My look today!

So obviously I had to use my Inglot shadows today and I was dying to use 372, which is like a perfect Robin's Egg Blue color.  It's probably my favorite color out of the ones I got.  So this is what I came up with:

I wore this look out in public today and the first woman I came across said, "Wow, I love your eye makeup!".  And I turned to my husband and said, "My first time wearing Inglot shadows in public and I already got a compliment" haha.  Now to be fair, I have done a similar look before using Ben Nye "Cosmic Blue" pigment and browns from my 88 palette, but this look was easier to do because the colors blend so nicely and are so pigmented that it doesn't take as much to build up to the intensity that I like.

So here are the colors I used:

361

Top: 393
Bottom: 372

363

And then swatches of the colors because I can't stop touching them haha

This is one swipe of each color.  I didn't have to add extra for the colors to show up

So I hope you all have an incredible weekend!  I'm probably going to a reptile show tomorrow so that should be interesting haha.  Thanks for taking time to look at this!!

Moral Dilemma

Just forewarning you, this is quite a lengthy post.

Hey guys!  If you've been following me (or if you read some of my older posts), you'll know that recently I made a trip to New York City and during that trip, I was sooo excited to go to the Inglot store there, as there are only a few of their stores in the United States.  But at the store, I received less than good service.  It really frustrated me to the point of not wanting to buy products from them.

Since then, I have seen Amalia (Dear Makeup Diary) use these shadows and LOVE them.  I also have seen QueenofBlendingMUA and Gossmakeupartist on YouTube use them and rave about them as well.  Now, I am not one to hold grudges (sometimes I actually wish I was a little better at staying mad) but I was really peeved about my bad experience. But then I'd look at the swatches for these shadows and want them.  So I was having a bit of a dilemma.  The shadows are reasonably priced and have an excellent reputation but I was mad.  So after asking Amalia her opinion (I trust her opinion because I know she's used high end and low end shadows) and talking to my husband, I decided that it was probably smart business wise (as I plan on becoming a freelance makeup artist and Amalia said that Inglot was going to raise their prices soon) for me to get some of these shadows.

Let me break it down for you.  A 15 pan palette from MAC costs $179 (free shipping over $50).  I bought 3 Freedom System palettes (a 20 pan, a 10 pan, and a 5 pan) and 33 eyeshadows for $163.50 (they have free shipping over $150).  MAC eyeshadows have 1.5 grams of product in each pan, Inglot square pans have 2.7 grams of product.  So let's just say that all of the palettes were free and the price we're paying is just for the eyeshadow, that would make each MAC shadow cost $11.93 and each Inglot eyeshadow cost $4.95.  So MAC shadows are $7.95/gram and Ingot's are $1.83/gram.  MAC's shadows cost 434% more per gram than Inglot's.  And with all of these people saying that they love their Inglot shadows more than their MAC ones, it seemed silly to not get them.

Their website for the Freedom program is COMPLETELY bananas.  It's very hard to keep track of what you're ordering and how many eyeshadows you have picked out.  Also the shadows are numbered and don't have names so it's even more complicated to remember which ones you like.  I even sat down with a list of shadows I had seen swatched and liked and gave up on trying to find them all, I just ordered ones I came across that looked nice.  I ordered primarily matte shadows, some pearl ones, and a few AMC (I don't know what that means) ones.

I submitted my order at about 1:00 a.m. on Tuesday.  Within minutes, I had an e-mail confirming my order.  Now I was planning (after reading makeupbydanisaddiction) for it to maybe take like a week for me to get my order.  So when I received an e-mail on Tuesday afternoon telling me that my order had shipped, I was amazed.  My order arrived at my house today around noon.  So it took 2 days for my order to be placed, shipped, and to get to me.  That's craziness.  I have never in my life received an order for ANYTHING so quickly.

So, on to the pictures!

This is how everything was packaged

everything removed from the box

everything all unwrapped (except the 5 pan palette)

I put the shadows I thought I'd use a lot in the 20 palette and the ones I wouldn't use very much in the 10

you can see how I labeled this palette.  I didn't want to damage the shadows digging them out every time I wanted to see which ones I used

I was so over putting the finish on everything, so for the swatches, I just put the number and left off whether they were matte or pearl or what have you (and yes, there are two 428's)

these are the swatches of the top row

these are very similar, 450 is a bit more purple but I think if you have Rust you could pass on this shadow

this is how I had to label the 20 palette
haha don't mind the shapes of these labels, my daughter was the designated cutter

395 is very similar to "Peanut", actually so is 393 haha.

352 is so close to "Blanc Type" and the texture is soo much smoother

Everybody needs to own 372.  It's AMAZING!!!

61 is not a true black.  It's basically black with navy blue sparkles.  In person, because of the sparkles, it doesn't look black

not quite a dupe, but they're in the same family

I actually used 363 to fill in my brows, I had been using a shadow from my 88 palette and this just was so much smoother, it just glided (is that a word?) on.  Soo nice.

And now here's the look I did using this shadows.  Haha I wanted to use as many as I could in one look so I did a rainbow.  

These colors are like redonkulously pigmented.  They're really quite amazing.  The only shadow that I had a hard time with was the yellow (AMC 60).  The ones called AMC's have glitter (small glitter) in them and I had some glitter in my lashes from it falling down.  But their matte shadows are soooo amazing!  They're like buttah!!  If you're going to order from them, order every matte shadow they make.  Even if I normally wouldn't like the color, I do just because they look so nice and creamy.  I have to say that the fast delivery and amazing product more than make up for the bad experience I had in the store.  

But, Sonja, what about that extra 5 pan palette?  And you said you bought 33 shadows and I only see 28?  

Haha I guess you'll have to wait and see!!!

Gold eyes, pink lips!

Ok, I think this is one of the fastest, easiest looks ever (and I promise this is my last post for today haha).  I used:

~TFSI

~NYX JEP in "Gold"

~the gold color and the brown next to it from the ELF "bright eyes" beauty book

~MAC "Vanilla" pigment

~Bobbi Brown gel eyeliner "Black Ink"

~no name white eyeliner on waterline

~L'oreal extreme volume collagen mascara "Blackest Black"

On my lips:

~MAC "Pink Friday" lipstick

~Revlon Colorburst lipgloss "papaya"

You know what I think is funny?  I always do my makeup after my husband goes to work so he never knows what he's coming home to.  Like yesterday he came home to my cut crease and today he's going to come home to a simple gold eye haha, ahh to be the hubby of a makeup lover, you never know what you're gonna get!  I hope you have a wonderful day!  Thanks for checking this out!!!!

A few thoughts on something totally not makeup related (about relationships)

This post gets kinda personal, so if that's not something you care about then I would probably skip reading this haha.

Ok guys, I going to admit something to you... I watch Teen Mom on MTV haha.  I like that show a lot.  I don't know if it's because I got pregnant with my daughter when I was 19 or what it is, I just like to watch that show.  So last night the Teen Mom 2 finale was on where they all come back and talk to Dr. Drew.  And they were all pretty much how I expected them to be... except Chelsea. (Here's a link to the episode, she comes on at about 23:00 but the main part I'll be talking about starts at about 31:00 http://www.mtv.com/videos/teen-mom-2-finale-special-check-up-with-dr-drew/1661363/playlist.jhtml ).

Her baby daddy, Adam, is such a tool.  He seems to be around when he wants something but not when Chelsea needs something or if she needs something for their daughter (Aubrey).  He cheats on her and then basically tells her to get over it.  He's sooo rude to her father even though her father does so much for Chelsea and Aubrey.  The way he treats her is abusive and she makes excuses for him.  Watching this stirred something up in me.

A long time ago I was in a bad relationship.  Now, being in a good relationship, I can see that it was indeed an abusive relationship.  I was young, insecure, and it was my first relationship.  I clearly remember walking by a Victoria's Secret store, he looked up at the picture of Adriana Lima in the window and said, "why can't you look like that?".  He would always tell me about these women he thought were hot.  One time we were at my parent's house and I took a nap in my room and he was on the computer in the den.  Later that day, he had gone home and I went to get on the computer, there was porn up.  In my parent's house. Nice, right?  And when I tried to talk to him about it, he yelled at me and said, "I really think you're crazy.  Like there's something wrong with you."  That's something he would say to me anytime I'd get upset about something he was doing, that there was something wrong with me and I was crazy.  When we would go out to eat, I would ALWAYS pay.  I always paid for everything.  I always drove everywhere.  He was rude to my parents, especially my dad (because my dad is quite opinionated and speaks his mind).

But enough about that, I get frustrated with myself for allowing myself to stay in that relationship.  Now I have the best husband.  I am allowed to say what I think and how I feel even if it's something he disagrees with.  He never yells at me or tells me there's something wrong with me.  He makes me feel beautiful even though I still have insecurities.  I never feel like I'm supposed to look, or talk, or act a certain way.  I'm allowed to be who I am and he loves me all the same.  We still argue and get mad at one another but we don't say mean things to one another, sometimes we just have to agree to disagree.  Sometimes I have quite an opinion on things and I tell him, "you created this monster, where I say what I think".  And then I thank him for that because I know how it was to not be able to say or think or feel or even look the way I wanted to.  My husband has built me up in myself enough to make me feel strong.

When I see people in an abusive relationship, I'm strong enough to tell them that it's not ok for them to be treated like that.  It breaks my heart when I see people I love (and even people I don't know) not loving themselves enough to know that they deserve better.  They'll say, "well, he's not always like that" or they'll tell me about something nice he did.  Doing something nice one time doesn't make someone a good person.  My sister-in-law is in the worst, most abusive relationship I've ever seen and even her boyfriend does nice things every once in a while.

I just want to encourage anybody out there who might be in a bad relationship.  Trust me, they're not all like that.  The right person will build you up and never make you feel like you need to be like someone else.  They'll love you for who you are.  You just need to love yourself enough to feel like you deserve it because you do.

Handwriting Tag

My friend Amalia ( Dear Makeup Diary )tagged me in a "Handwriting Tag."  I kinda liked this one but I really don't have good handwriting haha so I apologize for that ahead of time!

1. What is your name? And your blog?
2. What's your blog URL?
3.Write: The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog.
4. Favorite quote.
5. Favorite song.
6. Favorite band/singer.
7. Say anything you want.
8. Pass this along to a few bloggers.

And I pass this on to:

makeup by danisaddiction

NOTD

Weighing Down on Beauty

Beauty for Thought

Girtastic Glam

Can't wait to see what you guys have to say!!

Dramatic Cut Crease (and tutorial)

Almost every time I do a cut crease, I feel like I look like either a cheerleader or a superhero haha.  So I figured I would do a look based on a team's colors.  I was thinking of maybe doing a Yankee's look (since I'm from NY and all) but I figured that since I live in North Carolina now I'd do a look based on the Carolina Tar Heels whose colors are Carolina Blue (baby blue), navy, and white.  Here's a jacket (haha you like how I chose a woman's jacket instead of a jersey?) I found that shows the colors

Here's the final look I came up with:

And this is how I did it:

~I started off priming my eye with TFSI and tightlined my eye with Prestige Total Intensity Eyeliner in deepest black:

~I applied the silver cream shadow from the Kat Von D "Metal Orchestra" palette on my lid (where I'll be placing the light blue).  I really don't like this cream shadow but I wanted to make sure that the blue would be cool toned enough and light enough to be Carolina Blue

~Using a smudge brush (from Target, it was like $2.50), I applied NYX ultra pearl mania in "Ocean Blue" on top of the silver

~Because I'm going to do a dark, harsh line above this blue, I want to make sure that I can see the light blue above my eyes when they're open

~Now for the rest of this look, these are the 2 main brushes I'll be using.  One's kind of a pencil brush from Sonia Kashuk (Target) and the other is a really small blending brush that came in the brush set I have

~So I'm going to use the pencil brush and make my line with a navy blue shadow (from my 88 palette)

~Now I'm going to use the other brush and blend that navy blue up towards my brow a bit

~And to make the blending a little easier, I'm going to put some of MAC "Blanc Type" (a skin tone shadow) above the blue up to my brow

~And then I'm going to go back and forth using the navy and skin tone shadows until I'm satisfied with the shape and blending 

~Now I'm going to add my liner (Bobbi Brown gel liner "Black Ink")

~And now I'm going to fill in the gap between my liner and the navy shadow with the light blue

~Now I'm going to add a highlight color (a mixture of NYX "White" and Bed Head "White" shadow) and add a little of that on the inner corner of my eye too.  I also put some of the navy shadow and the "Ocean Blue" under my eye

~Now add some mascara and keep the rest of your face relatively natural because the eyes are so dramatic and there you have it

And that's how I do my crazy cut crease/cheerleader/superhero look haha.  I'd rock it if I were going to a sporting event!  I hope someone finds this helpful!

Also I wanted to let you guys know that sometime in the near future I'm going to be doing a giveaway and I think you're going to like it!!!!  I hope you have a beautiful, wonderful day and thank you so much for checking this out!!