadow Palette ft. Chris P. Bacon- $39.00

BH Cosmeits Galaxy Chic Palette ft. Jupiter and Venus- $15.99

Oh my goodness, how hot it has been here this year! Summer hits and I lose all encourage to do my makeup because I feel like it’s going to melt off my face. Yesterday wasn’t as bad as it has been the past week, so I decided to dip into my palettes and play with a brand new one.

I haven’t used the Galaxy Chic since I bought it a few weeks ago and I must say that I am so impressed on the pigmentation that this palette gives. This palette is a one you can use wet or dry. I noticed that a lot of BH Cosmetic palettes are designed this way, which is great for everyone. If you care to see any swatches, let me know! It is such a fun color scheme to play with, with a wide variety of usage.

So let’s get on to my look of the day which I decided to try a burnt Orange look. I usually don’t go into the orange colors when I get them, but lately I have been wanting to give it a whirl.

STEP 1 – Prime prime prime! Prime with your regular base, and then pack on some white primer to bring out the color more. I use the NYX Eyeshadow base in White.

STEP 2 – Take Venus with a shadow brush that works well on giving you pigmentation (brush 103, BH cosmetics) and place it all over on your lids. Try to blend it out a little bit on the side to create a smokey cat eye kind of look (brush 2, BH Cosmetics).

STEP 3 – Take your blending bush (brush 3, BH Cosmetics) and smoke out Jupiter on the side of your eye lid, as well as on the upper lid. Blend with a windshield wiper motion and try to get above your crease.

STEP 4 – Take Chris P. Bacon and smoke it out on top of Jupiter as well on top of the smokey cat eye that you created already in the second step (brush 3).

STEP 5 –  I will just include three steps in this last step which is create your wing liner, mascara and put on your falsies!

Hope you enjoyed my step by step. It’s a super simple look with only three colors. This look lasted me awhile until the into the night after I ran all my errands and went out to dinner. It’s a fun look and isn’t too far out there for beginners to rock.

As always my opinions are 100% truthful and honest, and I would want nothing else from anyone else! Stay beautiful and keep the highlight shine on!

-Tigerlily

 

 

 

Wet N Wild Highlight

MegaGlo Highlighting Powder in shade 321B Precious Petals $4.99

I have been meaning to pick up this new highlighter from Wet n Wild. I’ve been hearing non stop raving about it from famous YouTube Beauty Gurus and I knew I had to pick it up, too. I was sad that they only had one color in stock at my local drugstore because I want to try them all! Luckly, Ulta sales all the shades but online only. If you know where I can pick up all of them, comment below and let me know, please!

My first impressions of it is that is gives off a beautiful shine just in the packaging alone. I know that highlighters can give off false quality from just a swipe of the finger, so I wanted to show off what the highlighter looked like with a brush (Mac 224). The top swipe, which you can barely see, is without anything. Just a regular ol’ sweep of the brush. The bottom swipe is with a Mac Fix+ spritz. I’m not sure how I feel about that first swipe. Now, given that my arm has no primer or foundation to make it pop more, I was still hoping it would live up the hype. Such as that it would still give off more pigmentation as an alone product.

This highlighter is good quality for a drugstore brand, though. I would suggest this buy to anyone on a beauty budget, which sometimes we all can be on. I think that simply getting your highlighting brush a little wet before dipping into the product, it will make your shine be ultra bright. If you are more natural beauty kinda person, then the product alone will be all you need to meet your satisfaction.

As always my opinions are 100% truthful and honest, and I would want nothing else from anyone else! Stay beautiful and keep the highlight shine on!

-Tigerlily

Blossom Roll on Perfume

Blossom Lip Gloss and Perfume $6.00-$12.00

Hey everyone! I stopped by my local Nordstrom Rack and found these cute little beauty steals for $4.99. I couldn’t find the on the website, so I listed a site with the original price. I usually go to Nordstrom Rack to find great deals on high end makeup, but I came across these in the midst of it all. So let me talk about them and how great they smell.

The first roll on perfume I have is called ‘Honey Jasmine‘. The smell to this is all Jasmine with a slight hint of sweetness from the Honey. Almost like it would smell if you were to take a good deep inhale of Jasmine Green Tea. This scent might not be for everyone, but it sure does smell good once you take the cap off.

The second roll on perfume I have is called ‘Coconut Nectar‘. This is my favorite out of the two perfumes because it smells so sweet and delightful. I would wear this one for an everyday perfume because of how light it smells.

The last roll on I bought was not perfume but a lip gloss that is ‘Cherry Blossom‘ flavored. Who doesn’t love a good Cherry flavored lip gloss? The gloss on this is AWESOME. I usually wear it without lipstick because it makes my natural look like lip color alone. I don’t tend to linger towards lip glosses because they feel so sticky on my lips, and my hair always gets stuck in it, but this one is not sticky at all. I can wear this daily and not be bothered by it.

The prices for Blossom products are average prices, and so beautiful to look at. I would suggest anyone to buy these, even just for decoration to look at. The plus is that it smells amazing, too.

As always my opinions are 100% truthful and honest, and I would want nothing else from anyone else! Stay beautiful and keep the highlight shine on!

-Tigerlily