Lime Crime Wicked Review

I'm on the Wicked bandwagon guys! I drank the kool-aid and had to give it a go. I've never bought Lime Crime products before but was slowly falling in love with the gorgeous matte burgundy shade I'd been seeing on several beauty blogs and Youtube videos. A little digging and it turned out they were all Lime Crime's Matte Velvetines in Wicked.  

The normal retail price is $20 but I actually ended up buying it off of the Urban Outfitter website during a sale with 20% off which I was pretty pleased with. It has been sold out on the LC website for weeks so I was glad to be able to buy it elsewhere as I was hoping to try it out for holiday parties. 

When it finally came, the color was everything I'd hoped for. It's a gorgeous deep burgundy red that's very wearable and not TOO dark to come off as overly vampy. Pair it with an understated eye and your look is instantly glamified. 

The website describes it as being a matte burgundy-red and claims to be a "ground-breaking formula that goes on liquid and dries completely matte. Claims to be touch-proof, transfer-proof, long-wearing and utterly addictive."

The Pros: 

Once again, the color. It's a perfect fall/winter shade. Wear it every day with a simple eye look or glam it up by pairing it with a smoked out eye. 

It sets pretty quickly from liquid to matte and isn't too drying for your lips. 

Paired with a lip liner, is pretty long-lasting. 

The Cons: 

It's really not THAT long-wearing, especially if any liquid touches your lips after it's on. I played around with it a bit and had some trouble keeping it on my lips especially near the inner center where I got the dramatic color/no color when it rubbed off a bit between my lips. I fixed that by wearing it over a lip liner and once completely dried, wouldn't transfer, but if I took even a sip of water it would start moving around and transferring to the bottle or anything my lips touched. What worked best for me was applying it over lip liner and blotting it a tad with some tissue to make sure any excess formula was removed.  

The feeling on the lips isn't the greatest, it isn't especially drying but sort of feels like it is. It gives the grainy-don't try to move much feeling.

(wore this to Thanksgiving dinner, showing off the eye look I went with too!)

Overall I do really love the color and that alone is enough for me to continue wearing it, but it's a pretty difficult formula to get the hang of and feel comfortable in. I think if I were to wear it on a regular basis I'd get used to it, but I know I'd always be concerned about it transferring or smudging off my lips if I made any slip ups. 

I'd say comparing it to some other long-wearing formulas I've tried, I like the Make Up For Ever Aqua Rouge stains (which I made matte by blotting) more for staying power but would choose Lime Crime over the Sephora Luster Matte Long-Wear Lip Colors as it's got a better applicator making it less messy and easier to control. 

Final thoughts, is it worth buying?

Yes-ish. The color is to die for, but the Sephora lip colors mentioned above would definitely be a comparable less costly dupe if you don't mind working with the clunky applicator.

And our lovely little family all ready for Thanksgiving dinner! 

Happy Holidays everyone!!!

XOXOXO

Naked3 Swatches & Tutorial

Dun dun duuuuuuuun!

I'm back! And I'm the proud owner of the gorgeous, perfect Urban Decay Naked 3 palette. When I saw the teaser images for this palette, my little heart skipped a beat... 

I'm happy to say I'm absolutely in love with every single shade in the Naked 3 palette. Where the Naked palette was aimed at golds and warm neutrals, and Naked 2 was silvers and cool neutrals, the Naked 3 is all about rose gold! Every shade has a slight pink or mauve undertone to them, and I love the way it works with my skin tone. 

Here are the swatches! I took the descriptions from Urban Decay's site.

Strange: Pale, neutral pink matte-satin

Dust: Pale metallic pink shimmer w/ iridescent micro-glitter

Burnout: Light pinky-peach satin

Limit: Light dusty rose matte

Buzz: Metallic rose shimmer w/ silver micro-glitter

Trick: Light metallic pinky-copper shimmer w/ tonal micro-sparkle

Nooner: Medium pink-brown matte

Liar: Medium metallic mauve shimmer

Factory: Pinky-brown satin

Mugshot: Metallic taupe shimmer w/ slight pink shift

Darkside: Deep taupe-mauve satin

Blackheart: Smoky black matte w/ rosy red micro-sparkle

Like I said, I'm in love with every single color. They're all amazing quality, as is expected with Urban Decay shadows, and all of them are pretty accurate to their descriptions. Blackheart is a little misleading just because if apply the color normally, you really won't catch any of the red glitter in your look. It is pretty much invisible, even in a swatch, but may possibly stick out more if you use some kind of mixing medium or something like that. It's still a beautiful color, just don't expect to notice the glitter when your actually wearing it. 

I have been using this palette for the last few weeks as I've had all my other makeup boxed up for our move. We just bought a house (pictures to come eventually!) and I've had very little time for makeup, but have used this palette for my daily eye looks. It's very versatile and I've come up with a ton of beautiful new looks. I did a tutorial of one of my favorites!

Woo for silly face :)

Until next time!

XOXOXO

Decorating My Wedding

 

 

 

Surprise surprise, I'm going with a retro look for my wedding. I'm trying to make sure I get the vintage pieces I like without going over the top or overkilling the theme. I want everything to be simple and beautiful, elegant but still casual enough for everyone to have a great time.

 

 

My lovely ladies :) I wasn't very interested in making my girls wear the same dresses. All I really care about is that the dresses are red, short, and that the girls feel beautiful in them! I decided to go with Alfred Sung dresses, so my bridesmaids could choose the style of dress they're most comfy in while staying the same color and relatively same look. Above are the styles they chose. My maid of honor to the far left, then my sisters and Steve's sisters to the right. Very cute if I say so myself! Can't wait to see it all in person!!

 

They will all be in black shoes with subtle jewelry. Not sure what I want to do for them for flowers yet... more to come on that!

 

 

I've always said I wanted "Reservoir Dogs" for the guys in my wedding and thankfully Steve was on board! All the guys will be wearing plain black suits with thin black ties. Steve will get a red boutonniere and the rest of the guys will get white.

 

 

Since I decided to go with paper flowers, I've been skimming through Pinterest for ideas on what to do for centerpieces. I originally planned to do real flowers, under water in vases with candles floating on top. Once I said farewell to doing real flowers, I thought I could do little vases full of paper flowers, but that sounded a little too plain. Then I found the above arrangement and fell in love! Especially because it's using the style of flowers I already figured I'd go with :) I want to do little flower wreaths around a vase and may or may not put a candle inside... we'll see, they'd have to be taller vases to make sure nothing starts on fire... Bleh, so much to consider!

 

These are the colors/styles I'll be using.

 

I'm still not 100% set up on what I want to do with my hair, but I really do like the above picture. I like that it's simple, classic and could be taken down if I felt like it later in to the night. I'm doing a few trials to see if I'd be able to pull it off myself, otherwise I'll look in to tracking down a stylist for the big day.

 

And lastly, make up. Nothing too surprising there, I want to go with a subtle, simple wing liner look with bold red lips. Subtle blush and maybe a little contouring for the pictures.

 

That's what I have so far! For all the stress planning a wedding causes, the styling of it really is the fun part. I want the look to be classic, creative and unique, without breaking the bank!!!

 

If anyone has any decorating tricks, tips or DIY's, please comment below! I'm very open to suggestions and will appreciate anything ideas :)

 

XOXOXO

 

Jessica Inspired True Blood Makeup Tutorial

As promised, my 2nd post of the night is to showcase my True Blood Jessica inspired look! I've always loved Jessica's makeup on the show. It's simple, clean but very eye catching. The teeth for this look were ridiculous! I couldn't get them to stay in so I apologize for the goofy pictures :D

Enjoy!

Joan Mad Men Season 5 Inspired Makeup Tutorial

Woah! Sorry for the long hiatus! I've been a super slacker with updates, so I'll catch up with 2 tonight!

I decided to do a revamp of my Mad Men Joan makeup tutorial. I did one last year when I was first getting in to doing makeup tutorials. I really thought I could do one with a lot better quality now than I had then, AND with season 5 in full swing, I wanted to give my take on how Joan's makeup has evolved since my last video.

Enjoy!

Effie Trinket Hunger Games Inspired Makeup Tutorial

Here's my Hunger Games Effie Trinket inspired makeup tutorial! I bought this crazy dress the other day and once I put it on, I knew I had to do a Hunger Games look with it. It was waaaay too gaudy to do nothing with ;)

Enjoy!

Look of the Day!

So it's my day off work and I basically spent it watching movies and getting cute! Hurray for free days!!!

I look like a school teacher with the glasses on :D

Kimbra Inspired Makeup Tutorial

So I'm a new fan to Kimbra, and after watching the music video for Settle Down, I fell in looove with the makeup! It's simple, subtle, but really pretty. I loved the gold/peach tones to the eyes, and it was a perfect excuse to break out 2 of my favorite Urban Decay shadows, X and Lounge.

Enjoy!!