NEW WEBSITE, NEW BLOG

Hello my darlings, if you are still waiting patiently for me to tell you that I've moved my blog over to my website, well today is that day. I will still be maintaining this as an archive (it's just too hard to try and integrate everything over) but you can now find me at www.glamazongirlsglow.com (click the picture it will take you there!)

Thank you guys so much for sticking with me and supporting me!! I can't wait to show you all the new stuff I have going on over at the new platform!!

A Little Review on the #JadoreVoxBox & A Check-In Too!

Hellooooo wonderful glammies! I know, I know, you wanna know the dirt on where I've been, well let me tell ya, on top of skirting around dealing with some family things, I've also been charged with the task (basically I just forced myself to do it) of integrating all my social media and blog and stuff into one central location. Yup, that's right, I'm actually making the move to a very very sleek website. So, my time has been spent setting that all up! And while the site won't go live until next week, I've literally been up nights brainstorming and moving things over. What does that mean for you and for this little ditty of a blog? Well...it means, that at some point I will be keeping this blog so all the archived posts you can still access (from a link on my new website! SAY WHAT?! LOL) but that all new posts from the launch on will be on the new platform.

Yes, yes I know what you're saying...man, I've got to change all my bookmarks and stuff now, but hey, it will be worth it, I swear! Plus!! The new site will be mobile optimized and well, it's just going to be pretty and I'm geeked! So look forward to that next week! But seriously, I can't even contain myself.

Okay, but keeping with me actually telling you stuff about products...haha..I thought I would do a little review on the Influenster Box that I got sent a couple weeks ago, all of these products were sent free for review, so just FYI on that. But like always, I give you my honest opinion and yada yada. Also! You can find all the products at your local Target or Drugstore, so BONUS!

So the box showed up like this a couple days after Valentine's Day and had some fun products! It came with Hershey Kisses, RedRose Simply Indulgence Tea, Boots Botanics Clay Mask, John Freida 3-day Straight Hair Serum, and Kiss Oh So Natural Lashes. Basically, a girls dream in one bright pink box! Lol

So, we all know about Hersey Kisses, so I'm just going to gloss over that, but will say the bag was huge, the chocolate was needed, and well...it's a classic. 

On to the tea, I made the Creme Caramel Tea that RedRose sent, and it was interesting. Of course it has a black tea base, and then caramel notes. But, I will say you can over-steep it easily. For those of you who like traditional black teas, you are going to like this. Me personally, because I have so many other options for black tea, I will most likely skip it and continue to drink the ones I got from Adagio.

Okay, okay let's talk beauty, I know you guys are all here for that lol

The first thing are the Kiss Looks So Natural Lashes. I didn't actually take a picture of them in the box, WHY I have no idea...but I did find a picture to insert, so let's all just pretend I did. 

Unboxing these lashes was a bit hard, the glue they used and how fragile the lashes are in general proved to be a bit of a situation. SO TAKE PRECAUTION. You don't want to jack up your lashes, like I almost did. The type I was sent were the "Shy" ones, which for being "natural" were incredible long. They still touched my eyebrows at points, which is a little intense if you are going to wear them during the day. I will say that I got a lot of compliments on these eyelashes and actually enjoyed wearing them. They have a clear band and are very malleable which is good when you are trying to get them to adhere to your eyes. If you take care of them you could definitely wear these multiple times. 

Lashes in Action

Not going to lie, out of all the eyelashes I've worn lately these have been my ultimate favorite to have as an accent to a dramatic eye and I will definitely be repurchasing them. 

I also really love/am loving the John Freida 3 Day Straight Flat Iron Spray. The premise of this spray is to make your blow-outs/straightening's last at least 3 days without Frizz or curling, yada yada. Although they claim it's a flat iron spray, the instructions actually tell you to use it in your damp hair before you blow dry...so just be forewarned there. This product isn't something that is actually going to help protect your hair, it's just going to help you get it there. 

Yup, that's my natural hair on the left, didn't know THAT did ya?! Lol

If you can tell by my before and after, it really does the trick. It does leave a bit of a waxy feeling on the hair, so if that weirds you out, maybe do less pumps of the product, and definitely keep this away from your roots! But if you have frizz and don't wash your hair that much like me, the waxiness won't bother you and honestly...I'm so impressed with how long I can keep my hair straight that it's sort of boggling my brain at this point. 

So I saved this last product till last, because I'm very torn about it.  It's the Boots Botanic's Ionic Clay Mask. Basically it's an all natural mud mask with willow bark (which is just a natural salicylic acid).

Here's why I'm torn, just check out the pictures below

Is it making sense yet? This mask I've used one time before I took these pictures, and it dried my skin out and kind of irritated it, and then the second time THIS IS WHAT HAPPENED!! Irritation city!! This is not for sensitive skin or highly dry skin. While after the irritation went down my skin did have a nice smoothness to it and the pimple on my face was smaller, I just don't feel like it's worth using again. If you have really oily skin with clogged pores I think this mask would work beautifully on you. But again, be careful. 

The other thing I wasn't too keen on was that it had to be continually shaken up to keep the product in tact to put on my face...and it was really really thin in consistency.

So yea, that's all the products I got from Influenster. Everything can be found at your local drugstore/megastore and everything was under $15. The two wins for me from the box were the 3 Day Straight John Freida Product and the Kiss Lashes. 

I hope this helps you when considering trying new products! Have you tried any of the products I reviewed? Let me know down below...and YEA come next week we will be moving over to the new site, but don't worry I will post all about the move over here for y'all!!!

Have a wonderful weekend!

XO

D

Do You Ever?

Do you ever get overwhelmed with all the social media and responsibilities of updating them? Taking pictures of everything, posting what your doing, keeping up on all the lives of your friends and family. Phew! It can make a girl crazy! So originally this post was going to be about the new Narsissist Palette I picked up and was going to review for you guys! I did all the swatches and took all the pictures and blah blah blah only to find out after all my hard work, I had taken everything in black and white....yup...you heard me.

So all that hard work (even though it looked very 1920's cool) was all for nothing AAANNDDD I may have had a little bit of a meltdown. Frustration has set in. I should also warn everyone that I am emotionally unstable a little bit. Not in a crazy way, just in the fact that life has gotten busy and there have been some very high High's and some very low Low's in my life right now. So it's been taking a lot just to get reviews up and video's edited and shot.

Honestly, I don't know how people do all of this...well I do...they are normal human beings that can work long hours and can separate themselves from their work...but...unfortunately, that isn't me. BLAH I know, I know don't be so hard on yourself, or whatever, but sometimes venting is good...so I just needed to do this!

Lol so tell me, do you ever have days like this? What did you do to get back on track?

XO
~D

Watch It Wednesdays | TMI TAG!

Happy Hump Day Glammies!! I'm just going to roll Talk Tuesday and Watch It Wednesday together in this little ditty that was rolling around the internet. 

I'm sure this in entirely too much information (like the tag says) but I thought it was fun to give you guys a little snippet into my LIFE woo!!! Lol

Alright, love ya guys!

XO

D

Makeup Monday | Anastasia Bold & Beautiful Kit

So I couldn't help myself when I was ordering my Anastasia Contour Kit, I just had to try one of her palettes as well. The Bold & Beautiful Kit was on sale for $14 which is why I picked it up...lol THAT and because it came with a bunch of stuff, so let's dive in and I will let you know about it what I thought about it!

If you can't tell, the packaging is pretty gorgeous and she's set it up to look like an Art Deco Book. Which of course appeals to me in all sorts of ways!

The Kit is set up into two smaller palettes, Vol.1 Beautiful Brows and Vol.2 Beautiful Eyes.

Vol.1 Beautiful Brows comes with what you see above, a pigmented darker brown eyebrow wax, a more taupe-cool tone brown brow powder, a mini of the famed Anastasia tweezers and then a mini double-ended brushed with one side a slanted thin brush for the powders/wax and the other side a spoolie so you can brush everything out.

I'm not going to lie, this is by far my favorite part of this kit. You can definitely tell this is why Anastasia of Beverly Hills is famous. The brow wax is beautifully pigmented and compliments the powder for the perfect brow and you can take it to fully sculpted or tone it down to a more natural feel. The tweezers have the perfect malleability so you can grab tiny hairs. The brush is super thin and works wonderfully in the products. I know for travel I will be grabbing this little palette and taking it with me.

Vol. 2 Beautiful Eyes on the other hand is just meh for me. I understand that they were going for a neutral palette that you could take smoky if you wanted to. The palette comes with 4 eye shadows all satin to shimmer shades and ranging from a bone color to a pink, taupe, and then a darker warm brown. As you can see in the picture of the palette itself, the brown holds a lot of glitter. The eye shadows are very powdery and from the swatches above, most of the light shades aren't very pigmented. In fact, it was hard to get good swatches.

It also came with a double-ended brush which was terrible so just put that to the side lol.


Overall, I would say the palette was okay for $14, which is what I paid for it on the Anastasia website, but I have seen it up to $36 on others, so definitely don't spend THAT much money on it. I'm disappointed because I've heard other palette's from Anastasia the eyeshadows people rave about. I am happy about the brow wax and that part of the palette, so for me it was worth the $14 and I understand what they were trying to do, by making this a palette you could travel with. But, had I known, I would have gone for the Lavish or Catwalk palettes instead.

So close to the mark, but not worth it to suggest to you guys!

I hope you are having a wonderful President's Day!!! Any new makeup you guys are loving that I should try??

Spring Makeup Trends | Orange Matte Lips

So, yes, I'm tired of the winter trends, I said it! We're in February, it's time to get jazzed for Spring looks and pastel colors and well, all the fashion weeks that have been starting to gear up. Did you check out Paris' Couture Fashion Week two weeks ago? Be still my heart! It makes me so excited for NYFW I'm not going to lie.

BUT I'm getting ahead of myself. So all of the Spring Fashion's are starting to hit the stores, along with the Spring makeup looks that graced the runway. A couple I feel like could actually be wearable for everyday looks and I just got really excited over them. The first one that I've been mad about, and I never thought I would be, is Matte Taupe Eyes with a Bright Orange Lip.

Vivid Lip Look from Dsquared2

Bold Lip found at Prabal Gurung 

Now don't you worry glammies, I've been doing research on these lips, because you aren't the only one's who started to cringe when you thought about putting orange anywhere near your face or mouth. Although, I will say, this year has been the year I broke into orange cosmetics on my face...it's been a weird change lol.

Okay, so sorry off track, I have found a couple shades that I am just loving for orange lipstick right now. 

The first one is actually the one that most of the makeup artists working on the show used, it's from MAC and it's called Morange. It's an amplified lipstick and has a satin sheen to it, but it tends to dry down to a more velvety consistency.

This lipstick is definitely classified as an editorial "loudmouth" lipstick on MAC's website, and they would be right. The color pops off any skin tone like a dream. It's vibrant without being obnoxious and with a little bit of redder tone to it, it doesn't sallow the skin. You can find this lipstick for $15 online or at MAC counters.

The next one I have been loving is what I would say, the "set it, forget it" orange lip for my busy gals.  This one I hope will be a permanent collection to the Revlon Balm Stains. So Mischevious is part of the Matte Balm Stains that came out this winter from Revlon. It has all the qualities of the original balm stains, it's hydrating, stains the lips, and is in a pencil so it's easy to apply. 

There is one issue though, if you have dry lips, it's going to show off every dry spot on your lip, so you definitely, definitely want to exfoliate them before you use this product. This color although it looks dark in the tube goes on as more of a yellowy bright orange. It's absolutely beautiful on olive skin tones, I've gotten tons of compliments on it, but it may be a bit too light for darker skin tones, so it would be something to experiment with. I picked mine up at Ulta.com for $7.99.  But I've seen these everywhere, I only ordered mine online for hygiene purposes, there isn't any packaging to keep people from testing out the balm stains in store, BLECK!

The final lip product I'm loving, is the most mellow of the bunch. It's definitely for the timid to gently ease you into the orange lip. It's another product from Revlon, one of their Color Burst Lip Butter's in Tutti Frutti.

Although it looks really really pigmented in the tube, it goes on more as a tinted lip balm then anything. The color is gorgeous, you get a hint of orange that just accentuates your lips to make them look a bit brighter and better. I've also paired this on top of the Matte Balm Stain to give it a little more hydration and a deeper color. Again, you can pretty much find these everywhere, I got mine at Ulta.com for $5.99. 

I am really loving this look and I've even been playing with deepening up colors and changing textures by adding orange shadows over each of these products (which is also another tip to have your lip color stay all day). With a taupe eye and a slight winged liner, it has this updated Bridget Bardot feel to it, and chases those PNW blues away. 

Take a chance glammies!! You'll be surprised what orange can do for your complexion and how you hold yourself once you take that first leap of faith into the unknown that is this bright "wild" color.

XO

~D

Makeup Monday | LORAC Unzipped Palette Review

So if you haven't been able to tell yet, I kind of binged on LORAC palettes. Why you ask? Well, honestly they were on sale, like I said I'm sad Sephora is taking LORAC out of their stores, but their loss is my cheap sweet sweet gain.

The last of the palette's I've bought after tons of research, was the LORAC Unzipped Palette. Unlike the other palettes that were brown and bronze-toned neutrals. This palette is supposed to give the Naked3 a run for it's money in rosy-toned shadows.

So this palette unlike the Naked3 doesn't have any shadows with actual glitter in it. Most of the shadows are shimmer with 4 matte colors, which is one more then the Naked3. Also, all the shadows are buttery (the typical MO of LORAC palettes) and blend easily. They of course come with an eye primer, but an eye primer isn't necessary to get beautiful color pay-off, or stay all day wear.

I will say though, that unlike the Naked3 these don't have purple and pink undertones, they have mauve and brown undertones, so if you are looking for pinks, this isn't your palette.

First Row of Unzipped Palette

Second Row of Unzipped Palette

I feel like this palette is the palette for people who have grown out of glitter shadows and are interested in warm tone colors. Everyone I've put these shadows on, it just gives you a sophisticated glow to your eye makeup and it is so easy to get an amazing look! I feel like my pictures aren't doing the looks justice. Honestly.

The colors that I'm completely obsessed with and used in this look are Unbelievable, Unreal, Unconditional, and Unbridled. They are just so magical and make the most beautiful grounded look. I have been rocking it since the palette came. It makes me feel so girly I can't even start to begin to gush about it again. 

I think why I really love this palette is that you have such a range of tones and in each tone at least one matte, so you could work within each tone and still get a completed grounded eye look in each one should you not want to go crazy with color (or don't have the time). You could use one brush and get a look. While on the other hand, you could take it from a neutral look to an intense smoky evening eye and everywhere in between. It's pretty fool proof.

So, I hope that helps! I know now that I have this, I feel like I have enough rosy-shades that actually flatter my skin and eyes that I won't be looking for anything else. What about you? What Rosy palette will you pick up for your collection?

XO

~D

Makeup Review | LORAC Little Black Palette

Hey glammies! Like I said, I've been trying to review more products for you guys, especially palettes since those are typically the most bang for your buck. This palette was recommended and highly talked about by a big YouTube beauty blogger Jaclyn Hill and when I saw it was on clearance on Sephora's website, well I went for it.

This palette is pretty tiny for a LORAC palette, since it only comes with 4 shadows. All of them shimmer. 

These eyeshadows are "baked" shadows so the beauty of them is you can use them dry for a softer look, or wet for a more intense creamier look.

I've swatched them dry and wet down below for you to check out. Unfortunately, this palette doesn't list the names of the colors, so I won't be able to help you with that.

Dry Swatched Shadows for Little Black Palette

Wet Swatched Shadows for Little Black Palette

So my overall impressions of this palette is basically that the colors they provide are beautiful. They all work well together, the shadows are creamy and highly pigmented and leave your skin glowing. They have gold undertones so they really bring brown eyes out, check out my look down below. The one thing though that I don't like about this palette is that there are no matte shades. Yes, I know it's rare to have a baked matte shadow, but since there isn't one, the look isn't grounded. There's nothing to offset the shimmer especially in the crease. 

Little Black Palette Eye Look View 1

Little Black Palette Eye Look View 2

If you are a shimmer/satin eyeshadow fan and not having a matte shade doesn't matter, then you are going to love this palette, it is really compact and even comes with an eye primer that works well with the LORAC line.  But if you are a girl/guy who needs to have a matte shadow then I would say look into another palette like the Pro-To-Go which offers both and then some!! This palette can be found on LORAC's website here http://www.loraccosmetics.com/make-up_little-black-palette.html and it's on sale for $17! Which is such a steal!!!

So yes, overall I love the palette for what it is, and will be experimenting with the shadows even more, but I wouldn't buy it for full price or be able to solely travel/use this palette without something else, even though I tried!!! I need a matte color!!!

Do you guys have a favorite baked shadow palette you like? Let me know about it!!

XO

~D

Makeup Monday - LORAC Pro To Go Palette Review

So, traveling, it's kind of a bear. You never know what to bring, you bring too much (in my case), you know it's hard to decide what eye colors you might need or face products. So, I've been on the search lately for new smaller travel palettes that I can take with me, and feel SATISFIED that I have choices and beautiful looks.

LORAC came out I think this past fall, with a lovely little compact palette, called the LORAC Pro To Go. I picked it up from Sephora as they were closing out their LORAC line, but they still have it available at Ulta (although it's sold out as I'm writing this) and LORAC's personal site.

The palette includes 6 shadows, 2 blushes, 1 bronzer, and 2 small eyeshadow brushes. I've included swatches below for you guys to check out. 

The Eyeshadows

I know you guys are saying, SO what do you think? And here's what I'm gonna tell you, it lives up to all the hype all over the internet. It is so small and compact you could literally fit it into your purse if you really wanted to. The colors are so buttery and so pigmented (above those are only one swipe). I got tons of compliments when I wore this during my last trip.

The eyeshadow colors allow you to complete multiple looks ranging from a neutral simple eye to a dark smoky sultry eye. They also work well if you decide you want to bring a couple fun colors with you to throw into the looks because they blend so beautifully with everything! The black is great to use as an eyeliner and the Pearl color is a wonderful highlighter if you are in a pinch.

Above is the look I did using the palette. I just, am dying over the beautiful colors!! If you want to see a tutorial let me know!!

The Cheek Products

The cheek products are amazing as well, they again are very pigmented! The blushes are pretty universal colors and go on smoothly without any splotchy or patchy issues, and they are completely matte which makes them so wonderful to work with. The bronzer is very warm just fyi, but it is matte which of course is a huge plus!! You can use it for contouring in a pinch, but I love how it warms up my complexion in the winter and gives a soft glow to the face since it is on the warmer side.

Overall, I would recommend this palette so much!! If you are into neutral shadows, this will be your go to, and for $38 it is the cheapest of the LORAC palettes. (I've been finding it on sale all over the place too!!) 

Have you tried this palette? What do you think? Do you have a favorite travel palette?

I will be reviewing a couple more LORAC palettes coming up so stay tuned!!!

XO

~Devin

Makeup Monday | Review of Revlon Parfumerie

Okay you guys, have I been living under a rock?! When did scented stuff get popular again? It's like I'm back in 5th grade or something. Lol alright let me back up. So scented polishes are all the rage again, but this time Revlon is doing them with class. No more sickly strawberry and purple grape, noooo instead we have flavors like Twilight Woods and Lavender Soap.

I decided to pick up the Espresso "flavor" to see what all the hype was about. The Espresso color is just a glossy black color. As far as nail polish goes, it went on really well I only needed two coats to get ultimate opaqueness. I didn't use a top coat because I wasn't sure if it would seal the smell in, but I haven't needed it, this polish has worn all weekend long without so much as a chip! So that's positive.

YEA I know what you guys are thinking, get to the good stuff, what's the smell like? Well, I'm here to tell you that it's FOR REAL! As the polish started to dry I noticed the smell of espresso beans in the room, before that it was just the potent smell of nail polish (which not gonna lie is a little bit of turn-off). And it's lasted!! Although it's not AS potent either that or I've gotten used to the smell, they still faintly smell of espresso beans. Not as much as day one, but it's definitely there.

Now, I will say if you don't like fragrances or chemically fragrances, you aren't going to like this. The first day it was a little overwhelming for me, but I've come to have a certain fondness for it. I know there are 25 other flavors and I highly suggest you check it out!

If you try it let me know what you think in the comments below! (Ulta is having a buy one, get one 50% off right now!)

Momma said Cleanliness was next to Godliness | Wash Those Brushes!

So, I went a little crazy last night when I was up around 4am (remind me not to sit down and watch movies on my bed at 6pm...four hours and a drool puddle later, I screw myself out of sleep till 6am) I decided why the hell not? Let's clean some brushes! (Yep, that's how my mind works).

Now that it's winter and "sicknesses" are going around, it is the most important time to really keep up on cleaning your brushes. Why you ask? Well, because your brushes and sponges can hold all those germs and bacteria in them, of course! Not only that, it spreads all those diseases around AND dirty brushes when your skin is all messed up from the cold can actually perpetuate break outs and irritation. 

Getting a little grossed out? Yea...it happens...feeling overwhelmed? Yea, me too....but hey don't worry! We're in this together! So the rule of thumb when you are sick is to deep clean everything as soon as you are over the sickness and avoid using products that are close to your eyes or mouth. If that's not possible, like you JUST NEED to wear mascara or put on your favorite eyeshadow, then you gotsta disinfect like an OCD person or chuck stuff upon completion of said disease. So, chuck your mascara and deep clean your brushes and sanitize (this is the key thing) your eyeshadows and powders!

The rule of thumb when you are all better and a healthy individual is that you should deep clean your brushes every week to every other week (depending on the amount you use them) and that you should try and spot clean your brushes as you are working with them (spot cleaning also helps your colors stay true fyi!)

Okay, now that I've got the lecture out of the way on why and when you should clean your beauty tools, let's get down to what I use to clean and sanitize my brushes and how I actually go about cleaning them. 

So first I have two different products I use to actually clean my brushes depending on how dirty they are. If they aren't super dirty and/or don't need conditioning I reach for the E.L.F. Brush Shampoo, which is also pretty fool proof. The consistency is very gel-like so it really sticks to the bristles and you can really clean stuff out quickly. Because it's so thick you don't need that much so you don't waste the product (even though it's only $3). I really love using this shampoo on my beauty sponges because the sponge doesn't soak up the product so you can really get the outside clean. 

If I need something to condition and really really deep clean my brushes I actually reach for Dr. Bronner's Magic Soaps 18-in-1 Hemp Lavender Pure Castille Soap. There's no detergents in it and the smell is absolutely wonderful! I even picked up a travel-size to take with me on the go, but a huge bottle will run you $3-$4. It's more liquid-y then the E.L.F. shampoo so you may find yourself using more product until you get used to it, but it breaks down even the gunkiest brushes (eyeliners, foundation and lip brushes) it makes the oils and waxes come out of the brushes like it was just water. 

It also leaves them smelling great and very soft so bonus!

I have heard a lot of people say they like to shampoo and condition their brushes with Mane and Tail products, which are also very cheap, so whatever works! I will say though that after years of using the MAC brush cleaner, even cheap shampoo is better than that stuff and WAAAYYYY cheaper so just say no! Lol

So I'm going to include a video down below of one way to really clean your brushes if you are super OCD but if not, I basically clean my brushes by getting them damp (so just quickly taking them under the hot water stream) and then I pour a little cleanser on them, swipe them around in my hand until no more pigments come out, with large powder or foundation brushes I get my fingers all the way down to the root to ensure every last bit is cleaned, and then I rinse them, reshape them (which is a must it will also remove excess water!) and then if you didn't notice in the very first picture, I lay them on a rag with a rag under the ends of the handles so that the water doesn't sit on the furl. So basically angling them down, this is going to help preserve the integrity of your brush, water getting on the furl (the metal part that holds the bristles) can cause the glue to loosen and it can also cause the metal to rust in some brushes. Angling them down also helps the water to run off faster so your dry time is a little quicker!

So if these were my brushes for clients I would hit them two times after they've dried with 91% Rubbing Alcohol to sanitize them completely, which I keep in a spray bottle (super easy) this can also be used to sanitize your makeup! 91% is the only one that will kill all the bacteria that grows on makeup (bleck I know!)

So other things I use while I'm using my brushes is the E.L.F. Daily Brush Cleanser. This is $3 and I just spray each side of the brush and run it over or swirl it on a paper towel. As I said before this will not only keep bacteria at bay, it will also keep your makeup looking crisp so that previous colors don't mix and muddy up the new ones you are applying!

I know there are ones that dry faster then the E.L.F. brand one of them is called Cinema Secrets, but I own so many brushes that it isn't something I need to invest in as of yet. 

So I hope this helps you guys with your cleaning needs!! I know it can be a bummer to take the time, but it will keep sickness at bay AND also allow you to look even more flawless with your makeup application! 

XO

~D