mary kay

Lip Product Purge of 2016

~ stashy ~ 58 Comments

For someone who’s a self-professed NON-lipstick junkie… I seem to own a lot of lip products.  And we all know that lipsticks don’t have a long lifespan – really, one should be tossing lip products about 18 months after opening.  I’m guilty of keeping mine for MUCH longer than 18 months! (but let’s be reasonable here, common sense should prevail – if the lip product doesn’t have a funky smell or a weird texture, it’s probably ok).  All that said, I need to get rid of a whack of stuff that I hardly ever reach for – some have gone bad, and others are just taking up precious space:
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Foundation and Concealer Purge of 2016

~ stashy ~ 68 Comments

This has been a long time coming. I just needed to set some time aside and be in the right mood to be serious about getting rid of some items from my stash. Sometimes I feel a bit attached to items due to nostalgia and I talk myself into keeping stuff I really shouldn’t. I think I did well:
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Since I’ve been hauling like a madwoman, it’s only fair to purge some stuff too! Tomorrow I’ll be purging some lip products.  Let’s have a closer look at the foundation and concealer purge pile:

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Project Focus 10: Kiehl’s Ultra Facial Cream

~ stashy ~ 52 Comments

Another Monday, another Project Focus 10 review! It’s actually a holiday here today. It’s Family Day, which is a fairly new holiday for us (it started in 2008). Family Day activities include: going skating, playing hockey, skiing… oh who am I kidding? We just sleep in, watch tv, eat junk food and waste the day away – and then tomorrow we complain about how the long weekend wasn’t long enough. 😛
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Today I’ll be looking at Kiehl’s Ultra Facial Cream:
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I bought the 50ml jar for CAD $34, but it is also available in a 125ml jar for CAD $58, which is a better value per ml ($0.68 vs $0.46).

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Trash Stash: January 2016

~ stashy ~ 28 Comments

Lots of hair and skincare empties to kick off the year:
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I should mention here that I have to wash my hair every day or else it gets really limp. I have started to skip one day a week – typically Sundays when it doesn’t matter if I just tie my hair back – I honestly don’t think my hair / scalp is any better for skipping the one day of washing. Anyway, onto the empties.

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Trash Stash: December 2015

~ stashy ~ 24 Comments

It’s the final Trash Stash of 2015! I`ve got quite a bit of stuff this month:
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I still remember my first Empties (before it was renamed to Trash Stash) – oh how time flies! 🙂

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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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Lip stuff stash

~ stashy ~ 64 Comments

As I’m laying out all my lip stuff in preparation for photography in today’s post, The Boy asks me, “What’s the purpose of all these pictures?”
“They’re to show my whole collection on the blog.” I reply.
“So it’s like… makeup porn?” he asks.
“YUP! You got it!” 😆

My lip stash is probably the least exciting of all of my stashes – the majority of my lip products can fit into one frame:
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I’m just not that into lipsticks. I feel bold colours don’t suit my face. I’m also not into matte textures or shimmer, or overly glossy finishes – so it leaves me with a fairly narrow band of comfort zone, as you’ll see in my stash. And I only own 5 MAC lipsticks! (of which 3 are retired)  It’s relatively small by comparison to my eye shadow stash (600+) or nail polish stash (400+)   That said, I have amassed a lot of lip balms and butter butters.

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Eye shadow stash

~ stashy ~ 69 Comments

Here’s the motherlode.  I’ve mentioned many times that I have a lot of eye shadows – over 600 – it is the most abundant makeup category that I own.  I just love eye shadows and it’s the area of my face that I spend the most time applying makeup.  I’ll keep this introduction brief and just let the pictures do the talking.

It took me over 2 hours just to sort and photograph the whole eye shadow collection and probably another 4 to edit everything.  Usual disclaimer: this isn’t meant to show off.  It was actually quite a beneficial exercise for me to display all my eye shadows visually.   Warning: photo heavy post! (50 images)

Brace yourself, eye shadows galore this way

5 Pastel nail polishes

~ stashy ~ 14 Comments

In keeping with the Easter and Spring theme, I thought I’d showcase 5 pastel nail polishes from my stash:
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Thumb to pinky: Essie Pink-a-Boo, Revlon Apricot Pastry, Illamasqua Milf, Mary Kay Blue Lotus, Essence A Lovely Secret.
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Anti-aging products

~ stashy ~ 24 Comments

Let’s preface this post by saying that I’m not an expert on skincare – my opinions are just my anecdotal, personal experience.  I also don’t battle with too many skin concerns in terms of deep wrinkles or loss of firmness – I would say that I’m in more of a preventative and maintenance mode.

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Don’t want this to happen!

My current primary concerns are:
•   Fine lines: laugh lines, forehead, and under eye area
•   Sun spots, aka my freckles – I get comments on them [from mostly Asian sales associates] but I’ve had my freckles since I was young, so I’m not sure if they really are a sign of aging?
•   Sallow / dull appearance

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My key anti-aging arsenal.

I mainly use targeted anti-aging products at night before bed, for a few of reasons: typically these products are richer and I’d rather not have greasy skin during the day.  Also, when sleeping, the skin goes through a renewal process which lends itself to better absorb and utilize the anti-aging skincare ingredients.  Lastly, some anti-aging ingredients, such as retinods, cause sun sensitivity so I would rather avoid that if possible.  During the day time my primary focus is sun protection.

Keep reading about my anti-aging products