Thursday, December 24, 2009

No-Poo no Goo?

I've discovered (partially due to a good friend) the magic of Stumble-upon! Especially when I've chosen only "beauty" stumbles. Increasingly, I've come upon sites talking about "no-poo" and "co-washing" which utterly confused and threw me for a loop. No poo? Someone's not doing the Number 2? Bathing with a partner might be beauty beneficial? I was miraculously relieved when I read on and found that "poo" meant Shampoo, and co-washing referred to washing with conditioner.

These no-poo-ers and co-washers are of the believe that use of the harsh detergents (lauryl-sulfates) in shampoo puts your hair and scalp in an endless cycle of stripping and artificially remoisturizing your hair with shampoo and conditioner. The shampoo strips your hair of its natural oils which causes the scalp to produce me causing "oiliness" and "dandruff". This leads you to wash your hair more often to get rid of the oil produced by your scalp's reaction to the shampoo which thereby starts an endless vicious cycle.

I definitely see how simple and true this is for some people but my scalp takes a long time to become oily and I only shampoo 2-3 times max weekly. In addition to that I use products: leave in conditioner during winter, fortifying spray and heat protectants for when I heat style my hair. This causes gradual build up which I'm not sure would be washed away if I tried to wash with a mild conditioner. Further more, I actually enjoy the shampoo and conditioning process, weird I know right?

Still, the notion of no-poo and co-washing intrigues me, and since I'm on break for the next month, I believe I might try this out.

Nail Polish Galore

Despite being uber busy and never having time to repair nail boo-boos, I've been in a nail polish kick for the last month or so. I discovered several loves since then: neutral tones, sparkly top coats, and super glitter polishes =)

One of my faves that is limited edition (and sold out already at my Sephora) is Worth My Weight (Sephora by OPI) the texture and uber gold bling glitter is almost gritty on your nails which is oddly appealing to me.



On the flip side, I've also become deeply appreciative of neutrals lately to balance out the color and bling. That's why when I was in ulta I took advantage of their buy 2 get one free promotion by picking up a beige nail polish called "Endless Possibilities" while getting another top coat and pressed powder.

DUDE. You would never guess how AWESOME this nail polish is. It's truly understated loveliness. It's a creamy pink beige with just a subtlest hint of fine gold shimmer. It definitely takes two nice thin coats to get a full coverage but it's soo pretty once you have it! I wore it for two days plain before deciding to spice it up with a sparkly top coat from my latest haul!



I was browsing the Rite Aid a few blocks from my house when I saw clearance stickers out the waazoo and Cover Girl's Boundless Color nail polish were all on 75% clearance which put each nail polish at a WHOMPING 97 cents!

I bought three sparkling top coats in City Lights, Ruby Dust, and Crystal Mist, Midnight Magic, a black with fine blue shimmer, and three creams in Candy Corn, Coral Rose, and Red Revolution.







I decided to top Endless Possibilities with Ruby Dust instead of my usual clear topcoat pick-me-up.

Unfortunately, I've yet to master taking pictures of my nails...trust me though, the pink tone of the ruby dust goes nicely with the pink undertones of Endless Possibilities.

Pic of last week's stab at holiday-y nails:

Thursday, October 15, 2009

Update

Too poor to buy makeup these days =(

Although I bought MUFE aqua eyes pencil last month and it's the BOMB! I also started using the clinique gel liner that I bought this summer in bronze it's it's beautiful and subtler than using black.

Halloween is coming up and I'm filled with ideas! I'm more interested in cool makeup than cool (see slutty) costumes. Like tonight I played around with making myself look rather vampiric with pale and gaunt skin, and dark/purple eyes, and dark defined eyebrows. Don't have much time to really play with my muffa much but from time to time when I feel like its getting neglected I whip out my supplies and go to TOWN for the day! =)

Now I should stop procrastinating and try to study!

Tootles~

Sunday, August 23, 2009

New Combos =)

So I was looking through the few shadows that I brought with me home and decided to do some layering!

So I LOVE woodwinked but tend to do warm colors in the winter and cooler colors in the summer. I know weird, I just like being contrary. Anywho's I brought it along because I [i]always[/i] bring it along just in case.

This fotd is the result:



To do this:
I put woodwinked all over the lid up to my "crease". I lightly blended the edges. Then patted circa plum pigment over the outer 2/3. Next I blended out the edges to my satisfaction with neutral pink. Then to deepen the outer corner/crease slight I mixed beauty marked with a little bit of neutral pink and blended in with a blending brush. I used a little bit of Naked pigment as highlight. To do my blue "pop" of color and to make my eyes appear whiter, I closely lined my lower lashline with black gel liner, over which I smudged Deep truth. I also lined my upper lashline with beauty marked smudged in to make it less dramatic. Curled lashes and a coat of Voluminous and BAM! cool new eye look =)

Well...at least it's new for me.

So that look has actually been the most dramatic look I've done in a while. Lately, I've been really into using neutral pink all over my crease with something dark smudged onto my lashline. OR I go (almost) bare! Sans makeup =) It's been raining almost every day for several weeks! The humidity just isn't makeup friendly so I've been cutting back a lot and sitting around much more comfortable and not paranoid about mascara or eyeliner smudging at random points in the day.

Con of not using much makeup: Not getting any closer to using up old makeup!

But oh well.....

So my next school term starts on the 31st and I'm uber excited. This is my third year as a Chemistry undergrad and I feel like I FINALLY get to the super cool (albeit more difficult) classes! I'm taking Physical Chemistry and Advance Lab 1 (Organic) with several literature/cultural classes. Can you tell I'm a dork that I'm excited about new hard classes? =)

Monday, August 10, 2009

Getting in touch with my masculine side....

So I went out to first Friday with a few friends in the city, however they failed to mention it was a popular outing. Here I was wearing a tennis skort and a men's tee-shirt without a lick of makeup! Long story short, I was the "butch" one of the night.

The next night I was playing around with makeup when I remember this one post on this awesome girl's blog where she looked at once extremely feminine but yet masculine and so I experimented and slapped on tons of bronzer to contour and came up with this:











While kind of fun and interesting looking in the mirror was kind of freaky since all I recognized of myself was my hair!

Update on Project 10 Pan

I'm almost done with my first MAC lipstick in Jubilee. While I'm really sad it's almost 3/4 gone I'm really happy that I'm finishing a product (especially one that ran me $15).

I'm also almost out of my Lash Perfection mascara. I think this is the first time I've used up a mascara rather than throwing it out because it went bad!

My too faced shadow insurance is starting to run frighteningly low too after having it for almost a year! I'm on the fence about whether i really need to buy another one of these though because I rarely use it since I have dry monolids and don't have to worry about creasing.

I'm also absolutely determined to use up one thing of eyeliner before long! I just have too many and I want to try out my new clinique gel liner really bad.

Sunday, July 19, 2009

Project 10 Pan!

Inspired by lollipop on youtube =)

The economy sucks and on top of that I just moved out of home and into my own apartment 2 months ago so it DOUBLE sucks. So I've decided to start my own round of Project 10 pan. I'm going to make exceptions for things such as if I run out of lip balm or pressed powder (two must haves for me) I'll go out and buy them but only on a bargain! =)

So here we go!

Thing's close to being done:
Revlon Colorstay Pressed Powder,
Elf Bronzer in Sunkissed,
Clinique Lash Doubling Mascara,
Rimmel Lash Extender.

Of course...I already have back ups for pretty much all of those products so I'm safe even when I run out....which brings me straight back to my problem...D'oh! >.<