Beauty, Daily

Buxom’s customizable eyeshadow palette

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Buxom-headerBy now, if you’ve been reading my blog for a while you know I don’t stray too much from makeup brands, and I only recommend the companies I’ve tried and trusted. You’ll notice that I don’t stray off course with my skincare regime — and it’s why I don’t talk about it much because it could get boring for you to hear me repeat myself about how much I love philosophy products. Well, the same goes with my makeup. I love certain brands, and don’t stray from them.

Customizable-palette-buxomBuxom launched an Eyeshadow Bar which is a customizable eyeshadow palette. The eyeshadows launched in June with primer-infused luxury exclusively being sold at Sephora. To be honest, I wasn’t entirely sure what primer-infused meant. I presumed correctly and it is meant to last longer on the eyelids without using primer. Lessen the load in your makeup bag!

Buxom-Customizable-paletteLeft to right: diamond darling, designer or die, star treatment, 24kt stilettos, filthy rich, and invite only.

Buxom-eyeshadowsAs you can tell from the photo, the palette has a huge mirror, and the packaging itself is quite sturdy, so great for travel if need be.

I’m excited about the variety of colours you can choose from: 40 shades for you to mix and match, whether you want to buy the eyeshadow in singles, or 6 to slide into your own personalized palette.Although creating your own palette isn’t unique — not many companies offer customizable eyeshadows that I know of. A few renowned beauty companies like Inglot and MAC have been doing similar palettes for a while, and that’s all I know of. Buxom is one of my go-to brands for mascara (fantastic for layering on top of Make Up For Ever’s Smoky Lash) and lip glosses as I’ve spoken about on the blog before. Though it’s still exciting to try out a handful of their eyeshadows and play around with simple natural looks. Considering I don’t wear eyeshadow often, and prefer to stick to a neutral look, I asked that mild colours be sent over for me to review. The eyeshadows themselves are pigmented and didn’t crease on my naturally crease-y eyelids, so that’s a plus.  The palette is wonderful for those who have probably bought a pre-made palette in the past and only used a couple of the colours out of the whole thing. Now, you can truly customize with colours that you know you’ll get your use out of. And if you’ve used up one of the colours so much, you can easily swap it out for a new one!

Buxom-lipsI filmed a “get ready with me” youtube video featuring this palette and some lip products that I showed here, but you’ll have to wait until next week to see that one! It’s both exciting and hilarious if I do say so.

Buxom-lip-foundation-swatchI also wanted to talk a bit about the lip foundations. Hooboy, those are some pigmented lip products that doesn’t easily wash off with a bit of soap (on the arm). If you want to get the true colour of your lipstick or lipgloss, or just want a long lasting natural base colour, use these. The two on the left are lip foundations, and the two on the right are lipsticks. All natural colours, perfect for an every day look.

Buxom-lip-products

Swatches-of-Buxom

I went scouring on Sephora’s website, and noticed that they’ve uploaded a PDF file in case you needed inspiration on how to create certain eye looks using the Buxom eyeshadows. ‘Lacy Things’ look is probably my favourite, and I admit – some of the wild colours look really gorgeous on the eyes! Too bad I have terrible skills with application of the eyeshadows, I must go practice.

Buxom-eyeshadowDetails of palettes and eyeshadows:

Or if you prefer to have your eyeshadow palettes pre-built for you, there are 3 that you can choose from:

Disclaimer: I was sent the Buxom products for review. All opinions are my own, it would be rude to take anyone elses ;) 

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Beauty

Preventing anti-aging on neck & chest

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B’ys it’s only a matter of time and we’re in our older years and then we notice a few changes in our skin, our neck, even our hands. I’m noticing tiny little moles that probably will turn into age spots on the back of my hands. Even I’m aging! It happens. It’s life. Gotta get over it.

You may notice some people have a wrinkle-free face, but their neck is a little more noticeable with the wrinkles and excess skin. This is mainly due to the fact that people forget to take care of their neck and décolletée area when doing their morning/evening routine with the face.

Those fancy and expensive jars of neck cream to lift and tighten the skin? If that was really the case, wouldn’t everyone know about that particular product and be the worlds best seller? Think about it. But do you need a different product for that particular area?

In one simple word: No! 

Most of the time those creams are simply about moisturizing the skin rather than anti-aging.

What can you do to prevent those signs of aging on those areas? In simple terms, keep up your regular skin care regime and don’t forget SPF. Bring those creams and lotions down to your neck and chest area too. When applying neck cream, always use an upwards motion when applying product. Don’t ask me why, but I guess it makes sense in the fact that you don’t want to drag the wrinkles down to the floor, you want to help lift. Right?

The 2 retinol products I recommend: RoC ($15 USD from Amazon) and Philosophy Help Me ($49 USD from philosophy’s website)

RoC RetinolPhilosophy Help MeNotice how the two products are not in a jar? Jar-like packing is a huge no-no as it allows in the light and air, which breaks down the retinol ingredient.

Retinol is a fantastic anti-aging product to help with aging, brown spots, clogged pores and even acne. But if you want to start using that product you’re going to have to do your own research. Bear in mind that retinol can be potent depending on the percentage that is in your creams, thus your skin might react and become dry or peel a little. Don’t panic. It’s completely normal temporary side effect, and you may just have to back off on how often you apply it. Retinol products are primarily meant to be applied during the night, so it gets a full nights worth to act on the skin since your skin will be sensitive to UV rays. Pile on that SPF in the morning!

To take the benefits away from using a product with retinol in it, you have to use a range of ingredients, and don’t simply just use a retinol on your skin. Keep doing what you’re doing for skin care and add in a product that has retinol, too.

Is retinol the best and only ingredient out there for anti-aging? No, of course not. But this is the product I like, and recommend in conjunction with applying an SPF to protect your skin.

Please note, I’m not here to sell you on anything, I’m here to inform you! None of the links above are affiliated and none of the brands know I’m talking about them.

Hope you learned something today! And if you have any questions, please ask them in the comment section below :)

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Beauty, Daily

New scents you should try for Summer 2015

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Summer-2015-fragrancesWant to have a new summer fresh scent but don’t want to invest too much money? Perhaps you’re all about layering scents like I am and simply don’t have a budget to get the fanciest of perfumes at Nordstrom.

Demeter-Fragrance-LibraryIn steps Demeter fragrances. I reached out to them months ago, so I’ve done the sniff test on the ol’ bod for weeks on end, and I can finally attest that some of these light scents will be my signature scent for Summer 2015.

Demeter has an incredibly massive online store where you can get some pretty wild scents like Marshmallow, Blueberry, New Zealand, Great Barrier Reef, Vinyl even! Who would want to smell like vinyl? I mean, psh this is so weird but really cool in… well its own way I suppose really. Right? I’m not into anything that smells remotely like food, so those one’s are out of the question. They sent some to me, but I immediately brought them back home to Newfoundland with me to give away. My sister in law grabbed up the Mountain Air one, which was a little too musky for my liking and the New Baby scent = a little too weird for my liking.

Demeter-Clean-SkinBut not to diss them entirely, they have some fantastic scents that I really love. Let’s get into those one’s, shall we? First I’ll quickly describe the type of scents I like: citrus/fruity/floral and fresh. Pretty simple I suppose, hey?

Fav-Demeter-Fragrances

Demeter-scents

Demeter-Plum-BlossomI got to pick out a handful of scents to try out and I reached for Plum Blossom, Clean Skin, Between The Sheets, Peony, Orange Blossom and Neroli. I was originally thinking that Peony and Orange Blossom sprayed on top of one another would somewhat mimic the expensive Jo Malone fragrance. It doesn’t. But they are both really pretty scents.

Keep in mind the scent won’t stay too long on the skin a few hours max. I feel like since these are just 30ml bottles, they could be brought on the go with you, to spray every hour to refresh the scent on your skin.

Shop the store itself and browse the entire massive collection, or look through their all classic scents, top 30 scents or some of the scent collections.

Have you ever heard or tried Demeter Fragrances? Thinking about giving them a go, or what? :)

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