The Ultimate Guide: Everyday Makeup Tricks and Tips

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  • Makeup should complement your features, not create new ones.

If you feel that you’re doing too much with your makeup, you probably are. It’s okay to want to try out new looks, but make sure you don’t look like a different person.

  • Your elbow is the secret to the perfect cat eye.

Start by leaning your elbow against a flat surface and lightly rest your cheek on your palm. This way, your hand won’t shake when drawing a cat eye. Also, use a light hand when applying the liner because too much pressure will make it easier to smudge.

  • For a daytime look, accentuate either your lips or your eyes, not both.

Either look is great and all depends on what you’re going for on that day, but to achieve a more subtle look. accentuate one feature.

  • Brushes are great, but you can use your fingers and still get results.

I’m a huge fan of using my hands instead of brushes when it comes to face makeup, especially foundation and concealer. I feel like when you use your fingers you get more coverage and a sleeker look. Also, you waste less product! When you use a beauty blender, it tends to suck up some of the product, making you use more and run out of it more quickly.

To apply eyeshadow on the run, use dry fingers and a light hand. Dab one finger gently into the shadow, and dab just as gently at the crease of your eyelid. Use a clean finger to blend across the lid.

There’s more you can do with your hands than you think!

  • Remember to blend at the chin.

It’s easy to forget – and when you do, it leaves you with a stark line where your foundation ends. Make sure to blend your foundation at your chin down your neck. You can also apply face powder to smooth the appearance of foundation.

  • Swap out your eye makeup regularly. 

Eye makeup easily accumulates bacteria, and using old eyeliner or mascara can cause irritation or infection. If it’s dried out, toss it!

  • Always take your makeup off before bed.

Sleeping in foundation can mess with your skin, and the dirt and dead cells that accumulate throughout the day can clog pores, which leads to inflammation and breakouts. Make sure to cleanse and moisturizer before bed!

 

Covergirl LashBlast Volume Mascara

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Photo from: Walgreens.com

Hey guys! So today I’m going to be doing a product review of my go-to mascara! The mascara I use is Covergirl LashBlast Volume Mascara. I have been using this mascara for a few years now and absolutely love it!

This mascara gives your lashes a bold, voluminous look! The formula is a volume-boosting hypoallergenic formula that comes with a patented brush. The pair combined works to max out each lash!

Although the formula has a waterproof version, I like to use the regular one. When I’ve used the waterproof in the past, I felt like my lashes didn’t look as full and turned out clumpy. The non-waterproof formula is good enough to last throughout the day as well so I didn’t feel the need to use it.

Steps to Apply: 

Step 1: Dip the brush into the mascara bottle. Try not to excessively pump as this causes issues with the dryness of the liquid.

Step 2: Apply a light coat to the top of both lash lines and focus on the outer lashes to give a fuller look. Coat brush again and re-apply.

Step 3: Lightly brush on the bottom lashes with the left over mascara left from each top lash line. This gives a more dramatic and voluminous addition to the overall look. Add a third light coat to make your lashes look especially long.

You can find this product at any local drug store including: CVS, Walgreens, and Walmart. With any store you choose, this product will be no more than $10. This affordable product usually lasts me at least a month and three months max.

This mascara comes in three different colors: brown, black, and grey. I like to use the black because I wear black eyeliner and it suits it well. You can choose based on whichever look you’re going for!

Good luck with your shopping! XO

 

Commercial Post

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Click here to listen to my website commercial!

 

 

Hi everyone! This week for class I had to construct a commercial for my website. In my commercial, I explain the basics of my website. This aspect of the website definitely took longer than I’d like to admit. To be honest, this was probably the most difficult part of creating a website thus far.

Anyways, I started off with recording myself on Audacity. At first, I didn’t read off of a script, but I kept messing up so I just wrote something up really quick and read off of that. After recording myself, I downloaded Levelator to enhance my voice in the recording. This application made my voice sound louder and took out the background noises that could hear in the initial recording.

Then, I went on to choose two songs from an assortment of Creative Commons music. Sifting through the different areas was difficult because not all of the sites had the option to download the music and the ones that did allow you to download, asked for a payment method. I ended up just choosing the first two songs that I was able to download and added it to my recording.

This last part was probably the most difficult. At this point, I had to work around my voice and make sure the two songs faded in and out smoothly. Controlling the volumes wasn’t exactly hard, just tedious. Once I finally finished my commercial, I downloaded it and created a SoundCloud account to post it there.

All in all, I am glad I know how to use the software now though, and who knows, maybe I’ll need it at some point in the future!

Thanks for listening! XO

 

 

 

Frugal Lips

So now that you’ve figured out the best shade for your skin tone, it’s time to get some new lippies! Again, I don’t like to spend tons of money on makeup (I’m struggling as it is on a college student income), so I’m going to be sharing a product review for one of my favorite drugstore lipstick brands, NYX!

I adore NYX and all of their beauty products. Their lipsticks are amazing and can be found at your local Walgreens, CVS, and Target! My absolute favorite lipstick from their line is Lip Lingerie.

The bottle is gorgeous and it applies so slick. The matte finish it creates is to die for! I’ve gone out with this lipstick plenty of times and it’s lasted me all night! I usually wear the shade French Maid – It’s not too dark or light and goes perfectly with my skin tone!

A little goes a long way with this liquid matte lipstick. Keep this in mind when applying because if you apply too much, your lips will look caked on.

There’s an abundance of shades offered so anyone can find their desired color! Whether you’re ordering online or in store, you can find these at such a great price.

Happy shopping!

XO

 

The Lipstick Lobby

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Photo from: Musely

Lipstick can make or break your look. In this post I’m going to be talking about which lipstick shade is best for your skin tone.

Before going after the brightest color your eyes spots first, keep your undertone in mind. This will be extremely helpful when choosing the best shade for your skin tone.

Some people have pink undertones while others have more of a yellow. If the veins on your wrist are more blue, you’re leaning more toward a pink undertone. On the other hand, if your veins are more green, you’ll be drifting toward the yellow undertone spectrum.

Tip #1: Yellow undertones should stick to warmer colors while pink undertones should gravitate toward shades that have purple or blue tones in them.

Tip #2: Olive skin tones go best with nudes. This can be light pink, orange, etc. This skin tone also goes great with shades of red.

Tip #3: If you have fair skin, you should try to avoid anything too light as it can make you look ill. With fair skin, you can’t go wrong with bold reds or deep colors. A night out on the town with a bold red on your lip makes one hell of a statement.

Tip #4: Darker skin tones go great with deep purples or reds. These deeper shades are flattering and compliment this type of skin tone.

These are some tips I’ve learned over the years. Notice I didn’t call them rules because at the end of the day, there are none to go by. If you really love a color, but it clashes with your skin tone, go for it! The thing I’ve always loved about makeup is that you can experiment all the time! At the end of the day, you should always wear what makes YOU feel best!

XO

 

 

 

 

Screencasting

Like most of us in class, this was my first time doing a screencast. It was definitely easier and more straight forward than I thought it would be. At first, I wasn’t sure which website to choose. I chose Total Sorority Move because I love their social media pages. This website is an entertainment college women’s site. The content is mainly scandalous, funny, and informal, which is why I enjoy following their social media pages.

I’ve never checked their main site before this assignment, but it’s very similar to the social media platforms they use. Looking at their site made me learn a lot more about their brand as a whole. After I decided to choose this site, I wasn’t sure how to prepare for the recording, so I just quickly looked through the different areas of the website. Although I wrote notes to go off of for my recording, I ended up just going off the ideas that popped in my head at the moment.

After relating this site back to the Dunn article in my screencast, I realized how important it is to make your site user-friendly and how crucial it is to follow those simple advice topics mentioned by Dunn. As I stated in my screencast, this website is straightforward and user-friendly, but very cluttered. The website would benefit from a categories section to filter out different themes covered or even section out the authors. Having a cluttered site can easily make a reader feel overwhelmed and not even want to read through the site. Besides that, the site does a great job with targeting their main audience and connecting the site to other platforms they use.

Screencasting comes in handy in various career fields. For example, professors who teach online courses can use screencasting to upload virtual lectures. This makes it easier for students to follow online lectures and know what to focus on at specific times. This is especially true for math classes!

I’m glad I learned this skill because I believe it will be valued by potential employers. Since technology is constantly evolving in the workplace, knowing this skill will definitely help during job interviews. In many fields, you have to talk in front of large crowds filled with your peers. An easy way to present your ideas would be to share a screencast for the audience to easily be able follow. For example, in the PR world, you are constantly pitching ideas, whether it’s to your superiors or the media. Being able to screencast and presenting your ideas through this handy tool would make your presentation that much better.

A creative project that will benefit from screencasting would be explaining student understanding. To really know if students are understanding class concepts, professors could have students use screencasting as a way to explain what they know in their own words. Students can record themselves working through a math problem or explaining the main points of a class concept. This could help students get a better understanding of class topics and help professors know which topics need more focus.

All in all, I believe more people should learn this technique as it can be beneficial in various situations!

 

Everlasting Liner

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Photo from: ProductExpert

I know how frustrating it can be to have a tub of gel eyeliner or brow liner get dried up after just a few weeks of buying it. Instead of tossing it and getting a new one, I’m gonna share a bulletproof trick that will make your liner last the longest or revive it if it’s already dried up.

Step 1:  Add 2-3 drops of eyedrops to your tub of liner. If the liner seems like it’s excessively dry, make some holes before adding the drops so it can seep in really well.

Step 2: Mix the liner using a toothpick until it becomes a creamy consistency. Make sure to get the bottom and corners of the tub as well so that there aren’t any dry parts left.

Step 3: Smooth out the surface to create the slick look it had when you first bought it. I would suggest using the stick you use to apply the liner. Lastly, absorb any excess, left over liquid with a q-tip.

And there you have it, your revived liner! Make sure to do a swatch on your hand before closing it to make sure it worked! Good luck!

 

Pixlr

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Hello everyone! For class this week, we were told to create our own image on Pixlr. This was my first time ever using a photo editing site like Pixlr. For this being my first time, I actually didn’t have that many difficulties. The step-by-step video was very helpful as well. The image I made isn’t going to be used as my banner as of now because I really like the one I have picked out already, but my site is still in the early stages, so I may change my mind later on.

Choosing two pictures to go together was a bit difficult at first because I wasn’t sure what I was exactly going for or expecting to come out of merging the two together. After choosing my two desired images, I only stumbled upon a few issues. The first one was changing the dimensions to the images. The second one was using the wand tool. The picture I chose to add to the background layer was difficult to use with the wand tool because there was so much going on in one photo. After multiple tries, I decided to just use a whole other picture instead. I chose a white background with lips and since it was a very basic picture to crop out, it was way easier to use with the wand tool. After these steps, everything was pretty straight forward and I didn’t have any issues. I’m very surprised how easy this website is to use as a first-timer.

I can use this website in various ways for the future. In one of my classes, I have to make a flyer for a client and it’s useful to be able to edit images and add it to the flyer to make it pop more. Being able to navigate this site will also help me post-college in the PR world as well. I’m glad I got to learn how to use this site as I was a bit nervous to try it out in the beginning.

Photos from:

Shutter Stock

Karity

 

Eyeliner Expert

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Photo from: HubPages

Doing makeup is hard, and you have to know what you’re doing. Eyeliner is one of the hardest concepts of makeup because everyone has different eyelid shapes and looks they desire. This is important to keep in mind when you’re scrolling through makeup “inspo” pictures or watching YouTube tutorials. For this post, I will be providing eyeliner hacks based on eyelid shapes!

 

  1. Almond: These are the easiest eye shapes to work with because you can basically pull off any eyeliner look. Whether you’re feeling bold and want to do a thick wing, or rocking an everyday look and want to go thin, these eyes look great with any type of winged liner.
  2. Monolid: If you have monolid eyes, you should apply a line that is visibly thick when you look down and perfectly straight when you look up. It’s hard to see the liner with this shape, so it’s important to make the lines thick.
  3. Upturned: This shape lid is my favorite for winged eyeliner – I feel like it makes the eyes pop perfectly! For this shape, you should use a thin line and a little wing. Also, to avoid making the look seem uneven, you should connect the wing to some eyeliner under the eye.
  4. Downturned: Downturned eyes are tricky. The inner corner of your eye should have thin liner and as you’re reaching the outer, it should gradually get thicker. Make sure to also angle it upwards on the end to give your eye a quick lift!
  5. Round: Lastly, the round eyelids! To perfect the cat eye look, you must create a sort of triangle shape. This will elongate your eyes and make you feel totally fierce!

These are just some of the many types of eyelids! I hope this helps all you eyeliner lovers!

Foundation Glow

 

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(Photo from Lorealparisusa.com)
Foundation is the most important part of the makeup process because it’s the base of your look. Nowadays, the go-to foundation look is lightweight rather than “cakey”. The first step in looking for your perfect foundation is to pick a shade that matches your skin tone. Ultimately, this means that the color will disappear without having to be blended in.

I’m not going to lie, I do buy some products that are expensive name brands found in stores like Sephora, but those products usually last me a few months. I use foundation on a daily basis, therefore, I go through it faster than other products. It would be such a waste of money to drop $50 on a bottle of foundation every month.

My favorite drugstore foundation is L’oreal True Match. Starting with the packaging, the bottle is made out of glass, so it gives the product that sleek look. Once you open the bottle, you can feel the lightness of the product. Whether you use a beauty blender or your finger tips, it’s so easy to blend and leaves your skin looking and feeling silky smooth. Your face doesn’t feel heavy and it lasts all day! I wear this at work, school, and my nights out, and I’ve never had an issue with the lasting power! A little goes a long way – this foundation usually lasts me over a month and that’s pretty great for someone who uses it so frequently.

I buy this product from my local Walgreens or Walmart. It is around $11 at Walgreens and $7 at Walmart, which compared to other name brand foundations, is a steal! There are an abundance of shades to choose from starting with Porcelain and ending with Espresso. I love everything about this foundation! The satin finish really gives you that makeup expert look!