Holiday Beauty Gift Guide

Happy Sunday, everyone! I honestly cannot believe that it is already December. This year has truly flown by and I've been ready for the holidays since... the beginning of November, actually! Now, though, it's socially acceptable to be excited, so my Christmas excitement is now just bursting beyond belief! As I'm sure everyone is now shopping for presents, I wanted to create a little bit of a gift guide for everyone to share! These are some personal beauty favorites of mine that are on my Christmas list and maybe they could be on yours as well!

Taylor Swift Wonderstruck Enchanted Perfume: The follow up to Taylor Swift's incredible Wonderstruck perfume, Wonderstruck Enchanted was just recently released and smells absolutely amazing. The bottle comes in the same great shape with charms draped around the top and is red, perhaps in honor of her new album. 

NAKED Basics Palette: As a follow up to the infamous NAKED and NAKED2 palettes, Urban Decay has just released the new Naked Basics palette! This palette features 6 completely matte eyeshadows, whether you want a light day eye or nighttime smokey look. This palette is also very small! In pictures, I've seen it compared to the size of an iPhone, yet it has 6 full eyeshadows! I'm dying to get my hands on this for the winter!

Ciate Sequin Manicure Set: Ciate has truly been the "it" brand for nail polish trends this year, in my opinion. Beginning with the caviar manicure back in the spring, they have come out with some great manicure kits. (I actually did a post on the caviar nails here) The latest in their trends is the sequined manicure kit, which looks amazing. Your nails literally sparkle and shine!

Chanel Lipstick in La Caline: This lipstick is part of the Chanel Winter collection and I went out to swatch it today. Ah, it was amazing! I don't like a lot of color on my lips, so I tend to always go for more nudes and pinks, but I've been obsessed with the oxblood trend this year. Chanel came out with a very dark, deep oxblood lipstick, but I'd never be able to brave that and this color is just as gorgeous and following the berry trend, just a lot more muted. 

NARS Kiss Mini Larger Than Life Lip Gloss Coffret: Available at Sephora as a part of the NARS/Andy Warhol collection, this mini lip gloss kit comes with 5 different glosses. Not only do the lip glosses look amazing, but the tin it comes in is absolutely amazing and definitely reusable. 

What is on your wishlist this year?! I'd love to know!

Kiss Your Elbow Nail Polish

Well, hello there! I definitely feel a bit bad for how I've neglected my blog as of late! It started out when my computer was having issues and with tech guys for a week while they went about being Fairy Godmothers and fixing all of my laptop's problems up. Then, I've been so caught up in a new project, that all of my extra time has been devoted to it! I figured since I've gotten everything set up with it now, I can go back into blogging and also introduce you all to my exciting work:

Kiss Your Elbow Nail Polish

"Broncos, Baby"

"A Drop in the Ocean"

Ahh, that's right! I've started my own little shop of nail polishes that I've been creating and working on for the past month. I'm super proud of all of the work I've put into this project and am really happy with how it's going. If you'd like, you can visit my shop (here) and also visit the Facebook page (here).

Otherwise, I'll be back with my regular posts starting tomorrow!! See you all then!

Celebrity CopyCat: Olivia Munn

Photo Sourced Huffington Post

Photo Sourced Huffington Post

Happy Saturday, everyone! I just want to say sorry once again for the lag of posts this week, but I have just been so busy, it's crazy! I should be settled into a routine at this point, though!

One of my favorite posts to write are definitely the "Celebrity CopyCat" ones. I love searching the web and finding recent events that my favorite celebrities have attended and studying their style. Then, trying to find an alternative is just as great! Some are easy to find, while others take quite a bit of time before I'm happy with my result. 

My new favorite show that I've become obsessed with is The Newsroom, which is on HBO Sunday nights. When I say I'm obsessed with the show... I mean that in the most literal way. I love it! The show is truly addicting, along with all of the great characters and plot twists. Aaron Sorkin is a genius writer and they could not have cast any better than they did. Olivia Munn plays one of the main characters in the show, who is a sharp and smart economist. Recently, she has been doing her rounds on talk shows to promote Newsroom, showcasing different styles. My favorite has to be her look she wore at Jimmy Kimmel: a neon pink pencil skirt and sheer, lace top from French Connection.

I decided to recreate this look, but definitely struggled to find a similar top. However, I'm still pleased with the similar look I came up with!

What do you think of this look? Are you an Olivia Munn fan? Or, more importantly, are you a Newsroom fan?!?

Celebrity Copy Cat: Olivia Palermo

Photo Sourced from Style Bistro

Photo Sourced from Style Bistro

Photo Sourced from Style Bistro

I'll be honest, before I saw Olivia Palermo featured in a look by Tanya Burr over at Pixi2Woo, I had no idea who she was! With some research, I found out she was on the show The City. Here's the thing... I used to watch that show! It was quite some time ago, so I'm letting it go, but I thought it was so weird that I didn't remember her!

Besides that, I've fallen in love with her style. At each and every event she attends, or even when she's just going shopping, Olivia knows how to dress. My favorite look from a recent event is featured here, when she was attending the Faberge New York Flagship Opening. Her look is so pretty and fun, perfect for summer! Here is the recreation I came up with for her look.

Zara striped t shirt / Paul Smith floral jacket / Vintage shorts / Steve Madden wedge / ELLEBJ circle necklace

I hope you like the recreation I came up with! Personally, I am in love with the Steve Madden wedges.

Remember that Friday is the last day to enter my GIVEAWAY! The winner will be announced in Sunday's post!!

Maybelline Illegal Lengths Mascara

Maybelline Illegal Lengths Mascara
in "Very Black"

Happy Wednesday, everyone! Ah, the week is half over, so only a few more days until the weekend! I'm actually going away today, so I'll probably be lagging on commenting on my favorite blogs, but I'll be sure to catch up on Monday when I'm back home! But I do have this post and a post scheduled for Friday!

In the very beginning of June, I did a review on the Maybelline Great Plush Mascara. That mascara is the newest, and has gotten some quite good reviews by a lot of beauty gurus on the web and youtube. However, as you'll see in my review, I wasn't a huge fan of the mascara. My quest to find another great mascara was not over, though, and I finally got around to purchasing the Maybelline Illegal Lengths mascara ($8-9). I have heard nothing but great reviews on this mascara since it first came out and I remember seeing Carly Cristman talk about it in one of her videos. I just pushed it off until recently, and boy am I glad I finally got around to it!

This mascara is truly a lengthening mascara through and through. The brush gives incredible length to your eyelashes that I have honestly not had in any of my other mascaras. Also, I was given the idea to combine this lengthening mascara with the Great Plush mascara to see how the results would be:

Wow. The combination of these two mascaras is definitely the combination that I have been using. The Great Plush gives volume, while the Illegal Lengths provides length, leaving my eyelashes exactly where I want them to be. I'm fortunate to have full, long lashes, but these two mascaras definitely emphasize that fact to a new extreme!

Have any of you tried this mascara? What about the Great Plush mascara?

Don't forget to enter my GIVEAWAY!

Stila "Fill-Your-Palette" Palette

Dune - Starlight - Kitten
Oasis - Wheat - Golightly

Kitten - Starlight - Dune

Golightly - Wheat - Oasis

Happy Monday, everyone! I honestly can't believe that we're already into the second week of July. Where is the summer going? Over on Pinterest (HotMessInADress), I feel like everyone is pinning autumn outfits of big sweaters, leggings, and boots. In my head, every time I see one of those photos I internally panic and wonder why everyone seems so determined to hurry up and get through summer!

Besides that depressing topic, I was so excited the other day when a package came in the mail for me from Stila! At the end of June, I won one of their contests over on the Stila blog. The prize I won was a 6-pan refillable palette with 6 eye shadows of my choice! I was beyond thrilled to win this, and it finally arrived in the mail last week.

The palette itself is great and sturdy as it's a hard cover that snaps shut, which is great for travelling. I feel like the close is very secure and I wouldn't be worried about it opening and damaging the shadows. The palette is very sleek and small, too, so it's definitely more convenient than the Naked palettes. Unlike the Urban Decay palette, which is very bulky, this palette is very slim and doesn't even seem like it's a refillable. It reminds me of MAC palettes in that sense.

Of course, the eye shadows from Stila are the stars of this show, though. I chose six very neutral shades, which are what I get the most use out of. I just had to include the cult-favorite "Kitten", which I own in the smudge pot form, and is one of my absolute favorites. I was so excited to try the actual eye shadow form, and I can say I was not disappointed. Each of the eye shadows I chose are really great quality and perfect, shimmery nudes. The only matte color I chose was "Dune", while the rest are gorgeous shimmers.

I know that I will get plenty of use out of this palette, and I am just so excited that I got the chance to win this prize. Thanks, Stila!!

PS - Leave your Pinterests in the comments as I've just started really getting into it. I need some new people to follow!

Be sure to enter my GIVEAWAY!

NARS Velvet Gloss Lip Pencil

Happy Friday, everyone! Ah, how much do I love the weekend? A lot! These past few days have been absolutely amazing weather - I absolutely love it! However, I just don't even tan at this point -or burn! - I feel like I just remain pale as pale can be.

I've recently become obsessed with lip products - something I didn't even pay much attention to before. It was always just an after thought, if even that, and chapstick was always my go-to. However, I've recently been discovering some new favorites! While browsing Sephora the other day, I ended up at NARS (surprise, surprise) and I was looking at their lip pencils after hearing great reviews. I ended up choosing one of the velvet gloss lip pencils in "Frivolous".

This color is absolutely amazing! I really love the finish it gives: a natural and glossy look. The pencil is quite sheer, but easy to apply and slides on so smoothly. The best part is probably that it sharpens! I was so excited because I had just hit the end of the product, but I read online that the pencil easily sharpens. I'm going to have to do it this weekend! The packaging for this product is great as it is with all NARS products; the pencil is the perfect size and can easily slip into my clutch or bag. Overall, I have nothing bad to say about this lip pencil! It's been my everyday pick for the past few weeks since I got it and I'm so glad I decided to purchase it. I'm definitely going to stop in Sephora and check out some other shades!

Have you tried any NARS lip products? Any exciting plans for the weekend?

PS - I'm so close to 100 followers! This weekend I'm going to pick something up for a giveaway once I do so keep your eyes peeled!