Oil Cleansing Method Update

I know know, it has been way more than two weeks! BUT on the plus side, this you will actually see results. 

When the end of my two week challenge was up, my skin was worse than before I had started. I almost did not want to continue because of it. Ultimately, I decided to do some more research and found that the new breakouts I was having were not because my pores were clogged, but that my skin was purging itself of everything I've put on my face from before. About two weeks after that, my skin started improving. I know that for me, my skin takes about a month to get used to something before I start to see progress or not. 

**Keep in mind that we all have different skin types. So what works or doesn't work for me, does not necessarily mean it will or will not work for you.

   The picture that you see here is from my first cleansing post (which you can read here). As you can see, I have pretty pronounced breakouts on the contours of my cheeks, as well as some cystic acne on my chin. 

I forgot to take a picture of my chin, but so far that is the only spot that has completely cleared. Both sides of my cheeks have definitely improved, though not entirely clear. As you can see however, the progress is certainly there!

Another thing that I had noticed while doing the OCM, my super oily skin, is not so oily anymore! My skin got sooo used to me using harsh oil stripping cleansers, toners and even moisturizers, my glands had to work harder everyday and night to produce enough oil to keep up with me stripping them squeaky clean. 

They worked so much they were overproducing far more oil than my skin actually needed, causing my face to become a grease ball. Eventually, causing horrible breakouts.  The OCM  has allowed my skin to slow down on production, leading to more of a proper amount.  Now half way through the day, my skin for once does not feel like I slathered grease all over it (ironic right?) 

I am still working on the perfect ratio blend of oils but I plan on sticking with this for awhile! 

Did you take the challenge? 

What was your outcome?

Mini Sephora haul

To go along with my late weekend post is a mini Sephora haul! If you read my last post, you would know that this was my first time in Sephora. Since I had a some extra money left from my last high end purchase, I decided to pick up a few new things.

I decided to pick up three items. 

• Benefits PoreFessional

• The Original Beauty Blender

• Smashbox Photo Finish Primer sample

I have heard soooo many great things about Benefits PoreFessional throughout the beauty community. Everyone has raved about this like it's this miracle worker, so natually you have to try. 

I've been dying to try this out for the simple fact it claims to "hide" your pores. (Um yes please!) I have rather large pores, I absolutely hate it. So I'm really excited to use this! For the price though ($31), I'll certainly be kicking myself if it doesn't.

Everyone and their mom has heard about and probably tried the beloved Original Beauty Blender. I don't know what shocked me more; the total price of everything together, or the fact this was the biggest size the beauty blenders came in. Everytime I've seen people show these on youtube, they looked so much bigger. I know what your thinking, that I seen it when it was wet. Yes I have, but I have also seen this when still in it's original packaging. I just really felt like it seemed much bigger. 

Until now, I didn't get why everyone was so up on the price ($20). But, now I get to see for myself what all the fuss is about (and if the price is really worth it)! 

The last thing I picked up was the Smashbox Photo Finish Primer. I decided to go with the sample size so I can see if I liked it enough to repurchase. I'm not sure how much the normal size one is, but this sample size was $15. 

This too was a very raved product, and since I've been on a primer kick I wanted to try this too! 

So that was my mini haul, reviews will be coming soon! I hope you enjoyed(:

Have you tried either of these products? 

What were your thoughts? 

I'd love to hear about them! (:

First High End Purchase with free gift! Estee Lauder edition

  As I said in my first post, I have never strayed away from drug store products. Solely for the fact I am a young mother, and spending money on expensive beauty related products is just not a reality for me unfortunately. However! This past weekend my bf and I had decided we had a little extra money we could splurge with, which of course, I took full advantage of!

  Fortunately enough for me, we had gone the same day they were starting their free gift which meant I didn't feel bad for spending nearly $40 on one item(yay! The foundation it self was $37, with tax $39.)

 Since I've never ventured into any higher end stores, I've never been professionally matched with a foundation that was perfect for my skintone. But since I wanted to try something new, I didn't want to waste my money on a color I "think might match"(I don't live close to any malls, returning would be too much of a hassle). Needless to say, it was a very awkward experience. 

  For one, I really don't understand the point of knowing your undertones anymore. I'm almost positive I have pink(?)/cool undertones. However, when the lady from Estee Lauder color matched me, she said she feels the cool undertone one would make me look to light, that she rather use a neutral on me. But, I know absolutely nothing when it comes to that sort of stuff. So I had no choice but to trust her. 

  She matched me with the shade Desert Beige 2N1. At first, I was really scared by the word "beige" before she even tested it on me. I have very fair skin, and every foundation I've seen in the shade beige was always for someone with tan skin. But I have to say it was a near perfect match for me! I was seriously so shocked. 

I also really enjoyed their customer service. She was so sweet and helpful, but getting up close and personal was just a lil weird for me. I mean it was just really awkward. I didn't know if I should look at her or look away lol. 

I won't be doing a review for this today, but I will say this might be my new hg foundation! 

So with the free gift, you are given a choice between either a blush or bronzer. And since shades are not optional, I decided to go with the blush. Which is fine with me considerig I'm a blush junkie! However if the bronzer wasn't so dark I would have went with that only because I don't own that many. 

Look at that color though, omgodness! Isn't it beautiful? This is in the color 02 Pink Kiss Satin. I was definitely happy with this pick, I don't know why but blushes are my favorite piece of makeup. They really bring the whole look together and really just make you feel so pretty! For me, anyways. (Lol)

It's even prettier on the skin than in the pan! 

As you can see there is slight sparkle but nothing crazy. The color pay off is awesome and the texture is so light and silky, it's simply gorgeous all the way around.

I'm sad about this next one. The gift set orginally came with two different shades of lipstick. Somehow though, I misplaced one so I only have one of the two (or atleast until I find the other one) to show you guys :( The one I still have though is in the shade 82 Pinkberry Creme. The picture really does no justice for the actual color though. In person it is a gorgeous creamy nude pink-y color. Here it looks more red and far darker than it actually is.

Again, the picture does this no justice. Ugh, how I wish I had better lighting. 

You can see how creamy it is though, it feels so nice and light on the skin. I haven't used this on my lips yet, so I'm not sure how long this lasts. According to the packaging, it claims to be long lasting. I can't wait to try it out on the weekend (when I can actually do my makeup)!

For being a free gift, I was really surpised by how many things they actually give you. This is a sample sized Sumtuous Bold Volume Lifting Mascara in Black. I do plan to do a further detailed review on this later, and let you know if I would buy the full sized one.

I really love the wand on this, so thick and full! Just by the wand I feel like this is going to be a really great mascara. I'm super excited to test this baby out!

 The consistency also seems so nice and creamy, with the perfect amount of "thickness" to it. Nothing like I've seen in regular drugstore mascaras. It amazes me the difference in the quality of makeup. Especially when you never shop high end!

Yay, we're almost to the end! This is their Modern Muse Body Lotion. The first thing I noticed was the packaging. Compared to everything else, the packaging is very blah and boring. I probably wouldn't have picked this up just for the fact (I know, I know. You shouldn't judge a book by it's cover.). 

I did try this though, I wanted to see how it felt and honestly I didn't like it. I think the reason being though, I typically like thick lotions because I have really dry skin (weird right? Super oily face but dry everywhere else?). And although this does look like it may be thick in the picture, it's actually really light. Also, I don't know if this is supposed to moistuize your skin, but it did nothing for me. I can't complain though since it was free!

And finally, last but not least! Estee Lauder's Advanced Night Repair Eye Synchronized Complex II. I honestly don't know much about eye creams or if they even work.

This is another one I plan to do a full review on later. Like I said, I've never used an eye cream, but since I now have one why not test it out? The consistency of this seems really nice. It's a thick-ish, transparent lightweight formula. I tested a tiny bit on my finger and it absorbs rather quickly without leaving a greasy feel/residue behind. 

All in all, I'm very happy and pleased with my first high end purchase. I'm really looking forward to doing a full review on the founation and other items mentioned! Thank you for visiting and I hope you enjoyed reading as much as I enjoyed putting this together for you (:

What was your first high end purchase? 

Were you happy with it? 

Let me know in the comments! (:

Rimmel Stay Matte Foundation Review

**I know I haven't posted in a very long time and I apologize for that. Unfortunately these past few weeks haven't been that great for my family, but I promise I haven't gone anywhere. Now to the post! (:

I've been getting into trying more foundations lately, and while at the drugstore a few days ago I saw this and decided to try it out. I own quite a bit of Rimmel, including their Stay Matte Powder which I really love, I've purchased it several times. So I thought, maybe I'll love the foundation just as much! 

Rimmel's claim for their Stay Matte Foundation is: 

"Feather-light, liquid mousse blends flawlessly for natural-looking, all day shine control. Silky smooth formula leaves a perfectly matte, baby-soft finish. Lightweight texture won't feel heavy or greasy."

The packaging is really nice and convenient for travel. 

It comes in a plastic matte (how appropriate) squeeze tube, which is very nice for distributing just the right amount of product you want to use. Also very sanitary, seeing as you don't have to double dip. 

Unfortunately, the color choice for this is pretty poor, as there are only 8 colors to choose from. The one I have is second to the lightest shade in light ivory, and thankfully enough it matches pretty well. 

As you can see, the consistency of this is quite thick. This is actually the thickest foundation I now own. Which, on first impression I was happy with it, hoping it had great coverage to match. Which it does! 

So, in this picture there's a couple things going on.

 First off, the foundation dot previously above, I wanted to spread it fully out for you to see the coverage and just how well this blends. So in the picture above, from the start of my wrist up to my knuckles (I know it cuts off, but that's how far I was able to spread it out) is how much I was able to cover with just that little bit. A little definitely goes a long way with this stuff! And if you compare the two pictures, you can see that this foundation had covered the red blotchy-ness very well, leaving flawless even skin tone and of course a matte finish! 

Now, the "swatch" is another smaller dot I had placed after blending, to show you what it looks like sheered out a bit. So even though this is a thick foundation, I feel like this can be sheered out enough to be light coverage if that's your preference. But this is definitely medium to full coverage. I'm very impressed, blending is a dream and this most certainly dried to a matte finish almost instantly. 

My overall review/thoughts? :

• Rimmel definitely lived up to it's claim. It blends flawlessly, has a matte finish and is very light weight on your skin. 
• This applies well with an e.l.f powder brush and a beauty blender. 
• This foundation lasts for HOURS seriously. I have super oily skin, and this lasted me from the time I got ready for work (5:30am) till the time I finally washed my face (9:40ish pm). 
• I was slightly oily around the tops of my cheeks and my nose (by the time I took it off) but not so much as "shiny" (I didn't find the need to blot). Thanks to the anti-shine conrol part of it! 
• For being a really oily person, I didn't even need to use a setting powder. It was matte already. Infact a little too matte I had to put some moisturizer on my t-zone, which seemed to do the trick. And even then, I still didn't need set with a powder. And for you oily girls, you know that's a big deal! 

   All in all, I really loved this product and I definitely will repurchase! However, as much as I loved this, I wouldn't recommend this to someone with already dry/very dry skin, as you may have issues with this clinging in an unflattering manner. But if you have oily skin, be sure to check this out!

And that's it for today's review. Thank you for reading, I hope all enjoyed this! 

Have you tried Rimmel Stay Matte Foundation? Let me know what you think in the comments, I would love to hear! (: