Return of Beauty on the Brain!

Hello my lovely BB's! I'm back and certainly did not forget about you. I'm so sorry I haven't posted in ages. Unfortunately, with school and my job, blogging fell to the wayside and I often did not have time to create the meaningful, informative blogs and reviews you all come here for.

That being said, I certainly did not run out of time for cosmetics and beauty products! Here's just a glance at what I've been up to:

That's a heck of a lot, no? The beauty brain never sleeps, no matter how many exams or work-related meetings come up!

Over the past couple of months, I've accumulated a TON of products to review and incorporate into tutorials for you BBs. Some have been awesome; others were less than stellar. Nevertheless, I'm still look forward to telling you all about my beauty exploits.

There were some incredible stand-out products that I came across. First up are the deep conditioning treatments I've been using in my hair:

Both were purchased at Sally's Beauty Supply and while they both are nice, one definitely works better than the other. So, look for an upcoming Battle of the Brands between these two!

Next, I tested the urban legend of using artist brushes (sold at Michael's Craft Store for painting) to apply my makeup.

Please pardon my dirty brushes! I was just getting ready to do a brush cleaning tutorial!

Did they work? Find out soon in an Ultimate Brush Smack Down!

What else? Oh, yes! I tested a new brush cleanser, so look for a review on it soon.

Also got a new boar bristle brush, which is supposed to smooth frizzy hair and keep the natural oils from building up.


So far, I'm loving it! My hair has never, ever, EVER felt so soft and manageable. If you have coarse, frizzy hair, I would definitely recommend investing in one. I got mine at Sally's Beauty Supply for under $6.00.

Another awesome cosmetic acquisition was this package of facial/makeup remover wipes that I bought at XXI Forever of all places.


They smell sooo nice and I love using them to clean up makeup through out the day or to totally get rid of makeup at night. They are soothing, refreshing, and leave my skin smelling sweet. Great price, too (only $2.80)!

Oh, yes. The holiday season AND my birthday also came and went. Thanks to my amazing family and fantastic friends, I got some super sweet goodies to share with you! First up is this nail polish set from my dad:

Isn't it CUTE?! I love the teal one and the silver glittery one the most, but it's such a great mini set of OPI's most popular colors.

My fantabulous boyfriend somehow managed to get a hold of an Urban Decay Naked palette for me for my birthday. It's my latest makeup addiction:


It's incredible. He's incredible. Be jealous =) HAHA! But in all seriousness, this is an amazing palette, so expect a review and tutorials based around it.

Then, since my mom is pretty much the coolest person ever, she totally out-did herself and managed to snag a bottle of MAC's Mean and Green nail polish from the sold-out Venomous Villains collection for my birthday. The duo-chrome shade didn't photograph perfectly, but here's a quick peek:


I've been wearing it for almost a week straight and have gotten dozens of compliments on it. I will do a post soon with better photography and easier-t0-see color swatches.

And lastly, my good friend Morgan (who's blog you should check out over here if you are interested in writing techniques) got me the makeup Bible for my birthday:


It's so... pretty! All of the looks are beautiful and Jemma is a brilliant makeup artist. So, in honor of this fabulous book, I will be starting a new series called Masterclass Mondays, where I will do one look from the book each week. Look for it soon!

OH! And I just realized I forgot to photograph this with the rest of the group of items, but I got this super-awesome nail polish at Disney World in December:


It's from OPI's Alice in Wonderland collection and is called "Off With Her Red" (Get it? Get it?!). It's a lovely color, so look for a review on it soon.

Honestly, I'm so glad to be back to blogging again. I have so many fantastic blogs planned and I'm really excited to post them for you. Thanks for sticking around with me!

Lipstick is for people, not animals!

I really am a huge animal lover. I've been a proud dalmatian owner my entire life, am thrilled to watch animal documentaries (like Whale Wars, which I think is incredibly cool if not a bit scary), and want to be reincarnated as a dolphin.

Sadly, animals are often not treated with the respect and care they deserve. Even in today's modern, forward-thinking society, there are STILL cosmetic companies that torture animals by testing new products on them. This is a terrible practice that should definitely be banned (a la Legally Blond II) because animals do not react to most cosmetics the same way humans would. The ingredients that wouldn't hurt a human could cause a test subject puppy to develop infections, irritation, sickness, or even worse things. How sad is that?! And it's not like these animals are lining up voluntarily to have makeup applied to them. Oh, no! Cosmetics are forced upon these animals and because their natural instinct is to resist, this leads to pain and injury to the animals.

Think about it: you're a little, innocent rabbit and when some big researcher comes and sticks an eyeliner pencil right next to your eye, you're going to jerk your head away, right? Because that thing is scary and your natural instinct is to get the heck away! But no matter how much you squirm, that researcher is still going to test the eyeliner on you and that could lead to a pretty severe injury on your part.

I'm sorry to get so graphic on you, Beauty Brains, but I really don't think people understand the terrible conditions test animals are kept in and forced to live in. If you have any sympathy in your heart for helpless animals that have cosmetic products tested on them daily, you'll join me in supporting PETA's Caring Consumer Project which aims to eventually eliminate all animal testing.

You'll be happy to know that there ARE companies out there that do not test their products on animals. Thankfully, PETA publishes an annual list of these fantastic companies and it can be found here (as well, of course, as a list of companies that have continued to test products on animals).

Some stand-out cosmetic companies that are on PETA's No Testing list that also truly produce some of the best makeup and beauty items on the market are:

Almay
Bare Escentuals
Bath & Body Works
Bobbi Brown
The Body Shop
Bonne Bell
Bumble and Bumble
Burt's Bees
Caswell-Masey
Clarins of Paris
Clinique
Conair
Crabtree & Evelyn
Dermalogica
Dr. Bronner's
DuWop
Eco Tools
e.l.f. Cosmetics
Essie Cosmetics
Estee Lauder
got2b
Hard Candy
Hello Kitty
Josie Maran Cosmetics
Juice Beauty
Kiss My Face
La Mer
Liz Claiborne Cosmetics
L'Occitane
LUSH
MAC Cosmetics
Mary Kay
Merle Norman
Obsessive Compulsive Cosmetics
OPI
Origins Natural Resources
Orly International
Palmers
Paul Mitchell
Physician's Formula
Perscriptives
Queen Helene
Revlon
Skyn Iceland
Smashbox Cosmetics
Stila Cosmetics
Too Faced Cosmetics
Urban Decay
Victoria's Secret
Wet n' wild
Yes to Carrots

There are many more companies listed on PETA's website and perhaps, even more out there that are not currently on the list. I strongly urge you to look at this list and the one of companies that are still testing products on animals so that you can make the right choices when it comes to buying items that make you feel pretty.

Makeup doesn't have to be superficial. You can make the choice to shop ethically and feel gorgeous both inside and out.

This post is in honor of my gorgeous puppy, Xena.

She means the world to me and I can't imagine some sick researcher ever wanting to hurt a precious being like her. (Old picture! Notice my brown hair. Lol. Clearly, my love for Xena has not changed!!)

I LOVE YOU, XENA! And I pledge to stop supporting cosmetic companies that hurt innocent animals like her. Can you, reader, do the same? (All photos are my mom's!!)

Lipstain Love

I think I’m seriously addicted to lipstains. For real.

It all started before Halloween one year. I decided to do a few practice runs on my nun makeup before the big costume party and everything looked great except for my lips. If I used lipgloss, my mouth felt gooey and messy. Lipstick looked more polished, but I felt like I had to reapply it every 5 minutes because it wore off so quickly. It was then that I discovered the lipstain: a cool, marker-like makeup product that gave you a gorgeous pout for up to 12 hours.

The first lipstain I loved was mark.’s Kissink Lip Tintmarker in Red Siren ($7.00). The lipstain’s packaging literally looked like a mini magic marker, which freaked me out at first. Did I buy a cosmetic product or did the company accidentally send me some of their office supplies?

Nevertheless, I tried it out and was pleasantly surprised with the end result. I had a gorgeous, berry-red lip that lasted about eight hours before it began to fade. I could even layer lipstick on top of it and it lasted longer than five minutes!

To be honest, though, mark.’s lipstain looks really strange when it’s first applied. In fact, it had a really ugly brown color at first that freaked me out (once again). Oh no! Did I just dye my lips a weird coffee color?! But the color faded into a beautiful red within one minute and my wave of fear washed away.

Recently, I discovered Maybelline’s Color Sensational Lipstain in In The Buff (on sale for $4.19 at Ulta right now). Definitely a new favorite product! Like mark.’s stain, Maybelline’s product also comes in a magic marker packaging, except it’s slightly larger (more product? Yay!). I was happily surprised to find that it had a delicious berry scent that I had never noticed in another makeup product before. While the stain only lasted half as long as mark.’s lipstain, it still looked gorgeous on and wasn’t awkward to reapply in public (mark.’s could look a little strange because of the dark brown color).

Overall, I would strongly recommend a lipstain to anyone that is sick of lipglosses and lipsticks. Be sure to exfoliate lips before applying it, though, because a stain can look very drying.

Have you used a stain before? What were your experiences with it? If you haven’t, would you ever try one?

Welcome to beauty on the brain!

Where do I even begin?! First, I'd like to thank everyone who helped me along in the development of this blog. It took me a while to figure out exactly what I wanted to do, and you all were so helpful and patient. So, thanks!

For those of you who don't know me, let's go through some FAQ's so that you can get to know me and this fabulous blog =)

Who are you?
My name is Simone and I'm a college student in the southern United States. I'm not a makeup artist by any means, but I adore all things beauty and fashion related. I worked in fashion retail throughout high school and started my own cosmetic company last year.

So why are you writing this blog?
Maybe it's because the lovely people who work at my local Sephora know me by name or maybe because I'm the Imelda Marcos of lipgloss, but my friends of all ages feel that I'm the one to talk to about makeup. No, I don't know everything about cosmetics, but I'm happy to share what I do know!

What makes you different from other makeup blogs?
Let's face it... I am living on a college kid's budget. This means that my income goes to textbooks, cell phone bills, late night pizza parties, and lots of coffee. I don't have an extra $50 sitting around to buy a designer label blush. So I've had to learn how to buy makeup on a budget (read: for cheap!). And guess what?? It's not that hard!! As you'll see in this blog, I've found numerous brands and products that are complete dupes (or perfect copy-cats) for more expensive, upscale brands. Sure, there might be one splurge product featured once in a while, but for the majority of this blog, the cosmetics featured will be low-priced and widely available.

So strap on your beauty belts and let's get to work!