Product Review: Makeup Forever Moulin Rouge Collection Rouge Lipstick.

First off let me say these two things:  1. I hope you all had a wonderful holiday season and 2. I am SO SORRY for my lapse in posting!  I know I just started this thing but the holidays zapped any free time I had!  It (hopefully) won't happen again, lovelies!

Now, on to the task at hand.  The first time I heard about the brand Makeup Forever was when the lovely (no pun intended) Miss Courtney Love was talking about it on Twitter.  She used the makeup and the company's artists exclusively in the early stages of promotion for Hole's AMAZING 2010 album Nobody's Daughter.

The two videos above demonstrate both the makeup artist and Courtney creating absorbingly fantastical looks with this stuff.  I HAD to try it! Unfortunately for me, money and time were tight and so I had to rest my laurels until one sweet day the opportunity would arise where I could get my greedy little mitts on it.  That time was yesterday afternoon.

My mom told me she wanted to take me shopping and asked me where did I want to go.  The obvious choice was Sephora (and the MAC store but that is another post for another day, my dears).  My usual points of interest in that store are the good old stand-bys: Urban Decay, Buxom, Harajuku Lover - you know the gamut.  But when I walked in that store the first thing I saw was Makeup Forever and I got excited.  VERY excited.

One thing that you will come to learn about this blogger is this: I love red lipstick.  To me, it is the ultimate in makeup.  If you take the time everyone can find a shade of red that is complementarity to their colour and personal style.  I happen to be very pale (my Irish blood will never deceive me) and I have light hair and light blue eyes.  I love for it to pop on my skin and bright reds do that for me.  When I went over to the display the first thing I saw was the wonderful and luscious Moulin Rouge collection.  Not only did I love it right off the bat because of the wonderful images it stirred in my head (luscious France, Burlesque, the AMAZING movie) but everything was red.  Not only is red my favorite lipstick colour, it's one of my favorite colours period.  Red lipsticks and glosses and red gemstones and sparkling eye lashes - it was rich and lovely and luxurious.  The only thing I ended up buying was the lipstick from that collection (I bought more products from the complete line itself - but again - another post for another day) and based on it's performance it is worth it's $19 price tag.  The reason why?  It never faded.  

You're probably thinking I'm exaggerating but truly I'm not.  I put it to the test when mom and I were eating dinner.  Up until then it had stayed perfectly put.  No traveling (even without a lip liner!), no feathering, no flaking.  It stayed perfectly creamy and rich on my lips.  The real test was when we ate dinner.  When I checked my mouth after dinner I was shocked.  Sure the some of the lipstick itself wore off like any would when you're doing these activities but it had stained my lips so well and clung to them that, unless you looked really close, you couldn't tell.  And if you have any worries about getting this lipstick off at the end of the day don't.  It comes off easily with any good quality makeup remover. 

All in short: I think I'm in love.

On trend: Hot pink lips.

For one hot minute last year super pink lips were really in.  You saw tons of celebs sporting them and you saw them a lot in print adds and fashion spreads.  I have to say that this is one of my favorite looks on any girl.  Pink is a universally flattering color if you take the time to find the right shade for you!  Some pinks are red based, some are orange based, some are blue - you just need to search our your options.  You don't want to spend a lot of money to do this so you could go to any drug store like CVS or Walgreens are check out brands like Wet and Wild or NYC.  All brands are insanely cheap and you will be able to explore your options without breaking the bank.  Plus, you might find a lipstick or lip gloss you really love within those brands and then you're set!

My favorite way to achieve this look is with Lime Crime's Centrifuchsia opaque lipstick.  It is a super duper hot pink that will bring your mouth tons of attention.  I ADORE Lime Crime and it's one of my favorite brands of makeup.  There lipsticks are super creamy, they don't dry your lips and they LAST with very little to no fading or flaking.  The pigment is amazing and very saturated and in this case, I would highly recommend a lip liner.  Now, I've found using lip liner is kind of a touchy subject.  I've seen a lot of makeup artists say that you don't need to use one, I personally think it gives your mouth a lot of definition and keeps your lipsticks and lip glosses from traveling.  A great thing to have in your makeup bag is a clear lip liner like Maybelline's Color Sensational lip liner which runs about five to eight dollars at drug stores.  You can use it with any color of lipstick or lip gloss and you obviously get a product with a lot of use for what you pay for.

If you don't want to use a lip liner, another great way to keep your bright pink lips in check is by applying your lipstick with a lipstick brush.  If you want to go to Sephora or Macy's and splurge on one by a top brand like ULTA or M.A.C. then knock yourself out.  But if you're tight on cash you can head into any drug store and find one for under ten bucks then will do the trick just fine.  The main advantage of using a lip brush to put on your lipstick the the control you have.  You can make the color as dark as you want, you paint the outline of your lips, things like that.  Overall it's a great tool to have in your bag of tricks!

Of course, if you want to do this trend but don't quite want the attention do yourself a huge favor and try Cover Girl's Outlast Lipstain in a shade like Everbloom Kiss or Scarlet Pucker.  These stains are amazing and give your lips a wonderful flush of bright color.  However I've found that they can be a bit drying on your lips so you can layer a clear lip gloss over it or even another shade of pink!  Experiment and see what works best for you!  Overall this is a terrific, fun look that will wow them at all your holiday parties this season!

Product Review: Hard Candy Eye Def shadows.

The inaugural post!  Well, not really..but the first make up post!  How exciting! 

One thing I really want to do with this blog is talk about make up that I love that anyone could afford.  Sure I love M.A.C. and all the fancy brands found at Macy's counters and at Sephora, but I also know the importance of price point and getting a lot of bang for your buck.  Sometimes when I would read makeup blogs I would get really excited about something but I couldn't afford it or I couldn't get to it.  I live in a relatively small town in New York and these things are not readily available to me.  However, I can jump in my car and I'm three minuets from CVS and about fifteen from Walmart.  On the same note, I don't always have twenty plus dollars to spend on makeup, I can wing six bucks.

Ok, on to the task at hand: Hard Candy's Eye Def eye colours.  They are AMAZING.  I remember way back in my high school days in the late 90's/early 00's when Hard Candy was only available at stores like Sephora and I heard about them because people like Gwen Stefani and Courtney Love liked them.  They had great products with delicious packaging (always a plus).  Then one day, out of nowhere, they disappeared from shelves.  Total bummer.  I loved their products and it's always sad to see a company with such great stuff go under! 

About a year and a half ago my mom came home to say that she saw a Hard Candy display in Walmart.  What!?  WALMART!?  I didn't believe it!  But low and behold, the next time I was there, there it was.  How killer was that?!  It just made me love Hard Candy even more - fun, high quality cosmetics at a "drug store" price point?!  Amazing.

Hard Candy's Eye Def colours are AMAZING.  When I first came across them I was a bit concerned.  I could tell that they were a cream base and that doesn't always fly with me.  Even with primer, cream or gel based eye colours can settle into my creases and it's never a good look.  But I could tell that they were super high pigmented and very sparkly and at six bucks a pop I figured "Why not?" and can I tell you how happy I am that I did?  My first run with them was my cousin Anna's Christmas party where I wore "Robot", a straight up silver.  The application is made very easy with a long, "doe foot" makeup wand.  It makes it really easy to spread and get the amount and consistency you want.  As I mentioned before I sometimes have trouble with cream based eye shadows, so I let it set for a few seconds before I opened my eyes and continued doing my makeup.  When I was done with everything else - the rest of my makeup, getting dressed - I did a quick check in the mirror before leaving my house.  Yup, still perfect!  No creases!  No smudging!

The night went on and I had a lovely time with my family and some friends at the party and I almost forgot I was wearing a cream shadow.  The formula is light enough to feel like a powder shadow, none of that creamy or greasy feeling you sometimes get with other wet shadows.  When I got home five hours later I checked my shadow in the mirror just to see how it held up through the night.  How pleased was I to see that it had not moved a bit.  No creasing, no traveling, NO FADING!  Needless to say the next day I went out and picked up a few more of these beauties!

As I said before this stuff is super high pigmented and glittery so I have been saving mine for the nighttime.  BUT if you're the kind of girl who wants to be bold during the day (like I do sometimes!) go for it!  At the price point and what you get from it you really can't go wrong!



Welcome!

If you're reading this you have stumbled across the VERY FIRST entry on what I hope will be a killer blog.  Above is an awesome picture of your lovely captain, Maribeth.  It's obviously not a current one but it does show my love of makeup.  "Really?  It does?" you may be asking yourself.  Yes.  I can assure you of this because that picture was not taken on Halloween and, when you're eight-years-old, you have to get creative.

In all seriousness, I really DO love makeup and I hope I can convey this point in this blog.  I'll be talking about favorite products, reviewing new products that I try, talk about people who inspire me and looks that I love.  I hope that this will be different than other blogs by providing a more visual, personal and textile experience.

I've ALWAYS loved makeup.  Ever since I was a little girl.  My sister Nella is eleven years older than me and when I was five-years-old she was sixteen and taking a cosmetology course in our local Boces program.  I remember my mother bringing me over to pick her up and when we got there her and her friends pretty much used me as a little doll.  Doing my hair, my nails and my makeup.  I guess that was the seed because I remember loving how it felt and looked on my face.  I'll save more of my life long love of makeup and the story of it for up coming posts.  Every post on here will be something or someone I really love and have inspired me in one way or another.

I REALLY hope this blog takes off and I make connections with other lovely people who adore makeup like I do!