Makeup for pale people- Hahaha!

No, really. I'm pale and wearing too much or the wrong kind of make up makes me look whorish. Just being honest here.  Over time I've found a few ways to be able to wear make up without looking so flooze-tastic. So here ya go! A few people had requested for me to post my makeup routine and I was more than embarassed to do so, but after reading a few of Phyrra's blogs I figured what could it hurt? If you don't know who Phyrra is, go look! http://www.phyrra.net/  I admire how bold she is with her makeup choices. I know that personally, I could never pull that off.

First, here's a picture of my face with no makeup and I'll point out a few problem areas that I try to cover a bit.
You'll probably immediately notice my eczema (bright red dry patches on my face).  I use Lorac ProtecTint in the color "in the buff" to moisturize and provide a little coverage followed by Bare Minerals powder to cover without making me look over-makeup-ed. Is that a word? It is for this purpose. Hahaha.

 

And an after picture: It covers pretty well without looking caked on.

Next, brows.
Mine are somehow thin and all over the place at the same time. I would love to pull off that fierce arch you'll see in the Benefit ads. I can't though. What I CAN do though is tweeze  them within an inch of their life. For this I use Sally Hansen's Raise Some Brows tweezers. I love these things and keep them in my makeup bag for quick fixes.
Another thing I do to make them look a little fuller is to use a good eyebrow powder. I like Body Shop's Brow and Liner Kit. I don't use the liner though, just the brow color. I use the blunt brush and lightly tap it through the natural brow shape to enhance it a bit. It looks more natural than a waxy pencil to me. In this picture my right brow is without any sort of brow powder, left brow is with. See the difference?

Annnnnd blush: I LOVE Body Shop's highlighter and blush combo in petal. For my skin tone it gives me a nice glow without being too bright or dark.  See the bit of shine it gives on the apples of your cheeks? It's perfection.

With flash to show how it reflects light so well.

Lips:  My natural lips are relatively boring. Not a lot of color. To remedy that I have a whole lot of lip glosses hahahaha. 

On the picture below I used Revlon Just Bitten in Crave. I like that it's got a stain and a balm on each end.

 On this picture, it's Maybelinne's Baby Lips in Pink Punch. One of my favorite colors.

On the eyes: For liner, I usually stick with a plum shade that brings out the green in eyes. I don't have a whole lot of green in there so I like purple shades to pull it out. For this, my favorite lately has been a cheapie and a goodie. ELF's Eye Brightening liner in Plum.

And for the eyeshadow I always stick with gold hues. I don't know why. I just do. I think it adds a bit of pop without being too dark.  I either wear Cover Girl's Golden Sunrise or here, I'm wearing L'Oreal High-Intensity Pigment line in Precious. I love how sparkly it is while still being nude (ish).

I have yet to really find a mascara that I really LOVE. They all seem too wet and make my lashes clump together. I don't have a lot of lashes and to make the few that I have clump up, well that's just cruel.  I've been using Benefit's They're Real- I just load up the brush and let it sit out for five minutes to dry out a bit. It still clumps though.

And that's all I do. This literally takes about 10 minutes to do when I'm not taking pictures of it, hahaha.

This is what I end up with:

And now for product shots:

 Oh! To clean up, I LOVE these wipes. They don't leave residue behind.

Finally done! It took blogger nearly 3 hours to upload these pictures and for me to type it all in between uploads.  Tell me your best beauty tips!

NOTD: My Favorite Polish Color EVER!

Everyone who paints their nails on a regular basis has that one color that they keep coming back to; that one color that you put on when you don't want to do anything too crazy.  For me, that's Zoya's Bela. It is so demure and pretty. On my skin tone (very pale with pink undertones/dark hair) it is the perfect pale pink that I had been searching for forever. You may remember that this is the Zoya that was featured in the movie Black Swan, and it looks just as beautiful as it does in the dressing room on that little mirrored pedestal.

Bela is a tempermental girl though.  First, it takes at least 3 coats to build opacity. The first coat goes on so sheer you'd never know it was on with just one coat. Secondly, it bubbles. It bubbles in the bottle and then bubbles stick around while you're polishing.  If you don't catch it, you'll end up with a big bubble.  Sometimes you'll end up with a rather large bubble no matter how careful you are, as you'll see on my ring finger in the swatches. Third, it's streaky.  After three coats or so you won't see streaks but if you're looking for something you can put on real quick, this isn't the one.  However, I can absolutely overlook these things because I love this shade SO MUCH. If you're looking for the perfect pink and you have a bit of time to sit down and treat this polish like the thing of beauty that it is, you'll be very pleased.  It's a universally flattering color; I've seen it on women of all skin tones and it is always just as pretty and demure on all of them.

So.....personally? This is a polish I think every woman should own.

For the accent nail, I did a simple stamping in silver with an unnamed/unbranded plate I found on clearance. 

I just now noticed that there's glitter on my polish, haha! Guess that's what happens when I make polish on my painting desk. Whoops!

NOTD- Go Overboard

....and I stll say throw this thing overboard.  This is the third time I've tried Essie's Go Overboard- with three different top coats.  IT ALWAYS BUBBLES.  I'm in love with the color though, sp I keep trying it, and keep getting disappointed.  Anyways, this is two coats with one coat of gelous on top.  For the tips it's a glitter franken I made.  Hope you like this more than I do!

A MAJOR ANNOUNCEMENT! :) :) :)

Cherish Polish is happening, people! Cherish Polish is a line that is a collaboration between myself and my sister.  What makes Cherish different is that we will make donations to different charities for each line.
CHarity PolISH = CHERISH!

We believe in philanthropy, no matter how small.  Philanthropy is defined as "for the love of humanity" and this type of feeling is what drives me every day. Cherish is a brand you can feel good about buying, knowing that we're making this line "for the love of humanity" and not to pad our pockets, as we have all seen with she who will remain unnamed. It's truly a labor of love. Not only will Cherish donate to charity, but you'll be able to help pick which charity we'll do next!

With that being said; I would like to announce that the first line will be in support of Children's Medical Hospital Heart Center, located in Dallas, TX.

My handsome nephew, Ethan, was born with a congenital heart defect and Children's hospital staff have been a huge part of his success so far. With all they've done for my sister, brother-in-law and nephew- it is the perfect way to show my gratitude.

Not only will proceeds of this line go to the Heart Center, if any polishes from this line are popular, proceeds from those polishes will always be set aside for them.  If I bring back a color, even if it's released along with a different collection, you will know that Children's will still get their donation. 

The same will go for all collections, and after this one gets going I'll be polling you guys to see which charity should be next!

The first line isn't quite ready yet but it will be later this year, so keep your eyes peeled for updates!
For now, you can find updates on my facebook page or this blog. My facebook is located at www.facebook.com/inkandpolish.

For more information on Children's Medical Heart Center, you can click the link below:
http://www.childrens.com/specialties/heart-center/

And of course, I couldn't make this post without showing you the whole reason I started this endeavor. My truly inspiring nephew, Ethan. In this picture, he looks like he's a super hero about to take flight. Aaaand away!!!!! Hehehehhehehe.

Our logo is a sparrow and I'd like to give you a bit of a background as to why I chose that. Sparrows symbolize the ending of a long journey.  It seems so fitting for this.

Here's our logos! What do you think?

There you have it guys!  Keep your eyes peeled for updates!

Until then, happy polishing!

<3

Carrie, Lauren and Ethan.



FLOAMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM!

In my mind, the title of this should be said with the excitement of a Brazilian soccer announcer when a team scores a goal....ie: GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL!!!!!

Yeah, that. Okay, now that we've gotten that out of the way-  I'll start by saying that this was my first and longest lemming. I saw floam, and being a kid of the 80's/90's it immediately brought feelings of nostalgia.  I've been stalking Ninja Polish for months and then when I saw her facebook post for the early morning people I flew over there and ordered it as fast as I could. It's finally mine!
So, I know you've always seen a ton of better swatches, but here's mine and I could not love this polish more.

On the accent nail I used a little of Orly's Mermaid's Tale.  I have seen Floam both with and without top coat and I must say, I'm a huge fan of it with no top coat, completely matte.  Floam is a pain in the whatsits to apply, I must say.  It took three coats to get this kind of coverage and I had to let each coat dry completely before applying the next or it tried to drag around the nail.  Pain? Yes. Worth it. Abso-freaking-loutely. 

I have a really pretty neon green jelly that I want to try this over as a one-coater.  In my mind this will be super fun. I don't know about how that will turn out in reality. I'll keep you updated on that one.

Do you own Floam or any of it's sisters? Pinkerbell, Sunny Floam, or the Humble Bee?. How much do you LOVE them? If the others are as amazing as this one, I know I'll be trying to get my hands on all of them.

You can purchase the Floam line by Nailventurous Lacquers at www.ninjapolish.com

:)

Happy Polishing!

Love you guys!

Carrie.

July Maven Box!!

I sincerely hope you guys caught this month's Maven box. How FUN was this one? Matching lip gloss AND America The Beautiful. Stunning! 

I haven't ever done a makeup review, and to be honest, I don't wear makeup on a daily basis so bear with me on this one. 

First up, the one we've all been waiting for, AMERICA THE BEAUTIFUL!

There you have it! America the Beautiful.

Thoughts on this one: I got one of the wonky brushes, so it was hard to apply in addition to it being REALLY thick. It was also extremely gritty as most super glittery polishes are. A coat of Gelous and two of Seche to make this one smooth.

The white one you see here is Kate, which is a soft white pearl. It is so much like several other colors I have. Application on this one was okay, but again, weird brush.  I layered it with Kleancolor's Bluebell to add some pop. 

Here's Chelsea, a purple multi-glitter with magenta, teal, silver and hints of pink. Also really gritty and holy tip wear, batman. Look at the middle finger, this is one day of wear. Brace yourselves for the lip gloss pictures.

  I took pictures first, in artificial incandescent light, then in sunlight. You can see that it can be either light or darker depending on how much you layer it and how bright the lighting is.  The color is called Zinnia.  To me it was sticky, but all lip glosses are. I prefer a colored chap-stick like Tarte.

So, what do you think about Julep's branching out this month? I'm pleasantly surprised.