Product Love: L'Oreal Infallible 24 HR Eye Shadow

This morning when I got up I decided to wear one of my favorite green shirts and pair it with a green, slightly smokey eye. In addition to one of my Clinique eye pallets, I also used the L'Oreal Infallible 24 HR Eye Shadow in Golden Emerald as my main, darker green color. When applying it (with my e.l.f. crease brush) I ended up packing on more than I'd originally intended, so I blended it out lightly over my entire lid and up to the brow bone. It turned out to be a happy accident because, a) it looked gorgeous and b) it really does have incredible staying power! Despite all the steps I take, by the end of the day, I almost always have a bit of eye shadow collected in the crease of my lid. This L'Oreal shadow did a really great job at staying where I put it. I also LOVE how pigmented it is. Just a little bit results in a nice color pay off.

I also wanted to gush about a few things I got yesterday. Mike had to go to work really early and he dropped me off at a T station so I could wander around Boston a little while before I had to go to work. I ended up mostly around Newbury St., which was quiet delightful. First, I got breakfast at Pavement (LOVE them), then I swung by Lush to get a solid conditioner to go with the solid shampoo I've been using. The sales girl recommended the Jungle Conditioner, which I bought. I'll report back after I get to use it. I also swung by an American Eagle and picked out a pair of jeans. My only pair of blue jeans died a few months ago during Marvelous Wonderettes, and I haven't really had a chance to go out and buy any since then. I ended up buying their Straight Jean in the worn dark wash. I wore them today and am super happy with them. It is very nice to have a good pair of jeans again.

When life hands you lemons, make a face scrub!

A very long time ago when I first started watching Kandee Johnson's YouTube videos, I saw her "Lemon Doctor" video. I didn't really act on it, but thought it was a cool idea. Recently, she did a blog post of tips and tricks that included her lemon face scrub. I decided to give it a go. There are three great things about this lemony scrub:

1) You don't have to make it ahead of time and it takes all of five seconds to put together each night.

2) It is delightfully scrubby and all the acids in the lemon juice are excellent for cleaning your face and helping to prevent nastiness like blackheads and acne.

3) All the ingredients are readily available in your kitchen.

Borrowed from:
penelopesfolly.blogspot.com

So what exactly am I talking about? A quick and easy lemon face scrub. All you do is pour a bit of lemon juice on a cotton round and pour a little sugar over that. Then just scrub it all over your face!

I use this in a couple different ways. Some nights, I will use my Burt's Bees Citrus Facial Scrub and then before I rinse it off, I will soak a cotton ball in lemon juice and use that to scrub it around some more. When I use it this way, I skip the sugar since I already have a scrub on my face and just add the goodness of the acids in the lemon juice into the mix. I then rinse my face, tone, and moisturize as usual.

Other nights, when I don't really have the energy to wash my face properly, I'll just wipe my make-up off with a cleansing wipe and then do the lemon sugar scrubby afterwards for some deeper cleaning. Then I rinse it all off and moisturize.

I don't use this every night, because lemon juice every night might be too much, but it is a nice little boost to use every so often. And hey, it costs no extra money to add this into my beauty routine, so why not?

Mini-haul and hello!

There's this thing called the Young Company Summer Festival at Stoneham Theatre. There are six shows total and three run in rep during two consecutive weekends. If one were to Production Manage this festival, one wouldn't have enough time to get a good night's sleep, much less write blog posts. Okay, so maybe during the last weekend once the shows were up I may have read more than eight books while I was sitting backstage and could have easily written some blog posts, but at that point, my brain cells were barely working. And so I am forced once again to apologize for my long absence. As a quick note to my last post, I have been using the Squeaky Green shampoo Maggie gave me and I LOVE IT. I have not used any other shampoo since I got it.

I don't actually have anything all that exciting lined up for this post. Just a mini haul from today. First thing I got was a Color Whisper by Color Sensational Lipstick from Maybelline in 40 Orange Attitude, which has really cool packaging, in my opinion. I had a coupon from my Glamour magazine which is why I went ahead and splurged. There were a ton of really fun colors, both in the Color Whisper shades but also in the regular Color Sensational lipsticks, but I ended up going with this one because it is a nice, wearable coral color when on my lips. I've really been digging coral lately, especially on the lips, and rather than get a red that I probably wouldn't wear much, I decided to get this color which I might actually wear more frequently. It makes my whole look more polished, without screaming that I'm wearing lipstick.

The other beauty product I got today I didn't spend a dime on. One of the things I did today was clean out/organize the lost and found from the Young Company shows. Amidst all the shoes and water bottles was a brand new Neutrogena Healthy Skin Pressed Powder. It is missing it's applicator, but who cares? That's more than three times what I normally spend on pressed powder and it's in my shade. I figured it was more than worth it to scoop it up, take it home, and try it out. The night cream I've been using for more than a year is Neutrogena and I really like it, so much so that when I have to get more soon, I'll definitely be getting another Neutrogena product.

And finally, I'll leave you with my smiling face from today! My hair came out really well and I wanted to document a rare, good hair day. Only bad thing about this is that my unintentional "ombre" is really starting to show. I actually HAVE the dye to fix my hair, but haven't gotten around to dying it yet. I was gonna bite the bullet and do it, but I really want to get a hair cut. If I get my hair cut first, then I actually have enough henna to do my roots and then do all my hair to hopefully help even out the color in my hair. I took this picture before I bought my new lipstick, so I'm wearing my Clinique Chubby Stick in 04 Mega Melon.

LUSH gift and products I'm excited about

Little Green Bag of goodies

Tomorrow is the last show of Marvelous Wondrettes, which means it is also the last day Maggie and I will be working together for the foreseeable future. Well, today during show call, she surprised me by leaving me a present in the laundry room with the creepy doll (long story). Well, it was a delightful bunch of goodies from LUSH and I am super duper excited to use them all.

Like the LUSH gift that Gerry gave us at Christmas, it all came in a delightful little handkerchief, which I am sure I will wear in no time at all. Inside the tin (which is so useful!) is a shampoo bar called Squeaky Green. This is the thing I'm probably most excited about. I've been wanting to try one of LUSH's shampoo bars forever, but just have never gotten around to purchasing one. This seems like one that is perfect for me too. The website describes it saying, "Squeaky green is our herbal shampoo for oily locks and stressed out scalps. Stimulating rosemary and peppermint and antibacterial tea tree keep dandruff away by cleansing the scalp and hair. Soothing vanilla and chamomile further calm any irritations and itchiness." So yeah, perfect. The other green item is a Sugar Scrub, which is exactly what you'd think it is! Given how much I've been loving my Oatmeal Scrub, I think I will really enjoy using this. The soap included, Sexy Peel Soap, is citrusy and positively delicious smelling. I'm definitely thinking about abandoning the soap I'm currently using so I can start using this asap! The last thing in the best bundle ever is the Each Peach massage bar. I will probably never get around to using this as a massage bar, but you can bet I'll be using it as a moisturizer.

Maggie said it took her an hour and three sales associates to decide what to get, but let me tell you, she picked the absolutely perfect thing! There is not a single one of the things in the package that I'm not really excited to use. Speaking of which, out of my last LUSH bundle, I've already used up one of the soaps and over half of the Honey Trap lip balm and Charity Pot (as well as wearing the handkerchief several times!).

In other news, Mike got a really great deal on a couple of portable chargers for us that came in the mail today. They're little power banks that you charge at home, and then can use to charge your phone (or whatever) on the go. We're really excited because there are lots of times when we need to charge our phones (mostly while working/commuting) and there is just not source of power readily available.

Shameless crosspost, Pixiwoo just recently blogged about Chanel's new collection "Superstition." I just love all the colors in it and wish I had a much larger beauty budget. On the low budget end, I've been wanting to try Maybelline's Baby Lips, and this post has totally convinced me that they're the best thing ever and that I should definitely go out and get one (or twelve).

Three different summer inspired hairstyles

Weird blue color to it, but I loved my hair!

This has been a hot hot hot summer and it has resulted in me trying out a few new things with my hair. Usually, I wash my hair in the morning but given how hot and sweaty I've been getting during the day, I've found it nice to take a shower in the morning instead, especially if I'm getting up really early the next day. I don't like going to bed with wet hair, though, so I decided to try and do the twists in my hair to keep it out of the way. All I did was put some aloe vera gel in it as usual and then put it into six different twists. I also twisted my bangs out of the way so that they'd go where they're supposed to. And it came out quite good, I have to say.

I spent a lot of the day working in the heat- ew!

About a week later, I tried to do the same thing, but when I woke up the next morning, I had to got to a very early meeting at a very hot school and didn't really want my hair down. So, I left the twists in and simply braided them into pigtails. Not the best picture I've ever taken, but so many people commented on me wearing pigtails, that I had to document it. I actually liked them better than when I usually try and make pigtails, because the twists help give it that messy look, so it's something I may do again.

Just show call, so I got to dress a little cuter.

The day after I wore the pigtails with the twists in them all day, I pulled out my hair and it had crazy volume. However, my roots were a bit greasy from being hot and sweaty the day before and it was still too hot to want my hair down. So I thew it into a high messy pony tail and put a black scarf on. It ended up looking super cute and was a great hairstyle for being at work.

I really want to cut my hair again, but I have to say, I've been having fun with my hair this length. It's pretty versatile because there's enough of it to put up, but there's not too much of it to wear down. I may hold off cutting it for a little while longer.

Knitting update!

This is another long overdue post to update you all on my knitting projects. Turns out rehearsals and shows are a great time to get some knitting done. The long term project I'm working on right now, which isn't even that big of a project, is a hat to replace one of the many I lost last winter. I'm making it out of a gorgeous wool-alpaca blend. Oh! One super exciting update in my knitting world. I helped Lauria out with a Juniper Moon photo shoot and she paid me in gorgeous, gorgeous yarn.

Gorgeous light green-blue color.

Fantastic blue color.

It is their Herriot yarn (100% baby alpaca) in two of their new, as yet unreleased, colors. I haven't decided what to make with it yet, but I'm super excited to wear whatever it ends up being because it is so darn soft!


Anyways, back to the things I've actually finished! These were two things I made quite a while ago out of some of the leftover yarn from the clothespin bag that I made Mum. One of them is a little pouch to keep tea in. I've discovered that if you try and keep bags of tea in your bag, they fall apart. So, of course, someone designed a little pouch to keep them in. The other is a cuff. It didn't come out as cool as the original was, I think in part because the variegated pattern obscures the fabric. They were both fun, quick, little projects though. [Link to the patterns under the pictures]

Tea Tote

Cuff

The rest of the things I made were all gifts. I made two more bibs- one for Parker's birthday and one for Caitlin's baby. The one I made for Parker I made a bit bigger upon request from Lilly. Caitlin's I made to the pattern size since she'll have a newborn. The original pattern (which I've used four times now) is here on Ravelry.

Cutiest cutie pants wearing his new bib.

Lovely gender-neutral color for Caitlin.

The other gift I made was a produce bag for Sir. I liked how it came out so much that I really want to make one for myself! Here's a photo I took of it before I sent it off to him for Father's Day.

Produce bag

And that's what is going on in Rachel's world of knitting!

Mini haul!

Mike needed some new glasses, so today the two of us headed on up to the mall in Nashua, NH. Of course, I couldn't help but get a few things while we were there.

So delightful.

First, I stopped by Bath and Body Works and learned some sad, sad news. One of my all-time favorite scents is Midnight Pomegranate, so much so that it's one of the body sprays I wear almost every day. Well, turns out that they're discontinuing it. :( The only good part about this is that all the products were 75% off. So, I stocked up and got the Body Cream, Body Lotion, and Fragrance Mist. The lady working there said it'll probably be around and on clearance through Christmas, so I may end up getting more at a later date.

Classy dressing room selfie.

The other store I purchased something at was Charlotte Russe. I could have bought so many things there. I seriously walked in and wanted one of everything I saw. In the end, I decided to get this really cute skirt that was only $15. It is light, breezy, and fun enough to wear whenever, but its length also makes it appropriate for work, which is exciting. The cute crop top I'm wearing in the photo I did not get, because it cost as much as the skirt and isn't nearly as versatile or work appropriate. I really, really loved this outfit though.

Out on the balcony hanging laundry.

And since Mike was getting a pair of glasses and sunglasses, it only seemed fair that I get some sunnies too! Although mine were significantly cheaper at only $3. My white ones have been dying and these were so awesome and such a bargain that I couldn't pass it up.

I also ordered some things online Monday which I can't wait to get here. I got some more of my favorite deodorant, Lemongrass Pit Putty with Baking Soda, from Bubble and Bee, as well as some more henna dye from Henna Color Lab, this time in Wine Red.