Top 10 Award!!

Wheeeeeeee!!! Thanks to the lovely Esther I now have my first official blog award!!! A million thanks to you sweetheart, it really does mean a lot!

Of course, with something as awesome as this you really have to pay it forward! That's part of the fun! And even better, getting this award comes with an activity too... here's the rules!

• Link back to the person who tagged you.
• List your top ten favourite products.
• Nominate 10 other bloggers.

 Done and DONE!


Top 10 Products: (in no particular order....)


Urban Decay Naked Palette - For someone who loves neutral eyeshadows, this palette truly is the mack daddy. Everything you need from subtle to intense, and each and every one is pigmented, highly blendable and buttery smooth. I use this almost every day and I've had it for coming up to a year now.

Sephora 5-in-1 Color Play Palette (Limited Fashion Edition) - This palette is beloved because it gives me SO many options. There are 50 eyeshadows, 10 lipglosses and 5 blushes!! I don't use the lipglosses a lot - not because they're bad quality, in fact they're actually quite awesome! But I'm not a fan of lipglosses mixed in with powder products, or even in a palette in general... I prefer my lip products standalone. But I use the eyeshadows and the blushes ALL the time and I love having such an amazing selection of choices!! And let me tell you, there are more than a few awesome taupes in here!! <3 Review here.

Revlon Colorstay Mineral Finishing Powder in Suntan Matte
Despite what the name might say, this bronzer is not completely matte! It has a bit of shimmer which on the skin translates to a beautiful glow without being anything even approaching a glitterbomb. I use this stuff every single day because it's easy to build from extremely subtle to full on bronze goddess. And because the baked powder forms a dome shape, this pan will last me a looong time. I've had it for a year and it's only just now getting to be about level with the compact.

Rimmel Lasting Finish 25 Hour Foundation in Soft Beige
I was in the market for a new foundation and everything I had heard about this stuff led me to believe it was exactly what I was looking for, and boy am I glad I picked it up!! It's got a great medium satin coverage, and it does do a great job of lasting. Love it!! Review here.

NYX Rouge Cream Blush in Glow
This is pretty much the perfect cream blush!! The colour is a very pigmented natural but still bright medium pink, the texture is smooth and soft, and a little goes a loong way!! This has me jonesing for quite a few more of the NYX cream blushes!!

e.l.f. Super Glossy Lip Shine in Pink Kiss
Even though I'm not a big lip product person (most days it's just lip balm, thanks!) this is probably my HG lip product. The perfect slightly warm pink with very subtle golden shimmer, it's a my lips but better shade. As a bonus, I LOVE the smell (kind of candy like but not too sweet) and the texture, which I heard somewhere as being almost like a gummy candy wrapping around your lips. It doesn't feel overly sticky nor too slick like it will just evaporate off your lips. Considering the fact these lip glosses are also only around $1, what's not to love?

MAC Eyeshadow in Woodwinked
This was baby's first MAC product!! That's right! And I can see why it's so popular, when I bought it I didn't know a lot about MAC and I had no idea Woodwinked was one of the most popular shades, I just gravitated to it on my own. This shade is amazing no matter what way you wear it, but one of the (many) reasons I love it is because of how pigmented and blendable it is, and how it's the perfect balance between light and dark to make it easy to just swipe on your lids and go on those rushed mornings. It's like eyeshadow for dummies or something!

Maybelline EyeStudio Lasting Drama Gel Eyeliner in Blackest Black
When the $12 drugstore eyeliner blows the $23 Make Up For Ever eyeliner completely out of the water, you know you've found yourself a winner!! This liner is unbelievably pigmented and smooth!! A couple quick swipes of this with a bent liner brush is faster and easier than even using a pencil eyeliner, because you don't have to fuss around with the stuff. It's just that good! 

bareMinerals Purely Nourishing Moisturizer for Combination Skin
I first tried this stuff as a deluxe sample from a Sephora.com order, and at the time was having some mysterious and uncharacteristic extreme dryness/roughness on my cheeks. I had tried a couple heavy moisturizers but nothing seemed to be helping at all. I used this literally once and felt a huge improvement within minutes. By the second time I used it, it was gone. Like magic. Even though this is *just* a moisturizer with no tint in it or anything, when I put this on my skin I notice an immediate difference in the look of my skin - it looks more smooth, the colour looks more even... it just glows!! I just bought myself a pack with a small duo of this moisturizer and the matching cleanser! Haul post here.

Urban Decay Eyeshadow Primer Potion
I don't know what I even did before I tried this stuff. All the years, fussing over creased or faded eyeshadow, packing less pigmented eyeshadow on my lids in a vain attempt to get it to stick and to show up. Wasted time, because I could have been using this stuff. It grabs your eyeshadow and locks it into place all day long!! On the rare occasion where I fall asleep with my makeup on (bad Kayleigh!) I can often wake up the next morning with my eyeshadow looking no worse for wear, thanks to this magical potion.

My Nominations: (also in no particular order!)

1. Miss Natty's Beauty Diary
2. Makeup and Macaroons
3. very emily
4. nevertoomuchglitter
5. Will Work for Makeup
6. Let's MakeYuUp
7. Frippery Digits
8. Makeup and Beauty Blog
9. The Beauty Bite
10. Pink Sith

It was HARD picking only ten!! Considering I follow 36 and counting!!!

NOTD July 12/11

Sorry for the no updates lately! Work's been keeping me busy and wanting to do literally NOTHING on my down time!! But I have found some time to do my nails! Another one I got the idea for from a Tumblr blog (the manicure inspiration folder on my computer is growing at an alarming rate!) for some flowers on a black background!! I think I still need to get the hang of scaling patterns to the size of my nails... I didn't intend it to be this big or have the flowers overlap! But I still like how it turned out!

Minor facelift!

Hey everyone!! I was playing around a bit with my Blogger display settings, because I was feeling restricted by the width of my blog. I couldn't get images to be as big as I wanted without them running into the nav bar. Lucky for me though, Blogger lets you adjust the width very easily! So I've widened it up a teeny bit, slightly narrowed the nav bar to compensate, and gone through and increased the size of all the images on the blog for your viewing pleasure!

Enjoy! <3

Sephora Haul! Smith's Rosebud Salve, BareMinerals Naturally Luminous Daily Duo for Combination Skin, Shu Uemura Eyelash Curler!

That has to be the longest blog title I've ever done! Whew!

I had a VERY successful payday visit to Sephora on Friday! Usually when I go in there, all memory of the things I've been meaning to buy for a long time just fly out of my head, and I'm overwhelmed by choice, and usually end up either leaving with nothing or with a complete impulse buy. So this time, I took pictures of my phone of my Sephora.com shopping list and had it with me in Sephora!!

The Smith's Rosebud Salve and the BareMinerals skincare were wishlist items, the Shu Uemura curler was a true impulse buy though! I didn't even realize you could buy it there because it's not on the website, but I guess that's because the site is U.S. and you can't get Shu in the U.S. anymore... for once there's something you can get in Canada but not in the States!!

Here's some more pics of my goodies!

Reviews of these to come!! :)

NOTD July 6/11

Triiiibaaall!!! I had been wanting to try this trend for a while, and I found this colour combo I really liked, so I went for it!! It's not perfect but it was actually easier than I expected it to be! I did redo part of it though - I did the thumb first and liked it on the first go, but the rest I wasn't happy with and re-did. Overall I really like the colours and the design! I'm excited to try out more tribal designs, especially when I get my hands on some proper striping polishes!

Another thing of note is that today is my anniversary with my boyfriend - four years! Can't believe how time flies!! :) Money is tight at the moment so we stayed in and relaxed, watched a movie - I got to come home from work with dinner already made which was also great!! <3 Hope you all are having a great week too!!

What's in the Bag?

I've seen these posts on lots of other blogs before, but I've never done one myself!! So here I am.... gonna spill the beans (or the glosses?) on what's in my makeup bag right now!

I know, I know... look what the cat dragged in right? This makeup bag has clearly seen better days and I've been on the lookout for a better one, but everytime I see a bunch of little makeup bags, they're either not quiiite what I'm looking for style or size wise, or they're pretty close to right but way overpriced! I'm not gonna pay more than about $10 for a little makeup bag tossed into my purse! Maaybe $15... but it would have to be really special. So until then, this will have to do!

And the contents!! On the left we see several nubby ends of eyeliners. I need to restock on basic eyeliner soooo badly it's not even funny!!

• Annabelle Smoothliner in Black
• Some random Covergirl brow pencil, which I can't see the name of anymore, and which is too light now that my hair is darker!
• A double ended Urban Decay 24/7 Eyeliner - this was the one from the Naked Palette, with Zero on one end and Whiskey on the other. There's still a bit of Whiskey left for the sharpening, Zero is down to the metal though!

Then there's some lip products!

• Basic Carmex in a tube!!
• MAC Tinted Lip Conditioner in Petting Pink
• elf Super Glossy Lip Shine in Tropical Breeze

Then mascaras!

• Covergirl LashBlast Waterproof in Very Black - old tube and new tube! Still got some left to use in the old tube! I'll use it for bottom lashes mostly, since it's a little less goopy than the new one.
• Covergirl LashBlast Length Waterproof in Very Black - I sometimes layer this over the original for LOTS of length, but it's almost time for this tube to go, it's getting pretty dry!

Then last but not least, some concealers!

• Benefit Erase Paste, awesome for concealing under the eyes because it brightens quite nicely!
• Urban Decay 24/7 Concealer Pencil in DEA, great for concealing blemishes and redness! So creamy, I love this stuff!

Update To NYX Ultra Pearl Mania Swatch and Review!

You may remember my recent post about NYX Ultra Pearl Manias? No? Well check it out now!! I wasn't able to find one of the colours I have, but I found it tonight so I snapped some pics and added it to my review!

Go see!

<3

NOTD July 3/11 - Confetti! (plus bonus polish swatch)

Fun, bright, happy confetti nails!! I love these so much :)

Also, for the past few days my nails were painted solidly in that blue shade which is Sally Hansen's Blue Me Away!, here's a shot of that.

Such a gorgeous shade!

FOTD July 2/11

Ultra natural! I challenged myself to go very natural which isn't usual for me, but I really like how this turned out.

Skin:
Rimmel Lasting Finish 25 Hour Foundation
Urban Decay 24/7 Concealer Pencil
Revlon PhotoReady Translucent Finishing Powder
Revlon ColorStay Mineral Finishing Powder in Suntan Matte
Wet n' Wild Color Icon Blush in Pearlescent Pink

Eyes:
Sephora 5 in 1 Palette: Shade 39 on the lid, 14 in the crease and smudged under lower lashes, 30 as highlight
Urban Decay 24/7 Glide On Eyeliner in Whiskey (with some brown shadow patted on top)
CoverGirl Lash Blast Waterproof

Review/Swatches: NYX Ultra Pearl Mania

I've had these little bullets of loveliness (odd phrasing?) for quite some time, but I've never mentioned them on my blog and they deserve some attention!

They are small little bullets of loose eyeshadow. All the shades have a very shimmery/pearly finish, and are very pigmented and blendable. As an added bonus, these have virtually NO fallout, which is always a concern with a loose shadow. Overall, if you are a fan of shimmery eyeshadows, these are something you need to check out!

The only real drawback with these can be the packaging. They are in small open mouth containers, which are too small to dip a brush into. I find the best method is to get a square of toilet paper and tap a small amount onto it and dab my brush onto that to pick up the colour. And I mean a small amount - a little of this stuff goes a long way! Like I said, pigmented!!

The shades I own, from left to right: Nude, Mocha, Black, Pearl, True Purple, Turquoise.

Update: I found Baby Pink! Here's a picture of it, I put it next to Pearl for shade comparison. Baby Pink is on the right, Pearl on the left.

Swatches! Top row left to right is Nude, Black, Turquoise. Bottom row left to right is Mocha, Pearl, and True Purple.

Update: Here is the swatch for Baby Pink! Also swatched next to Pearl for comparison. Baby Pink on the left, Pearl on the right.

Nude is a really lovely shimmery nude, definitely yellow toned. It's gorgeous used as a highlight on the inner corners and the inner part of the eyelid.

Black is a shimmery black, not one I've actually used a lot (I don't have a chance to wear a lot of dark smokey looks so I haven't been able to experiment with it as much) but it's definitely a gorgeous colour, applies very smooth. The thing that I think makes it stand out from other shimmery/glittery blacks is that the shimmer is very finely milled and smooth, no chunkiness in sight.

Turquoise is a lovely light turquoise, makes you think of the ocean! It's almost exactly between blue and green, but perhaps leans a teeny bit more towards blue.

Mocha is a gorgeous medium toned cool brown/taupe shade... it actually appears much cooler in real life than in this picture. I love this shade, it's probably my favourite of the ones I own. So nice just as a wash of colour all over the lid and that's about all you need!

Pearl is a light shimmery pale pink colour, but it has flashes of lavender and white as well.. just like a pearl!

True Purple Pearl is a slightly warm toned purple; there are definite pink undertones in this. Although I generally prefer much cooler, blue-based purples, this is a really pretty shade for sure.

Update: Baby Pink is a light, cool toned pink, but it's definitely darker and more of a "true" pink than Pearl, which has those purply qualities I was talking about.

I have more than a few Ultra Pearls on my wishlist right now, such as Silver, Yellow, Lime, Lilac and Sky Pink.

A tip for Canadians! I have seen NYX in store at some locations, like Save-On-Foods, but it's usually not that well priced, for example these would be around $5 or even $6. I recommend going to a store that stocks NYX in your area to check stuff out in person and swatch to find what you like. I did that and discovered that some stuff I thought I would like wasn't so great in person, and some stuff I had ignored looked awesome! Then go to Cherry Culture and do an online order! The prices are phenomenal, with Ultra Pearls being only $2-$3 each, the site often having great sales, and shipping to Canada being totally reasonable. I've done several LARGE orders from here such as all the shadows in this post, several of the Jumbo Eye Pencils and other things totally only $40 including shipping... so definitely don't miss out on those deals!

And last but most definitely not least...

HAPPY CANADA DAY!!