All posts tagged: featured

20 Days of Lipstick: Week 3 Recap

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Hello to a late and incomplete Week 3 Recap. I only have 3 lip colors to show you this week, because there are times when a hermit just needs to be a hermit. Yesterday, I also wore a neutral lip (more on that later). Anyway, here are the lip colors I managed to wear! If you’re new (hello!), I’ve been trying to not fall into the trap of a neutral/MLBB type of lip… at least for 20 Days. DAY TWELVE feat. OCC Lip Tar in Lydia ACK, Lip Tars. I love ’em, but I don’t wear them often enough. Lydia is a purple-y mauve that translates really pink-ly on me. I love it, but it looks like I’ve cheated because it looks like a normal, not-so-bold lip color, huuu. Sorry, guys. I tried! Also, elephant in the room: my eye is really frakking red. I had to remove an eyelash, so that happened. DAY THIRTEEN feat. Tarte Glamazon Pure Performance 12-Hour Lipstick in Bold Yay, another lipstick from Laala! I love this lip—definitely a statement …

Commodity Goods Fitting Kits

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I’m not into scents much, but lately, I’ve been trying on different ones to see which I like the best. So far, my scent preferences have differed a lot from when I was a kid (I used to wear perfume and cologne more before), so it’s been a challenge looking for something that suits me personally. I’ve got a post on fragrances in the works, but allow me to talk a bit more about a recent discovery. I first found out about Commodity Goods from my new favorite beauty website, xoVain. One of the writers was sampling a perfume brand through “Fitting Kits,” little tester vials of the scents they offered. Priced at $9 each with free shipping, a fitting kit (one for Women and one for Men) had 10 scents you can trial before committing to a big bottle. I’m personally pretty picky with scents. I don’t get on with a lot of cult favorites like Chloe and Prada Candy, for example. I don’t know. My nose is weird. Commodity, a small company based …

Quick Summer Skin Care Routine

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Here’s my super stripped-down Summer Skin Care Routine, when I’m feeling lazy. Which is to say these are non-negotiables following the mantra of the skin-care conscious: cleanse, tone, moisturize. The skin care “essentials” have evolved since then, involving eye creams, essences, serums, and whatever else people cook up, but this is what I’m going with. CLEANSE My facial wash of choice is the Human Nature Nourishing Facial Wash, which is for normal or sensitive skin. I’m on my second bottle. I used to use the Moisturizing one (with moringa extract, I think) for dry skin, and that worked better for me, but it smelled like crap, so I’m on this one. And it works well enough! TONE My toner du jour! Or of the past few weeks. I love this stuff. It’s magical. Ahem. The LUSH Tea Tree Water is something I’ve been going back and forth on purchasing until I finally gave in and got it. I had a breakdown in LUSH because I didn’t want to buy anymore makeup. LOL, my logic. It …

Made-Up History: Gerhard Richter’s “Détail (rouge-bleu),” 1970.

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Yay a new Made-Up History! When I made this series, I set out to do it once a week. Kinda funny (not really) how it all played out, but I am going to try to play a little bit more with this series since I’ve been kind of meh about makeup combinations lately. One of the reasons why I haven’t been doing this is because I haven’t found a really nice work that I felt compelled to use for Made-Up History. If you’re new, MUH is a series in which I kind of re-create an artist’s piece as a makeup look by distilling the elements. It’s not really cosmetic art (like how some people re-do Van Gogh’s work on their face), but just translating a work into a look that I may or may not wear everyday. I have done a few of those, which you can see here. Today, we’ll take on a work by Gerhard Richter, who is one of the most famous living artists (82 years old!) today. Richter, who hails from …

All the Things: On Beauty, Buying, and Blogging

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Softly Sometimes has been alive for a fraction of the time that most websites (and beauty blogs) have been up, and frankly, I feel a little bit bored with it. I haven’t really grown tired of “beauty” or “blogging,” but I have grown tired of buying. Or at least, some aspects of it. I’ve been on a low-buy since April and I haven’t really bought a lot of beauty things since then. However, when I resubscribed to the Le Métier de Beauté Beauty Vault VIP 2014 round, it made me think about my relationship with “beauty,” or rather, beauty products… and why I often feel the need to have and to own. To be fair to myself (heh), my case of the grabby hands has toned down quite a bit since freefalling into the world of beauty, as we have all come to know it. Whenever I asked a person unfamiliar with the world of beauty blogging the “What’s your beauty philosophy?” question for Nosy Beauty, I feel kind of weird because I don’t want …

20 Days of Lipstick: Week 1 Recap

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Here’s what happened during my first week of the self-imposed beauty dare. To refresh your memory, I am trying to wear a different shade of lipstick for twenty weekdays in June. Day 1 feat. Tom Ford Lipstick in Flamingo I think, deep down, this is the lipstick that sparked this challenge, actually. I bought this blindly, as a miseducated consumer. I say this because it is a fairly bright pink, and I don’t really wear a lot of pinks. I asked Sarie what she thought of it, and she said “It makes you look yellow.” So. Hmm. I don’t know how I feel about this lipstick, but I can’t seem to say goodbye to it. Mostly because it was really expensive.

One Week And God Created the Woman: 5 (More) Looks

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I’ve had this palette for a while, but I’m still astounded by how many combinations I can get out of it, given that it only has six shades. I think that’s a true mark of value. Everyone knows there’s always that one pesky shade in a palette that you can’t seem to use. With NARS And God Created the Woman, all the shades are useful, even as multi-purpose products when you’re in a pinch. I use Belissima and Coconut Grove to mix when I need to make eyebrow touch-ups. DAY ONE Shades used: Alhambra, Belissima, and Galapagos After 7 hours of wear in the summer heat. BLAH! I may feel like shit, but my eyeshadow still looks gewd. I think so anyway. Btw, this is the makeup I was wearing on my Twitter profile picture! Rest of the Makeup: Hourglass Veil Mineral Primer, NARS Radiant Creamy Concealer (Ginger), Le Métier de Beauté Eye Brightening and Setting Powder (Refresh), bareMinerals Original Loose Powder Foundation (Medium Beige), K-Palette Real Lasting Eyebrow 24H (02), The Body Shop Brow …