Skin update & small MAC haul

ver since I got my Cover Girl Lip Perfection Lipsticks I've been wearing bright lipsticks almost every day. Now I'm back to my beloved nudes. Plus, red lips only look good when you have good skin. I'm kind of going through a rough skin stage. I'm trying out Proactiv because my Bioré cleanser and toner did nothing to cure my acne. However, I'm in the break-out stage right now. I heard that it is completely normal to be breaking out when you're first trying out an acne system, but I'm totally self-conscious and feeling ugly. I pray that Proactiv works. If not, I'm not sure what to do... I've never had this much acne before... Sorry to be grossing you out...

This weekend, while I was at the mall, I was wearing bright red lips and when I saw myself in the mirror I was totally horrified how gross I looked. My lips were bringing too much attention to my face when I had bad skin. Ugh. I immediately wiped off the colour, but because the Cover Girl Lip Perfection Lipsticks leave a stain I decided to buy a lipstick. I wanted to check out Viva Glam Gaga 2 when it came out, but I never got a chance to see it in person. I knew that the colour would be intense because it was an amplified and I was right. It totally neutralized my lips. I also tried on the lip gloss, but I didn't get it. I also tried on MAC's Blankety lipstick and I kind of regret not getting that too. It's a beautiful nude. I think Blankety is a little more pink than Gaga 2. Oh well.

I picked up 2 things at MAC this weekend- Soft Ochre Paint Pot and Viva Glam Gaga 2 lipstick.

Here's the paint point. I've been wanting this for a long time. I have Rubenesque, but I find it too shimmery and pink for my liking. I like matte primers.

Viva Glam Gaga 2. It's a great nude colour.

The colour is not too yellow and doesn't make me look dead. When topped with a pinky, nude gloss it looks really lovely.

Laced up

hile I was at Walmart a few days ago, I spotted the new Sally Hansen Salon Effects Nail Polish Strips. They were kind of hidden, but I had read a bit about them in beauty blogs so I immediately went through their stock and found the one that I had been interested in- Laced Up. It basically looks like there is lace overlay on your nails.

Basically these are like nail polish stickers that you stick onto your nails. It comes in a pack of 16 that comes in different shapes and sizes to fit your nails perfectly. I have short nails so I was able to cut some of them in half to not waste product. It took a while to do all my nails because I wanted to do them perfectly, but it was not hard at all. Just a little time consuming. If you're still a little hesitant on how to put these on there are YouTube videos out there that show you how. I suggest you watch those. Here's one that I happened to watch:

So what do I think of these? I LOVE IT! I'm thinking of picking up their other styles- Skinny Jeans (denim print), Check It Out (houndstooth pattern), Misbehaved (fishnet pattern), Wild Child (zebra print), and Kitty Kitty (leopard print). I think it comes in a total of 25 colours/prints. That's a pretty good range. Where I got it it was just under $9. It looks really professional and amazing on. So save your money next time you think of going to the nail salon and try these!

They claim to last up to 10 days. I'm on my 2nd day and so far so good. I was really hesitant to believe that these would hold up well, but I'm really impressed with it. Yesterday I was cleaning my house- scrubbing the sinks and all sorts of heavy work and not a dent. Today I was assembling my son's gourmet kitchen set and still no signs of any damage. Plus, my friends commented today how my nails were so neat. They couldn't even tell they were stickered on. My co-worker has the Skinny Jeans (denim) one and she said she would try it this weekend so I'm going to see how that looks on her tomorrow.

Organization Queen

y husband is an organization king. I guess being with him for so long has made me somewhat of an organization queen.

I have my own personal office in my house because I do some freelance work on the side, but my husband always comments how I should organize my space better. I have piles of paper on the side of my desk with some receipts (that I need to file) and other little things that I'm currently working on. I guess with the tax season looming I decided to start a better filing system for my receipts. Previously I was storing them in an accordion-style folder, but it was starting to bulge on the sides. Plus, I didn't really organize it well so some of the receipts were mixed up with others. I decided to check out Solutions today. Did I tell you that that's my husbands favourite store? Actually I'm starting to really enjoy going there because I always get great ideas on how to store things better.

Originally I was planning on buying a similar accordion-style folder that was prettier than what I had and I was going to buy more than one to solve the problem of the over-bulging. However, the only accordion folder that they had didn't have enough compartments and I didn't think it made sense to buy 5+ just to get the amount of compartments that I needed. I think each one had about 4 compartments? Then I saw these plastic file folder containers. It had built-in ridges on the inside where it held hanging folders. I thought this was an even better idea. They had one with a handle at the top, but I didn't like the colours- it was a dark opaque colour with a clear top. The one I bought (see below for photos) was a steal at $8-9? Plus, they are stackable.

I know it doesn't look like much, but I really love it.

The lid partially opens if you only want to get something from the front, but it also opens all the way. I think that's a really neat idea.

I bought these light gray hanging folders at Staples for $15? The one I bought was letter size and it came in a set of 25. They also had different colours, but you know how much I love gray...

I had a whole bunch of pretty file folders from before that I never used so I decided to use them for this filing system. This one is from Boon. I also have ones by M.O.

Look at how organized everything is now. Now I won't dread tax season. I'll be looking forward to it!

Here's a category, for example, pulled out. It's labelled Electricity. I keep all my electricity bills in there.

I showed my husband after I finished doing this and he was pretty impressed.

I also bought a little something for my beauty storage area. It's also from Solutions. They had a whole section on beauty storage solutions and my eye went directly to the plastic lipstick containers. Currently, my lipsticks were all in a drawer and it was a pain to look for a certain colour from a certain brand because sometimes they were hiding under another lipstick tube. I loved how this container kept each lipstick separately. They had an 8-slot one, a 12-slot one, and other configurations, but I chose the 24-slot one that was stackable with another 3-slot compartment underneath. I thought that would give me enough room to put all my lipsticks in there. There was no way I had more than 24 lipsticks...

Instead of stacking the 3-slot compartment with the lipstick compartment on top, I decided to keep it side-by-side and put it in my drawer. Unfortunately I realized that I had more than 24 lipsticks in my collection so I have a few stragglers that are still in my previous lipstick storage container. That's ok. I'll just keep my most-used ones in this compartment.

The 3-slot compartment has some makeup tools- sponges, spoolies (for my home-made lip scrubs), brush guards; paint pots and lip balms, and some blushes that I'm trying out at the moment. The rest of my other face products are in my previous makeup storage. Basically I'll put whatever I use daily in these compartments.

So here is the lipstick storage container stacked. It becomes too high to put in my drawer. I think if I were to do it this way then I would have to put it on my vanity table.

This is when it is unstacked.

I would love to do something similar to what Richie Nickel has as his makeup storage (with the same Ikea vanity), but I don't think that will happen for a loooooong while.

Inspiration

orking in the creative industry can be challenging. The reason being is that you constantly have to come up with ideas. And no matter how creative you are sometimes, you get stuck.

That's why I believe that everyone (not even creative individuals) should have an inspiration binder. Actually it doesn't have to be in the form of a binder. It could be an inspiration board/folder/etc. I have a binder at work where I keep hard copies of tears that I find in magazines, books, prints. Then at home I have an inspiration bulletin board and I even have a folder in my computer where I keep inspiration shots of food, photography, décor, packaging, fashion, props, covers from magazines, typography, beauty, and anything that comes to mind that could be in a category. Every time I'm in a creative rut I go through these inspiration folders/binders and then I immediately come up with an idea. Sometimes it doesn't come right away, but when I'm lying in bed. So I challenge all of you to do the same and start an inspiration folder/book/board/binder!

I thought I would share a snippet of an example of this for something I did at work. The story was a story on spring jackets. We had just finished our winter issue where we covered a story on winter coats. I didn't want it to look like the same as the winter coats feature, but I also didn't want to shoot the spring jackets on white with copy explaining where the jacket was from below. I wanted it to look pretty and feel spring-like. So I went searching in my inspiration binder...

I had a shot of men's coats hanging on a clothing rack in my inspiration binder. I thought that I could use the same idea to execute the spring jackets story for my magazine. The spring jackets story was a 2-page story so I thought we could shoot the jackets as a DPS (double page spread) and put the copy directly on the image below the jackets. Once I decided to go this route I immediately thought of wallpapers and props that we could use in the shot to evoke the feeling of springtime.

I contacted Farrow & Ball, which is a high-end wallpaper company based in the UK, and they sent me 5 rolls to use in our shot. We chose this squiggly pattern because it looked really bright and cheery. Can you believe the patterns are hand painted???

And this is our final shot with the real copy. I also called in the baseboards and rod from Home Depot to create this shot and the prop stylist sourced the umbrella, the umbrella stand, and Hunter boots. Of course, I gave him direction on what to source. My colleague sourced all the jackets. Because my colleague knew what my idea was it was really easy for her to find colours of jackets that would go well together. We all worked together to make my vision become a reality.

And to think it all started with the inspiration binder...

I got 3 more...

over Girl's Lip Perfection lipsticks have been on my mind ever since I picked up 2 colours a few days ago. Although I liked the colours that I got I wanted to check out their matte colours. I happened to be by a Walmart today so I grabbed 3 more colours. I got 405 Fairytale (a reddish hot pink), 395 Darling (a nude pink), and 300 Flame (a bright red with some hot pink. This is a tad redder than Fairytale which leans more on the hot pink side). I mentioned before that I wanted the colour Flame so I was pretty excited that the Walmart I went to had it. All 3 colours this time were matte. Even though I mention that they are matte colours the texture of these lipsticks are more like MAC's Cremesheens. Maybe even creamier?

Here are my 5 Cover Girl Lip Perfection lipsticks lined up.

From left to right: Sweetheart (frost), Verve (frost), Darling, Fairytale, Flame.

My lighting isn't that great right now because it's dark, but I'm liking these lipsticks. The colours Fairytale and Flame are colours I'm not used to wearing so I'll have to get used to it. All these colours go on less opaque than what is in the tube, but all the colours are buildable so I like that. For a person like me that isn't used to wearing bright reds this is perfect. I can wear it a bit more sheer until I'm more comfortable going all out.

My favourite thing about these lipsticks are that I really like the texture. My lips lean toward the dry side and these lipsticks don't highlight that. I find that they would look good even without lip glosses. And I never wear lipsticks without lip gloss on top...

If you guys haven't checked these lipsticks out you should. They come in 44 shades so there will surely be a shade that you will like. Cheers!

Cover Girl Lip Perfection Lipstick haul

'm not a snob when it comes to makeup. I love drugstore makeup. Actually, I find that as I get older I tend to buy more cheap-y makeup. I'm not sure why that is... When I was in my early 20s I used to splurge on Chanel cosmetics and Dior. I guess back then I thought that by buying high end makeup I was becoming more of a woman. However, now I just buy what draws me in.

I was at Walmart today doing some grocery shopping and I passed by these new lipsticks from Cover Girl- the Lip Perfection Lipstick. I saw a few reviews on them and I decided to check it out. I purchased 2 lipsticks. I really wanted this fuscia, red colour called Flame, but they didn't have any in stock. I don't normally wear bright red lipsticks (actually I never do), but I have so many nudes and pinks that I wanted to try something different. I ended up getting 390 Sweetheart and 370 Verve.

What drew me in was the awesome packaging. Cover Girl cosmetics normally look like it's targeting a really young market, but these lipsticks are so high-end looking.

The colour of the lipticks are at the bottom of the tube .

I was a little worried about this colour (Sweetheart) because I didn't see a tester for it. However, I decided to get it anyway.

I was more excited about this colour (Verve) because it had a bit of purple in the pink. I don't think I have anything like it in my collection.

The inside of the tube is really cool because it has this hot pink, shiny reflector on the inside.

The colour from this shot is not showing the true colour of the lipstick shade, but I wanted to show it to you with the lipstick open. This one is Sweetheart.

This one is Verve.

Here are the 2 shades side-by-side. The left one is Sweetheart and the right one is Verve.

The formulation is super creamy and the smell of it is really nice. I have a horrible sense of smell so I can't tell you what it smells like, but I really like the scent. As for the 2 shades that I got I was a little disappointed. The reason being that it has a slight frost finish. I know when I swatched Flame in the store that one was more of a satin finish. However, when I put these 2 on it wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be. When I topped it with a gloss it really toned down the frost. Plus, you should note that these lipsticks (or at least the ones I swatched) left a slight stain on my hands. I'm assuming they will do the same for your lips. I still think these lipsticks are worth checking out. I got mine for just under $9 at Walmart. I would love to check out other colours- especially the darker shades.

Anna Sui lip glosses

orry to keep blogging about beauty products, but I think I'm OBSESSED. Well, it's actually not really a post about things I bought, but things I received so I think that's ok.

A few days ago I was previewing some beauty products at work and I was being shown these really cute lip glosses by Anna Sui. However, we ended up selecting a lipstick for the magazine that looks like Matryoska dolls. I don't think it's out yet, but the lipstick is soooooo cute. I would love to get my hands on that in the near future.

My co-worker decided to give the lip glosses to me since we aren't going to be using it. Now, I love Anna Sui's cosmetic packaging, but I have never tried any of her products. I love the Art Nouveau/William Morris-style of her packaging with a touch of goth.

Here are the 2 that I got. Look how pretty the box is.

I got 001, which is a clear gloss with sparkle glitter in different sizes and shapes (there were some glitter in the shape of stars), and 600, which is an orange gloss with some shimmer.

Here are the 2 glosses side by side.

It's hard to capture this, but see the different-sized glitter?

The top of the gloss is in the shape of a heart with the 'Anna Sui' logo on it.

As you can see the glosses are quite sheer.

Here's another angle.

Final thoughts? I thought the packaging was great, but as for the glosses I'm not a huge fan. I don't like sheer glosses and for what you are paying I don't think it's worth it since you don't get the colour pay-off.

On a side note, I just changed my nail polish and tried something different. I used my Lancome Metropolitan Beige nail polish all over my nails and painted just the tips with Lancome's BB Sand nail polish from the Spring 2010 Collection. I love it! I can't stop looking at my nails. It's subtle, but sooooo pretty.

I'm sorry I wasn't able to take better photos of how pretty these 2 polishes look together.

Sorry about the burn mark on my ring finger. I burned my finger while I was straightening my hair. DOH!

Rock & Republic makeup haul + some other things...

mentioned a few weeks ago that I ordered Rock & Republic makeup from Hautelook. I had it shipped to my work address because I'm never home when packages get delivered to me. It's such a drag going to the post office to pick up the package especially since I usually come home so late. However, the one day that I worked from home (yesterday) the package came to my work! Ugh.

I know I could have waited until Monday to get my package, but I couldn't wait so I decided to pick it up today. I was already heading downtown to meet my sisters for a "sisters day out" so I thought, what the heck!

I wasn't impressed with the wrapping. It was sloppily packaged. However, I was more excited to see the makeup than how it was packaged.

Here are all the eyeshadow boxes. Sorry about the horrible lighting. My work had all the lights off except for the emergency lights so it was kind of scary to go in there.

Just to see the eyeshadow boxes in relation to my hands. It's huge!

The name of the colour of the eyeshadow was on the sticker that was holding the lid in place to the bottom half.

Here is the back side of the eyeshadow box.

I got one pressed powder. This box was even larger!

I got the colour Chiffon. I'm glad I did because it was a perfect match.

Here's the back side of the pressed powder box.

I decided to take these home to take better photos.

Here is everything that I ordered- 6 eyeshadows and 1 pressed powder.

For those of you in Canada I ordered these on January 26 and it arrived on February 11. So it took about 2 weeks.

When you open the box the eyeshadow is sitting in the middle. It totally reminds me of a jewelry box.

The box is printed with Rock and Republic logos and a diamond pattern.

Here is the single eyeshadow palette in relation to my hand.

This one is called Snakeskin. It's a yellow-y brown with gold shimmer.

This one is called Lawsuit. I think this is my favourite one out of the bunch. It's such a complex colour that I can't even describe it. It's a green-ish, brown-ish, purple-ish colour with shimmer. It changes colour in different angles and the colour changes depending on how much product you put on your skin. Wow is all I can say about this.

This one is called Jaded. This one is a shimmery yellow-green colour. It's the exact colour of jade. I tried purchasing colours that I didn't already have and I don't have anything like this colour in my collection. It's not an every-day colour, but this colour is gorgeous!

This one is called Twisted. I also tried to buy colours that would go well together. I think Twisted and Tempting (the next colour) will be a great colour combination. Same with Jaded and Lawsuit.

This one is called Tempting. It's a beautiful taupe-y purple that is very similar to the NARS duo eyeshadow that I bought recently in the palette Nouveau Monde. I still haven't returned that eyeshadow because I was thinking this colour would be the exact dupe for that, but the NARS one is a tad more cooler in tone. I was going to return the NARS duo for the NARS Front Row Set that Sephora is promoting right now. It has the Nouveau Monde duo with other NARS products for only $30 more.

The last one is called Caviar. I know it looks matte here, but it's a white with gold shimmer. It swatches a shimmery gold instead of white. This would be perfect for highlighting the inner corner of your eye.

From left to right (with no primer used and I just used one swipe): Snakeskin, Lawsuit, Jaded, Twisted, Tempting, and Carat.

On my fingers the colours are a lot more intense. From left to right: Snakeskin, Lawsuit, and Jaded.

From left to right: Carat, Tempting, and Twisted.

Now onto the pressed powder.

Here is the pressed powder compact in the palm of my hand.

I got the colour Chiffon. I think this is my winter colour. I may have to go to a darker shade in the summer, but I'll worry about that when the time comes.

Now I just want to mention my final thoughts on the Rock & Republic beauty products. I know lots of people have commented how AMAZING the packaging is on these R&R beauty products, but I find it to be a little garish. I only bought them because I heard the quality of the eyeshadows were amazing. And yes, the eyeshadow itself is amazing. It's so silky and so pigmented. Same with the pressed powder. I wish I was able to get the blushes too, but it was all sold out. The blushes are the most popular items in the Rock & Republic line. The package itself was not as heavy as I had expected it to be. It looked like it was made out of pure metal, but I don't think it is. I think it's plastic that is coated? I can't be sure... The black part behind the R&R logo is a sticker that is stuck on there. I think with time, scratch marks will show up on that. Another negative is that it has a magnetic closure. There's nothing with magnetic closures (see my Burberry eyeshadow below), but it's not the best quality. I'm afraid the magnet is not strong enough to keep it closed in my bag. Some of the eyeshadows had weaker magnetic closures for some reason. Plus, the hinges on some of them were looser than others. It didn't snap shut in the same way as the others... What a shame. The pressed powder was different, though. The magnetic closure was definitely stronger. But again, not as strong as my Burberry eyeshadow...

I just wanted to show you guys my Burberry eyeshadow. It comes in this luxurious velvet pouch. The shot doesn't show you the pattern, but it has the signature Burberry tartan pattern.

The Burberry logo is printed on the side.

Here is the single eyeshadow. The magnetic closure on this eyeshadow beats the R&R out of the park. I know for sure that it won't open in my purse. It also comes with the pouch so another sure way that it won't open in my purse.

Look how beautiful this eyeshadow is with the tartan pattern printed onto it.

The colour I have is Khaki No.8.

Here are the 2 eyeshadows side-by-side. They are almost the same size, but the R&R has a little bit more product.

Almost similar in colour here, but the Burberry one is a matte colour while the R&R is a shimmery colour (Snakeskin).

So I also picked out a few clothing items this week. Today I was at H&M and I spotted this really cute denim dress. It's made of faded denim and it looked so cute on! I think this will look so cute in the springtime with brown gladiator flats and my gold Kate Spade bag.

There's so many details to this dress. The waist has an elastic waist at the back so it's super fitted, but then it flares out. There's also epaulettes on the shoulders and the zipper front gives it an edge. Love it!

With all the details it's amazing how it's only $39.95. It totally looks Wang-like or even Phillip Lim.

This I haven't gotten yet, but I think I'll get it next week. It's a Club Monaco Boyfriend Coat that I've been eyeing for a while. I was going to get it on Wednesday, but I didn't for some reason. I'm so indecisive like that. It was the only XS in the store. When I went back to get it on Thursday it was gone! I asked the sales person to check if it was in the change room and he found the XS! However, he told me it was on hold for somebody else. He said that the person will most likely not come back so he told me to try it on. I tried it on one last time, but then the woman who had put the coat on hold came at that exact time and I had to grudgingly give it back. Ugh. The sales person told me he would try to see if any other store had the XS for me. He eventually found it, but it was all the way in Halifax! So basically long story short my coat is coming from Halifax and they will call me when it gets to my local store. The only reason I'm going through so much trouble for this coat is that it looks so good on AND it's on sale! It was originally $229, but it's on sale for $129. Plus, I still have some money left over from my gift card.

Last not but least I have this beautiful ring that my sister got for me from her trip to the Bahamas last week. It's a metal ring, but the inside has a pearly thing. It's so pretty!