NOTD: Butter London- Henley Regatta

Lately I've been really impressed with Butter London. It's 3 free and tends to last longer than other nail polish brands.

I'd seen Henley Regatta for a while and was really excited to see that Ulta had it in stock recently!

Unfortunately, I was not really impressed with this shade. In the bottle, it looks like a gorgeous pigmented teal color. In reality though, it is a glitter with not much pigmentation and it flaked off of my nails within a few days :(

I feel so old!

It's been a super busy past few weeks- Last week my little sister graduated high school! That definitely makes me feel pretty old! It feels like yesterday she was just a little stick thing in elementary school and now she's going to college and I found out she has her own blog too!

I recently got a hat in the mail to review from a company called Dorfman Pacific.

While I think that it is a nice beachy hat, I just dyed my hair SUPER fire cherry red (pictures coming soon!) and thought that it would massively clash with my hair so I gave it to my sister to try out.

                           
                                                  Here she is making her little sour face!

Anyway, you can find this hat here for $30 and until June 30th using the promo code SunHatSave20 will get you 20% off your order!

Also, I will be ending my giveaway at the end of the week so be sure to enter if you haven't!

MAC Call Me Bubbles Swatches

I recently went on vacation to Florida and I was BEYOND excited to find out that there was a MAC counter at the Macy's there! Before that, it had been 2 years since I had been in a MAC store so this was super exciting!

The one thing that caught my eye most was the MAC Call Me Bubbles palette.

I thought that the other shades were okay, but the one that really drew me in was the one in the bottom right corner- Brash and of course it was available ONLY in this palette!

From top to bottom, the shades are: Call Me Bubbles (This is the sheer white one, so you can't really see it much), Fresh Daily, Full of Flavour and Brash

Overall, I like this palette. I wish that I could have just gotten Brash, but the other colors are pretty as well.

Life Changes/ A Preliminary Review of QC Makeup Academy

So, I realized the other day that it had been exactly a month since I've been on here. I had been feeling really depressed and not doing much of anything for a while, but since then I have made some big life decisions. One thing I have realized was that my current path in college was not making me happy, and I have since decided that as soon as I am financially able to I will be going to esthetics school! Because esthetics school will be pretty much like a full time job, this will probably be a while so I decided that I was going to occupy myself with QC Makeup Academy until then.

I've been seeing ads for QC Makeup Academy for some time and I thought that it would be fun to try out. I enrolled in the Makeup Artistry course which costs $1198 and includes 4 units.

In my kit, I got:

-A product application guide

-Eco-Beautiful by Lina Hanson

-4 makeup palettes: 1 with lip shades, concealers, blush and eyeshadows similar to the Coastal Scents palettes

-4 sets of booklets for each unit

-And six cd's (which I can't find at the moment) with assignment forms and videos


Right now, I have only finished Unit A.

Unit A went over the basics- your goals and why you want to be a makeup artist, basic expectations and requirements of the makeup artist field, how to build your kit, safe and sanitary practices and how to build your business. After I submitted the set of assignments, I got detailed feedback from one of their instructors after a week.

So far, I haven't really learned anything that I didn't know already. However, it's just the first unit so I expect that it will get harder as I go on. There have been several questions that I have had and they have gotten back to me quickly, so the customer service is excellent. In terms of the videos, I haven't been blown away, but hopefully that will get better as I go on as I'm not really very far in.

Overall I haven't been blown away by this course. Pretty much everything I've seen or done are things that I could have watched on Youtube videos. I have high hopes though that the future units will be better.

My favorite brushes- Sephora Collection Smudge brush

One of my all time favorite brushes is the Sephora Collection Pro Natural Smudge Brush #11:

I LOVE this brush for getting straight lines when I'm doing the outside 'V' for eyeshadow as well as smudging my eyeliner!

Pro's:
-Good quality
-Dense, soft bristles
-Doesn't shed a lot

Con's:
-I can't really think of any!

You can get this brush at Sephora for $18.

MAC Viva Glam Nicki

I'm always excited to try out the new Viva Glam lipsticks when they come out and I finally ordered the Viva Glam Nicki!

I was definitely NOT disappointed with this one! Viva Glam Nicki is a very bright tropical-ish pink color.

                                              (Excuse my lips- they are SO dry right now!)

Too Faced On The Prowl Set

For my work Christmas party, I got a Sephora gift card. I've been somewhat obsessed with the brand Too Faced lately and decided to check out their On the Prowl set.

 It comes with Primed and Poreless Skin Smoothing Face Primer, Leopard Love Complexion Perfection Kit, Lip of Luxury Lipstick in Cougar and the Flatbuki brush and retails for $26 from Sephora.

                       Their palettes always have a tendency to sucker me in with how cute they are!

Swatches from left to right: Peach Leopard Bronzer, Candy Leopard Blush and Pink Leopard Brighten

Overall, it's a nice palette for a good deal. On the skin (my skin at least!) it's more pigmented than it looks like it would be!
For everyone who has not done this already and loves online shopping, you should check out ebates.com- Sephora and Ulta are on there as well as TONS of other stores and you can get 3% cash back with Sephora. I've been ordering through them instead of going to the store so that I can get the cash back as well as the online sample codes! So from a gift card that I got for free, I ended up getting product and adding $1.50 to my ebates account!

Sephora had a coupon code going on for a bag of 15 free samples with your order as well as the usual 3 that they offer too!

Kushyfoot Flats-To-Go

A few weeks ago, I was sent a pair of tights and flats from the brand Kushyfoot to review:

They retail for $8.99 and are supposed to massage the bottoms of your foot with a zig-zagged bottom.

 Overall, I thought that they did not massage the bottom of my foot and the zig zag texture was ind of annoying. However, I do think that the quality of the tights is much better than my normal tights which rip after 3 or 4 wears!

 What I really loved was the Flats to Go! These retail at $9.99 each and also have a wavy zig-zag sole similar to the tights.

 I actually REALLY loved these! I take them to work with me (I work in a bank setting where I stand all day in heels and am limping by the end of the day!) and these babys come on about 2 hours before the end of my shift! The one negative that I found however was that the elastic in the backs can rub against the back of your foot, but other than that they are a MAJOR relief from my heels!

*These were sent to me by a company to review. However, all opinions are my own.

Julep Maven Mystery Box

Happy Belated New Year to everyone!!!! Last week, I got an email from Julep Maven with an offer for a 'Mystery Box' for $20. After seeing how much some other bloggers got in their boxes, I decided to check it out!

 I'm definitely glad that I did as I got way more than $20 worth of products! I got:

                                 *Julep Nail Appliques- similar to Sally Hansen Salon Effects

                                                 *Glycolic Hand Scrub and Hand Brightener

                                                                 *Lip gloss in Arousal

                                                    *Julep polishes in Holly, Stella and Diane

                                                                      *Julep nail file

I definitely can't wait to try everything out! To find out more about the Julep Maven program, you can check out their website here.

Christmas Eco Emi Box Review

I've been gone for the past week up north, snowmobiling and doing other fun snow stuff, but I will be getting back to posting regularly now....

My December Eco Emi box actually came the day before Christmas Eve, so it was kind of like an early Christmas present!

This box had SOOOO much in it too!

*Patterned Footies by Maggie's Functional Organics, $6.00

*Vitamin C with zinc chews by Genesis Today, 30 chews $11.99
   These taste like little candies and are sooooo good! There is 200% of the daily value for vitamin C in each one however so I will probably only have one or two a week as that is a lot more than you really need.

*Whispering Pine Candle by Wyk Candles, 4 oz $8.99
  This was a nice candle and had a bit of a spicy smell. It was really small though and you can't burn it for very long because the melted wax puts the flame out pretty quickly.

*Tangerine lip balm by Zambeezi, $2.95 per tube
  I love getting lip balm in these boxes as I go through them extremely quickly! I especially LOVE this one though! It feels really nice on my lips and has a great citrus scent.

*Botanical Lip Gloss by Lauren Brooke Cosmetiques, 2 mL tube $8.00
 This is a pretty fall-ish shade. The one thing that I don't like though is the type of tube that it comes in.

*Organic Raw Cacao Bliss by Artisana, $12.98 8 oz
  I'm not a huge fan of this. It has kind of a crumbly texture and is just kind of like a paste that you eat.

*Greenshield Organic Free and Clear Laundry Detergent by Greenology Products, $13.76 for 64 loads

*Organic Candy Canes by The Natural Candy Store, 1/2 lb $5.99

*Jojoba and Ginseng exfoliating face cleanser and Blood Orange and Vanilla body wash by John Masters Organics, $28 for 4 oz (cleanser) and $18 for 8 oz (body wash)