September Cancer Awareness!

Ok, so I had this brilliant idea to try to, each month, raise awareness for the cancers whose awareness month it is by doing makeup inspired by their ribbon colors.  I picked a difficult month to start this idea haha.  September has eight cancers whose awareness month it is.  That's crazy.  So I decided to do this on my blog facebook page (click here to check it out!) and ask you guys to also contribute.  I mean, I can't spread awareness all alone!!

So September is ovarian cancer, prostate cancer, thyroid cancer, leukemia, lymphoma, multiple myeloma, gynecological cancer, and childhood cancer awareness month.  So here are the looks:

Childhood cancer (gold):  This is so important to me because I wouldn't wish cancer on my worst enemy, let alone and innocent child.  If anyone in this world deserves cancer the least, it is a child.  We lose so many children each year to this horrible, horrible disease.  

Multiple Myeloma (burgundy): This cancer is important to me because it's what my grandmother died from.  It's a crazy cancer that attacks the plasma cells of blood and shows itself in really weird ways.  It affects kidneys and bones and other ways I'll never understand.

Leukemia (orange):  Leukemia is a cancer of the blood.  I have known quite a few people who have had leukemia.  This affects people of all ages.  My Uncle Brian had leukemia, he got an infection from having his immune system so suppressed from chemotherapy and that took his life.

Lymphoma (lime):  Lymphoma is a cancer that starts in the cells of your immune system, called lymphocytes.  My husband's coworker had a swollen lymphnode on his neck.  After some convincing, he went to the doctor about it, the doctor said it was an infection and gave him an antibiotic.  When the lump hadn't gone away, my husband convinced him he needed to get it looked at again (this was shortly after I was diagnosed).  So he did.  It was Hodgkin's lymphoma.  Luckily it was caught early and he's ok after chemotherapy and radiation.

Prostate Cancer (light blue):  Researching a little bit, I found out that prostate cancer is diagnosed in 80% of men who reach age 80.  That's insane!  It is the second leading cancer-related death in men in the United States.

Ovarian Cancer (teal):  There is no good screening for ovarian cancer, no preventative screening.  Women need to pay attention to their bodies and listen to any symptoms they may be showing.  Some possible symptoms include pelvic discomfort or pain, loss of appetite or feeling full quickly, changes in bowel or bladder habits, low back pain, etc.

Gynecological Cancer (peach):  This includes ovarian, uterine, cervical, vaginal, and vulvar cancers.  Women really need to be as proactive in screening for these as they are in screening for breast cancer.  These cancers are serious and they affect so many women each year!  Go for your pap-smear (I know, they suck!) every year because you owe it to yourself to make sure everything is good!

Thyroid cancer (teal, blue, and pink):  I have read that thyroid cancer doesn't always have symptoms so it can be really hard to find and diagnose.  Thyroid cancer starts with a thyroid nodule, most aren't cancerous, but they could be.  If you feel a lump in your neck, a swollen lymphnode, if you have a hoarse voice, difficulty swallowing or breathing, you should get it checked out.  There's no need to play around with something like that!

There is a lot of information out there about all of these cancers.  I have said it about a million times, but I will say it again.  If something is wrong in your body and you know it, go get it checked out.  Too often we put things off because "it'll get better" (I'm completely guilty of this).  Your life isn't worth risking!!

I did these looks to celebrate everyone who has been touched by any of these diseases and their loved ones.  I think all cancers are important and people need to learn about them!

Bright blues and purple using BFTE

It had been a while since I'd worn any real color on my eyes, I honestly just haven't felt like putting the effort in.  Lame, I know.  So I decided I wanted to do something colorful.  When I do looks, I like to use exclusively one brand of eyeshadow (unless there's a specific look I'm going for or if I really need another color) so if you want to copy it you don't have to go all over the world to do so.  So for this look I reached for the sampler set I have from Beauty From the Earth (or BFTE) Cosmetics.  So here's the look I came up with (you've already seen it if you follow my facebook page, I did this look like a week ago)!

The colors I used (all from BFTE) were:

Lid: "Blue Bayou"

Crease: "Blue Bird"

Purple part of crease: "Midnight Kisses"

Purple above crease: "Kastra"

Highlight: "Beautiful"

Liner: Avon Glimmersticks Liqui-glide eyeliner "Black"

Mascara: L'oreal Voluminous Power Volume 24H

And this has nothing to do with makeup but recently I did a 5k to help raise awareness for colon cancer.  I really want people to know that it can happen to young people too (though that wasn't really addressed, they said, "If you love someone over 50, make sure they get screened").  So I have some pictures that my family, who are completely amazing and drove down from New York to do this with me, took so I thought I'd share them with you!

It was called the Undy 5000 where they encourage people to run in their undies to help raise awareness but I'm not really an undies-showing kinda chick so that was a negative for me haha.  I wore leggings under the boxers they gave me haha.

This is the photo of my whole team.  My team came in 2nd place for fundraising, we made $2,248!  The first place team had 66 members so it doesn't surprise me that they won, we only had 9 members signed up to fundraise so I say we kicked butt!

The shirts my family had made up

My adorable niece's shirt

Me, my sister (to the left), and my cousin

Most of the rest of my team

Me at the one mile marker!

Crossing the finish line arm-in-arm!

Me and my hubby!

With the other 19 survivors, I got really emotional and had a hard time not crying.  Who looks out of place haha?  They kept looking at me like wondering why I was standing up there, I think they thought I was just confused haha.

Me and my dad with my "survivor" medal.

It was really fun.  I didn't realize I'd have a good time walking 3.1 miles just to do it but I really had a good time.  And we raised so much money, I'm so proud!  My time wasn't very good but I finished in under an hour so I guess that's not terrible haha.  Good thing I wasn't in it for the race, I was just in it for the experience and to raise some awareness that this happens to young people too!  It is easier to prevent if you're older and get screened regularly but if you're young and something isn't right, get checked out!!  

So that's my lengthy post for the day haha.  I hope you guys are having a great week!  Thank you, as always, for sticking with me through this whole thing.  I promise it'll get better once I'm done with treatments and cancer-free!  Here I am getting treatment number 8!  Four more to go and I'm done (fingers crossed) forever!!

Thanks guys!!!

New post! It's been a while!

Sorry guys that it's been so long since I've posted anything!  My daughter brought a nice stomach bug home with her from school that I caught and it messed everything up.  My immune system couldn't shake the bug by itself so I had to be put on antibiotics and fluids and that helped but it pushed my chemo schedule back.  I was supposed to be done the week before Thanksgiving but now my new goal is to be done by Christmas so I guess that's better than nothing.

Well for my birthday, I decided to check out the sale section on Sephora's website and I ordered a bunch of these Prisma Chrome eyeshadows because they were only $3 and I figured I couldn't really go wrong (there are only 2 colors left now but there were way more when I ordered).  There's an orange one that's really pretty and I wanted to wear a bright pink lip (using OCC Lip Tar in "Anime") so I figured I'd go with simple orange on the eyes and this is the look I came up with:

please excuse the lazy brows, I just filled them in with pencil.

Two of my shadows came broken (the orange one being one of them), they are pretty soft, but here's what the orange one looks like in the pan (they sure made a weird shape with them in the pans, almost like a wave).

From not really expecting too much from this, I was surprised at how much I liked it.  I've been using these shadows quite a bit, a lot like how I used it here.  Just super basic.  I haven't even been adding a crease color lately.  Gosh, what is wrong with me??  I need to get back to my makeup doing, I just don't feel like it, you know?

Here are unedited pictures of all of the colors I got: 

too bad this is broken because the color is GORGEOUS!!

I did this look probably 2 weeks ago, just between being sick and chemo I've been really thrown off schedule.  So I'm sorry for that and I really hope to post some more.  Thanks for hanging in there with me!

BFTE Giveaway!

When the owner of BFTE cosmetics sent me some stuff, she also sent something for me to give away and brighten some else's day, which was completely generous and awesome!  She sent one of their "Get the Look" sets called "Two Faced" which is a collection of 3 of their duochrome colors and a little sample baggie of the color "Walking on Water".  Duochrome shadows are so much fun!

They're all new and unopened (hence the lack of swatches haha).
What the website says about this set:

"Don't let these colors fool you, they each have two sides.  Each one of these duo tones shifts to reveal another color."

Beautiful- "Gold that shifts to pink" (see swatch here!)

Riddle- "Golden bronze that shifts to green with hints of red"

In the jar this reminds me of Glamour Doll Eyes "Dino Spotz," a gorgeous duochrome color, which you can see here.

Dew Drop- "Pinkish purple that shifts to greenish gold."

I'm only having the giveaway open for a week, starting at midnight, so be sure to enter!  I am having it open internationally!  Good luck to all!  And thank you Beauty From the Earth for sending this for me to give away!!

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