The Procrastinating Beauty Blogger Tag

Hi guys!  Let's talk about how lazy I am.  Side note: when did the word 'procrastinating' become such a commonly used, acceptable term?  We need to get it out of our vocabulary so we can stop pretending it's ok.

1. Name a beauty regime that you rarely do?
I rarely ever use masks of any kind.  I used to really like Lush masks and leaving in deep hair conditioners overnight, but that phase came and went when I started college.  Now I'm proud of myself for taking off my makeup at night, nevertheless sleep in conditioner or lounge around my apartment in a face mask.

2. Is washing your make-up brushes something that you do regularly?
It actually is.  I find that my brushes don't work as well when they're dirty, and considering how dependent I am on them, I need them to work properly.  I also have a pretty quick method for washing them (a post is coming), and since I wash them pretty immediately and don't wait for them to pile up, it's not that much of a chore.

3. How long will you last with chipped nail polish?
I HATE chipped nail polish.  I will usually re-paint my nails once half of my nails are chipped because I cannot stand it.

4. How long will you put off buying/replacing a beauty product, even if you need it?
No time at all.  I replace all my essentials as soon as I finish them.  I do tend to experiment with different things quite a bit, but I do have specific favorites that will be replaced.

5. What is your worst beauty habit?
I never remember to use heat protectant.  With hair as long and bleached as mine is, you would think I'd be more careful of this, but I am a rebel, and I convince myself I can undo it with enough conditioner.

6. Name something non-beauty related that you put off doing all the time?
Homework, calling my grandma, sleeping, drinking enough water, filling out all the forms I'm responsible for, etc.

7. When going out somewhere, do you leave getting ready to the last minute?
I like to have plenty of time because I do like to do my hair and makeup for special events.  Which I go to a lot, obviously.

8. Can you commit to spending bans?
I can commit to an I-don't-have-a-job ban.

9. How organized is your make-up and nail polish collections?
My makeup is super organized, my nail polish is all in a shoebox-sized rubbermaid fighting for a spot on top.  I regularly think I have misplaced my topcoat because it is buried beneath the bodies of it's colorful brethren.

Jordana FabuLiner

Winged eyeliner is my favorite part of putting on my makeup, and I find liquid to be my favorite format.  

I recently stumbled upon this liner from Jordana.  It's a marker tip, which means that there's a lot of control over the thickness, and regardless of whether you use the point for a finer line or more of the side to thicken it up, the liner is really opaque.  

At least, that's how things went for the back-of-the-hand swatches.  When it came time to actually use this on my eye, it was not working out.  It looked like I had put on my eyeliner in the morning, got dumped over lunch, after which my dog died: and that was right after I put it on.  The tip dragged, the color was patchy, and I couldn't make a clean wing for the life of me.

For $2.50 it's not a huge loss, but it's going to be very difficult for me to find a use for this now. 

Fast Track

This week's nail color is China Glaze's Fast Track from the Hunger Games collection.  Yes, that collection launched over a year ago, but just let me be happy for a second.

Nude nails are something that everyone should try, but this color's got a bit of a twist - as in a lot of tiny gold shimmer.  Having golden fingertips is a great mood boost.

This color is opaque in 2 coats, it lasts really well, and the shimmer does not make it difficult to take off.  Which is so exciting right?  Finally, a bottle of sparkly happiness that doesn't take 6 hours and a chisel to remove.

Satin Taupe

When I first started doing makeup when I was 13, I used blues and greens on my eyes all the time.  I thought it was the coolest thing ever.

Nowadays, I realize the beautiful simplicity of neutral eye makeup; but every once in a while, I want to go for something more colorful.  Since my eyes are brown, purple tones look best on me (yellow is opposite purple on the color wheel, so purple eyeshadows make my eyes look more amber than dark pools of despair).  I've come up with this look using cool-toned, veering on purple shadows.  It's a very neutral-seeming, sort of smokey but very wearable eye look.

Excuse the dramatic angle on this one, it just best portrayed the smokiness that I think was lost in the first 2 shots.

I started out by using my Benefit Creaseless Cream Eyeshadow in RSVP.  It's a fairly pink champagne color.  

If you don't already own this or some other champagne base, just go with a normal primer, the shadows will take care of it.

I then put MAC's Satin Taupe eyeshadow on the outer half of my lid.  This color is absolutely stunning and really makes the look sultry.

Here it is swatched next to RSVP and it's really catching the light, but it can look as deep as it does in the pan.  

I used Tease from my Naked 2 palette (if I was going to be able to use the flash, the name was not going to show up in the picture) through my crease.  This is great to bring the shimmer down and it's definitely not a dark shade so it helps keep the look wearable.

Tease is a pretty unique shade.  It's a matte taupe that leans more on the purple side.  I believe that MAC's Quarry is similar, but I don't have it so I can't be sure.

If you didn't use RSVP, you should do this step first.  Depending on my mood and what I'm up to, I will go back into the inner 1/3 of my eye with Sin from my Naked palette.  Sin is the second color from the left.

Sin is very, very pink and looks very pretty with the rest of the purple shades.

I lined my upper lash line with Maybelline's black gel eyeliner and used Rimmel's Scandaleyes eyeliner in 003 Brown on my water line.

This color has a bit of a sheen running through it so I don't look like the princess of Darkness when I wear it.

I think this look is really great, and it's one of the few that I actually go back and do multiple times.

My Makeup Wishlist

Living the life of a college student means one thing over all: money goes either to gas or food.  Therefore, I do a lot of collecting items in my Sephora shopping cart and pretending that they're mine.  Here's my current beauty wish list:

Sigma Premium Kit:
http://www.sigmabeauty.com/Premium_Professional_Kit_p/pk001.htm

I prefer this brush set from Sigma because it has a lot of their more unique brushes.  I like to have a variety of brushes for different applications, and a lot of these brushes seem very different from what I already have.

Lorac Pro Palette:
http://www.sephora.com/pro-palette-P374709?skuId=1432384

Although I have eyeshadows up to my eyeballs, I just find this palette so enticing.  The shades are all very neutral, but there is so much variety within the palette.  I also love that it has so many matte colors.

Matte Drugstore Eyeshadows

Every once in a while, I notice I start doing different things with my makeup.  I'll go for something darker, something more neutral, or something brighter.  Recently I've been going more matte.  I've been leaning away from my cream blushes and shimmer eyeshadows for a more natural look.  A lot of people prefer matte makeup, but matte makeup is harder to make when trying to pull off the soft, pigmented powder products consumers expect.  That's why matte makeup is so rare in the drugstore; however, with my new adjustment I've found 3 really great matte drugstore eye products.

Jordana 12 Hour Made to Last Eyeshadow Pencil in Continuous Almond

This is a new drugstore release from Jordana, a company I previously associated with old school Wet N Wild - inexpensive but also sub-par.  However, their new products have been really impressive.

There are a couple of colors of these eyeshadow sticks, if you want other matte shades I know they carry a matte brown and black, but I didn't think I'd get much use out of those colors as an eyeshadow base.  This one in Continuous Almond is what I've been sticking to almost exclusively since I bought it.  The product is similar to NYX's Jumbo Eye Pencils in size and texture.  It applies very easily, it is creamy and doesn't tug.  I much prefer these to NYX's eye pencils because these have not creased on me once.

The color reminds me of Mac's Painterly paint pot.  It's a neutral beige color that comes very close to my skin color, so it's a great base for my eyes.  It's very opaque, I find I actually tend to sheer it out before applying eyeshadow on top of it.  Since it's not shimmery, unlike my Maybelline Color Tattoo in barely branded, I feel like I can use this under matte eyeshadows.

Wet N Wild 8-pan Palette in Drinking A Glass of Shine

This palette has been limited edition, re-released, released with new collections, etc.  It consists of 4 neutral matte shades and 4 colorful shades.  The 'eyelid' shade in the right column is very orange, so I consider it on the colorful side.  This palette has a lot of options.  The colors range from very neutral to very bright to very dark.

 Like all other Wet N Wild eyeshadows, this palette is amazingly pigmented, especially because these are matte shadows.  The texture is very soft as well.




Revlon Colorstay eyeshadow quad in Addictive

This quad is not entirely matte, but is one of my favorites for a very minimal, simple, natural eye look.  From the top left going clockwise:  the first shadow is a matte beige color with glitter.  The glitter really worried me at first, but once you get it on it is not noticeable.  The second color is a matte grey/beige.  This shade really walks the line between the two colors.  This one is entirely matte.  The third color is a satiny taupe color.  When all of these are worn together, this color really brings attention to your eyes.  The fourth color is a standard matte brown.  This color is a bit on the darker side and is a very warm brown.

When swatching these colors, they feel very dry.  They're still pigmented, but they do feel dry.  They lack that softness that the Wet N Wild colors have.  However, once you apply these on top of a base, they turn up with all the pigmentation you could want.

Midnight Cami

Ignoring my horrendous nails (I have a painfully boring class that urges me towards fingernail mutilation) I thought I'd show you one of my favorite nail polishes, Essie's Midnight Cami.

I deeply adore blue nails, but my history of loving "sk8r bois" and Hot Topic also makes me partial to black nails.  In comes navy.

This color has a very, very dark blue base and a lot of blue shimmers that make it very obviously not black, and somehow make the darkness colorful.

The formula is standard, 2 coats for full opacity.  I do not think Essie polishes stay the best, but the color is so unique that I can deal with the formula.  The problem is that, since it's so dark, when it does chip it is very obvious.

Revlon Photoready 3D Volume Mascara

Mascara.  It is most people's requirement for their face.  When you ask women "If you were stranded on a desert island what makeup item would you take?" (they should answer food and water)  most women answer mascara.  It's also the product that needs replacing most often.  Since mascara comes into contact with your eyes, and sometimes the inside of your eyes (you know, like when you accidentally stab yourself), it needs to be replaced about every 3 months.  Because of the frequency of repurchasing, a lot of women try several different kinds; I know I used to.  I tried all different kinds, and they were all OK.  Most of them weren't necessarily disappointing.  In fact, I really liked some of them (Maybelline Illegal Length, if you're wondering) but this one has stolen the show.  It's the only mascara I've bought in about a year.

The reason I bought it initially was because it had the Benefit "They're Real"-esque spikes on the end that every makeup blogger was losing their minds over.  And only cost $8.  I took it home and tried it out.  It was the first time I only needed to use one mascara.

What I find so odd about the name is that I really don't think it's crazy-volumizing.  What this does for me is it gives me a LOT of separation and really enhances my eyelashes' fairly impressive natural length.  I love it because it doesn't clump, I don't need 3 coats of it to see a difference, and it can look both really natural and really intense.  The brush is plastic, and I find with plastic wands, you don't want to do one coat, let it dry, and put on another.  Instead, I keep raking it through until it's as thick as I want.  Because it separates so well, I don't need to go back with a comb or spoolie to break up chunks.

Revlon makes this in both regular and waterproof.  I usually go for regular as I find it holds a curl perfectly well and it doesn't smudge on my upper lashes (sometimes I find it does smudge on my lower lashes, so I use a different waterproof mascara).  However, in a mistake of rushed purchasing, I have gotten the waterproof formula before and it really doesn't move.  As in, I had a hard time getting it off.  If that's what you're looking for, great, it held up amazingly.  If not, I'd say stick with regular.

This is really my favorite makeup product, and it's something I never even think about replacing.

About Me

If you're going to be reading about my preferences in products, I think it might be helpful for you to know what my skin/hair are like.  That way, if you are the opposite, you can pass on everything I like and buy everything I hate.

I was blessed with very normal skin.  Though I'm not proud of it, I have gone several days without doing much of anything to my face and still nothing happens.  I do get the occasional, hormonal, large zit, but they are rare.  The skin underneath my eyes is puffier than it is dark and veiny, though if I'm not good about sleeping, that'll come up too.

My hair is very fine and there's not a lot of it.  It doesn't frizz, but it can get really greasy.  I do bleach the ends of my hair, and I've been doing a lot of conditioning to repair the damage.

Intro To Poor Usernames

Hello all, I suppose I should begin this by saying that starting a blog feels a lot like starting my youtube channel - incredibly narcissistic.  In the youtube world, I talk about myself, my experiences, etc. this I would like to be something different.  I have, for about 3 years now, been an avid reader of beauty blogs.  Getting people's input on products and companies and getting inspiration and ideas has greatly benefitted my own development as my college dorm's on-site cosmetologist.  Hopefully, I'll be able to contribute to that somewhat.

My history with usernames/titles for things online has been rather awkward (icebox2104 was my AIM screen name).  This one is the result of a very long argument with Blogger's URL generator who refused to accept any of my ideas.  Ruiarí is the name of my dearly beloved stuffed elephant.  It is Irish, like the person who gave him to me, and it is pronounced Rory but looks so much more elegant.  So, sorry again for my inability to make cool usernames/URLs.  

This is my face, by the way: