Urban Decay Beauty Haul Addiction

Urban Decay Makeup

This photo is not the whole beauty haul.. needless to say there is more that I just could not fit into the picture, but I do have a good excuse... Urban Decay truly rocks!!

So here are my thoughts... We all know that when you are young and can wear anything your heart desires, of course Urban Decay is going to be one of the brands you go for.. but what about those of us that have mature skin or are older?? You know me and what I am about to say, even older women can Rock Urban Decay Makeup!!

I am very new to this brand, I know, I know.. I said it before but just in case there is anyone new reading this.. my first real purchase was the Alice Through the Looking Glass Eye-Shadow Palette which is beyond the moon and back.  Than I wrote a blog post called: My Urban Decay Beauty Haul  where I talk about a few wonderful products and NOW I am addicted!!

I have fallen madly in love with the Naked Skin items.. I have the Naked Skin Eye-shadow Palette-3 which is a MUST have!  It is a mixture of matte and a few shimmer eye-shadows that are beautiful soft colors that are rich in pigmentation.  When you put them on they feel like a cream, and last all day until you take your makeup off at night.  For those with hooded eyes, this palette has the right combination that makes your eyes look youthful and alive.  I use the Urban Decay Anti-Aging eye primer before I apply the shadows and it makes a HUGE difference.  

Who says older women cannot wear a shimmering highlighter?  I purchased the Urban Decay Naked Illuminated and OMG, it gives you a small amount of shimmer and makes your face look so pretty!! It is microfine shimmer that is baked into a beautiful disk that gives you this beautiful illuminating glow. It is not too shimmery and it is just the perfect highlighter for mature skin (in my humble opinion).

Recently, I have learned a new trick in keeping liner on my waterline all day.  After you use a black liner on your water-line, follow up applying a black eye-shadow to the inner rim with a small angled brush. I have never been so impressed as I am with Urban Decay makeup brushes.  The small angled brush I got just for this purpose came in a beautiful Gothic looking case.  It just totally impressed me to no end!

Now here is the biggie, I have never tried Urban Decay Lipsticks until I watched a video by my friend Vicckers One & aHalf Cents on YouTube!! She was wearing one of the Alice Through the Looking Glass lipsticks and after watching her, I decided to order me the Madhatter Lipstick and need I say, it is all over!! I love the creamy moisture feeling you get from Urban Decay Lipsticks and yet, they have great staying power!! I was so impressed I had to order a couple more of the lipsticks, love them!  To make them last even longer, I apply a loose powder over my lipstick and it makes it stay all day long!!

I am going to do a separate blog post about some other Urban Decay products I am using.. because they deserve full attention.. so do these products but the naked skin concealer and 'other' things... wow!!!

Bottom Line... this post will be continued... Love you Urban Decay!!

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Shea Moisture Hydrating Mud Mask

Hydrating Mud Mask for Dry Skin

As most of you know who reads my blog post, my latest obsession is with facial mask.  I have already written two other post Shea Moisture Mud Mask and Over Night Facial Mask. The review I am getting ready to write is about another mask I found in the Shea Moisture family called Raw Shea-butter Hydrating Mud Mask. 

Let me start by saying this hydrating mud mask has no sulfates, parabins, phthalates, polypropylene Glycerol, mineral oil and is NOT tested on animals.  Just in case anyone may be wondering Sulfates is a cleansing and foaming agent that are found a lot in items such as body washes and toothpaste.  Parabens are chemicals that prevent bacteria and as a preservative in lotions and other items.  Parabens have been used in product as a preservative since 1950's.  Propylene Glycol is a form of liquid alcohol that is used as a solvent in items such as antifreeze, plastics, foods and perfume companies. 

The Shea Moisture Company was started in 1912 by Sofi Tucker who started out selling Shea Nuts at a village in Bonthe Sierra Leone.  Soon she was selling her skin care and hair care products throughout the country side. 

This mud mask purifies the skin as it hydrates.  The certified organic Shea butter adds moisture, softens and restores the skin. The Frankincense and Myrrh extracts helps to soothe the skin making it look smoother and refreshed.

You apply a thin layer of the mud mask to your face avoiding the eye area.  Leave it on 10 minutes than remove it with a damp warm cloth.  As I was removing the mask I could see a huge difference on my skin almost immediately.  I am a huge fan of Frankincense and Myrrh so for me, this mask smells so nice that it is very relaxing and calming with its aromatherapy properties. 

If you have dry skin this is a must try product.  My face has never felt so smooth and looked so healthy.  An extra benefit of these ingredients are all of the vitamins and fatty acids the ingredients are filled with.

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IT CC Cream a Sample Won Me Over

See Samples can Be Good!

Back in the earlier part of April when I wrote IT-you have Anti-Aging Covered, in the kit I was sent a sample of their CC Cream. Well, to my surprise one morning I decided to try this sample and almost instantly fell in love with it.  First what is a CC Cream and what is the difference between that and a foundation? Wait, is CC Cream a foundation? I know, lots of questions, please read on....

CC Creams means there is color correction in the formula. That means it helps to aid in covering things such as redness and/or pigmentation problems. IT Cosmetics' CC Cream is a full coverage color correcting cream. It is an Anti-Aging Serum, it has a SPF of 50+ and the best part, it is everything combined into one product! Yes, instead of having to use a color correcting pallet, anti-aging serums and sunscreens, this one product has it all.   This CC Cream has cutting edge anti-aging technology (as does most of IT Products) it is clinically proven to improve skin texture, brightness and hydration.  It is NOT suppose to crease or settle in fine lines and it is suppose to cover everything.  The formula is paraben-free and is infused with peptides, niacin, algae, vitamins A, C, B, E and hyaluronic acid and hydrolyzed collagen. Wait for it..... there is more.. this CC Cream has exotic natural botanical for brightening and color correcting benefits!  This is only a fraction of the information about this product, to read more about it and visit:  IT Cosmetics-CC Cream

I have personally been having a hard time with my foundation and application and everything else.  I have watched a ton of videos, read a ton of articles and have tried so many things that I have confused myself and my face looked like it was wearing a mask. Bottom lines ladies with mature skin, remember:  LESS IS BETTER and as much as you would like to have skin like a 22 year old, it just is not going to happen.. HOWEVER, each and everyone of us can learn to work with our own skin and with a little practice (okay a lot of practice) we can achieve the best makeup application we can for our skin!! After about 25 different attempts, here is what I found works best for me.

After you wash, moisturize and apply eye cream (if you use one) to your face, apply a CC Cream, with a good foundation brush (I am going to write an article about the one I use). This CC Cream covers a lot of my own imperfections, but I still have to use a Dermablend concealer. I put concealer over my CC Cream and take a dampened beauty blender and pat the concealer into my skin. Next, I take a Dermablend loose powder and pat it lightly over the area's I added concealer. Last I use a stippling brush and dust away any extra powder. This process gives my face a smooth foundation and it only takes about 10 minutes to apply it.  

The MOST IMPORTANT thing to remember is this, work with your face and try things that work best for you. I promise, mature skin can look beautiful, maybe not as flawless as younger skin, but honey our mature skin can be as beautiful!!

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Mature Face Contouring

Yes, Let's Draw on our Face !!

I love it best how youtuber- HotandFlashy said it, We can contour our face like anyone else, we just have to do our's a little different!  So very true... I literally watch a ton of video's, read numerous tutorials and I promise, although things may be a little different, each of us can achieve what we want to with our faces.  It takes patience, LOTS of practice and different techniques. That is all.  

I am told all of the time that I do not look my age at all, every woman enjoys hearing nice things like that.. but I have worked very hard to get to my 58 years of life, so I am not ashamed at all about my age.  Like I said earlier, we can achieve a lot with our mature skin although differently than our beautiful younger generation, we can still rock it-ladies!!   

Okay.. Rule of thumb ALWAYS:  if you are wearing cream contour, put it on UNDER your foundation and if you are wearing powdered contour put it OVER your foundation!!!

So mature skin does need to rock it a little differently than the younger generation.. mature skin needs to be a little more selective where we put highlight and contour. To be honest, it is BEST to just go ahead and get a contouring kit, that way everything you need is right there.  

Remember-When using a cream contour put it on UNDER foundation.  Start with the highlighter and  place it between your brows down the middle of your nose half way. Above and below your brow bone. Above on your cheek bone and the inside corner of your eyes. Highlight your cupids bow, laugh lines and lines from the corner of your mouth.. (marionette lines). Yes, leave the highlight on and begin to contour your face now.

Using the contour color which will be a few shades darker than your regular skin tone, contour around your forehead close to your hair line, sides of your nose, cheek bone , jaw line and under your lip to make your lips look bigger. Take your brush and line it above your ear down your cheek and you will find the hollows of your cheek bone.

After your face is all good marked up and looking like a clown.. I take a dampened beauty sponge and beginning with the highlighter start blending it in.  You want to PAT not RUB. After the highlighter I rinse out my beauty blender and do the same thing with the contouring color. 

Next put on your foundation again by Patting it on not Rubbing it on. Set with powder and like magic your face is sculpted.   Use a very small brush and very lightly add powder to your under eyes.. you need to work very gently and very lightly because you do now want your wrinkles to stand out.  After I place the powder on my face.. I ALWAYS mist my face with rosewater.. ALWAYS.  It makes my skin look and feel hydrated. 

You are beautiful... now let it shine through!!! This is another fantastic Contouring Collection I love:  Review will be coming up shortly!!

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To Young To Know Better

Unfortunately, we did not know until later in life about all of the damage we were doing to our skin. As teenagers growing up in the late sixties and seventies our main concern was getting as dark as we could, as fast as we could.  I personally remember using a lot of baby oil and of course I had to use the silver blanket sheets because I had to draw as much of the sun to me as possible! The more sun, the more burnt, the darker the tan. A motto used by a ton of teenagers when I was young.

One of the best or should I say most beautiful things about being so tanned was wearing soft colored clothing, pinks, lavenders and even white just enhanced our skin so much. Those colors just looked so beautiful with the bronzed skin, oh man did we look good!!

A few years down the road you begin to notice these crazy little brown spots appearing. Like one day there were none and the next day like magic, wham... there they were!!  What in the world? Then brown spots start appearing on your face, except now they are large brown patches! You try a thousand and one different concealers, along with foundation and the darkness still sneaked through!  You try adding color correction concealer along with regular concealer and foundation now not only can the brownish color still be seen, but now your face looks cakey, ashy, and you feel like you just want to give up and just wear a mask!

This is my own experience because my only concern as a teenager was worrying about how dark I could get. Today I have a lot of sun damage on my face, not the best place for discoloration. I have literally tried so many concealers, that I felt there would never be any hope in hiding the patches. I have wrote a few articles about some good products I have tried. Like Julie August correction concealer pallet, Mac has a peach correction concealer that is semi ok, Ben Nye has a pretty good correction concealer pallet and neutral set colorless powder, but to be honest nothing seems to work as good as the product I am about to tell you about.

Younique Cosmetics has three different kinds of foundation, cream, powder and liquid. Since my skin is mature, I wear the cream foundation. Along with the foundations Younique has a very good concealer called Touch Mineral Skin Perfecting Concealer. Remember, I have tried a lot of different products and this one is among one of the best I have used. But there is a trick to applying the concealer and cream foundation that will indeed help to hide brown patches.  Always try to apply a primer first.  Next take a concealer brush and pat the concealer onto the brown area you are trying to conceal.  Let it set for a moment, if you do not have the coverage you want, pat another coat of the concealer on.. be sure to smooth out the edges!  Wait a second and take a small brush and use a colorless powder and lightly tap the powder over the areas you added the concealer.  This helps to set it. Tap on the cream foundation and you will be amazed of the coverage you will get.

The whole point to this post is just to let you know I am fully aware no matter what you read, often in life we need to experience and learn things the hard way.  Now I often wonder, if the beautiful bronze skin I had as a teenager (which was temporary) was worth all of the imperfections I have today which are now permanent.

I would love to tell you more information about Younique Foundations and Concealers, just contact me here or you can check out the product here.  I can actually help you earn these two products FREE if you are interested in hold a virtual online party.