Revlon PhotoReady Vs. Mac Studio Fluid Fix

Like I promised, today I will be reviewing these two foundations for all you wonderful bloggers. I have always found it hard for me to find a foundation that truly matched my complexion. I was always suggested one that was too light or at times even too dark. So I ended up with either looking like a Chinese porcelain doll or a girl who went for a mud bath and left the residue on her face. Heh...-___-

Being that I had so much trouble in the past with foundation, I rarely wore it or thought about buying it until I really started getting into cosmetics and watching all these Guru's on YouTube. That's when I brought myself to the Mac store and asked one of the artists to match my skin up. *Plays the Holy Grail Music* She found my match in the Mac Studio Fluid Fix in NC25. The foundation is 26 USD, which to me is pretty reasonable for an awesome quality foundation. Here is a swatch of it below. It looks a bit light, but it blends unbelievably on my face and provides great coverage.

MAC STUDIO FIX FLUID NC25

What do I love about the Studio Fix? Well, there is SPF in it. It doesn't have some weird perfume scent, to me it just smells like Lubriderm lotion. Plus I haven't broken out using this foundation at all. I think it also takes well with photos too. I don't look ghastly white with the flash photography. The only thing that I would say is that it can sometimes look cakey if you don't blend it in well enough. When I feel it looks like that I use my Evian facial spray (my water in an aerosol can lol) and mist it on my face. Usually that fixes it.

REVLON PHOTO READY FOUNDATION 005 MEDIUM BEIGE
When Revlon came out with their Photo Ready foundation, I knew I had to get it and try it. Partly cause I'm too cheap right now to shell out the $40.00 for the MUFE high def foundation. I figured I try the cheaper alternative too. The Revlon Photo Ready is priced between 13-15 USD depending on where you purchase it. I originally picked out the Photo Ready in 004 Nude because I read on Makeup Alley that it was a match for people who use the Mac NC25 Studio Fix. I dunno why it didn't work out for me, but I felt the Nude was a bit light for me. Maybe it's the undertone of my skin, but it didn't match so I decided to get it in the next level up in 005 Medium Beige.

It looks darker than the Mac foundation but when I blend it out, it turns out lighter? If you ladies do try this foundation, I must stress, MOISTURIZE! If you don't this foundation will emphasize your dry patches and areas. If you don't moisturize forget it, you will hate this foundation. Just saying lol. And of course how could I forget, the Edward Cullen Sparkles? They're there. They aren't so noticeable on my face, but it's very shimmery on my arm/hand when I swatch it. I don't have a problem with it in photographs either. If you feel that it does look a bit shimmery to you, you can negate it with a matte translucent powder. It helps a lot!  This foundation doesn't have as much coverage as the Studio Fix, but you to have the ability to layer. It also has SPF as well and there is really isn't any scent at all which is a big plus for me. The pump is fantastic, I can dispense as little or as much as I want.  All in all, it's pretty nice for a drugstore foundation if you find your right shade. Revlon did a big mistake by not having a wide spectrum of colors for people to choose from.

Here is the comparison of the two. Sorry about the blur

Of the two blended

If you enlarge the picture with the foundation blended you will see the "sparkling diamonds."

Here are two pictures of me wearing the Revlon. See, no Edward Cullen pastiness in site!

My Sexy Pose lol. Of course I'm sporting the Lizzy Loves Darcy Necklace from Steph

Zoolander anyone? Here are the matching earrings too ^^

Here are two pictures of me wearing the MAC Studio Fix

Hope you guys enjoyed, if you tried any of the foundations, let me know what you think of them ^^ I would love to hear your opinion!

Quick Update

Hey all!

Thank you all my followers (old and new) who have entered my giveaway and also for spreading the word and love. I am so appreciative of all the love. =)

Also I just wanted to let you know that I will be doing a full review on the Revlon PhotoReady foundation along with a comparison with my Mac Fluid Fix. I know that tons of Gurus/bloggers have done this review but I always like to give my opinion on the piece as well ^^.

I hope everyone is well and that you are keeping dry, especially if you live on the East Coast, it's been raining cats and dogs!

Till tomorrow!

Giveaway Time!

Ok after procrastinating with this giveaway for like three days, it's finally time for me to post it. =) All the products in my giveaway are new and have never been opened.  Also in the prizes I included mini journals. I am an avid journal carrier, whether it's for notes, my thoughts, or even songs I want. I figured maybe you girls would like a pocket sized book to jot down all the makeup you want! There will be three winners for this giveaway and I think this is a pretty simple contest ^^.

So the deets:
1) You need to be my follower. If you want to enter, just follow me! ^___^
2) Tell me what is your favorite childhood memory. Though the winners will be randomly generated, I figured this would be more interesting to read instead of "enter me"
3) You will have additional entries if you post my giveaway on your blog/twitter/facebook. If you repost, please comment with the link under this entry as well.
4) This is open internationally
5) The contest will end March 19, 2010

Now that we got all that out of the way, I guess you guys want to know what the prizes are huh?

First prize is all this stuffz!

So if you win first prize you will receive

1-A Maybelline Eyestudio Duo in Carbon Frost (After Megan gave this to me I had to share it's awesomeness!)

2- NYX Lipstick in Clio

3- Coastal Scents lipgloss in Strut on Nude

4- Urban Decay Ultraglide Lipgloss in Deep

5-NYX Ultimate Pearl Shadow in Gold Pearl

6-Urban Decay Baked Body Glow (A Self Tanner in a stick lol)

7- A Red Writersblok lined journal

Second Place will receive:

1) Urban Decay Ultraglide Lipgloss in Video

2) Lorac Eyeshadow in Beige

3) Rimmel Volume Booster Lipgloss in Seduce

4) Revlon Matte Eyeshadow in Venetian Blue

5) ELF Complexion Perfection Compact

6) A Green Writersblok lined journal

Third Prize contains:

1)The Body Shop Creme Blush in Sunset Pink

2) ELF Super Glossy Lipshine in Goddess

3) Wet n'Wild Shimmer Dust in Golden Poppy

4) Rimmel Sweet Jelly Lipgloss in Sweetie

5) NYX Eyeshadow in Fantasy

6) A Black Writersblok lined Journal

That's it! Please spread the word on this giveaway and good luck to all of you! If you have any questions please email me or twitter me and I will happily answer them for you! Take care everyone <3

Utada Hikaru "In The Flesh" @ The Fillmore Irving Plaza (Non Makeup)

So, I am exhausted still from the concert experience I had last night. I had the most amazing time seeing one of my favorite singers live for the first time. I have been a fan of Utada Hikaru (or Hikaru Utada, if you prefer, Utada is her last name) since about 2000. I never thought that I would see her live ever. Even though she was born here, she's a major superstar in Japan, like crazy famous in Japan. My awesome friend, Kristine, told me that she was on tour for her latest album and asked me if I wanted to see her. Of course my answer was "Hell f***in' yeah!" "In the Flesh" was a small tour for Hikki, she only chose a few selected cities to play for in the States. Her setlist included most of her songs off her new English album "This is The One" and of course some of her most beloved Japanese songs. Yay for both!

Ok let me start from the beginning of my day. I woke up at 6:30AM to prepare myself to get to the city at 9:30AM to stand in line because this was a general admission concert. Meaning no assigned seats, meaning if you got there late you had a pretty crappy spot. I made my way to the city, and got pushed by the rush hour straphangers as they rushed to their jobs with their oversized bags and briefcases. So I got to the Fillmore Irving Plaza at exactly 9:30 and there were about thirty to forty people already ahead of me! o_O We found out that they were waiting in line since 2AM to be in the front! It was below twenty degrees that night! 

So I waited about half an hour before my friends arrived. And as you can tell from the picture, there was no sun on our block. That's when my toes began to freeze and my hands as well. I had my Uggs on too and those usually keep my feet nice and toasty, but I guess since I wasn't doing much moving my blood wasn't pumping.  I checked my phone for the temperature and it was only 32 degrees with some crazy ass wind! After about shivering in the cold for three hours, my friend had to pick up her tailored jeans from this awesome store called Uniqlo so I went with her while we left her my friend/her boyfriend Chris to stand in line with us lol. (Sorry Chris!) When we came back, the sun finally started to show itself on our side of the sidewalk. (Hooray!) We actually started to get hungry and lucked out at the fact that there was a Chinese restaurant right on the corner. So we got our food and enjoyed the warm sun for about two hours before it drifted its nice warm butt behind a building. Here are some shots (Thanks Chris!)

Here is Kristine enjoying her Chinese and tweeting about the craziness

I forgot what we were laughing about here but it's an awesome shot!

I'm probably staring at the weird fans

Then it was back to the freezing. =( Then I looked behind me to find some interesting characters. Like this man: 

Yes ladies and gents, he was wearing this bird hat. It was weird actually, a lot of people wore a bunch of Cosplay gear, aka Full Metal Alchemist goggles, cat hats, panda hats. I thought maybe I was at the wrong place and at the anime convention! The crowd was definitely a bit odd for me. Also a tad bit annoying. o_____O;; Ok enough talking, a brief pic break!

Here is a pic of my two friends who stuck it out with me (Yay Chris and Kristine!) 

Here is Chris and I. I was on the phone with my fiance telling him about the crazy people and also telling him how cold I was.

The line snaked all the way around the block, it was insane! I don't know what's crazier the Cosplay fans or the fact that I stayed 9 hours in below freezing weather on line to see her. Around 3:30 Chris' brother came (lucky guy had to work in the morning so he didn't have to wait all that time! =P) What was nice about the venue was that they gave hot chocolate to about the first seventy people because it was so cold.  Sadly I missed out on the hot chocolate because I went on a coffee run. How ironic, I know lol.

So let's fast forward to about 6:30PM, all the excited people are no longer excited, they are all irritable and cold. I was so cold that I began to shake and shiver uncontrollably. 

I'm smiling, but all i'm thinking is "OMFG I need to get inside before I freeze to death" lol. Then as we are waiting for the minutes to tick by we see this transaction go on between a scalper and a fan about 5 feet away. The conversation goes as so:

Fan: How much are you selling tickets for?

Scalper: What do you have?

Fan: I have $20 dollars (pulls out money) and an iPod Nano (Pulls a brand new Nano still in its package out of pocket)

S: Ok give me the 20 and the nano

F: Oh wait I only have 15.

S: Give whatever you got. Does the Nano work?

F: Yes it does.

S: You got two dollars more?

F: That's my bus money.

S: You got anything else?

F: uhh I have my watch.

S: I'll take that too.

I think I stood with my agape for a few seconds. The dude gave up his BRAND NEW NANO. I really hoped that he enjoyed the concert with all the stuff that he gave up.

So we finally make it in and everyone was shoving and pushing, I felt like a sheep in a herd. People have no sense of personal space. Some girl threw up because she was claustrophobic and started having some anxiety attack. Seriously though, why would you do that to yourself knowing that you freak out in small crowded spaces? Anyway, after the security calls the crowd a bunch of animals and then tells them to stop pushing, we get let in and we were so close to the stage! I think this was the closest I've ever been to an artist. 

At 8 to start the show, DJ Mike Rizzo (he sounds familiar if you play DJ Hero) came up on the stage and began to mix some music. I thought he was great, the crowd not so much. Talk about a dead crowd. Maybe a handful of people danced to the music. The only time they really reacted was when he remixed two of Hikki's songs. That's when they went nuts. I felt so bad for him cause honestly he was awesome. So props to you DJ Mike Rizzo!!! Huzzah!

The security was insane though. These big beefy guys were like hawks when it came to cameras, even cell phone pics. They had spotters everywhere! There were a couple of people who had to leave the crowd to check in their camera before they were allowed back into the concert. It was that crazy. Lucky for us we were able to get two decent shots of her on Kristine's iPhone!

I must say she is absolutely breath-taking in person. Gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous. Her voice phenomenal. It sounded like it was from the CD! I wish I could see her again. Her band was amazing, they were so into the music right along with her. My favorite songs were "Apple and Cinnamon," "Stay Gold," "Kremlin Dusk" "This One (Crying Like A Child)" "First Love" (Of course ^^) haha sounds like I'm listing all of them. They were all amazing in some way shape or form. A few of the fans seemed unsatisfied that she didn't sing more Japanese songs, but honestly this is for her English album so I dunno what they really expected. Here is one more shot of Hikki ^^

So I hope you guys enjoyed this post. Sorry it's soo long! Here is a piece of her talking on YouTube, a sneaky fan was able to catch it without the guards noticing ^^ It gets kinda loud with the cheering so I would suggest watching it on low volume.

Was it worth the wait? Yes it was. Will I ever do it again....probably not haha, I would maybe, maybe do it again if it were the summer. I'll talk to all you beautiful blogger people soon!!

A Piece of Me for February 2010

I know I have been MIA lately. Sorry about that guys. I will try my best to update this blog soon though. I miss chatting with all you girlies, but here is that Piece of Me game from *Notes from the Toothfairy* so here we go

This month....
I like: that it's getting closer to the warm weather!

I don't like: stress

I want you to know: that I will be back full force soon!

I've planned: to have a better overall month and also I've planned to see Hikki! ^___^

I want to say to someone special: We can do it

My First Award!

Ahhhhh! So I woke up this morning and went on my blog to check my Cbox and I see that Jbreezy told me that she had given me an award for my blog!  I must say never did I think that I would ever get an award for this. This is something that I really truly enjoy doing. I thought it was so sweet of her to even think about me!

So now it's my turn to pick some people ^^

Here are the rules:

• Post the award on your blog
• Link the person who has given you the award
• Pass the award to 15 other blogs that you've newly discovered
• & Remember to contact the bloggers to let them know they've been nominated

I nominate:

Megan

Stephanie

FreshElle

Denysia

I know it says 15 but I can only think of 4, I'm sad I know. Haha, again thank you Joanna for thinking of me for this award! I'm cheesin' so hard.

My Urban Decay HauteLook Purchase and my OoTD from Yesterday

I'm sure that there are a bunch of you who are aware of a site called Haute Look. You can sign up for this site and it's like an online boutique that gives a crazy discounts off designer brands. When I say crazy I mean crazy. I recently (about two weeks) purchased from their Urban Decay sale and I have to admit, I was pretty shocked about the prices. Three dollars for eyeliner, three dollars for their lipgloss. It was insane!

So in the end, I got myself their bronzer, their Buddha brush (hehe Buddha Buddha), two lip glosses, an eyeshadow in Gash, two eyeliners and an eyebrown pencil. This all came out to under fifty dollars! It's that nuts, usually if I were to buy all this at Sephora or Ulta it would have been well over a hundred dollars so imagine how excited I was with this purchase =D.

I haven't swatched the lip glosses. I am debating on whether or not to put them in a giveaway soon. ^^ But I know a few of you wanted to see what I got from Hautelook. Definitely check the site out, even if you don't see something you like right away, there will be something down the road that will interest you and you will be ecstatic that you saved a ton of money!! ^^

So yesterday I went out to a party and really really liked my outfit. I just wanted to share with you ladies. Sorry the quality isn't amazing, but all I had was my iPhone.

And a shot of my eyelashes ;)

Later guys! ^_________^

Steph's Valentine's Day Giveaway!!

Hey guys, my good friend Stephanie from Julu Jewelry is having a Valentine's Giveaway! And I think that you should check it out and enter. I mean what do you have to lose? You have the chance to win a piece from her awesome line, yummy candy and also lush products! Here is the entry so go and enter! You don't have to be a follower in order to enter this contest either. Good luck everyone! ^____^

Valentine's Day Giveaway!