All posts tagged: featured

November Favorites & December Goals

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Happy December! Time for my November Favorites. 🙂 I have quite a few, even though November was a month of trying a lot of new things. Anyone else victimized by Black Friday/Cyber Monday insanity? I’m afraid I went ahead and got a bit of new things. It’s mostly Christmas shopping, but perhaps that’s my own rationalization of my spendiness. On to the favorites! My skin care routine got a bit jumbled up because of my last BNT Girls mission, but it’s been pretty standard besides that.

Lazy Girl Makeup: One Shadow Shadows

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Slicking on one eyeshadow on your lid isn’t an entirely new concept for the lazy girl. In fact, before you (we) went off the deep end of the makeup world, that’s what you (we) probably did. So, I’m here to show you some of my favorite singles to put all over my lid when I’m feeling particularly rushed or stumped. Before I begin, here is Liz’s take and here is Bea’s. Here are just a few… by which I mean, most eyeshadows will work for this purpose anyway. I love the type of shades that actually have dimension, though, and these ones are quite effortless to wear. Swatched, L-R: MAC Groundwork, MAC Constructivist, Oslo Vela, shu uemura ME medium brown 885, Rouge Bunny Rouge Abyssinian Catbird, Le Métier de Beauté Alexandrite, & Other Stories Percaline Khaki, Addiction by Ayako Fudge MAC Groundwork – my favorite colored eyeshadow base that, fortuitously, can be worn alone, too. It’s definitely a go-to eye color, both as a base and as a shade itself. MAC Constructivist – darker than …

Favorite NARS Bits

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While I’m miles away on vacation, allow me to share with you a few of my favorite bits from NARS. I think you can tell that NARS is one of my favorite beauty brands. If I could pick just one brand to use for the rest of my life, I can pick NARS and not even feel bad about it. Anyway, like most established brands, NARS is a bit intimidating to approach if you’re a new buyer. Here are a few of my favorite items from them, not including skin care or brushes. Mostly because I forgot, lol, but I quite like them, too. NARS Radiant Creamy Concealer — I’ve never loved a concealer as much as I love this one. I have it in the shade Ginger, but Custard works well for me. It is easy to blend, packs on a lot of pigment, and doesn’t look cakey. NARS Sheer Glow Foundation — One of my favorite liquid foundations! It’s a medium coverage foundation with a slightly dewy finish and a great range of …

Some Observations on Makeup Geek Eyeshadows

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I got these quite a while back but wanted to reserve my review on them for later, after I've extensively used them, partly because they are all permanent eyeshadows anyway. But mostly, I wanted to spend my time with them because their shades are quite inconsistent when it comes to quality. For the record, they're all decent shadows, especially when you factor in the price. I got 11 refill pans, each of which costs about $6. A bunch of the shades I wanted to try like Shark Bait and Barcelona Beach were also out of stock. I put them all in this Wild Peach Palette, which is similar to Z-Palettes and Unii Palettes, and I'm happy to report that they stuck on automatically: I got the ff: shades: Cinderella: Pale shimmery pink Cupcake: Matte medium pink Cocoa Bear: Matte reddish brown Bleached Blonde: Shimmery Pale Gold Pretentious: Metallic bronze Mocha: Deep matte brown Twilight: Pale Shimmery Muted Purple Unexpected: Matte Pale Pink Brown Poolside: Bright shimmery teal with specks of gold Sea Mist: Shimmery Turquoise …

Harry Potter Week: Inspired by Literature

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Hey, everyone! It’s the first of September… which means that it’s time to go to Platform 9 3/4 for a new school year at Hogwarts. 🙂 For Softly Sometimes, I decided to do a Harry Potter Week, with a few magic-centric posts on beauty. For the first day, I thought I’d do an Inspired by Literature post, which I’ve only done once before. Inspired by Literature is a series taken from Jessica of Getting Cheeky, in which you basically take a piece of literature and try to interpret it in a makeup and beauty way. Jessica’s posts are quite thoughtful—mine are a bit literal, but I hope you enjoy these all the same. The books I’m using are the US editions, since they’re the ones I have! HARRY POTTER AND THE SORCERER’S STONE feat. Le Métier de Beauté True Colour Eye Shadows in Goldstone and Midnight Sky, Tarte Amazonian Clay 12-Hour Blush in Exposed, NARS Pure Matte Lipstick in Mascate

Burt’s Bees for your Body, Hands & Feet

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Here are some of the items I received from Burt’s Bees’ 30th birthday celebration. Funnily enough, I didn’t get any of the skin care lines (by this, I mean the face ranges), but it made me realize how much I’d been neglecting the rest of my skin. My invite to the Burt’s Bees event actually came with their Lemon Butter Cuticle Cream and I’ve been slathering that on my cuticles pretty liberally. Needless to say, it’s been a welcome addition to my desk distractions. 🙂 As for the rest of the items, here’s what I got and some first impressions.

1 Day Magic with K-Palette: First Impressions & Face of the Day

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A few weeks ago, K-Palette launched their 1 Day Magic line and I was so bummed out that I missed out on what looked to be an awesome launch of equally awesome products. Still, I was very lucky to receive 4 items from the line. (Thank you so much, Cheryl & Beautybox Corp.!) K-Palette makes my favorite liquid liner, unmatched by all of the ones I’ve tried after it, and in the realm of liner formulas, liquid is still my favorite. Recently, they released a new range called 1 Day Magic, and all the products I will talk about today is part of it. They won’t replace the previous permanent products, don’t worry!