Boldly Bare

I love buying eyeshadow, swatching eyeshadow, and playing with eyeshadow, but I don't always love wearing it, especially when the weather is warmer and more humid. Sometimes when I wear eyeshadow, I don't get to wear my brighter blushes or lipsticks because I don't want to seem too done up.

That is why recently I have been loving the look of just mascara on my eyes. I used to be the girl who rarely walked out of the house without eyeliner on. Now that I have become completely obsessed with makeup and am experimenting a lot more, I am surprisingly a lot more comfortable with wearing less makeup. That might not make any sense, but it is just something I feel and cannot really explain. 

Wearing just mascara gives you a completely different look - a very young, fresh look that to me embodies springtime. It also gives me a lot more room to wear my fun colored makeup like the YSL Rouge Volupte in No 30., and simplifies my routine significantly. 

For the look I layered L'oreal Telescopic to lengthen and Voluminous to thicken and volumize. I contoured with Hoola bronzer, and used YSL No 30 on my lips. 

I also tried a sample of Channel Vitalumiere Aqua foundation today and I loved it. I can't wait to get the full size of it and perhaps do a review!

Thank you guys for reading, let me know what you think!

~Vida

The Perfect Pastel

Last night I went to sleep earlier than I normally would, and I got a good, much needed night's rest.

I woke up this morning feeling like p-diddy so refreshed and energized.
To match my mood, I donned my girliest of tops and reached for some more adventurous shades while doing my eye makeup. The top I am talking about is a dusky pink cropped top with blue and rose colored flower patterns all over. For some reason, when I imagine myself in this shirt, I imagine myself with some sort of pastel blue makeup on. Seeing that I did not own the pastel color I envisioned, I mixed two blues that I already had in my collection - the pale, almost white, blue from my Soften the Mood trio, and the bright turquoise blue from the Original Sleek palette.

I very lightly dabbed the turquoise blue over my lid on top of MAC's painterly paint pot, and spread it out with the clean side of my brush. Then using the lighter blue on a blending brush, I blended over the first color until I lightened it to the color I wanted. Then I took some Naked eyeshadow by Urban Decay and blended the edges into my crease. On their own, these shadows would not have given me the effect I was looking for, but together they mixed into a beautiful pastel blue.

I'm surprised at how much I liked it, considering I (and many other people) do not usually wear pastel blue eyeshadow. I'm glad I was brave enough to wear this out all day, as it really did have a mood elevating effect.

Hope you're all having a great day!

~Vida

A jeweled inspiration

Hi guys, I'm back and hopefully I can blog more frequently now =)
A few days ago I went into Aldo and fell in love with these earrings:

I love gold and turquoise color combinations, especially in jewelry and I love how these are simple, yet gorgeous and they can be dressed up and down. So good for spring/summer and they were relatively inexpensive too. 

So I have been loving these beautiful new additions to my jewelry collection and wearing them has inspired my makeup as well. I have just recently gotten my hands on the Naked Palette (finally!) and one of my favorite eyeshadows from the palette is half baked, a beautiful warm gold color that I thought would look amazing with these earrings. And because I am obsessed with the blue and gold combo, I paired it with a sky blue shadow from the soften the mood trio by MAC.

I used Half Baked all over the lid and blended out the edges with Naked, which is nice if you want to give a very subtle definition to the crease. Then I ran the light blue shade underneath on my lower lash line.
Then I topped it off with a thin line of the Clinique gel liner and some L'oreal Voluminous mascara. Nothing major here. 

The rest of my makeup:
L'oreal Studio Secrets magic perfecting base
NARS Sheer Glow Foundation
MAC Well Dressed blush
MAC Hush CCB
NYX Circe lipstick
Michael Todd Natural Creme Glace

I really love this makeup. It is so fresh and light and totally puts me in the spring mood. The gold eyeshadow in person is really stunning, and makes your eyes pop.
Also, I would like to say that I am completely obsessed with the Naked Palette. The eyeshadows are so buttery smooth and you can get so many different looks from the array of very wearable colors.

I hope you have all been getting some nice weather. I am so glad to have these sunny days =)
Have a great day!

Made up, Snowed in

Today after I got up, got dressed, and put on my makeup, I found out that all the obligations I had ahead of me in the day had been cancelled due to the absolute crap weather. 

I took advantage of the free day to blog and so here is the makeup I was wearing today. I kind of just threw things on as I went, but I'm pretty pleased with the way it turned out. 

1. NARS Sheer Glow - Punjab 

2. Benefit Hoola Bronzer

3. MAC Cream Colour Base - Tickle me Pink 

4. MAC Mythology - lid

5. MAC Patina - crease

6. Wet N' Wild Brulee - inner corner 

7. MAC Black Swan eyeliner

8. Maybelline the Falsies mascara

9. NYX round lipstick - Circe

I really love mythology eyeshadow. It was one of the first MAC eyeshadows that I bought and I love coming back to it now and again. It's a pretty burnished pink copper color that looks so good mixed with browns and taupes. I've also tried some in my crease with a very neutral lid color, which I think gives a quite interesting, fresh look.

I have always worn patina all over the lid, and it wasn't until today that I found it also works beautifully in the crease. Just another reason to love patina =) 

Even though I can't stand the abominable weather we've been having, I do love a good snow day =) 

Hope you are all enjoying your day! 

"10 minutes till midnight"

Happy new year everyone! 

Here's the look I am going to wear tonight

I used two eyeshadows from the NARS essential eye palette, Night Star (a pale pink nude with glitter) all over the lid and Thunderball (a matte navy) in the crease and outer corner. 

Night star (top middle); Thunderball (lower right)

Then I patted this Milani shadow all over the top of the eyeshadows to add some more sparkle. I also wet my brush with some fix+ and used the same shadow as a liner underneath my eyes. I have to say this shadow works amazing wet!

I used my clinique gel liner to draw a thin line on my upper lashes and then added some individual false lashes to the outer corner of my eyes. To finish it all off I used MAC zoom fast black lash, some Hoola bronzer, and Revlon soft nude lipstick. 

And now I'm off to celebrate =) I hope you all have a wonderful new years eve!

MAC Tilt and Star Violet

So the other day I decided to experiment with some color and I ended up using two eyeshadows from MAC - tilt and star violet. Both of these I received as a Christmas present last year from a friend, and I love them both, but as I am a neutral lover I didn't reach for them as often as I would have liked. Tilt is a shimmery bright blue-green color with a tinge of violet running through and star violet is a shimmery brown violet color. Tilt is also a duochrome eyeshadow so when paired with a black base it shows up as a beautiful turquoise color. 

For the look, I used tilt all over my lid and with the tip of a MAC 239 brush, I ran star violet on the outer corner of my lower lash line. I also tried out a freebie eyeshadow that I got in a birthday gift set from sephora called aspen summit, a frosty white, on the inner corners of my eyes. 

Yes that is patrick star in the background. 

Products Used

Clinique Superbalanced Makeup

MUFE HD powder 

MAC Painterly paintpot 

MAC Tilt eyeshadow

MAC Star Violet eyeshadow

MAC black swan pearlglide eyeliner  

Maybelline 

Well Dressed blush 

Maybelline The Falsies mascara

NYX Orange Soda lipstick 

I think that when blended out on the lid, tilt is actually very wearable blue and I love how it looks paired with the black swan eyeliner. Star violet is such a beautiful eyeshadow and I really love using it on the lower lashline - it brightens and defines and is a subtle way to wear color. I love the combo of these two eyeshadows and will be rocking this look more often!

Have any good colorful eyeshadow combinations?

Hopping on the NARS train

As I previously mentioned, I recently got the NARS essential eye palette - which I found, after doing a little research, retails for around $50-60 at some places, so getting it in the sephora exclusive set is an amazing deal! 

Anyways, I was super excited to try out the eyeshadows so today I experimented with this little beauty here:

GALAPAGOS

It's a deep chocolate brown with specks of chunky gold glitter, which is not as noticeable once it is blended out on your eye but does tend to get all over your eye area. 

For me, it's no consequence as the eyeshadow delivers jaw-dropping pigmentation and is a beautiful color for warming up the eyes. I used it in the crease, with naked lunch all over the lid. I opted for a more toned down, neutral look so I blended it out quite a bit, but with just a couple of taps on your brush you can get the same intense color that you see in the pan, on your eyes. 

Some of the other eyeshadows in the palette are a bit chalky, but after using galapagos and a few others, I can understand why NARS is charging $23 for a single eyeshadow. I'm really excited to try out the rest of the eyeshadows in other looks so I can show you how those fare.

I really want to pick up some other NARS palettes as I think they are the best way to try out a bunch of different eyeshadows for a reasonable price. 

What do you guys think - are NARS products worth the money?

Soften the Mood

For the past 2 months, I have found myself constantly reaching for this eyeshadow combo. It is MAC's soften the mood, one of the mineralize eyeshadow trios that came out in the "In the Groove" collection.

I love the color combination of this trio - neutral and wearable, fun, and oh-so-easy. I like to wear the middle shimmery rose color all over my lid, the soft matte brown color in my crease, and the light blue on my lower lash line. The rose color in the middle has silver and gold shimmer running through it and is my absolute favorite out of the three. I've already made a noticeable dent in it and am desperately on the lookout for a color similar to it (any suggestions?) The blue is light and wearable and it works surprisingly well with the neutral colors.

Here's what it looks like on:

       On the rest of my face: 

- Clinique superbalanced makeup

- MAC Margin blush 

- Revlon 3D extreme mascara

- Clinique gel liner 

- NYX orange soda lipstick

Crappy pictures I know, but I'm getting better... :)

If you can still find this trio at your MAC counter/store or if you can someday find it at a CCO, I definitely recommend you get it!