5 Things I'm Lovin' November 2013

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Good morning, faccia bellas! I'm getting ready to head out to see The Hunger Games: Catching Fire with some of my besties, but I wanted to let you all know that now you can also find me on Bloglovin.com! I'm trying to build my faccia bella followers a little bit at a time. New post coming soon - I hope everyone has a great day!

Step out and pout this holiday season

Hello, bellas! I'm very excited about this post because I have been adding lots of products to my makeup collection. This week I present you with a lipstick review that comes with additional savings in time for the holidays!

So Wet n Wild - I. love. their. lipsticks. LOVE! Eeeet! I can't contain my excitement. I love lipstick in general, but I love their lipsticks for a few reasons:

1. They have 5 different lines of lipsticks.

2. Their lipsticks come in really beautiful colors.

3. YOU CAN'T BEAT THE PRICE!

If you are the kind of girl that doesn't really wear makeup, but maybe you put some lipstick on for special occasions, then Wet n Wild is for you. With the holidays just around the corner, even with all the shopping you have to do, treating yourself to some new, AFFORDABLE lipstick is a great way to prepare for all of the family gatherings and holiday parties you may be attending. So I wrote a review for you. Like to hear it? Here it go...

Below is part of my Wet n Wild lipstick collection. I've included one example from each line:

Pictured l-r: Fergie's Center Stage Collection Perfect Pout Lip Color in Ferguson Crest Cabernet, Mega Shield Lip Color in It's a Girl, Silk Finish Lipstick in Hot Paris Pink and Mega Last Lip Color in Cherry Picking. Front: Perfect Pair Lip Wand in Brandy Wine.

Here's the color swatches:

L-r: Brandy Wine, Ferguson Crest Cabernet, It's a Girl, Hot Paris Pink and Cherry Picking

Fergie's Perfect Pout Lip Color comes in 10 really pretty shades. They glide on a little thick, almost velvety, but the full coverage lasts on your lips throughout the day. I touch up after lunch. They retail for $3.49.

The Mega Shield Lip Color is my favorite in the line. There are 14 shades and I own two of them, It's a Girl and Within These Adobe Walls. These go on a sheerer than the rest, but the colors are really pretty and you do not need to wear any gloss. They retail for $2.99.

The Silk Finish Lipstick is $.99!  Twenty-two shades! Its very silky smooth, very hydrating and glides right on.

The Mega Last Lip Color has the most options of the bunch with 26 shades. Wet n Wild boasts that this lasts for four hours, but honestly, it lasts longer than that. Of all the lines, the Mega Last line is the hardest, thickest to apply. I always put lip balm on before so I can actually stroke it on my lips, if not, you have to pat it. But it stays put because it pretty much stains your lips. This will cost you a whopping $1.99.

Last, but not least, is the Perfect Pair Lip Wand, which is awesome because one side is the lip liner and the other is the lipstick in a crayon-like form. This is $3.99, the most expensive of the lot, however its a two-fer so it really is a deal. The only down side to this is that they only offer 4 shades.  I'm not real fond of the color I have, Brandy Wine, but I put another color over it to lighten it a bit so I still wear it often.

Now for the best part - Wet n Wild products are 40% off this week at Rite Aid. I bought lipsticks for $.59 today. Paying $.99 is a steal but $.59 is highway robbery.

I can't say enough about the beautiful color selection from Wet n Wild. I must say, they've come a long way since I was a teen and their prices are terrific. So go buy a new Wet n Wild lipstick. Hell, live a little and buy two! If you get one this week at Rite Aid, you won't be paying more than $3.20. If you don't like it, you can always return it, or you can use my little trick and mix it with something else. With 76 colors and 5 different types to choose from, I'm sure you'll find one you love. Or two or three (like I did).

Enjoy the week, bellas! Let me know if you buy one and what you think by commenting below.



My "Steal of the Week"

Happy fall, y'all! It's my favorite time of the year - cool weather, football, comfort foods, and pumpkin-flavored everything. While I'm gearing up for a new quarter in graduate school that starts tomorrow, I have been having fun testing all kinds of products for you guys and I can't wait to share them with you.

This week, I must draw your attention to a product that my fabulous cousin and faccia bella, Julia Gerson, commented about on my "If the eyes are the windows to your soul" blog. Urban Decay's 24/7 Glide-on Eye Pencils are $19.00. Outrageous for eye liner, right? I think so, too.

But this is what I learned about this award-winning and blogger-favorite eye liner - IT DOES NOT MOVE! Once you put it on, you have about 30 seconds to blend it, smudge it or fix it, and then it stays put. ALL DAY LONG.

It's actually pretty amazing. But I wasn't too keen on spending $19.00 for one pencil, until last week I hit the mother lode. Roaming around Ulta, I found this:

This "Black Market" set is considered "travel-sized", as the pencils are not as large as the normal, $19.00 pencils, but for $36.00, you get six colors, all of which, are staple colors for me. Below are the swatches on my hand.

The first color is called West, which is a pretty brown with gold shimmer. Desperation is the next color, which is a matte gray. Black Market is black, and Riot is a shimmery purple. Apathy is a very pretty, shimmery green, like a khaki-green and Ink is navy blue, a dead-ringer for my all-time favorite MAC pencil, Blooz.

I thought this was a great find, specifically because these six colors are colors that I use the most to line my eyes. You can learn more about this product and buy it here (second row, center).

Urban Decay also has some vintage colors, regular size, on sale for $6.00. You can see the colors and purchase them here.

If you have tried Urban Decay's 24/7 Glide-on Eye Pencil, please comment below and let me know your thoughts. If you'd like to try this eye liner out for yourself before you purchasing, you can visit any Ulta or Sephora store near you.

Also, please check out Julia's Facebook page, "Makeup by Julia". She's extremely talented and I hope to do a video with her one day soon for you guys.

Now please excuse me, I have to go scrub my hand to get these swatches off! Have a great week, everyone!

Eyelash Mojo

Hello, faccia bellas!  It was a long, trying summer quarter in grad school, but now I'm back and blogging with vengeance.

I have been all about mascara lately. I've been testing some different ones and my eyelashes have got some major mojo going on. I'm batting them all over South Jersey.

"Deanna," you say. "Please tell us the secret!"

Here's my arm. Twist it. Alright I'll tell you! (said in Danny Zuko fashion).

In my quest for getting the longest lashes possible, I found the absolute BEST mascara in the whole wide world. I didn't find it at Walgreens. I didn't find it at CVS. I didn't find it a Target, either. My discovery came at Sephora (big surprise). It was recommended to me by a sales girl (sorry, I don't have an entertaining story about it), and it is worth every penny of the $23.00 I spent.

"TWENTY-THREE DOLLARS FOR MASCARA!" some of you may be crying.

My response, "IT'S WORTH EVERY PENNY!"

It's called They're Real! Mascara by benefit, and the first time I put it on, I actually saw my eyelashes lengthen before my very own eyes. It got the name because people will not believe that you aren't wearing falsies.

Click here to read reviews on Sephora.com. I found out yesterday that Ulta carries it also.

Now, if you do not want to spend $23.00 on mascara, that is understandable. My drug store suggestion?
L'Oreal Telescopic Carbon Black, as recommended by one of my favorite beauty gurus, Carli Bybel. Walgreens sells it for $9.99 and L'Oreal makes a couple different versions of it, but I found that it lengthens the lashes very well.

If you'd like to see for yourself how it works, click here to see Carli Bybel's tutorial. I do not put on as many coats as she does, but it gives you a good idea of how the product works.

I use both of these products and can attest to their lengthening abilities. Both also claim to add volume to your lashes, and I guess they do, but not enough for me. So I discovered a trick. Another one of my favorite beauty blogs is Makeup Geek.com and Marlena loves to use L'Oreal Voluminous Carbon Black. Based on her recommendation, I purchased it at Target for $5.89.

Does it add volume? Absolutely. However it does not lengthen at all. When I put it on, it was a big let-down in the length department. But because I'm a grad student, I decided to combine the use of the They're Real!/Telescopic and Voluminous and now my lashes are long, full and pretty, the way I like them.

Finally, I owe my eyelash mojo to another great product -  Maybelline Great Lash limited edition colored mascaras.

If you reading this and thinking "that's for 15-year-olds", hear me out. I picked one up at Walgreens for $5.99 the other day just to see how this would look. I was afraid it would be too bright, too Halloween-looking. I was afraid I'd look like a woman trying to look 15, but I chose Vision in Violet to make my brown eyes pop. The Verdict?  LOVE IT!!!!  Here's why: this is perfect for brightening your eyes without having to wear any eyeliner. If you are a low maintenance kind of girl and don't have time in the morning to do up your eyes, this is a great option.  It doesn't come out super-bright, which pleased me. In fact, I put a bunch of coats on to get the look I wanted. I also like the brush because its small enough to get the lower lashes without smudging all over your lower lid. And you can't beat the price.

So there you have it. If you want your eyelashes to have mojo, I recommend all of the above. If you try one or any of these, please let me know your thoughts. If you have your own eyelash mojo, please share your recommendations in the comment section below.

My Lipstick Movie Moment

Have you ever had one of those moments where something happens to you and you think, If I were in a movie, this is the part where background music would play. I have lots of those moments in my life. I'm a big movie buff, and I tend to dabble on the dramatic side. Here's a movie moment that coincided with my favorite new lipstick technique. Stay with me.

Every girl has a tube of lipstick, right? You may not wear it everyday, but you at least have one for special occasions. Check your lipstick. What color do you have? Now I have more than one tube of lipstick, but my go-to color is pink. I have many versions of pink lipstick; bright pink, light pink, pale pink, dark pink, the list goes on. Often when I'm looking for new lipstick I think, I need a new color, and I proceed to look at the same old pinks. Probably because aside from pink and nude, I don't know how to wear other colors. Peach and orange can be tricky to wear depending on your skin tone, and while I love purple, I have never had the courage to wear it.

Until a few weeks ago.

Once again I was strutting through Macy's (not a movie music moment) and I stopped at the MAC counter (the lights, colors and fabulousness of it all sucks me in, every time).  On this day, I stood in front of the lipstick display, wanting something different and testing at least 12 colors on my hand. All of which were pink.

Another MAC angel with beautiful, shimmery, high cheek bones approached me. His name was Zac. I told him I wanted a different lipstick. He suggested two colors that I already had (pink). But there, in the middle of all of those tubes of colors, was this lovely, lavender. It was entirely too bright, almost doll-like, the kind Barbie would wear, and not suitable for everyday. The kind I never had the guts to try. Its name was Up the Amp, and the irony was not lost on me. I had to try it. Zac took it out, cleaned it off and encouraged me to put it on. So I did what every normal girl would do, I swiped it heavily on both my lips. It looked like this:

(Disclaimer: Lips really are as large as they appear and taking pictures of your lips is hard. Capturing the correct color of the lipstick with bad lighting is harder. So while you may not see a big difference, trust me and trust Zac, in person, there is.)

Zac rolled his eyes at me and said, "Let's get a lip liner."

Here we go with the up-sell, I thought. He's gonna get me lip liner and a gloss (I hate lip gloss) and encourage me to buy all three.

"Wipe that off, " he said, handing me a moist towelette. In his hands he had - what did I tell you - not just a lip liner, but a gloss as well. He proceeded to line and color in my entire top lip with the liner, called Plum, which was darker than the lip stick. Then he lined just the sides of my bottom lip. Just the sides? Not the whole lip? I was confused. "Trust me," he said.

He handed me the lipstick and instructed me to gently pat the color only on my lower lip, no swiping, and rub my lips together. In my head I was like, huh? but I did as I was told. He then handed me this shimmery, pinky gloss, called Nymphette.

"This is my favorite gloss ever," he told me. "Now dab a little bit of this on your lower lip and just press your lips together once."

I obliged.

"GORGEOUS!" was his response. It looked like this:

I was amazed. I never would have put these colors together, never would have lined my lips they way he instructed, never would have worn the gloss. It was subtle, beautiful, and not pink.

"OK," I sighed. "I'll take all three."

Sucker, my inner-Deanna said.

After I left MAC with my gorgeous, new purple lips, I went to Sephora, MAC's arch nemesis, for some facial wash. As I was leaving the store, one of their makeup experts was standing at the makeup vanity in the front of the store. As I passed her, she said, "Your lipstick looks gorgeous."

I thanked her and tossed my head back, laughing as I walked out.

Que the music.



Do you have any lipstick tricks like this? Share your tips below or try this technique and let me know how it works for you!

Also, CLICK HERE for another awesome lip liner/gloss trick from my favorite blog, Makeup Geek!

Loved it, tried it! My first attempt at recreating a look I love!

Hello, dahlings! A couple of weeks ago, I posted the link to one of my favorite makeup blogs, The Beauty Bybel. Check it out on my new blog roll on the right side of the page. I just added it this week. (I'm starting to get the hang of of this here blogging thingy!) Carli Bel also has an extensive video collection on YouTube, where she demonstrates how to achieve certain makeup looks.  She has inspired me to come up with the segment of my blog entitled: Loved It, Tried It.  Periodically, I will try to recreate looks that I love based on pictures or videos that I see. Hopefully they will not turn out to be like the epic fails on Pinterest. You know the stuff that people try at home because Pinterest makes it look so easy, but instead it looks like this:

 

 

Let's hope I have some better luck.

 

For this week's look, I posted a link to Carli's video below. I know this is more of a look to wear in the fall, with the gold and brown, but I wanted to try it out and see if I could do this.While I did not use all the exact same products that she used, (I made due with some things I already have), I did follow her instructions step by step. I will list the products that I used below, and after that you can see my first video I have ever done, showing you the results.

View Carli's video here.

In order to recreate this look, I used the following items:

Maybelline EyeStudio Quad in Give Me Gold

MAC Eye Shadows from left to right: Black Tied, Bamboo, Nylon

Revlon Photoready Eye Primer and Brightener

Loreal Voluminous Carbon Black Mascara

Milani Shadow Eyez in Green Safari

Maybelline Eyestudio Gel Eyeliner in Blackest Black

First I primed my eye lid with Revlon's Photoready Eye Primer and Brightener. I sometimes wear this even when I don't wear eyeshadow, because it does brighten up around my eyes and helps hide my dark circles. Just like Carli, I used the Maybelline Eyestudio quad in Give me Gold. I used the gold color all over my lid. Following her steps, in the crease I used MAC's eye shadow in Bamboo. Then I used MAC's eye shadow, Black Tied in the outer "v" crease, instead of the black eye shadow pencil she used. I then used the bronze color from the Maybelline quad in my crease to blend. I then used MAC's Nylon eye shadow to highlight my tear duct and brow bone. I did not add any additional gold sparkle or the fake eye lashes, although I'm a huge fan of eye lashes. I think they really add drama to the eyes and I always wear them for special occasions.  Instead of the green eye shadow, I used Milani's Shadow Eyez pencil in green safari, I drew it on my lower lash line and blended it with an angled brush. Maybelline's Eyestudio Gel Eyeliner was used on my upper lids.

 

My thoughts on the outcome? I have to say, it looks much better in person than it does on my video below. I don't think you really get to see the green on my lower lids, but I think that is because of the lighting - something I'll have to work on for future videos. The look was easy to achieve, and like Carli mentions in her video, more appropriate for a night out. And I definitely need to get some glittery pigments for that extra sparkle. So check it out and let me know what you think!

See my final look here