I'm Back!!

Hello Everyone,

So. I'm sure that you have noticed that I have taken a break from writing in my blog. I honestly needed to take the time to reevaluate my priorities and really think about how much of myself I wanted to put out there. This blog is about my life. My love for makeup and beauty products really is a small, small fraction of that. I love my family, my friends and my life. I don't want to limit this blog to just beauty, fashion and makeup. I will continue to post about my family, including my husband and daughter.  I will never, ever post anything inappropriate of or about them. There will be no bath pictures or pictures of her undressed. I will never share private and personal stories of her or anyone else. I love my daughter. I love my husband. I will always do my best to do right by them. Anyways.. let's move on to a fun little update!!

So my little yumyum is a crawler! That's right folks. My fun and precocious baby is showing signs of heading into her toddler stage. She started to crawl a couple of months ago and it took me completely by surprise. What's worse than that.. She's now pulling herself up on things and taking a couple of cautious steps whilst holding on for dear life. This folks, is the beginning of the end. I would officially like to say farewell to my sanity. Our time together was brief, but I shall remember you always.

Another super fun (semi sarcasm) development are her sharp little chompers. Little mama now has two razor sharp teeth. Nursing has taken a dangerous and painful new twist. God forbid something distracts her while she is eating. OUCH. I consider it a small, fleeting blessing that they are both on the bottom. She has two coming in on the top, but hopefully they won't arrive for a week or so.

We have been making more of an effort to go out and do fun things with the baby. A few months ago I was so overwhelmed that I would avoid taking her places so we didn't have to deal with crying and fussing outside the comfort of our own home. She has grown so much and she now interacts with people and things around her. I find that I can take her places with me and I actually really enjoy it. It's all about timing people! Our favorite spot so far has been the aquarium. First of all, I am totally biased. I remember going to the Seattle aquarium and thinking it was the coolest thing ever. This one was a lot smaller, but it was just as fun!

I loved being able to see the fish swim around me. It was this big room with a huge school of fish swimming in a circle. It was really amazing. Anthony decided to stick his head in with Madeline. I think she was more baffled than anything.

 I felt like such a jackass after taking this picture. Right next to the octopus is a "No Flash Photography" sign that I hadn't seen. Whoops. Sorry Mr. Octopus, next time I won't be obnoxiously taking pictures with the flash. My bad.

This room was pretty cool. Notice how I am not in the picture? Well. The floor is see through. I had the hardest time walking across it. I am totally uncomfortable walking across clear surfaces. My neuroses  have no limits...

It feels so good to be doing this again. I would also like to reintroduce myself. My name is Stephanie. Some friends call me Stevie. Some call me Steph. I am a mother, wife and overall BADASS. I love makeup, trashy tv and a good hockey brawl. Until next time. 

Haul: Makeup Geek Eyeshadows

I have been reading about Makeup Geek eyeshadows for months. I have been itching to test them out and compare them to my MAC shadows. I decided, what the hell? Why not take them for a spin! So. I went ahead and I picked up some shadows and a few pigments. I also picked up a Z Palette (lovelovelove).

I had to fight to get missy pants to share! So in total I have 9 eyeshadows and 3 loose pigments.

 

 So I decided I want to try not only the neutral colors as well as a couple of more daring colors. I wanted to see if the bolder colors were easy to blend and pigmented. 

 The first line from left to right is Beaches & Cream, Creme Brulee and Cinderella. These are very light and neutral shades. They are so buttery and rich. I am in love. 

The middle line is Hipster, Moondust and Pretentious. These are all a little grayish and very shimmery. They are very pretty and so far I love them when I am doing a smokey eye. 

The bottom line, OOOOEEEYYY, so bright. So from left to right we have Mango Tango, Razzleberry and Burlesque. Burlesque is the color I am most comfortable with. It is a really nice dark purple/plum color. Mango Tango is an orange/coral color. Razzleberry is the color I am most excited to test out. It is a crazy bright pink with gold flecks in it. Here is a close up of the more daring colors. 

I also picked up 3 loose pigments. I love pigments. I usually use a flat shadow brush with some MAC Fix+ to get the colors super pigmented, but these are already crazy pigmented. 

I really like these colors so far. I realized that I picked mostly colors on the more copper side. I feel like it brings out my eyes. Here are two of the colors. 

These were the textures right after opening them. The one on the right went everywhere. Seriously, I have it all over my beautiful white desk! It was bound to be something, makeup or baby related, that messed it up. I'm sure it will be both soon enough!

I'm not going to go super in depth about all of the colors until I do my review. I need some time to play around with them and get some looks going. I did test out one of the pigments on my date night. I used Blitz and this was the result. 

I look a little crazy, and a little drunk. I swear I wasn't! This was after roughly half of Anthony's Red's Apple Ale. I'm a bit of a light weight, that's what happens after you have a baby.

Alright.. slightly less crazy looking. I'm getting there. My photography skills are getting a little better, but I still need a little work. Tips are always welcomed!!! 

Don't forget! You can follow me on Instagram and Twitter @puttheglossdown.

Haute Haul: Pixi and a little bit of POP

So one of my absolute favorite sites for online shopping is Hautelook. It is one of the best places for a great deal on designer duds and cosmetics. I absolutely love it when they have great sales. A few months ago I was able to purchase a ton of Mario Badescu skin care items for a steal. A few weeks ago I ordered a bunch of stuff from Pixi and Pop.

I was super curious about these products and I found a palette that was on clearance at Target.

This is one of my favorite palettes so I thought "Hmmmmmmmm Lets get all the stuffs". So. I bought a bunch of the palettes that were on Hautelook.

So this cube is the Eye Glow Cube in Lucent Lid Light. It is a ton of shimmery shades with a couple of more satin finishes. So far, I like it. I'm not sure if I love it, but I'm going to keep playing with it. 

So this one is the Soft Focus Fresh Palette.

The packaging is unnecessarily large. I think it would have been better to put less space between the colors and make it a little bit more compact because no one wants to carry a palette the size of their face. The only exception is if it has everything, like the Smashbox Master Class palettes.

These colors are more matte/satin and there are lip/cheek colors at the bottom. So far, I really like the colors but some of them are a tiny bit chalky. I really love the range of lip colors though. I feel like you can do a lot with what you have here.

This is the Pixi Icy Eye palette. I haven't played too much with this yet, but there does seem to be a lot of fall out with the colors.

This Pixi Succulent Lip Twin is a lip/cheek color. It's a really pretty pinkish color that I really like. It applies like one of the EOS balms.

These were the only POP products that I got. It was a lip balm and a nail polish. I am really excited about the nail polish color. I can't wait to see how it applies. 

I'm really excited about all of these new products. I really enjoyed the first palette I purchased. Have any of you tried out these products? Thanks to the great deal on Hautelook I don't feel bad about testing these out.

Lip Chubbys!!! Chubby Chubby Chub Chubs.

So what I realized, while cleaning up my makeup area, is that I have a ton of chubby lippys. I absolutely love them. As a mom, lipstick is typically something I pass on. I will do my whole face and then throw on some balm because it is lower maintenance than a lipstick.

With all of these amazing colors and textures I don't typically miss the lipstick/gloss. I still like to wear those on a special occasion, but for every day wear these are much better.

Here are the Neutrogena MoistureSmooth color sticks. I have these in four shades. From darkest to lightest (top to bottom in the picture) the shades are Rich Raisin, Bright Berry, Sweet Watermelon and Juicy Peach.

I wasn't super impressed with these. I was hoping they would be super moisturizing on my lips but I found the texture to be almost grainy. The lighter colors also stick to any dryness or cracks that are in your lips. The only shade that I really liked was the plum Rich Raisin. It wasn't as opaque as I would want, but for every day wear it is still nice.

The new L'oreal Glossy Balm lip chubbies are a whole lotta color. The texture is kind of greasy, but they are very pigmented. I absolutely love the colors. The plum is Petite Plum and that pretty Coral color is Innocent Coral.

I really enjoy these. They aren't very long lasting, but honestly I give so many baby kisses nothing really lasts on my lips.

This is the Revlon ColorBurst. This is my go to lippy around the holidays. It's super pigmented and it smells like peppermint. Delicious!

It's a little drying on the lips, but nothing too terrible.

Ok.. So these were a totally random purchase. I've never been a big Burt's Bees person. One time I tried on their chapstick and I was smelling honey for hours. It was gross. These however, are my absolutely favorite lippies.

These are both so amazing. I love that they aren't shiny at all. There is no glitter or wetness to them. These swatches aren't the best, the dark one is more of a berry/wine color. They make your smile look bright and your skin look flawless. The darker color is Napa Vineyard and the lighter one is Niagra Overlook.These make me want to try more Burt's Bees products. Does anyone have any feedback about their other stuffs?

Edit: Here is a picture of me in Napa Vineyard, which is the darker color.

So, the last one I want to talk about isn't a drugstore brand. It's by Lord & Berry and I. AM. OBSESSED.

I got this is an Ipsy bag or a Birch Box, I can't remember which, and I adore it. This is a gorgeous Scarlett red. It is perfection. I am always in search of that perfect red lip, and this was it.

So. I am in the process of finishing up my Pixi haul  and my Makeup Geek haul. I might have also gone to Ulta today and got some new goodies... To those who say I have a problem, I will make this face.

That's right. My "pshhhhh, you guys are craaaazzzzyyyyy" face. She gets that from me. 

Drugstore Haul!

I absolutely love my trips to the drugstore. I can score some amazing deals thanks to coupons and different sales that are going on. This isn't one big haul, it's actually a few different trips over the last 2 weeks. I literally have a bucket of new stuff sitting on my desk that I have been waiting to do a haul on.

So lets start with the best deals that I found! So these Revlon Singles are great! Walgreens prices them at $3.29.

There was a $1.00 off Walgreens coupon. This brought them down to $2.29. Now, here is the great part! I found these coupons online for $2.00 off of any Revlon eye product.

I found these Here. Remember, you can print 2 per computer, being married to a computer engineer certainly helps me get these coupons. The one fault to my plan was I had to use each coupon separately and I bought over 20. Remember to always be nice to the people who work at the drug/grocery store. A little bit of kindness goes a long way, especially when it comes to someone going out of their way to help you save money. I love, love, love Sarah and Tiffany (my Walgreens ladies!).

So. The price I paid on each of the shadows came to $.29 and tax. This was a steal!

So these were also a great deal. I had a coupon that was buy one, get one free on any simple product. Walgreens had a sale that was buy one get one 50% off. You also received 3,000 points ($3.00) off your next purchase. So with the coupon I ended up paying about $1.00 a package. I ended up going back and purchasing about 6 more.

I was so excited to try out these Revlon products. The Revlon Kajal eyeliner was something I was super excited to try out. I bought another mascara, but I already cracked into it.

Once again I went searching for the good nail polish deals!

I would say... I made out like a bandit. The Wet n Wild polishes were dirt cheap. They were 40% off and I had a $1.00 off coupon. That made them about $.20 each.

The Revlon polishes are so great. I actually really enjoy Revlon polishes and I have been dying to try out the Revlon Parfumerie polishes. I will be posting a review on all of these polishes. Well, not all of them obviously, but I'm going to try a couple from each brand!

Here is the breakdown on these polishes. They were $5.99 and the sale that week was buy one get one 50% off. I also had $3.00 off Revlon polishes making the Parfumerie polishes $1.50. The other polishes were on clearance at target and I got them for about the same price.

I picked these up from Target on clearance. I am finishing up my Pixi-POP haul right now. Those were bought online, not at target.

I am so stinking excited to have these polishes. I really like L'oreal polishes, and these glitters are so beautiful. I am also digging the pretty pops of color. I'll be honest, I totally cracked into a couple of these and so far I am totally digging them.

New lippies!!! Wooo!!! Alright, so I got the Wet 'n Wild ones for about $.50 a piece. The only color I have tried is that dark plum color and it was not my best look. The L'oreal Glossy Balm is wonderful. I really love the plum color on my skin tone.

These were the only product that I purchased at full price. Look at them.. How could I resist? I have been so good, sometimes I deserve to splurge on a full priced item!!!