I love makeup brushes. Every makeup junkie does, pretty much. But really…your best tools are your hands & fingers.
I haven’t done a video in a long time. Mainly because I really don’t feel the need to since there are sooo many great makeup artist/gurus on YouTube. But I decided to do this video to show that you don’t need fancy brushes to create beautiful looks. Even if you only have one eyeshadow brush or just cotton swabs, you can still create looks like a smokey or sculpted eyes. If I can do it with just my finger tips, you can do it too…with whatever you have.
[My girl, Alex does her makeup like this too.]

I made this video playlist at myflashfetish.com

Easy right? :]

Products »
Foundation/Powder: Pur Minerals
Concealer: Amazing Cosmetics
Primer: Urban Decay Eyeshadow Primer Potion in Original
Shadows: All from Coastal Scents 88 Ultra Shimmer Eye Shadow Palette.
Eyeliner: Make Up For Ever Aqua Eyes in Mat Black 0L
Blush: From Coastal Scents 10 Piece Pro Blush Palette.
Lash Curler: Shu Uemura
Mascara: Benefit Badgal Lash Mascara.
LipWear: Stila Lip Glaze in Kitten.

Music »
Anjulie – “Boom” & RJD2 – “The Proxy”

Nails »
From my recent Nail post..Abstract Nails.

I used to not where lipstick at all. I always thought it was for older women. I thought lipgloss was for girls and lipstick was for women. In my opinion, I do think young teens should only wear lipglosses and tinted lip balms. And I believe as you get older from late teens to womanhood…lipsticks, lip liners and lip stains can/should be added in to your collection.
Right now, I have so many lipglosses, I don’t even want to count. My favorite brands for lipglosses are Stila cosmetics, Cargo, NYX, NARS, Sephora, and tarte.
As for lipsticks, I only have 8 right now. I’ll have more once I’m working again. All, but one are from the drugstore/Target. I don’t wear lipstick a lot, so I don’t want to spend so much for ‘em. Also, I’m very anal about keeping my lips moisturized, so I try to buy lipsticks that won’t dry out my lips.

Here are the ones that I have. A few are not so great. Most are great. Click picture to enlarge.

Revlon Moisture Extreme Lipstick in Roseberry. I really love the color of this one. =) It’s a little more pink in the picture than in person. I feel very feminine when wearing this one.

Surprisingly, this one is from Walmart. Hard Candy Lipstick in Knock-Out. This is a very pretty pink. Totally a barbie/mod type pink, too. Colors like this aren’t my favorite because if you’re teeth aren’t perfect white, the color makes them look yellow. I haven’t worn it out in public yet, because of that reason. I got it for the fun of it. This color makes me feel stupid and ditzy. Lol. Just kidding.

Maybelline ColorSensational in Mauve-lous. This color is one of my favorites. It’s very smooth and shiny finish. Just the right about of moisture too. This color makes me feel sure and beautiful.

Revlon Super Lustrous Lipstick in Blackcherry. One of my favorites. The lipstick itself looks almost black. It’s somewhat moisturizing. This color makes me feel seductive and daring. Somewhat evil too. Muahaha..

Maybelline Moisture Extreme in Nude Blush. The one is my favorite lipstick out of the ones that I have. Can be worn with any eye look. I feel like a sweet and innocent girl carrying a basket of flowers in this color. Lol.

Maybelline ColorSensational in Madison Mauve. This color looks great in picture, but in person, it’s okay. It has a little bit of iridescence to it. I’m not a huge fan of iridescent lipcolor because it can be very tacky. The color is close to the other Maybelline lipstick I have shown.

Revlon Matte Lipstick in Nude Attraction. This was my least favorite lipstick. It wasn’t the color, but the formula. Because it’s a very matte color, the formula was on the dry side. You can kinda see the cracks on my lips in this picture. This is another color that makes teeth look yellow. I only like wearing this underneath a lipgloss.

MAC Viva Glam Lipstick in Viva Glam I [matte, A16]. As you can see, this color is very rich. It’s on the dry side, so I like wearing this with lipgloss too. Also…with this color and my Revlon Blackcherry, I wear a lipstain and lipliner underneath for insurance. This color screams glam, so that’s how I feel when I wear this color. Glamorous. =)

In all these pictures, [besides the lipstick] I’m wearing, MAC Select Cover-up [I didn't put enough], NARS Powder Foundation, Ardell Lashes, and Coastal Scents black eyeshadow. Only lipcolor I have on are just the lipsticks alone. No added liners, stains, or glosses.
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I always buy makeup with a smart attitude. Yes, I am a makeup junkie, but I’m not going to impulse buy [and possibly go broke until my next pay check] just to get the satisfaction of adding more to my makeup collection. It’s kinda stupid to do that if you’re not made of money. When it comes to shopping for makeup, I’m always looking for sets or palettes. I think they’re absolutely great for the girl who wants quality makeup, but wants to spend as little as she can. That would be me. When I did work, I would bust my ass off making that money. I don’t want to spend it all away by buying like four shadows and a lipgloss. So sets and palettes. I am all about them!
Also, a lot of people buy certain makeup just for the brand. I don’t care if it’s MAC, Shiseido, L’Oreal, or Chanel. It’s how you apply it that counts. Did you know that L’Oreal owns Lancome? The major difference between the two? Yup, you got it. Price tag.

Here are the shadow palettes that I have. Pretty much all the looks you’ve seen on me are from using these shadows. I have very few single single compacts. The shadows I first started with were from MAC, but I dropped them and everything fell apart. Where I lived, the MAC Store was on the other side of the mall, which was on the other side of the street, so Sephora was the store I would go to all the time. Even when I just wore MAC, I would only buy the eye shadow quads/palettes. Since I like experimenting with makeup..wearing different looks, it would take me forever to use up a single eyeshadow compact. That’s why I get palettes. I get to use more colors and get more use out of my money.

The palettes I have here are:
Coastal Scents: Ultra 88 shimmer, Ultra 88 Piece Makeup [matte], and 10 piece pro blush. [each are less than 20 bucks!!]
Relvon Illuminance Creme Shadow in Twilight. Four colors.
MAC holiday shadow compact. I got it like two years ago..forget the collection name. Six colors.
NYX Trio Shadows. TS34 [team spirit], TS6 [purple, deep purple, prune], TS10 [tropical, yellow, lime green], and TS13 [cherry, cool blue, hot pink]. Three colors each.
Too Faced Liquif-Eye Shadow Collection. 12 colors.
Urban Decay Sustainable Shadow Box. 10 colors.
Too Faced Glamour To-go II. 8 shadows, four lipglosses, and a blush.
Sephora Colorful Eyeshadow Palette in Chromosome X 10. Four colors.
Cargo Wet/Dry Eyelining Palette [I got as a gift] 8 colors.
Anastasia Brow Ex-press in Brunette Two brow shadows, brow wax and brow bone highlighter
Sephora Kat Von D True Romance Eye Palette in Beethoven. 8 colors.
Two off brand five color shadow palettes. Blues and Greens. [got these from a client of mine that went to a beauty convention/show, she works for OPI]
For each palette I spend about $7-50.

The brushes I use are all from brush sets. Brushes can be very expensive, especially when you buy them separately. Brush sets are awesome because they usually include all the brushes you would need. I like Sephora, MAC, and Sonia Kashuk [Target] brushes. All the sets I got ranged from $15-$50.
Bottom right set I got from an outlet mall. MAC Brushes. I got lucky with that set. =)
The rest are from Sephora. The bottom left is a travel set.
The three brushes on the top are from previous sets I used to own. Dumb move, Vana. :P
The only drugstores/Target/Walmart brushes I like are from Essences of Beauty, Revlon, and EcoTools.
The brushes I use for foundation/powders are from foundation sets. I use Bare Minerals and Pur minerals. To start with, I bought the starter kits because they came with brushes. Most mineral foundation kits come with a few powder brushes. The Bare Minerals starter kit came with three brushes. The Pur Minerals starter kit came with one. Each kit came with a foundation, some sort of finishing powder/blush, and a bronzer.

Most of the lipglosses I buy are separate, but when I see sets, they’re hard to resist.
Left: Tarte Crown Jewels Lipgloss Multi-Gift Set. 15 colors. $39 Right: Stila Cosmetics Lip Glaze Collection. 8 colors. $25
Both from Sephora. Great as gift ideas, but I kept most for myself and gave a few to my friends. Lol. Pictures from Sephora.

Pretty much all cosmetic brands offer palettes.
Check out Sephora. They have a of palettes. On their website, they have a section for palettes and a section for value sets.

MAC usually has already made shadow palettes for holidays and collections. You can also customize your own shadow palettes. They have a 4 [$47.50] and 15 [$177] color eyeshadow palette. And a 6 [$105]color blush palette.
Note: I love makeup and I love MAC, but I love getting the most out of my money more. I can get a 8-10 color palette from a different brand at Sephora [Tarte, Urban Decay, Kat Von D] for the same price as a 4 color palette from MAC.

Also check out NYX Cosmetics and Coastal Scents. They have a lot of already made & custom palettes too. Very affordable.

The makeup I wore for school today. I’m really loving blues right now. Oh, in case you were wondering what that mark is on my nose is from…it’s from my nails. When I was like 14, I squeezed a white head with my nails. Big no no. Don’t extract blemishes with your nails. Here’s proof that it will scar. Lol.

It was a free day today at school. Since I’m loving blue so much right now, I decided to get vivid blue highlights/or peek-a-boo lights. When my hair is all down, you can’t see it unless the wind is blowing in my hair. Lol. My two teachers did it for me. Two of my classmates washed my hair. Got my hair lifted. And then we applied Pravana Chromo Vivid. It took like almost two hours for my hair to get lifted to a pale yellow. I used to dye my hair pitch black a lot, so halfway down my hair was taking forever to turn. I love it. Glad it was my teachers that did it too.
I wish he added more though. I’ll probably do it myself, now that I know how to do it right.
It was a fun day today. Everyone was getting their hair and makeup did. I did two girls’ makeup. Turned out really good. Wish I took a picture.
I was watching the other girls do makeup for the other classmates and I felt bad for the “clients”. They were pulling on the “clients” skin so hard. Ouch! That’s another big no no. That can cause premature wrinkles! When you apply shadow on someone’s lids and flakes fall under the eye [right above the cheeks], you should use a fluffy brush to sweep it away. One girl took her thumb and rubbed it off like she was trying to rub off permanent marker. I hate seeing that. So so wrong. I don’t even think the client knew any better too. Lol. Ah well. Looked painful.

So that was my first week of school. :] Now I get a week off for the holidays.

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Today was a slow day. All day we did manicures and pedicures for each other. I only did two manicures today because I was used as a hand model for three other girls. Since I did nails, they wanted me to be the model so I can correct them.
I did some sweet abstract nail designs on a few girls.
I have a feeling that tomorrow is going to be a little crazy. I’m bringing my nail polishes (48 colors) and striping paints (25) to class. I have like five people that called dibs on me to do their nails. I might as well do a quick manicure for them to get credit for it. We have to do 20 services of either manicures, pedicures, or nail extensions. That will be real easy since we don’t have to nip cuticles. Maybe I can do my 18 manicure/pedicures credits all by tomorrow. Lol. I wanna get it over with.
I really want to get into the fun stuff…hair coloring, makeup, facials…anything but nails. Lol.
I don’t mind doing nail art though. Love it.

Our instructor has his computer hooked up to a projector screen. I got to show the class and other students on the floor this blog. In my gallery I have some nail designs I’ve done on clients and for myself. Everyone was amazed and told me I should go to nail shows. I’m not good enough yet to go there. Maybe one day. I want to learn 3D nail art and Japanese style nail art. That would be hot. :]

I’ll have more tutorials on nail designs soon. In the meantime, check out this site: Nail Art Vending Machine. The BF showed it to me from CrunchGear. Pretty neat.

Beauty School: Cozmo, The School. Bonita Springs, FL

Today was the first day of beauty school. It was totally not what I expected. I thought we were just going to get our books, have an introduction to the school, introduced ourselves to the other classmates, and talk about sanitation and the boring, yet vital stuff like that. Well, we did all of that and so much more.
Right when I got into the school, I got my kit. Then the newbies [just me and two other girls] joined another group of people. Most were newbies a couple weeks ago and the rest were close to graduating. While they were learning the man haircut, we went through our kit to make sure everything was there.

The kit was like Christmas morning. Our stuff was in a big booty duffel bag. Our official kit box is on backorder. I bet this is one of the most exciting parts of beauty school for most people[receiving your kit]. There is sooo much stuff. Three model heads with human hair in three different textures [they're a little scary]. Cutting shears, all kinds of combs, hair dryer, two clippers, straightener, curling iron, clips, etc.

Meet Debbie, Michelle, and Ms. Suzzi-Kin. When I got home, I showed Cooper [our dog] the ladies. LOL. He would not stop barking at Michelle. Lol. And he kept a safe distance from them.

Right after we were done, the instructor [he's really cool] told us to grab “Debbie”, cutting shears, and comb. We learned to do the blunt cut. I thought, “Wow, we get to cut hair on our first day? Sweet!” So the first half of the day, the newbies and I learned about sectioning, shear & comb placement, elevation, apex, etc. It was actually pretty easy.

The next half of the day, we learned about manicures. Easy for me since I already know how to do nails. I just don’t know the terms for a lot of stuff anymore, like bacteria and nerves. I have a pretty sweet nail design right now. The instructor really liked it and had to tell everyone in class about ‘em. I felt my face get hot and red. Lol. The last half an hour, everyone got to know the newbies. We each spoke about why we want be in the field, our hobbies, blah blah. And we also got to learn about the girls already there. Everyone was pretty cool. :]

These are the nails I’m rocking how. Abstract Purple. I love this look!
Tutorial later. Very very easy. No use of striping paints. I gotta study now :]

Tomorrow, doing manicures.
Oh yeah…got my thousand dollar off my tuition. Aww yeah.

I’m already loving this school.
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