Favourite Lip Products (for now hehe.)

Hello Everyone!


I know it has been quite some time that I have blogged, but it has been so nice out that I just haven't really been sitting by my computer often enough. I've been doing a lot of instagramming though - so if you have instagram - add me  @arussel1.

Anyway, since it has been so nice out, I have been attending a lot of BBQ's and parties. When I attend these events I like to have a burst of colour on my lips, with more neutral make-up around my eyes.

This lipstick suits many of the events I have been attending:

M.A.C.'s Viva Glam - Nicki is such a pretty, bright, sort of coral-y pink colour. It really does look like a shade of lipstick Nicki Minaj would wear. I absolutely love it! I carry it around with me at all times.  Yes, I do admit, it isn't an easy lipstick to apply, you definitely need a mirror in order to make sure it gets on every little corner of your lips or it won't look right. But it is definitely worth the work, and doesn't take all that long anyway. 

I simply love the packaging, it is the traditional M.A.C. packaging, but has a little flare with the added deep red colour and the signature of whomever the Viva Glam Product is inspired by. In this case, I have a little autograph of Nicki's on my lipstick. Yes, I listen to Nicki Minaj's music, lol, so I do like having an autograph of hers. Just need to work on getting a real autograph sometime lol - I live in an area of Canada where artists don't really come very often though, so that's highly unlikely :( .

 The colour of this lipstick is very profound! It is very pink, so if you enjoy the colour pink - this lipstick is for you! It is  very bright on my lips, so I tend to wear more neutral make up surrounding it, therefore not too much is going on, on my face.

This is what it looks like on my lips. As you can see I am not over exaggerating on how pink the shade is. But that is what I simply love! I like how pigmented it is, and how bright it is. And it's summer time, and the brights are in style - this is the perfect time to pull off a bright coloured shade of any sort!

Sometimes to add a shine to the lipstick, since it is really matte, I add a lip plumper product to it.

Buxom is a new name that has been added to my make up collection. I had never used it before, but when I saw it in my local Sephora, I just loved all the colours and how the product worked. Soooo, I picked up a Lip Plumper product in the shade 'Creamsicle'.

Its shade is much like the Nicki colour, bright and pink. It has more of a coral undertone though, so it isn't quite so bright! Therefore, when I add this on top of the lipstick it sometimes tones down the brightness of the lipstick.

This is what the shade looks like on its own, it does look pretty bright in this picture, but it really does not look this way on the lips.

When I add this to the lip stick, it gives it a more shiny, smooth effect. And the product really does plump my lips. Not into crazy, huge lips! But it just adds a little bit of a fuller look. I feel that I have very small lips, so this product helps me immensely.

Overall, I love how these two colours look. They are my two favourite shades to wear throughout the summer!

What are your favourite lip products? Would you dare wear a bright colour, like this on your lips?

Happy Monday everyone! I promise I will try to blog more often!

<3

some summer shower gel scents.

hello everyone!

I'm sort of a shower gel fanatic, and I found a perfect summer scented one at Sephora a while ago, but haven't blogged about it yet. Another shower gel that I am absolutely loving at the moment is one that can be found at a local drug store and is very well known.

Sephora is well known for selling Philosophy products, and the scent I chose is "Senorita Margarita". It smells exactly how a lime margarita would. It is just so fresh smelling and matches perfectly with the season. If  you enjoy a margarita on a hot summer day, try enhancing your sense of smell with this lovely product while you shower! It makes me feel like I'm on a nice vacation somewhere tropical whenever I shower with this product. It is a creamy green colour, and when using a loofa, suds up quite nicely. It leaves your skin feeling fresh, smooth and clean - along with a hint of lime margarita scent lingering on your skin.

The second shower gel I have been using it Soap & Glory's "Clean On Me". It is very moisturizing, so whenever I feel the need to quench my skin, this shower gel does the trick. I love how it has a pump on the bottle as well - it makes it super easy to use in the shower. It smells absolutely delicious as well(much like all the other Soap & Glory products).

These are my top two shower gels at the moment, what are yours? Would you use a margarita flavoured shower gel on your skin?

Happy Monday everyone! 4
<3

NARS haul.

Hello everyone!

It's been a while since I posted something, but I've been really busy. Finally decided to sit down and try and post something.

Sooo, I had never owned anything NARS before, but I had heard and seen amazing reviews on NARS products. Went to my local Sephora and went a little bit NARS crazy. I'm in love with all of the products, I wish I could buy all of them!

Instead of draining my wallet completely of all its money, I bought some of the basic make up I thought I needed out of the NARS products.


First off, I wanted some NARS blushes:

The packaging of the NARS products are simple, yet gorgeous at the same time. 

I love how compact the packaging is, and it has a nice feel to it when you touch it.

The first blush I bought was the shade "Desire".

It's a very nice, light, but bright pink. It really accentuates my cheekbones and I love wearing this on a summery day with a nice sun dress and neutral eye colour. 

The second blush I fell in love with was the well known NARS shade: "Orgasm".

I absolutely love the coral tone to this shade of blush and the shimmer it adds to your skin as well. I wear this blush almost every day now, I like to pair it with more elegant colours (darker eye make up). It reminds me a little bit of a rose gold shade, which happens to be a very popular colour this season.

I am a new lover of highlighting products. I came across this highlighting stick and I cannot stop using it! 

The shade I chose is "Copacabana". There were a few darker shades,  but I preferred the lighter one, simply because I feel it will highlight my skin tone more. I love the shimmer it gives off, it turns out that this shade is a perfect fit to my skin tone <3.

Third items I looked at were the lipsticks. Let me just say, NARS' lipstick is so creamy and matte on my lips. I LOVE the way these lipsticks look/feel!

I am very happy with the purchases I made! Going to be wearing a lot of NARS products within the near future lol. 

Let me know what your favourite NARS product is :)

xo.

May 24 Weekend BBQ

Hello everyone,

So today I am heading to a BBQ with friends and family in order to celebrate the long weekend. I wanted to have a summer look on my toe nails. It is very warm here today, so perfect for a sun dress and summery nail polish on both toes and fingers.

While I was with my younger cousins a couple weeks ago, they took me to Claire's - a store that is for pre teens and teens mainly. I randomly saw these nail polish strips for my toes. I had never seen strips for the toe nails, only for my finger nails. I found a really pretty print and thought I would give it a shot.

The colours are very bright and noticeable. The design is very hippy-ish, which I really like. They were a bit harder to put on than the Sally Hansen nail strips I use for my finger nails. You can really tell that the product is made from cheap materials. It was very hard to file off the excess, but I managed. The finished look is worth it though. This would be an almost impossible design to create with your own hands, therefore the hard work paid off :). Once I put a top coat on it, the polish strips did not budge from my toe nails.

So I have pretty looking toe nails to wear to the BBQ now. Not entirely sure I would purchase this product again, simply because it was kind of difficult. I think I will just settle for regular polish on my toe nails, for now.

What do you think about the design of my toe nails? Have you ever tried polish strips for your toes before?

sunday brunch.

Hello everyone!

So on Sunday, as it was Mother's day, my cousins and I cooked a brunch for all the mothers. I took some pictures of the food and thought it would be cool to blog them. Which is kind of out of the ordinary  because it is not make-up, but I'm proud of the pictures I took and thought I would share them with all of you.

My extended family is quite a lot of people. We had to cook a lot of food, but it turned out fabulously! 

Our buffet style - gluten free sausages, bacon, and scrambled eggs.

These are mini cheese cakes - cup cake style. They are also gluten free, which is a plus because some people in my family have a gluten sensitivity called Celiac. They were absolutely delicious, and super easy to make! I think they look very pretty as well. 

The dining room set up. I went for a spring look - bright colours and shiny cutlery.

My cousin made these home made, gluten free home fries. They were absolutely delicious! And were very easy to make as well. 

We cheated and bought the fruit tray instead of making our own. We were short for time anyway, so it helped not having to cut up all that fruit! We just used vanilla yogurt for the fruit dip.

Home made meat pie. One of the family's favourite dishes.

We also cheated on the muffins, we did not make them from scratch. Bought them from a grocery store in Canada named Sobey's. They were actually quite moist and almost tasted like they were home made. Would definitely buy these again.

Shrimp rings happen to me my family's most favourite appetizers. Placed that on the table before the main meal.

Last but not least, strawberries for our traditional Mother's Day Brunch bevarage - Mimosa's.

All in all, we made a wonderful Mother's Day Brunch, it all came together quite nicely. Stressful to entertain a lot of people (cleaning, preparing food etc.) but it was all worth it. I know that this is not a make up review. But I do like to share little points of my life with all of you as well sometimes! 

Hope you all had a nice Mother's Day!

NOTD.

Heyy everyone, 

I did my nails on the weekend with my new nail polish - Maybelline's Color Show in the shade Green With Envy (320). 

I love the colour of this nail polish on my nails. The colour is super springy! I do have to say the polish was a little bit harder to put on than other polishes, just my perspective though. The consistency of this bottle was a little bit goopy, I'm hoping it's just the bottle though and not all the other colours I bought from this line (:S). I had to put on three coats, but the out come of the colour is very opaque and quite beautiful.

For my accent nail I used O.P.I.'s Pink Friday! I absolutely adore this colour, it happens to be super girly and quite a fantastic spring shade as well! 

Pink Friday - coming from an O.P.I. line, which features the sassy and bold Nicki Minaj. This is by far one of the most 'girly' colours of nail polish I own!! It is absolutely perfect if you want to have a nice, soft, cotton candy / pink bubble-gummy look to your nails. I give this nail polish a BIG thumbs up! <3

Unfortunately I took this one picture a ways back and only took a picture of my thumb (I know, weird), but I think it gives off enough of what the colour looks like on a nail. O.P.I.'s polishes are super well known and never fail me! The pigmentation is really good - I only had to paint two coats on and it was completely opaque by then! 

What is your favourite spring colour of nail polish? Have you been adding an accent nail colour to any of your polished looks?

<3

highlight of the day.

Hello everyone!

When I went on my little shopping trip, I mentioned that I bought my first highlighting product. It is a highlighting  powder from Physician's Formula in the shade Translucent Pearl.

The packaging is pretty. There is a pearl on the top of the packaging, which helps give effect to the name of the product. And the chrome gives the product a real elegant look.

 There are different coloured bead s on the top of the very neutral powder, it helps give a little bit of colour to the highlighting product. So you don't just have a plain neutral colour, you have a little bit of bronzing beads and blush beads, which add a nice touch to the look of the product and the way it looks on you.

This is what the powder looks like on skin - it gives off a shimmering effect, therefore adding an instant glow to your complexion!

The only downfall to this product is that I have to use quite a bit to get some pigmentation on my skin. I can't just simply sweep it on my skin and be done with it, I have to repeat the process 2-3 times.

Which leaves me with the conclusion of still being on the hunt for a good highlighter.

I did however go on another little shopping journey and picked up some really nice NARS products. Among those purchases is a highlighting product, which I am yet to try!

(Pictures and swatches of those products will be up soon as well!)

Anyway, I hope you all are having a lovely Saturday, really good weather here today! I am off to enjoy the day! 

<3

What is your favourite highlighting product?