Hey everyone! Today on the blog I want to discuss some of my absolute favorite products at the moment. I was going to do my favorite makeup products for the entire face, but decided that would be a liiitttle long. So, we're going to focus on the eyes today. Because my last post was so long, I'm not going to ramble. Let's just get right into it.
First up, is one of my absolute obsessions at the moment. The Lavish Palette by Anastasia Beverly Hills. If you are really into makeup, you probably already know all about this. But for those of you who are not familiar, let me introduce you to this bad boy right here. I first saw the advertising for this palette all over Instagram back in August. I was immediately taken by it and knew it had to be mine. I finally got my little hands on it back in October, (it took so long because there is not a stand alone Sephora anywhere near me), and I could not be happier.
Please excuse how dirty it is. I have used this palette A LOT since I got it. And how could I not? Look at those colors! All the colors are really warm and absolutely beautiful. For me, my favorite feature is my eyes. Because I have blue eyes, I always gravitate to the more orange-y colors to really make the blue pop. However, these colors would look stunning on every eye color! Let's take a closer look...
I guess I wasn't thinking when I was taking pictures earlier.... How do I take all these pictures of this palette and forget to swatch the colors? I'm still new at this whole blogging thing. Again, bare with me. Anyway, I'll go from left to right and give you a brief description of the colors.
Cream is a light, matte shadow. It has more of a yellow undertone. It works perfectly as a base for your other colors, or as a highlight in the inner corner of your eye or under your brow. Very good color payoff.
Antique is a dusty gray satin finish shadow. I love this color, however, the color payoff from this shade is terrible. Maybe it's just the brush I'm using, but I have to constantly dip back into the color and pack it on for what seems like forever. Again, I love this shade. The color payoff just isn't there.
Rum Cake is a light brown satin shadow. This shade is beautiful, and works great as an all over shade. The color payoff is amazing.
Moss is a light green satin shadow. This is a nice pop of color for the palette and the color payoff is great.
Truffle is a dark brown satin shadow. This color could lean more towards a shimmer, but not quite. I love this color to warm up the crease or outer corner of the eye. And the color payoff is really good.
Ballet is a light pink shadow with subtle silver micro glitter in it. It comes off more as a matte shade for me though. Just like Cream, I love to use this shade as a highlight. It's nice to have the option between a pink highlighter shade and one that leans more yellow. And the color payoff is great.
Orange Soda is a light orange matte shadow. I absolutely love this color. This and Sienna are my two favorites in this palette. This is the perfect transition shade in your crease, and the color payoff is really great.
Sienna is a burnt orange matte shadow. This is the color that drew me to this palette. It is the perfect crease color. It really warms up your look. It is super blend-able and it can be as light or as dark as you want it to be. The color payoff on this is fantastic.
Pink Sapphire is a mid-tone pink shimmer shadow. This is not as shimmery as the Urban Decay shadows though. I really love this shade, but it is one of those you have to be careful with. It can make you look really sleepy and/or washed out. I always make sure I have a good highlighting concealer under my eyes when I wear this one. Again, color payoff is great.
Black Diamond is a black shimmer shadow. Again, not as shimmery as the Urban Decay shadows. Also, this isn't a true, true black. It comes off as more of a charcoal color. Super blend-able, and gives a nice shimmer to your look. Color payoff is good.
Overall, I give this palette a huge thumbs up. If you do not own this already, drop what you're doing and run out and get it. This is only sold on the Anastasia Beverly Hills website: www.anastasia.net, or at a stand alone Sephora (not the ones inside JCPenney).
Next up is my absolute favorite liquid liner - L'Oreal Carbon Black Lineur Intense - Felt Tip. This stuff is amazing. It does have a felt tip, which is my preference. I know a lot of people prefer the brush tip applicator, but I really like the felt tip. I feel like I have more control over what I'm doing. If you're a beginner with liquid liner, I would definitely suggest starting out with a felt tip. I've tried multiple brush tip liquid liners, but I always come back to this one. It is the blackest of black. It stays on allllllll day, and doesn't break up/wear off at all. If you're in the market for a liquid liner, I would suggest trying this one. You can find this at every drugstore, Walmart, Kmart, Target and Ulta.
This is what I call a Holy Grail product. This is literally the ONLY mascara I own. This is the Jordana Best Lash Extreme Volumizing Mascara. I cannot tell you how many different mascaras I've tried over the years (a whole freakin' lot), and this is the best one I have ever used. It is super black, and has a very large straight brush. The formula of this mascara is not too thin, not too thick and doesn't clump up your lashes at all. I put on two coats of this and my lashes are as long and thick as they've ever been. But the best part - it's only $2.99 at Walgreen's. Yes, it's that cheap. Again, drop what you're doing and RUN to get this product. You can only find it at Walgreen's though. FYI - It's usually in a teeny tiny display on a corner of the beauty counter. I'm only telling you because it took me 20 minutes to find it in there when I first went looking for it, haha.
Last up is another Anastasia Beverly Hills product - the Brow Wiz. This is a brow pencil, with a spoolie brush. Everything you need all in one little package. It may not look like much, but this is the absolute best brow product out there. I have tried other brow pencils and powders, but nothing has compared to this. I have seen/heard so many people rave about this product, but it took me forever to just bite the bullet and get it. I am sooooooo glad I did. The pencil twists up and down, and is super soft. It gives you really fine lines so your brows don't look super drawn on. And the spoolie on the other end is perfect for combing your brows after you're done filling them in. It's nice to not have to reach for another tool, it's all right there. These come in all kinds of colors. The one I use is Medium Ash. Filling in your eyebrows really does complete your look. So, if you've been looking for a brow product, look no further. You can find these at Ulta, Sephora and the Anastasia Beverly Hills website - www.anastasia.net.
The following pictures show all the above mentioned products!
So those are my favorite makeup products for the eyes. I'm sorry for not getting swatches of the Lavish Palette for you guys. If you would like to see swatches of all the colors, or if you have any questions, just let me know in the comments, or on my Facebook page
(Beautymark). Hope you all have an amazing Thanksgiving week! I will be posting again later this week, so check back soon!!
XOXO - Tabitha
Hey, everyone! Today's post is all about how I created my #manimonday nails I posted to the BeautyMark Facebook page last night. I'll take you through all the tools, and polishes used. Then I'll get into how I created this super cute manicure. Just a warning, this post is pretty long and picture heavy. But after reading this, you should be able to recreate this exact same look for yourself! Enjoy!
At first glance, it looks like this mani is super complicated and takes forever to do. Had my boyfriend and I not spent so long playing with my camera and trying to get all the shots I wanted, this manicure would've taken me about 30-45 minutes to do. Not bad at all! Just put on one of your favorite shows, and paint away. Well... that's what I do, haha.
Let's get started! First, I found my inspiration picture. I follow SO MANY nail artists on Instagram and see things I would love to recreate all the time. If I see one I really like, I'll take a screenshot of it and save it for later when I'm looking for ideas. This is my inspiration:
Once I figured out what I wanted to do, I went through my polishes and picked out the ones I wanted to use. I chose all the ones below. From left to right: OPI - Bring On The Bling, OPI - Pink Friday, OPI - Did It On 'Em, China Glaze - Son of a Peach, Essie - Play Date and Essie - Mint Candy Apple. The glitter, OPI - Bring On the Bling is seriously one of my favorite polishes.... clearly well loved.
Then I got all of my "tools" and other things I needed to complete this look. Nail polish remover - I always use a strengthening polish remover because of how much I do my nails. A sticky base coat - I use Orly - Bonder basecoat. You don't have to use a basecoat, but I really like to. I find that it prolongs the life of my manicure. This one is super sticky, and dries super fast. Put one quick coat of this on, and you're immediately ready to put your color on after that. I also grabbed some cotton balls to take off the polish I had on my nails previously. Any small angled brush - this one is from Maybelline, and you can get it at any drugstore for super cheap. I use this to clean up around my nails after I put my color on, but before my top coat. And last, but not least, I grabbed a top coat. This top coat, Seche Vite, is my holy grail product when doing my nails. This stuff is AMAZING. Super easy to work with, and dries within 5 minutes. No joke. I usually give mine 10 minutes to dry once I'm done though, just to be on the safe side. Once this stuff dries, it won't freakin' budge. Not only does it dry quickly, it also makes your nails super shiny. Best. Stuff. Ever.
Then I needed my dotting tools. I got these off Amazon. I'll post a link for them at the end of my blog. They're really cheap, but are really good quality. I think I got these for about $3-4! Not sure why it took me so long to get them...
There are 5 tools, with all different sized balls at the end for creating any kind of nail art you can imagine. And they're really cute!
Okay, onto the "how-to" part of this tutorial! First, I painted a coat of the Orly basecoat onto my nails. (I did not leave any dry-room in between this step and the next).
Next I took the light pink color - OPI - Pink Friday, and painted the thumb and pinky nails on each hand. Pretty simple, although I forgot to take pictures of this step.
Another thing I forgot to take a picture of was the nude color I used on my index and middle fingers. Here's a picture of it: OPI - Mimosas for Mr. and Mrs. Just your basic, sheer nude color.
Like I said above, I used this nude color to paint my index and middle fingers. Again, I didn't take a picture of my nails painted at this point. Horrible blogger...I know.
Next, I painted the glitter polish onto the ring finger of each hand.
Here's where the fun part begins! I chose the dotting tool I wanted to use. I picked one with a smaller tip because my nails are small. If you do not have dotting tools, try a bobby pin or the tip of a number 2 pencil - you can get creative with this. I took the dotting tool of my choice and coated the tip with the glitter polish, and made a few dots on each index and middle finger like so:
Next, I chose which color polish I wanted to make my first flowers out of. I picked the purple, Essie - Play Date. I took the same dotting tool (you can use a bigger one if you prefer) that I used to make my glitter dots, and I made four dots around the circles of glitter. After I felt like I had enough purple flowers on each hand, I chose the next color and did the same thing. And so on and so on. The next few pictures should give you a good visual of what to do.
Paint the polish onto the dotting tool.
I made four purple dots around the glitter dots.
I created more flowers by following the step above, but with the other colors of polish I picked out. I went ahead and made my blue flowers and now I'm onto my orange ones!
After I finished making all the flowers I wanted, I had some large open spaces on the rest of my nail that needed something. I decided to place other random dots in the spaces of my nails that looked a little bare. Just for more color.
Once I was done making all my flowers and random dots, I needed to clean up around the edges of my nails. I usually fill up the cap of the bottle of nail polish remover with the acetone. You don't need much. Just enough to dip your brush into.
I then take my small angled brush and run it along the edges of my nail bed, and along my cuticles. I have a piece of paper underneath my nails to wipe the brush off onto to get the brush clean. That way my brush is clean for every swipe around my nail beds.
Finally, the last step of this process is the top coat. When using Seche Vite, you WANT to put this top coat on while your nails are wet. You do not need to let your nails dry for a while before adding the Seche Vite. The formula of this top coat works best over wet polish. Even when doing nail art like this.
Another tip: With this top coat, you want to have a thick bead of it when first applying, as shown in my picture below. Start at the middle/back of your nail and swipe the Seche Vite towards the front. That will give you a nice, thick and even coverage. Then, of course, swipe the rest on the sides of your nails too.
See how nice and shiny they look?
And now for the finished product! Give your nails about 10 minutes to dry fully. You should be good after 5 minutes, but again, I always give them 10 to be on the safe side. After those 10 minutes, you can do laundry, make dinner, get a shower, go to the bathroom....seriously whatever you want. The Seche Vite top coat is freakin' insane...in the best way possible. Now all you have to do is kick back, and admire your work of art. See, wasn't so hard now was it?
I hope you all enjoyed this blog post. It is pretty long and picture heavy, but I wanted you all to have step by step instructions with tons of visuals. I know that's how I like tutorials to be. If you liked this post, leave me a comment below!
XOXO - Tabitha
P.S. Here's a link to where you can purchase the same dotting tools I have!
http://www.amazon.com/Winstonias-Double-Marbling-Dotting-Different/dp/B008NCOVTS/ref=sr_1_1?s=beauty&ie=UTF8&qid=1384912141&sr=1-1&keywords=winstonia+dotting+tools
Hey everyone! Welcome to BeautyMark. My name is Tabitha and this is my very first beauty blog. To say I am
excited about this new venture would be an understatement. I am freakin' ecstatic! This blog is about all things beauty related with some home decor posts thrown in there too...just to shake things up.
Starting this blog, along with a YouTube channel, has been a long time dream of mine. I've followed beauty blogs and YouTube beauty gurus for a quite a while and now I want to throw some of my thoughts and ideas into the mix. Every time I imagined trying this whole thing out, I would think "Ehh, I don't know. People will probably think this is really stupid, and won't care anything about my thoughts about makeup and hair and nails." Well, I kept thinking about it, and thinking about it and finally I talked to my boyfriend. His response was an immediate: "Yes! You should definitely do it!." Then I talked to family members about it, and all of them thought it was a great idea too! The supportive response I got from every single person I talked to was completely overwhelming...in the best way possible. Thank you all so much for encouraging this dream of mine.
I know, enough with the sweet stuff, right? Anyway, this blog will be full of reviews, and tutorials on how I do my makeup, hair and nails. Also, my boyfriend and I just recently bought a house, so I want to throw in some "before and afters," and "how-to's," and let you in on the process of making our house a home. I hope you enjoy! And if you have any tutorial requests, let me know in the comments below, and I will try to incorporate some of your ideas into my blog too!
XOXO - Tabitha
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