I wanted to make a quick post where I re-evaluate my previous reviews to give you some ideas for what to buy and what to skip at the Sephora VIB Sale 2016 which starts in 3 days on Thursday April 7th if you’re VIB Rouge or April 8th if you’re VIB and goes until the 13th.
As a refresher in order to be Sephora VIB you must spend $500 in a calendar year. The good news is that if you spend more than that then it rolls over towards the next year. To find out your status you can log on to Sephora.com and click “(Your name)’s Account” in the top right corner. If it says “VIB Beauty Insider” you’re in! You can use “VIBNOTE” online during the sale and get 15% off your entire purchase.
It’s about time I do a follow-up post on this, since it’s consistently one of my most popular posts! There’s a new article up on the Bravo website where Lisa Vanderpump from Bravo’s Real Housewives of Beverly Hills and Vanderpump Rules discusses her 5 essential beauty products and they’re completely different than the last post I made!
Attention everyone, this is not a test! theBalm is on HauteLook and most of the products are 50% off! This sale ends on 1/20/16 so do not wait!!! Go now!! theBalm is sold at places like Frends Beauty in LA and the big fancy Walgreens on Sunset Blvd, but otherwise it can be somewhat hard to find. I mentioned it in my 2015 Makeup Favorites post because two of my faves came from theBalm and I had some honorable mentions in there as well. theBalm has excellent quality, fantastic pigmentation, and adorable and creative packaging, what else could you need?? Without further ado here’s some recommendations and reviews!
My Favorite Products from theBalm
theBalm Highlighters
How the hell do I use a highlighter? You may be asking yourself. Well friend, using either your finger or a blush start with a small amount because this stuff is PIGMENTED! Put some on the inner corners of your eyes, down the bridge (center going from top to bottom) of your nose and a little extra on the tip of your nose, put some on your brow bone (draw a line following directly beneath your eyebrow), put some on the high points of your cheeks (almost to your temples under your eyes), put some on your cupid’s bow (right along the ridge of your upper lip) and put some on the center of your bottom lip. You don’t have to put it on all of these places, but these are some options that will have you look like a shimmering glowing goddess. You can also just use this like you would an eyeshadow.
Mary-Lou Manizer by theBalm
Mary-Lou Manizer by theBalm (normally $24 on sale for $12): This stunning highlight shade is a favorite of the beauty community for a reason. It’s a shimmering honey color that can be used as a highlighter or as an eyeshadow. This color looks great on the fairest to medium skin tones.
Mary Lou Manizer by theBalm
Cindy-Lou Manizer
Cindy-Lou Manizer by theBalm (normally $24 on sale for $12): This is also a highlighter that looks gorgeous on top of a pink or coral blush. It has more of a pinky-peach duo chrome that looks gorgeous when light hits it. I’ve been wearing Cindy-Lou even more than Mary-lou lately!
Cindy-Lou Manizer from theBalm
theBalm Bronzer/Contour Powder
Bahama Mama Bronzer/Shadow/Contour Powder
Bahama Mama Bronzer/Shadow/Contour Powder by theBalm (Normally $20 on sale for $10): My absolute favorite contour color! This shade has more of a neutral undertone so it won’t make you look orange! This powder is VERY PIGMENTED so again, start slowly and work up until you get the desired effect. This shade looks great on fair to medium-dark complexions. I also use it all over the lid as a matte-brown eye shadow or sometimes as a crease color. I use it all over the face as a bronzer as well when I want to look DARK!
The Balm Bahama Mama Bronzer is a deeper shade that can be used to contour.
theBalm Blush
FratBoy Blush/Shadow
FratBoy Blush/Shadow by theBalm (Normally $21 on sale for $10.50): This is a great peach shade with a hint of pink and subtle shimmer. This shade definitely packs a punch (highly pigmented) and is great for a good glow. I LOVE their packaging “So many men, so little time…” how perfect, right?
FratBoy Blush by theBalm
INSTAIN Blush in Lace
INSTAIN Blush in Lace by theBalm (Normally $22 on sale for $11): Looking for a blush as crazy intense as Lace is this season on the Bachelor? Well look no further! Holy PIGMENT. This blush is BRIGHT as heck so only use it if you’re looking for an intense and long-lasting effect. This blush is for bold girls!
Instain blush by theBalm
theBalm Lipstick
theBalm Girls Lipstick in Ima Goodkisser
theBalm Girls Lipstick in Ima Goodkisser (Normally $17 on sale for $8.50): First of all, I love how these lipsticks are a cute little play on Bond girls. This lipstick is moisturizing and has decent pigmentation, but is by no means completely opaque. This color is a nice soft-shimmering coral and has a vanilla-mint scent. I like this lipstick and the color, but I think it tends to get on my teeth more because it’s so moisturizing. Take that info with a grain of salt since I feel like I get lipstick on my teeth 95% of the time that I wear it ha!
theBalm Girls Ima Goodkisser Lipstick
theBalm Eyeliner
Schwing Liquid Eyeliner in Black
Schwing Liquid Eyeliner in Black by theBalm (Normally $17 on sale for $8.50): My favorite liquid eyeliner! Very pigmented and very black so you won’t have to keep going over and over your line! This is long lasting and fast drying and a matte black color. I highly recommend this!
Schwing Liquid Eyeliner by theBalm
Products that I didn’t like as much:
Give Crease a Chance – All-Over Eye Shadow/Eye Blending Brush (Normally $26.50 on sale for $13.25): This brush didn’t really wow me especially for the price. The quality wasn’t that great and the brushes are enormous for eyeshadow. I say skip.
NudeDude Eyeshadow Palette by theBalm (Normally $36 on sale for $18): This palette is very cute, but I rarely find myself reaching for it. I also find that it has a lot of fall out. If I didn’t already have way too many eye shadow palettes, I would get the Meet Matt(e) Nude palette because the beauty community LOVES that one and it has a nice range of shades and great pigmentation.
Products I bought today from theBalm
I picked up BalmShelter Tinted Moisturizer in Light because my skin is THIRSTY! And this one is supposed to be good, a Bahama Mama Bronzer/Contour/Shadow Powder for my sister, CabanaBoy blush which is a plum rose with a subtle shimmer because I just read Dita Von Teese’s book and want to be her, and timeBalm Face Primer because I need a new primer and I like how this one has antioxidants! I was tempted to get Balm Desert bronzer, Overshadow Eye Shadow in No Money, No Honey (but I already have like 12 gold glitters), and Read My Lips in Pop! But I stayed strong and resisted!! Hehe.
Here’s my HauteLook link which will give me a $20 credit if you sign up and make a purchase and will further fuel my makeup addiction 😉 Going through my emails it looks like HauteLook had theBalm today 1/18/16, 9/25/15, 5/1/15, 1/23/15 so every January, May, and September so DON’T MISS THIS 50% OFF THE BALM SALE ON HAUTELOOK YOU WILL REGRET IT!!
2015 was a fun year for makeup – we highlighted (and then strobed), we contoured (and cream contoured), we baked, we wore bold liquidlipsticks, our brows were on fleek, many of us looked like drag queens on a regular basis and it was glorious. I’m here to share with you some of my very favorite makeup that I used in 2015. Even though I buy an enormous amount of makeup, I’m a very harsh critic and I’m very skeptical of BS marketing. I’m here to say you absolutely do not need to buy expensive makeup in order to look good, many of these products are from the drugstore! This is also a good place to start if you’re just getting into makeup and don’t know what to buy. Here’s the best makeup of 2015!: Continue reading “Best Makeup of 2015”
It’s almost here! Sephora’s biggest sale of the year (20% off all purchases) is the Sephora VIB sale and this year’s taking place Friday November 13-16, 2015 both online and in stores. Be sure to check out last year’s Sephora VIB Sale 2014 post with lot’s of reviews and recommendations of products that are still available. As a refresher in order to be VIB you must spend $500 in a calendar year. The good news is that if you spend more than that then it rolls over towards the next year. To find out your status you can log on to Sephora.com and click “(Your name)’s Account” in the top right corner. If it says “VIB Beauty Insider” you’re in! You can use VIB20 online during the sale and get 20% off your entire purchase. If you don’t have VIB you can ask one of your beauty obsessed friends to add a few things to their basket for you. If you don’t have VIB or even a Sephora account you’re not getting the discount, BUT they always offer the BEST gifts with purchase. This year you can pick 1 of 4, it includes 8 samples and a free clutch, and you only have to make a $25 purchase which is like half of 1 thing at Sephora. You can use the code “partypicks” to get in on that fine deal.
Let’s start off with updated reviews of last year’s purchases because liking a product an entire year later is a real testament to whether a product is truly worthy or not.
Welcome back for another post about my European adventures. On our second day we went to Basilica de La Sagadra Familia which was one of my favorite parts of the trip and you’ll see why when you look at the pictures below! You can check out my journey from Barcelona to Sitges and what I did on day one in Sitges in the previous posts. So day 2 I was pretty jet lagged and slept about half the day. When I finally did pull myself out of bed I wandered around town for a little bit on my own while Molly was at her conference and then I came back to the hotel and had a fancy lunch by myself at the Iris Restaurant in the Estela Hotel.
I also started reading my book Rising Strong by Brené Brown who I LOVE. I highly recommend checking out any of her books she is fabulous. This was flat bread with tomato spread and extra virgin olive oil with marinated tuna tataki with soy, honey, aromatics and crispy sesame. YUM. The best part about this trip was that everything I ate was fantastic and if you know me you know that is VERY important to me.
I love the eyes on the doors of the restaurant. This is looking into the lobby of the hotel. That night Molly and I hopped on the bus with the people in her conference and headed into Barcelona for an excursion to La Sagadra Familia.
Who is Jessie James Decker you ask? She is a 27 year old mother of 2, country singer/songwriter, and NFL wife. She also has some serious charisma and personality. She also has unreal crazy huge beautiful mermaid hair and beautiful makeup and outfits. These are a few of the reasons why I have watched her YouTube videos over and over. Here’s a few things I have incorporated into my beauty routine:
With all of the advertising and marketing in the beauty industry it’s very hard to tell what is going to work and what will not. This is so important because who wants to waste $$$ on a product that does not live up to it’s claims? So how do you research a products claims and find out if it contains ingredients that will actually make your skin better? This is where one of my favorite websites Beautypedia comes in. Beautypedia was started by Paula Begoun who is known as the cosmetics cop. For decades now she has been breaking down ingredient lists vs. manufacturer claims to de-mistify the (sometimes) fuzzy beauty science and to educate the masses. Whenever you sign on to Instagram, Youtube, open a magazine, see a commercial, etc. you’re constantly being bombarded with “This is the one! The product that will make you flawless and fix all of your skin’s problems! BUY NOW!!” and Paula helps you separate the BS from the truly beneficial products.
The other thing I like about her site is that you can choose how deeply you want to plunge into the scientific knowledge behind ingredients. You can find out if a product contains sodium hyaluronate acid and what the hell that means, or you can just find out if the MAC Pro Longwear Nourishing Waterproof Foundation lives up to it’s claims or not (PS it does according to beautypedia and now I really want to try it!).
My Beauty Trends: Liquid Lipsticks post is one of the most popular posts on my blog so with all of that interest I thought it was time to do a Part Two!
Anastasia Beverly Hills Liquid Lipsticks
The last post was sparked by the massive launch of the Anastasia Beverly Hills liquid lipsticks ($20 each). I swear that woman is a marketing genius sending out free liquid lipsticks to all of the beauty influencers on the internet. Cheapest.PR.EVER. I still have only heard so-so reviews about these! My friend Annabelle (from the infamous Jeremy Piven post) has Pure Hollywood which is a nude shade and she said it’s super drying and crusts around the inner rim of your lips so she is not a fan. Anastasia has, however, come out with some gorgeous new colors my favorite being Unicorn which is described as a “luminescent lavender” and it’s gorgeous: Continue reading “Beauty Trends: Liquid Lipstick Part Two”
1. Revlon ColorBurst Matte Balm in Showy ($6.89 at Target) – This is an oldie, but a goodie. This balm is easy to apply, gives a great color payoff, is comfortable on the lips, has a minty scent/flavor, and doesn’t smear all over my face! This is great to have handy to make any look just a little more glam. It’s a beautiful magenta color and it’s great for summer. Another Revlon I was loving this past month was the Revlon Colorburst Balm Stain in Cherish ($6.09 at Target). This one is (as the name would suggest) more of a lip stain so it’s good for a pretty day time look. It’s a cute, sheer baby pink color with blue undertones. This is great if you find lipstick to be too intense, but aren’t a huge lip gloss fan because it’s somewhere in between. These both twist up and last a long time. I totally got distracted while writing this post and ordered 2 more of these, whoops. Continue reading “May Favorites”
