London's Calling

I unexpectedly found myself in London recently. I love to travel and have been lucky enough to get to see many different places in my life, but London has & will always hold a special place in my heart. While I wasn’t in England on vacation, my family and I still found some time to do the whole “touristic thing” in the city. I had a lovely time and wanted to share some of the memories with you. Enjoy!  

Found a piece of Ancient Greece in London...
My cultures have collided

More posts to come!

Pinky Promise.
♥

Mascara Madness: The Tried & Trues

I’m a self-confessed mascara addict with no wish for recovery. If I could only wear one piece of makeup for the rest of my life it would defiantly be mascara. I just feel like it really transforms your face by making your eyes pop. It just brings everything together. I love trying different brands and formulas out and I wanted to share some of my absolute favorites with you!

I tend to gravitate towards the tried and true drugstore brands when it comes to mascaras. I’ve tried the nicer brands but always end up coming back to my local drugstore to pick up my staple product. Its always more budget friendly to fall in love with the less expensive products so don’t disregard drugstore products. In the world of makeup there is nothing more beautiful to me than a fat mascara wand, is that totally weird? I’m a total volume junkie when it comes to my eyes so I usually layer a few mascaras to get my eyes “big”.

Maybelline Great Lash: BIG $5.29

It’s back to the basics with this one! In my opinion everyone should own/have owned this mascara. I always like to make sure that I have on of these in my makeup collection at all times. It’s perfect for beginners building up their collections because 1. It’s inexpensive and 2. It’s basically foolproof (But don’t go poking your eyeballs or anything like that please…). This formula added with the big brush makes for mega volume. I love the fact that it doesn’t clump and I recommend building up your lashes with multiple coats. This was the first mascara that I ever purchased and it’s never let me down. I love everything about it from its iconic green and pink packaging to it’s wide eye effect. I really recommend this mascara to anyone and everyone in the market for a good dependable drugstore mascara.

Maybelline the Rocket $7.49

If you’ve been on the beauty scene for a while I’m sure you’ve heard all the buzz over this product, and let me just tell you that everything said about it is true! I own both the regular and waterproof formulas and they’ve been my absolute favorite mascaras since they were released. They give AMAZING volume and length, “The Rocket” really make your eyes pop! I love the volume this formula gives lashes, normally to get my lashes as big as I like them I layer multiple brands and formulas but this mascara offers a one stop shop for volume junkies like myself. I use the waterproof formula daily on my lower lashes (It’s extremely humid where I live so this is an absolute necessity to avoid raccoon eyes midday) and it hasn’t failed me yet! This definatly gets an A+ rating from me.

Maybelline Volume Express: One by One $8.15

As you can see, I’m a firm believer that you can never go wrong with a Maybelline mascara so its no surprise that my next favorite is yet another fabulous Maybelline formula. This is a new find for me but I’m already in love. I love how this mascara evenly coats and curls each individual lash, nothing better than it. I use this on more “natural” days or as a base for building up clump free volume. It really does seem to coat lashes “one by one” just as the name says. I really like the shape of this brush oddly enough, not for any performance reason, I just think it looks cute. I’m a sucker for cute packaging so that might be another reason why I’m so addicted to Maybelline.

Benefit They’re Real! $23.00

Now to stray from the Maybelline way, this mascara by Benefit is another new find of mine although I’m awfully late to jump on this bandwagon. Not only does it volumize, lengthen, not clump, and curl, but it also stays on all day! I mentioned before that where I live its extremely humid, especially in the summer months. As a result it’s almost impossible for me to go a whole day without having to wipe mascara lines from the bottom of my eyes (Does anyone else have this problem???) I’ve tried using waterproof and water-resistant formulas but no regular formula mascara seemed to be able to stand up the humidity until this. It is a little pricey for mascara at $23 for the full size tube but there is a special pack at Sephora HERE with a full size and a sample size for the price of one, which is quite nice. Never underestimate the sample sizes! It allows you to try out more products with less commitment to really experiment and discover what works for you.

So those are my favorite mascaras of the moment, but what are your must haves? I’d love to give them a try! I’m always looking for new worthwhile products to use. Comment below and let me know what you love! Thanks for reading!

More posts to come!

Pinky Promise.
♥

Back To Basics: My Everyday Makeup 2013

I wanted to share my everyday essentials and makeup routine with you! These products are the ones that I could not live without! I like to keep it quite simple so I don’t have to spend forever putting on makeup in the morning (because to be honest, most days I’d much rather get 10 extra minutes of sleep than take the time put on a ton of makeup) These products are long lasting so you can go through the day without a million touchups and the products themselves take me quite a while to get through despite using them daily, so I highly recommend them.

After moisturizing in the morning my first stop is a BB Cream. I love BB’s because foundation and even tinted moisturizers feel too heavy on my skin and I don’t need a lot of coverage. My favorite BB Cream is the Maybelline Dream Fresh BB Cream. Aside from doing all that BB Creams claim to do (Blurs imperfections, Brightens, Evens skin tone, Soothes, Hydrates, etc.) I love how it neutralizes any redness and covers most small blemishes. Having SPF 30 also helps protect my skin from the Florida sunshine. I use the Light/Medium shade in the winter months and the Medium shade in the summer months. My only complaint is that it makes me skin look very dewy (but it hasn’t caused me to breakout) but I fix that with a little powder, my preference being Rimmel Stay Matte Pressed Powder in 004 Sandstorm. 

I've seen so many great reviews of this powder and I love it too. Its another great inexpensive drugstore product that I've converted a bunch of my friends to the "Stay Matte Way".

Next I move on to concealer if there are any spots or blemishes that need more coverage and my dreaded dark under eye circles. I use Clinique’s Line Smoothing Concealer in shades Moderately Fair and Medium depending on the time of year. I’ve tried other concealers but always end up coming back to this one. Everyone in my family uses it too so I think this may be a lifelong love. I highly recommend this concealer for all skin types as it blends into your skin quickly and smoothly without making the area look greasy and it stays on all day. Great quality.

After all my blemishes are covered up I usually like to use a highlighter. The easiest one to apply quickly is Benefit’s High Beam. I apply this to my cheekbones, under my eyebrows, down the bridge of my nose, and put just a dab on my cupids’ bow and blend. I actually prefer the application of the sample size as I feel the smaller brush gives just the perfect amount of product so defiantly check that out. This product blends nicely and adds the slightest shimmer that is perfect for everyday use. I promise you it’s not pinky pinky or extremely glittery! I love all of the Benefit liquid highlighters (Moon Beam, Sun Bean, Watts Up…) but High Beam is by far my favorite.

I then add a little color to my face with my Too Faced Chocolate Soleil Bronzer in Original Chocolate with a Stippling Finishing brush (favorite brush of all time! I use it for everything!). It’s a matte bronzer, which makes it great for everyday, and it just warms up your face giving it that sun kissed look we all crave. I apply it in place of blush sometimes and other times I use it as a contour. This bronzer also smells amazing! Just like chocolate! From what I can tell you can’t smell it when it’s on your face but it sure is a lovely treat when you’re applying it! Favorite bronzer of all time and it will last you for ages so it’s worth the splurge.

Once my face is blemish free and sun kissed I set everything with my Urban Decay All Nighter Setting Spray. I love this product. It helps my makeup last longer in the humidity and doesn’t clog my pores. I used to use this just for nights out but now it’s worked its way into my everyday makeup routine! After going through countless travel sizes of this unable to commit to the whole $30 bottle I finally caved and could not be happier. This product is a definite essential for humidity and/or long nights. They also have a formula for oil control.

My final step is curling my lashes and applying mascara. I usually use a different combination of mascaras every day but my favorite brand for mascaras is by far Maybelline. I have a post coming up that is all about my top mascaras so if you’re interested keep a lookout.

So that’s my everyday makeup essentials and makeup routine! I’ve gotten it down to my absolute essentials after running late and ending up with streak marks a little more often than I’d like to admit. These products blend easily and don’t require tons of tedious brushwork, its pretty-much just dab and go. Hope you enjoyed reading and that this gave you some ideas for your own routine! What are your everyday essentials? What products could you not live without? Comment below and let me know!

More posts to come!

Pinky Promise.

♥