New Apartment!

I am officially living in my nyc apartment now! Finally the moving process is over! We still have no living room furniture but the will be dealt with in time. I haven't had a second to blog this weekend between moving in and a visitor, but I did get out and had lots of fun! The visitor and I went to Governors Island which is a short 10 minute (FREE) ferry ride from South Ferry station. The park had great food, ice cream (chocolate covered almond cherry...yum!), live music, and free bikes rentals!

My one beauty indulgence this weekend was a trip to get manicures with my mom before moving out of the house forever (sad!)

Essie Pansy did help to lift my spirits a bit...

MIA

Where have I been? Pretty MIA. Last week was crazy and this weekend I was in Cape Cod visiting friends from school/attending a graduation party! Lots of fun, but now it's back to work.

I did manage to order some things from Sephora.com (oopsies) but I got some great deals!!

Here's what I bought:

An entire (good quality) brush set for 39 dollars!!

Rosebud Salve in a tube (see my post on this)

Benefit BadGal Lash (Also see my post on this)

And for spending just over 50 dollars I got free shipping. Normally you get three free samples when you order online, but their special deal right now is that you get 5 free samples plus a free travel makeup bag! How could I resist?

My sample choices: Michael Kors Very Hollywood Eau de Parfum, Urban Decay Pocket Rocket Lip Gloss in Doug, Too Faced Caribbean In A Compact - Sun Bunny, Clinique Acne Solutions Liquid Makeup, Bvlgari Eau Parfumee Green Tea Refreshing Towel.

That's 9 things for about 52 dollars and no shipping charge! I highly recommend that everyone pop over to sephora.com while the deals still last.

Happy 4th of July! (in advance)

Greeting from..well...not there. Wah wah wahhhh. That picture is from my trip to Mykonos during my semester spent abroad in Greece. This weekend will involve less sitting and more walking.

I have Monday off, but I am sacrificing a fun long weekend away at the beach to pound the pavement in my NYC apartment search. I don't actually mind because I am so excited about moving in that I just want to speed up the process as much as possible. When contemplating apartments, my roommate and I look at the basics like safety, amenities (laundry, dishwashers, space, renovations), and location. But something that would really sell me on a place? Bathroom cabinet space! The amount of products that I have is no small stash and I need some place to store everything in an organized way. Just throwing things in a bin or basket seriously does not work for me. I need order and neatness when it comes to bottles, pots, tubes, and all of the odds and ends that I keep in my bathroom at home right now.

Wish me luck on the great apartment search of 2010 and have an amazing holiday weekend!

What are your plans for the Fourth? Is anyone going away?

Is it worth it?

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Let me preface this by saying that I know that higher priced brands are able to use better quality ingredients in their products so I won't try to compare drugstore brands with the top of the market products, but let's examine regularly priced Sephora brands like Benefit and Tarte with brands like Chanel and the new line of products out from Burberry.

When I saw the new Burberry ads I couldn't help but wonder...why? Why would I be enticed to buy a 24 dollar lip liner? Just for brand recognition? I found the color palette of the collection to be seriously boring and the packing to be nothing special.

Likewise, I don't understand the allure of Chanel makeup. Yes it is prestigious to pull out the double-c'ed compact and powder your nose, but would you really buy something just to be seen with it? I don't find that the shadows and blushes are anything special although I have been known to walk out of a department store with a stripe of every shadow color marching down my hands.

I own one Chanel lip palette and only because my friend knew that I would never ever buy it for myself and she gave it to me as a birthday gift. I love the product, but it was way too expensive to justify purchasing for myself.

What do you guys think? Are designer products really worth the intense price tag? Would you try Burberry's new collection?

McGrath+LeSportsac=Love

McGrath+LeSportsac=Love:

Pat McGrath is taking her skills to yet another venture. She's already the Global Creative Design Director for CoverGirl and every product that she touches in that brand turns directly to gold. Hello, LashBlast! So I'm pretty excited about her collaboration with LeSportsac. Typically if you said LeSportsac I would say 8th grade, neon green/pink, and nylon, but McGrath's designs are classic and chic. The Pat retails for 28 dollars and is small and black with a yellow zipper. Good for storing a little amount of makeup, maybe for a short trip. The Page retails for 62 dollars and is a much larger version of The Pat. It is the same black bag/yellow zipper style and looks like it could carry quite a bit of makeup/tools.

I want one. Who am I kidding? I want both.

Benefit Hello Flawless Powder Foundation

Benefit Hello Flawless Powder Foundation:

I went to Bloomingdales in the city this weekend and found myself at the Benefit suite. I purchased a few things (posts to come) but got this sample for free. I am a huge believer in the no foundation look. I love all things natural and clean and hate the thought of cakey liquid foundation clogging my pores all day long. Enter Hello Flawless. It's a full coverage powder that is incredibly light and goes on completely smooth with very little blending. I looked more awake with a cheery glow in seconds! With SPF 15, what's there to complain about?

One this is for sure, this little sample is about to become a full sized product!

Bites

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Bites:

I officially want to cut off both of my legs. I realize how drastic that sounds, but have you ever had 36...i repeat 36...big bites just on your legs alone? These bites range in size from rather small to golf ball sized lumps. I went away this weekend for a graduation party that was outside at a lake. 24 hours of outside fun later (including sleeping outside) I ended up looking like a creature from the black lagoon. There is no way to cover this up so it is officially impossible for me to wear anything other than pants to work this week so that no one mistakenly thinks that I have the bubonic plague, or adult chicken pox, or some type of lethal skin disease. Nothing helps the itching either. Cortisone cream? Nope. Some spray that my former boy scout father recommended? Nope. My next plan of action is just to take a large quantity of Benadryl and hopefully sleep.

Wish me luck...

Birthday Girl!

I'm a Birthday Girl!

Today I am 22 years old.

I used to always ask for a Sephora gift card on my birthday, because running around that store without spending my own money is like a kid in a candy store, but much MUCH better! This year I tired to be more practical and asked for a Sonicare toothbrush, because they really clean your teeth and they are way too expensive for me to buy for myself. Boring, no? I did, however, get lots of checks for my graduation so after I buy new clothes for work and furnish my new (future) apartment maybe I'll have some left over to have my own little mini Sephora spree.

Until then, I'll consider this my initiation into the "real world" and continue to troll Sephora.com like it's my mission in life.

Plus I asked for a new bag for my graduation present and will get one as soon as I have a second to go shopping. I am a loyal fan of Marc Jacobs in the bag department, but I am searching far and wide. My last bag was my high school graduation present so don't think this opportunity comes around too often. I have to make an informed decision! What's your favorite designer for bags? Also, just out of curiosity, what do you call them? Bag? Purse? Handbag?

Another Weekend Away

Another Weekend Away:

I had yet another two days away this past weekend. I had to fly to Michigan for my cousin's wedding. It was great to see my extended family and weddings are always nice, but I just wish I had one second to just breathe! Since graduating and starting work I haven't had a weekend off. This coming weekend I will be going to Massachusetts to attend a graduation party. The next few weekends after that will be dedicated to graduation parties and apartment hunting. If I had one wish right now it would be to have just one single day where I had absolutely nothing to do and I could just sit at home in the sun and relax!

I've decided that because I don't have a day of relaxation anywhere in sight I will find ways to beautify my tired-looking face and relax in 10 minutes or less. Here's what I have come up with so far:

1) Do a face mask before bed. Queen Helene is my favorite.

2) Do an under eye mask. I've never tried this before, but I've heard good things.

3) Do an invigorating scrub. I can buy one, make one from scratch, or just add baking soda to my face wash to make it grainy.

4) Take a quick bath. I can finally use more of my LUSH bath products that my sister got me for the holidays.

5) Eat a piece of chocolate cake and not feel guilty about it. Not sure what this would do to help me look less of a tired mess, but it would definitely be a happy 10 minutes!

What do you do to de-stress when you are short on time?

A Birthday Gift from Sephora

It's that time of year again (for me) where Sephora doles out a birthday gift to their beauty insiders around their birthdays. It happens to be a few weeks away from mine (June 2nd) so when I went in recently they stowed upon me their "Smokey Eye Kit." I honestly can not tell you what this kit had to do with smokey eyes. Enclosed was a white shimmery eyeshadow that I am guessing is their version of a highlight. Next came a tiny eyeliner in a color that can only be described as teal. Not a bad color, don't get me wrong, but what does it have to do with a smokey eye? Finally there was a mini mascara that was fine, but not noteworthy.

All I can say is...I'm glad it was free, happy future birthday to me!

Lack of Posts this Week!

Lack of Posts this Week!

Sorry for the lack of posts this week. I graduated from college on Saturday and started a full time job on Monday! I suppose I will have slightly less time to blog working full time with a fairly long commute until I get an apartment, but I will do my best to keep up! Also, in my new position I will be around some fabulously fashionable ladies so I know I will be inspired to come up with new beauty topics and think of more products that I want...I mean NEED...in the near future.

Hopefully by this weekend I will be settled in and ready to continue posting regularly!

I'll leave you with this thought:

Have you ever tried a sunless tanner that you truly liked? I mean that did not turn you orange, leave streaks, produce uneven spots, or generally look fake? With summer around the corner I am preparing for a full-out sunless tanner escapade. I think I will try Clarins first because it is always recommended and then move on to St. Tropaz after that. Details to come!

Stores I LOVE

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Stores I LOVE:

Sephora (obviously!): I could spend hours in here. It's almost like I want everything so much that I usually walk out with nothing because I honestly can't choose between all of the pots, pencils, creams, powders and other wonderful concoctions!

Anthropologie: Cute dresses, cute accessories, and super cute home goods. What's not to love?

Bloomingdales: They have the absolute best selection of jeans plus great makeup counters. A combination of two of my obsessions! I could get lost in here all day. Added bonus? Forty Carrots! They have great food and amazing frozen yogurt! I like getting shredded coconut and fruit on the side. YUM!

Wink: Rather small, but filled with lots of treasures! I got ballet flats there that look just like ballet slippers that I get compliments on every single time I wear them. I also found my black leather bangle with the gold clasp here. Classic!

Madewell: The place to go for super skinny stove pipe jeans and hipster-esq tees. Also a great place for extra light scarves that work well for spring and summer.

A store that I am not a fan of...the MAC stores. I don't like how the stores are set up. All of the products are hidden away in drawers and cabinets so you have to get a sales person to help you every single time you need to pick up a new item. I am a pretty independent shopper and don't like that sort of forced sales person contact.

I Need Your Advice!

I Need Your Advice!

So I graduate college in a couple of days. WHAT?!?! Time flies!

I picked up my traditional black cap and gown and now I need to figure out how to wear my hair. What goes with a cap? Obviously I need to wear it down. I don't want to look like a boy up there with my hair hidden under my cap! But it is going to be pretty hot. Who thought up the idea of having black graduation gowns while everyone sits outside in the sun for hours?

I'm thinking of doing "the Lauren Conrad" aka my hair straight with some soft waves, parted slightly to the side, with a front french braid. I know the braid won't show with the cap, but it will keep the front pieces of my hair away from my face for pictures, right?

Does anyone have any better ideas or wants to share their graduation do? I'd love to hear it!

Mothers Day Gift Ideas

My sister, my mom, and me!

Mothers Day Gift Ideas:

As Mothers Day rapidly approaches I thought I'd share some gift ideas. Let me start by saying that my mom is a preschool teacher and teachers get more bath and body products than anyone on the planet. I guess they are the go-to gift for women teachers because they are easy to find and generally loved by all. This does, however, make for a tricky Mothers Day for my sister and I because we can never go the bath salt/body lotion/scented candle route.

I am a big believer in personalizing gifts, so it does depend a lot on the mother in question, but here are some things that I am brainstorming for my amazing mom:

MoroccanOil hair products: I think that got my frizzy hair gene from my mom so I may just have to introduce her to the hair care line that changed my locks forever.

CoverGirl Outlast Lip Stains: My mom has no time to re-apply lip colors when she's running after kiddies all day and these stains stay in place like no others! They come in tons of colors and I'm sure that their marker-like applicators would be very cool at the preschool (although we wouldn't want to give the kids any ideas!)

Narciso Rodriguez for Her: Honey flower plus tactile wood plus amber equals a musky floral fragrance that goes from day to night! My mom loves this scent and she may be due for a re-fill soon.

My beauty unrelated pick? BANANAGRAMS! My mom loves Scrabble and this is sort of like Scrabble meets dominoes. The banana-shaped pouch comes with letter tiles. Each person gets 21 tiles. You have to use all your letters to make words, but they all have to be connected to each other (like Scrabble without the board) and the first person to use all their tiles wins. You can put back a tile, but then have to take three more in its place. All the tiles are face-down which means its a surprise which letters you end up with; so (as my mom says in her preschool class) you get what you get and you don't get upset! I think she would love it and its something that we could do together.

Sweat Week Day 3

Sweat Week Day 3:

ONE more day until it will be cool enough to officially call an end to sweat week!

TWO things never to do when it is hot out: Laundry in a blazing hot laundromat and baking in an oven in a blazing hot kitchen. These are also two things that I had to do this week. Laundry so that I had clean clothes and baking as a thank you to my senior thesis advisory team.

THREE products that I am thankful for in the heat:

1) Queen Helene Mint Julep Mud Mask: Minty and refreshing! It feels like icicles on my face and sucks the greasy grime out of my pores.

2) Scope Outlast Mouth Wash: Again with the minty and refreshing! Can you see a theme to the products that I am using this week? At least my mouth can feel cool!

3) Maybelline Great Lash Waterproof Mascara: My face may be sweating, but my eye makeup is melt-proof! No runny black streaks here.

Sweat Week Continues!

My friend and I in an infinity pool in Santorini. Yay for going abroad to Greece! This is exactly where I want to be right now. I remember the water was so cold that it took us days to get our toes in. Speaking of toes....

It's still hot out, although not as hot as it has been (thank goodness!). I thought I'd share a fun-in-the-sun beauty idea. HOT PINK TOES!

My roommate had such an amazing hot pink color on her toes that I had to borrow it and try it out myself. It is Milani's Electric Pink and it looks amazing on just about everyone. It also dries in about two seconds which is a plus for toes on the go!

Heat Wave: Melting Makeup

Me and two friends laying on our guy-friend's roof. Don't worry; major sunscreen was involved!

Heat Wave- Melting Makeup:

I don't know about you, but I'm sweating. It was about 94 degrees today and my room on the second floor of our house was about 104 degrees. Going outside actually felt cool compared to my room. I have a fan going, but it just seems to be blowing around burning hot air.

Clearly in this heat I am not looking my best. My face is bright red, I am all sweaty, and I can almost feel my pores getting slowly clogged with excess oil. Attractive!

Here are some tips and tricks that I have gathered up to combat the blazing heat blues:

1) Wash your face with a tingly cleanser. My Neutrogena Pink Grapefruit face wash smells refreshing and feels super-tingly. My face can go from greasy to squeaky clean in no time; plus it has salicylic acid to unclog pores! Follow up with a toner (I love Neutrogena's Oil-Free Stress Control Triple Action Toner) for that extra clean feeling.

2) Try an oil-free moisturizer. I use Neutrogena (can you tell that I love this brand?) Oil-Free Moisturizer for Combination Skin.

Use a mattifying shine control product. Clinique's Pore Minimizer keeps my face dry even when it feels like I am melting into a puddle on my floor.

3) Use mattifying makeup. I love my Maybelline Dream Matte Powder for staying shine-free and keeping the heat-induced redness at bay.

4) Rock the ballerina bun. My hair can get seriously frizzy in heat like this so post-shower I put in a little leave-in conditioner and then brush my hair up as if I were going to put it into a ponytail. Once I have it gathered high on my head, I twist the hair and wrap it into a bun and secure it with an elastic. Any loose pieces can be tucked in with bobby pins. When I take my hair down tomorrow it is smooth and soft! In the mean time, I get to look like I actually know how to do a pirouette.

5) If all else fails, whip out the ice cream! I couldn't resist going out today and buying Neapolitan frozen yogurt plus my favorite toppings: walnuts and shredded coconut! There's nothing like a cone to cool me down!

Mario Badescu Drying Lotion

Mario Badescu Drying Lotion:

This week is intense. It is my last official week of classes in my entire college career. It is the week of my honors thesis defense. It is the week of graduation prep and the beginning of final exam studying. It is worrying about the future and stressing about how to let go of the past. It is about missing friends before we're gone and thinking about how I am going to afford New York City rent! This is the week of the zit from hell.

There is absolutely nothing in the world like this drying lotion. The ingredient list reads like a who's who of the zit fighting super army. Salicylic acid unclogs pores, sulfur kills soaks up oil and bacteria, calamine reduces redness, camphor soothes. For every tough-guy acne fighting ingredient there seems to be a gentle calming one to balance out the solution.

When I feel a bad zit coming on I fight the urge to panic. What is worse for acne than stress, right? I just dab a spot of this solution on the area with a q-tip before bed and try to relax. The pink spots remind me of when I was little with chicken pox and was covered in pink calamine lotion spots from head to toe. Warning: you will look like a spotty nerd. Definitely use this right before you hit the hay.

This treatment works best when I apply it the second I feel a zit coming on and has even stopped zits from surfacing if I use it early enough. But if I don't catch the zit in time, this works wonders at lessening the face time (literally) that my zit gets with me. I have never and will boldly say will never use a better spot treatment.

So regardless of the stress of the week, I am maintaining fairly blemish-free skin. Walking down the aisle at graduation to get my diploma with a huge spot on my face is simply not an option. I will hold tight to this treatment until I am safely relieved of my cap and gown. Wish me luck!

Another Traveling Weekend

Me and my friend from school plus our BC friends en route to Meteora, Greece wearing the sweatshirts we got in Prague. Woo abroad friends!

Another Traveling Weekend:

I went on another little mini trip this past weekend. This time to Boston! My friend and I went to see our good friends from our trip abroad that go to BC and we watched the Boston Marathon together! For some reason, in Massachusetts only, there is a holiday on the Monday of the Boston Marathon called Patriots Day and it is a state-wide day that no one has school and everyone celebrates...um patriots? Very New England of them. The New England Patriots, anyone?

On one trip I messed up the makeup packing, on the most recent I fudged the hair care combo, and so I was nervous about keeping it all together this time, but I was successful! No more mess-ups! I was totally prepared for the night and day.

I guess third time's a charm, right?

A Mustache Surprise (No, not on me!)

Check out this site for a little mustache appreciation...I had to be bipartisan, right?

A Mustache Surprise (No, not on me!):

So my bf had been growing out his facial hair for about a month and I kept ragging on him to shave. He looks cute with a little bit of scruff but the potential for a full on beard was getting way too high. He kept saying he would and the other day he told me he was coming over with a surprise. I assumed that he finally shaved and was super relieved!

In walks....

A mustache! As a joke he had shaved off all of his facial hair except above his lip so that he was left with a very legitimate mustache. I was, at first, horrified. Who was this 1980's porn actor/pedophile/serial killer entering my room?? Then I laughed for about 15 minutes. Then I desperately wanted him to shave it. Right then and there. He convinced me that he should keep it until Saturday because he wanted his co-workers to get a look at it during his Friday night shift, but that was a huge stretch.

I don't mean to rag on the stache, but I think there is a time and a place for a mustache. The face of a 22 year old college student is definitely not that. After much debate (he grew attached to the stache that we affectionately named pistachio) he finally shaved it!

What do you think of a stache? Can anyone other than Tom Selleck pull it off?