Ipsy October's The Art of Beauty Glam Bag

This month's glam bag was adorable! It's a white bag, with pink lining and a matching pink zipper and pull. I wasn't a huge fan of the lettering, "Love of Beauty is Taste. The Creation of Beauty is Art." it's a little cheesy for my tastes but the bag as a whole is very cute.

Inside we have 5 things, 4 of which I can use and 1 I have no idea why I even have it. I think everyone received one of these though and I love my glam bags so much, I can't fault them for 1 item that I can't use. I'll explain more later, but for now...

This shows it much more blue then it really is. There is  a definite purple hue to it that you lose in the photos.

Zoya Nail Polish in Neve $8
You can find this HERE. Neve is part of their fall cashmere and satin collection and is described as a "Sapphire Blue Metallic"   Now, Neve is bluish but certainly not sapphire blue to me. I'd describe it as more of a deep bluish purple metallic. This went on smoothly, dried with no streaks, and was opaque with 2 coats. As always, Zoya  nail polishes are toxin free. Every Zoya polish I've had has a round style brush, as opposed to the flat ones you find in other polishes, and this is no exception. With no top coat, this dried to a lovely metallic sheen, not glossy but not matte either.  For me Zoya polishes are either hit or miss, they come in a crazy awesome array of colors for sure, but they either last forever on my nails or chip immediately. Neve is one that chipped immediately. Overall, I'm completely in love with this color! Not quite blue, not quite purple, full on metallic sheen. It's really lovely with my skin tone and a perfect shade for fall. I'll just remember to throw a top coat on it next time.

Coastal Scents Medium Shadow Brush $2.49
You can find this HERE.  As far as brushes go I'm not really an expert. I'm more of a "Lets buy this ungodly cheap set from ELF and call it a day." And then I use said brushes until they literally fall apart 4 years later and I have to spend $12 to buy a whole new set. I have 2 "shadow" brushes not including this one, both are from different companies and both are kind of floppy, although one is slightly shorter then the other. I have always wondered what the hype was with a shadow brush, but neither of them are like this one. I now know what I've been missing. The bristles are pretty tightly packed together to give it a nice dense thick brush head that picks up massive amounts of eye shadow in a single swipe. It's also shorter then what I'm used to as far as shadow brushes go. Which is nice, it keeps it stiff and not flopping all over the place. Coastal Scents medium shadow brush is also really soft, which I was surprised considering how dense it is, but holds it shape well.  I've never come across a scratchy shadow brush before, so this is no exception. Overall I'd be willing to give a Coastal Scents brush pack a whirl. You can't argue with the price, you can get a 12 brush set for $17.95 or a 22 brush set for $34.95, or you can purchases singles for $2.49 and up.

Eyeshadow, lipstick, foundation, and powder, this is after 3 swipes of the facial wipe.

La Fresh Eco Beauty Oil Free Face Cleanser Wipes  $9.99 for a 30 pack
You can find these HERE.
I'm not a huge fan of face wipes, mostly because you normally can't use them near your eye area (which is the only place I need them) and you get like 100 washes out of a bottle of cleanser for $5 as opposed to 30 wipes for almost $10. Washing your face with a cleanser is much more friendly on the wallet then wipes. However, if you're in a pinch these do come in handy.  All that aside, what makes these make up wipes nicer then lets say your average drug store facial wipes, is that they are eco friendly and full of yummy face friendly ingredients. They are biodegrable and compostable, as well as being made with solar energy. They also have papaya, pineapple, cucumber, marshmallow, oat, aloe, chamomile extracts, and Vitamin C & Vitamin E infused in there, all of which we could go into detail about their skin friendly properties but I won't because that would take forever.
These worked pretty well, after only a few passes they cleared up most of the make up on my hand, and after a few more passes they cleaned up all of it. My skin felt soft and smelled lovely afterwards, this didn't even irritate the skin on my cheeks, which almost always turn red. Overall would I buy these? No, only because I feel that facial wipes are a waste of money. However, if they are your cup of tea, I would highly recommend these! The soft citricusy/flowery scent is heavenly and they work great, plus being eco friendly is a nice bonus!

The swatches match the layout of the compact.

Wet n Wild Photo Op Eyeshadow $4.99
You can find this HERE. There are 4 color options for this 5 shadow palette. According to my package I have "Desert Festival" but according to the website I have "Maldives Sky".... A little confusing. Either way, I have the one with orange in it, not blue. On the website "Desert Festival" has blues and a purple, which would also be a pretty palette! However, mine is more warm fall colors, browns, blacks, and a rich orange.
To be more accurate I have 2 browns, a taupey light shimmery one and a shimmery orangey medium brown. I also have a gold glitter infused shimmery black, a matte dark grayish mushroomy brown, and a matte coral orange. It's not quite pumpkin orange, it's softer and more redish pink, as if you mixed coral and orange. It is my favorite color in this entire palette, it's lovely, and goes wonderful with my blue eyes.
All of the colors are soft and easily blended and built up. I used no primer underneath and got about 4 hours of wear without any fading, then easily I got another 3 hours out of it until my eyes looked in need of a touch up. However, the liner which was the black sparkle, when applied wet, didn't fade at all until I washed it off that night and even then it didn't want to give up. All of these colors work really nicely together or alone. The only issue I had was that the light taupe color was literally the same color as my skin and I didn't get any shimmer from it once applied. It would have been totally fine if I had gotten some kind of shimmer from it, I like a little shimmery highlight on my brow bone, but it looked exactly the same with nothing at all. It is a beautiful color though. This would be nice if I had any redness or veins that needed to be covered and didn't want an obvious make up look. It would also look lovely if my skin tone was a little darker. The black did get a little chalky when dry, but it applied with the smoothness and color pay off of a liquid liner, when used wet with an angled brush. I like it better then my Urban Decay Oil Slick eye shadow that I regularly use as a liner, I feel like Wet n Wild applied smoother, cleaner, and was easier to pick up the color.

Big Sexy Hair Blow Dry Volumizing Gel $16.95
You can find this HERE. This is the one product I'm unable to use. I always end up with volumizing hair products from sample boxes and I'm unsure why. I have very thick, coarse, wavy/curly hair that certainly isn't lacking in volume. Most days I straighten the shit out of it in the hopes that it will be less large. My hair has so much volume that I'm constantly in danger of it consuming my face. I also don't blow dry my hair, for the exact reason I've stated above. I did use this, not for it's intended purpose though. I didn't apply it on damp hair and blow dry. I'm slightly afraid to do that. But I did use this as a hair gel and slick down the fly aways that I get in my part. It worked wonderfully. It left no crunchiness, or greasy look, and kept those little hairs down where they belonged all day without weighing everything down. It also smells divine. As for the volumizing aspect.... I can't be sure and I'm unwilling to turn my hair into a giant blonde afro.


I'll end this with a couple photos of my favorite look using the Photo Op palette! I make no apologies for my wolfish eyebrows!

 

Yeah, I'll pretty much pair a red lip with almost anything...

As usual, if you would like to receive your very own Ipsy Glam Bag you can sign up HERE! It's $10 a month and each monthly glam bag has a theme of it's very own, right down to the mini make up pouch. You also take a beauty quiz when you sign up to help personalize your glam bag.

Enjoy!

*Ipsy Glam Bag is a monthly beauty sample bag that I paid for with my very own money. I do not get paid to give good reviews*

Curel Intensive Healing Cream review

You can check out the Intensive Healing Cream on the Curél^® website HERE.  You can find this at Walmart, Target, CVS, and Drugstore.com. It varies in price from $9.99 to $12.99 for a 16 oz jar. Just to give you a little perspective on that size, my jars in these photos are 1oz each.

My first impression of Curél^® Intensive Healing Cream is how thick it is! It's like the thickness of meringue, and no that's not just the food part of my brain talking, It's consistency is much like meringue right before it forms stiff peaks, it's sticky and thick in the jar but smooth and pourable. If you stick your finger on top of the cream and pull it away, you'll pull out a glob and it just clings to you but doesn't drip off.
It smells slightly odd. It's not bad by any means, but it almost smells medical, the scent actually reminds me of antibacterial ointments. Not the antibacterial orange scent of dish soap or Dial, but like Neosporin or other antibiotic creams that you put on burns or cuts. That "unscented" smell, when it isn't truly unscented. I've actually only come across a truly unscented product a handful of times in my life, where it literally didn't have a scent. The scent quickly disappears though.  I used my favorite body scrub to really get a fresh start with this lotion, and used it everywhere, including my face. There were several things I was pleasantly surprised with that I'll detail below!



Ignore my horribly chipped nail polish... But this kind of shows the consistency, it's not dripping off my finger, that's a thick strand as it's clinging to itself and my hand. I know it's pretty light, but it's the best I could do.

Not only does this spread easily, but it absorbs super quickly and doesn't leave a greasy feel afterwards. I want to compare it to another amazing healing balm (If you have dry skin you've tried it) but I can't because, while it compares amazingly with it's healing awesomeness, it does not leave that "my skin is covered in Crisco" feel that the other balm leaves. Most intensive healing creams/ointments/balms tend to leave a layer on top of your skin, I would assume this is to protect it from further damage while it works it's magic. But that layer gets everywhere, you can't do anything, touch anything, or put your clothes on without wiping it off or getting everything covered in cream/ointment/balm. So finally, we can all put our clothes on and read our books at night without getting it all covered in greasy mess and still have silky soft skin!  My only concern is that I felt like I had to use so much to cover any substantial amount of skin. Maybe that's just me. I will probably only use this on my feet, hands, face, and elbows and use my normal skin cream on the rest of my body.

My itchy dry skin was immediately soothed after using this. I live in the Midwest. I certainly know a thing or two about dry winter air and the horrible skin that comes with it. So trust me when I say this will be crazy fantastic once the sub zero temps are upon us!
Fun fact, I cut off a chunk of my finger a while back, totally not on purpose, worst pain of my life no joke.  The skin around the wound has been very dry but I've been afraid to use anything on it for fear of irritating it. Not only is Curél^® Intensive Healing Cream hypo-allergenic, fragrance-free, and recommended by 9 out of 10 dermatologists, but it's also safe for babies over 6 months old. So I figured that this was good enough to use on my dry skin near my cut. Now, it's not an open wound, I wouldn't recommend using this on something like that. It's still in it's healing process but the skin is closed. Anyway, all I'm trying to say is that part of the aftermath of my freakish infection paranoid cleaning routine of my cut is very dry skin on my hands and around the wound area. I used just a dab of the Intensive Healing Cream on it the other night, and the itchiness was instantly relieved. It was amazing. What was even more amazing was waking up this morning and every last inch of that dry skin was gone. Gone! Completely. There was zero irritation. I wonder why I waited so long to try this cream!

I also love the fact that Curél^® is a partner of the American Diabetes Association and that this is excellent for dry skin associated with diabetes. I really hope they do a mini campaign centered around diabetic skin care and the importance of taking care of your skin if you have diabetes.

Overall I was very impressed by this cream! It worked wonderfully, didn't irritate but rather instantly soothed my already irritated skin, and left me feeling soft not greasy. I really can not think of anything bad to say about this cream! Even the price is reasonable! Everyone I've had try this has loved this as well.
Curél^® has gone above and beyond creating an amazing product that does everything it says it will and more.

Fun extra Facts about Ceramides and why you should learn about them!

One of the things that Curél^® continues to mention on their website is the presence of Ceramides in this cream. What are ceramides you may ask? It's an interesting answer, they are the "natural lipids and a major component in surface skin structure. They serve as part of the “glue” that holds surface skin cells together."  
Which, if you think about it, this is a pretty awesome thing to have in a lotion/cream.  So "dry, irritated and sensitive skin often lacks ceramides. As a result, skin's protective barrier is compromised and becomes more susceptible to environmental factors, changes in the season and other irritants."
Makes sense. So essentially the Curél^® Intensive Healing Cream is not only rehydrating your skin but also helping heal and strengthen your moisture retaining abilities it by replacing some of what was lost!  

"You’re not just relieving symptoms, but actually preventing dry skin from returning over time!"

And that's a statement we can all feel excited about!

 

I hope you try this product! Your skin will thank you!

As always,
Enjoy

**I received this product free for testing purposes from BzzAgent. These are my true and honest opinions, I do not get paid to give good reviews.**

 

If you are interested in becoming a BzzAgent yourself you can find their website HERE.

Curél^® is a trademark of the Kao company. You can learn more about Kao and the other brands they own HERE.

BzzAgent TruMoo Flavored Milk Review! YUM!

To begin with, I had no idea what TruMoo actually was. Real milk just flavored? Flavored milk with less calories and sugar? A milk alternative that tastes like real milk?  I discovered that it's real milk that's flavored. It boasts at having 35% less sugar then other pre-flavored milk, no high fructose corn syrup, and uses no artificial growth hormones.

We don't normally drink pre flavored milk because we normally have powdered milk mixes on hand. But with all the hype surrounding TruMoo I have been wanting to try it out! So here's how it all stacked up for us.

We normally purchase 2% milk and I believe TruMoo is a 1% milk, but side by side with our regular milk here's how it adds up.

TruMoo                                     VS              2% Reduced Fat Milk

$2.50 1/2 gallon                                             $2.98-$3.25 per gallon

Calories 140g                                                 Calories 130g     

Fat 2.5g                                                           Fat 5g

Saturated Fat 1.5g                                          Saturated Fat 3g

Sodium 125mg                                               Sodium 130mg

Potassium 420mg                                           Potassium 400mg

Sugar 18g                                                       Sugar 12g

Protein 8g                                                       Protein 8g

  Also there's the  "Added Vitamins"

            Vitamin A 10%

Vitamin C 2%                                           4%

              Calcium 30%

                                                                             Vitamin D 25%

  Then TruMoo has

Vitamin B12

Foliate

Phosphorus

Riboflavin Or B2

So side by side comparison TruMoo is less easy on the wallet with a half gallon coming in at almost the same price as a full gallon of regular milk. It does have less fat and saturated fat, but I wonder if that's the same with a regular gallon of 1% milk.. TruMoo has MORE sugar though. by almost a whopping 6g! However, it is flavored so some extra sugar is to be expected. I like that it has Vitamin B and Foliate, I have no idea what Phosphorus and Riboflavin is, I mean I know what phosphorus is but I didn't think it was in food. Good old google shed some light on both of these names for me, and both of them are "typically found in milk" so more then likely my regular milk has this as well, it just isn't on the label.  Hmm... I wonder what else they leave off the label.
Now we also have to factor in the sugars and calories from adding chocolate syrup or powder to the plain milk. A very popular chocolate powder adds on 60 calories, 30mg of sodium, and 13g of sugar! Obviously TruMoo is a better alternative to that. We don't have chocolate syrup so I can't factor that into everything, but I would venture to guess it's around the same figures if not worse.

All those crazy numbers and vitamin names aside, the flavors for TruMoo are fantastic! The chocolate tastes creamy and rich, like melted chocolate ice cream. The orange vanilla tastes like a vanilla milkshake but less thick, almost like the inside of a dreamsicle without the orange coating. Both of them are very rich tasting, and exceptionally creamy, and slightly thicker then regular milk. The consistency reminds me of 1/2 and 1/2. Not quite heavy cream thickness but not quite as thin as milk. I think the thickness makes it ideal for milk shakes and smoothies. Both leave a slight film on cups and glasses but it easily washes out, it also doesn't stain cups, faces, or clothing.

My almost 5 year old LOVES these. She says they taste just like ice cream milk. Which I assume is a kid variation of what I said as far as taste. She's not normally a fan of vanilla flavored milk but she is crazy about the orange vanilla TruMoo. So it's kid approved!

So in the end, would we purchase this regularly? Well, I do like that it comes in smaller half gallons, full gallons of chocolate milk take up so much space in my fridge and there's the pressure to finish them before the expiration date, and the flavors are really yummy. It is slightly healthier number wise when you compare it to adding chocolate milk mix to regular milk. I would consider keeping a half gallon of this on hand for those days when regular milk just doesn't cut it for my nugget. I wish they had orange vanilla milk year round though, think about that TruMoo! Because it's a fun, different color that makes it more appealing then plain white. I totally understand that it's orange for Halloween, but consider keeping it! My child would be so very happy!
Overall this is a wonderful product if you're into flavored milk and I was not disappointed in the slightest!  I highly recommend trying this if you have flavored milk fans in your home! You don't really have a lot to lose either, considering how it compares to regular milk. Come on, a flavored milk that isn't loaded with 800lbs of sugar and tons more calories, you can't go wrong with that! I hope you consider it. You can also sign up for coupons on the TruMoo website so you can even get some money off your first jug! (TruMoo website link is below)

And in the spirit of Halloween....

 

I hope you at least go check it out!

As always,
Enjoy!

Bonus!
Goosebumps Haunted Hollywood Vacation Contest!

Right now if you head over to TruMoo.com you can enter to win a Goosebumps Haunted Hollywood Vacation! Enter to win a trip to Hollywood, (2 adults and 2 children under 18) for a terrifying behind-the-scenes tour of FOX Studios! Plus, you'll visit old town Pasadena for a frightening special effects experience.There's no purchase necessary but you can get extra entries by using the codes on the caps of your TruMoo bottles.

You can also print off a coupon for $2 off a Goosebumps DVD.

**I received this product free for testing purposes from BzzAgent. These are my true and honest opinions, I do not get paid to give good reviews.**

 

If you are interested in becoming a BzzAgent yourself you can find their website HERE.

Nerdy Craft Time - Potions!

Starting at the back left, Armadillo Bile, Spiders, Dragon Blood, an Erumpet Horn. and a Bezoar box

Another thing I've been seeing around lately is this "Make your own potions bottles" for Halloween decorations or whenever. I love Halloween crafts more then your average person and I felt this would be a really fun nerdy craft. The nerdy part is that it reminds me of Harry Potter. As a constant reader of Harry Potter, I feel I'm slightly qualified to make that connection. What I mean by "constant reader" is that I've been in an endless Harry Potter loop for years now. I read them every single night before bed, re reading a familiar story not only gives me lovely dreams but it also makes it easier for me to put the book down before 3am. Yes, I do read other books, Harry Potter is just my bedtime reading staple. I remember, when I read Harry Potter for the first time, sneaking them into class so I could read them instead of you know, learning. Who cares about science when you have magic at your fingertips? Somehow (magically!) I never got caught. I also remember making Harry Potter costumes with my friends to go see the movies, because who wants to see a movie in normal clothes? Quoting Harry Potter in every day life. I've busted out several Albus Dumbledore quotes while comforting friends who had broken up with boyfriends.
So what does every Harry Potter nerd need to feel complete once they are in the tail end of their 20's and raising a mini Harry Potter fan? (Or not, you totally don't need to have children to make these! Just throwing it out there that my almost 5 year old is also a Harry Potter nerd, it's never too early people.)
DIY potion ingredient bottles!  You can find a list of Harry Potter potion ingredients HERE if you are interested!

The basic technique is to use a glue gun to make a label on your bottle and spray paint that bitch. And BAM you have a potion or poison bottle. Obviously if you wanted to make a poison bottle for Halloween you totally could, but being that this is nerdy craft time, it's potion ingredient bottles.  I used the same basic principal, using hot glue (which was way easier then I thought it would be!) but I used acrylic paint and a brush instead of spray paint which gave my bottles a fun texture from the brush strokes. After all of this, a base coat of spray paint probably would have worked a little nicer, but I wasn't about to go out and buy 4 different colors of spray paint when I had perfectly good paint at home. Use what you have.

So I started out with 2 bottles (well they are probably vases) from our local thrift store, I think I paid a total of $1.50 for the two of them. I also have a Kraft Mac and Cheese box. and, not pictured but, the "Spider" jar was an old glass Skippy peanut butter jar found in my grandmother's basement. For this step you'll also need a glue gun and several sticks of glue for it. I used 7 or 8 sticks for all 4 items. But it totally depends on how raised up you want your lettering and if you'll put a design on your bottle as well.
Make sure your bottles/jars/boxes/jugs/vases are clean and free of dust and dirt before you start.

 

What you'll want to do now is let your glue gun warm up, mine is old and takes like 10 minutes but make sure you give it enough time to really get hot, it will just make everything go more smoothly. Once it's hot, you'll want to do the lettering. I free handed it, but if you'd like you can practice on a smooth piece of cardboard first. I suppose you could also make your letters on a piece of parchment or waxed paper, wait til they dry and peel them off, then hot glue them to your bottle. Whatever you prefer. I'm horrible at centering things so of course you can't see Armadillo and Bile at the same time. It works for me though. It doesn't have to be perfect, it's your bottle after all. Remember, nerdy craft time is about having fun. Anyway, you'll want to give it a solid 20 minutes to really dry up and harden on your bottles. You don't have to worry about those little strings of glue, work with them, they add an awesome texture to your bottles. You'll also want to do your design, You could get really crazy here if you wanted to. 

 

Just a close up of it when the glue is dry and before paint.

 

Once your glue is dry you'll want to gather up your painting supplies and spread some newspaper on your work surface. Unless you don't mind if it gets paint covered. These are the only colors I used on my bottles. It's just a mix of acrylic paints that I've acquired over the years. If you would like to know the exact colors let me know in the comments.

 

 

I also used a single medium sized flat brush. The brand name of this has worn off but I'm certain I got it at Michael's. However, Wal-Mart, and numerous hobby stores sell brushes like this as well. I also used a piece of tinfoil to put my paint on. You can use anything, paper plate, piece of cardboard, plastic lid.. whatever you have on hand that your paint can't soak through.

I threw a base coat on all of my potion containers. I repainted the gold one red because you really should use the darkest colors first. (There's an exception to this and I'll tell you about it later) If you use your lightest color first you run the risk of your darker color completely covering it. You won't get a fun peek of another color at all.

Just make sure you don't put your base coat on too thick or you'll ruin your design and lettering. Thin coats. Even if you have to do one or 2 passes. Also, let this dry completely before you move on. Acrylic craft paint doesn't really love to stick to glass and if you go over it again too soon you'll chip it off, which is very hard to fix. You'll notice my finished Dragon Blood bottle has some odd spots on it, those are chips that I couldn't fix. Give it a good hour before you go back in.

 So these are the finished products. All I did was, after the base coat I dipped my brush into a lighter color and brushed a piece of newspaper until I had gotten most of the paint off, then I very roughly painted over the base coat. I concentrated on the lettering just to make sure it stood out. I painted one direction all around the container (up and down motion) with one color and then went over that with my second top color painting the other way (side to side motion). If you just paint one way you'll get blank spots, it just looks nicer if you paint in both directions.
Another way to cover the clear glasses more effectively is to also coat the inside of the jar with paint. However, if you'd like to put something in your jar you probably should skip that all together, because the paint can flake and ruin whatever you put inside. I'll break down what I did differently with each container as well.

The Bezoar box is the exception to my dark colors first. If you paint your container a light color. you can go over it very lightly with a darker color to get the letters to stand out. For this one I really concentrated on the lettering with my darker color. But it all depends on the effect you want. Light colors on light colors aren't going to stand out very much, so it's a nice idea to lightly brush them with a darker color. I used a terra cotta brown on this one with red and black over that. In that order.

This is the effect you get if you paint in one direction.

This started as my least favorite jar but ended up being my favorite. I used a black base with gray, red, terra cotta brown, and a light muddy gray color over that, in that order. To get the top. I made lines of glue on the rim of the jar, when I got to the top, I let go of the trigger on my glue gun and quickly moved the nozzle over to the other side of the jar. Which moves the residue glue string to the other side and creates the spider web pattern. If you don't get a glue string , you can add a little more glue to the top and try again. I continued this all the way around, turning the jar as I went. If you would like to do this, make sure to fill you jar BEFORE you start gluing the top. I didn't paint the glue strands, I felt they looked just fine the color they were. The glue is stronger then it looks over the top but don't expect it to support an obscene amount of weight. It's best to not try to poke through it. I know you want to.

For this one I used my glue gun and made a close together up and down motion to get the top crinkled like that. Then I went over it twice to really get it to stand out. I originally painted this gold to start with but repainted it red. So it's a red base with gold over the top. I ended up using black paint over the lettering and in the creases of the vase to really make them stand out.

  

 

The Armadillo Bile is also one of my favorites, which is funny again because it was also one of my least favorite bottles to begin with. (just like the Spider jar) I used a black base and went over that with a terra cotta brown and a light green. in that order. I just felt like armadillo bile would be green. I guess I'm not totally sure what color bile would be... I was a little heavy handed using the glue gun on the letters so I could get a lot of those really awesome glue strings and give the bottle a nice texture. I also put a ring around the top with glue lines coming down from that.

 

Just throwing it out there. Red over black doesn't show up very well. I tried really hard to get it to look nice and it just wouldn't. Also don't try to water the paint down to do a wash of color, it just peels your base coat off the glass.

 

So to recap quickly:

DIY potion ingredient bottles!

1. Collect bottles, boxes, jars, containers... whatever you want to use
2. Using your glue gun, draw your design and write your label on the bottle. Let it dry for at least 20 minutes.
3. Paint your base coat and let dry for at least an hour
4. Paint additional colors (dark colors first) by dipping your paint brush in color and wiping it on a news paper or paper towel until you get minimal color coming off your brush and paint your bottle and design. Letting it dry completely in between colors.
5. If you'd like to seal the paint on to your bottle, you can spray paint a clear coat over it. They sell matte, semi gloss, and gloss clear coat spray paint so you won't necessarily have to have a glossy finish.
6. Enjoy your new potion ingredient bottles!

 

You can also make some corks and caps for your bottles, you can take cork board and glue it together to create a custom sized plug, instead of trying to find a cork that fits your bottle. You can glue anything you'd like to the tops, fabric, rocks, crystals, figurines.... whatever.  I prefer mine without lids but it's all up to you.

 

As an extra special bonus, here's an Erumpet Horn!

I probably could have done a better job smoothing out the paper underneath. but I was lazy and in the end it gives it a nice textured look.

Today we'll be using home made paper mache!

 

 

You will need some newspaper, tinfoil or something to make a base with. a bowl you aren't afraid to ruin, plain white school glue, and some water. (you won't necessarily ruin the bowl, mine is totally fine and clean, you just don't want to use a really nice bowl for this)

It can be super rough if you have a simple design, it doesn't have to be perfect

You'll want to cut up some newspaper strips and make a base, I used some tinfoil. If you want to remove your base. wrap it in plastic wrap.Then you'll want to make some paper mache paste. 4 parts regular old white school glue to 1 part water.

 Dip your paper strips into the paste and wrap them around your base. Let it dry in between layers. I only used 3 layers but you can use more or less if you'd like. I'd recommend using a minimum of 2. Smooth it all out and let it dry over night.
If you'd like to remove your base you can use a sissors and cut into your form until you are able to pull it out, then you can smooth a few layers of paper dipped in your paste over the cut to close it up. Let that dry over night as well. I kept my base in, the extra weight wasn't an issue for me because I'm not wearing this horn or trying to attach it to anything.
I used hot glue and made a spiral all the way up my horn, I coated the tip with hot glue, and made little "drips" on the bottom. I painted the entire thing black with terra cotta brown and a muddy gray over the top, in that order. I used the same painting technique as I did with the jars. wiping most of the paint off and very roughly painting over the layers.
Let it dry for a couple hours and you're done!

Let me know if you try these! I'd love to see them!

As always,

Enjoy!

 

Happiness can be found even in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light.
~Albus Dumbledore

Ipsy September Classic Beauty Glam Bag

This month's bag theme is Classic Beauty. The actual bag itself is a bright blue with a black lace-like floral pattern on it. It has a round matching blue zipper pull with Ipsy stamped on one side.

I added a collective swatch below the tinted lip balm review

NYX eyeshadow in Lanikai   $4.50 for single shadows
You can find the NYX website HERE. If you sign up for their email list you can get 25% off your first order.
In the pan this looked light bluish gray with some small silvery glitter pieces in it, once on my lids though, it was more of a shimmery pale lavender gray.  Lanikai has a silky texture that almost feels like a cream. It applied easiest with a brush using a sweeping motion as opposed to packing it on. It blended smoothly, and had zero fall out. The pigment layered nicely so I could easily build up the color. One swipe gave me an even wash of lavender/gray so layering isn't totally necessary. It looks much more shimmery in the swatch then it does on the lid, it is definitely a shimmer finish but it isn't quite as shiny as it looks in the photo. I got about 6 hours, without fading, out of this without a primer underneath. This went on much smoother then I thought it would, it's been quite a while since I've used a drug store brand eye shadow, I think I've been converted! I would love to try out more NYX eyeshadows in the future.

To get the color this dark it took about 5 layers.

StarLooks kohl eye pencil in Obsidian  $12 for a 2.4g pencil
You can find this HERE. If you enter the code IPSY at check out you can get 20% off your total order of $35 or more.
The darkness of this liner left a lot to be desired. Maybe it's just me, but when I think of obsidian, I think dark black so I had high hopes based off the name. One swipe left me with a faded black line, not gray and not solid color, just faded black. I had to go over it several times just to get solid color. I warmed it up a bit and used it on my waterline, I got a fairly even, mostly solid, line. Once built up, obsidian is a decent charcoalish black color which isn't what I was hoping for but it is a nice color. It's not totally matte but not shimmery or sparkly either, it's got a slight sheen to it though. I actually really enjoyed the soft effect this gave me on my waterline. One fantastic thing about this is that it washed off very easily with no left over residue! No raccoon eyes in the morning for this girl. I got about 5 hours of wear out of this. Overall it's a very ok eye pencil, it isn't the best I've seen but it isn't the worst.

Ignore my majorly chipped nail polish...

Elizabeth Mott It's So Big volumizing mascara $19.99 for a 10ml tube
You can find this HERE.
I've explained my reluctance to use new mascaras before and my huge expectations from them, but I'll do a quick recap. I have short stumpy lashes on my left eye and normal length lashes on my right, so lengthening is necessary for me. I'm also freaked out by huge mascara brushes, I have problems with giant bristles coming at my eyeball, I can't explain it. So small bristles are required for me as well.
That said, this mascara went above and beyond and I was impressed! It went on solid black from the first swipe which is extremely important to me because my eye lashes are blonde naturally. It's buildable so while your lashes look beautiful with a coat or two, after 5-10 swipes (which sounds kind of ridiculous I know) it looks like I'm wearing false lashes. They are longer, thicker, and curled naturally without using my lash curler. I had no problems at all with clumping.  The wand itself is a little on the short side, I'm not sure if the full size wand is longer, I liked the short wand though. It has medium length bristles, with a small wave in the middle.  Honestly, I've never found a difference with the shape of the wand and performance, but I thought I'd throw it in here. Also, this washed away completely very easily with just a little soap and water, but it also didn't run the second it got wet.

Skyn Iceland Hydro Cool Firming Eye Gels  $30 for 8 pairs
You can find this HERE.
These are neat, they are like little fabric covered gel pads with a slightly sticky side (that has a peel away covering) so it sticks to your eye. Which is actually pretty awesome! Normally I get eye thingers and they are wet, or they slip and slide all over my face, I end up having to lay back for 10 minutes while they do whatever they do, and I wind up with eye stuff all over my face. But with these, I could feel the liquid under the pad but nothing leaked out, and when I removed them, my face was dry underneath. After about a minute the eye pads felt pleasantly cool, not overly cold or tingly. The only down side (not really down side, more of a strangeness) to these is how freakishly large the eye pads are. These covered my entire under eye, starting at my nose, and I still had enough to cover a good inch maybe inch and a half past the outer corner of my eye. I might cut my second pair in half and use it twice. I didn't notice a dramatic difference after I removed these, but I wasn't expecting anything crazy after 10 minutes and one use. If I had an issue with puffy or tired eyes I would definitely consider these. The price isn't out of this world either, if you used them once a week you'd basically be paying $30 for 2 months of eye gels. Now, if you cut them in half and stored the open one in a ziplock bag you could stretch that to 4 months for $30, which isn't a bad price at all.

Yeah, I've been using it!

Cailyn Tinted Limp Balm in Big Apple  $19 for 3g plus attached brush
You can find this HERE.
So when Cailyn makes tinted lip balm they don't mess around, this is much more like a lip stain that is still removable once its rehydrated. I originally used this with the small brush that came in the top, expecting it to be a wash of red with a moisturizing balmy shine and texture. But because my lips are on the medium side and I'm pretty impatient, I ended up using my own lip brush for this once I realized how pigmented it actually was. It is freakishly pigmented, it's not just a wash of color, we're talking solid color here. It goes on like a lipstick like texture and dries down to no texture at all. It isn't matte, it isn't shiny or glossy, it looks like your natural lips as far as sheen goes, but colored. Just like a lip stain, in fact, if I had to classify this I would put it in the lip stain category. It dried in about a minute, which is how long you have to fix any mistakes before it seals itself completely on your lips. If you use a lip pencil first it takes about 10-15 minutes to dry down. There was minimal rub off from this even before it dried, I got about 8 hours of wear out of this with minimal fading and no touch ups, with 2 meals and several glasses of water in between. If you apply a gloss the balm does not dry down and stays wet and is more prone to fading though. I did notice that once it got wet it was more prone to shifting or wear, so be aware of that, otherwise it isn't moving an inch. The color itself is exceptional. It's a lovely dark apple red that I feel would go with a lot of hair colors and skin tones. It is a fantastic color for fall!

Lanikai eyeshadow, Big Apple tinted lip balm, It's So Big mascara

Big Apple tinted lip balm on my lips. Just saying, sorry about the negative amount of happiness in this photo, this was literally my 15th try to get a picture of the color on my lips, my camera was not wanting to focus today.

This month's glam bag came with a tiny extra, a promo card for Michelle Phan's new make up line EM. Mine talked about The Life Palette Career Life and a little sample from Look 3 in that giant palette "out to lunch". It included the cheek color and 3 eye colors. It is one of those little card samples, where it's a single or two time use at best. At first I thought a little number/letter code stamped at the bottom of the card was possibly a coupon code, however, it isn't. I'm not sure what that code is for but a coupon code would have been magical considering they are $75. Which isn't that bad when you look at the amount of make up you get in one palette but it's still $75.

I labeled the colors so it would be easier to tell them apart when I wrote about them.
I haven't worn any of these yet but the blush or "B" is a nice peachy/coraly color that was a breeze to swatch, it went on very smooth and had a lot of pigment with one swipe. It had a slight slight shimmer to it but nothing dramatic.
1 is a nice medium shimmer brown, it went on smoothly with a nice even color.
2 ends up being an interesting greyish brown shimmer, it went on less smoothly then 1 and it was hard to build up the color to get a decent swatch, but I got it in the end!
3 is a dark brown that I could barely swatch because it was so powdery when applied to my skin. I tried to build up the color but it continued to be chalky, the fall out was awful. Which is a shame, the color reminds me of another brown that I consider to be a must have for my every day eye make up.

It's possible the texture would be a little better in the pan and not just sprayed on to a card. I'm not saying anything either way. The colors are all very nice and go well together. I'd love to try this palette, with all of it's colors and mix of blush, lip colors, and eye shadows. The reviews I've seen on these have been glowing so I'd love to see for myself and encourage you to see for yourself as well.

You can find Michelle's EM website HERE.

I added a "B" for blush and "1,2,3" to tell the eyeshadows apart.

As usual, if you would like to receive your very own Ipsy Glam Bag you can sign up HERE! It's $10 a month and each monthly glam bag has a theme of it's very own right down to the mini make up pouch. You also take a beauty quiz when you sign up to help personalize your glam bag.

Enjoy!


*Ipsy Glam Bag is a monthly beauty sample bag that I paid for with my very own money. I do not get paid to give good reviews*