Easy Halloween Make Up: My 1st Demon :-)

Not sure what to be for Halloween? No worries.  Coming up with a Halloween look may not be as hard as you think.  The look above was actually an impromptu idea from last night.  So how did I create this look? See below.

I started off with M.A.C. paint pot in Blackground.  I went over the paint pot with Coastal Scents matte black from their 42 Matte Palette.  I did his eyes 1st then we decided to really go all out and make him look spooky. :-)

I created his wounds with Duo glue, red, yellow, and black matte eye shadows from the same Coastal Scents 42 palette.  I applied the Duo glue to his face and let it get tacky then separated it to make it look like flesh.  Next I applied the shadows and blended them on top of the glue.  Lastly, I applied an Estee' Lauder gold lipgloss on top of the wound to make it look fresh.  That's it.

Cargo Laguna Blush FOTD

These are pictures of the Cargo Counter inside of Sears...yes Sears in Vancouver, B.C. Canada. This was the first time I'd ever seen a Cargo counter.  It was really pretty and spacious. I finally bought the famous Laguna blush.

Here's a look I did using my brand new blush.  I took this on the ride back to the U.S. Hey, you never know what will happen at the border so I wanted to make sure I was made up. Ha ha!

Eyes:

1. Urban Decay Primer Potion
2. Coastal Scents 42 Matte Palette--Yellow on the inner lid, green on the outer lid, brown in the crease, tan as transition color, purple on bottom lash line
3. M.A.C. Naked Pigment as Brow highlight
4. M.A.C. Girl Boy Brow Set on Brows
5. Lancome Oscillating Mascara
6. Urban Decay 24/7 Glide On pencil in Zero
7. Black Opal Heavenly Honey Foundation Stick for under eye concealer

Face:

1. Isomers H.D. Primer
2. Clinique Acne Solutions Foundation in 07
3. M.A.C. Prep and Prime Transparent Finishing Powder
4. M.A.C. Vanilla Pigment as Cheek & Nose Highlight
5. Cargo Laguna Blush on cheeks
6. Cover Girl Queen Collection Ebony Bronze Bronzing Powder as Contour

Lips

1. Jack Black Lip Conditioner Shea and Mint
2. M.A.C. Ravishing Lipstick
3. Loreal Colorburst Lipgloss in Sunset Peach

Another Coastal Scents Haul with Good News!!

After I finished my last post, I decided to check the Coastal Scents website again to see if they had the blending brush that appears to be a dupe for the M.A.C. #217. Well you know what?  THEY DID!!! Woo Hoo!!  I bought 3 of them.  Guess what else I found out? It's the EXACT SAME BRUSH as the one from Crown Brush.  The name on the website says it's a Pro Blending Fluff Brush and it looks like this below.  Notice there's no writing shown on the brush.

Well once I received the brushes, they said C433 Pro Blending Fluff.  I was so full of joy!  You know what else?  I just went to the website and the brush is sold out again. This is so crazy.  I've been trying to get this brush from Coastal Scents for months and months and this was the first time I was able to get it.  I was actually worried that when my order arrived, I'd have a notification saying the brush is no longer available and the'd refund my money. LOL!

Here's everything I purchased below.

3 Easy Steps for an Inexpensive Smokey Eye Look

Hands down my most requested eye look is a smokey eye.  For whatever reason the thought of doing a smokey eye scares people from doing it themselves.  I promise it's not difficult to do.  Just remember three things:

1. Blend
2. Blend
3. Blend

 

I added some color to my lips just to give this look a little something extra.  You could definitely keep the entire look soft by using a nude lip.   I've listed below what I used to create this look.

Eyes

1. MAC Gentle Lentil Shadestick (the only color I used *discontinued* boo!) on the lid and lower lash line blended upward to the crease You can use your finger or a brush.  I used my MAC #217 to blend the color from my lid into the crease.  You can duplicate this look without using MAC Shadesticks.  Any stick shadow or even an eyeliner pencil will do the trick.  
2. Black Opal Foundation Stick in Heavenly Honey Brow highlight and under eye
3. Loreal Voluminous Million Lashes
4. Elf Waterproof liquid eye liner pen

Face

1. Dr. Denese Daily Defense Matte Cream Spf 30 (You can sub your fave Tinted Moisturizer/foundation)
2. Black Opal Foundation Stick in Truly Topaz as a spot concealer
3. Cover Girl Queen Collection in Brown Bronze 1

Cheeks

1. Elf All Over Stick in Golden Peach as cheek and nose highlight
2. Coastal Scents Sunless Body Art Bronzer in Dark on cheeks
3. Cover Girl Queen Collection in Ebony Bronze as contour

Lips

1. Elf Matte Lip Color in Toasted Rose
2. NYX Lip Liner Pencil in Purple Rain
3. Elf Glossy Gloss in Dragon Fruit

Elf Haul pt 3 Finished Look

This is a finished look of me using the new Elf Matte Lip Color in Natural with Elf Glossy Gloss in Dragon Fruit

I'm still very excited about getting my Elf Shipment. I did a full face with some of the products. Here's what I used to accomplish this look.

Eyes

1. Lime Crime Candy Eyed Eyeshadow Helper *received this from RCA to review*
2. Black Opal Foundation Stick Heavenly Honey (as concealer to shape brows and under eye)
3. Coastal Scents Smokey Palette (matte yellow-neon green) inner eye lid
4. Coastal Scents Smokey Palette (matte green) middle to outer eye lid
5. M.A.C. Saddle in the crease
6. Coastal Scents Smokey Palette (Frosty light green) in the inner crease
7. M.A.C. Beauty Marked in they outer crease and lower lashline
8. M.A.C. Vanilla Pigment as brow highlight
9. M.A.C. Motif as color above the crease and below highlight
10. Elf Waterproof liquid eyeliner pen
11. Loreal Voluminous Million Mascara
12. Milani Glitter eye liner lower lashline

Face

1. M.A.C. Mineralize SPF15 (cream) Foundation in NC45
2. Cover Girl Queen Collection Mineral Powder Compact in Brown Bronze1
3. Elf HD Powder
4. Skindinavia No More Shine Finishing Spray (terrific stuff, I'll review later)

Cheeks

1. Elf All Over Stick in Toast as Cheek Highlight
2. Elf Studio blush in Candid Coral
3. Clinique Blush in Mysterious Mocha as Contour

Lips

1. Elf matte lip color in Neutral
2. Elf Glossy Gloss in Dragon Fruit

My favorite Facial Cleanser

This post is dedicated to Coastal Scents' African Black Soap.  It retails for $12.95 for a whopping 18oz.  This soap is terrific.  According to the Coastal Scents website, this African Black Soap is imported from Ghana and has no preservatives, scents, or chemicals.  It's used to for oily skin, to clear blemishes, and treat acne.
Here are Coastal Scents suggested uses:

Traditionally, African Black Soap has been used to treat rashes, acne, eczema, dandruff, body odor and much more. The African black soap helps keep the skin clean and helps against premature facial lines. It is great for showering, bathing, washing of the hair, face and the feet. Black Soap is recommended for the young and the old. Black soap leaves the skin smooth and soft & as a facial soap it is excellent for clearing acne.

African black soap has been used in Africa for the treatment of rashes, ring worm, eczema and also as a natural hair shampoo to avoid itchy and dry scalps.


I haven't used it for my hair, but I have used it on my body and I can notice a difference in the texture.  My skin feels more smooth and clean.  It does feel a bit dry though, so I immediately put on moisturizer. It's crazy how oily my face is but the rest of my skin tends to be dry.


This is the 2nd bar of African Black Soap that I've purchased from Coastal Scents.  My first bar lasted almost a year.  I break smaller pieces off of the huge bar and place my smaller pieces in a separate container.  With my first bar, I mixed my African Black Soap with Jojoba Oil.  Recently, I've added Shea, Avocado, and Grapeseed Oils.  This eliminates that tight feeling after washing my face.  I use my Clarisonic along with my African Black Soap to really get a deep cleansing effect.  I have seen a drastic change in my skin.  It's more clear and even.  I don't have as many break-outs and if I do, the scars fade away really quickly (well that may have to do with me using M.A.C. Lightful Charged Essence and M.A.C. Brightening Serum every day afterwards as well.)  


I will continue to buy this soap and I would recommend it to everyone.  I especially like the fact that Coastal Scents participates in Fair Trade.  Please see below:


Following the guidelines of Fair Trade, the manufacturer of our African Black Soap pays much higher prices for this product by providing the women in the Northern Region of Ghative societies with interest free loans, credit facilities, training in packaging, labeling and quality control services, therefore a higher price for their quality processed African Black Soap is justified.

When you buy our Fair Trade African Black Soap, you are enabling the Tamale and Wa women that process our product to live with dignity and invest in their families, communities and the environment. (taken from the Coastal Scents website)


*The picture of the soap and the product description as well as the Fair Trade info were taken from the Coastal Scents website

My 4th of July Look (FOTD)

The counter that I freelanced at today had a Red, White, and Blue theme.  This was my version.  I'll take you through some of the steps I did to create my eye look.

I applied the Lime Crime Candy Eyed Eyeshadow Helper

I applied M.A.C. Brick Red to my crease

I added M.A.C. Deep Truth to my lid

I put M.A.C.  Naked pigment and the matte white highlight from my Wet-n-Wild palette for my brow highlight, then blended all of the colors.  I made it smokey by adding M.A.C. Deep Truth and M.A.C. Suave Intentions (limited edition) to my bottom lash line with Naked in my inner tear duct area.  I cleaned up the look with Black Opal Heavenly Honey Foundation Stick as concealer

This is me using my new favorite concealer brush.  It's the Sonia Kashuk Pointed Foundation Brush.  It's so soft and perfectly shaped for blending concealer under the eye. 

I absolutely LOVE this brush.

I added M.A.C #7 lashes.  My all time favorite false lashes.  

Finished look with face and lips done

Fun look that I usually wouldn't think to do.  Theme days are always fun and creative!

On my face I used Black Opal Foundation Stick in Truly Topaz to conceal blemishes.  I used Cover Girl Queen Collection Mineral Powder in Brown Bronze 1all over.  Coastal Scents Sun Art Bronzer  in Light for my cheek and nose highlight. Coastal Scents Sun Art Bronzer in Dark on apples of my cheeks.  Cover Girl Queen Collection Bronzer in Ebony Bronze for my contour.   On my lips, I have M.A.C. Ruby Woo lipstick with M.A.C. Burgundy Lip Pencil, and M.A.C. Wonder Woman lipglass (limited edition).

Target Haul Part 2

This part is focusing on the 3 brushes I bought last week.  Here are my thoughts about them.

From left to right: Sonia Kashuk Pointed Foundation brush, Sonia Kashuk Pointed Blending brush, Elf Foundation brush

I was overjoyed to find this guy.  I've been wanting a brush like this for over a year now.  I first saw something similar to this at Sephora.  The worker introduced me to their Airbrush brush when I got samples of HD & Matte Velvet Foundation.  It's not quite as tapered but it's similar.  I didn't get it but I never forgot about it.  Then I was watching YouTube videos and saw both Ebony of Color Me Beautiful (one of my all-time favorite YouTube gurus) and Michael of Sublime Agent talk about Luise Young's foundation brush.  Ebony also did a review of a Sonia Kashuk limited edition brush set that came with a  clutch.  I saw this at Target.  It retailed for $24.99.  The only brush I wanted was the Pointed Foundation brush.  Well after checking back time after time, I finally saw this brush being sold by itself for $12.99.  I know you are probably thinking that it was a better value to just get the set with the clutch but I really didn't want those other items.

Sephora Airbrush brush.  Not quite as tapered but definitely not a traditional flat brush.  It retails for $34

Luise Young Super Foundation brush.  It retails for  24 Euros which I think is about $52.

Sonia Kashuk Pointed Blending brush. Retails $3.99.  

So you know that I was hoping this was going to be a dupe for the M.A.C. #224 right?  Ha ha!  It's not too bad actually.  I like this brush.  It's a bit thinner and it's shorter but it works well.  It'll be a good alternative when working with clients who have smaller eyes b/c sometimes the #224 is too big.  Oh and the #224 Retails for $29.50.

On the left is the Elf Foundation brush. Retails $1.  In the middle is the Coastal Scents Synthetic Foundation brush that came with my Metallic Plum brush set.  I purchased it about 2 years ago.  The entire set comes with 12 brushes and a brush roll.  It retails for $29.95.  On the right is another Coastal Scents brush, Bionic Foundation Concealer brush.  It retails for $5.99.  I bought this brush last year.  It's the biggest flat foundation brush I've ever seen.  I love it.  It's really soft and blends product very well.  I great buy for the inexpensive price.

Just another picture showing the differences in the sizes of the brushes.  The Elf brush on the left is significantly smaller than the other two.  It seems to work better as a large concealer brush than a foundation brush due to it's small size.  I mean, of course you could use this brush to apply foundation, it's just going to take you a while to do you entire face.

Just in case you were wondering about the Metallic Plum brush set I was talking about above.  :-)  I highly recommend this brush set.  The only brush I didn't like (I actually hate) is the angled brush.  It's very rough.  In the picture it's the 2nd brush from the center.

*The pictures of the Sephora Airbrush brush and the Luise Young Foundation brush were taken from the companies' websites.

Recent Coastal Scents Haul

One of the reasons I am a repeat customer of Coastal Scents is their great customer service and fast shipping.  I posted a few days ago what I ordered for my mom and me with the last sale.  Here are my thoughts on the products.

Gel Liners

I was a bit hesitant to purchase these due to me having a bad experience with my 1st black gel liner from Coastal Scents.  I was hoping it would be a dupe for M.A.C. Fluidline in Blacktrack but unfortunately this was not the case.  The gel was more like a soft powder.  It wasn't gel like or creamy.  I tried scraping the top off the product to see if it was smoother towards the middle but to no avail, it was dry all the way through.  I tried using it as a shadow base, but it was just too dry.  I tried wetting it, but it would crumble.  There was nothing I could do to get this "gel liner" to work, so I threw it away. :-(

Thank God, these were from a good batch. All of these liners were creamy gel liners.  Although they are pretty bright, I will find ways to work with them.  I'm hoping they'll make good shadow bases.

Sexy Pink
This one wasn't exactly what I was hoping.  In the jar and on the website it appears to be a really bold hot pink, but it's actually pretty sheer.  I had to swipe it 3 times to get it to show up as it is on the picture above.  It's a sheer fuchsia. Oh the bottom color is exotic.

Top color is Peach Bellini, middle color is Sexy Pink, bottom color is Exotic.
Out of all 3 colors, Peach Bellini is my favorite.  It only took a light soft stroke to get that bright color.  I can't wait to use it under my coral and orange shadows and maybe in my water line.    Exotic is like a dark greenish gray with golden specks.  It reminds me of Clinique's Egyptian eyeliner.

Eye Shadow/Blush Palettes

On the left is the 88 Prism Palette and on the right is the 88 Ultra Shimmer Palette.
One of my concerns with the items that were on sale was that they were similar to other items I already owned from Coastal Scents.  I didn't want to have multiples.  I was pleased to find out that even though they have several palette combinations, the colors are actually different.

88 Ultra Shimmer Palette

At first glance on the website it appeared that these palettes were the same except one had blushes and the other one didn't.  I took a chance and ordered the 26 Eye Shadow and Blush Palette.  I'm so glad that I did.  Unlike most people, I wasn't that impressed with the 28 Neutral Palette. The colors were a bit boring to me and not very pigmented.  I had to really work with them to get a nice finish.  I also felt like the colors were too close to each other to where they don't allow enough variety in looks.
I'm big on educating people about the differences between Neutral and Natural.  Neutral doesn't always have to be natural.  You can surely have a dramatic neutral look.  I do it all of the time.  Natural can include bright/dark colors just not in an extreme way.  One of my favorite ways to apply make up is a soft application with a slight pop of color.

I was very happy to receive this 26 Shadow and Blush Palette and find out that it was indeed different from the 28 Neutral Palette.  There's a bigger contrast in the variety.  The colors are deeper and more pigmented.

Lip Palette

On the left, the 66 Lip Palette.  On the right the 32 Lip Palette

This was another purchase I was pleasantly surprised about.  I figured that the 32 Lip Palette was just a smaller version of the 66 Lip Palette that I already owned but with larger proportions.  Nope, they are actually different. Yes!!

 Very Pretty colors.  

Last Day for Coastal Scents Sale. 30% off Selected Items & Buy 2 get 1 free Gel Liner Sale

I just purchased some more items today for me and my mom.  Here are the sales for this weekend.

These are the Gel Liners I purchased.

Exotic

Peach Bellini

Sexy Pink

Here are the Palettes I bought

88 Ultra Shimmer Palette

I've been looking at this palette for a couple of years now.  I never got it because I bought the Original 88 Palette and I  was afraid I'd end up with duplicate colors, but since it's on sale I thought I'd give it a try.

32 Lip Palette

I have the 60 Lip Palette but I wanted to try this one out.  Plus the sizes of the colors are bigger.

Camouflage Concealer Palette

I already did a review and look using this palette.  This is one of the best purchases I've ever made from Coastal Scents.  I decided to get another one since it's on sale.

26 Shadow Blush Palette

Honestly I don't know how I've passeed this palette up all of this time.  I really don't remember looking at it before this weekend.  It appears a bit similar to the 28 Neutral Palette but maybe a few darker colors and of course the addition of blush.  The blush colors don't appear to be the same as the 10 blushes that came with the 42 Matte Palette, which was my very 1st purchase from Coastal Scents in '09.  I can't wait to see what this looks like.  I don't think I've reviewed the 28 Neutral Palette yet, it was a huge let down.  I think it's the only palette I've purchased fro Coastal Scents that I wasn't pleased with.  Hmmph!

My mom wanted to try adding some color for the summer for her make up routine.  These are the palettes I purchased for her.

88 Original Palette

88 Warm Palette

32 Lip Palette

10 Blush Palette

The only reason I didn't get this set is because I think I have most of these brushes already.  I purchases a few of them about 2 years ago.  Since then, I've purchased quite a few pink brushes from both Coastal Scents and Crown Brush.  I already have a couple of brush rolls so I passed on this one. 

*All images were taken from the Coastal Scents website