I need to stop reading MakeupAlley

Because frankly I find out about these deals and then I buy and then I feel buyer's remorse for five minutes.

So there was a Rock and Republic craze on the blog because of the fact that you could stack a 50% off coupon (on cosmetics only) with a referral credit to make for excellent savings!

The blushes look like this and you get a whopping 9 grams of blush for 40 dollars, as opposed to 4.5 grams of Nars or 6 grams with MACAs it is, they've got so many sales going on I don't think anyone has ever paid retail for them.

Here's the key to getting two 40 dollar blushes for 17.99!

A. Get a referral code from an invite which allows you to get a 25 dollar credit towards your purchase

WARNING- I can actually send you a referral but in return, I get 25 dollars in credit although I don't get it until your order actually ships.

So if you want one from me, definitely leave your email and I'll send you the invite but I'll warn you that I benefit from this too!

B. Put 75 bucks of cosmetics ( doesn't have to be blush) in your cart (the 25 dollar credit works on orders 75 and up) When you put at least 75 dollars worth of product, your referral credit will show up

C. Enter the coupon code "ROCKCOSMETICS" for 50 percent off

D. Pick your shipping, they have FedEX for 99 cents so pick that one!

And that's it!

KarlaSugar has amazing swatches off all the blushes, I chose Bedroom and X-Rated because they were matte blushes and my pores can't handle shimmer :( But that only cost 17.99 and they're so worth it!

I hope this helps you guys!

Another Orange Look?!

I honestly can't get enough of Flamepoint eyeshadow. It needs the barest touch of a brush and is so extremely pigmented and smooth on eyelid. It's kind of perplexing to see how smooth a matte can be when you've experienced truly poor mattes.

I've been trying to experiment with taking pictures, I think this way shows off the shape of my eye better.
MUFE Aqua Cream # 12 on the lid only
Stila Kitten on the lid only
BFTE Courage in the crease, pulled up and also on the lower outer lashline
Sugarpill Flamepoint in the crease between Kitten and Courage
NYX Sahara as a highlight
Maybelline Falsies WP Mascara

Sonia Kashuk & Breast Cancer Awareness Month

Sonia Kashuk is a makeup artist and well known for her makeup line in Target. She's got amazing drugstore makeup brushes (especially her fluffy eyeshadow brush and the small eyeshadow brush)

What you may not have known is that she is a survivor of breast cancer and so because of this, she put out (possibly for several years now) a collection at Target of which 15% of the purchase price are donated to the Breast Cancer Research Fund.

(Can I just say that I love it when a company gives a concrete percentage or number straight out? Sometimes saying a portion is too ambiguous for me)

This year, her blog is doing something awesome by giving away items from her BCRF Collection! She has many different survivors and family members talking about their experiences with breast cancer and it's so empowering.

I had the amazing luck to win this, a curler, tweezer and eyeshadow palette set and they've got a giveaway going on now that I feel that everyone should enter!
Beyond the actual giveaway part, it's just amazing to read the stories. Although my family members have not been afflicted with breast cancer, there have been scares with my sister so someone you know probably have been affected!

If you want to purchase the items separately, here they are on the Target website, shipping is free on the items too!

Courage Under Fire

I just posted about getting the Make Up For Ever Aqua Cream in #12 and so I wanted to post a look I did using it.

Concealer works magical wonders on silly weird bumps near my eye.

MUFE Aqua Cream #12 as a base and on the lower lash lash
BFTE Yellow Brick Road on the inner corner
BFTE Courage on the outer 2/3rds and on the outer lash line
Sugarpill Flamepoint( so much brighter in person! I used so little but it was BOLD) at the corner
NYX Sahara as a highlight
Maybelline Falsies WP Mascara

My Sephora FF-less buy and Advertising fail

I decided to only allow myself to spend 25 dollars at Sephora (because I had a 25 dollar giftcard) and it was actually cheaper to buy it in person than to pay for shipping even with Ebates.
I also want to tell you about my fun experience trying to redeem a sample in store.

So this is my new baby, Make Up For Ever Aqua Cream in #12. I was thinking about getting #13 but I thought it was just a bit too light for me.

KarlaSugar has a way better swatch of this than I did; for some reason it kept turning out really beige-y on my camera even though it is a copper in real life!

I likey, the texture isn't too creamy and it's got some fun glitter in it too.

So anyway, if any of you have checked out the different weekly specials on Sephora's site, you may have noticed this image. Under see details it says you can redeem it in stores by showing the sales associates the app.
And if you're like me, you've got an iPhone and want to get a sample because free stuff is nice in this economy. So I decided to ask a sales associate (who looked to be more senior on staff) about this promotion and turns out they didn't know what it was until I asked and said it probably hasn't started at the store yet.

Oy, Sephora get your act together. If you're going to do an in store promotion, I'd really like it if you could make sure your staff knows what's going on.

LGBT Spirit Day Outfit/Nails of the Day

Today was the day to wear purple to commemorate, honor and show support to those who have been victims of LGTBQ discrimination. If you wanted to get more information about this day and more, definitely go to the GLADD website.

It was cold and rainy out today but it then got hotter as the day went on. That's California weather for you.

Outfit
Because it was cold I wore a dark blue jacket, black pants and grey ankle boots (only because my other good shoes were waterlogged from the thunderstorm yesterday). The jacket is from a mom&pop clothing store, pants from Urban Outfitters and the boots are from Forever 21

and underneath...

Power Rangers! The shirt is from Hot Topic and the purple stripes on the sleeves match my nail polish.
Nails are China Glaze Grape Pop, two coats with Seche Vite.

Did you wear purple today? If so, what did you wear?

Stormy Grays

*I didn't realize how many international readers I had so for your convenience, I added a Google Translator at the top corner :) Hope this helps!!*

Now I live in California, specifically around Southern California and we don't get weather changes. Our definition of weather change are earthquakes and fires basically (that's what we get for living in a chaparral are)

Today Mother Nature decided we were overdue for some weather and dumped thunder, lightning and torrential rain on us. Thunder so hard and loud that car alarms in my neighborhood kept going off and rain that made me wonder when cats were going to start dropping.

Because of that I got inspired to do a dark smoky gray look using my new BFTE Wizard of Oz-Some eyeshadows. Next time I won't use Way Up High (my inner corner color) because it was way more golden toned than I had thought, using a more basic white would be better!

Also, use the tiniest bit of Twister if you get this set! I'm used to having a lot of black loose eyeshadow to get good pigmentation but you only need the tiniest bit. I had to clean up my look a bit because I had picked up more than I needed.


NYX Eyeshadow Base
Fyrinnae Pixie Epoxy
BFTE Way Up High in the inner corner
BFTE Have a Heart in the outer two thirds and outer lower lash line
BFTE Twister in the crease
NYX Sahara as the highlight
Maybelline Falsies WP Mascara
NYX Eyebrow Cake in Brunette

BFTE Cosmetics The Wizard of Oz-Some Collection Swatches and Review

Here are swatches of the BFTE Wizard of Oz-Some collection. This retails for $60. You get 12 colors, some of which aren't available outside of the set. Normally each full size jar is $6.50 but you get a $1.50 discount by buying them in the set!

Swatches done over Coastal Scents Shadow Worx Matte Eye Primer and pictures were taken in daylight

Ruby Slippers, Courage, Yellow Brick Road, and Emerald City

Ruby Slippers- a glittery red that hints towards orange. It would be best over something like Pixie Epoxy

Courage- An almost coppery orange. It had an excellent texture with tons of shimmer.

Yellow Brick Road- It's a nearly matte banana yellow shadow with bits of tiny shimmer. I was rather surprised at how smoothly it blended.

Emerald City- It's a bright green with lots of sparkly bits. Very much similar in texture to Courage

My Pretty, No Place Like Home, Lollipop Kid, and Good Witch

This really shows off how much of a green sparkle My Pretty has.

My Pretty- A dark green mega glittery shadow, the sparkle is amazing but it would need to be used with a sticky base

No Place like Home- It's a medium sparkly blue, like the plaid that Dorothy wears.

Lollipop Kid- It's a nice magenta purple, I'm just eh about it. It certainly isn't a bad color but I personally don't like really purples of this tone.

Good Witch- I think this color is a bit too light for me but it would definitely work on others.

Have a Heart, If I Only Had a Brain, Way Up High, and Twister

If I Only Had a Brain- Hmm it's quite nice, definitely like hay. I'm kind of on the fence about it.

Have A Heart- An amazing gunmetal silver that has a slight blue tint to it.

Way Up High- Ahhh I love this, the nearly matteness lends itself to having excellent texture. I'm a bit surprised at how well it blended too! Although it looks stark white, it actually has a golden sheen to it.

Twister- This has a bit of a sticky texture which I noticed as I was swatching it, definitely not bad and makes me think it'll have a lot of staying power.

All in all, I think this would be great to invest in! The colors are nice and bright, I didn't have any texture issues with the mattes (in fact, I think they're one of the best matte shadows I've ever tried) and the glittery shades are gorgeous!

If I had to be nitpicky on something, it would have to be the amount given. It is specified to be between 1-3 grams and to me, that's a big number to vary between. I would rather know it's 2-3 versus 1-3.

The tin is of superior quality. The lid is on a hinge and there's a clear plastic window on the front so you can see all of your shadows. Sometimes it's a bit fiddly to get the shadows out but I really want to keep them in this tin.

Golden Purples

I'm trying to experiment with my new Sugarpill colors and my old ones. I will say though that my eye crease was a little bit stained with red after I removed it. Not too bothersome but just something to note.


NYX Eyeshadow base in Nude
NYX Jumbo Eye Pencil in Pure Gold
MAC Goldenaire pigment on the lid
Sugarpill Poison Plum in the outer corner, crease and lower outer lash line
NYX Sahara as a highlight
Maybelline Falsies WP Mascara

Pride Eyes with Mostly Sugarpill

Honestly, Burning Heart is the best palette because you're already more than halfway there to doing Pride Eyes. I had to do this after getting the palette in!

I'm really bad at blending eyeshadow, I mean I'm still experimenting with the ins and outs; I'm kind of mystified at how easy it is with these eyeshadows, especially since they're matte eyeshadows. Matte eyeshadows can be so finicky and it was a bit strange to see how well it blended.

Flamepoint especially, dear lord that sucker is like blending silk across my eyes.

Huzzah I've learned how to better use flash so you don't get that white bit at the edge of my eye!

Poison Plum (on my outer lower lash line) looks really patchy and strange because it didn't react with Pixie Epoxy well but honestly it's a lot smoother than it seems.

NYX Eyeshadow base in ES03 (nude)
Sugarpill eyeshadows in Love+, Flamepoint, Buttercupcake, Midori and Poison Plum
MAC Blue pigment
Maybelline Falsies WP mascara
NYX Sahara as a highlight

Sugarpill Order/Brush Order

First off, I feel it's kind of deceiving to post finger swatches because when I did them it made it look kind of patchy/chalky; whereas when you put it on it's so smooth and buttery you're a bit astounded.

I almost feel bad for buying this considering how much of a deal this is. The pictures just speak for themselves. I was able to get the Burning Heart palette of Amy's quick Facebook promo sale.

I also got a 226 brush from MakeupByTiffanyD's blog sale :) I think I'm definitely going to have to go on a no-buy for a long time after all of this.

A clearer picture of the unique traits of this palette.

I'm not sure if you can see it, but there are the tiniest nicks on Love+, Buttercupcake and Flamepoint
All in all, it's an absolute steal. I rather like that Amy did this because although it's obvious money saving for her to sell these, it's excellent for us consumers who want to get a fab bargain. I hope she plans on doing this again because I definitely want to support companies that think this creatively! Honestly, what other companies do this?

Mummy May I swatch

I'm rather fond of this color, at first glance it seems like a plain dark purple but I like the addition of the glitter. It is also appropriate for October 20th, which is Spirit Day to honor those who recently committed suicide due to being bullied for being gay.

This was 3 coats. It was weird and had sort of a sticky texture? Not as free flowing as my other China Glazes and after I added thinner, it was much better.

My day was relatively good. My Anniversary with the Boy was today and I found out that I had won Phyrra's BFTE Cosmetics Wizards of Oz-Some giveaway so it was nice. I've never actually tried out BFTE even though I've been tempted to for ages so it's nice to get a good sampling of their products :)

OPI Show it and Glow it! NOTD

Ahhh it's gorgeous, OPI doesn't do glitter polishes much but the ones that they do look amazing.

3 coats and there are still some spots on my pinky and index that aren't fully covered. *I revise to say that if you mix it around and are a little thicker on application, you shan't have any problems with opacity*. This kind of reminds me of OPI Mad as a Hatter without the dark grey tones in it.'

In terms of glitter density, it's a lot little sheerer than Absolutely Alice was as a glitter polish plus there were bigger pieces of glitter in the mix. I would have liked it to be as dense as AA but I can live with it. It looks infinitely better in person!

Having fun with my Sugarpill

Yeah ignore the awful white eyeshadow I used as a highlight. I'm not sure what I was going for trying to use that but it certainly didn't work out

I'm not quite ready to wear this bold of eyeshadow out but it was fun experimenting

Sugarpill Darling in the crease
Sugarpill Royal Sugar in the lower crease
MAC Azrael Blue pigment on the lid
Maybelline Falsies WP Mascara
NYX Black eyeliner on the lower outer lash line with Royal Sugar over it

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Do you really need Konad polish for stamping?

When I worked at the fair selling Konad, I was always asked about whether you REALLY needed the Konad stamping polish. Now there are some great non-Konad polishes to stamp with (I love CG Milennium for silver chrome) but White I used to say you needed it. I want to really make a comparison between several polishes that have been touted as good for stamping.

This is part 1 of how ever many white polishes I can find.

All of the images were scraped with the plastic scraper and I never changed how I scraped it.

From Pinky to Pointer; Konad White, L.A. Colors White Art Deco, Wet N Wild French White Creme, Konad White again

* :( for short nails. I bit them off because I was so bored and sleepy in physics. That makes for a dangerous combination*

I stamped it on black because I figured that it would show off the differences better.

The Wet n Wild fared better than the L.A. Colors but I still like the Konad special polish better. Maybe I just got unlucky bottles but I don't think they compare.

Everything Pink in my Beauty Collection

The Glamorous Gleam is going to dedicate posts on her blog to Breast Cancer Awareness Month and to kick it off, she posted everything pink in her collection and encouraged others to do the same.

My collection of pink products is limited but that's okay.

Posts like this and tags like this do more for awareness than any sort of "I like it on my...." status could ever do.

I think the best thing I could say is that if you have genuine suspicions of something different or wrong with your body, then take the time to get it checked out. Your instincts are so so important and it's worth it to see.

Pay It Forward giveaway winner!

Sorry for not posting the winner yesterday, I went out with my boyfriend and some of our friends for a birthday party!

Off topic note, I met two signers yesterday, one at dinner and one at Barnes and Noble where we had hung out afterwards :) The person I signed with at dinner was learning ASL at a local high school which I was so happy about! We were showing each other different signs and stuff and it was adorable.

Adterwards, my friends and I decided to go to Barnes and Noble and our friend encountered some people signing and ran out to get my boyfriend and I so we could kind of just sign together. It was amazing and it made me realize that I so need to brush up on my sign language; we then got roped into going to a local Deaf Coffee Night so that's going to be exciting!

Back to the winner announcement, after 40 entries (and after several instances on miscounting) the winner is Liz from Liz Secret Rendevous! She actually has her own giveaway here which I'd love to enter but F21 doesn't make rings small enough for my fingers (I typically wear a size 4 or less)

I'm excited, it's my first international winner :) Thank you everyone for entering and for reading my blog!