Drugstore Sales & Randomness

Hi beautiful people!

I am still working diligently to bring you that Lipsticks for Newbies post. It will be coming this week. Yay! But in the meantime....check out the sales that Walgreens and CVS (is that only on the East Coast? Hmmm.....) got for us beauty folx.

• Maybelline Eye & Lip Products: Buy 1, Get 1 50% off
• Neutrogena Cosmetics: Buy 1, Get 1 50% off
• Olay Cleansers: Buy 1, Get 1 50% off
• L'Oreal Foundation, Concealer and Blush: Buy 1, Get 1 50% off
• Revlon Mascara, Lip or Nail Color: Buy 1, Get 1 Free

....oh shoot, and Honey Bunches of Oats is $1.99. Heyyy!

• Maybelline Mascara: Buy 1, Get 1 Free
• Olay: Buy 1, Get 1 50% off
• All Neutrogena Eye makeup, Buy 1, Get 1 50%
• Essence of Beauty, Buy 1, Get 1 50% off
• Maybelline Minerals, Buy 1, Get 50% off
• L'Oreal HIP Eye, face & lip, Buy 1, Get 1 Free (!!!!)
• L'Oreal Telescopic Clean Definition mascara, Buy 1, Get 1 50% off
• Revlon, Buy 1, Get 1 50% off

I know yall saw that....gon and get cha L'Oreal HIP. Gotta snag that deal while you can. And to my ladies who are lookin' for quality and decent priced brushes....Essence of Beauty is the way to go. As well as Sonia Kashuk at Target. I got a blending brush for $2.43...retailed at $9.99! Betta check those sale racks. I know I'm not the only sale-obsessed lady out there. What to you plan on snagging?

And in other news.....

I mean....what's worse? My skin or my brows in that picture? LOL!!!! I thought I would share with yall how much better my brows are lookin' since....."the incident". Shutters. Check this post and I'm sure you can feel my pain. But the brows are lookin' fab now. *cheers*

Peace & sunshine

Road triiiiiip

Hey chicas! Thanks so much for the birthday wishes! Still shocked that I'm 23!

I'm back from my 2-day road trip. Of course I went to Orlando and hit up the MAC Pro store where I chatted it up with my new favorite artists who were happy to see me. I didn't buy anything (THAT'S THE FIRST!!!!!) but it was good to see some familiar faces. I went to Universal City Walk, saw some friends and saw Juno. Please go see this movie. That and The Great Debaters. And August Rush. Amaziiiing films.

Then I headed to Tampa Bay!!! My college home! Had so many memories in this city and was happy to be back. I went to my storage spot to go grab some things and got all sentimental.

*Yums, see the shine?*

My life in a storage room. Gotta love it. I need a home! And then I went around visiting my friends and got into this HUGE debate about Black women wearing red lipsticks. My girls were NAY and I was YAY. Many said that because their lips were already big, wearing red would make them look like a clown.

Now tell me.....do I look like a clown?

Seriously...women of color are still victims of what beauty should look like. While a crap-load of people plump their lips and go around lookin' a mess, we hate our beautiful naturally plump lips because back in the day we were hated on because of them. What a mess.

But I digress. Then my girls and I went to my favorite Thai restaurant. Aren't they fab?

The Fashionista, the Public Relations chic, the law student and the International Humanitarian. I have great lady friends!

And then before I went and got my brows threaded. I seriously think that Indian women truly understand the art of thick natural brows with an arch.

I swear, I won't let anyone else touch my brows. Only my Indian ladies and Sam Fine. That's it!! But I just can't get my left brow to look like the right. Dang, that bothers me! The right is just wonderful and the right is trying so hard to keep up.

More productive posts soon to come. I'm out living my last few days in Florida because I fly back to my poor volunteering life in Cali and I'm SO not looking forward to it. :( Yall bloggers have been updating like crazy. I can't keep uuuuup!

Peace and India.

Flowa Powa!

Just did a quick flower look. Drop ya thoughts!

I used (all MAC unless otherwise noted):

Chartreuse pigment
Fuschia pigment

Violet pigment
Blitz & Glitz fluid line

L'Oreal HIP Black Cream Eyeliner

Mattene Rapturous lipstick

MAC in 3D's Wondershine

Revlon Colorstay eyeliner

This is how my 4th grade girls greet me!

And because I love graphic design
(another hidden obsession).

.....damn look at those bumps all over my face. They came out of nowhere. I'm gonna keep blamin' LA smog 'til the day I die. My face didn't even look this bad during puberty!

Look what my students bought me!
Lil' jokas don't fool me. They still drive me nuts!

They know Ms. Thomas loves her some Hello Kitty. Just showin' my quick "ain't had nothin' else to do" look. Took me 10 quick minutes.

Notice how you don't see my brows in any of those pics. I'm still in depressive mode over that unfortunate wax incident. And I really can't draw them on. I've tried. It looks a mess..... That's one department in the make-up world that I just don't think I can master. I really have tried.


And another thing, Blogger sucks...like major. I don't know why my pictures can't be seen on a larger scale when you click on them. When I play around with HTML to make them larger, they end up looking all pixelated. Does anyone know how to make Blogger pictures bigger? Heeeelp!

Peace and primer.

EDIT: Thanks Tee....PhotoBucket-ing EVERY picture ain't fun. But at least yall can get a better view. Yessss!

Brow drama & other looks

Sooo, I'm in a pretty bad mood. I went and got my eyebrows waxed...bad mistake. I should have known something wasn't right when that service was only $5. Back in Florida I'm payin' at least $17. And somehow this nail salon drew me back into the acrylic world (I had acrylics for 6 years and have had them off for 6 months until I moved here). I guess a full set being only $10 is what brought me back. Bad idea. I swear, LA is literally bringing out the worse in me! The damn man ripped off one of my nail beds on accident. Great. I told him to forget about the fill and to just soak off my nails and give me a medi. So no more acrylic.

Back to the brows...I told chick I just wanted to "clean" them up. No arching, no thin brows. I LOATHE thin brows on my face...and of course, what does she do? Takes off so muuuuuch hair from my brows. I burst in tears the second I saw. To make it worse, a sista walks by and says, "Damn, she jacked you up." Thanks sis. Thanks a lot. I cried my ass all the way back home. Not caring who saw. Ate myself in a coma and tried to sleep the tragedy of my life off. Tell me how bad I look!Some bad things have happened to face. I've seen enough ugly people to last a lifetime, I've had an awful flesh eating rash thing (dermatitis), bad pimples, healing nose ring drama, f-ing chin hairs from my mole, LA smog induced pimples, swollen eyes, pink eyes in BOTH eyes at the SAME time....I mean, really. I'd rather go through all of those again at the same time than have my brows look like this. I've emailed pics to my girls and everyone's like, "It ain't that bad!" Are you kidding me? Moving on....because I'm tearing up again just thinking about it.

Today was Halloween. Never been into this day. But I had to put on the fake face and be a good teacher. The faculty's theme was "Pirate" which bummed me because I don't think pirates are any kind of attractive or fun...but whatev. I put on a shirt, bandanna and some jeans. And of course this gave me the opp to play with make-up. I did....The next look represents how I feel about Halloween overall....I don't know, it's just never been my thing. And I have serious problem with this Catholic School celebrating it like its a Biblical holiday or somethin'.....I used:

L'Oreal Gel Liner in Black
Carbon on the lid
The red from MiLady on crease
Vanilla as a highlight
...and my new lashes which I didn't put on so good. HA!

Speaking of Mi'Lady....which I'm lovin' to learn, here's a look I did the other day. I used Artifact Paint Pot as a base.

Now of course my Stud brow pencil doesn't look that good, but look at how much thicker those brows are. :( Depression has returned.

Wait a minute....can we focus on the fabulousness of my skin with that Tech and Fix +? Roomie Joy and I did a 3-step facial thing last night with some fab products and I'm lovin' how my skin looks. Minus the 3 massive pimples. I'm thinking of investing in some MSF. Dark or Deep Dark or somethin'. I see that MSFs give you better coverage for a more flawless look. Didn't know that! Thanks Scandalous Beauty.

Lovin' my skin in this pic! The pic below was supposed to be on my face to really show off the pirate look, but Joy forgot to paint it on. This girl has some skills with the paintbrush. I'm getting into make-up art, but I could never do this. Hot! Carbon and Rondelle!
Well, today has been a hellish day. I need to start learning how to draw in my damn brows. In the meantime....I'll be wearing African wraps for the next 6 months 'til my brows grow back. Yall know it takes foreeeever! So I've learned:

1. To only let award winning estheticians touch my face. Seriously. No more quick fixes at nail salons. I need someone who specializes in brows. Either that or learn how to do them myself.
2. Stay the hell away from acrylic.
3. You get what you pay for. $5 brow wax=jacked up brows. Makes sense.
4. Mistakes can lead into new creative ventures (my Mom & her motivational speech).

The End.
:(

Handwritten on my brows...

Okayyyy, because I'm off from teaching this whole week, I have enough time to be a serious "wannabe model".

So....as most of you know, MAC released the Matte2 collection a few weeks back. I only got Signed Sealed and Handwritten. And that was before I realized the collection was perm. I figured these two colors would be great for the crease. I haven't played around with them much. It wasn't until I saw Yum's beautiful brows until I realized that maybe I should try shadows on the brow.

Sooo....first I took out my concealer and cleaned up my under-brow area. I also brushed my brows like mad. They are sooo curly.

And then....with the 266 brush I applied Handwritten on the brows. Not in any sort of form or fashion. I started filling in empty hairs and then creating a better arch at the top. I didn't really know what I was doing and I really think that perhaps my brows look TOO thick.

Please, viewers, readers, pros, newbies, stalkers
....tell me what you think.

And because I'm a mess....I decided to get all made up so I put on some:
Studio Tech
Warm Sand blush by Fashion Fair (still embarrassed to have this but who cares, lol!)
Feline Kohl Power on the waterline
....and sloppily applied MAC in 3D's Wondershine.
It looks a mess in the rest of these pics so please ignore! HA!

....and then I got all dolled up in my favorite wrap!. I'm diggin' the brows a bit. I think that perhaps this color is a bit too light. So I may need to get something darker. And WOW, that concealer really does make me look...."brighter".
I'm sorry....Fashion Fair or not, I love this blush! I just hope I'm putting it on the right way. Am I contouring? Someone help!
Why do the brows look damn good when I make this face? Any other face and they just look.....aight. I want them to always look THIS good. But uh oh...I got the Tyra foundation thing goin' on. I didn't take it to the hairline. Ahhh well...you live and learn.

Me and my ankh. I heart photography.
LOL..my bra strap is showin'.
Make-up porn. Heheheeee...
Soooo....there's my experience with that.

Make-up Hypocrisy

I'm a mess.
I'm forever vowing that I will never do this and never do that in regards to make-up and I always end up going there.

Remember when I said I would never wear face make-up?
*glances at MAC StudioTech*

I said..."Only people's Mommas where lipsticks!"
*glances at Mattene Rapturous*

I vowed to never wear bright colors!
*smiles at Bright Sunshine*

And the latest....I said I was leaving my brows alone. I got impatient and fed up with trying to perfect them.

Until I applied Handwritten with the 266 on my brows.
They ain't on Yummy's level yet but damn they look good. I mean...they look really good.

No more saying what I'm going to STOP learning or trying to practice.
No more make-up hypocrisy.
....and I'll post pics soon of brows. Yummy, you're the inspiration!

Stash (pics)

Sooo....time for some updates.

But first....

Glad that you've jumped up on the bandwagon of make-up blogs, Ms. Riss!! I can't wait to learn all the secrets and tricks of the trade from a professional like you!!



Okayyy....so after best friend left, I ran to MAC and picked up:

Some friggin' Concealer....I have 1 fugly dark spot on my face that I am proud to announce is invisible with this stuff! My very first concealer. A special moment in a young woman's life. *tear* LOL!

And then I got an eyebrow pencil. Scuse my moment but OMG, it's like totally the best thing I've ever freaking come across! No seriously.....that pencil is the ish. It's thin and the color is sooo close to my natural eyebrow color. I'm definitely mastering the eyebrows little by little. I'm so proud I could spit. Hehe...

And then I got another StudioFix compact because mine broke during an unfortunate incident at some hood-ass club. But I don't even know why I purchased it because I'm staying away from face make-up for awhile. Except that concealer which actually looks okay alone. My skin needs a break. And I've gone back to my natural face care wash, toner and moisturizer.



Ohhhhhhhhhh......and my pigments came in on last Friday and I was so excited. I ordered 9 from miss lady off of Specktra (1165Cheryl....yall need to look chick up. She's on point!). Her prices are extremely reasonable and she gives you an amble amount. I was so happy! And she hooked me up with one free piggie. I took a pic of some....

I absolutely love them! And then folx kept ravin' about Vanilla pigment (which I forgot to order), but I got a sample from MAC when I picked up my other goodies. I am so excited! The Vanilla looks great on the lips. Anyone got any recs on some "must have" piggies for Women of color?

OH....here's my FOTD for Thursday night's awful.terrible.will never again go to that damn club experience:

Seee....and I know you can't tell from this pic, but I was trying to go for some extreme cat eye look that I saw once and it just didn't work out. I have to do some more practicing.

I ordered MAC's FIRESPOT today!!!! From the Moothbathe collection. I know. I'm like 10 years late. 'Bout time. I've been wanting that color forever.

Oh....I also purchased NARS' Emmanuel. Did I mention that I am in LOVE with NARS' colors. Why are they so beautiful?

I ran into a bump today while putting on some make-up. I've come to discover that virtually all of my colors are poooow....in yo face....see how purty my make-up is kind of stuff. Nooo, I don't want that! I need some tone down colors and looks. Bad, like really bad. So I ended up wearing some boring ole' Mythology and Vex and called it a day.

Boo and Boo's Momma...I look boring and boring. HELP, I need some everyday pretty looks.


Deuces for now.....I don't exactly know what else to buy in terms of products except a good mascara. I think I've hit a bump. Until I find some neutal looks, I'm going to be sad, depressed and withdrawn from MAC.

......my dramatic self. I know. The Academy Award goes to...................

Eyebrows-the remix

Soooo, my best friend came to visit me and she really is one of the people who triggered that nerve for me to want to get into "make-up". Just a few months ago I was this all-natural chick who made her own face care products and never wore more than eyeliner and some gloss.

But now....wooow, this really isn't "me". But then again it is, so...

Okay, lemme get back to the topic. LOL, I do that a lot. I could never be a professor. I'd constantly be going off on some tangent. And about myself at that!!


So, my bestest came and she has the BEST eyebrows. She does them herself and they are always so gorgeous. Always been envious of them. But yesterday she did mine for me and they came out soooo nice.

No fair!! Why can't I do brows like that? She made it look so simple. And all she used was some MAC Eyebrow Pencil, some tweezers and that was it!! She talked me through what she was doing and promised me that I too could do the same thing. Only my eyebrow pencil from Milani wasn't gettin' it. So I added the MAC pencil to my list. I finally have an arch. A REAL defined and clean arch. So tried to do the same thing today....

Not half bad, uh? Defintely better than I've ever done. An actual arch, I can't believe it!! I'm still not all that confident in the eyebrow world. I need to spend more time practicing. Oh....here are both eyes.

Hmmm, not too bad. They still don't look as good as when my bestest did them. But I'm learning, taking notes and getting better.


She also had some concealer that I used to cover up a blemish that I had and it worked perfectly. So I added MAC's StudioFinish concealer to my list and can't wait to get some of that tomorrow when I get paid.


Completed my 10 day fast and my skin didn't improve as much as I wanted it to. So I'm a bit disappointed. Ah well....can't have it all, now can we?

Peace and Eyebrows, sistas....

Bangin Resume & Brows (pics)

I have never seen my eyebrows look so good! Correction.....eyeBROW. I only perfected one. The other came out okay, but not as good as the first one. I'm somewhat proud of myself. And of course, I don't have a "GOOD" quality pic to show of it (damn, I need to invest in another digital camera) but I have somethin'....

I'm not sure if you can really tell, but this is the BEST arch I have everrrr done. And I filled them in. I'm so proud of myself. I'm getting better. Nowhere near these MAC artists or----well, you know what. Imma stop comparing myself to other folx. I'm doin' the best I can. And you gotta start somewhere. So hey.....baby steps. Baby steps.

Yesterday I did a look that I called Bangin' Resume. I had 2 meetings yesterday and was wearing a blue dress shirt, but didn't want to do blue eyes. Nor did I want to do Doxical or some other boring neutral look. I wanted something nice---with some spice.

So along came---Bangin' Resume which is nice enough to wear to work with an added kick. Of course the quality of this one isn't the best either, but I'm sure you get the gist:

Of course you have to enlarge to get a better view. Not bad, eh? The colors used were:

Mythology on 3/4 of lid
Coppering on 1/4 of lid
Trax everywhere else

It came out pretty nice. I got a lot of compliments. My skin is slowly getting better. Day 5 of my fast and I'm energized and feelin' great. I'm wearin' a C-Shock look that I'm not gonna post pics of b/c I don't feel too proud. My blending isn't THAT good. People say they like it but ehhh.....I could have done better. I need a blending brush man. :( I really do.

Peace and Cream Color Base

Eyebrows-attempt 1

I pretty much have the WORST ones ever. They were never good to me. Too thick, too curly and sooo unmanageable. And the sad thing is, I have YET figured out how to make them look good. I get them threaded on a regular but of all of my threading/waxing/tweezing experiences, I have only had ONE good one. The other ones have been "Ehhh.....it'll do."

Ugh, so silly me.....my entire life I thought that women with impeccable eyebrows were born that way! But nooo.....a great deal of ladies fill in their brows. I didn't know that!!

Sooo, I've been hearing wonderful things about Milani's Eyebrows Pencils and so I'm definitely going to get hip to that.

In the meantime, however....I've just been playing around and learning how to fill them in with a lipliner pencil. LOL, ayyyy.....don't laugh. A sista has limited resources. I gotta work with what I got, yo!

Sooo, I tried to fill in the brow to the left. It's waaaay too thick, right? But that's definitely the shape that I'm looking to get. I've studied eyebrow structuring and have learned that the highest arch should be perpendicular to the end of my nostril. Or somethin' like that.....

And so I tried the same thing with my design Doxical and it didn't come out AS good, but better than how my brows normally look.

Aaaand, here's my attempt on BOTH brows. Ugh, not so good.

I'm thinking I'll find better success once I actually use products that are FOR eyebrows. LOL....I'm really just playing around for now. My goal is to not be so dependent on getting them done. My best friend does her own brows and they are gorgeous. Sometimes we get too caught up in having someone do ours and then we look like hell until we can get them done again. I only want to go to my threading lady for re-definition of my arch, but I definitely want to maintain them myself. Imma get there!!

Here's a full look shot with filled in brows and Doxical. No Studio Fix....remember, I promised myself that I wasn't going to wear it all this week. Ugh, but I'm definitely detoxing next week because my skin has been terrible lately. You can't tell in this pic, but it looks like I'm having some allergic reaction or somethin' goin' on....I would just DIE if I were allergic to MAC.

.......too terrible to even think about.

Rainbow eyes-attempt #1

So, I tried to do rainbow eyes at my friend's "Waiting to Exhale" night and it wasn't pretty. #1, I didn't wear any face make-up. I don't consider that to be a BAD thing since I am just now wearing foundations, but I think I've learned that if you want eyes that pop out----perhaps the entire face should look "pretty decent".



So yeah....I didn't wear my Studio Fix and ugghh...I probably should have. Here is how it looked. Not a really good picture, but you get the idea...

Actually....you can't even see the color @ all, uh? Okay, how 'bout in THIS pic?

I look pretty terrible.....I wasn't100% happy with my face anyway when I left the house either, sooo....look how oily my skin looks. Pretty clear and free from blemishes, but defintely oily.

And my eyebrows? I really don't even want to talk about it.....still working and learning on how to contour them. Ugh, I need a teacher or something because I've never mastered doing my own eyebrows.

That's okay----I'm learning, I'm learning.

C-Shock!

C-SHOCK!!!

Today MAC's newest line came out and I am SOOOO excited. Only, I'm somewhat in a financial hole, so I can't afford to indulge in these colors like I really want to. :( I thought about purchasing at least one color, but I can't.....I have to buy at least 2 and that's gonna run me $20 alone, so I'm just going to have to be patient and wait.

These colors are VIBRANT and will look great on darker skinned folx. 'Bout time! I want the entire collection!

I'm going out tonight and want to do parrot eyes. I'm going to go home and practice and then do the real thing tonight.


Yessssss.....

New lessons for today?


(1) MAC's lustres and frost are the best for my eyes. Go more towards them.
(2) Check out NYX brand.....I've been hearing good raves about it.
(3) Stick to Make-Up wish list and DO NOT purchase items outside of that list.
(4) Visit MAC Pro store in Orlando with Marissa.....and soon!
(5) Check out Milani's purples....heard good things about them too.
(6) Eyebrows, eyebrows....work on them b/c they look A MESS!!!
(7) Test myself on the anatomy of the eye

Today's look:

All MAC products.....UPDD primer (I can't stress enough how wonderful primer is!!!), Amberlights on Inner V to mid-lid------Trax from mid-lid to outer V and VEX from Crease on up.