January 2014 Beauty Favorites!

Hey loves!

This year has started off to a great start! I have been trying out new products and loving them so far. Here are my favorite products from January!

PRODUCTS MENTIONED:
♥ Hydroxotone Revitalizing Microdermabrasion
♥ Sonia Kashuk Vitamin-Rich Primer
♥ Sonia Kashuk Perfecting Luminous Foundation { 06 Camel }
Anastasia Beverly Hills Contour Kit
Urban Decay Illuminated Highlighting Powder
♥ NYX Matte Bronzer { Medium Deep }
♥ Sonia Kashuk Chic Luminosity Bronzer { Goddess }
♥ Anastasia Beverly Hills Brow Wiz { Brunette }
♥ Anastasia Beverly Hills Dipbrow Pomade { Chocolate }
♥ Revlon Colorburst Matte Balm { Shameless }
♥ Maybelline Colorsensational Lipsticks { Brazen Berry }
♥ Urban Decay 24/7 Glide On Lip Pencil { Ozone }
Urban Decay Lipstick { Naked }

xo, Jess ♥

Foundation Routine ♥ Application, Contour, & Highlight

Hey Loves!

My foundation routine is something that has been asked about continuously even before I had a youtube channel or a blog. Now it is asked about even more because my friends and family know I am constantly trying out new foundations and products.

For a while I was set on the Revlon Colorstay Foundation and was loving every single bit of it! It was for sure my holy grail foundation, especially during the hot summer days! Once the summer was over, my skin did a major 180 change and went from being super oily to super dry. I still get oily from time to time on my T-Zone but for the most part if I don’t moisturize you will deff. know! Since my skin had changed so drastically the foundations that I was using were not working well. They looked extremely matte and cakey. No one likes cake face so something had to change.

I ended up picking up the Neutrogena Healthy Skin and for a while that was working perfectly! I was using this everyday in combination with my Bare Minerals Matte Foundation and it was the perfect combo.

Once I began interning for Sonia Kashuk I was able to try a few of her products. One of those products was her Perfecting Luminous Foundation. Let me tell you… This has legitimately been my obsession ever since! It leaves my skin glowing! It’s the perfect amount of coverage, full coverage of course, but my skin still peeks through for a sort of natural finish. I honestly have been recommending this foundation to every one I know because I cannot get enough of it!

I decided to film my Foundation Routine so you guys are able to see how the foundation applies and also so you can all see how I contour and highlight as well. I get a ton of questions always asking me what products I use for my face, not including eyeshadows and lipsticks.

So alas, here is my foundation routine! I hope you guys enjoy it & if you find this helpful please like, comment, subscribe to my channel, and of course share with your friends! love you ♥

PRODUCTS USED:

♥ Sonia Kashuk Perfecting Vitamin-Rich Primer
♥ Sonia Kashuk Perfecting Luminous Foundation { 06 Camel }
♥ Maybelline Age Rewind Concealer { Neutralizer }
♥ MAC Prolongwear Concealer { NW 35 }
♥ Revlon Nearly Naked Pressed Powder { Medium Deep }
♥ Anastasia Beverly Hills Countour Kit { Havana, Fawn, Banana }
♥ Sonia Kashuk Beautifying Blush { Pink }
♥ Urban Decay Naked Illuminated Highlighting Powder

xo, Jess ♥

Urban Decay Naked Illuminated : Review ♥

Hey Loves!

Just like contouring, highlighting should be a very important step in your makeup routine, especially in the winter when your skin tends to look a little dull or even dry. I have been playing around with a few highlighters and some of them were too shimmery or had large chunks of sparkle and did not look flattering on the skin at all! I also noticed that because I have a darker skin tone it was difficult for me to find a highlighter that wouldn’t look “white” or “frosty”. Lucky for me, I was searching black Friday deals and came across this Urban Decay Naked Illuminated Powder! It looked gorgeous, so you know I had to do my research. I googled the product and saw a few reviews and it just made my decision even easier! It was a must have! Once I bought it I just could not put it down and I’ve been using it ever since!

20131216-164447.jpg

20131216-172816.jpg

It comes in a cute little rose gold-ish box, which I do think is a little bulky for absolutely no reason. (Boo to the bulky packaging UD!) There’s also a decent sized mirror for people who are using this on the go and it also has a small compartment underneath the powder that holds a cute brush. I’m not a huge fan of the brush for this specific product, but I may use it for something else in the future (I like the brush itself just not for this).

20131216-164457.jpg

Price: $29.00 USD

Promise: “Get Naked from head to toe. This smooth, silky powder contains a sophisticated, microfine shimmer and light-reflecting particles that give skin a luminous, radiant look. You really have to see it to appreciate how insanely beautiful it is! This lightweight, shimmering powder is baked on a terra cotta disc for 24 hours and then hand-finished, just like our popular Baked Bronzer. Baking the formula gives Naked Illuminated Shimmering Powder a high level of just-perfect shimmer (without the metallic look of cheaper formulas). It also provides the color payoff of a loose powder, with the convenience of a pressed powder.” – Urbandecay.com

Ingredients: Talc, Zea Mays (Corn/maïs) Starch, Hectorite, Ethylene/Acrylic Acid Copolymer, Silica, Octyldodecanol, Phenoxyethanol, Methylparaben, Propylparaben, Butylparaben, Tin Oxide.
May Contain: CI77019 (Mica), CI 77891 (Titanium Dioxide), CI 77491/77492/77499 (Iron Oxides)].

Where Can You Purchase? Urbandecay.com, Ulta.com

Overall Thoughts: Honestly, I’m completely obsessed with this highlighter. Not only can you use it for your face but you can also use it on your body to give it a nice natural glow! I would deff 100% recommend this to anyone. It is beautiful, you won’t even believe it until you see it in person!

A Few Of My Favorite Things Palette: Review ♥

Hey everyone!

Too Faced Cosmetics recently released a new palette called “A Few Of My Favorite Things”. I saw a few youtubers talking about the palette and once I saw the eyeshadows that came with it, I instantly decided that it had to be mine. Being that I love sparkly eyeshadow rather than matte, I felt that this palette was appropriate for me, especially for outings. The colors are beautiful and the pigmentation is incredible. The set comes with 20 eyeshadows, 2 blushes, 2 bronzers, 1 mascara, 1 lip product, and a cute cosmetic pouch that everything fits right in.

The Packaging!
Anyone who knows me, can tell you that I am a total sucker for packaging and this, my friends, is a prime example of how marketing wins again. First of all, I don’t know any girl who is not obsessed with Chevron anything. I mean, I’m a girl and I have a whole Chevron wall in my living room. Does that make me crazy? let’s hope not. Anyway, on top of the beautiful Chevron Print, they chose the perfect color packaging. The mixture between gold and pink is just so beautiful and girly. I truly love it. 

The Eyeshadows!

The eyeshadow colors are just incredible! Honestly, The pictures I show you do not do them justice what so ever. They are creamy and pigmented. I love that most of the shades have a shimmer to them because I find that shimmer looks great with my skin tone, so I tend to reach for those types of eyeshadows rather than matte ones. I do have to say that the matte colors were a bit chalky and a little difficulty to blend out but that isn’t a deal breaker for me due to the fact that there aren’t many matte colors. I deff. think my favorite colors are Tinsel, Bluff, and Party Time. They look like they’re one color but in the light it reflects into a different color. Tinsel turns greenish, Bluff turns purplish-blue, and Party Time has this blue silver reflection. SO beautiful. Coquet is also one of those types of shades but I found that when applied it just looked gold, there was no pink at all so it’s sort of misleading. Here is a closer look at the eyeshadows:

First Row
Second Row
Third Row
Fourth Row
This Palette not only comes with these gorgeous shades of eyeshadows, but it also comes with 2 blushes and 2 bronzers. I’ve tried the bronzers on their own before this palette and they were basically my skin color so unfortunately, it doesn’t really do anything for me. The blushes on the other hand are visible on my skin tone but I deff.  think they would look better on lighter skin tones just because they show up more vividly. Here are some swatches of both blushes and bronzers:
As I mentioned before, the palette also came with a mascara and a lip product. The mascara is so good! I have been eyeing this mascara for a while but hadn’t heard anyone really rave about it so decided to wait on it. I’m so glad that it came with this palette because I’ve honestly fallen in love with it. It makes my eyelashes look long and curled without me having to use an eyelash curler. Usually I apply two coats of three different mascara’s but lately I have only been using this one and that for me is a HUGE deal. so, yay! for less of an eyelash struggle in the morning!
The lip product on the other hand, I am not really a fan of. It is supposed to be a lip plumper type of product and I do think it works but, for one, the color is terrible for my skin tone, so I couldn’t pull it off even if I wanted to. And two, my lips tend to always get extremely chapped and dry during the fall and winter months, so I struggle with lipsticks because they tend to bring out the flakiness and dry skin, unfortunately, this lipstick is no different. You will see in the picture that my lips not only look pale, but they look so chapped and flakey. I tried using a lip scrub and moisturizing before application and that did not work either, I honestly think it made it worse. Gross! I deff. will not be using this product on my own lips at all. 
 Here is a close up picture of the mascara and the lip product: 

And last but not least, There is also this cute little makeup pouch that comes with the palette. The palette, mascara, and lip product all fit into this pouch perfectly so you can carry everything with you if you have to travel. How cute is it?

Price: $56.00 USD (Valued at $436.00 USD)
Where can you purchase? Sephora.com, Toofaced.com
Overall Thoughts: I am obsessed! I think it’s an awesome deal and totally worth it. I will be doing a few YouTube videos featuring this palette so you guys can see how the colors look on the eye! I would deff.  recommend this palette for any season because of the variety of shades!
hope you enjoyed!
xo
   Jess