Purple Print-cess

Yesterday I attended a big dinner party with lots of close friends and family to celebrate my mom and dad's 37th wedding anniversary.  Oh, they've had their ups and downs, as I'm sure most couples do, but the bottom line is that they've worked hard to build a rock-solid marriage and have been determined to stick together...no matter what.  They're inseparable companions: working together, eating together, sleeping together.  Lol, I love my husband, I do, but I think that if we had to spend every waking moment together, we'd probably drive each other crazy!  All joking aside, however, I truly admire my parents' resilience as a couple and can only strive to build such a strong, lasting bond with my husband.

I'll take any excuse to dress up, but I think this occassion was an excellent reason to do so, don't you think?  I wore a flared, clip-dot cotton voile dress printed with purple florals and accented with delicate crochet lace as well as pintuck and pleat detailing.  It was a gift from my mother and sister, who saw it on a shopping trip at Kohl's and immediately thought of me.  Wasn't that sweet of them?  They know my taste so well!  I paired it with some white leather eyelet platform mules by Guess and jewelry by Lovelina, of course. :)

Lavender tips and toes: Revlon Scented Polish in Gumdrop

 

Love Gives You Wings Necklace

I kept my makeup soft and simple, a lavender smokey eye with pastel-pink cheeks and lips. 

Eyes:

• Coastal Scents Original 88 Palette

Cheeks:

• ELF Studio Blush in Pink Passion

Lips:

• ELF Studio Lipstick in Runway Pink
• ELF Essential Luscious Liquid Lipstick in Perfect Pink

Thanks for hanging out and reading!  Hope you're all having a lovely Sunday! :D

Hugs,
Cat

Easy Glam Purple Smoke

So I realized I never did the "Part 2" segment to the April MyGlam review!  Whoops!  Therefore I'm going to make up for it by giving you guys another tutorial on how to do a simple smokey purple look using the UD 24/7 eyeliner pencil that I received via MyGlam as well as including the false lashes that came in my goodie bag this month.

Usually, when the word smoke comes to mind, one envisions a sultry, dark diva-esque look.  In this instance, however, I wanted to create a light, wearable smoke that's transitional from summer-y daytime to dramatic evening.  This is me before heading out to work yesterday:

Cheeks: ELF Studio Blush in Pink Passion  Lips: ELF Luscious Liquid Lipstick in Perfect Pink

Want the look?  It's easy. :)  As usual, we start with primed eyelids:

Next, using my MyGlam fluffy eyeshadow brush, I'm going to choose a light, lavender shade of shadow to apply all over my top eyelid.  For convenience sake, I chose to go with my Coastal Scents Original 88 palette for all my shadow colors in this tutorial.

Then, using the UD 24/7 pencil eyeliner in Ransom, which I received in my April MyGlam bag, I'm going to trace the outer corners of my upper and lower lash lines:

Now, using a deep purple shade, I'm going to smudge and blend the pencil eyeliner to smoke out the outer corners of my eyes.  I found that the petite shadow brush included in this month's MyGlam bag was perfect for the job!

In order to soften my lower lash line, I'm going to apply some more of that pale lavender shade along the bottom edge of my lower eyelid:

Then I'm going to add a little matte ivory right under my brow arch as a highlight:

With black gel eyeliner, I'm going to draw a modest wing along my upper lash line:

To finish, I'm going to curl my lashes and apply mascara:

So here, I'm pretty much finished with my soft, smokey daytime look:

If you're going out for the evening, the quickest way to amp up this look is to add a pair of false eyelashes.  Here is the pair I received from MyGlam, appropriately themed for a "Girl's Night Out":

Bam!  Instant glam!  Talk about doll-eyes...  These lashes are pretty cool in that the band is very soft, flexible, and comfortable, unlike some others that can be hard and rigid.  They're easy to trim to the correct size and are very lightweight to wear.  They're definitely a lot of fun and aren't for the faint-of-heart.  Don't like double-takes?  Then these aren't the lashes for you!  Lol!

Alrighty then, friends!  Hope you're all having a lovely Saturday evening and that you enjoyed this little lesson and review.  Until next time!

Hugs,
Cat

Airborne Unicorn

I know that some of you were looking forward to seeing a full-face photo of Airborne Unicorn.  I think I was finally able to get my camera to behave so that it would capture the color relatively accurately.  I really wanted to do a proper shoot with a nicer camera, but I'm hopping a flight to Washington DC tomorrow to visit family for the holidays, so I won't have a chance to do that until after I return.  In the meantime, I hope these will do:

Just playing around with my wannabe Wayfarers and different hairstyles. :D

With a cross-process filter.

With a lomographic filter.

I was super-bored during a long break in class, so I started messing with some filter apps. Hehe.  Welps, happy Tuesday y'all and have a great night!

Hugs,
Cat

p.s. Oh yeah, I forgot to talk about the lipstick, lol.  The color is a bright, pink-purple bordering on neon. I noticed that after it had worn off a little from eating, drinking, talking, etc, it left a really beautiful stain that I put clear gloss over, making for a pretty smile all day long! :D

Lime Crime: Airborne Unicorn and My Beautiful Rocket

Yeah, totally loooooooong overdue post, but I didn't even get to open the box until today.  THAT's how busy I've been.  You know it's been beckoning to me.

Lol, I always have to photograph the packaging because it's so pretty that it'd be a waste not to.  I have a hard time throwing it away...hehe.

Ok, first up Airborne Unicorn, described as: "Medium violet-purple with a neon note."

Such a pretty shade of purple!  I've never had anything like this before, so I was so excited when I got a chance to try it. :D  First off, let me say that the color is really hard to capture on camera.  The hue is actually more opaque and a touch pinker in person.  Sure, the photos don't look bad, but trust me, this color is 10x more gorgeous in real life.  I guess Airborne Unicorn is so vibrant, my camera can't handle it, lol.  On another note, I've never felt comfortable wearing purples, but for the first time, I feel like I've found a purple lipstick that compliments my heavy yellow undertones as opposed to clashing with them. Yay!  I'm so anxious to create some cool looks with it in the near future!

Next up, My Beautiful Rocket which is described as: "True, luminous orange without red undertones."

Yep, that's orange.  Well, actually more of a tangerine.  Whatever, I LOVE it!  (like Airborne Unicorn, my camera had a hard time capturing My Beautiful Rocket, it's a bit redder in the images than in person)  I seldom see orange worn as a lipstick...or as makeup in general.  People go nuts over nudes, peaches, pinks, purples, reds...etc.  In my opinion, orange seems to be a forgotten color.  I just love how nicely it compliments my southeast asian complexion.  It's so vibrant and intense!  I feel totally fab in it.  I'm actually going to a girlfriend's birthday dinner tonight and at first I had reservations about wearing MBR out because it's soooooooo outside of the norm, but my husband assured me that I look great in it, so why not?  If anyone doesn't like it, they don't have to look at me, right?

My final thoughts?  Both lipsticks are smooth, creamy, and quite opaque with satiny finishes.  The colors are amazing and they smell like vanilla sugar cookie batter, IMO.  Yum!  I'd like to note that, while Lime Crime lippies aren't cheap, I feel like I'm totally getting my money's worth because the shades are so outstanding and unique.  Head-turners for sure!  If attention isn't your cup o' tea, these are definitely not for you!  I'm so addicted to these lipsticks, I can't wait to add more to my collection and am currently considering what other colors to get! :D  Check 'em out:

Creative colors put me in such a good mood!  Happy Monday and hope you all have a great one!

Hugs,

Cat

OCC Lip Tars: Katricia and Pageant

I received my OCC Lip Tars a few days ago, but have been so busy with other things that I haven't had the opportunity to post my experience with them until today.  Well, here they are!

Katricia on the left, Pageant on the right.

Katricia

I applied the lip tars extremely sparingly because of the warning that a little goes a long way.  I never thought I'd enjoy wearing a purple lipstick until I got Katricia.  I put  a very thin veneer on my lips, therefore it's not as true to the tube color as it ought to be.  I like that I can play around with the shade depending on the amount of product I use.  Here, Katricia is a little pinker because it's just a purplish enhancement of my natural lip color.  I imagine it would be bluer if I applied twice as much.

Pageant is a real attention getter.  HOT!  I'm so into bright pinks right now and this color really satiates that appetite.  So let's talk about texture.  The formula is extremely fluid, more liquid-like than your normal gloss.  Upon application, Lip Tar is feels very much like one of those long-wearing lip stains.  Very thin and lightweight.  It dries to a nearly matte, satin, non-sticky finish.  It IS very transferable though, so be careful who you kiss.  Although it feels dry, the color will still come off.  I feel like I would need to use these with a balm or gloss to keep my lips moisturized.  Since I haven't gotten a chance to test these for long wear yet, I'll have to get back with an update.  What I can say is that the colors are true to the tube and are extremely concentrated, pigmented, and vibrant.  I definitely would like to get a few more in order to experiment with  mixing my own colors.  Hopefully they have another sale soon!

Don't forget to enter my latest giveaway!

Bruised: dark purple and pink smoke tutorial

In the spirit of upcoming Halloween, I decided to try a really deep, dark pink and purple smoke look inspired by my newest makeup idol, Viola H.  You can check out the look here: Smokey Purple and her awesome blog here: Killer Colours.  The woman looks like a freakin' supermodel and she's got these gorgeous grey cat eyes.  I did the best I could with my small almond asian eyes:

She also did the look using expensive eyeshadow.  Let's face it, there IS a big difference in pigmentation, formulation, and performance when it comes to a $15-per-color brand as opposed to $10-per-100-colors brand.  Still, when applied correctly, cheap makeup can make you look just as pretty as expensive makeup.  I've learned to do this because I don't have a choice!  Lol. :D

For this look, I start with a primed eye and I'm going apply Wet N Wild's Idol Eyes Creme Eyeshadow Pencil in Graphite on my upper and lower lids as a base:

Graphite is a really dark grey with a satiny shimmer, nearly black.  Next, I'm going to choose the matte black shadow from my Coastal Scents 88 Matte palette and I'm going to layer it over the creme shadow base:

Then, using the darkest purple from the CS 88 palette, I'm going to soften the edges of the black shadow.

At this point, the purple is very dark and hard to see.  Blended with the black shadow, it nearly looks grey.  Our next step is to smoke the edges with pink.  To do this, I'm going to use the matte, hot pink shade from my CS 88 palette:

You can see the gradient now from black, to purple, to pink.  To give my upper and lower lash lines a little more definition, I'm going to line them with Wet N Wild's H2O Proof black liquid eyeliner:

It's a very subtle difference, but I feel like it does make a difference.  To finish, I'm going to curl lashes, apply mascara, and apply falsies:

Ok, these are probably my LEAST favorite style of falsies.  I'm not sure what brand or style #, but I just found these at the bottom of my makeup case and decided to try them.  They're longest in the center and taper towards the edges...not the most flattering.  Sorry guys!  I need to stock up on false lashes.  My favorites are the ones that flare out longer towards the outer corners.  I'm just out of those. :(

Overall look:

Sorry about the blurry right image!  Half the photos I take blurry and that's the best I got out of the bunch.  Boo!

Cheeks: ELF Studio Blush in Fuchsia Fusion

Lips: ELF Studio Matte Lip Color in Natural and ELF Studio Glitter Gloss in Twinkle Pink.

I don't even know why I bothered to do my hair because it started raining as soon I went outside.  *sigh*  In any case, hope you all enjoyed today's tutorial!  This would be a fun look to do if you decide to be a witch, sorceress, vampire or whatever this Halloween!  Or you could just wear it to school, like I did today.  Hehe.

Hugs,
Cat

Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in Lacey Lilac

CVS was having a BOGO half off on Sally Hansen polishes so I decided to pick up a couple of 'em.  I chose Lacy Lilac and White On.  Here's a shot of Lacy Lilac in natural window light:

It's a really pretty, creamy shade of pastel purple without any pearl or shimmer.  Such a feminine and romantic color!  It's similar to the Revlon Scented Polish in Gumdrop that I did a post on a few months ago,  however Lacey Lilac has a little more pink in it.  The formula applies really well and has decent opacity with just one coat, though I'm pictured here wearing 2 coats.  At only $2.99 a bottle and with the addition of the BOGO sale, they're even cheaper than ELF nail polishes.  I love a great bargain! :D

Tutorial: Bright Pink and Purple Smoke

A smokey eye shouldn't be confined to just smokey colors.  I decided to try doing one in bright, fun colors!

It turned out pretty neat so I figured it would make a nice tutorial!  For this lesson, I'm going to use my ELF Studio Endless Eyes Pro Eyeshadow Palette:

1. Bright, sparkly pink base color
2. Deep purple smoke color
3. Matte black outer corner color

So here goes. :D  As always, I start with primed eyelids:

Then I'm going to apply the bright pink shade to my eyelids:

Next, I'm going to thickly line my top and bottom lid lines with my ELF Essential Shimmer Eyeliner in Plum Passion:

Using the deep purple shade from the palette, I'm going to layer and smudge color right over the eyeliner.

Once I've completed that step, I'm going to line the outer corners of my top and bottom lid lines with black eyeliner pencil.  Then, I'm going to layer and smudge matte black shadow over the black eyeliner.

Then I'm going to enhance my top and bottom lid lines with black liquid eyeliner:

Curl lashes and apply mascara to complete my colorful smokey eye:

Since my love for false lashes has recently been re-awakened, I'm going to apply some in order to enhance my puny natural lashes:

To compliment the pink shadow, I'm going to wear a matching pink lip.  This is a perfect opportunity for me to try out a new gloss I got from ELF.  To start, I line and fill my lips with my ELF Studio Lip Liner and Blending Brush in Nude Pink:

Then I grab my new ELF Studio Glossy Gloss in Wild Watermelon:

Wild Watermelon a gorgeous, sheer, bright pink that looks and smells like candy.  It's super-shiny and really adds punch to my pout.

All set and ready to go!

Additional makeup details:

Face:
1. CoverGirl CG Smoothers Aqua Tinted Moisturizer in Light to Medium
2. ELF Studio Complete Coverage Concealer Palette in Light
3. ELF Studio Translucent Matifying Powder

Eyebrows:
1. ELF Studio Eyebrow Kit in Medium

Cheeks:
1. ELF Studio Blush in Pink Passion

Lips:
1. ELF Studio Lip Lock Pencil
2. ELF Studio Lip Liner & Blending Brush in Nude Pink
3. ELF Studio Glossy Gloss in Wild Watermelon