One Haul to Rule Them All

Sephora has their Friends and Family event going on right now....which means if you're a friend of someone that works at Sephora, you get a nice little discount! I was able to snag a little discount and went on a little shopping spree! Expect in-depth review later to come, but for now, get ready for some pic heavy HAUL pictures! I'll list what I got and then I'm just going to dive right into the pictures.

*This is not a review of any of the items, it's simply just a haul and swatch post*

Pictures were taken in artificial lighting (I normally take them in natural lighting, but I had use artificial lighting this time, I am leaving for a vacation and will not be back for at least a week and wanted to post this). Swatches were on NC25 skintone.

Items in order of pictures:

Hourglass Ambient Lighting Palette
Illamasqua Powder Blusher in Hussy
Bobbi Brown Bronzing Powder in Natural
Dior Diorskin Shimmer Star in Amber Diamond
NARS Guy Bourdin Holiday Collection Limited Edition Cheek Palette in One Night Stand
LORAC PRO To Go Eye/Cheek Palette
beautyblender Solid Sponge Cleanser

[TUTORIAL TIME] D.I.Y. Eyebrows

Let's get down to business, and defeat these brows!

First, let me just say, I had to grow mine out for a good 2.5 weeks to be able to do this tutorial. I hope you guys really enjoy this! I will say one thing, I do NOT use scissors. I have not ever trimmed my own brows before. I'm not THAT confident in myself yet. I have, however, used those mini razors on my brows. Let me tell you, those are amazing! They are very easy to use and are fast!

I tend to do my own brows except for maybe once a year or twice a year where I'll go and get them threaded, but that's about it. By, 'do my own brows', I mean I just tweeze them.

Here's a quick tutorial I put together. Keep in mind, I've decided to give 3 options in terms of what to use to fill in your brows. Pencil, powder and gel.

Let's get started with the tools:

The highlighter crayon is used to sketch where you will be tweezing. You can use anything. I choose this particular crayon because it will also double as my brow highlighter.

The Color Tattoo, Mac shadow (in Brun) and the Sephora Brow Pencil are the 3 products we will use to fill our brows at the end. All the rest of the products you see are the tools we will use to prep our canvas.

Step 1:

I didn't actually mean dirty...I meant unkept..anyhow. If you google 'brow arch' you will find a billion and one search results for different shapes. First, I'd like to apologize for not including my nose (which is oh-so-important when measuring arches). Basically, you want to keep your arch natural. Don't try to change anything outrageous. If you at the left line, I clearly have a LOT of eyebrow hair to the left of that line. Does that mean I should tweeze all of that? NO! The lines are just a guide! However, if you look at the middle line, your highest arch, should align with you outside pupil and the outer nostril. Alright, enough staring at my unkept brow? Let's move along...

Step 2:

Sorry for the blurry picture. Alright, I've marked where I'd like to tweeze. Anything outside the line can be tweezed. Let's go!

Step 3:

MUCH BETTER! Now that you've tweezed everything outside the line, go ahead and clean everything up! After the crayon mark is wiped up, take a closer look. Use the spoolie and brush everything in place and see if you need to tweeze any additional stray hairs. This is also a good time to use the clear brow gel and stick everything in place and double check!

Step 4:

Time to fill it up! Take your favorite product and start filling your brow up! Remember to fill the outside first, then use the mascara spoolie and brush it in and step back and take a look. Don't overfill! Then if need be, fill the insides last. This is done with Mac's eyeshadow in Brun. My hair color is jet black for reference.

Below are some other ways of filling in your brows:

I hope you've enjoyed this tutorial! Let me know if there are any other tutorials you'd like to see!

YVES SAINT LAURENT

YVES SAINT LAURENT: 

Just saying it makes me feel all fancy! Today's post will be about YSL lipsticks. More specifically, their Rouge Volupte lipsticks and their Volupte Sheer Candy Glossy Balms.

Let's get the obvious out of the way..these cost a pretty little penny. 3400 ($34) pennies for the lipsticks and 3200 ($32) pennies for the balms to be exact. 

I own three (3). I sold blood for them. I might have to sell plasma for the Fall collection. We'll see. 

Here's what I have:

(L) Lipstick in #1 Nude Beige, (M) Balm in #9 Cool Guava, (R) Balm in #4 Grenade Suave

 (L) Lipstick in #1 Nude Beige, (M) Balm in #9 Cool Guava, (R) Balm in #4 Grenade Suave

 Swatched (L) Lipstick in #1 Nude Beige, (M) Balm in #9 Cool Guava, (R) Balm in #4 Grenade Suave

So what do I think of these? I'm glad you asked!

1. I think they smell amazing! I've never smelled such classy lipsticks before. YSL must inject perfume into their lipsticks! Keep in mind, this can also be a HUGE turn off for some folks too. This is also why I put this as my number one. It has a mild (but good, to me) fragrance.
2. All 3 goes on smoothly and glides on like butter.
3. The lipstick (I only have #1 in Nude Beige) is amazing in color, very opaque, which is great...especially if I'm paying $34 for a lipstick, I don't want to be reapplying over and over again!
4. The balms, #9 was really light and the color pay-off was not that great. I feel like I paid a little too much for not a lot of color. However, #4 was uh-may-zing! It is the perfect sheer glossy red!
5. Packaging...I mean, really? How gorgeous are they? I'm not saying go out and buy a $34 lipstick just for the smell and the packaging, but man....

You can find this product at:

Sephora for $32 (balm) and $34 (lipstick)

I give this product a 9/10

Urban Decay Revolution Lipstick

Lipstick junkie. These are the two words that can be used to best describe me.

The Urban Decay (UD) Revolution Lipsticks are the bomb.com. The two lipsticks I bought are in the colors of Streak and Obsessed. Let me tell you, these lipsticks are long-lasting. Not only that, some other qualities of these lipsticks are:

Non-drying: I wouldn't call it hydrating, but at least it does not dry my lips like other long-lasting lipsticks.

Staining: I can't be the only person that doesn't always reapply my lipstick through the day, right? RIGHT?

Opaque: talk about color intensity! One swipe on my lower lip and one swipe on my upper lip and I'm good to go!

Don't forget, to make these ever so more long-lasting, pair them with their lip pencils!

Enough babbling, here are some pictures of what I'm talking about:

You can find this product at:

Urban Decay for $22
Sephora for $22
Ulta for $22

I give this product a 9/10

fresh Sugar Lip Polish

fresh Sugar Lip Polish is the perfect lip scrub to pair with your lipstick. Nobody wants that nasty, flaky lips with that awesome lipstick! It's a must-have item for the upcoming Fall as well. If your lips chap easy, have flaky skin, dead skin and peel easy, this gentle scrub is perfect for you.

The smell of the scrub is lemony fresh and the taste is sugary yummy! It's gentle and not abrasive at all. From the close-up, you can see the texture is fine and grainy.

You can find this product at:

Sephora for $22.50
Nordstorm for $22.50

I give this product a 8/10