Weekly Beauty Edit 7.26.2015

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22 weeks until Christmas!!!! Have you started your Christmas List? This is your official first reminder. I start my list on December 26th, I find this is the best method. I also make sure it is on very public display in the house (magnet on the fridge) in the event someone needs to buy me a little something something during the year. Also, it's very important to email your Sephora Love List at least once a quarter to all friends and family. Don't worry that you won't have any friends left by the end of  the year. That means you have to buy yourself gifts and then you get exactly what you want. Love it when a plan comes together!

Empties
Careprost - This is Latisse but I buy mine from an offshore pharmacy and their brand is Careprost.

Clarins Radiance Plus Golden Glow Booster - I bought this about the same time I bought the St. Tropez Self-Tan Luxe Facial Oil. I prefer the St. Tropez since it is ready to use whereas you have to mix the Clarins with something like a serum or moisturizer.  I repurchased the St. Tropez which I finished a bit ago. If you don't mind mixing, then the Clarins is fine as well.

Tree Hut Body Sugar Scrub in Coconut Lime - LOVE this body scrub, love this perfect summer scent.  Winner winner chicken dinner!

Careprost aka Latisse and Clarins Radiance Plus Golden Glow Booster

Edits and Deletes
Dove Dry Shampoo - Ugh. I am not a dry shampoo fan. I realize it's all the rage to give hair texture and volume but all it does is make my scalp itch. I have tried several brands from high to low. Flexible hold hair spray works just fine. Delete.

Estee Lauder Sumptuous Extreme Mascara - The brush on this is huge. I didn't find the formula worth going blind over. Delete.

Karora Golden Girl Gradual Tan - This was scented with some woodsy amber who knows what scent. This came in an IPSY box, I think. It was a tiny sample size tube so I thought I would use it on my face. I could not wash it off fast enough from the fragrance. Delete.

Almay One Coat Thickening Waterproof Mascara - I prefer waterproof mascara because they hold my curl better. This one did not! I tried it several times. I'd curl my lashes, apply this mascara and an hour later my lashes were stick straight.

It was also disappointing in volume and length, all it did was darken my lashes. Delete.



Mini Review 
Ulta Double Duty Powder Foundation
This is a pressed powder foundation that can be used wet for a more sheer to light coverage or dry for a medium to medium full coverage. This is a "first impression" review which means I could feel completely different about this product when I use in different weather or lighting or over a different serum or primer. But as of today, this powder foundation is getting high marks. It is so soft and creamy, it almost feels wet. There is almost no kick up of dust when I swirl my brush in it. Coverage is a solid medium and with a good buffing brush you can get it up a few more notches of  coverage. I actually used my finger to apply it to the sides of my nose and those dreaded pores disappeared. Yes, I said disappeared (using my finger was key). The finish is demi-matte at first and gets to satin after about an hour. Beautiful finish. I was mostly indoors today, sat out on  the deck for a bit. This foundation looked as good as when I applied it for a solid 5 hours. When I touched up, it did not look thick or powdery, just refreshed. I chose  Warm Tan for this season. Will buy Warm for my normal color.

Ulta Double Duty Pressed Powder Foundation in Warm Tan

 I have not yet tried it with a damp sponge which will give a light to light medium coverage.

I originally went to buy the Urban Decay Naked Skin Ultra Definition Powder Foundation but they were out of my color. The texture of the Ulta brand felt identical but it comes in much less colors. Thankful I found a color for me. But they both felt buttery creamy smooth ultra finely milled and pressed.

I would say this can also act as a beautiful finishing powder used with a light hand as well as a true foundation powder used with a buffing brush for almost full coverage.  I know many like  to use a foundation powder as a finishing powder to give their liquid foundation a bit more staying power as well as boosting coverage. This is a perfect candidate. Regular price is $12 but it was on sale for $5. Ulta brand products are on sale all the time.

Skincare
Wednesday Night Scrub Club
REN Flash Rinse 1 Minute Facial  

Freeman Charcoal & Black Sugar Polishing Mask
REN Flash Rinse 1 Minute Facial

This was a sample, one time use. Flash Rinse is a gel you massage on your face, leave on as a 1 minutes mask and then simply rinse off. It is loaded with Vitamin C and its claim to fame is to leave your skin brighter. After one use, I did not see this. Maybe if your skin is grey.....

Sunday Night Scrub Club
Freeman Charcoal & Black Sugar Polish Mask
I like this as scrub. The sugar is a pretty good size but rounded so it's not tearing at your skin. The charcoal is marketing. There is barely enough charcoal to turn the gel base a very translucent grey, hardly enough charcoal to pull the gunk our of pores. You put it on, let it sit for a five minutes then scrub for 2 to 3 minutes and rinse.

Cheers,

Lulu

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Weekly Beauty Edit 7.12.2015

It was a great week in beauty. I colored my roots! The week leading up to coloring my roots is always a challenge. I'm in denial of having to go through the ordeal for the first three days, the next two days I suddenly have energy, go out, buy the box of dye and then I fizzle back into dread. Finally, when I can no longer take the two tone head, I color my roots. Then I am overjoyed at how great it looks and promise to not dread it next time. Right. One of my 2015 Beauty Resolutions was to not go longer than 3 weeks between touch ups and I have been rather true to this resolution. Reminds me, I need to do a 2015 Beauty Resolution Report Card. I've stretched it to 4 weeks that last time or two. I could almost do my touch ups in my sleep. I'm fast and I find it easy but still dread it. I think my favorite dye is Garnier but I do like Feria as well.

Beauty Lesson - Skin Care Chit Chat
Every time I turn around or flip the pages of a magazine, bam, there is another skin care product or line or claim or endorsement. Somehow all logic flies out the window and off we run to buy the latest and greatest. Flowers from the top of the Alps, water from the depths of the Hawaiian ocean, algae from the tundra, plants from the desert, tea leaves from China, snails from Japan, apples from Switzerland, always something new.

Skin care is very basic. At the very minimum you cleanse, you hydrate and for the morning, you also apply SPF. The next step up in a routine is to exfoliate at least once a week. Exfoliating is using "something" to remove the dead skin cells. When we're young, dead skin cells are well behaved and are happy to jump off the skin in a nice regular cycle. As we get older, those skin cells get tired and they stick around a wee bit too  long. Exfoliation helps get them off.

Me, cleansing my face

After adding an exfoliation step, adding some type of anti-oxidant into your routine is a good thing. I don't know the number but I'm guessing there are 100s, maybe 1000s of anti-oxidants. Chances are, your moisturizer has some but if you can step it up with a mega dose of anti-oxidants, that much better. Which anti-oxidant among the hundreds? That's another post, maybe a book. If I had to pick one, I would pick Vitamin C since it is easily found in both the drug store and department store. It's versatile and is a good multi-tasker for two of the most common concerns which are age spots and sagging.

Me, exfoliating with a peel off mask!

Time for thinking about the heavy hitters, now. Treatment products. This is where the list goes on and on and all those ads and claims and apples from the Swiss Alps come into play. What ingredient is best at treating X? Aha. You want to treat X and Y and You want it all! So do I. Does that mean you need more than one treatment product? Maybe. Like Vitamin C, some ingredients are multi-taskers. Other ingredients are very specific. For instance, retinol is "the" multi-tasker of skin care. Hydroquinone, an ingredient to lighten dark spots, is very specific and only attacks dark spots. Retinol will attack wrinkles, sagging, dark spots and texture and  a few more. Then again, retinol comes in various shapes, forms, percentages, and formulas. Additionally, the base it is in is important in determining how deep the retinol will penetrate. Sadly, not everyone can use retinol as it can be irritating. Chances are with a bit of determination, you can find a form that works. However, that takes time and the money to spend on products to experiment with. What a pain. That's yet another post....the virtues of retinol in all its shapes and glory.

There we have it. Cleanse, moisturize, SPF, exfoliate and treat with anti-oxidants or targeted ingredients or both.  The one aspect of skin care that can't be measured is time. It has taken years, decades of smiling, talking, makeup, sun, pollution and the kitchen sink to get your skin where it is today. 30 days of a new product will do about nothing. This is particularly true if you are already using decent skin care. Probably the one most game changing ingredient is retinol but even with the mighty retinol, it takes months and months and months.

Good skin care slows the clock down. It will not stop age spots. It will not banish wrinkles. It will not give you a face lift. If you could live two parallel lives, one using basic skin care outlined above and one with just cleansing and moisturizing, the first you will look younger compared to the second you. The  you will still be wrinkled and sagging and spotted. But less so. Keep that in mind. Skin care slows the hands of time, it doesn't reverse years of life. Thank goodness!

If someone asks me to only pick one thing for great skin care, it would be a broad spectrum SPF 30 or higher 365 days of the year. Sun is skin's number one enemy. End of story.

Cheers,

Lulu

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Weekly Beauty Edit 7.05.2015

Thank you. I went over 10,000 views at some point this week. There are no words. I sit here on the love seat in our bedroom on Sunday nights with my laptop, iPhone and The Good Wife or repeats, typing away. Tonight, the background noise was my youngest son screaming each time the US Women's Soccer team scored. I started this blog more for me than anything else. I needed an outlet for my beauty addiction hoarding situation. At the time, I had stopped doing YT videos so I turned to blogging. And here I am 10,000 views later. Thank you for reading my blog and sharing with your circle of Facebook friends or groups or neighbors or moms or sisters.

Where was I last week? I have no idea. Complete space cadet watching reruns of who knows what. Madam Secretary? Criminal Minds? Blue Bloods? Shopping online at Sephora and lost in giddiness? I can't remember what I did yesterday, forget about remembering what I did last week.

It's story time. I take photos of my makeup hauls and beauty products on my bed. One of our blankets is  an off white and is the background in all the photos I take. On my nightstand is a lamp I bought on a complete spontaneous fall in love must have that lamp even though I'm not shopping for a lamp moment. That had to be 10 years ago. I don't like to have matching lamps in a room. We have another lamp  in our bedroom that I've replaced 4 times in the 10 years because they were all great when I bought them but soon another came that I loved more. Not the one on my nightstand, though. It lasted every shopping spree, never to be replaced. This past week, it died. The light began to flicker, I'd hit
the lamp, it would stop. Call me Fonzy II. This lasted three nights before I decided to replace the bulb. Still flickered. Hmmm. Could it be the lamp? Are there lamp repair shops? I wasn't ready to say good-bye. When I reached to turn it off for the night, it flickered as I turned that knob thingy turn the light on and off with switch. I jiggled the thingy. The light flickered. My husband said it was faulty wiring. Maybe he actually said it bit the dust. I have a pair of my mother's lamps from years ago. She's very methodical, precise and balanced so, of course, she buys lamps in matching pairs. When she was redecorating, I told her I wanted the lamps. Apparently I get attached to lipsticks and lamps. What do they say? Any port in a storm so I went to find my mother's lamps in the "spare" bedroom aka dump everything in that room and run. It's a crystal lamp with a very frou frou shade. My beloved lamp also had a somewhat frou frou shade but this takes the cake. My mother loves frou frou. The more ornate the better.  The frilly shade has yellowed from age which means it casts a very yellow light.  Why is this woman writing about a lamp in a beauty blog? Because the yellow glow will affect the photos of my products. End of story. Wasn't that fun?

EDITS AND DELETES
Almay One Coat Thickening Waterproof Mascara -  If possible, I buy waterproof mascara because waterproof holds curl better than non-waterproof. I rarely apply a second coat of any mascara, I don't need to. I applied and applied this one and it hardly showed up. It did not color the tips of my lashes which are long but invisible, it did not thicken, it did pretty much nothing except made them look a little darker.  .

Too Faced Born This Way Foundation - I like this. I don't love it. I have other foundations in my collection that are on the "like don't love" list but this one is bugging me. Have no idea why. I ordered this directly from the Too Faced site the day it launched which makes returning it a pain. Not a pain, but it's not like going to Sephora and exchanging. Some ladies love to play mixologist with beauty products. Not me.  If I have to mix products to get them to work, I'm not interested. I will adjust the color to match my self-tan, but that is as far as I will go. I could blend this with a lighter weight foundation or a mattifying foundation and it would be better. But when you own as many foundations as I do, why bother? I will be doing a video review on this. 

Too Faced Born This Way Foundation in Warm Beige

Bessame Brightening Vanilla Powder - This is an edit not a delete. I need to edit this out of my summer routine because of the color. Although it claims to be translucent, I find it lightens my look. Otherwise, this is a great loose powder. Very silky, melts into the skin, softens pores, wonderful. Is it better than IT Bye Bye Pores Loose Powder? No. But the packaging is cuter! Yes, it has a slight vanilla sugar scent which also scores points with me. I'll be bringing this back in the Fall.

Bessame Brightening Vanilla Loose Powder

FAVORITES

Cover FX Matte Powder

Cover FX Matte Pressed Powder - I wish I was better at remembering who recommends what. I watched a YT video and the BeautyTuber said she found this on the allcosmeticwholesale site, ordered it on a whim and liked it so much after it arrived, she went back and ordered a backup. She has very oily skin and this was the best thing she's tried in ages. I jumped over to that site and in a NY minutes, ordered one. They came in shades, too! I love it. I don't use this as a finishing or setting powder but instead use it after I blot.

Sonia Kashuk Blush in Sunset - Well if this isn't the prettiest peachy coral blush! Very smooth, no dusty kick up, blends beautifully. It has a bit of shimmer which I like. I'm good with matte, satin and slight shimmer blushes.

Laura Geller Baked Shadow Duo in Petal/Earth - One stop shop! These are both satin, borderline matte, finishes with Petal being a deeper beige and Earth being the perfect muddy chocolate brown for the crease. I have used this duo all week. Unheard of!

Laura Geller Baked Duo on Petal/Earth

WISH LIST

Deborah Lippman Love in the Dunes and Desert Moon from the Painted Desert Collection - I've been off nail polish binging for most of this year but when I saw these, eeeeps! Love in the Dunes is a smoky plum creme and Desert Moon is a smoky gray creme.

Australian Gold Bronzing Mist - Found this on amazon while looking for a less expensive alternative to Guerlain's bronzing mist. I have a very hard time self tanning my neck and decollete. Don't know why, they simply don't self-tan as well as the rest of my body. The powder bronzers don't last, I'm hoping a waterproof bronzing mist will do the trick.

Fresh Sugar Lemon Perfume Roller Ball - One of my favorite summer fragrances. This girl is loving the roller ball perfumes. Easy to use, easy to carry, not expensive and just enough fragrance to last about a season.

Cover FX Duo Matte Powder Foundation - Can't believe I don't already own this. Sounds great for this oily face of mine for the summer.

As always, thanks for stopping by!

Cheers,

Lulu

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