My New Discovery for the New Year (2014)

I'm not joking. I think I just found one of my all-time favorite beauty lines. 

It's Boots No.7, and all of the branching companies, such as Boots Botanics, Boots Expert Care, and Champreys. 

Not only do they make makeup, skincare products, bath products, and body products, they are so affordably priced and their skincare products rival some of my Shiseido, Bliss, and Estee Lauder products!

What are some of your guys' favorite beauty brands? Sound off in the comments and have a wonderful, beautiful, happy new year!

Holiday Special: Turn Heads at the Next Holiday Party

Happy holidays and Christmas Eve, everyone!

I know I don't post very consistently, but since it's so close to Christmas (less than 24 hours actually), I felt that it'd be only right to post something for people to enjoy. Hopefully.

Since it's the holiday season, and after Christmas the new year of 2014 is looming closely on the horizon, I'm willing to assume that a lot of people will be throwing or attending holiday parties. I always love holiday parties for the companionship, cheer, and festivities, but it also means dressing up. Which I am rather inept at because it's so hard for me to step outside of my fashion comfort zone. However, after some experimenting, I found some fun, wearable, easy ways to change up your look for the holidays ranging from subtle to a bit of edge and boldness (well, in my opinion).

1) Metallics and holiday colors in eye makeup. Try things such as using a metallic gold eyeliner or a light dusting of some glittery, shimmery eyeshadow for some subtle sparkle. It's easy to pull off, not too bold, and it will look great when you and your friends are all sitting around the holiday candlelight. I also tried a dark, lush green eyeliner with some gold eyeshadow, and it really brought out the colors of my eyes and pulled my outfit together. And I was not self-conscious at all.

2) Glam accessories. Nothing pulls an outfit together better than some seriously fabulous accessories. And since it's the holidays, it's perfectly acceptable to wear more bling than ever! Some simple ideas are some dangle earrings with serious sparkle; a cute, red bow on a dress or in hair; a cute charm bracelet; delicate, elegant necklaces; sparkly headbands; and bold, chunkier statements pieces! Accessorize, accessorize, accessorize!

3) Don't be afraid to show some skin. Just because it's cold outside doesn't mean that every inch of you needs to be covered in flannel or fleece. It's easy to be both cozy and cute in a skirt and dress. If you're going to be indoors, then rock those legs! (Just don't forget some moisturizer to avoid pastiness or a slight dusting of bronze shimmer to give them a leaner effect. If the dryness is really severe, or if you're feeling shy, pantyhose will be your best bet.) Outside, skirts and dresses and be layered over cute, patterned tights or leggings! Also, don't forget about sweater dresses. They make some sweater dresses that are just so pretty that I wish I could wear them all year.

4) Scents make sense. While accessories make a huge impact on an outfit's "togetherness", perfume is a finishing touch that can really take your style from good to brilliant.

5) Retro glam. I never thought I'd say this, but the holidays are a great time to whip out some good ol' retro-inspired hairstyles! For example, a classic wave from the old-time silver screens looks great with a sparkly, mid-thigh party dress!

6) Bold lips! Bolder, darker lip colors have got to be one of my favorite things about the colder months, including shades like raspberry, deep red, plum, fuchsia, and magenta. However, for the holidays, there's an excuse to really amp it up to include shimmer or major gloss in lip colors! I never thought about wearing a red lip, but pairing it with a creamy white sweater totally made it work.

And that's about it! If I missed anything or if you have some tips and ideas to share, leave them in the comments.

Happy holidays and merry Christmas, everyone!

Hand Cream: Underrated Savior or Just Another Unnecessary Tube?

For the longest time, I avoided hand cream. Like the plague. (I know that sounds cliche because that's really the only way to describe my feelings and behaviors towards that stuff.) Why? Well:

1) It's greasy, which makes me unproductive. I can't type, play piano, or touch stuff in general waiting for that layer of grease to sink in. I don't have the time for that.

2) Hand cream reminded me of old ladies. There was just this really strange association. 

3) It seemed like a completely unnecessary expense to my (already) huge beauty list. 

Couldn't I just use regular lotion? Why should I buy a separate cream, lotion, or whatever? However, after reading some articles, I learned that I shouldn't have avoided hand cream all these years. Even if I were to keep my skin in prime condition for the next gazillion years, my hands would be one of the first things to give away my actual age in a gazillion years if I didn't do something about them, because hands tend to be one of the drier parts of the body. Without adequate moisture, wrinkles would eventually form. So I went out, bought my first hand cream, and... Completely fell in love. It made my hands feel so smooth, soothed the dryness (and the accompanying itching, flaking, pain from cracking, etc.), smelled lovely, and the love letter goes on and on and on. Now, I'm pretty much a hand cream junkie. 

In my opinion, hand cream is not just another unnecessary tube. Rather, it's an underrated savior. 

So in the future, I'll be posting some reviews and posts for hand cream. Well, on top of reviews and posts for other stuff. 

Eos Sweet Mint Lip Sphere Review

This review was originally posted in one of my earliest blogs, but since I'm about to delete that blog, I decided to post this here, just because I thought it may be helpful. :)

Eos Lip Sphere in Sweet Mint Review

This just might be the best lip balm I've ever used, no joke, and I'm pretty impressed myself considering how picky I am when it comes to cosmetics. I've always heard a lot about these little lip balm spheres, but I never had the chance to try it until now, and now I know what all the rage is about.

The packaging is first what caught my eye. It's like a little egg, with a small, flattened surface on one end (so it can stand) and you twist it open. I like the texture of the lip sphere because it's really smooth and it's a lot easier to open compared to other lip balms in twist-up tubes. Plus, the colors of Eos Lip Spheres are so vivid and beautiful.

The lip balm inside is like a little, smooth mound (think of if the earth was cut in half, thus a hemisphere!). It goes on extremely smooth, and the contoured shape makes it a lot easier to apply opposed to tube lip balms because it fits the shape of your lips. With this type of packaging and shape, you get a lot more product.

The lip balm inside is absolutely. Amazing. It's really smooth and sheer, but still offers a lot of protection and hydration for your lips that lasts for a long time. I like how the lip balm is really well textured, so there's no stickiness, chunky pieces, or gritty grains inside. The flavors only make this lip balm better. I love how there are so many varieties of flavors, and the quality of the flavor blows my socks off. Sweet Mint makes my lips tingle, and it smells and tastes incredible. I've been using Eos Lip Spheres for only a week, but it has made my lips so soft.

On a scale of one to ten, I give this lip balm a twelve. :)

Be Warned

Okay guys, just hang in there, because I am going to rant.

There is a company called Discount Dance Supply, and for the past five year, I've thought they were absolutely wonderful. Until now. Until I had to make a return, which I had never done before.

I had bought five leotards on their website, and checked the sizing chart for every single one, just because that's a habit I've had for the longest time. But when I finally got the leotards, I took one look at every single one and I could tell that they were all way too small. I didn't even try them on to see that they were too small. So I neatly packed the leotards into a box, wrote the check to cover the returns and shipping, and filled out the form, informing Discount Dance Supply that the garments were too small, not accurate to the sizing chart, and new (meaning unworn, the tags still there, packaging still intact). Then, I was off to the post office.

So, about ten days later, I got a package from Discount Dance, and initially I was very impressed with their speed and efficiency. However, when I opened the box, I was furious. Inside were the original leotards I had sent back, along with an angry-looking letter. As I read the letter, I felt like I was personally being screamed at. It was in very rude wording, with very condescending language. Reading it, I felt like they thought that I, a loyal customer for the past five years, was a stupid, retarded ape. It said that I couldn't have my leotards exchanged because they were "soiled". How could they be soiled? All I did was unzip the packets they came in, look at the leotard, decide they were too small, fold the leotard up, and put it back into the packet. Plus, the letter was very unclear on whether they were giving me back credit or not. I sure hope so because now I have five leotards that are absolutely useless, over $120 wasted, and I am so angry that I was so tempted to send the company a link to this blog.

These righteous, selfish, unreasonable people will never be touching or seeing any more of my hard-earned money in the future. I now realize that there is too much hype around this pathetic, rude, disrespectful excuse for a business.

And to the people who (thank you) have read so far, NEVER order from this company if you are expecting good customer service, because their customer service is the absolute worst. Save your money for a company more deserving, attentive, and unselfish.

How Vacation Affects Your Skin

Choosing a travel destination of your dreams not only depends on the money, scheduling, entertainment, and general area, but also take into consideration your health. For many, that could mean many things. Yes, the water may have more hardness, so it may make your hair frizzier, or the area has more tropical diseases, etc. While those are important, for me, it's my skin.

Just recently I took a two week trip to Beijing, China. Beijing is one of the most densely populated (possibly overpopulated) and therefore polluted cities in China because it's the capital. While the cultural aspect was amazing, there were beautiful museums, parks, and trendy restaurants and stores, and the general buzz of busy urban life was exciting, the pollution in the air wrecked havoc on my skin. When I arrived in Beijing, I had nothing more than two blackheads on my nose. Otherwise, my skin was smooth, clear, and as perfect as it could be. However, as the dust, air pollution, humidity, and heat got to me, my skin became increasingly problematic. My skin because sticky (heat and humidity) all the time, and it got oilier and oilier. I noticed more blackheads, which were more severe than those that I had developed in the states. Also, I got two very painful red bumps on my nose, two red bumps on my forehead, and three on my cheeks. This was the worst my skin has ever been in my life. I had never had acne as severe as this in my personal experience. I was appalled. I felt ugly and gross all the time. Horrible.

Okay, so far, this story has been a total downer. However, my point is not to deter you from traveling to famous, exciting urban cities. 

Here comes the happy part: By the start of the second week, I finally stopped sulking, and started experimenting with ways to stop this horrendous behavior on my skin's part. And to my surprise, I actually did find things that worked. So for those who want clear skin in polluted urban cities (Beijing, China is the target of this article because that's where I went), keep this list handy:

1) Oil-Blotting Sheets: I always hear about how great these little papers of magic are, but I never knew their true potential until my skin disaster. These won't treat the skin of blemishes already present, but they can prevent more breakouts by absorbing the excess oil. Plus they're inexpensive, handy for keeping skin matte, and can be used over makeup. I recommend e.l.f.'s Shine Eraser Oil Blotting Sheets, which is a mere $1 USD for 50 sheets!

2) Oil-Free Cleanser: This should be pretty obvious. 

3) Oil-Free Moisturizer: This one is pretty obvious as well.

4) Alcohol-Free Moisturizer: Alcohol is drying, so it strips the skin of essential oil (yes, you can't have COMPLETELY oil-less skin). Then, this lack of appropriate oil makes the skin freak out, and overproduce oil. 

5) Toner: I know toner is pretty controversial, but it helped me. Toner tightens pores, cleans skin, and (to me) it's refreshing. I chose Clean and Clear's Deep Cleaning Toner for Sensitive Skin, about $3.99 USD.

6) Always Moisturize: As explained in the alcohol-free moisturizer heading, skin freaks out when it's stripped of essential oils it needs to function and therefore it produces excess oil, which leads to breakouts and icky feelings. This is why you need to moisturize! It's not only for dry skin, oily-skinned people also need moisture. The more oil you try to strip your skin of, the more it'll produce. What we should all try to achieve is a nice balance of not too much oil, not too little oil.

7) Serums and Other Treatments You Normally Use: Don't ditch that vitamin A eye cream or throw  the antioxidant serum out of the window. Though your routine might need a bit of tweaking to control oil, breakouts, or dryness in the big city, you still should keep your normal serums and treatments close at hand to keep the benefits. 

8) If Possible, Light Makeup: Less stuff on your skin to weight it down.

Happy travels!

Shout Out To Heat Protectant

Hey wonderful people of the world!

I know this is out of my normal range of topics, but I just wanted to remind people of a very, very, very important step in hair care that I just cannot emphasize enough: use heat protectant please, please, please when you style your hair with hot tools or heat stylers. I know many people who have learned the hard way.

My friend, let's call her Amy, used to have the most amazing, unique hair that I had ever seen before in my life. It was your normal shade of light to medium brown, but it was naturally curly like a mermaid's hair, and it was down to the middle of her back. In short, it was one of the most gorgeous hairstyles that I had seen. While I thought that she should just leave it be as it was, I couldn't convince her that it was gorgeous. (But who could blame her? We all have something we're not satisfied about.) She would straighten, or straighten then spiral curl her hair with hot tools. At first, I noticed this about once or twice a week, but within two months, it started happening every single day. I noticed, but my first thought was, "Eh, free country, it's not my hair, I can't tell her what to do with it if she doesn't want me to."

Then, just yesterday, she ran up to me. Her hair was flat, but it seemed frizzier than it usually was. I thought that she had just straightened it again.
"Did you straighten your hair today?"
"No, I showered, got out, and let it air dry, that's it."
"Isn't it usually... Curly after you shower?"
"Yeah... But not anymore."

Yup, turned out after I checked her ends and felt her hair that she had literally killed her hair with the hot tools and heat styling. Instead of returning after a shower to her normal bouncy mermaid locks, her hair was not flat, dull, and frizzed out. When I asked her whether she used heat protectant, she responded saying that she had not.

So, my friends, spare yourself the stress and worry of a bad hair day, and nurture your hair to look its best by just simply using some heat protectant when you plan on using heat to style your hair. It's quick and easy with the range of heat protectants out there these days. But please do your hair and yourself a favor: don't forget the heat protectant!