Hello everyone! Holy crap. I suck at updating this thing. I didn't realize that it's been a whole week and a day since I lasted updated and that was an Insta-Fashion post. Ugh. I apologize! Work has been crazy and I can't seem to find the time to snap pictures for the day. Anywho. It is the last day of May 2013! Argh. Where has time gone?? As we say goodbye to one month and hello to another, I obviously had to scramble together another Shoptimist post! While I gathered all my things and placed them neatly in the photos, I definitely realized how much 'stuff' I've accumulated over the course of a month. These are all beauty related products, sadly. So please, sit back and enjoy!
Products mentioned:
Lush Dream Cream
Maybelline New York Fit Me Concealer
L'Oreal Ever Pure Sulfate-Free Shampoo for Dyed Hair
Tresemme Thermal Creations Heat Spray
John Frieda Sheer Blonde Shampoo
Boots Extracts Mango Sugar Scrub
Lush Rub Rub Rub
Milani Baked Blush
Gold Jewelry
Sinful Colors Professional
Revlon Lip Butter (063) Wild Watermelon
Masque Bar by Look Beauty (Blemish mud mask)
Ukulele
So, I finally crumbled. I spent a long time debating whether or not I should invest in Lush products. I've heard numerous vloggers, bloggers, friends and acquaintances rave about this shit. I always wanted to find out what all the hype was about but the one thing that was holding me back was definitely the prices. Lush offers creams, shampoos, conditioners, make up, face masks, even hair dye! All in which are 'fresh handmade cosmetics'. I thought about it long and hard and finally said 'fuck it'. Me and Rachel ventured out to the nearest Lush and went ape shit. We stepped in and were immediately greeted by the employees. All of them were so helpful, nice and willing to show us how each product worked. Now, this was my second time actually walking into a Lush store. The first time was in England, where I had no idea what was going on. I mistook all their bath bombs as cheese and the entire idea of skin care products confused me. So, Rachel and I listened attentively during the demo. We walked up and down the entire store, spending our sweet time examining every product. I decided on the 'Dream Cream' and 'Rub Rub Rub'. So I've been using the 'Dream Cream' ever since I bought it, which was about 2 weeks ago and this stuff is AMAZING. It absorbs into my skin nicely and I love the way it feels afterwards. I put this on my legs and on my arms and my skin has never felt as soft as it does now. I highly recommend this for anyone and everyone! I'm not a super huge fan of the smell. To me, it smells like oatmeal, to Rachel it smells like gin. At first I hated the smell but now I don't mind it. It is all natural and one of the ingredients IS oats, but nonetheless, I still love it!
So, last month I gave my review on the Revlon Photo Ready concealer. As the weeks went by, I realized how much I didn't like it. It didn't do a good job of concealing my blemishes at all. It would kind of just glide over them and I couldn't really tell the difference. So I went out to the drugstore and raided the make up section. I wanted a concealer that would conceal a lot more than just redness. I've been hearing a lot of good things about the Maybelline foundations and concealer so I got Maybelline's Fit Me concealer in 'Light'. At first I didn't know how to feel about it because unlike the Revlon Photo Ready concealer, it was a lot thicker and it wasn't in stick form, rather, it came with a lip gloss applicator looking thing (I don't know the technical term but you get the point). I came to the conclusion that I really love this concealer. It does what it's supposed to do...CONCEAL! It took away a lot of redness and blemishes, but it didn't make my face cake-y. After blending it with a concealer brush, my face looked flawless. So I highly recommend this to anyone that's looking for a cheaper concealer and one that's good at hiding pesky blemishes.
When I heard that L'Oreal was making a sulfate-free collection, I HAD to jump on that bandwagon. It's not just for regular hair, they have them for curly hair and dyed hair. So I went out to the nearest Target and they were stocked! I spent a very long time trying to decide which one I should use. They also have three scents for each collection. I have to say that the scent is my least favorite thing about this product. It smells like cleaning chemicals. I tried to pick the less harsh smelling one but all of them have this powerful oder. The shampoo itself is like any other shampoo I've used. It's very average to me, but I like the fact that it has zero sulfates in it. I feel like my hair gets a little bit moisturized when using this product. My hair doesn't feel completely like hay after using this stuff. Would I buy it again? Probably not.
I strongly believe in heat sprays. I'm willing to give any of them a try because I'm so paranoid of my curling iron burning my hair off. One of my favorite vloggers at the moment raved about this product so I had to give it a try. I've tried the L'oreal heat protectant spray, which I absolutely adore, but I wanted to try something new. This product doesn't have a harsh smell to it which is nice. It smells very fresh, like when you first come out of the shower. The spray bottle itself is very convenient. It sprays a nice, even spray and it's easy to operate. The product itself is really smoothing. After letting it dry completely, I feel like my hair is nourished and a bit softer. I recommend this to anyone that finds themselves adding any sort of heat to their hair. This spray protects up to 450 degrees which is crazy!
So I redyed my hair about a week ago. I noticed my ends were getting super dull and faded and my hair was growing out which meant my ombre was shrinking. I bleached it twice in one day (bad, I know). After bleaching it, I wanted my hair to be a shade blonde-r but my ends were completely fried. So after about two days of contemplating whether I should dye my hair again, I read up on this John Frieda blonde shampoo. It's supposed to make your hair gradually 'blonde-r'. I don't know if I believe that, but like a chump I tried it anyway. It's a pleasant smelling shampoo that I only apply to my ends. In the shower, the tips of my hair does seem to get lighter. I don't know if it's my hopeful attitude that this stuff is actually working or if it's actually doing anything to my hair but I would like to believe that I didn't just waste 7 dollars. I leave it on for about 5 minutes because I really want my hair to absorb as much of the product as possible. Overall, I don't really notice THAT much of a change in hair color. It's not going to be dramatic, rather, gradual. I'm going to continue using this product and hopefully something happens!
The next product, I bought on a whim. A complete whim. I was in Target and looking at all of their body scrubs and body care products when I noticed this baby. I am a mango fanatic! I love anything mango scented and mango flavored. So when I opened this, I was immediately hit with a strong mango scent. I seriously wanted to eat this stuff. I was so excited about trying out this new product and I've never used a sugar scrub before so I didn't really know how my skin would take it. After the first shower, I was in utter disappointment. I seriously just wasted 10 bucks...all because it smelled like a mango tree. I was douped. This product actually feels nice when applying it in the shower. I like the feeling of scrubs on my body but when I tried to wash it off, it was gross. I felt like I still had the stuff on me, so I scrubbed and scrubbed and scrubbed. I felt like there was this hard wax cover over my body. It was sticky and hard and I didn't like it one bit. It was such a disappointment. Now, of course I'm going to use this product till the very end but overall, I would give this product two thumbs down.
Another Lush product! Rub Rub Rub is a salt scrub for the body. I freaken LOVE this stuff! It smells like the ocean and it feels amazing on my skin. At first, I was super hesitant about it because of the color but after lathering it on your skin, the product actually leaves a sud-y feel. It's gets rid of the dead skin that you may carry. I use this product twice a week and I put on the 'Dream Cream' right after and my skin is amazingly soft. I love this stuff and I highly recommend this to anyone who likes salt scrubs. It's around 26 bucks but this stuff will last! You won't use it as often as you think and you don't need that much to begin with. LOVE.
So I was in search of a really nice blush. I've never really used blush because I didn't really think I needed it and I stuck with bronzer if I felt like my skin needed some warmth. So I went to Target and noticed this Milani blush. It was so beautiful. I don't know anything about shades or what's right for what skin tone but I knew that I wanted to try this. It is the perfect shade of rosey pink but still has really nice gold undertones to it. So I bought it and let me say, I'm extremely pleased with it. I don't feel like it's overpowering or too much. I think it's the subtle pop of color that my face so desperately needed. So I highly recommend this for anyone who wants a subtle blush, nothing crazy. The trick with blush is to BLEND.
GOLD JEWELRY! My new fashion obsession at the moment is gold jewelry. I cannot get enough. I never really dug gold in general but I've been in love with pairing gold with a lot of my red or black clothes. I feel like it's nice and it's a really nice, classy touch to my outfits. I bought these bangles at Forever 21.
I'm a sucker for nail polish. I have a ridiculous collection that is growing in my closest. I've got all the colors of the rainbow. I seriously need help. When I went to Target recently, I looked at all of their polishes. They had really nice Essie colors to really solid China Glaze. I came to realize that all of these companies are so expensive. Essie is 8 bucks a bottle which is a bit ridiculous if you ask me. Then I noticed at the very bottom of the shelves these beauties. Sinful Colors Professional. I also noticed they were 2 bucks!!! I was so on board. I have to say, these polishes are just as good as the higher end brands. There are an assortment of colors to choose from, the actual polish is super nice and lasts and did I mention they are two freaken bucks?
So, I've kind of become obsessed with lip products these past few months. I've accumulated so many different shades of reds, pinks and corals. It's ridiculous. I heard about Revlon lip butters for a while now and they were getting a lot of rave so I had to try it! I was trying to look for a reddish color but this was the closest I could find. At first, I hated this product but I find that over the course of a month, I've learned to really love this product. When I first tried it, I hated that it wasn't super pigmented. I also hated that it wasn't the red I thought I was buying. After reusing it, I realized that I was definitely spoiled whilst using the Kate Moss lipsticks because the difference between this product and that is night and day. This product completely moisturizes your lips without being really sticky. I've grown to love this color because after a while of wearing it, the color fades but not in a bad way, I'm left with an almost rosey pink lip color which I kind of adore. It's amazing. I recommend this to anyone who is looking for a lip product with very subtle color and moisture.
Another product I wanted to give a go was face masks. I've been using the same ol' face mask for a while now and I wanted to give something else a try. While I was at Target, I found this beauty. They had three different types of face masks but I needed one that could heal blemishes. I went home that night and gave it a try. This clay mask was definitely interesting. I don't regularly use clay masks so I was surprised at how thick and hard it was. I put it all over my face and waited 20 minutes for it to harden. After washing it off completely, I felt like my skin was refreshed. It felt so clean and soft and a lot of the redness of my blemishes went down. It didn't take away my blemishes completely but it definitely tamed them and reduced redness. I recommend this for anyone who is looking for a mask that helps reduce the appearances of blemishes or redness.
Lastly, something non-make up/beauty related. This is Sean's ukulele that he let me borrow. I got it last week and I'm OBSESSED with it! I've been watching youtube videos on tutorials and looking up chords and trying to learn this all on my own. I used to play guitar and I even took a guitar class in high school (hi Roberto) so I'm trying to transition into ukulele playing. It's a fairly easy instrument so the chords aren't that hard to play but it's so hard tuning this dang thing because the strings are so sensitive. Maybe one day you guys can hear me play but for now, I need to practice!
Ciao Bella!























