Skin School: To All the Sun Worshipers

I started school at the start of the summer. The time where those who have pale skin have their chance to get a darker skin tone for a few months. Granted, you can tan in a tanning salon, but you know what I mean.

I learned really quick at school that it would not be a good idea to get a lot of sun exposure because of all the treatments I would be getting and practicing such as facials and waxing. If you have sunburn or even sun exposure at least 24 hours from that treatment, you cannot get certain treatments done. This puts all the students including myself at a disadvantage as far as opportunities for practicing go. So, I said to myself "Okay I will be good and wear SPF and make sure I do not get a sunburn." Of course, part of me was sad because I like how I look tan. This is the ONLY reason I am glad that it was such a hot summer and I did not really want to be outside. No outside, no sun exposure. Sounds depressing, but at least I was not tempted to tan.

Then the real education began. As time has gone on, I have learned how completely important SPF is, and how damaging the sun really is to your skin. I am not going to sit here and claim to know everything about all this. That is what research is for. 

My main reason for writing this post is so that I can share an important video with you. It is not new. Apparently, it is or was a very popular video. Anyways, it speaks for itself. I am not posting this to lecture, only to educate.

That is all I really got for today. You can go ahead and argue that anything or everything can cause cancer, so what is the big deal? This is a very easy cancer to get. and can be fatal.

Sorry about the lack luster post.  I am home sick today and do not have much energy. I just wanted to reach out to people about this.

Until next time. keep smiling because you are beautiful.

Ho Hum

I feel like a failure. Nice way to start out a post right? 

It is just that every time I want to post, it is at the most inopportune time. It is never when I am home or have access to a computer. By the time I have the chance to write, I lose the motivation. It is one of those things that sounds like a great thing in theory but you cannot make yourself to do it. Like working out. Sounds like a good thing to do, and yet it is actual work.

The things is, I feel like I have so many good ideas. In fact, I know I do. It is just the execution that I have a problem with. So, what do I do here? I do not want to delete this blog by any means. 

So we will see where it goes from here I guess.

Gearing Up To Work Out

So, it is no secret those who know me personally, but to those who do not know: I am a plus size woman. Why am I telling you this you may wonder? 

A few months ago, Rob(hubby) and I decided that it was time for a change. Now we had tried this whole healthy lifestyle change several times, but with the ambition and notion that this would be the last time. That this would be the time we stuck to it. Well...we fell off that wagon again. Not completely. Let's just imagine an actual wagon and we are holding on by only our finger tips with the rest of our heavy bodies dragging on the ground. The excuse? Oh you know the usual. Busy lives lead to eating fast food, no time to exercise, and just wanting to plop down on the couch and "relax".

I am disgusted with myself. Now that I am starting school to be an esthetician, I really feel it important to be healthy. How can I want to make myself and others want to look good on the outside, when I cannot even control what my insides look like? 

Now that I am back in the game, I would like to share some of the things I do to get ready for a workout. Yes, I have finally gotten to the beauty/fashion part of this blog. I apologize for babbling, but a little background story does not hurt anyone does it?

HAIR

These are the times that I am so glad I have hair long enough to be put up. I usually go for a bun or standard ponytail. Obviously, not everyone has long enough hair, so what do you do? I used to be in this predicament with the angled bob I was sporting, so I would at least wear a headband or at least pin the front parts of my hair with a clip or bobby pins. As far as bangs go, I think it is about personal preference. Some times I pin them or braid them back, other times I let em hang. Although, that can get annoying.

FACE

I would say my number one tip for prepping your face for working out would be this: WASH IT. You are about to sweat and if your face is already dirty, you can only imagine what you are doing to your pores. I always keep a pack of face wipes in my gym bag. My go to brand is from Target's Up and Up line. Any of them will do. I use them post and pre workout. I prefer they remove makeup as well, in case you are hitting the gym with make up on. That is another thing. I really do not like to work out with make up on. If you sweat and like to wipe your face while working out, you are just rubbing off your makeup off anyways, and mixing it with dirt. I do not want to give myself another reason to break out.

I do bring a light moisturizer with SPF in it with as well, being that I have super sensitive skin.  

I will not like though, I do wear a little bit of makeup when working out. I look weird without mascara, so I am always wearing it, workout or not. Try to go to a waterproof of course. If you do not have that, then just be careful not to rub it in your eyes.

As far as what I wear, really just the standard: a good sports bra, a baggy t-shirt and capri workout pants. 

Until next time. Keep smiling! 

Update and Reformatting

Hello loves! Just want to throw another update out there. I know that I said I would be back with so many ideas. Well, the truth is I am having a case of bloggers block. I think I have a solution to this problem. I have been over thinking my entries. I do not know why I insist on my entries being something big every time. They do not have to be really.

So, following in the footsteps of other bloggers out there, I will be writing on a more casual basis. What got me thinking I need to do it this way is I have had a hard time with topics that require me to do looks on myself. Well, with our recent move and renovations to our house, I have not really been wearing a lot of makeup. Or really doing much to my hair. It is a mess and really needs a cut actually.

The thing is, I do take pride in my passions and love talking about them. This is also something I realized last night when I applied to school. I am finally pursuing my dream of actually being a licensed esthetician. I am so very excited! I cannot wait to do something that I really love, and cannot wait to share my experience of school with you all.

So, to those of you actually reading this, thank you! I do appreciate all and any input from you. I know there are a lot of things on the page that I need to work on and I plan on getting to it right away following this post.

Keep smiling. You are beautiful!

UPDATE!!!

Hey to all my followers and readers! I wanted to throw a quick hello out there to let you know I have not disappeared. I think I have mentioned before that I was in the process of buying a home and it finally happened! Well, me and the husband were nomads for a while, so I have not been able to post until now. We just now got internet. 

So I will be back into posting. I wish I had had the opportunity to post that I would be on hiatus, but the move happened before I knew it.

Hope everyone is doing well and I look forward to making my comeback!!!!!

Keep smiling.

Valentine's Day Eyes Looks 1 & 2

I am back already, bringing a couple eye looks in the Valentine's Day spirit :) I have two looks here. One is bold and bright, the soft and shimmery. Hope you like!

BOLD AND BRIGHT

I loved this bright look that I did. On a normal basis, I would not wear this, because I usually stick to natural. I just thought this was so fun and I have had the bright pink/red color for so long I was so eager to use it.
 
Products used: 
Urban Decay Primer Potion
Lid and crease: a shimmer baby pink from an Ulta palette.
Crease,outer "v", and lower lash line: Medusa Makeup(bought from Torrid) in Electro Red. It is the reddest shadow I have and although the camera did not do a good job of picking it up, it has a lot of glitter in it. 
Above crease: mark. shadow in Fairy Dust(light shimmer pink)
Brow highlight: mark. shadow in Cushy(light shimmer cream)
Eyeliner: AVON Perfect Wear Eyewriter(liquid) in Evening Black
Tightline and waterline: AVON Ultra Luxury eye liner(pencil) in Black
Mascara: Rimmel London Glam'Eyes in Black
 

SOFT AND SHIMMERY

This look is definitely what I define as more "wearable". It is a much softer look that would look good on anyone.

Products used:
Urban Decay Primer Potion
All over from lid to brow bone: elf cream shadow in a 6 shadow palette(light pink)
Lid: Urban Decay Half Baked from Naked Palette. On top of that is a mark. shadow from the Pinks for Eyes palette(a cool mauve)
Inner corner: from mark. Pinks for Eyes palette(cool light pink) and Foxy from Naked 2 palette
Crease: Urban Decay Tease from Naked 2 palette
Brow highlight: Urban Decay Foxy from Naked 2 palette
Upper lash line: Urban Decay Creep from Naked palette
Lower lash line: Urban Decay Half Baked and Creep from Naked palette
Mascara: Benefit Bad gal Lash

 I had fun with these and there shall be more to come! Next up is my next nail look :)

Valentine's Day Nails: Hugs and Kisses

Hello there! Here is my second look for Valentine's Day nails. I did these on my dear friend Demi's nails. They would have been a nightmare to do on my own. Plus, I knew that she would love the look and I love doing her nails, so win win :) I saw a video of someone doing a similar look on her own nails...she must be ambidextrous. I see no other way!

This is a close up of one of the nails. As you can see, I wrote X's and O's, alternating with hearts and dots. Each nail on average took about 7-10 minutes. One nail, the thumb in particular, took me forever! Demi asked if I wanted to know the time, and I did not. It was very frustrating at that point. I drew each of the letter, hearts and dots with a toothpick and later with a dotting tool with a very small tip. The trick is to not overload with tip with polish, I did make this mistake several times with the O. That was the hardest part. When the O started to close in, I just let it dry and put a dot in the middle with the base color I used.

The colors I used..............OPI Base Coat(not pictured), OPI Ate Berries in the Canaries, Orly Lollipop for the hearts, a pink Ulta color for the dots, and Kiss Nail Art Paint for the X's and O's

FINAL PRODUCT!! Only took me two hours. OY! I am proud of this, considering I have never done anything so detailed. The more I practice the better I do :)

I want to thank Demi for letting me post this! And to thank her for her patience during this process. It was fun to do :)

I will have another look coming soon! 

Valentine's Day Nails: Simple Polkadots

Hey loves! Valentine's Day is approaching! I know not everyone is excited about this, but I do not think it needs to be about love with a significant other. It can be fun for other reasons and that is makeup and nails! 

So I decided I want to do two nail looks a week up until Valentine's Day. It is funny that about a year ago I did some V-Day nails as my first attempt at nail art, and simply fell in love. I also thought it would be to start showing the things I am capable of doing(I do not have many supplies, just a lot of polish). I keep it simple, but cute :) I hope you like what I have to show you.

I know this really is simple and maybe the only thing that says Valentine's Day is the colors. But I do enjoy doing polka dots and thought this was a cute look. To add the dots, I used a dotting tool. Sometimes when I do dots, I like them to be random sizes and placed randomly as well. In this case, I wanted it to look more uniform.

These are the polishes I used from start to finish. I used OPI Base Coat. Then on all my nails except for the ring and thumb, I used Orly's Pink Chocolate, which has a cream finish. On the ring and thumb I used Orly's Cotton Candy, also a cream finish. The dots were from Kiss Nail Art Paint in White, used with a dotting tool. I finished it off with OPI Top Coat.

 I hope you enjoy this design. I recommend it if you feel like you cannot do something too complicated. It really is so easy.

I cannot wait to show you my next look in just a few days!

XOXO

 

January Favorites

I must say this month feels like it has draggggggged. No kidding. My husband and I started the official house hunt on January 2, and we have seen so much and finally on our fourth offer on a home, we were accepted! 

Now because of the very stressful month it has been, I did not do much. I tried out a couple new things, but did not really have the time to enjoy makeup. I seriously hardly wore any, aside from mascara(which I cannot go without)

I love this mascara!!! I feel like I say that about every mascara...I do not. Anyways, at a recent trip to Sephora I decided to try this out. So I got the "a little bit" size, basically a deluxe sample size. It was $9, the regular size it $18 or 19...I do not remember really. I have NEVER spent that much on a mascara, let alone a sample size. Well I am glad I did because I love it! I love how big the applicator is and it separates well. I also like that it is easy to layer it without clumping like crazy.

I went to Bath and Body Works right after Christmas and oh em gee do they have great after holiday sales! I went two days in a row and went kind of crazy. But I could not believe the deals they had. I got the full 8oz Secret Wonderland Body Cream for only $3! And it smells sooooooooo good.

Again a Bath and Body Works product :) I love the scent of this and so cannot explain it. It is fresh and floral but not overwhelming. Now there is a bottle that is a yellowish color also called Country Chic, but they are not the same. I got the 3 oz bottle for $2.

Crown Brush's Concealer Palette. I love it really. I love having the wider range of colors all together. It has a great creamy formula. So glad I got in the Hautelook haul I did.

WOW. This show is great. Again...THANK YOU NETFLIX! I love the dialogue and it has a great story. I will be all caught up before I know it!

Crown Brush Haul from Hautelook

About a month ago, I saw a tweet from YouTube beauty guru xsparkage, that said Hautelook was having a HUGE sale of Crown Brush products. I was curious to see about this, especially since I get Hautelook emails every day, but must have just deleted it. Thank goodness for Twitter, because when I saw the prices there was no way I could pass this sale up! Crown Brush products are already at a great discount, but Hautelook really sweetened the deal with their sale.

Hautelook said I would not be getting this package until January 6. I was very impatient! hahaha.

So here are the goodies that I got!

Sorry about the focus on this. I just could not get it right :( anyways, this is the 5 piece perfectly pink brush set. This set is a Hautelook exclusive. Xsparkage actually recommended these, saying she uses these and loves them. So, not really knowing much about the quality brushes, took her word for it. Type from left to right: PP15-Oval Fluff, PP13-Blending Fluff, PP18-Deluxe Round Crease, PP11-Taklon Angled Liner, and PP20-Angled Brow. Hautelook Price: $8, normally $24.55

R105-Deluxe Retractable Lip Brush. Hautelook Price: $3.50, Crown Brush price: $4.10, Retail: $10.25

10 Color Concealer Palette. Hautelook price: $12, Crown Brush price: $16.95, Retail: $42.50

10 Color Blush Palette. Hautelook price: $12, Crown Brush price: $15.95, Retail: $39.88

32 Color Lip Palette. Hautelook price: $13, Crown Brush price: $18.95, Retail: $47.50

So in all I spent $48.50 and shipping was $4.95. I consider this a great deal.
I am so glad I made this purchase because I really needed a wider variety of colors, especially for when I am doing other people's makeup. I would recommend becoming a member of Hautelook just to get emails for these deals. From what I understand, they do Crown Brush sales a lot. Or you can just check out http://www.crownbrush.us/ and see what they have to offer. I wanted to do this post before using the makeup for picture purposes(sorry about the flash, it is a crappy camera), but I did use the Blending Fluff and Oval Fluff brush, and they are great quality, so I highly recommend them.

Any other questions about the products, just ask!

Favorites of 2011...FINALLY

Hi lovelies! Yeah I know that it is a week into the new year, but I am finally able to tell you about my favorites of 2011(it has been a long week!)

Maybelline One by One Mascara!!! This is the best mascara I have ever tried. I went through three tubes. That is a lot for me considering I hoard mascara and had some others to use up as well he he.

EOS Lip balm. I only own two(Summer Fruit and Strawberry Sorbet) They have lasted forever. And they are so cute. That is why I had to try one. And I love them!

Essence Lip glosses are such a great lip gloss at a great price. I discovered these at Ulta(what took me so long?!) this past year and they are only $2! I have 4, but the labels wear off so easy that I do not know the names of the shades anymore. I also love the nudes line that they have.

NAIL POLISH!!! I have always loved nail polish. but in 2011 is when I really started raving about it. I love trying nail art too. My collection used to be somewhat sad and has definitely improved. I will buy any brand too. I think though the best that I have tried as far as longevity is Orly.

These are gift boxes(except the bottom is for paper but I have a different use for it) from Target in their $1 Hot Spot. I absolutely love these and I actually thought I had more???  I use them for makeup obviously. They are too cute and too hard to pass up when they make such great storage.

ELF Bronzer and Blush Duo. I really this this for two reasons. One is the price. $3. Can't beat that. And Two is because I love the glow these two colors give me. I am on my second compact.

I got this for Christmas of 2010. I loved it so much I was done with it in 6 months. Sure that was only half the year, but I loved it so. I NEED MORE!

I will never understand how or why it took me long to see this show. At the start of 2011, it was already in the middle of Season 2. Shame on me! I love musicals and this is my fix!

This store is the most wonderful thing ever. It is accessory heaven. If you do not have one near you, I am so so sorry :-(

 Wow the year went by so fast. Did it feel that way for anyone else? 


In this year I plan to post more. I know I have said that a couple times already, but of course those plans were made during the busiest time of the year.


I hope for only good things to come for us all!