Beauty Product Faves & Raves!

"The most beautiful makeup of a woman is passion. But cosmetics are easier to buy."

— Yves Saint-Laurent

Ever since I was a little girl I have loved makeup, hair and clothes. My mom would wake me up early for kindergarten just so that she could curl my hair that was all the way down to my waist. She also said I wanted to wear dresses to school everyday & that sometimes I wanted to wear more than one a day! Obviously the love of makeup didn't come until later, but I always loved standing in the bathroom door watching my mom put hers on everyday.

Over the years I have tried hundreds of products & wasted hundreds (or thousands) of dollars on the crappy stuff. However, along the way I have discovered my favorites. Some of these products I literally could not go a day without. Some, are life changers. So today I have decided to let you guys in on those products. I didn't include the prices because every product on this page is less than $15 & can be found at your local drugstore. Just because I love them doesn't mean you will, but you never know until you try! xo

Makeup Products:

Revlon ColorStay foundation. It feels very light, but also gives a nice, full coverage. You can buy it for normal, oily or combination skin. I apply it with a kabuki brush.

 

Covergirl Clean Pressed Powder. It's not heavy at all and covers up any shine you have after applying your foundation. I use a large powder brush instead of the puff that comes with it.  

NYC Bronzer. This is my absolute favorite bronzer ever. I have tried so many that I hated. This one is the perfect shade & looks so natural. It isn't glittery at all and you don't have to use a lot to get the glow you want.

NYC Browser. Honestly, there is probably something better on the market, but this was the first brow fill that I tried & I loved it. I have had it for years and will be running out soon, so I will probably try something new. However, for the price (less than $5) it is a great product.

Elf Eyelid Primer. This is a great primer that will keep your eyeshadow from fading throughout the day. It is also great to wear alone for a no makeup look. 

 NYC High Definition Liquid Eyeliner Pen. I don't often wear liquid liner, but when I do, this is my choice. Because it is a pen, it is much easier to use & get a precise line than with other types. Just keep some q-tips handy in case you make a mistake!

Mabelline Mega Plush Mascara. I really love this mascara. One coat will leave your lashes looking thick and gorgeous. However, since I discovered wearing 2 mascaras, designed for different results, gives you the best look, I pair it with this.....

 Loreal Telescopic. This mascara is designed to give your lashes length. The wand is very tiny which gives great precision and lets you get really close to the lash-line.

Elf Face Primer. This primer literally feels like silk going on your face. When I started using it I noticed that my makeup would last way longer and there was no shine at all at the end of the day. I highly recommend using a primer before you begin your makeup routine.

Elf Kabuki Brush. This is a game changer. If you are putting on your foundation with a sponge, or your fingers or even a different brush....STOP. Everyone needs this brush. It gives the best full coverage look that is totally blended to perfection.

Face Products:

Olay Foaming Face Wash. This is the only face wash I will use. I love it. It is so gentle, yet it will get off the toughest mascara/eyeliner combo ever!

 Garnier Ultra Lift Targeted Wrinkle Cream. This stuff is great. After reading about it on many beauty blogs I decided to give it a shot. The wrinkles are literally gone after a few days. I really should have taken before and after photos!

Mary Kay Clarifying Mask Formula 3. This will change your life!! Well, if you have clogged pores like I did. You put a thin layer on the areas of your face where you would like to shrink your pores. Then, as it begins drying you see tiny dots. The tiny dots are where the mask is going inside your pores. When you wash it off with a warm rag you will be amazed. My pores were 75% smaller than they were before. I cannot rave about this product enough! I will use it forever.

Body Products: 

Olay Ultra Moisturizing Body Wash. There really isn't much to say about this other than it smells great, and leaves my body feeling, well, ultra moisturized.

St. Ives Skin Renewing Lotion. Love! I just started using this about 6 months ago and I truly love it. It has such a great clean smell and it is the perfect consistency. My skin sometimes gets dry in the winter, but using this after every shower has eliminated that problem.

Loreal Sublime Bronze 1 Day Gel. OK, so I don't use this anymore because I now spray tan, but when I did, I loved it. It isn't a self tanner. You use it daily and it washes off when you shower. It has a great natural color and a citrus scent that I enjoyed. It is hard to find these days, but it's worth looking for.

Hair Products:

Tresemme Moisture Rich Shampoo. This shampoo smells great and really does moisturize my hair. Some shampoos make my hair feel tangled and damaged while my hair is still wet. This does not do that at all. If I had to wash my hair & not use conditioner, I believe this shampoo would do a great job. However, I would NEVER wash my hair and not condition it. :)

Aussie 3 Minute Miracle. LIFE CHANGER! This is truly amazing. I use it as my everyday conditioner now. My hair looks & feels totally different than it did before this product entered my life. It also smells amazing! The only downfall is that is comes in such a tiny bottle, but for the $2.50 price, who cares!

Not Your Mother's Clean Freak Dry Shampoo. This is great! I have tried so many different dry shampoos & this one is a definite winner.

Not Your Mother's Beach Babe Texturizing Sea Salt Spray. This is a great product to have if you have hair that gets frizzy in the summer. I used this all the time when I would come in from the pool with frizzy hair, but didn't have time to wash & flat iron it. It smells great & gives a great wavy textured look with just a few sprays!

Organix Moraccan Argan Oil. The best part about this is the smell. It's addicting. You can use this product all over your hair without it looking greasy at all. My favorite time to use it is when I have used dry shampoo on my hair, but need a sleeker look or my ends look dry. And did I mention how good it smells?

Beyond The Zone Turn Up The Heat. Another life changing product. My old college roommate always used this & then one day I tried it. Wow. If you spray this on your hair before you flat iron it you will be amazed. Seriously. Your hair will be silkier than it has ever been. Ever. To me, it doesn't have the greatest smell,  but friends who use it like how it smells. But regardless of if you think it smells good, you have to try it. HAVE TO!

I hope you enjoyed reading about all the products that I love and I hope you find some you will love as well! I'm sure I will have more amazing products to share with you all soon! :)

New Year....New Beginning

It’s almost January 1, 2013. That time of year when everyone makes their New Year’s resolutions. New year, new beginning, right?

While I do follow in the tradition, I’ve always felt more compelled to make some life changing decisions on my birthday. The day I begin a new year at a new age seems like the right time to me. However, this year’s birthday was such a horrible day, a blur, and all because of a guy. The same guy who has caused 90% of all of my bad days over the past 22 months. After all this though, can I really blame him? I let him do these things to me. I let him back in my life time and time again. I am the only one to blame.

For this reason my New Year’s resolution is to leave the past (him) in the past. I don’t like who I’ve become with him. So, I’m going to work hard to become the person I was before the person someone else made me be. 

It won’t be easy letting him go. Not easy at all. But it’s time. The hardest part is the pain and sadness. The only thing to ease that pain and sadness is the same thing that causes it…..him. I need to face life without him. Without seeing him, without hearing his voice, without reading his texts. Life completely void of him.

I know for most people, it’s hard to understand. It’s hard to see why someone would allow this to happen. They say, why is it so hard to just let go and move on? Well, this quote by Edna St. Vincent Millay says it all.

“Where you used to be there is a hole in the world, which I find myself constantly walking around in the daytime and falling in at night. I miss you like hell.”

That, is exactly why it's so hard.

PS...Hi McKenna & Logan 

How Does This Happen?

I found out recently that one of my favorite “troubled” students can’t read.  He is almost 15 years old and he can’t read. How does that happen? How has he gone 15 years of his life without anyone caring enough to teach this child to read? 

On the first day of school he came running in, literally, and punched the cement wall. My first thought was, please tell me he’s in the wrong class. He was loud, obnoxious, and a little crazy. The next day he punched the lockers and the wall until his knuckles were bleeding and he was very proud of this.

Timmy and I have grown close over the past 5 weeks. He comes to see me in the mornings and sometimes at the end of the day. He tells me how cool I am and how he will miss me if his family moves again.
  

On the first day of my computer apps class I like to have each student take a typing speed test online. Timmy typed 9 words per minute. He seemed a little embarrassed but I assured him it was fine and he would get better with practice. 

The rest of the class has been working on typing keyboarding lessons from a textbook, but Timmy wouldn’t agree to that. So, I made some modifications for his lessons and he types on a website designed to improve your typing speed. When he got to 15 words per minute he was so excited and I hyped him up telling him how awesome he did. Then one day he asked if I had any candy. When I scrounged up a peppermint he said, so if I get 20 wpm can I have it? I agreed and 30 minutes later Timmy said he got 20 wpm but he forgot to show it to me and said I should just take his word for it. I explained to him that I didn’t know him well enough to take his word for it and said “I need to see it to believe it”. This has become a common phrase in our conversations. Before the end of class Timmy earned that peppermint.

Day after day I bribe Timmy with food, candy, and gum and day after day his typing improves. This week he typed 40 wpm. In just one hour a day, for a month, he went from 9 wpm to 40 wpm. He was so proud that he printed the certificate and asked me to sign it. I almost cried. 

A couple days ago I told him Mrs. Roark and I talked about him. He said, “oh no, did she say mean things? I bet she did. She never liked me.” I said no, she told me that you were a really sweet kid and I agreed. Then he looked at me and said, well tell her I said hi.

Timmy wears only 2 or 3 different shirts and the same ripped jeans daily. Today he had on a shirt I hadn’t seen before. It had words written across it that said something about sarcasm. I asked him what it said several times before he said, Ms. Back, you know I can’t read. He laughs about everything and even in this statement he was laughing.

All I could think was, how does this happen?

Closing An Open Book

“I don’t like to share my personal life. It wouldn’t be personal if I shared it.”

George Clooney

I’ve always been an open book. I have nothing to hide so why not share my every thought and decision with those around me? While there’s nothing wrong with this, I haven’t felt quite so open lately. 

These days it seems like a good idea to keep my thoughts to myself. No one can know everything about you and so sometimes when you share certain things with others; it can come across differently than you anticipated. Whether we like it or not everyone judges us. So only expose the parts of your life that you are comfortable with being judged and keep the rest to yourself. Some things should stay between you and God!

To most people it probably doesn’t seem like a big deal, but for me it feels so different; in a good way. Like Mr. Clooney said, some things need to be kept personal. These are the things that should be kept near and dear to your heart….and your heart only. 

People often say they just want to be alone with their thoughts. I think that's a lovely idea!

He's Just Not That Into You If...

My life has forever been changed. In the past two days I have read two books. These books have offered more insight and wisdom than I ever thought I could absorb in a decade, let alone 4-5 hours. He's Just Not That Into You & It's Called a Breakup Because it's Broken.

If you are single and you have not read these books, then shame on you! Actually I completely understand. A good friend has been trying to get me to read these books for a couple of years now. I kept saying I would when I found the time. I found the time to read several other books, however, I avoided these two in particular. Why, you ask. Well for one I was scared. I knew what these books were going to say. They were going to validate all those thoughts that I kept in the back of mind. They were going to tell me that I was wasting my time on the wrong guys and that I needed to just let go and move on. Guess what....I was right.

The one thing I was wrong about though was how this realization would make me feel. I thought I would feel defeated, sad, mad and lonely. Not true. I feel empowered with this new found knowledge! I now know the signs to look for early on so that I can dump these guys before I become too attached to let go without agonizing over the decision for 6-8 months. Wow, think of all the time I'm going to save! You don't call when you say you will....I guess I wasn't on your mind. You don't do what you say you are going to....well you're an asshole. You only want to see me when you are drunk/don't want to get married/think maybe we should take a break/disappeared for days with no phone call or text/are dating other people....well I guess you just aren't that into me. And that's OK, because I'm not that into you either.

Whenever you are feeling confused or weak, just remember this. Life is hard enough as it is without choosing someone difficult to share it with.

Third time's a charm....or is it?

Maybe getting over someone you’re in love with isn’t impossible. Unless, maybe you don’t actually get over it. Maybe you just learn to live with it. - Felicity

 

Some people learn from their mistakes. Some people learn from other’s mistakes. And some people never learn from any mistakes. I am someone who learns from my mistakes after making the mistake a minimum of three times. You know the saying “third time’s a charm”; well I guess I just want to be sure. 

I read somewhere that once your heart gets broken you sort of see the cracks in everything.  At this moment that feels so real.  Recently I thought, finally…everything is finally falling perfectly into place. It was a great feeling. You know what wasn’t a great feeling? When nothing fell into place and everything fell apart.

They say hindsight is 20/20 and I usually believe that to be true. In this case it’s more like 40/40. I’m not completely blind, but I still don’t see things clearly. Hopefully the haze will soon fade.