Friday, May 17, 2013

I Love My Post Blog Hop

Co-Hosts wanted!! If you fancy co-hosting with us drop pop an email through to: sarah@lifeinabreakdown.com

I love my post Welcome to the I Love My Post blog hop where we invite you to link up your favourite post of the week, to show it off and hopefully receive some love from the others partaking in the hop!

If you are yet to participate in a hop they are really simple to get the hang of all you need to do is 'hop' around, hopefully finding some new great reads!

The Rules are simple.

1. Check out and follow the hosts and co-hosts. Leave them a comment if you would like them to follow back. 2. Choose at least 3 other blogs and hop on over and leave them some love, plus let them know how you found them - I'm sure they would love it if you followed as well! 3. Have Fun and come back next Saturday.

Please just don't link up and click off to make this successful everyone needs to hop around!

Your Host’s this week are: Sarah from Life in a Break Down Bex from Futures and our lovely co-hosts are: Brigitte from BreezeyBee Blog Danielle from KalamityJane Kosmetics Merk from Merk and her Mastiff Myranda from Pretty Living PDX

I would love it if you would tweet, share on facebook or place our button on your blog, the more sharing we can get happening the bigger this hop can become!

Life in a Break Down
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This week's Featured Blog is:

Powerful Mothering

Run by two Mum's Powerful Mothering brings you a fun and lively blog that depicts the adventure of these two lovely Mum's ~ Sarah

If you have been featured grab our button!

I Love my Post
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If you fancy being next week’s featured blogger make sure you follow all the rules give you hosts and co-hosts a follow and Sarah could be calling on you next week to come and feature with us.

We now have a fantastic Mail Chimp List so if you want a weekly reminder about the hop Sign up now!

Thursday, May 16, 2013

Seven Deadly Sins of Beauty Tag


Hello again! I know it's been a while, and I really do plan to be doing more blogging here soon, but sometimes life is just crazy. I was tagged to do the Seven Deadly Sins of Beauty Tag by the lovely Stefi over at Stefichop's Beauty Blog (click here to view) and I'll be tagging a few of you at the bottom.

Avarice/Greed: What is your most expensive beauty product? Well, the most expensive thing I've bought is the Sephora Color Daze Blockbuster Palette, but that's really a medley of products.. So I guess the most expensive single product I've bought is my NARS Sheer Glow Foundation.

Wrath: What beauty item do you have a love/hate relationship with? Foundation. I have the hardest time finding foundation that looks decent on me. It's always too cakey or too yellow. My NARS foundation is the only one I've found that works for me.

Gluttony: What brand makes up the biggest chunk of your beauty collection? Sephora Collection or e.l.f. It's pretty evenly split between the two for first place on that one.

Sloth: What product do you neglect to use due to laziness? Primer. I almost never prime my face before I apply makeup. I almost always prime my eyes, but never my face.

Pride: Which beauty product gives you the most confidence? Probably eyeliner. I do really nice winged liner and it makes me feel pretty pimp sometimes, haha.

Lust: Which item is at the top of your beauty wish list? Dior Hydralife Youth Essential Concentrated Sorbet Essence. I got a sample of this stuff once and it is AMAZING! I so want to get some, but it's a little pricey being that my skin isn't in desperate need of it. Someday...

Envy: What product looks great on others but not yourself? Nude lipstick. Most of them are WAY to brown/yellow/tan for them to look anywhere near decent on me. I have to mix them with pink. But I so love the way it looks on other people.

I'm tagging Beauty by ShortylegsBeauty Queen UKMs Vchiles, and My Beauty Junction

I will be posting more soon, again sorry that I've been so many other places lately. I really will put some effort into posting more often. Til next time!


Saturday, May 4, 2013

Saturday Share

So this weekend has been, at best, extremely trying so far. In my house, everyone has been on edge because things just aren't going right. Sent the husband out yesterday to pick up milk and stuff and wouldn't you know the car broke down. This actually happened while I was writing my last post. But things are not looking good for this poor car and we still don't have milk, which is endlessly frustrating. And I've started to realize just how hard it's going to be to get this business up and running and that I may have to rethink how some of it is going to work out. So yeah, I'm not in the best mood. And I've been kinda stewing in my shitty feelings since last night which is beyond unproductive, and has led to me just guzzling coffee and chain smoking trying to clear my head. Then I was scrolling through my Facebook and I came across this:


And this has got to be one of my favorite songs, done by all time favorite band, on arguably their best album ever recorded. It was like a sign, I mean the dude that shared this video is generally sharing videos from bands I either dislike or have never heard of, but today, of all days, he posted something that just made me truly happy. Billy Corgan's voice just totally makes my brain melt and brings about my zen. It was like the universe was telling me to chill the fuck out, everything's fine. And just for the hell of it, here's a piece of humor to go with everything.


And for those who aren't privy, this is Archer from the animated comedy Archer. This is one of my favorite tv shows at the moment, and if you can you should check it out because it's fucking hysterical.

So I hope you liked this little bit of zen I've shared here, I know it mellowed me out and made my weekend a little better. Hope you're all having a great weekend! Til next time!!


Friday, May 3, 2013

Collection Extreme 24 Hour Felt Tip Liner

Hello again! I promised that I would start posting more regularly again, so here I am with one of many reviews that I have been postponing. I'm super lazy when it comes to my reviews as they just aren't as fun as doing makeup looks. But until my hay fever lets up a bit, I'm not going to be doing a heck of a lot of looks, so time for the reviews that I've been putting off. And today I will be reviewing Collection Extreme 24 Hour Felt Tip Liner in Black. This product sells for £ 2.99 on Collection's website, and I have no idea how much this costs in the USA as I don't believe it's available for retail here.

Disclaimer: This product was given to me as a gift from a personal friend, it was not given to me by any company looking for my opinion. My opinions are 100% my own.


This is my first experience with a felt tip liner like this, and I gotta say I totally love it. The design is similar to any felt tip marker that I've ever used, which makes it really easy to use.


As you can see, the felt tip tapers off to a very fine point making it great for fine lines as well as nice thick lines. The tip keeps its shape quite well, with just a little bit of give right at the end making winged liner really simple and quick to do. And being that the tip is so fine and easy to work with I think this would be a great liner to use for designs on the face or body.


I decided to do a little design instead of a standard swatch just so you could see how detailed you could get with this liner. Keep in mind that this picture is enlarged and that this design takes up maybe 1.5 square inches on my wrist (approximately 3 centimeters squared.) The little hearts are about 3.5 millimeters wide, so yeah, this baby can get pretty fine detail work done.
And the formula is also really nice. It's thin compared to my standard liquid liner, but is quite opaque. And it dries incredibly fast which is a huge bonus for me as I'm awful about smudging my work. It is also really quite long wearing. I don't know if it really lasts the full 24 hours as stated in the name of the product as I do try to not sleep with makeup on, but I've definitely worn this liner for 8+ hours without any notable fading and without it smearing down my face. Feathering is also very minimal as it dries so quickly it doesn't really have time to travel down all the thin lines you may or may not have on your face.


So yeah, if you can't tell, I love this liner!! It's easy to use, it's inexpensive, the lines are super crisp, it's long wearing, and the color is good. What more can you ask for? If this eyeliner is available near you, I would so recommend you pick it up, especially if you love winged liner but struggle with it. It really is just like using a marker, so if you can write, you can use this eyeliner. It's really that great.
And now I'm out of things to say really about this product, I'm in love with it and sad that I can't buy more at my local drugstore. And being that it seriously took me like 4 hours to type this business up because my daughter was going nutters and a few other random distractions, I'm going to end this one like this:


And once again the Dude captures how I'm feeling at the moment, haha. Til next time!




Thursday, May 2, 2013

An Itty Bitty Target Haul and Some Random Ranting

So hello again my lovely readers! It's been ages since I've posted anything it seems, but I have just been so wrapped up in a million other things that blogging has really been pretty well the last thing on my mind. And I will go into these other things that are taking up my time towards the end of my post, but I'm going to start with a little Target haul from the weekend before last. I will have reviews of these items up later, but I still haven't really properly tried these buggers out so this is just my first quick impressions. And this is really hardly a haul, I only scooped up a few things, but damnit it's been forever since I've had something to talk about makeup related over here so it'll just have to do. And diving right in then!


As you can see I picked up 5 items from the makeup section, I was actually pretty bummed because they had a really limited selection at the Target I went to and they didn't really have much of anything that I've been lusting after so I just kinda wung it.


First up are these Sonia Kashuk Full Glam Eyelashes with Glue which I got for a couple of dollars, I don't remember exactly how much they cost as I bought these a week and a half ago and lost the receipt, so my bad on that one. They are quite lovely, and I did try them on real quick to see how they looked and I wasn't disappointed. However, these lashes are rather stiff and really hold their shape, which made them kind of a pain for me to work with as my eyes aren't the same shape as the lashes. This will probably be resolved after I trim them to fit my eye properly, but hey, these are just first impressions. Also, I hate the glue. I don't see that changing. It's thick and a little goopy which is totally unappealing to me. But moving on...


I grabbed up two of the Rimmel Soft Kohl Kajal Eye Liner Pencils which are apparently Intense and Smokey in Purple Passion and Pure White. I did swatch these and play with them a bit and so far I'm pretty pleased with their performance. The white pencil does seem to be softer and easier to work with than the purple, but the purple seems to be quite alright as far as eye pencils go. Keep in mind that I'm a bit biased against the eye liner pencil and tend to prefer liquid liner, cream liner and even the crayon liners. I stabbed myself with a little wood sliver once using a pencil liner and apparently I know how to hold a grudge. And.. Close ups!



Please do forgive the awful quality of some of these pictures; I took them at sundown and the lighting in my living room was all sorts of wonky. Next time I'll exert some self control and wait until proper dark or morning to take my pictures. Live and learn..


And moving on to the Rimmel Exaggerate Waterproof Eye Definer (Natural or Dramatic) in Emerald Sparkle. This is a crayon liner, which as I've said I do prefer to the pencil liners, and it comes with a sharpener and smudger which is always nice. I also swatched this liner and it is very easy to work with and the color is quite nice. And another close up!!


And I know you can't really tell, but the tip is pretty fine for a crayon liner and at the opposite end is the smudger which pulls out to reveal the sharpener.


And the one thing that I was actually looking for and really wanted to try: Maybelline Color Sensationals Vivid lipstick! This one is Vibrant Mandarin which is a really pretty orange based lip color.



This lipstick did not photograph well, which is probably partly the fault of my shitty lighting, but it's quite a bit more orange looking in real life. I don't have any other orange based lip colors so I was pretty excited to try this out, and it does actually apply a bit more coral than it looks in the tube, but it's still most definitely an orange based coral which is pretty rockin. I do believe these are about $5 a tube, and based on the impression that I have gotten from this one I probably will be grabbing up a few more as I have far too few lipsticks. This doesn't last the longest, but it goes on really smooth, the color is really vibrant, and it does seem to hydrate my lips quite a bit. So yeah, not disappointed with this one in the least. Yay!

Okay, now I'm moving on to my little bit of ranting, so beware, haha. So yeah, sorry I haven't blogged at all in almost 3 weeks now, but I really have had quite a bit going on. For starters, I have a little project going on that I've started with my sister in law, and we'll be designing and selling clothing. This probably sounds totally random and far fetched to a lot of you, but I'm pretty great with design and both me and my SIL used to work as seamstresses together. So I've been going over web design, label designs, and then of course the clothing design, which has had me totally wracking my brain as it's been some time since I've had to do so much of this type of stuff. And yes, I probably will be promoting our business through this blog a bit, BUT I have already told her that I have no intention of spamming up this blog as this is a makeup blog and it's not supposed to be about selling things. I don't want to turn off what readers I have here trying to promote my business, it's tacky. But I will totally share random tid bits because the thought of starting my own business is beyond exciting to me. And that's pretty legit in my opinion.
Also, and this one is really out there, like you guys are probably going to think I'm completely off my rocker at this point (if you don't think so already, haha!) but I'm doing a shit ton of reading and research because I plan on writing a novel. But before you start thinking I'm too nutters, there's a story behind this. About 5 years ago, right after I told my dad that I was engaged, he took me out to dinner and got completely plastered at this steak house. And I mean he was WASTED. Like wow drunk. I had only ever seen him this drunk once before in my life, and that was on the day that I graduated from high school. But anyway, after dinner we were driving back to my apartment and my dad was really talking. Being that none of you know my dad, you should probably know that he is NOT a talker. Like I hadn't had a proper conversation with my dad until I was out of high school. So when he talks, I listen because you know it's stuff that he's been stewing on for years. Literally. So he was talking about things, most of which I don't properly remember, and then he looked at me (pretty scary as he was driving) and he said to me that of all the people he had met in his life, I was one of two people that he thought had the potential to write a book. And then he blatantly asked me to write a book in my life, regardless of whatever else I choose to do, he wanted me to take what I have in my head and write a book. And he asked me like it was just nothing, like he was asking me to go to the store or something. And being that up until this point my father had never asked anything of me, and I am quite serious here he had never asked me to anything for him, I was obliged to say yes. So for the past 5 years I have been stewing on what I should write. And I'm finally at a point in my life where I think that I have at least one good story worthy of writing out. That was actually the driving force behind me starting this blog. I just needed to start writing and I needed a direction. So I've been avoiding the internet and diving into my favorite novels looking for inspiration and just trying to get the creative juices flowing. I'm still in the baby stages of my writing process, so I'm sure it will be some time before I get this book written up, but it's going to happen. I can just feel it. And when I'm finally ready, this book of mine will be fantastic.
And if all that wasn't enough, my husband and I have finally decided to give up on country living and have decided to move back to the city. So he's working like crazy so that we can save up to get a place, which means that I'm watching our daughter all the time, and I'm looking for affordable and conveniently located housing for us to move to. So yeah, I've got a lot on my plate right now.
But I've had time now to wrap my head around all that's going on in my life, so I will be posting regularly again. I probably won't be posting as much as I was before I decided to take my little break, but I will be posting at least once a week. The season change has my eyes a little on the sensitive side, hay fever I think is what it's called, so I won't be posting a ton of looks until it clears up. Though after we've successfully moved and I have my little clothing business up and running, I plan on posting more.
And one last little bit of randomness before I close up for the night. I'm sure many of you know that I live in Michigan in the USA, and let me tell you we have had some absolutely glorious spring weather going on these past few days. Everything is finally coming to life, and the colors are just so insanely gorgeous, and it has me in a state of euphoria. I am currently living in the house that my grandfather built (I rent it from my father) and ever since I was a little girl I have looked forward to this time of year as we have a beautiful magnolia tree right in front of our house. And as soon as winter lets up and the warm spring weather moves in this tree blooms, and the flowers tend to only linger for a few weeks. But the few weeks that it is in bloom are my favorite weeks of the year. I don't know how familiar you guys are with magnolias, but the trees flower and then shed the flowers for leaves. The interesting thing (to me anyway) is that the flowers and the leaves have the exact same texture. They are thick and waxy and rather heavy; it really looks quite exotic compared to the usual trees you see up in Michigan. And this evening I went to take the dog out and the tree was finally in bloom. Twilight had just fallen and the tree just looked so magnificent, the light pink petals contrasting perfectly with the dark blue of the sky. So I ran and grabbed my camera so that I could share my beautiful tree with you lovelies. Enjoy!


Aren't they just to die for?! I'm so happy, no beyond happy.. I'm absolutely thrilled. I know it sounds weird, but I really do look forward to this day every year, and it makes me so happy to be able to share it with you.

This post ended up being ridiculously long, I had no intention of rambling so much, I just had a lot on my mind I suppose. I hope that I didn't bore you to death chattering on the way I did, but in all fairness I did have three weeks of ideas to pour out. But I do look forward to hearing from you all again in the comments, and I've finally added my Facebook page to the side bar and I do encourage you to Like the page as I do check it more often than I do my actual blog page. But it's late and I've rambled a bit too long. Til next time!