Because I Need More Berry Toned Products

I picked up a few Milani products during a BOGO 50% off sale at CVS.

Did some comparisons just for fun:

L-R: NARS Palais Royal Satin Lip Pencil/NARS Damned Velvet Matte Lip Pencil/YSL Forbidden Burgundy Rouge Volupte/Revlon Black Cherry/MAC Rebel/Milani Sangria

L-R: Revlon Black Cherry / Milani Black Cherry
These two are pretty much almost the same, so if you have one you really don't need the other; and since the Milani lipsticks have a scent that I'm not crazy about, I prefer Revlon's Black Cherry.

L-R: Milani Fuchsia Lip liner / Laura Mercier Crushed Berry Lip Pencil

You can see they are very similar as well, Crushed Berry being more berry toned which I prefer.
Overall I'm very pleased with the products I picked up. :)

Betty

Regulars

Some of my most used products over the past weeks:

MAC Paint Pots: L-R Constructivist / Indianwood

My go-to eye shadows from MAC: Woodwinked and Arena

I recently repurchased NARS Sheer Glow foundation, I forgot how great this is.

Favorite primer and concealer.

:)

Betty

I Guess I'm Not a Red Lipstick Kind of Girl

I can finally say I am not intimated by a bold lip color. As you can see, my go-to choices are raspberry, fuchsia and burgundy plum-ish shades.

L-R: YSL Rouge Volupté #12 / #11 / NARS Penny Arcade / Laura Mercier Crushed Berry / OCC Lip Tar "Strumpet" / MAC Rebel

:)

Betty

Oh Luster...

Every single time I'd go to Sephora I would always stay the longest at the NARS section, but I never paid too much attention to the blushes since I thought to myself "Do I really need another blush?"...well I answered that question with an "Oh yeah!" as soon as I swatched Luster for the first time.

The packaging is lovely, but since it can get a bit dirty easily, I always use the box it came in to carry around in my makeup bag.

I absolutely adore this blush, and combined with another NARS favorite, Albatross (which I heard about this combo from the lovely Estee from Essie Button), it is the most beautiful combination ever.

Luster is described as a sheer golden apricot, yup that sounds about right!
The images and swatch below don't give justice on how pretty this blush is.

I just wanted to share one of my latest obsessions with you.

Thanks for reading!

Betty

Favorites/Most used for August and September

Hi girlies!

I'm happy to share with you for the first time my favorites/most used products in August and September :)

First my favorite foundation not only for the month of September, but pretty much ever since I got it in January is NARS Sheer Glow Foundation. My shade is Barcelona and I love the coverage, it feels light and makes my skin look and feel good.

Also from  NARS is the Pro-Prime Smudge Proof Eyeshadow Base, which has become my HG eyeshadow base, it's light, it has no tint and best of all it doesn't crease, which is fabulous for my forever creasing eyelids.

My face powder of choice these past couple of months is MAC's Mineralize SkinFinish Natural (Medium Plus) It's light and it looks very natural

Most used highlighter is MAC MSF Soft and Gentle

Most used blushes! All from MAC

Bottom left: Peaches/Top: Style/Bottom Right: Improvise Mineralize Blush

I wore each on their own and combined them as well, the combinations I used the most were Peaches w/ Improvise (very lightly on top) or Peaches w/Style on top.

Moving on to most used eyeshadows:

From the Urban Decay Vegan Palette I used the most Twice Baked, Smog and Half Baked, I absolutely love these 3 shades.

This next eyeshadow quad is the reason why I started loving bronze shades, it's L'oreal Bronzes quad.

I specially use the shades on the right marked with numbers 1 and 4, specially the top right one (#1) it's a gorgeous bronzed champagne.

Another eyeshadow set that I have used almost every other day is Physician's Formula Baked Eyeshadow Trio "Baked Sands"

I love it so much I got a backup right away after I dropped my first one and one of the domes broke off :( (right) you can also see I've used it so much they're not quite domes no more. 

Last eyeshadow set I've been using a lot August and September is Avon's  8-in-1 palette in Neutral Tones. I've used the 3rd and 4th shade from the left the most.

I've been enjoying using L'oreal Carbon Black Lineur Intense eyeliner, specially to do a winged look.

For lips, I really didn't use lipsticks or lip-glosses, felt kinda lazy really, so I've been using EOS lip-balm thingy, I got the yellow one first which I don't remember the name, but I didn't like the smell so much, the Summer Fruit one, on the other hand I love how it smells and makes my lips feel nice and soft.

Lastly, my favorite hand/body lotion is CVS brand Cocoa Butter Deep Conditioning Moisturizer, at first I got the travel size to try it out, and I like it so much I got the full size one.

I like this one a lot better than the Vaseline version, which the CVS brand is comparable to, they both leave my skin feeling soft, but the smell is a bit different, the CVS one smells more like coconut, and the Vaseline one seems to have an added fragrance, which I can't quite describe it, didn't like it that much. 

Whoa that was a lot of products! 

Hope you all have a wonderful week! I'm currently trying to fight a cold so I'm having some home made soup :)

Betty

Give me Gold!

Hi!
First of all, I hope all of you are having a lovely weekend, mine ended up being a bit different than I expected.
A little trip we had planned for Friday got cancelled, but on Saturday at one of our Fanboygaming.com events I stopped by Sephora where I ended up buying a couple of things, with some goodies on the side. (let me tell you that the Microsoft Store is dangerously close to Sephora and MAC, well dangerously close for my wallet lol)
First, Urban Decay's Freelove e/s

I also picked up a couple of samples of Illamasqua pigments: Ore and Furore

At checkout I had enough points for 2 samples, NARS Pro-Prime Pore Refining Primer and Sephora Ultra Smoothing Primer.

The Sales Associate also gave me a Yu-Be Skin Cream sample.

But my favorite buy was Sephora by O.P.I. top coat "Only Gold for Me"

So much glittery goodness!

(1 coat)

One more with some touch-ups

I can't stop staring at my nails, love it!

Betty

Power Out

Hi!

So last week I got home from a long day and the power was out...great. The sun was going to set soon, so I grabbed my candles and lit them up.

The two short candles are vanilla scented, they smell sooo good!
I was trying not to get bored with no tv or internet, so I got an Ikea catalog, sat by the window and browsed through the pages pointing out at stuff I want that definitely don't need.

Oh yeah, before I got home, me and my brother stopped by Starbucks and got some drinks.

Products used that day:

NARS Sheer Glow Foundation (Barcelona), MAC Mineralized SkinFinish Natural (Medium Plus), MAC Style blush, Soft and Gentle MSF.

Yup just sitting drinking my coffee waiting for my husband to get home :)

Good Times.

Betty

Some goodies

Hello Hello!
I finally got me a NARS Sheer Glow foundation!. After getting a sample, i fell in love with it. I've been using it on and off since i got it in January and I love how it looks. When I got the sample i got matched with Barcelona and its indeed a perfect match to my skin color.

Went to my local Sephora and besides the NARS Sheer Glow I picked up another Illamasqua blush in Lover which is a vibrant apricot, i absolutely love this color!

 

I've been loving Illamasqua products alot, I'll do a separate post of my Illamasqua collection/Review soon.

 

Next up I went to MAC and got my very first pigment in Naked. At first i was torn between Vanilla pigment and Naked, but after swatching it, i immediately went for Naked pigment. I've been using it as a highlight on my brow bone, inner corners of the eyes and even on my cheekbones, it's a gorgeous color.

 

And lastly I got my first MAC red lipstick in Ruby Woo after a friend recommended it to me, I don't usually wear red lipstick, but I'm really loving this color.

All these products I got as a late New Years gift from the hubby :)

Hope you have a wonderful day! 

Betty