Sephora Subscription Box

I'm not really a big makeup person, and most of what I have is old and stale and should be thrown out. I very rarely wear it. But I heard about Sephora's $10/mo sample subscription box and thought that that was the right size and the right price (and the right quality) for my barely-there beauty needs. So, this is September's box. These are all sample sizes:

Burberry lip pencil Union Red

Favorite Makeup on the Web (and my signature look)

I very rarely wear any makeup. A lifetime of skin problems will do that. I also have the habit of wiping my eyes a lot, so forget about eye makeup. When I'm going out, I wear lipstick (did a blog post a while back...I only added a dark red/wine color to the collection since the post)

But I do like looking at makeup online. Here are  few of my favorites.

On instagram, I follow Dollfille. I met her at the BtSSB opening and was blown away by her makeup. They're colorful and her craft is amazing.

Makeup: film noir + eyebrow masking

 Just a bit of fooling around with makeup and photoshop. I decided to do a film-noir look despite not having the hair for it. What makes it noir is the super thin eyebrows of course, the dark lips, and bringing in the eyeshadow into the bridge of your nose. I used brown eyeshadow (as supposed to) but i think black would have been better. More dramatic. Used white pencil on the bottom rim. Also, wrong decade and wrong style, but I decided to make a flapper crown out of a necklace chain and brooch I had.

New hair color! Gray (and Pravana pastels/ion pastels hair color review)

I made an impulse decision to color my hair gray today.  New year, new hair... why not? 

Here are the products that I used:
Ion color Brilliance brights: Rose
Ion color Brilliance brights: Titanium
Pravana Chromasilk Pastels: Pretty in Pink

For these colors, you don't need to mix them with any developer, which means they aren't damaging. It's just paint, which also means it's semipermanent.

First coloring, I wanted to compare the Pravana pink against the Ion pink. as you can see, the Pravana didn't color my hair at all. I'd say I was at or near a level 10 (whitest blond) and I've got porous and thick hair. It should have worked, but it didn't. 

bummer. also check out the scarf I crocheted. chains!

 The Pravana is in the far left, the ion is in the middle. The gray honestly doesn't look so hot either. I actually wanted a pale gray, almost off-white. but it looks kind of green, probably because the dye isn't completely opaque. I wonder if Jerome Russell makes a gray--those were very opaque colors. Sometimes the problem isn't your hair--it's usually the color, which is a translucent sheen of color. Especially when people say "Oh in the SUN it's purple or whatever." Short story: Pravana sucks and I wouldn't recommend it to anyone. Amazingly, it's a pro brand. I'd be pissed if I went to a salon and got this:

you can see by my roots it's KINDA pastel pink.

The ion pink is too vibrant to pass off as pastel. You'd need to dilute it to get it a true pastel.

Needless to say, I redid my hair and now it's:

wet hair

dry hair

The gray looks a little blueish. I honestly have an ash toner that would get this same color. Maybe with a few washings, It'll look more grayish. I LOVE the pink though. the pink is awesome, especially poking through the ash gray I have here.

Lipstick

Like a year ago, I discovered that I actually like lipstick. I used to think it was a pain (you can't kiss anyone, it gets all over your cups, and you've got to reapply it all the time). Still true. But it's the easiest way to transform your look. And you can fit a tube of lipstick in your pocket. And if you fuck up, you can wipe it off...easy. Most of the time I'm putting on makeup in a store window or a teeny NYC bathroom, so getting out brushes and eye pencils and whatever is such a pain. God help you if you fuck up your eyeliner with that super waterproof liquid eyeliner.

left to right: Mac: red hot; Smashbox: electric pink; kat von d: painted love; Ka'oir: rude girl; Ka'oir: ka'oir force; makeup forever: rouge artist intense 50; wet 'n wild fantasy maker: black

REVIEWS AFTER THE JUMP!
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