FOTD – Paradise Bloom

I couldn’t wait to play with the Paradise Bloom bold palette so I washed my face and started over.

MAC eye shadow primer
Entire lid to brow: Silk
Eye lid: Honey Bee and Green Machine
Crease and Outer V: Sapphire
Eyeliner Upper and Lower: Green Machine (wet)
elf HD powder
Ulta’s Jet Black Voluptuous Volume Mascara
Ulta’s Flush Blush
Ulta’s Dare to Bare Lipstick

This was my first time really playing with a bold color. I was nervous as heck! The yellow goes on pretty bright and I really wanted to have a blend of the green and yellow. Didn’t quite come out how I was expecting but it came close. It will certainly take some practice. Applying the green eye shadow wet was a fluke, my eye had started to tear up as I was putting on the green and made a line across my eyelid. I started to try to remove it and realized I kinda liked it so I went with it.

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FOTD – Lavender Fields

With the exception of the MAC primer and elf’s HD powder, My FOTD is from the products in Ulta Lavender Fields bag.

Entire lid to brow: Charm
Eye lid: Pashmina
Crease: Haze
Outer V and upper lashline: Eggplant

I used the Raisin eye liner to go back over the upper lashline as well as the lower waterline. Ulta’s Jet Black Voluptuous Volume Mascara on both upper and lower lashes, a sweep of Sweet Cheeks blush on the apples of my cheeks and finished off with Purple Rain.

With my eyes open, I think it looks quite nice. Closed however, it looks like a nasty bruise! LOL

 

Ulta – Paradise Bloom Review

I caved and sent off another order to Ulta last week so I could get the Paradise Bloom freebie bag. I have such a weakness for green. It came with some awesome colors!

The eye shadow has some pretty bold colors in this bag though the neutral palette is the same as the Lavender Fields.

Starting from the left and going across: Mystique, Bone, Honey Bee, Silk, Gold Dust, Espresso, Green Machine and Sapphire.

Swatches of the eye shadow:

 

The blush (Flush) is darker and not as shimmery as Sweet Cheeks that came with Lavender Fields.

The lipstick is a beautiful nude called Dare to Bare #221

The nail polish is a very deep green called The Jungle Look.

I initially thought the eye pencils and lip glosses were the same but I was wrong! The dual end lip gloss is Plush and Illusion and the dual end eye pencils were Black, Bronze, Dark Brown and Chocolate. (I’m not sure about you but I can’t really tell the difference between the dark brown or chocolate)

While I absolutely loved the Lavender Fields bag itself, the Paradise Bloom one let me feeling kinda meh. I was hoping for another squarish bag but instead this is more like the traditional make up bag pouch. Had I been paying closer attention, I would have noticed that but I didn’t. Ah well, it’s not a bad bag so I don’t see it leaving me any time soon.

Paradise Bloom vs Lavender Fields bag

In order to qualify for the freebie, I had to buy $17 worth of product, so I stocked up on my nail polish:

Maine Attraction, Bare Minimum, Purple Haze and Chocolate Kiss

All in all, not a bad haul. Looking forward to playing with all of these!

 

Subscription Anticipation

The beginning of a new month now has a new meaning for me: the arrival of new boxes from my subscription programs.

Just for my own record, here is what I am expecting:

Birchbox
Beauty Army
Beauty Box 5
The Look Bag
Sample Society
Sindulge

This month my goal is to trim down by 2 boxes. The ones I am looking to cut are Beauty Box 5 and The Look Bag. I wasn’t terribly impressed with either of them and the customer service for Beauty Box 5 was not that stellar.

On top of that, I am now on a No Buy for the months of March, April and May (except subs). I was looking over my collection and realized I have gone completely crazy and need to use what I have before I add any more make up. With a week long vacation coming up in March and the cruise in May, I’d like to redirect money towards purchases I can use on/during those trips.

How is your March looking?

 

Sindulge Consultation

An interesting twist on the monthly subscription programs I’ve been a part of is Sindulge’s face to face consultation before you even get a box. Birchbox, Beauty Army, MyGlam, all of those merely had a quick survey and from those, put boxes together. Sindulge takes it a step further.

When you sign up, you set up a consult with one of their consultants. During your consult, they ask what it is you are looking for, what kind of skin care you have, etc and then (and most important to me), what it is you are trying to achieve. Since I am still learning what my particular make up look is, Christina (my consultant) has a bit of a challenge ahead of her.

We agreed that glitters were not something I was interested or wild eye colors. With our discussion, we concluded that my first box will primarily be make up to play with and then each month, during our consult, try to dial it in to something geared towards a particular look I want.

All in all, it’s been an interesting experience so far and I am looking forward to what the future holds with this particular company.

 

EDITED TO  ADD: I forgot to mention you have a choice on how to do your consult, either through video chat or via text.

 

My First Cruise!

Some friends of mine have been talking about doing an Alaskan cruise for some time but we could never get everyone’s schedules to sync up. The decision was finally made to just pick a date. The date chosen was May 18th – May 25th and come hell or high water, I was going to be on that boat!

My birthday on the 2nd, the SOs and mine’s anniversary is the 17th and one of my best friend’s birthday is 27th. Individually all of these are awesome reasons to celebrate but add all three and it’s an EPIC reason to celebrate! So we are now confirmed on Royal Carribean‘s cruise line and for the night we land in Seattle, we will be staying at Chambered Nautilus Bed and Breakfast Inn, specifically the Garden Chamber room. The pictures of the room are to die for, I only hope they live up to the actual thing! Needless to say, I plan on taking lots of pics to document the occasion.

I’ve never been to Seattle, much less a cruise so to say I am excited is a bit of an understatement.

 

elf wants you to feel lucky!