Makeup Forever Aqua Rogue in #9/Burgundy ❤ Full Review with Swatches!

As you may know, I love lipsticks. However, it seems like lipsticks don't love me nearly as much as I love them, as I've yet to come across one that will stay on for their advertised amount of time. Unless the color is one that stains my lips (and even lip stains themselves don't do much for me), it's likely that I have to reapply my color after an hour or two.

So when I saw ICallItAmbrosia's video about the Makeup Forever Aqua Rogue liquid lipsticks and their insane staying power. I figured that if it worked that well for her, I should definitely look into them. So, I went into Sephora and swatched one on my hand to try it out. When I got home about 8 hours later, the stain was still there on my hand, so I put one into my Sephora order online. I was ecstatic! Finally, a lip product that would actually stay on my lips and I wouldn't have to re-apply.

Pictures and full review after the jump!

Face of the Day! ❤ 1/21/13

I woke up super early today and ended up browsing Reddit, which I don't do very often, and looking at /r/MakeupAddiction. All the before and afters inspired me to do one, which I posted here!

These are the same pictures I linked there, minus the "before" picture just cause I didn't feel like having my naked face on here juuuuust yet.

This one's just because I can never take serious facial pictures for long.

If you're interested in any of the products I used, I listed them over on the post I linked above, or comment below if you're too lazy to go read it.

Nails of the Week! ❤ 1/21/13

I really don't know much about the Kardashians, nor do I really want to know  much about them. I pick my nail polishes strictly by color, and nothing else. When the Hunger Games nail polish collection came out, I looked through the colors, went "Meh," and didn't buy any. I love the Hunger Games, but the nail polish collection was lacking, in my opinion.

But I fell in love with this color from the Kardashian Kolor collection from Nicole by OPI, called "Khloe had a Little Lam-Lam." I couldn't begin to tell you who Khloe is or what a Lam-Lam is, but I can tell you that this darkest teal-green color is to die for.

More after the jump!

Valerie Cooks! ❤ Beefless Guinness Irish Stew (Vegan/Vegetarian)

Being a mixed-breed girl, I've always had a difficult time identifying with certain countries as my "own." But I remember the first time I took a sip of Guinness and never felt more Irish in my life. In terms of my heritage, the largest portion of my inheritance (so to speak) is Irish. So I basically took that and ran with it.

Going vegetarian never really affected my relationship with food, and so when I got the urge to make an Irish Guinness Stew, I made a goddamn Irish Beefless Guinness Stew. I used a few pointers from three different recipes, but as I do with most of my cooking, I mostly improvised. And damn if this stew didn't turn out delicious.

The recipe and ingredients are after the jump!

Practice Makes Perfect, Right?

One of my favorite things about makeup is seeing how different looks work with different eye shapes and skin tones. Some of my friends enjoy doing their own makeup, but many of them stick to a routine that they know works, or just don't wear makeup at all. The latter of these two (when they do wear makeup) usually ask me to do it for them. It's always hard when I ask what they want and they respond with "Whatever you think looks best," but the creative freedom is also exciting. Pretty much all of my friends have different eye shapes, so eye makeup is always a bit of a challenge that I'm only too happy to accept. 

ANYWAYS, what I'm trying to talk about is that I did my best friend's makeup the other day, and so I thought I'd share!
(I know, I should work on my transitioning.)

CVS Winter Beauty Clearance! (aka YESSS DISCOUNTS!)

I love sales. I love clearance sales especially, because it's even more discounts and savings and I mean, who wouldn't love spending less money?! The fact that I'm also a broke college kid helps with my appreciation of sales as well.

I was a bit tardy to the party with hearing about the CVS winter beauty clearance sale, which happens twice a year when they need to boot out old products to make room for new ones. Of course, this means saying goodbye to some products that become discontinued, but it also means those products are majorly discounted!

Now, this clearance sale started in the beginning of December(ish), and it's about a third of the way through January, so a lot of the products in my CVS weren't obviously marked as being discounted or on clearance, but having the handy guide from Nouveau Cheap pulled up on my iPhone was my ticket to finding the deals (an honorable mention also goes to the in-store price checker, which I abused thoroughly.) Some of the products that Nouveau Cheap had listed as being on clearance weren't discounted anymore, but I only had my own lateness to blame for that one. All of the Milani products that were listed were still on clearance, as well as the majority of the ColorStay line from Revlon, and the Nicole by OPI Kardashian nail polishes were all still marked down. I could take the time to note what was still marked down and what wasn't, but frankly that would take a great deal of time, and it may differ from CVS to CVS.

On to the goods!

Nails of the Week!

So, like pretty much all other girls, I love Forever 21. One of my favorite things about the store is surprisingly not their clothes, but their cheap nail polish. The brand they carry, which is normally labeled as "love & beauty," sometimes with an added on "By Forever 21," is actually a quite long-lasting, well-formulated polish brand (for the most part - I've had a few misses amongst their polishes, but far more polishes that I've adored, which keeps me coming back for them.)

Anyway, the last time I was in Forever 21, I heard a girl telling her friend that she thought this polish was an ugly color. After she put the bottle down, I (being the nosy person that I am) checked out the bottle and fell in love with the color. It's labeled on the back of the bottle as "Avocado," but that's not the right name or color of this polish at all.

Eye of the Day! ❤ 1/8/2013

My first Eye of the Day post ever! These will (hopefully) normally be Face of the Day posts, but my lips have been super dried out and uncooperative as of late, so I decided to just show my eye makeup for now.

Wet n' Wild's Wine Room and Cherry Picking Lipsticks ❤ Swatches, Comparisons and Review!

So a few days ago, I picked up two wet n' wild lipsticks for the first time since I was in elementary school. From what I remembered, they were quite bad quality bad then, but since I've gotten into makeup, I've heard so many positive reviews that I knew I had to try them out. 

The lipsticks I picked up were 906D Wine Room and 965 Cherry Picking. In terms of packaging, these lipsticks were a bit of a pain to open - you really have to twist and pull to get the clear plastic top off, and you're almost guaranteed to accidentally scrape some of the lipstick onto the top when you finally do wrench it off. The lipsticks also seem to be a bit loose inside of their casing - I can hear mine bumping against the sides of its case when I shake or move it, though it doesn't seem too loose that it'll fall out, thankfully.

But, let's move on to the most important part - the color and quality.