Beauty Thesis's blog

A few drugstore jewels

 

drugstore haul

This past Thursday I stopped by the drugstore during a break at work.  It's actually been a while since I've been in, so it was fun to browse.  

 

• Revlon ColorStay Mineral Lipgloss - Infinite Rose
• GOSH Velvet Touch Eyeliner (Waterproof) - Black Ink
• QUO Professional Eyelash Curler
• QUO Mini Tweezer Slant Tip
• Maybelline Colossal Volum'Express - Glam Black

 

With as much makeup as I have, I've never been able to find a really good black liner.  I've heard some great things about GOSH eyeliners, so I finally decided to grab one in black.  I wore it yesterday, and I'm very happy to say that it wore extremely well on the lash lines.  Usually pencil liners end up sliding off me.

I'm going out tonight for a friend's birthday and have decided that I'm going to wear some false lashes, and so I needed to pick up a lash curler.  I figured that I'd give QUO a try since I like their brushes, and grabbed their mini slanted tweezers as well.  I was surprised with just how reasonable the prices were, and I'm elated about the tweezers (they're amazing) and the curler doesn't pinch - though I still need to practice with it.. LOL.

Finally, I also picked up one of Revlon's mineral glosses.  I'd heard some good reviews, and while I like the colour I don't know if I like it enough to keep it.  Jury's still out on that one.

QotD: Too Much Is Never Enough

Clothing, dinners, make-up, or gadgets... We all have things we like to splurge on. What do you think you buy too much of?

Make-up by far.  Gadgets and clothing/accessories come in a distant second & third.

A time to mourn and a time to live..

It would be a massive understatement to say that the past month has been crazy.  I don't think I've ever had such insanity in my life before, but here I am.  There are no explanations or excuses, the situation is what it is, and I have to accept it.

I'm determined to get back to something that I enjoy, something that brings me joy and something that keeps my ability to learn and improve sharp.

The creativity, the sense of community have been greatly missed and I'm glad to be getting back to it.

Hiatus

Life has gotten ridiculous in the past while, and while I'm not abandoning this blog, it's not likely I'll be around much in the next while.

Take care.

Because it's worth it

Like most people who use Urban Decay’s primer potion, I finally got to the point where it seemed empty.

primer potion surgery

Since the bottle shares a similar anatomy to a lip gloss tube, I took out the wiper that sits on the lip of the opening.  I couldn’t believe how much a difference that made, there was definitely a ton of product left in there.
This was short lived however, and since I’d heard people talk about how the contour of the bottle kept a lot of product out of reach.  With that in mind, I broke out a sharp knife and cut into it.

It does require a bit of strength, but it’s not difficult.  First I sliced through the thickest part of the bottle, which reveals a jaw dropping amount of product.  I then cut off the bottom (which is deceptively much thicker) and scooped out the entirety.  I was able to completely fill up a MAC sample jar, which I believe is a 5g?  This jar is full as it can be because I had to drop it (only about an inch above my desk) to pack in the product and get it to settle properly.

It took about 15 minutes to hack up the bottle and then fill the jar, and while it was a little messy, I feel it was worth it.  The full sized bottle is 10ml and a 5g jar translates to roughly 5ml – so you’re looking at about 50% of the product.  Yes, I agree that it is silly that to cut open a bottle, but for the amount of product that comes from the effort, I think it’s foolish not to.

Epic battle of the lashes

Something I’ve always admired is flawless looking false lashes.  It’s pretty easy to find some lashes, either at the drugstore, costume shop, makeup store or the plethora of beauty/lash websites.  What I've found to be pretty hard is, flawless application.  I’ve done a bit of experimentation with false lashes in the past, and generally it wasn’t a good scene.  The one pair of lashes I’d bought just didn’t want to work with my unskilled hands.  Once I actually managed to get them on, they weren’t balanced, they weren't even, and they just looked completely busted.

Since then, quite a bit has changed with my view and application of makeup, so I wanted to try again.  Recently I picked up a few pairs of Ardell lashes in the the following styles: 114, 115, and 116.

Two separate occasions and two separate styles of lashes.

116 lashes

The first look I tried was with the 116 lashes.  Originally I was wondering if they would be dramatic enough to be worth the effort, and I was pleasantly surprised to find that they were.  In fact, they’re my favourite of the three pair.  They are the shortest pair, but I think they’re probably moderate as far as false lash length goes in general.  They’re not full density either, but I was surprised to find that this low-mid range density actually offers a pretty natural appearance.  The one thing I would change would be my placement, since I think they could be placed a little further out, to make sure that the ends blend better with the outer edge of my own lashes.

115 lashes

The second look was using the 115 lashes.  This experiment did not go anywhere near as well, but I wanted to make a note of it for future reference of what not to do.  These lashes are long and full, and very much look like false lashes.  I think it’s pretty safe to say that with lashes this dramatic, you really need a strong brow to balance them out.  I didn’t think to do this at the time, but I’ll definitely remember the next time I want to break them out.  Placement with these wasn’t too bad, but I found that the outer edge anchored to my lashes, instead of the lash line.. which resulted in some major tearing, but no burning.  These lashes were a lot more difficult to place though, I think just because it was difficult to see through the fullness of the lashes.

All in all, I’m glad that I played around with the lashes.  By far the 116 were my favourite because of the more natural look and ease of application.  The other two I think will be fun for those more dramatic looks I come up with, or a wild night out.  I definitely have a lot of respect for the skill required to apply very dramatic lashes, so for those who can – kudos.  I feel like this is something that can be mastered, but like so many other things requires a lot of patience, practice, adhesive and makeup remover.

Rant ~ Giving honest feedback

I’ve been looking through a ton of FOTD lately on forums and blogs, and it boggles my mind when someone has done a really nice application and execution of a look – with the glaring exception of matching their foundation.

The worst part is that nobody says a thing about it.

I know that the supportive environment I’ve experienced has definitely been helpful in giving me confidence, but what I really crave is the constructive criticism. How is a person to improve when anything they do is met with token positivity?

However, in the context of the online makeup community, I’m starting to think that it would be better to be upfront to a fault. When people are trying to learn and improve their skill and knowledge, isn’t feedback critical? I’m not talking about being mean (that’s a whole different rant), I’m just talking about being honest regarding the makeup application.

It's situations like this that make me question the sincerity of the feedback I've gotten in the past, and that's really frustrating.

What do you think?

Contest Entry ~ Inspire Me

I've talked about Temptalia before, it's a makeup blog with a smaller but active and friendly forum community.  Currently MissVee, one of the moderators, is holding one of her own contests: Inspire Me.  I think it's a nice twist to the usual themed look, because you have to find your own theme and make it work.  Not only does it need to work on you, but maintain and highlight the connection to the inspiration.

Your assignment: To create a look inspired by a photo. You MUST post the inspiration photo. Your look CANNOT be "inspired" but another makeup look! No duplicating other FOTDs.

inspiration photo

One of my other interests is photography.  I used to be pretty avid about it, though I haven't been out shooting much lately.  There is something about this time of year, I want to be out capturing the autumn glory, but I never do.  Not sure why exactly, but I digress.  Due to that particular hobby, I have a heap of photos, one of which I knew would work for this contest.  I did find one, eventually.. it took forever!  You would think it would be easy enough, but it proved to be more difficult than I first thought.  It was just the other day that I had settled on a photo, and had the time to put the look together.

all over base ~ primer potion (urban decay)
lid to crease base (inner 1/2) ~ crimsonaire s/s
lid to crease base (outer 1/2) ~ lucky jade s/s

lid (inner 1/2) ~ pink venus e/s
lid (outer 1/2) ~ steamy e/s
crease ~ green smoke e/s
outer corner ~ humid e/s
above crease ~ warming trend e/s
highlight ~ vex e/s

upper lid liner ~ blackest black (revlon - colorstay liquid liner)
upper & lower waterline ~ black (annabelle kohl liner)

lashes ~ glam black (maybelline - the colossal volum' express)

 

inspire me contest entry

Recreating looks

Like a number of makeup aficionados, I love experimenting with different colours, styles and combinations. My particular love is eye shadow, which definitely makes up the bulk of my working collection. Pressed, loose, cream, bases – all of these bring a light hearted happiness and vain glee. With all of the experimentation that goes on, I have found that I rarely recreate looks.

I’d never really thought much about it, but this is something I’d like to do more of. Yesterday was the first time I tried a recreation of one of my own looks and it was an interesting experience. A recent look, “jewel toned inspiration” was what I wanted to recreated. It was fun! I keep track of what I use in some of my favourite looks, and so with that list and the photos, I managed a decent recreation.

Unfortunately I didn’t think to take a picture, but I got a few compliments from the family at the turkey day celebrations.

PS – Yes, Canadians celebrate Thanksgiving in October.

Listed

So I decided to add Beauty Thesis to the Glitter web directory.  I've known about this place for ages, and used to have a personal site listed there a few years ago.  It was a great listing of all sorts of websites, and I think at one point there were two or three thousand listings.  When I checked it out the other day, it looks like they switched up the scripts and are in the midst of rebuilding the directory.

If you're interested in some site exposure, check them out.