Get the Look: Day-time Red Lips

When I think of classic, iconic makeup that NEVER goes out of style, I always think of the red lip. It's the epitome of sexy, feminine, strong, bold, and timeless all in one cute bundle. Many believe, though, that you can only rock a red lip at night or for a formal event because it's too sexy or too bold. But why should we as women think that way? I mean, shouldn't we embrace our femininity at all times?

Of course we should! Which is why you need not hide your red lipstick during the day, but rather learn how to wear it differently for a more office, school, or every-day appropriate look.
The trick, you see, is to use a coral lipstick instead of a true red. Coral, which was a huge hit this summer with blue eyeliner, is slightly more orange than red and therefore looks more neutral when worn. It's not just a summer trend, though! Because it has orange tones in it, I would argue it's very appropriate for fall and should be worn.

To keep your look more day-time appropriate and to draw as much attention to your red lips as possible. Keep the eyes mega neutral. For this look, I used a champagne shadow that had no shimmer or glitter in it all over the lid and no contour color. I did line my eyes and draw more attention to my ironic twist on the red lip, I added a small wing at the end, reminiscent of the 1950s pinups and starlets that made red lips popular.

The most important step of the whole process is to make any other colors on your face virtually disappear. You need to cover up any bags under your eyes, redness from acne, or general discoloration so that the most attention can be brought to your coral lips. I would recommend contouring your face, though, with a matte bronzer so that your face doesn't look flat and cartoony. You can also go in and add a highlighter if you have very dry skin.

Review: Wet n' Wild Lipstick

Always the bargain hunter, I recently stumbled upon Wet n' Wild's makeup display in my local Publix while I was shopping for groceries with a friend. At first I didn't notice it, honestly. The display was pretty nondescript with no flashy signs and no pictures of their cover models. However, my eyes were caught as I was browsing price tags.

Covergirl: $12.99. Revlon: $14.99. L'Oreal: $9.99.

Wet n' Wild: $0.99?!?! What???

So I, the beauty brain and bargain hunter I am, moved in for a closer look. About a week earlier, I had picked up two of the brand's single eyeshadows (which I still have to review. Sorry!). This time, though, I was on the hunt for something I often avoid: lipstick.

Wet n' Wild didn't disappoint my wallet. Each lipstick was only $0.99 and the store had about 15 colors in stock. So I picked up three..

My three new Wet n' Wild lipsticks. From L to R: Fuchsia with Blue Pearl (521A), Nouveau Pink (511B), and Pink Ice (528A). $0.99 each.

I quickly realized that each lipstick was very glossy or even metallic-y: not really my thing. However, by simply blotting at your lips immediately after applying, you can totally change the appearance of these lipsticks and make them look like an expensive, high fashion product.

Pink Ice: A lovely neutral lipstick that looks a bit too frosty when applied, but can be blotted down to a gorgeous, peachy color. I especially loved wearing this with blue eyeliner and a neutral gloss to channel the hottest look from this summer. However, I also think it would look great with a smokey eye for a night-time look.

From frosted and glossy to totally matte..

Nouveau Pink: Okay, I know it looks like the name of this one is spelled awkwardly, but that's really how it's spelled on the packaging. Anyway, I really like this pink lipstick a lot. It's very feminine and instantly makes any neutral look a lot less neutral. I think it would be a great choice for holiday parties this year as it can be worn with a neutral eye or a smokey eye and would in fact look great with purple eyeshadow. This lipstick is not very glossy or metallic-y, but I would still recommend blotting it to reduce smudging later on.

Glossy to matte..

Fuchsia with Blue Pearl: Definitely the funkiest lipstick I've ever tried! I bought this on a whim and because it always seems like purple lips are popular in the winter. I, however, am a little too afraid to rock a violet lip, so I went with the pinkiest purple I could find! This is a very bold color and probably should only be worn at night with neutral or gray eyes. I would recommend blotting it or else it looks a bit clownish, but over all, it's a really cool color. Check it out! For the ridiculously low price, you might as well try the trendiest look for winter.

Glossy to matte...

My only complaint about these lipsticks is that the packaging is really quite poor. It looks and is cheaply made, so don't expect this to be a gorgeous product at first glance. However, if that's how Wet n' Wild is keeping prices down, then I'm all for it!

Over all, I think these lipsticks are really quite a steal. The colors are as pigmented and as different as MAC and definitely as trendy. But, like all things trendy, they won't (and shouldn't) last forever, so why spend $13.00 on a lipstick that could be very much out of style in a few months? Instead, get one of these Wet n' Wild lipsticks and don't feel guilty.

Swatches! From L to R: Nouveau Pink, Pink Ice, and Fucshia with Blue Pearl.

Get the Look: Hot Pink Lips

For the most part, I tend to rock a neutral look during the day. Recently, however, I've been a fan of neutral eyes with a bright lip. In order to attain this look, you'll need a peachy or champagne-colored eyeshadow, tight lined eyes, and a really bright, highly pigmented lipstick.

As you saw a few days ago, I recently acquired a Fuchsia glitter gloss from Sephora, and honestly, I'm in love with it. Hot pink lips look flawless on all skin tones because they are not a commonly occurring color that looks feminine and flirty on everyone. This look was inspired by the gloss and centered around it!

Eyes: For this look, I wanted all of the attention to focus on my lips, so I did a very neutral -- almost naked -- eye. I used two shimmery neutral shades: one in peach and one in champagne.

I used the champagne tone in the bottom left corner and the peach tone in the center of the palette.

Apply the champagne all over the lid and the peach to the very center. Next, tight line your upper lid with black liner. You can then leave the bottom lid alone, tight line it in black, or tight line it in a bright purple to make the whites of your eyes pop.

Lips: Apply a hot pink or "Barbie" pink lipstick to your lips, taking care to highlight the cupids bow.
Blot your lips to remove any glossiness or metallic tones from the lipstick itself. Once your lips are sufficiently matte, apply your hot pink, glitzy lipgloss.
By applying the lipgloss on top of mattified lipstick, your gloss is going to stay on longer and your lip color will last much better.

And there you have it: a gorgeous bold lip look that takes less than 5 minutes to accomplish. Enjoy!

Happy Halloween! My makeup for Rocky Horror night

My university does a free showing of Rocky Horror every year at midnight, the Friday before Halloween. I normally don't dress like a particular character, but just go for outrageously sexy-gaudy makeup. Here's what I wore and here's how to do it! Happy Halloween!!

The look!

Eyes: I started off with an eyeshadow primer to make sure the smokey eye wouldn't shift allover my face throughout the night. Then using this eyeshadow palette, I did a smokey eye..
I first took the taupe color in the upper left corner on a soft dome brush and dusted it all over my lids and about halfway up onto my brow bones. Then, I took the grayish-taupe color on the top right on a stiff, flat brush and packed it into the inner and outer corner of both eyes. Lastly, I took the black shadow in the bottom right corner on the same stiff brush and tapped it onto the center of my lid. This was a pretty dark eye, so to lighten it up a bit, I lined my lower lash line with a white pencil and also took the liner up into the inner corner of my eye...
The white lining I did on the inner corner of my eyes I covered with the silver eyeshadow in the bottom left corner to make my eyes glitter. Next, I lined my eyes with a black gel liner. To get the winged out effect, you need to hold a straight edge against the outer corner of your eye at the angle you want the wing to go (I would recommend tape. It doesn't hurt and it frees up your hand to hold your lid steady). Because I felt the eyes still looked a little too matte for the occasion, I added a thin, metallic blue line in liquid eyeliner between my lashes and the top of the black gel line. It instantly made my eyes pop! Lastly, I curled my lashes and applied a great volumizing mascara (if you want more volume or thicker lashes, apply fake lashes as well)..

Face: Apply concealer AFTER you do your eyes because you will most likely get fallout from the dark shadows that could potentially mess up your concealer if you do that first. Contour your face with a darker bronzer to create a more dramatic look..

I've hit tin pan on this one, but I love it! I'll definitely use the whole thing up.

You can add blush if you'd like. I'd recommend a pink or red so it doesn't look too natural.


Lips: Everyone knows Rocky Horror is famous for the Lips that introduce the movie through the song "Science Fiction Double Feature"! For this look, I did a very dramatic red lip by applying a red lipstain and letting it dry...
Then, apply a true red lipstick. Avoid corals, because they'll look 'off' on top of the stain. Deeper shades like wine should also be avoided because they'll drag down the whole look and seem a bit heavy. So, apply your red lipstick, and then blot away excess. Reapply a light coat if you'd like to make it more shiny. Leave it alone if you want it to be matte.
If you're like me, you probably struggle with making your lips look PERFECT each time you do them. Since red lipstick will definitely stand out if it's not all even, take a light-colored concealer and a small brush and line just outside of your lips, and blend outward. This will highlight your cupids bow, hide any mistakes or discoloration, and make your lips look almost too perfect.


And there you have it: a perfect Rocky Horror look for all of my gorgeous Beauty Brains. Happy Halloween!

Tag, you're it! Products I regret buying

In all honesty, I don't really regret buying any beauty products, because I feel like they each serve some sort of purpose and while they might not necessarily work for me, they could definitely work better on someone else. So, with that in mind, these are a list of products that I didn't exactly love..

1) Urban Decay's Cream Shadow in Delinquent ($17.00 at Sephora)
This eyeshadow looked great in the tube and DID serve as a great base coat for really dramatic, purple smokey eyes, but I got this weird tingling sensation on my lids whenever I used it. It didn't necessarily hurt, but it certainly didn't feel great! Honestly, I don't reach for this product very much because it feels so weird. The packaging also kind of sucks because while you can easily get the product out the first time or two, it seems to clump at the bottom and then you actually have to squeeze the tube to get it out... it just gets really messy. I think for the price, it wasn't worth it.

2) Laura Geller's Lipstick in On Stage ($15.50 on her website, but I think I bought it on clearance at Sephora for $5 o5 $6?)
I bought this lipstick in hopes of a great, night-out-on-the-town, bright red color and it delivered on that end. However, I find it to be pretty drying and it almost seems to flake off? Not cool! I do still use it on occasion, but it's not my number one red lipstick. I don't think I'd really recommend it.

3) Buxom's Travel In Style Lipstick and Lip Polish Duo ($18.00 at Sephora)
I really bought this set because of the beautiful coral-orange lipstick that I fell in love with in the store. Needless to say, I hated the gloss when I got home because it was gooey and gross (also wasn't a huge fan of the plumping formula. I knew it was a plumper in the store, but I don't think it really did much for me and I found it sort of unrealistic) so I used just the lipstick with another gloss over it. But then, like a week after purchasing the set, the lipstick broke! The whole pigment stick fell out of its holder and got stuck in the super-thin cap. I was pretty upset. So overall, I just had bad experiences with the set, but I'd consider buying the lipstick on its own if the manufacturer could create a new packaging for it.

4) mark.'s Shimmer Tubes Hook Up Gel Blush in Rose, Peach, and Bronze (I think these were $2.00 a piece? I bought them in the last chance section and they return every once in a while)
I think these are gorgeous colors, but they're just totally sheer as blushes. I love the concept and the formula, but they don't show up at all on me (except for the bronzer, which for some reason looks like dirt). As I'm typing this, though, I think I'm going to experiment with them as eyeshadow bases or highlighters, so I'll get back to you when I do that!

5) e.l.f. Essential's Hypershine Gloss Box ($5.00)
These glosses were too sticky and gooey for me. The colors are gorgeous, but the formula was not for me and the applicators were not fun either. They got really messy and gross.

6) BonBon's Eyeshadow in Copper and Purple ($0.99 at Walmart)
These shadows were just too powdery for me. It didn't matter how I applied them, they always got messy and were more hassle than they were worth.

7) Almay's Nearly Naked Cover Up Stick ($6.97 at Walmart)
Too creamy and oily. This concealer creased on my skin so quickly and never stayed put. I like the pureness of Almay's products normally, but this concealer just did not work. I also had it in my purse for about a week and it melted and got super-messy.

What are some products that you're not a fan of? Are any of the products I dislike ones that work for you? Let me know!

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?