Discovery Review: Tricky Hair 3D Mink Lashes

A couple months back, I received a request for a review. Being appreciative of someone liking my writing, I couldn't say no, but then I had walked myself into a new dilemma - as a person who generally doesn't wear makeup, what valuable input could I provide on false lashes? Being scientific by nature, I couldn't dismiss an idea before giving it a try and I ended up surprising myself with some of the conclusions I came to.

Nerd for Life: Approach for Make Up

Maybe I'm not so much a nerd as much as I need to organize my thoughts in a spreadsheet/chart type manner. In my old age, I'm getting forgetful, you know.

Since I'm not exactly a makeup virtuoso, I have to practice it. Watching RuPaul's Drag Race usually gets me in the mood to want to improve my chops.

For someone who doesn't wear much make up, I've managed to acquire a lot of eye shadow. Here it is sorted into a palette by type.

2013 - Catch Up

So I'll admit, I've spent the last few days watching season 4 of RuPaul's Drag Race.

No kidding when people say this show is the best reality show on television. It has all of the best aspects of America's Next Top Model, Project Runway, True Life, Made, and occasionally American Idol. 

Lipstick craze

crazy huh?

My mom always told me to put on a little lipstick...just to add a little color to my face. I always thought that lipstick made my lips so unnaturally colorful that I felt like a clown at times. Then, for some reason last year, I bought my first bright red lipstick and I became hooked. I'm guessing that before, I didn't see any fun in my moms lipsticks.


What's odd was that I didn't even really go through a color transitional phase where I started wearing safe neutrals. I just went BAMM! For bright colors and harsh looks (observe the nude color that erases any existence of my lips.) That's not to say that I didn't own any of those safer lipsticks, I just find that now - since I wear lipstick more frequently, what drives my wearing of lipstick the most is my attraction to the bright colors. I have about 12 bright lipsticks right now, which is really more than I'll ever need. And to think I was on the prowl for more...I was looking for a lighter orange you see, not something quite as bright as MAC's Morange that I'm wearing on the right, but not something so pale that it looks close to MACs Siss on the left. I was actually looking for something a little like Lime Crime's Cosmopop which is unfortunately being reformulated at the moment. Knowing that my lipstick habit is bordering on addiction, I talked myself into something new -

I just mixed the two colors to get my lighter orange. I'm pretty darned satisfied. Make up is an art forms and this is like...fingerpainting 101, but with your lips.

Yep. That is a whale eating my clothes back there.

It's like 3 for the price of 2. I don't know if I plan on doing this with my other lipsticks, but this is pretty damned cool mainly because I also like each of the other colors in their own right. I think the main thing about my lipstick infatuation is that I like having the option of going extreme if I want to. Between me and my 12, I'm pretty sure I have every color I could want.

The look of AWESOMENESS

Truly, the one quality that will make anyone look good is knowing that something good is going to happen. :)

I was driving back to Austin from San Antonio, dropped by the Cosmetics Store Outlet - because I had to: it's the best deal when looking for good quality makeup brushes.

I get home and get ready to prep my sample lesson and then I get a call back from the principal of the school that I wanted to work at. And I'm offered a contract!! Score! Who has a job lined up? I have a job lined up. I suppose it's not official until the paperwork is signed, but I don't think anything I can do to my face could make me look better than that.

So, I go back to my room and I'm happy, I have my makeup, and my job. Then I realize that they gave me the wrong color eye shadow (sigh)

eye painting

I haven't abandoned my blog. Just been busy. Personally, I didn't think helping out with SOMEONE ELSE'S wedding would take up as much of my time as it does. I've been traveling between cities a lot and I'm so tired at the end of my day, I can't even finish the last 25 pages of the book I'm reading. Pitiful.

Anyway, I love Sephora. I can spend a good chunk of time there. I also have an acquaintance that works at MAC who always tells us to not shop at Sephora for what come off as fairly biased reasons.

I remember a long time ago (so long I can't find the blog) I blogged over my excitement in procuring the Smashbox Mother Earth Palette that was done exclusively for Sephora. It had 4 pretty awesome shades of eyeshadow and and orangey blush. Made from cornstarch and other natural ingredients, no parabens and all that jazz.

I've been acquiring a lot of eye shadow lately as I have been learning to get more comfortable with going crazy with eye shadow combinations. Most of the colors I acquire happen to be MAC. Recently, I put MAC to the test against the dark brown from my Mother Earth Palette - oh yes, I went to a night club. Using two colors on my lid, by the end of the night, only the MAC color stayed on it's own. I don't know if it has to do with the nature of "all natural" eye shadows, but right now, the Mother Earth Palette is just an eye shadow mixer for me.

Face Paint

I've had issues with make-up for a while. I've always felt that it was used to temporarily mask problems oppose to fix a problem...I think this view might still hold. I've never thought of it as enhancing good looks, maybe deemphasizing the bad would be more correct. It's not like you naturally enhance your blue eye lid.

I've felt that telling people they look good as the result of makeup is...kind of off. It's not different from having your hair styled. It should be more like..."I like what you did with your face."

Despite all this, I've come to the conclusion that makeup is a part of the presentation package and regardless of how impeccable one's style is, clothes aren't enough.

As shown in the previous blog, I went to my friend's wedding recently and I was planning for it a good while in advance - shoes, hair, the dress. I'd been practicing make up for a good few weeks prior to the wedding only to have my cousin's boyfriend do my make up professionally.

Make up is expensive when you don't know what you're doing. I'm finding there's this mad tendency to buy everything in every version possible to see what works (i.e. eyeliner). It's been rather financially draining since I've developed a penchant for MAC cosmetics. Makeup Art Cosmetics seemed to fit my sentiments on make-up. Eye-shadow application was the hardest thing for me to grasp.

I think my best recommendation is finding what fits you in terms of makeup. Experiment with lower cost makeup before buying higher end versions.

For me:
MAC's Studio Fix, eyeshadow, blush, lip gloss.

Formerly lacking a brain for make up, eyeshadow was amazingly difficult for me to apply and I have many pictures of myself looking like a raccoon. For lining my eyes, I tried everything from liquid liner, to this thing that looks like a marker, to a crayon, to a pencil, to eyeshadow. I think liquid liner is fun, but I favor using eye shadow as liner.

- to avoid having raccoon eyes, I use a small angled brush to apply a line of eye shadow, I brush it out a little. Sponge applicators are a little better for eye lid application and I use a pencil brush to get shadow into the crease. After lining, I use a little of the medium shade (assuming the darkest shade is lining and the lightest shade is on my lid) brushed out slightly from the liner.