Beauty

Beauty related posts.

Blogs that went dormant

~ stashy ~ 24 Comments

I was feeling nostalgic and thinking about a bunch of blogs that I used to read nearly every day, that have gone completely dormant without any official goodbyes or closure.  You probably know about some of these, but I thought I’d share them anyway.

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Karla Sugar
Probably better known as the arm that launched a thousand lemmings (I didn’t make up that term, I read it on MakeupAlley), she was well-known for her swatches of entire collections, making her blog a one-stop shop. I really liked that she would swatch colours side by side so it was easy to make comparisons when trying to choose between shades.  Her posting frequency started to decline and then she abruptly stopped updating her blog in May of 2013.

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Road trip skincare and makeup bag

~ stashy ~ 40 Comments

Starting this Friday, I’ll be on a road trip!  We’ll be heading to northern parts of our province, also known as “cottage country” (don’t let the word “cottage” fool you, they have multi-million dollar homes that are owned by Hollywood celebs), and then heading to Ottawa.  We’ll be staying mostly at Bed & Breakfasts (B&Bs) which are essentially rooms or a portion of someone’s house. They’re more homey than hotels – and usually the breakfasts (included) are amazing!  We won’t exactly be roughing it, but I will be fairly low-key in terms of attire and makeup.  I always ask myself 3 questions when packing makeup for a trip:

  1. Do I really need it?
  2. Is it the smallest / most compact item I own of that product category?
  3. Would I be devastated if I lost it or it got broken during the trip?

Keeping these in mind, here is what I’m packing for our 9-day trip.
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I typically carry my makeup roll for the cosmetic items and a separate bag for skincare.  The makeup roll was a gwp from Smashbox, and the cute travel bag is from Consonant Skincare.

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Muji haul

~ stashy ~ 44 Comments

I’ve been semi-naughty and bought a few things from Muji.  Nothing is outright makeup, but it’s all beauty related items that I don’t really need.  In my defense, I’ve been after these Muji items ever since they opened their first Canadian store last November.  But it was mayhem after the opening: line-ups to get into the store, crowds, and out of stock / empty shelves for months.  Finally, it seems things have quiet down and when I stopped into the store yesterday, they had everything I wanted in stock, and I didn’t have to shove anyone out of the way or “accidentally” bump into them with my shopping basket…
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My loot!

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Shiseido facial cotton and possible dupes?

~ stashy ~ 37 Comments

I’m a facial cotton snob. It wasn’t always this way, but ever since I tried my first package of Shiseido Facial Cotton, I haven’t looked back.  Let me qualify that – I don’t use Shiseido Facial Cotton exclusively – I only use it for removing my eye makeup.  The pillowy softness of this cotton is especially appreciated against the delicate skin around the eyes.  Now when I use non-Shiseido cottons on my eye area, I feel like I’m using sandpaper (I exaggerate, but really, like 80-grit).  For everything else – toner, exfoliants, nail polish removal – I use other cottons.
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I was happily shelling out $9 per package for the Shiseido cotton, until one day, about 2 years ago, the Shiseido counter lady informed me that the price was going up soon… to $11 per pack!  That’s a 22% increase!  In my mind, this crossed over some imaginary threshold, and this item became “too expensive”.  I rushed to purchase half a dozen packs of the cotton at the $9 price.  My current stock is still the $9 price, but the supply is dwindling. Then I began to notice that drugstore brands were coming out with their own versions of square facial cottons that look suspiciously similar to the Shiseido cotton packaging:
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So I set out to find out if they’re dupes!

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Trash Stash: June 2015

~ stashy ~ 41 Comments

The end of June marks the official mid-point of the year! I’ve always wondered why it’s “Christmas in July” when it really makes more sense to be in June! 💡
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It was especially satisfying to finish some of these products this month because many of them I’d been using for a long time.

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Canadian beauty brands

~ stashy ~ 56 Comments

Happy Canada Day! canadian-flag-banana

In honour of Canada Day, today I’ll showcase some Canadian brands and a few items I own from each.
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Lise Watier (Shoppers Drug Mart, online)
LW made her name firstly through her signature perfume, Neiges (which I don’t particularly care for) but has since branched out to colour cosmetics and skincare.  I’ve grown fond of her lipsticks, eye shadows, and concealer.

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Transition Eye Shadow Shades

~ stashy ~ 47 Comments

When I finally understood the concept of a transition eye shadow, it upped my eye shadow blending game by tenfold.  A transition eye shadow shade is one that is typically matte and slightly darker than your natural skin tone – this helps to blend the lid colour into the brow area. Most days now, I just pop on a shimmery neutral shade [taupe!] on the lid up to the crease, then I blend the edges with a transitional shade – something like this:
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My blending skills are better than my photoshop skills.

It looks like I spent a lot of time with my eye look but in fact, it took less than 5 minutes. I’ve depotted some of my most used transition colours into a small z-palette so I can have a range to choose from each morning:
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I would group my transition shades into neutral, warm and cool categories. I’m around NC25 so these would be suitable for skin tones that are similar.

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150 Day No-Buy and YDSMBSM

~ stashy ~ 46 Comments

Weird title for a post, huh.

Firstly: yay, it’s Day 150 of my No-Buy!  Only 186 more days to go… (for those of you who don’t know, I’m on a yearlong No-Buy, but I had to restart it in Jan because I broke my No-Buy with a Target haul.  My No-Buy ends on Dec 31st.)
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Now, what does YDSMBSM mean?  It stands for:
You Don’t Save Money By Spending Money.

It’s something my frugal bf says to me in response to when I try to justify my latest purchase, “I got such a good deal on it, it was 50% off!”  To which he’d say, “You Don’t Save Money By Spending Money.  You still spent money to save that 50%.   If you didn’t buy it at all, then you would have saved 100%.”  Party pooper.  But he did have a point. 😛

Here’s a bunch of crap deals that I bought last year because I found them in the clearance section:
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What did I need an orange eye shadow for?  And a hot pink lipstick? I’ve NEVER EVER even worn that lipstick!

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Exfoliating cotton rounds

~ stashy ~ 34 Comments

The final day of “Radiant Skin” Week, I’m reviewing another type of exfoliation for the face: physical / manual exfoliation.  Any manipulation of the skin surface: rubbing, scratching (ouch!), massaging all have an exfoliating effect.  When combined with an abrasive object or product, the surface dead skin sloughs off, revealing softer more radiant skin.  Most people are familiar with face scrubs – usually a cream-based product embedded with grainy abrasive particles (alert: please do not buy any scrubs containing plastic microbeads [polyethylene]!  The microbeads get flushed down the sink and choke our wildlife! I learned about this from mirrorthelove – you can find out more information here)

My skin can’t tolerate too many scrubs – it gets irritated easily, according to my esthetician, I have “thin skin”? – so I tend to limit my usage of them.  I do however, enjoy a milder physical exfoliation using exfoliating cotton rounds:
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I went on the hunt for the Up&Up brand (Target’s private label) Exfoliating Cotton Rounds after watching an empties video by Missglamorazzi (Ingrid Nilsen!) in which she raved about it. I was intrigued because it looked like a more gentle way to exfoliate the face. And since finding it at Target, I haven’t looked back! This is hands down, my favourite way to physically exfoliate my skin on a weekly basis. My skin is left smooth and glowing after I use this (you may recall that I stocked up on these when Target Canada closed shop):
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Face Highlighters

~ stashy ~ 48 Comments

I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not an expert on highlighters. I hardly ever use the few that I own, and I have just the bare basics.  But I like the idea of highlighting – that luminous glow, the cliché “lit from within” appearance.  I feel that all the steps I’ve taken up to the point of a finished face (exfoliation, hydration) have helped to keep some natural radiance on my face so the extra step of applying a highlighter seems redundant.  But, like a good makeup addict that I am, I still dutifully purchased highlighters.  I chose 3 to share today:
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• VS Makeup Illuminating Face Powder in All or Nothing
• theBalm Mary-Lou Manizer®
• Shiseido Luminizing Face Color in High Beam White WT905

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