elf- some pink stuff and a life changing brow pencil

The best thing about social media, in my humble opinion, is getting to know so many cosmetics brands that I would never have known about or fallen in love with otherwise.  elf existed when I was a kid, but it was crappy, cheap stuff that only cost $1.  Don't get me wrong, I had it, because $1 was in my price range, but it wasn't great stuff.

When I started following different beauty influencers in the last few years, I learned the elf has made  very strong comeback, repackaging and rebranding into something more substantial.  Jeffree Star, who is the goddess of liquid lipstick, is a big fan of elf, and it was his review of their Mad for Matte 2 palette is what made me get interested in them again.

Also, elf has free shipping, at, like, $20-$25 depending on when you go on their website, and you can get a literal shit ton of stuff for that amount of money.  Who doesn't love getting big boxes of makeup? I know I do.

I did some other elf reviews back in January and I have followed them on social media for about a year.  I saw this on their Instagram a few weeks ago, and even though it was really an ad for their tinted wax eyebrow pencil, I had a come to Jesus moment with that lip color!

Gorgeous, right?  Now, I will tell you forever, that you can never go wrong with a red lip, and thats true.  Its a timeless classic.  But, you can also never go wrong with a berry color like this.  Its bright enough for summer, and yet deep enough for winter.  I commented on the picture and asked what the lip color was.  I ask this question a lot on instagram and twitter.  It almost never gets answered.  Usually I get no response, and then sometimes, your B list celebrities and reality stars will answer me but they tell me they don't remember or they mixed several shades, which, #girlbye.  I know you know.  You know that I know that you know.  But nobody is trying to rep a company or a color without talking to them first, which I get.  Nobody wants to love something for free if they could be getting a brand ambassador paycheck for it, and, occasionally, you will run into a situation where the brand doesn't want you.  So they play like they don't know.  

As a side note, the biggest exception, for me, to this rule, was Jodie Sweetin, who actually responded to a comment I left on a People magazine article to tell me what her lip color was.  I can't even remember what the brand was now, but I remember that it was a bomb red.  Anyway, shout out to Stephanie Tanner.  

To my great surprise, this Anna Nicolee person, who was very lovely, sent me a DM identifying the color and product as Berry Sorbet Matte Lip Color.  Which, another funny story, I am just now realizing as I wrote this that I bought the wrong thing.  I actually bought the Matte LIQUID LIPSTICK in the shade Berry Sorbet which is the same, but different.  So never mind.  Blah.  This is why reading is fundamental kids.

Anyway, I hopped on over to the elf website to, in fact, buy the wrong lipstick, and not the one I was there for, and while I was there, because who wants to miss out on $25 free shipping, I picked up a few more things.

I actually decided to pick up the same tinted wax brow pencil she was using, except I got mine in

taupe and hers, I belive, is brown.  I also got the Rose Gold Eye Palette  and the Day to Night Lipstick Duo in the shade I Love Pinks.  Because those purchases only got me to $23, I decided to hunt down something interesting and found the Makeup Lock and Seal.  It was $3, so what the hell, right?

So, the Berry Sorbet.  I was going to be all glib and compare my goofy iPhone picture to  Anna's professional shot and lit one, but it turns out that we aren't even wearing the same product, so thats kind of useless. At any rate, here is the one I got:

I am still super in love with the color, though I suspect I would like the formula of the non-liquid color better.  I suspect it has more of a satin finish, whereas the liquid, you can see, is super matte. I happen to really love a good, dry liquid matte (which I why I own so much Colourpop) so typically this would be right in my wheel house.  But I feel like this particular color with a little bit more of a shine might be more fun. Also, I feel like I know a thing or two about liquid lips at this point, and I have never, ever in life seen an applicator like the one this has:

Seriously, what is the hole in the middle for? I know someone out there knows.  Please, share with the rest of the class. I'm dying to know what its purpose is.  

Now, what I will tell you that I love love love love and plan to buy approximately 75 more of is the eyebrow pencil.  I haven't had the time to get my brows waxed in a real long time.  I'm kind of limping them along on my own, and shit is getting real over here.  Also, I find that as I age, my brows aren't as thick as they used to be, so its nice to have something that can sort of tame them and get everything flowing in the right direction and fill in the sparse spots too.  elf makes a wax brow pencil with no color if you are wanting something more natural, or you don't have patchy brow hairs, but if you do, this is a fantastic product.  I'm not even kidding.  I plan to buy many, many more.

I would just like to add that the eyebrows that grow out of my head grow straight across my face, no arch to be found, and its actually just one eyebrow, singular.  So, as usual, shout out to makeup for changing the game.  Otherwise, this is an actual artist rendering of who my husband would be married to:

If you take nothing else away from this post, take away that you should buy their wax brow pencil.  Its $3 so if you hate it, its not that big of a deal.  You won't hate it though, you'll love it.  I think Ulta is even selling them now. Go check it out- tell 'em Bert sent you!

The rest of it was good, but not mind blowing.  I had really high hopes for the eye palette.  Their Mad for Matte 2 palette, like I said, is life changing.  This one, not so much.  I am a sucker for a gold metallic shadow, I'm pretty sure I have bought them all, but this palette just doesn't have a lot of pigment.

Its a nice blend of matte and metallic shades, but none of them really have any pigment to speak of.  I'm wearing several of the colors in the pictures above, and you can see how subtle it is.  Even watching on my finger didn't give me much pigment.

This may end up being one that I give to my daughter, because I will get too annoyed that there isn't much color payoff.  The case is very, very sturdy plastic, and it has a big mirror, so the packaging is fantastic, and if I give it to my daughter, she'll never be able to get it open, but if she manages to get into it, she is going to do a lot of damage to herself, color wise.  If I had this one to do over, I'd probably skip it, which is a bummer, because I have several of their other eye palettes, and they are all pretty great.

The lip duo was kind of a let down too.  In the pictures on the website, those are BRIGHT PINK which is what I wanted, because they are fun in summer and going into fall.  I also have the duo in their red shades and I love them.  The formula itself is very, very creamy, with a satin finish.  They taste great too, but not in an overly sweet or cloying way.  Their actual stick lipsticks are super creamy and the reds, for sure, have great color payoff.  I'd recommend their reds to anyone, but especially beginners, because its inexpensive, so you can try a lot of shades, and its really easy to apply and wear.  Great red lip liners too.  But I digress.

The pinks, for me, left something to be desired.  Don't get my wrong, I really like both of the colors, they just aren't what I was expecting.  The day color is almost a mauve nude, which I'm totally fine with, just surprised by.  The night color is brighter and pinker, but not near as bright or pink as I was thinking it would be.  Here are all three of the lip colors I got:

Like I said, they are all great colors, just not as bright as I was hoping.  If you are looking for some more subtle pinks, the day color would literally look good on damn new everyone, and the bight pink isn't even really that bright.  They are super wearable across the board.

As for the lock and seal... I don't know, you tell me.  Its a little jar that looks like eye drops, and in fact, you're supposed to drop a few drops of the clear liquid into the clear plastic lid, swirl it around on the brush and then use that brush to apply your foundation or whatever.  I found that the liquid made my foundation watery and streaky, and, as a result, I ended up putting on a shit ton of it, just to cover the streakiness.  Did it make my foundation last better through the day? I don't know, maybe a little.   The pictures in the lipstick duo were taken about 10 hours after the Berry Sorbet pictures.  Does my skin look much different?  I will say that I feel like it cut down on the oil production of my skin during the day, so maybe there's that.

So... thats what  I have for now.  Happy shopping to you! Especially when it comes to their lip products, they have a ton and they are yummy! You can't go wrong.  The other items are a bit more hit and miss, except for the wax brow pencil, which is a BIG FAT HIT. In fact, I bought two more while I was typing this.  I'm probably going to add some more lipstick to the ol' shopping cart as well.  I might even try and buy the right color this time.

NYX Wonder Stick

Not terribly long ago, America's Sweetheart, Kim Kardashian West, dropped a contour line on her website, KKW Beauty.

In the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie, the Commodore says to Jack Sparrow, "you are the worst pirate I have ever heard of.  To which Jack replies, "ah, but you have heard of me."  The same idea, I feel like, could apply to Mrs. West.  Love her or hate her, everyone on the planet knows who she is.  And she did that. She willed herself, and her entire family, into the national lexicon based on a sex tape.  That's pretty impressive.  Many have tried to follow that route to fame, and all have failed.  Whether we choose to believe it or not, that takes a fair amount of business acumen.  Kimmy has made "fetch" happen, and while she may be "famous for doing nothing," she is still incredibly famous.

That being said, she is still a Kardashian.  Those people have way too much money, and so I am hesitant to give them any of mine.  I refuse to buy anything with Kylie's name on it, and I'm not too keen on Kendall either.  Even my girl Khloe is hard to get behind these days.  But when Kim's contour line launched, I really thought about it.  I still really think about it.  I think its a smart product, and I cannot argue that Kim's contour is really, really good.  And contouring is hard, ya'll.  In the tutorials, they just slap some powder on their cheeks and snatch 'em right up, but in real life, it does not work like that.

I have tried a lot of contour.  A lot.  Mostly in powder form, and some cream.  In general, my luck has not been great.  This made me extra fascinated when this product launched and all of the internet reviews came pouring in.

I've spent more hours than I can to admit watching strangers on the internet talk about KKW Contour.  I've watched countless videos of Miss Kimberly herself showing how she applies the contour.  I will say, because credit where credit is due, Kim told us all on Instagram that when she contours her cheek bone she draws a faint line back up toward her nose.  Making something of a "V" shape.  Having watched literally hundreds more hours of contour videos than someone with a masters degree should admit to, I can tell you that this is an amazing tip that makes a huge difference!

See this line I'm pointing to right here? Thats the one you want.  That, I have learned, is the key to making this whole thing work.  It shouldn't be as dark as the other lines, but especially if you have chubby cheeks like me, it really carves them right up.

Anyway, as I sat on my fence, trying to decide if I would buy this amazing contour and highlight set, the promptly sold out.  So, the decision was made for me.  Except, at that point, after all these videos, in my mind, the contour stick was the only way to go.  What was I doing messing around with powder like some kind of peasant? Clearly, the cream sticks were the way to go.

Since Kim's were not available, a quick internet search quickly told me that NYX makes a cream stick, aptly named the Wonder Stick. Slightly phallic name aside, I love everything about it.

I bought one immediately.  Like the KKW sticks, you get a cream contour and highlight, in a variety of shades (I am wearing "light" because helllllo pale!) KKW comes in the shades, "light," "medium," "dark," and "deep dark."  NYX comes in "light," "medium," "deep," and "Universal."  Universal, to me, appears to be the contour shade from "medium" and the highlight shade from "light" but I don't really know that for sure.  To be honest, it feels like kind of a dumb idea, because there cannot possibly be a universal blend for something based on skin tone.  Even without that though, NYX and KKW both come in a really broad range of shades, at least one of which should suit nearly everyone's skin tone.

There are a few key differences.  While the NYX version doesn't come with its own brush and sponge, you do get quite a bit more product (.280 oz to KKW's .128) and NYX's will run you  just $12, compared to $48 for the KKW version.

What does NYX look like on?

I do think this product blends really easily, as you can see in my before and after here.  I have found that I prefer blending with my fingers, because I can direct the placement better.  I tend to prefer to do a lot of my makeup with my fingers though, which many people dont like.  Its a matter of preference. I have also blended with brushes, and that works fine too.  Here is an example of a brush blending.

I have also tried it with a beauty blender, which I don't think works as well. Again though, thats just me.  This is a picture with the blender.  You can see that line back up to my nose that isn't really fully blended.  But you can kind of see how great it would have looked if I'd done it right. Hash tag still in progress.

For further comparison, here is a face with no contour or highlight.

The product itself looks very similar to KKW, though the packaging is less monochromatic.  This is a picture of mine this morning. I use it faithfully every single day and have for about a month now, and look how much product is left! You really do get a lot of bang for your buck.

The only downside for me, is that I don't feel like contour has a lot of staying power.  Even with a setting spray I can't get it to stay with me during the day.  I almost feel like I have to completely re-apply around lunch time.  I'm not sure if that is true of the KKW as well, I can't really find anything about longevity, but if anyone has a setting spray that they love, please let me know.  Here is a comparison of the same day, in the morning and around lunch.

To digress temporarily, yes, those are two different lip colors, albeit from the same company.  It isn't a shadow or anything.  The lighter color is Midi and the darker color is Time Square.  If I haven't mentioned it recently, I love love love Colourpop.  Love. 

In short, sticks are definitely the way to go.  Anything else is working too hard.  And contouring is hard enough as it is.  I can't speak on KKW.  I haven't tried it.  The interwebs seem more or less pleased with it, minus the blending sponge which appears to be universally hated.  If your mind and spirit are similarly vexed at the idea of a Kardashian getting your money, "allow me to lend a machete to your intellectual thicket,'' as Captain Jack also said.  Just get this one. $48 is a lot to spend when there is a product out there for $12 that can and will do the job.  AND you get more product.  AND its cruelty free.  Always a great choice for any man, woman, or pirate.

Lipsense... I know, I know.

I'm not a MLM person. Multi Level Marketing.  In the 20th Century, we called it Pyramid Schemes.  Basically, you sell stuff for a company as an "independent contractor," which is the nice way of saying you don't get health insurance. You get other people to sign up under you and sell their stuff as well, and everyone gets rich or dies trying.  Your Mary Kay's, your Pampered Chefs, your LulaRoes.

Most of these companies are marketed toward women.  More than eyeshadow or waist trainers, or whisks, they sell a dream.  You take the tired, overworked mom, who misses her kids, and tell her that she can work from home just a few hours a week and support her family.  Be  your own boss! Make your own schedule! Work when you want to!  And girl, I get it.  We've all been there.  I myself have bought in more than once.  After being dragged to one party I literally cried- sobbed- thinking about how I was going to make all this money and never miss another moment of my kids' lives. But, alas, the dust settles, and for every woman driving the pink cadillac, there are a hundred more with dusty boxes of unsold dreams in her basement.

Which is to say, I'm wary of MLM products.  I don't like being sold to anyway, and now, thanks to the internet, we can all be invited daily to "parties" (another thing I'm guilty of- I've invited you before, I admit it) and buy a little piece of the American Dream.  Because I talk so much about makeup, which I genuinely love, I get messages literally every single day, sometimes multiple times a day, about makeup and skin care companies.  Last year it was Younique and this year its Lipsense.

I'm not hyperlinking anything, because I know you know what I'm talking about.  If you are a woman between ages 13 and death, you have been invited to try it.  I avoided it, like the plague, for a long time.  I have a really strong aversion to being sold to, and Lipsense is pretty damn pricey (it lasts all day! Its so good for you!) A color and a gloss (its a two part system, and you need both for it to work) will run you about $45 plus tax.  Do you know how much lipstick I can buy for $45??  Additionally, when wearing Lipsense, you are really just supposed to ONLY wear Lipsense, as apparently, wearing other brands, will work against Lipsense's ultimate plan to change everything about how you wear lipstick.  I can't.  I can't even.  So I buy two or three colors and have to toss out the other 200 tubes and never use all of those other beautiful colors again.  I can't.  I can't even think about it.  So up until now, I've been pretty firm in the "no" category.

I work for the same company as my mom, albeit in different departments, and I got a message early this morning that another woman in her department had some Lipsense and did I want to try it.  I could hardly contain my eyeroll, when mom added that she wasn't selling it, she just bought some, and if we wanted to try it out, we could.  Though I am somewhat new to the company, my mom has been there over a decade, and the other ladies in the accounting department with her have known me just as long.  So, I didn't feel like I was putting on the lipstick of a random stranger.

I thought to myself, "what the hell?" Risk free trials and money back guarantees do nothing for me, but this seemed like a safe enough bet.  And maybe I was wrong all this time and Lipsense really is life changing.  And I figured if nothing else, I could review it and put it on the internet, because all of the review seem to be from people selling it, and so they have a stake it how its portrayed.  I don't sell it.  I have no stake whatsoever, and so whether you buy a hundred tubes or never touch the stuff will literally make 0.0% difference in my life. So you can be sure its a honest review, because I have no reason to care one way or the other.

The first time I encountered a seller of the Lipsense, I was totally overwhelmed by her.  She raved about how Lipsense was going to "heal" my lips. Which, lets stop here for a second.  Its lipstick, not Jesus.  No one is getting healed.  So for months after, any time anyone brought it up, I suddenly discovered something fascinating happening in the other room.  But I promise you that I went in to today with an open mind.  I know everything you've read up until now sounds like I am going to just shit all over it, but I promise, its very unbiased.

This particular co-worker had purchased the colors "Persimmon" and "Dawn Rising."

For my first nice comment I will say that I liked both of these colors a lot.  The top color, the Persimmon, is not quite as red as it seems in the picture, its more of an orange red, and Dawn Rising is a nude color with gold glitter in it.  I like these colors very much.  I decided to go with the Persimmon though, since red is super in my wheel house.

For the uninformed, to apply this product correctly, you first have to make sure your lips are clean.  You apply a coat, let it dry (don't close your mouth) and repeat two or three more times.  Seriously, don't close your mouth.  Then you apply their gloss over top, which apparently, is the magic potion that makes everything stay.  They have a glossy gloss and a matte gloss.  Matte gloss is sort of an oxymoron, and I didn't try that one, but the basic idea is that it is a matte topcoat.  Like nail polish.

So.

On went the first coat.  This product is super super super watery and thin.  Also, the #1 ingredient must be alcohol, because it stings a little and smells like alcohol.  You have to hold your mouth open for it to dry, and if you make the mistake of closing your lips, be prepared to put a little work it to get them open again.  That shit sticks. 

Because, as I mentioned, its very thin, and watery, you need a few layers to really build color.  I did three.  More stinging. More drying.  Pretty color though.  You can, through the stinging, really feel the color taking hold on your lips. Lipsense did not come to play.  Lipsense is the only lipstick I have ever tried that was a little bit painful to apply.  I guess thats how you know its working.

Once it was dry, I applied the gloss ( I picked glossy, because I wanted to see how long it would stay that way) and I was able to close my mouth without worrying that I would never open it again.  The gloss is still kind of tacky, but I wouldn't call it sticky.  And it became less so as the day went on.

I forgot to add that before I put the gloss on, I put some Dawn Rising in the center of my lips, because I wanted to try and sort of blend the two colors into each other.  Lipsense doesn't blend, which now that I think about it, makes sense, because its transfer proof.  So its not going to move around.  And because I just had a few little dabs on, you couldn't see it.  So anyway, Persimmon, gloss, blah blah blah.

See? Pretty color.

So this was probably about 8:30 this morning.  I will say that the gloss did feel moisturizing.  It is not as moisturizing as Frog Prince which absolutely is the most moisturizing formula out there, but its not bad. After about two hours, I decided to see if the gloss is transfer proof like the color.  It is not.  The gloss does come off, you can see it here on my hand.  Though again, in fairness, they never claimed the gloss would stay all day.  I just wanted to see.

See that sparkly stuff in the middle? Thats the gloss.  After lunch, I decided to do another round of pictures to see how this stuff was handling the test of time.  This was probably around 1:30pm.

  

The gloss is definitely gone, but we're talking 5+ hours here, so thats pretty impressive.  The color hasn't really budged.  And it really is transfer proof.  I tried wiping it on napkins, with wet lips, and there wasn't even a hint of a transfer.  Its really on there.  I did take this really charming attractive picture to show how it was fading at the corners of my mouth a little bit, but even that wasn't horrible.

So, with the gloss gone, the moisture factor goes way down.  The color is, at its core, a liquid lip, and long lasting liquid lips are not moisturizing.  They're dry.  They have to be or they'd wipe off.  So I'm not bothered by that.  I just didn't want anyone to think that without the gloss you'd still have moisturized lips all day.  You won't.  I mean, you could actually buy the gloss, unlike my cheap ass, and that would solve that problem, but without the gloss, it feels like a dry liquid lip.

The current time is 7:42pm central time.  I've eaten dinner and here are the last round of pictures, 11 hours and some change after applying the product.

I feel like its a tiny bit more streaky than it looks in the pictures, but here we are, nearly 12 hours later, and its holding strong.  So,  I will say, thats impressive.  I mean, is lipstick that wears off really the scourge of our lifetime? Probably not.  Its not like I would have gotten my PhD, but I just didn't have the time because I was re-applying lipstick.  Its not that serious.  By the same token though, the tube probably would last a really long time, because you really don't have to re-apply the color.

Also, 11+ hours later, I finally spotted that dot of Dawn Rising that I tried to blend this morning:

You're welcome, by the way, for that up the nose shot.  I've never looked sexier.

Final Thoughts with Dr. Drew:

Its not bad.  It does stay on.  They do seem to have a nice range of pretty colors.  You have to buy the gloss along wit the color and the set seems to run $45 from what I can tell.  They also sell a remover, but I have no idea how much that is.  According to Amazon, the remover is about $10, but take that with a grain of salt.  I do not have access to any such remover, so here's hoping coconut oil does the trick.

Would I buy it?  Probably not.  I am suuuuuper cheap, and so the thought of regularly buying lipstick in this price point gives me panic hives.  If this stuff is your jam though, God bless.  It is absolutely a quality product.  It does last a bit longer than Lip Whips which up until now were the longest wearing, hardest to remove formula that I'd ever tried.  Lip Whips are still in the luxury price point, but they are quite a bit cheaper.  So it really just depends on what is most important to you.  Far be it from me to tell anyone how to spend their money.  Some people really love this stuff, and if thats you, I say huzzah.  I will just be over here in the corner, re-applying my $5 Colourpop.

bh Cosmetics: Galaxy Chic Baked Eyeshadow. + Wild & Radiant Baked Bronzing Palette

Its a rainy Saturday in these parts.  I am a total pluviophile and was thrilled to wake up to the sound of it.  I have caught yet another cold, and the nasal drip has made my throat super sore.  Its hard to talk.  I would be happy to remain silent and sit in the dark, scrolling instagram on my phone and listening to the rain all the live long day, but, alas, as a mother of three, it was not to be.

But after a breakfast of my new specialty, eggs in a basket ( my secret is that I leave the eggs runny so you can sop them up with the bread,) and typical Saturday errand running,  I decided to have a Treat Yo Self moment and go to Ulta.  Surprisingly, I haven't been in kind of awhile.  One of the best parts of being a mom to a teenager is that I can ask him to watch his brother and sister while I run an errand.  So not only did I go to Ulta, I went to Ulta by myself.  Magical.

I knew exactly what I was going for: The bh Cosmetics/ Carli Babel Eyeshadow and Highlight Palette.  Check out that golden goodness!  Because if the question is, "can Halley own too many gold metallic eyeshadows?"  The answer, of course, is "NEVER!!"

I have never worn bh before, but they have been around for a minute.  I just hadn't had a chance to get to them yet.  I told think Ulta always carried them, and so, because thats my mothership, I always found something else to buy instead.  bh Cosmetics is my favorite kind of brand, because its a budget brand disguised as a luxury brand, which is really hard to do.  We have all seen budget that is budget, luxury that is luxury, the worst kind, which is luxury that ought to be budget, and then the rarest jewel of all, a product that looks and feels high end, but you don't have to go broke behind it.  bh Cosmetics is just such a brand.

Alas, the Carli Bybel Palette was sold out.  It is a super, super popular palette, and so, though I was bummed, I was not surprised.  But then I thought of my friend Melina, and how were were discussing my love of metallic shadows last week and she said that I needed to try bh's Galaxy Chic Baked Eyeshadow Palette.  As my luck would have it, there was exactly one more in the store!!  And because Ulta is have a buy one get on 40% off on bh Cosmetics right now, I decided to pick up a Wild & Radiant Baked Bronzing Palette as well.  I've been watching a lot of RuPaul's Drag Race of late, and there is nothing like some fabulous Drag Queens to renew my inspiration to highlight to the gods!

So, the Galaxy Palette has 18- yes, EIGHTEEN- colors!   For a $16 palette that means you are paying less than a dollar per color.  And though this is a baked palette, which means the colors are meant to be worn wet, there is enough pigment to wear them dry as well, so really, is almost like 36 colors.  When I got home I could not wait to swatch all of these beauties!  As you can see in the photos, I was very sad to discover when I got home that my "sun" color was broken.  Its nothing a little mineral oil and a re-press can't cure, but I was sad because it is the most beautiful rose gold color.

Not only is it a gorgeous color, its like butter.  All of these shadows are so soft and pillowy.  There isn't any dryness or chalkiness. I thought it would be a fun change of pace to swatch the colors on someone other than myself.  I am soooo pale, and so every review on here is what colors look like on a pale white girl.  But where was I to find a model?  Did I mention I have a teenager in the house? Who is pretty much always trying to butter me up for something or another, whether its money or permission to go somewhere. Did I mention said teenager also has the most insanely gorgeous golden skin?  Yep, he has that too.

Now, keep in mind that these swatches are all dry.  The line on the top starts with "sun" at his wrist and "meteor" at his elbow.  On his lower arm, "comet" is at his wrist and "pluto" is at his elbow.  All of the colors are in order.  I did want to do a few wet swatches, just to show the difference in pigment, so here are "sun" and "pluto."

                                     Dry on the bottom, wet on top.  That's what she said.  

So, I'm pretty sure I am just going to wear this palette over and over, every day forever.  There are so many gorgeous metallic shades.  Someone was asking for advice on a matte palette the other day and literally I was like, "........" because: Metallics.  

Similarly, the Wild Bronzing Palette does not disappoint.  I had to try the shades out as soon as I got into my car.  

I cannot stand how pigmented they are.  I haven't even prepared emotionally to swatch them wet because I don't think I could handle it.  Look at my pinkie.  My son said that they looked like they were all the same color, to which I respond, "Au Contraire, baby who was told wrong."

The swatches on my fingers, his hand, and in the palette are all in the same order.  The shades don't have names that I can see, but the top left is a deep bronze, the top right is more of a rose gold, the bottom left is a pale gold, and the bottom right is a true, bright gold with maybe a tiny hint of pink.  All the swatches on his hand are dry too.  I'm barely into the stage where I can apply eyeshadow wet. Though I've improved since this nonsense happened, its still pretty unwieldy.  I'm not cool enough to apply bronzer wet yet.  You have to be way better at this than I currently am.  Also, I'm scared of how much pigment there would be, because look how much pigment there is dry.

Moral of the story: get thee some bh Cosmetics.  I literally could not be more impressed with the quality or pigment.  Its one of those brands like Colourpop where I have no idea why it is so inexpensive.  We don't ask questions though.  We just love the makeup.

Stream of consciousness

I love writing.

If life was a thing where we all followed our bliss and did exactly what we wanted, I'd be a writer.  I'd write the next great novel.  Or maybe an advice book.  A series of advice books.  I'm really good at giving advice to people who aren't me.  I could talk about dating and marriage and divorce and re-marriage.  Pregnancy and childbirth and raising kids.  Mixed kids.  Politics.  Sociology.  Gender in America.  History.  I have a degree in American history, I'm proud to say.  I got it on accident.  I changed majors roughly once a month until I selected communications as my major.  All the jocks were doing it, and if it was good enough for them, it was good enough for me. Except, as it turns out, I wasn't good enough for It.  In my junior year I was not accepted into the Communications School.

In the spirit of magnanimity though, if you go to college long enough, and amass enough credits, they have to let you graduate.  While I was taking up time taking classes, because as my parents always told me, "it doesn't matter what your degree is in, just that you have a degree," I took a lot of history classes for fun.  Enough that as my advisor reviewed my credits in an attempt to decide what to do with me she said, "well, you could be a history major." Done.

My last semester of college I had to present a thesis of sorts.  I wrote about "war wives," women married to deployed soldiers, and what their lives looked like throughout recent history.  They say write what you know, and at that point I was a war wife, so I wrote what I knew.  I worked pretty hard.  I got a 76%.  That seemed about right.

By the end of college, I was pretty done with college.  The thing that I am supposed to be doing tends to get in the way of the life I'm trying to lead.  Now, its working, and back then it was going to school.  I recognize the privilege in these past few sentences, believe me.  I'm just being honest.  By the end of college I had a baby, and I was preparing to move across the country to Ft. Carson in Colorado Springs in a few months.  I just wanted to focus on that.  I've always been pretty good at figuring out what the minimum amount of effort I can put into something is. As it turns out, you don't have to have super good grades to graduate from college, you just have to pass.  If you get good grades, you get a gold seal on your diploma.  If you decide to go back to school later and get a masters, you get more choices of schools if you were good at it the first time.  The school that I matriculated from the first time around laughed heartily when I suggested returning for grad school.  The school that did take me (there was only one) accepted me on academic probation.  I had to get a 4.0, which I did.  Sometimes the minimum amount of effort is actually quite a bit of effort.

I regret getting a masters degree.  There is no real use for it in my profession.  The initials are fun to write after my name sometimes.  MAOA.  Master of Arts, Organizational Administration.  Its fun to trot out at parties when the moment calls for it. Its fun when I fill in my kids' school forms and it asks for the highest level of education completed.  I feel smart and like my life is figured out.  Otherwise though, its useless.  And I will be paying student loans forever.  So thats fun.

Anyway, back to being a writer.  I'd write about existing in this world as a fat person.  I have a lot of experience in that arena.  I think I could be a unique voice.  So many kids are bullied and teased, but I wasn't really.  Not a lot.  A little bit.  I feel heartbroken for the kids who endure it daily.  I wouldn't have been strong enough.  I have every single incident committed to memory which is both a nod to my incredible long term memory (its really incredible) and the few number of times it happened.

Mostly though, for me, its sort of an "it is what it is" kind of thing.  Its just a fact about me.  I have blue eyes.  My husband's name is Joe.  I'm 5'6.  I live in Kansas.  I'm fat.  Its just a series of facts.  I feel like I have a lot to say to women on the concept of self esteem.  I see so many women settling.  It half breaks my heart and half irritates the hell out of me.  I never said I was perfect, or selfless.  Its something I'm working on.

Personality traits.  Im a badass in my own mind but a people pleaser in real life.  Im working on not apologizing when I enter a room, "sorry to bother you, but..." and not framing statements in the form of questions.  Men never do that.  Their statements are statements.  Their questions are statements.  And they don't apologize.  So why should I? I'm half good Christian, and half petty bitch.  I'm nosey as hell.  I'm really good at holding grudges but also really good at forgiveness.  If I love you, really love you, I forgive quickly, otherwise I will hold a grudge forever.  Over petty stuff.  I have a list, and when you are on it, you are dead to me forever.  A lot of times its over nothing.  Stores that gave bad customer service, random people who give me side eye.  One of Lucas' little friends made a slick comment about Joe on Instagram, so now there is a 7th grader on my list, and he and his whole family are going to stay there forever.  I'm going to be giving his mother so much side-eye at graduation, because clearly she should have done a better job raising her son.

Joe and I had a stupid fight this morning.  Thats the only thing we ever fight about, is stupid stuff.  We never have real fights.  Joe doesn't apologize, but I can tell when he feels bad about what he said because I get a lot of I love you texts, with exclamation points.  Thank yous for the myriad of things that I do.  Its sweet, and vastly preferable to bickering about nothing.  We honestly don't even do that a lot.  I was in my Pollyanna this morning actually, thinking about how much I love him and what a great guy he is, which was pretty much a guarantee that we would come to a point in the day where we were snipping via text.  Thats basically how the devil works in a nutshell.

My husband works really hard to take care of our family, and, not to toot my own horn, I make the rest of his life pretty easy.  I'm a monster of my own making, really.  I'm just used to doing things myself, so I don't always reach out and ask for help like I should.  Before him,  I was married to my ex-husband, which was basically like having another, incredibly self destructive child, and then I was a single mom for four years. Sometimes the lack of autonomy is hard, for he and I both.  We both took care of ourselves for a long time.  Marriage is no joke, y'all.  And we have a really fucking good one.  Its one of the few things in my life that I can honestly say that I have not half assed.  Its not one of the things where I have done my deciphering as to how to exert minimum effort.  Marriages don't survive on minimum effort, but on maximum effort day in and day out.  I take being his wife very, very seriously.  In some ways even more seriously than being a mother.  One day these babies will be grown and gone, and it will just be he and I.  I don't want to look across the dinner table and see a stranger.  I want to look across and still be looking at my best friend.  My battle buddy.  We're creating this life together, and the older I get, I realize there are no second chances, and that we only get one shot at this.

Which seems like the perfect segueway into why I should throw caution to the wind and be a writer.  Except that isn't what I'm saying, or how this works.  We made a deal, he and I.  To be partners and co-managers of this family.  That requires capital.  We decided to send our five year old to private school in the fall.  This decision tugs at me because I believe so deeply in public schools.  The oldest has gone to, and will continue to go to public school.  For my middle child though, it isn't the right option, for a myriad of reasons.  He can't go to the school his brother went to, and because the boundaries are being re-drawn and transfers aren't being accepted right now, we wouldn't learn what school in our district he could go to until late summer.  And there is not guarantee that in a few years his sister could go to the same school.  The planner, the type A in me, can't live like that.  He has some learning differences as well, and will do better in a small school environment.  And so we signed on the dotted line.  And sort of like when we bought the house, I feel like we signed our life away.  We just signed up for two decades, essentially, of private school tuition, between the boy and girl children.  And much like buying the house, I feel confident that it is the right thing to do.  And it is also scary as shit.  And it also means that for now, my writing is here.  Because when I had a family, they became my dream.  My commitment, above any and everything is my family.  My husband and our children. Fuck with that and I know a list you can go on...

I drive past Asher's soon-to-be school on my way to work sometimes.  Just to get used to the drive.  To see how long it takes to get from the school to my office.  Not long at all, as it turns out.  Next year is going to be crazy. Drop the girl child at daycare, the big one at middle school, the middle one at elementary school.  Try to be at work by 8.  I tell myself that I can put  things off until life slows down a little bit, but it occurs to me, that day isn't coming.  For, like, 25ish years.  Adderol.  God bless that stuff.  My favorite part about taking medication for my adult diagnosed ADHD is that about 30 minutes after I take it, for a good hour, I feel really super calm.  All the anxiety that has me twisted into a knot, just goes away.  I can't figure out why this is, since Adderol is a stimulant, but I don't ask questions.  God bless that stuff.

Our basement flooded tonight.  Im not even sure that flooded is the right word, because I don't think it was a flood, per se.  It was water coming up from a drain in the basement. A lot of water.  I got home around 6 and all was normal, and around 7 I went downstairs to switch the laundry, and when I opened the basement door, my shoe floated by.  It would be hilarious if it wasn't totally overwhelming.  I have no idea what is causing it.  We're lucky, in the almost 6 years we have lived here, we've never had a major house issue before.  Well, we burned down most of the deck with an accidental grill fire, but that wasn't actually that bad.  We didn't even make a claim for it.  The deck is getting replaced in a few months anyway. I joked with the contractor that we should get a discount for doing our own demo.  Life in the suburbs.  I have no idea if this water coming up through the basement drain is going to be covered or not.  Because I'm not always awesome at adulating, I haven't read my homeowner policy.  I don't even know where it is.  We put some Dran-o down the drain, because thats what you do when you have water standing over a drain, right? It means there is a clog somewhere?  Hell, I don't know.  It seems a logical course of action.  We called the insurance company and the lady told me that the adjuster would call us in one to two business days.  It seemed funny to hear her say that while my outside shoes floated on a river of basement drain water, like the irony of the situation was just crazy to me.  A little too ironic, and yeah I really do think...

I drew little red X's on the floor to mark the edge of the water.  It seems, from the way its pooling, that our basement isn't totally level, which I'd be mad about, except its helping the water not cover the whole basement, so thats, good I guess.  One problem at a time.

Its 9:34 ( I started writing this about an hour ago) and I haven't tied it into beauty at all.  This is a makeup blog, after all.  Nothing is coming to mind and I am trying not to force anything.  I'm just writing what I feel tonight.

I wore some different rings to work today.  Poor Joe has bought me more engagement type rings in our short time together than probably a man who has only been married for 6 years should have to.  I will say, for the record though, that he's gone through a few different wedding rings, so we're even.

This is my first engagement ring with the wedding band I still wear.  And my wedding shoes, so double the treat there.  I picked it out, because I'd always figured, growing up in the 90's, that I wanted a princess cut engagement ring.  My taste changed though, and I gained a good amount of weight after Asher was born and it really didn't fit very well.  I have it in a box, and one of these days I will re-size it or something.  

After I had Asher, Joe gave me a new ring with an Asscher cut solitaire- see what we did there?  And a sapphire micro pave eternity band- Lucas' birth stone.  After Halo was born, we added another band for her that sort of looks like my mom's wedding ring.  Except I have once again gained weight and sometimes wearing that many bands gives me sausage fingers.  Thats really the only thing I don't like about being fat, my hands.  I have stubby fingers and dimples like a newborn, so thats pretty rough.

When I was pregnant with Halo, my hands swelled like crazy and Joe got me a bigger ring with a Halo- see again what we did there? We love a good jewelry pun.  I wore it today for the first time in forever.  Its too big so it slips to the side, which I have always thought looks really chic on other people, like their big fat diamond is just far too big to stay on their dainty little hand.  Thats not really how it looks on me, but its what I tell myself in my mind.

Its the same wedding ring in all of them though, and I feel like that is the important part.

When I was driving today I saw a pink and white plaid van driving down the highway in front of me with these pictures of french poodles in the windows.  I don't know if it was a dog grooming van or just something super girly.  It reminded me of Bette Middler's character in "Oliver and Company."  It will not surprise you to learn that I identified strongly with that character as a child.  That and Shelley Long in "Troop Beverly Hills." God, I love that movie.

And finally, here is my piece of beauty advice.  See my nails in the above pictures?  They are Impress Nails which if you know me in real life, or follow me on Instagram, you know that I am obsessed with them, and its all I wear.  You can buy them at Wal-Mart, Target, or most major drug stores.  I don't personally shop at drug stores if I can help it.  The prices are way jacked up.  For instance, my beloved nails at a Wal-Mart or a Target will run you $5.99.  At CVS, its $8.99. Who knows why? Also, I had a bad experience at CVS once and they are dead to me now anyway.  I don't care how Mrs. Moneybags you are, spending $3 when you don't have to is just silly.  And Target is the mothership of the American Housewife anyway, so just get them there.

I was at Target this weekend and I tried on the most beautiful dress.  It had braided yellow straps and a sweetheart neckline, and it was an asymmetrical shift dress with pockets.   Like this  but mostly white with some yellow and gray. And a more structured fabric. Gorgeous.  One size too small.  I decided to go home and find out if I could go a size up on the website- you know I love it if I am willing to pay shipping- but I cannot find it anywhere.  It is nowhere on the website. Or the inter web for that matter.  Makes me sad, because its such an amazing dress.  There aren't enough yellow dresses.  Enough yellow anything really, but dresses especially.  Target would be dead to me too for this offense, but I still have to buy my nails somewhere...

Benefit Hoola Bronzer and Watts Up Highlight

If you follow me on Instagram, one of my last posts was about the gels they put in the lights in my office and how it makes any pictures I take look like the lenses of the camera have been wiped down in gold toned vaseline.  Its pretty funny.  It also made good use of the highlight I had on that day which was Yellow Diamond Illuminator from Ulta.

I love a good highlight.  As I mentioned previously, I'm turning into a magpie more and more as I age, so anything shiny is drawing my attention.  I'm a fan of strobing, which is where you add highlight with no blush or contour underneath, just for maximum shine.  My goal is that when I turn to the side, you will be blinded by my cheekbones.

The makeup gods smiled on me that very same day, and I was gifted with a bronzer and highlight set from Benefit.  Lucky me!  The bronzer I was given, Hoola, is the best selling bronzer in this country right now, so I was definitely excited to try it!  The highlighter I was given is travel size, but you can buy the full size version of Watts Up here.

First, lets talk about the bronzer.  The idea, I'm sure is to make it feel sort of Hawaiian or Tahitian, and the packaging definitely works to that end with the cute little wooden handled brush.  Also, can I just say, that this is the softest brush I have ever felt in my life!  I wish it were angled, which would make it easier to apply the product correctly, and in fact, I may abandon use of the brush all together, but it is really cute and very soft, so there's that.  I may give it to my daughter for her play makeup collection.

The product is totally matte, which I prefer.  Sometimes bronzer has some sparkle to it, but I kind of feel like that defeats the purpose.  There's no makeup police so if you prefer a sparkly bronzer, I say light it up, but this one isn't the one.  

Contour and bronzer are always kind of hard for me because I am so, so pale.  Its hard for the color to not look really stark and muddy against my skin, and I am not totally sure that this is quite the right color for me.  I have to blend it a LOT.  Benefit also makes Hoola Lite for people like me that have not been given the benefit of melanin, and I think that the Lite color would actually be a better one.  i may have to retire this color until we are into summer and I have a bit more warmth to my skin.  

Having said that, the powder does feel very light and blendable, and if you were darker than me (which should include basically everyone) this would be a great color.

As for the highlighter, I have never used a cream before so that was a new experience compared to a powder highlighter.  It feels and looks like lipstick, but doesn't feel sticky on the skin.  Its sold as a cream to powder and I agree completely with that description.  I don't like cream blushes because they feel sticky on my face, but this doesn't feel that way at all.  It also blends nicely and gives quite a bit of shine.

Here I am with the right side of my face wearing the bronzer and highlighter, and the left side without any.  I worked the bronzer up onto my forehead and into my hairline.  I have really large forehead (and a big head in general) so the bronzer across the top of the forehead makes it look smaller.  

Here is just the right side:

Hello Sunshine!  The highlighter is BRIGHT which is just the way I like it!!

I would not give either of these products though, high marks for staying power.  Here I am getting home from work at the end of the day:

Do I look either bronzed or highlighted to you? Nope, me neither.  And trust me when I say that I left the house with a good amount of both on.  In fairness, I did not put on any finishing spray yesterday, but I don't know how much that would have helped really.  Both of these products would probably require a mid-day reapply, which is a little bit disappointing since they are into the prestige price point.  Its not something that would stop me from using either one, just something that I wish had a little bit more staying power for the money.  

I would recommend heading to your local Ulta and giving them a try before you commit to buying them, especially the Hoola.  Its the best selling bronzer for a reason, Im sure,  but I'd still tell you to try before you buy, and if your skin color is the in shade range of "ghost" to "toilet paper" like mine it, I would encourage you to steer toward the Hoola Lite.