Motivation Monday

Image from The Tao of Dana

CoverGirl Clump Crusher Review

Image from CoverGirl

I love mascara!! I have a whole little drawer of mascara and I love to test out new ones. So when I purchased the new CoverGirl Clump Crusher Mascara (as seen in a recent Shopaholic Saturday I knew that it would be tested and tried and then reviewed for all of you!! FYI: You can get your own Clump Crusher at any store that sells CoverGirl products!

One Coat

OK, so first I have to apologize for the ungroomed eyebrows I have no excuse for them I just was lazy....and secondly I am getting a bit braver about taking photos of myself for the blog so yay me!!

Anyway, this is what Clump Crusher looks like with only one coat of mascara. My lashes are naturally curly so the curved wand (as pictured above) made my lashes look crazy curly to the point where I don't feel they look natural. It also gave nice definition and definitely separated the lashes.

Two Coats

I am a two coats of mascara kind of girl so my next test for the Clump Crusher was applying two coats! This is where things got a little scary. As I said I have naturally curly lashes so while the first coat gave a nice extra curl and separated my lashes...the second one went haywire! As you can tell the lashes are still curled but then they started to clump(!!) together in the middle where my lashes are the thickest.

Layered

I love layering mascaras so that I can have ridiculously full, long lashes. Naturally when I was looking to layer Clump Crusher I chose another amazing CoverGirl mascara (and a personal favorite) CoverGirl Lashblast Fusion. This is by far my favorite version of wearing Clump Crusher. It gave the separation I needed and then Fusion gave the extra oomph I was looking for. 

Final Word

I really do like the Clump Crusher and will continue to wear it under other mascaras, unfortunately I don't necessarily love it on it's own because it tends to work against my naturally curly lashes. 

Martin Luther King Jr.

Image taken from Idlehearts

January Birchbox

Quick Birchbox Overview: Birchbox is a monthly subscription service that costs $10 a month. You receive around 5 deluxe sized beauty samples that range from makeup, skin care, and hair care. After you test out the samples you can go to Birchbox.com and fill out surveys about the items you received. For each survey filled out you receive 10 points, once you've earned 100 points you earn $10 that you can apply to either a monthly Birchbox or for items from the Birchbox store. Check out their website for more details!!

Items Included:

*Aerie Shimmer Fragrance

*DDF Acne Control Treatment

*Embryolisse Lait-Creme Concentre - 24-Hour Miracle Cream

*theBalm Cosmetics Hot Mama blush

*Beauty Extra: La Fresh Eco-Beauty Waterproof Makeup Remover

I'm actually really excited about this months box there are a lot of really nice samples that I can wait to try! I am a little disappointed in the perfume samples from Birchbox because it's not quite as a "deluxe sample" as all of the other items that you receive and that is supposed to be the whole idea of Birchbox. It would be nice if they could include bigger perfume samples like the ones you can sometimes get from Sephora:

Sephora Deluxe Perfume Samples.

Are you a Birchbox subscriber? What did you get in your box? Any other really good subscription services out there?? Let me know below!!

Shopaholic Saturday!!

This weeks shopping includes items from Ulta, Target, and Sephora (all purchased with my own money!!)



Ulta

Maybelline Baby Lips (in Pink Punch, Quench, and Peach Kiss):  Baby Lips have been around for a while but I've just never thought much about them. I have really sensitive lips (weird I know) so I only either use ChapStick or Jack Black lip balms for my lips because other lip balms tend to dry out my lips and make them really sore. I've read really good things about these though and they are supposed to make your lips really soft and they smell AMAZING!! There is a little pigmentation (I didn't swatch Quench because there it is clear).

I'll be posting a review about them soon once I really test them out. 

Revlon Just Bitten Kissable Balm Stains (in Charm and Cherish): I am not a huge fan of Stains because most Stain pens come off as too harsh on my lips and they dry out really fast. These however seem really smooth and aren't a pen but a balm (hence the name) so I'm interested to see how these work. They also have a minty smell, but maybe that's just me...

Review coming soon!

Maybelline Fit Me! Concealer (in shade 15): I really like the Fit Me foundation because it isn't heavy and is really nice in the spring/summer when the weather gets a little bit warmer. I have never tried the concealer before but was in the market for a new one and I've been hearing really good things about it around the Youtube world so I figured I would give it a try!

Tweezer Man Perfect Power Nail Clipper and Ms. Manicure Black Party 4-Way Buffing Block: My nails are in rough shape so these are going to help me save them!!

Target

Maybelline Color Tattoo: I picked these up in the colors Inked in Pink and Barely Branded -- I think these colors may be limited edition so I would pick them up soon if you like them!

elf Powder Brush: I LOVE this brush for foundation and it's only $3!!

Divergent by Veronica Roth: This is a Young Adult novels (but lets all just admit that they are the best) and it's in the same genre as Hunger Games which I loved. I'll be posting a review soon!!

Mossimo "Ona" flats in Zebra and Mossimo "Valma" flats in Emerald: These flats were on sale ($7.48 and $12.49). I got them a half a size bigger and they fit perfectly and are sooo comfortable! I may have to go pick up some more in other colors...

Sephora

Jurlique Love Balm: Great for dry skin, can use just about anywhere!

Buxom Insider Eyeliner (in Pearl and Topaz): These are my FAVORITE eyeliners ever!!

Benefit World Famous Neutrals: This is perfect! I love neutral eyes!!

And there you have it!! Any good buys lately??

Motivation Monday

Image taken from inlillyland

You all just sang that song didn't you!! =)

Favorite Online Shopping Sites

Online shopping isn't something I do a lot of but I'm starting to branch out and find some good sites to shop through. For instance have you seen the ADORABLENESS that is ModCloth?? I've built up quite a wishlist there but have yet to actually order anything.  Maybe soon...Anyway, here are a few of my favorite places to shop online!!


Sephora

The only Sephora that we have in town is in our JCPenney which is fine but they don't have the same selection of items as free standing stores and the only free standing store anywhere near us is almost an hour away. SO, I do most of my Sephora shopping online. They have an amazing selection of high end cosmetics that range from pretty reasonable prices ($16) to pretty outrageous prices ($85 for an eye shadow palette!!). You also get standard free shipping on any orders over $50 which is pretty easy to do when you think  about it. You can also sign up for Beauty Insider where you earn points for every dollar you spend which you can then redeem for deluxe sized samples and beauty kits, you also get a present on your birthday plus other special deals for Beauty Insiders only. 

CafePress

If you are looking for unique t-shirts, water bottles, bags, etc. than you should definitely check out CafePress. You can find just about any slogan, quote, picture, or whatever that you could possibly think of for a pretty reasonable price. There is also an option to design your very own items and to sell your designs. One warning is that sometimes sizes can run a little small so I would recommend going up a size when ordering shirts :)

Amazon

OK, so this is a pretty standard website for shoppers. You can find ANYTHING on Amazon and for all of us college students out there we can even rent text books, which lets face it some of those books are ridiculously expensive and are never going to be looked at again after the class ends...

MyPoints

I LOVE MyPoints! Basically how it works is that you set up an account and then use their search engine to do your online shopping (for example you type in "Sephora" and then click on the link that take you to their website). Once you've purchased items through your desired website you earn so many points per dollar through MyPoints which you can then redeem for gift cards to use at any desired store (gift cards are mailed to you). Not all websites are available (you can only redeem points for Amazon not actually get points from there) and gift cards take a little while to get to you but it's a really nice system. I've gotten gift cards to give as presents and to use for myself :)

Those are a few of my faves and I'm always looking for some more! If you have any recommendations leave them below :)