FOTD: Familiarity

Hey everyone!  It's me, Janny.  No excuses for my lack of posts whatsoever.  Yes, I have been super busy and lacking motivation lately.  Which is why I'm trying to go back to what I know and what makes sense to me--blogging.

If that didn't make sense, what I mean is, I have been working so much and worrying about so many other things that I have stopped reading blogs all together.  I miss constantly being inspired, and sharing ideas with fellow bloggers and beauty junkies about what moves me.  My career path is uncertain right now which is keeping me disoriented, so I'm coming back to what I do know: that I love makeup as an art and I love to share with other people who love it.

So here is a look I did during my short, but much needed Thanksgiving break.  Look familiar?  I've never done this color combination exactly like this before but it seems like whenever I try to do something fun and colorful, I always incorporate a bright baby blue in the mix.

Do ignore that smidge of mascara on my right (your left) eye.

Face:
-Laura Mercier Hydrating Primer
-Lancome Teint Idole Foundation in B4
-CoverFX Setting Powder in Light
-NARS Laguna Bronzer
-Illamasqua Blusher in Thrust

Eyes:
-UDPP in Eden
-Inglot e/s in AMC 70 on the lid, DS 477 on the crease, AMC Shine 27 in the inner corner, AMC 73 and 441 P on the lower lashline
-Wet n Wild e/s in Creme Brulee
-UD e/s in Blackout
-UD 24/7 Liner in Asphyxia
-Inglot Gel liner in 77
-CoverGirl Waterproof LashBlast Volume

Lips:
-Lancome Cover Fever lipstick in Rose Tempest (d/c)
-Quo lip gloss in Lust

I really have to challenge myself to stop using baby blue.

FOTD and a look inside myself

Hello beautiful beautiful people!

Before I get to the FOTD, I'd like to thank those of you who took the time to comment on my last post, especially regarding my lack of inspiration.  I've decided that I have taken a long enough break from makeup, and that if I were to officially decide on letting go of makeup for a while, I don't know when I'll be able to pick it up again.  I want to get better so badly, and the only way to do that is to keep practicing.  More on that later.

As for the look, I literally spread out all my Inglot eyeshadows in front of me and looked for inspiration.  As always, I was immediately drawn to blues, greens, and purples.  I settled for a blue and purple look, and it wasn't until a few minutes ago that I realized I have done this color combination before.  Oops.

THIS is why I don't include shots without my glasses anymore.  I
look so weird!

Face:
-Laura Mercier hydrating primer
-Aveeno tinted moisturizer in Medium
-Cover FX Setting Powder in Light
-NARS Laguna Bronzer
-Tarte Amazonian Clay Blush in Amused

Eyes:
-UDPP
-Yves Rocher Intense Eye Crayon in Vert Marine
-Inglot eyeshadows in 413P, 426P, 441P, 362M, 388M, DS 462
-Stila Smudgepot in Kitten
-Stila eyeshadows in Kitten and Black Cat
-Lancome eyeshadow in After Dusk
-NYX JEP in Oyster
-UD 24/7 Liners in Perversion and Ransom
-L'oreal Voluminous Mascara

That's all for the look!

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So now is when I'm going to be using my beauty blog for something a bit more personal.  I've never formally announced it on my blog, but I'm an aspiring makeup artist.  Makeup was the very first thing that really lit me on fire and has not yet burnt out, and it has been amazing for me to find something I'm truly passionate about. I've gotten a very late start on applying makeup--I didn't start wearing eyeliner and mascara regularly till I was 19!  Despite my late start, I put my education towards my career as a teacher on hold so that I could pursue my dream first.  I was offered a teaching position in Korea a while back.  I had time to do one semester of cosmetology before I was supposed to leave, but I decided I wanted to finish and get my cosmetology license first.

Now during my second semester of my cosmetology program, I find myself frustrated and questioning myself.  I want to become a professional makeup artist so bad!  But the classes are focused around hair and I have learned literally nothing about makeup.  I do so much research online on kits, acquiring clientele, etc but it's never enough.  I'm so impatient to improve my skills at makeup application, and I become so frustrated when it doesn't turn out right.  Recently, I've become even more impatient because my financial situation has taken a dip down, and I want 'real' work NOW, instead of being a full time student and working part time.

I also have a problem with caring too much about what other people think.  I love blogging so very much.  I feel great being able to share how I interpret and put together different colors, and just this ever growing passion in general.  Over two years after I started blogging, I find myself doubting if the content I lay out there has any value or hold interest for very many people out there.  I have a problem with constantly comparing myself to others and it drives me nuts.

I have these sorts of discussions with my boyfriend often.  He's a lot like my therapist and cheerleader, who has a lot more faith in me than I do, and does his best to convince me that everything will turn out the way I want it to.  It's a wonder he isn't tired of hearing me talk about these things over and over again.

In any case, these are some of the thoughts that run through my head quite frequently.  Typing it all out has been sort of a therapy session for me.  I'm doing my very best to punch those thoughts down and have a little more faith in myself.  I think perhaps on each day I don't have work,  I'll kidnap a poor soul and force a makeover on him/her.  We'll see how that goes :)

Stay sane, my lovelies, and whatever goals you have, don't stop until you get there.

FOTD Picture Dump + Other News

I've got a whole lot to say about future blog posts and all that jazz but I'm going to start out with some past FOTDS.  There are four total, one of which was just for fun and the others were more work appropriate.  I'm back at my parents' house for a while so I'm having difficulty dishing out posts the way I would like to.  More on that later!

I'm really sad that my camera didn't pick up the colors the way I wanted to =/ But here is a look I did to match a vest I was wearing that day.  You can still see the rug burn on my face lol.

And these are all for work:

Now I know why people like to do this "pop of color." It's
so easy and it looks nice!

This look seems similar but it's actual more of a bridal look
with pink on the lid and brown in the crease.

And here is my go to smoky neutral look

Sorry for not having a list of products used.  I am moving things back and forth between my apartment and my parents' home and things are all over the place--including my makeup! I used mostly Inglot eyeshadows for these looks and I don't have those eyeshadows with me right now so I can't look up the names!  I didn't want to wait till I could get a hold on them before posting these looks because I've been waiting to get organized for days already and the more I wait, the more there needs to be done.  I'm just all over the place right now, and I'm sorry for the scattered brain posts.  I figured this would be better than no posts at all!

So again, I'm going to be at my parents' place for a while.  I really have no space of my own to do makeup the way I want to, so everything is going to be scattered for a while.  I won't have space to photograph things properly.  It'll be harder to record videos, and items that I used for looks, etc.  All around it will be harder to do anything that has to do with makeup.  I get enough shit at home for wearing makeup, so I will be keeping things fairly natural (and boring =/).  Again, I do apologize.

I also promised you guys my mother's backflip story.  There's actually not much to it.  Whenever my mom's back hurts, I do this thing for her where we're back to back and lock arms.  And then I bend over slowly and she lets her weight drop so that it kinda pulls on her back.  This time, however, I bent down a little too low and my mom thought it would be fun to kick her legs around.  It was a stupid move because she ended up flipping over my head.  I knelt to my knees so the fall would not be as hard, but the weight was too much and I fell on my face as well.  I turned my head to the side so that I wouldn't be hitting the floor head on with my forehead.  My mom tumbled over and was slightly shaken but not hurt.  I got the worst of it, which was not too bad save for some rug burn on my knees and left cheek.

All this moving and doing paperwork for my graduation is really exhausting me.  It kind of depresses me how I can't spend more time on my blog and with makeup, but I will do my best.  I hope all of you are otherwise doing much better.

Till next time~

FOTD: Dogon

Before I actually talk about the look, I want to say a few things.

One, is that I'm so glad that I have such wonderful people reading and commenting on my blog.  You guys know who you are.  I was have an utterly craptastic day but after hopping on blogspot and seeing a couple more people follow my blog AND some amazingly nice comments just totally lifted my spirits.  It doesn't sound like much but I pour so much time and effort into my blog that it makes me so very happy to see this sort of positive feedback.  So from the bottom of my heart, thank you all so much!

Two, is that I fell on my face when my mother sort of tried to do a back flip over me.  My weight plus her weight  on my knees and my face kinda hurt, but I guess it could have been worse.  I have rug burn on the left side of my face, where one would typically apply highlighter.  I'm telling you guys this because I decided to skip face makeup all together until the skin heals.  What you guys will be seeing in the next couple FOTD posts will be more like EOTD posts.


I used NARS duo in Dogon, which I believe was part of NARS Summer 2011 Collection.  I hope to do a review on this some time next week.  I may not do anything much more than FOTD posts this week because it's the last week that I will get to spend with my boyfriend before he returns to Canada, and I won't see him for at least another 5-6 months =/

You can see the sparkles better in this picture :]

I have to apologize yet again because I am at my parents' place at the moment and was not able to take a picture of the products I used.  But they're all fairly well known so hopefully you guys know what they look like!

Eyes:

-MAC Painterly Paintpot

-NARS Dogon Duo

-Stila Smudgepot in Black

-L'oreal Waterproof Carbon Black Mascara

-Wet n Wild e/s in Brulee

Thanks so much for reading, everyone!  I hope you all stay sexy and kick somebody in the butthole.

[I have nothing to disclose other than I forget to do this disclaimer thing too often.]

MORE INGLOT?! + Rant

My sister went to Las Vegas last weekend with some friends.  It took me a few days to register but a couple days before going it suddenly hit me that MY SISTER WAS GOING TO VEGAS. HOLY SHIT VEGAS. HOME OF NOT *ONE* BUT *TWO INGLOT STORES!!! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH I ALMOST DIED.  No I didn't.  But I did contact her right away via facebook asking her to get me some things at Inglot.  Then I immediately hop onto InglotCosmetics.com to find the 10 colors I want in my 10-pan eyeshadow palette and write down all the numbers.  I think on that same day, I decided to buy the Urban Decay 15 Anniversary collection of eyeliners after much debate.  And thus, I decided to let go of Inglot for another day....

Well, my sister decided to buy me some Inglot goodies anyway.  Here is what she got:

 

You should have seen me dancing around the house when I saw this.  And not just once.  I left it on the table because I didn't have time to play with them but I wanted to keep them by me, and so every time I walked past my new toys, I started dancing with joy like an idiot.  My sister instantly regretted not getting me the 10-pan palette lol.  What you see is a waterproof mascara, and a 4-pan palette from their Freedom System.  The palette was what I was really freaking excited about haha.  Inglot has some original eyeshadows where they have a matte color with explosions of fine, multi-colored glitter in it.  They are freaking amazing.  I don't have swatches in this post because I wanted to save them for an overall swatch/review sort of blog and video.

Which brings me to my rant.

I've been eyeing and lusting and crying for Inglot products ever since I've first seen Koren (of EnKoreMakeup) do a video tour of the Inglot in NYC.  Seriously.  The way I was lusting over their makeup wasn't pretty.  And so my boyfriend found out about this, and realized there were 3 Inglot stores where he lived.  THREE.  Can you say unfair?  So a little more than a year ago, I received my first Inglot palette.  I nearly had a heart attack.  If you watch some of my videos, you may have seen them featured in tutorials.  I love love love them to death.  More than when I first found out about the company.

So that was a year ago.  When I went to Canada last December, I had planned to do an exclusive and thorough informational video/blog on Inglot, since I had no access to the store near where I live in California (although I heard they just opened one in OC but that's still too far away).  Then before I get a chance to do that, all these big, popular gurus on Youtube start popping up raving about Inglot eyeshadows.  Now I KNOW that they have done nothing wrong in doing so, in fact they are in their every right, but I really felt like I've been kicked down.  I have so much STUFF to share to people about Inglot and because other gurus beat me to it, I'm going to look like a copycat.  Maybe I'm petty but I don't know....I've put a lot of work into getting the information and products in the first place.  Heck I had to have other people fly the products to me in the first place.  But yeah, that's what I'm a bit upset about.  Inglot used to be pretty much never heard of amongst the Youtube beauty community.  Trust me I know.  I searched and searched and only found Koren's video and 2 haul videos.  Now they're popping up all over the place like a disease and I really do think it's the influence of the big gurus out there. 

Now, you may ask, exactly what work did I put in Inglot in the first place? I just have the makeup!  You're wrong. Wrong I tell you.  With a big slice of moldy cheese.  I had to call a representative a number of times to get permission film inside an Inglot store and take pictures.  This same representative offered to do a text interview, which I am still waiting on.  This was all going to be a surprise, but I guess there's no point anymore since it's been about a month already. 

If you made it this far into reading this blog entry, I salute you, and thank you for making it this far.  I think I'll end this entry with what informational stuff you may expect in regards to Inglot:

-How to order
-Prices
-Swatches: Eyeshadows, lipsticks, and nail polish
-General product information
-Touring inside Inglot
-Review
-Other information on Inglot (History, sales, rewards, etc)

Meanwhile, I have just finished filming 3 videos which I hope to edit and upload VERY soon.  I like to accompany my videos with blog posts because I know personally, I prefer reading the information most of the time as opposed to watching a video.  I hope you will all stay tuned.

Much love and much relieved after my rant,
Janny

It's Official: My Beauty Buying Ban

Now, I've been on these kinds of bans on and off, and I found that I am able to control myself best when I am not stressed.  Before I go into the details of this time's buying ban, let me briefly go through my history of beauty buying bans.

I want to say maybe about a year ago when Project 10 Pan was floating around, I decided to have a go at it.  If you haven't heard about this before, it's when you are restricted from buying any beauty products until you have finished 10 products in their entirety.  I am ashamed to report that I lasted 2.5 weeks and didn't finish a single product.

The next ban was during the summer of 2010, from mid-August till the Christmas collections started coming out.  I was very good with the ban during the summer, when school was still out and I did not have to stress about anything in particular.  Once school started and got rolling around early October, I started stressing out again and felt impulses to buy makeup.  Granted, I was not successful during this period, but I instead of quitting my ban altogether when I did succumb to making a purchase, I continued the ban the best I could.  I don't remember how many times I broke the ban, but I don't think it was any more than three.

This time, I started my ban recently.  I don't think it was at the beginning of the year, but within the first couple of January.  I think right away, I broke it when I decided to purchase Urban Decay's 15 Anniversary eyeliner set (which arrived today! I'll be doing swatches later!).  I've been debating over whether or not to purchase this ever since it came out, and I did want it quite badly.  I paid less than $90 for the entire set with the VIB discount, which amounts to less than $6 for each full-sized eyeliner that usually retails for $17.  I'm a huge eyeliner junkie and I use colored liners quite often, so it is definitely a good investment.  However, I daresay I won't be purchasing any more eyeliners soon.

In any case, here are the conditions of my ban:
-NO makeup or other unnecessary beauty purchases.  Lotion and shampoo are not included.
-I'm allowed to replace mascara and black eyeliners.
-This ban will last until mid-March.  Stop for one week (I'm heading to Canada again, but my spending will still be limited.  Just not as limited.).  After that, it will continue till June.
-Brushes are ok.  I recently gave away some to my boyfriend's mom, and my sister has a set of my brushes as well so I'm pretty low on those.
-Giftcard purchases are ok.  I still have a Sephora giftcard! Now I just have to find it...
-Steals from stores like TJ Max are ok within reason.
-Gifts for others are okay as well.  So a way I could get around this is by doing a swap (not anytime soon though).

I think this is just about it.  In the past couple of weeks, I've been digging through my stash and rediscovering things.  I think I have more than enough to blog about till June, and I really want to enjoy what I have purchased.

I've typed this entire blog during class, which is about to end soon.  I'll see you folks later! Take care, all!


Love,
Janny

NOTD: OPI Glove you so much

After my last day of work (food service = no nail polish), I swiped on some color to my nails the next day.  I was searching through my mini collection for something fun, maybe a bright matte color.  But I have very little mattes in my collection so I settled for this sparkly wine color instead.  Funny how things turn out the very opposite as you had initially hoped for.  One coat is plenty, but here you see 3 because I tried multitasking while waiting for the nails to dry which was a very bad idea.  Don't mind the bad skin or the uncleaned polish.  Works always takes a toll on my skin, and I am struggling to finish some school work on time hence the sloppy edges.  I've missed blogging terribly so I've decided to post a NOTD nonetheless.

Just for fun, I swiped on a bright lip color, which looked like it could match the nail color in the tube but turned out a lot brighter than I expected.

This color is Maybelline's Color Sensational Lipstick in Madison Mauve.  I picked it up at CVS on clearance for 50% off, and I love love love it.  I find it very wearable, and will feature it in a FOTD hopefully some time soon.  I'm not wearing any other makeup right now other than this lippie so I will spare you my very exhausted and dehydrated skin today. 

That's all for now folks.  I hope you all had a fabulous long weekend, and were able to resume the week's activities without wishing too hard for the next weekend to arrive.

I'm Digging My Toes ;D

Warning: This post is not for toe-phobic people.

That aside, it's not really my toes that I've been admiring but the lovely nail polish.

Friends, meet Akyra by Zoya.  It's a gorgeous sparkly teal that seems more blue for some reason in the photo.  I applied two coats of it on my toes a few days ago and have been admiring them ever since.  What you see in the bottle is exactly what you get on your nails.

I have a thing for blue toes.  I've tried red before and it just looked too old ladyish.  There is something magical about blue toes....I can't quite put my finger on it.  But nail color on my toes usually last a good couple of weeks, and I don't have to worry about the nail polish chipping off into the food I prepare.  Speaking of which, do you guys have any tips on long lasting nail color?  I don't usually use a top coat, and maybe that could be it.

I do realize this is an unusually short post.  My mind is kind of ...hmm....how do I put it?  I think about random things all the time and I won't share all of them, but maybe sometimes I can't help it.  This is one of those times.

Back to reading I go =( I hope you are all sporting amazing toe colors :)

Much love,
Janny

My Top Secret Brush Drying Method

Well it's not a secret for much longer but that's okay.  I see a lot of fancy methods of brush drying out there, anything from using brush guards to toilet paper to hanging them on clothes hangers to taping them to walls.  No joke, ladies.  The method I use either reflects my laziness, my lack of time, or the simple convenience and lack of fancy gadgets.  I like to think of it as the last option lol. 

What I do find a flat surface, and lay a clean towel over it.  The towel will absorb the water from the brushes and just act as a clean surface to put the brushes on.  Next, I put something on one end to prop my brushes on.  In this case, I used my straightening iron (haha!).  The inclined angle keeps water from seeping inside the handle and breaking up the glue that keeps the brushes all together.  You can see that my kabuki brush is placed directly upside down.  Just spread out the bristles a bit and the brush will stand just fine.  The bristles of a good kabuki brush should be able to hold the weight with no problem, so you don't have to worry about it looking funky after it dries.

There it is folks! It's fast, easy, and brainless.  Most brushes dry over night in this fashion.  Just make sure to use a clean towel each time.

Back to reading I go =(  I still have 50 more pages to read about Taoism.  It's interesting but so loooonggggg!

Moaning and groaning,
Janny