Subscription Box Reviews

just look at these!!

I found MAC dupes in my collection for the Kyshadow palette!

Excuse my bare fare but I need your help! Do you prefer the top or bottom as a setup for beauty tutorials? I feel like the light is better in the one with the black background but need a second opinion!

From Claire’s to Coastal Scents: Rainbow/Pride Eyes Through the Years

#startedfromthebottomnowwehere

Coming off the coattails of Pride 2016, I wanted to post a little something about what I consider my favourite (I would say signature, but I don’t do it quite often enough for that) eye-look: Rainbow* (Pride) Eyes.

I don’t remember when I first started doing the Rainbow Eyes, but I was initially inspired by someone who’d been in my high school GSA and had posted a Youtube video on how to do it. I think I must have been in grade 12 or my first year of uni when I found that first Claire’s palette with all the colours I needed (although the green was so pale, compared to the others, which frustrated me endlessly). I grew up in a time when red eye-shadow was a bitch and a half to find, so, honestly, I thought it was fate when I found it - and it really did serve me well. You can see its effects featured in the first two photos.

Late last year, however, I decided it was time for a change, and I bought myself a base palette (Creative Me #1) from Coastal Scents, as well as an empty palette and several individual shadow pots, and did some customizing until I had the perfect Rainbow Eyes set for me (remember how the Claire’s green shade frustrated me?).

Let me tell you, I have been so impressed with how well the new shadows work, and, honestly, it felt so good to throw out the old palette after all this time! The CS shadows are so pigmented, and they have fantastic staying power - I’m not wearing a primer (unless you want to count foundation) in either photo on the bottom row, and the second one was taken after working an 8 hour shift at a job with lots of moving around, withstanding two commutes, and doing some walking around in some kinda gross heat.

At the end of the day, this is a Look that will always be near and dear to me, but it’s also one I’ve been happy to grow with and tweak as the years have passed. I have no doubts that I’ll continue to play around with it for many more years to come!

*I say “Rainbow”, but they’re based more on the 6-Colour Pride Flag than the 7-Colour/ROY G. BIV Rainbow. 

For those of you interested in which shades I used to create this look, you can find the details under the cut!

WARNING - PLEASE READ IF YOU HAVE A PEANUT ALLERGY AND LIKE TO SHMEAR MAKEUP ON YOUR SKIN TO MAKE YOU LOOK AS FLAWLESS AS YOUR PERSONALITY

I am one such an individual, and last night I was super pumped to try this concealer. Out of curiosity I read the ingredients and saw something called arachidyl behenate.

Anything with the root “arachi” such as “arachis oil” is probably peanut related. And, sure enough, I did some research and arachidyl behenate is peanut-derived. Which is the story of how I nearly smushed a deadly food allergen into my skin.

There’s a report here from last year that seems to indicate that some food allergens are neutralized when processed for cosmetics, but I’m not sure that applies for peanuts. And at any rate, they did indicate there was still a risk of a reaction if such proteins weren’t processed properly.

Now, I’m gonna say it outright - I’m not one hundred percent sure that a heavily processed peanut-derived chemical such as arachidyl behenate will cause a reaction. I’ve worn a lot of makeup over the years without checking the ingredients, so I could have easily used a product containing it without knowing. Still, better safe than sorry.

Alternate names for peanut products (anything with the prefix “arachi-” should be considered suspect):

beer nuts, earth nuts, goobers, groundnuts, groundnut oil, hypogaeic acid, katchung oil, mandelonas

A full list can be found here, another cosmetic-specific one here.

Here’s some articles on the subject:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11558642

http://www.national-toxic-encephalopathy-foundation.org/peanuts-in-cosmetics/

http://cosmeticsinfo.org/ingredient/hydrogenated-peanut-oil

http://www.ewg.org/skindeep/ingredient/700482/ARACHIS_HYPOGAEA_(PEANUT)_OIL/

INSTYLE: Sometimes all you need is an easy every day makeup tutorial.

Lottie Tomlinson’s Instagram is like a rolodex of makeup and hair inspiration. She’s only 17 and already has so much under her belt. On top of being a guinea pig for London’s famous Bleach Salon (scroll through her Insta until you find her pink hair moment—it’s worth it), she’s also a super talented makeup artist. Um, like doing-Selena-Gomez’s-tour-makeup talented. Even Lottie’s everyday makeup is enviously well done, and she’s just completed a daily makeup tutorial on her YouTube channel for your viewing pleasure. Prepare to be amazed.

Lottie goes through her everyday makeup process, which clocks in at around 13 products. It sounds like a lot, but really, she’s keeping it pretty simple. Let’s discuss some key products from this tutorial, though.

Becca’s Ultimate Coverage Foundation looks like one of the easiest, smoothest, full-coverage foundation we’ve ever seen. She also applies her makeup with Artis brushes (#want), and that MAC bronzer looks like a staple

For her #flawless brows, she goes through quite the process, though she makes everything look incredibly easy. She fills in and shapes her brows with a series of brushes, as well as MAC and Anastasia Beverly Hills products. Nothing beats her lashes though, which are as fluttery and voluminous as ever thanks to a bit of tarte mascara. We could have mistaken them for falsies.