BUY or BYE : Life Changing Lashes

Oh hello... did that enticing title lure you in like magic?

This marks the first post of a series of posts I'm really excited to introduce here on the blog, Buy or Bye. 

In these posts I will be doing in depth reviews of both drug store and designer brand products and then putting a BUY or BYE stamp on them. 

This will be beneficial for a lot of you who aren't 100% sold on products and to learn more about it without shelling out the cash for it 

Anyways this product might be affordable miracle lash product for limp and dull lashes, if you follow me on Instagram, you saw I snapped a picture of this product over a month ago... it has some bold claims.

Keep reading to find out more

GOLD DUST + The Nudes by Maybelline (First Impressions)

So I read about this Maybelline Palette.. The Nudes online about a month and a half ago. And have been on the hunt for one ever since. 

For a while I had been eyeing it up at a local CVS, and then it came... the 25% off coupon. 

I rushed to CVS, turned the corner where the Maybelline display was... and there it was. 

An empty display. 

Then I went to Walgreens. No luck. 

Then Walmart. No luck. 

And then Target. And there it was. Cheaper here than the 3 stores I had visited. 

Needless to say I was happy. So happy I actually squealed a little bit. 

I'm not lying. 

My boyfriend thought and still thinks that I am completely out of my mind because of how excited I get over makeup & a good deal. 

But there it was at Target for $9.99

Product Review : elf Brightening Eye Color Quad in Teal Dream

Hi Everyone !

So if this isn't your first time checking out my blog you know that I'm thoroughly impressed and some could argue slightly obsessed with elf cosmetics. They recently began selling their once only available through online store products at Target, so now they're easily accessible for the penny pinching makeup lover.. like myself.

I bought this quad for $1 back in May and just haven't fell in love with anything about it.

Here are my thoughts

With 4 shimmery eyeshadows this quad isn't necessarily the best 1 step kit for creating a great pastel teal or blue eyeshadow look. The lack of a matte color [for me] means no crease shade. Using a matte crease/blending shade allow you to create a believable look of depth, and without it piling 1 shimmery eyeshadow onto another looks... not so great =/

My biggest beef with this quad however, is the color payoff. Which I definitely was surprised by. I am constantly raving about elf's quality and this let me down. particularly the Teal and the Champagne color.
Swatched, the champagne color is perfect, but once applied to the eye it looks dry.. and applied with a damp brush the shadow practically crumbled as soon as it was placed. The teal color also looks great swatched. But it just took way too much effort to generate the color from the swatch on my eyelid. WAH.
After packing and packing and PACKING the shadow onto a firm eyeshadow brush  I was finaly able to get the teal color. Kind of a let down.

Like I said, I bought this in May... and I've used it 3times and after being completely aggravated with it, I've decided I'm done with it. So it goes in one of those junk drawers with the other crap I don't plan to use ever again.

Montagne Jeunesse Chocolate Masque

So I'm sure I'm not the only one who gets really tempted to buy those $1.29 face masks, and exfoliators at Walgreens, CVS, Target, prettymuch every store with a beauty section.
You know the ones I'm talking about. They come in little packages with pictures of women on them wearing whatever the product is, relaxed and no doubt, cleansed these women ALMOST get us to buy this product, but we don't. For whatever reason, I was possessed my last shopping trip and bought one of these products.

The Montagne Jeunesse Chocolate Masque to be exact. Maybe it was the promise of deep pore, and t-zone cleansing, or maybe it was the fact that it was only $1.29. Alright, let's get real...It had me at Chocolate.

As soon as I opened the package, I smelled chocolate. lots and lots of chocolate. Almost like Nesquik...really close to Nesquik actually. I applied about half the package to my face and neck[as suggested on back label] & popped my iPod in for 10 minutes and let the masque go to work. After about 3 minutes I noticed it drying and it made my skin feel really tight, which is normal for a deep pore cleanser.
After 10 minutes I rinsed with warm water and pat my face dry with a towel.
Does my skin look younger? Well I don't know about that, but my face is definitely softer which is nice, and I smell like a bar of chocolate, which is..delicious. For around $1, I'm not disappointed and I'll probably buy it again after I use the rest of it. -- There's enough for 2masques !!

Here are the before and after pictures:

Here's what the company had to say about its product: "Treat yourself to a mud masque with a difference! Rich in natural ingredients this deep cleansing chocolate mud masque will help to unblock pores, allowing impurities to be drawn out. Coupled with the skin healing properties of Dead Sea Salt, and the moisturizing benefire of Cocoa Butter and Shea Butter, you will be left with renewed, re-hydrated and younger looking skin."

THANKS FOR READING, =D

PRODUCT REVIEW: Maybelline FITme! Liquid Foundation

Hi Everyone !
Sorry about the lack of posts over the past few weeks, I was at home and I was to busy having fun and sleeping to even try to muster up the energy to do anything slightly important.

Anyways, on to the review. I was in Walmart right before I was coming back to school and found this new foundation. I haven't even seen any commercials about it yet, so i figured I'd try it out for myself.
Maybelline's FITme! claims to match natural skin tone, blend seamlessly, and allow your natural skin to breathe. and I can very happily say all of those statements are TRUE!

I purchased this product in the color 350 - Caramel and you can see in the bottle it looks kinda light for my skin, but I quick tested it in the store and it turned out to be the perfect match for my skin; Walmart had a chart that you could place your hand under to make sure you were buying a good match, but I had to 100% positive. Another plus, was the shade range, I think there was 15 or 16 from super fair to 2 more colors darker than 350. But don't quote me on that - I'm not 100% on that.

I've been wearing it for the past 4days and have 0 complaints. The product doesn't claim to last all day, but I noticed that after about a 9hour day of class and work my makeup still looked alright, and 9hrs for a drugstore foundation is pretty damn good. I've never used a Maybelline foundation, but I highly recommend this to everyone! For less than $7, it's cheaper than Revlon ColorStay Foundation and has prettymuch the same coverage and it easier to blend than most other drugstore brands

I'm happy with it, and I will definitely be purchasing this foundation again.

THANKS FOR READING, =D

Sinful Colors : Rich in Heart

Hi Everyone !
I think the first time I saw the Sinful Colors nail polish brand was over the summer in my local Walgreens, and after purchasing one color and using it, I went back to Walgreens the next day and nearly lost my mind trying to decide which colors to buy. & that was prettymuch what I spent my money on during the summer.
After moving back in on campus, I haven't gone to a Walgreens just because I don't have a car and I'm too lazy to walk to the nearest one, but last week while shopping in Target I noticed the brand and nearly had a heart attack.
If you're unfamiliar with Sinful Colors nail polish, they come in a variety of more than 100 COLORS with really great payoff. Alot of the colors don't need more than one coat. So back to Target... naturally I was tempted to get every color but I stopped myself, and reached for a dark burgundy color with small red flecks, that I'm in love with at the moment.
Rich in Heart:

Like I mentioned before, Sinful Colors has great color payoff [This is only one coat] and the brush makes application really easy which is great!



PRODUCT DON'T !

Don't be fooled ladies, this palette is not worth the $26 Victoria's Secret is selling it for.
The Midnight Glamour deluxe eye palette caught my eye the second I walked to the beauty section of the store, and why wouldn't it the colors are gorgeous. I wanted to do a navy smokey eye over the weekend, and I had to have this palette to accomplish such a task. After swatching all 4 eyeshadows, I was sold. [The black is a gel eyeliner.] Once I got it home I tested it out immediately with the dual ended eyeshadow/eyeliner brush and my initial opinions changed. The shadows, once applied to my eyelids after a primer were really dull. The last eyeshadow pictured, [which looks like a sparkly blue in the picture] is really a dark black with amazing blue reflux in person & was primarily the reasion I fell in love at the mall. But after I applied it, it didn't make my eyes pop at all. And there was tons of fall out from all 4 of the shadows. Not to mention the amount of shadow needed to be packed onto my brush was ridiculous for such a depressing outcome. The Black gel eyeliner, was way less than impressive and to be really honest, I'm not even sure why Victoria's Secret is selling it. When I dipped the eyeliner brush in the gel, all it did was scrape. Not okay. So I tried a different brush, giving the company the benfit of the doubt. Even my Sonia Kashuk eyeliner brush wasn't picking up the product. I'm disappointed. But I should've known better, I purchased a single eyeshadow color last  year from Victoria's Secret and pretty much had the same problem. Too much product had to be applied to a brush, and too much product wound up on my cheeks rather than my eyelid.
Beware girls, don't let the sapphire jeweled packaging fool you..

** THE PICTURE IS NOT MY OWN, SINCE I'M STILL WITHOUT A CAMERA THIS WAS TAKEN FROM A GOOGLE IMAGES SEARCH.

PRODUCT REVIEW: Urban Decay All Nighter Long-Lasting Setting Spray

Last time I stopped in Sephora I picked up some things I'd been eyeing for a while and this setting spray was on of them. I'm one of those people who does their makeup in the morning and then if I'm going out at night, I have to redo my entire face because my makeup looks dull...it's such a drag.
I tried it this weekend and I have to say I'm not disappointed with the purchase. It's made the Skindinavia, and they've implemented the use of Temperature Control Technology that keeps your face cooler than the rest of your body, so you don't have to worry about sweating too much while bustin a move and having your makeup run. It's suitable for all skin types and claims to last for 16hours ! I didn't wear my makeup for 16 hours so I'm not sure if it would hold up, but one Friday I did my makeup around 10am applied the spray to set everything, went off to class, the library, out to lunch and when I came back to the room around 730pm my makeup looked fine. I only reapplied my blush when I left again around 11pm. so 13 hrs isn't bad.

MORNING AROUND 1015ISH

AROUND 630ISH

Here's a link so you can try it for yourself from Sephora : Urban Decay All Nighter Long-Lasting Setting Spray
Here's a link to the Skindinavia site, just in case you're interested in their entire line of setting spray products: Skindinavia