Beauty Army December 2012

Hello everyone!
What I have for you today is what I got in my BeautyArmy box for December. I've not done a post since August because I have not gotten a box since August. No particular reason to be honest.

Now, I was originally NOT supposed to get this as I asked for it to be cancelled. Indeed it did not, so here we got with what I picked out!

First off I picked the tea! If you saw the blog post a did a while ago when BeautyArmy announced that they were expanding into Health and wellness. I'm a serious Tea junkie (send me your tea! ..lol kidding) so I jumped on this when I saw it.

Immuno-Viva Sunset Tea

This pack as two tea bags and is packed with antioxidants to help you relax naturally and sleep restfully. (restfully.. that's what the package says hah)

Lipsi Cosmetics Aphrodite Powder

This is a luminous powder that you apply after your foundation to set it as well as to help absorb excess oils. This is recommended for all skin tones and skin types.

Nelson Beverly Hills Argan Oil 7 (7 in 1 non-foaming shampoo)What a name..

The 7 in 1 aspect of this shampoo is that it is a shampoo, conditioner, detangler, argan oil shin, color sealer, smooth sereum and pre-styling lotion. That is a pretty big claim for a little bottle. (The full size of this is bigger)  Since this is Sulfate and paraben free, this is exceptionally good for color treated hair.

Skinn Cosmetics Twin Set (Pink Tulip) (full size)

The "twin set" aspect of this product is that one end is a Lipstick and the other a Lip Gloss. the color is absolutely gorgeous (from looking at it, this is still unopened) The lipstick  and gloss are collagen boosted. This product has Vitamin E, Soy and Aloe. This says it will soothe even the driest of lips.

Mark. Hook Up Gloss in Honey  (full size)

This comes with the Hook Up part so that you can purchase more from the "Hook Up" line, or wait and see if you get more in your selection window!  The website says that this is a shiny lip gloss. Once again, as you can tell ,it has not been opened. This is a peachy-pink lip gloss that is also supposed to moisturize your lips while you wear it.

The last product I got was

Whip Hand Cosmetics Pigment in Green Beret

(I will explain why this is empty in a minute)

The reason that this is not in its original container is because I have extremely careless mail carriers and my bottle opened in transit. I saved as much as I could and put it in a different container. The top picture is just to show you the original packaging and how small it is. It's really cute! I saved almost all of it, thankfully. This is a gorgeous color. To the best of my knowledge the Camo Collection is exclusive to Beauty Army.

This is a mossy green pigment with gold undertones and gold shimmer.

( on a side note, I did let BA and WHC know that my shadow was opened, Whip Hand Cosmetics so graciously offered me a new bottle or any pigment from their website. Since it was not either of the companies faults. I turned them down. In my opinion, since I saved almost all of it, I don't need another one, and they did not have to offer me a full sized pigment, which is $14! The reason I turned them down on their offer was because I was not out to get something free from them or beautyarmy. If you  would have seen the outside of my box, you would agree with my on the fact that it was the USPS' fault that it was so jumbled up to where it opened. The outside of my box was absolutely torn up.  I do want to extend a Thank You to Whip Hand for their offer. I felt it was extremely too generous of them to even consider to offer me a full sized pigment.. I don't want to be one of those people that complains just to get something free. Not my intentions EVER which is why I turned them down. :) )

So that was my box for December!
Oh! to show the box.

The contents. The box was wrapped in the normal Pink and Black (or dark navy if that is the color that you got, I normally get dark navy but this time it was black. I like!) I love how they package the boxes.

BeautyArmy has released more colors of their boxes instead of black, they now have Pink and white as well! I love that! They are normally random onto which color you get to the best of my knowledge, but this month everyone got a white box with a gold sleeve on it that says Happy Holidays! I thought I had a picture of it, but I must have accidentally deleted it.

I think the white box is EXTREMELY elegant and I really love it! I love how they mix it up as well instead of the same black box. Not that I minded those either, but I think having multi-color boxes is really neat! This box is the same as the black, it is recyclable which is another thing to love about BeautyArmy.

Oh! The reason a lot of the stuff has not been opened is because I plan on giving it to someone :) :P

Do you get a BeautyArmy box?! If so what did you choose for this month!?

I hope you all have a SAFE and Happy New Year! I am going to do my first OOTD along with my face of the day and Nails for what I wore today (new years eve) up on the first, so I will see you all in the new year! Be safe and be happy! xx

SauceBox Cosmetics

Hello Loves!

Today I have 3 eye shadows to show you from SauceBox Cosmetics. They are an indie company that was started in 2010 by a Mother and Daughter duo out of California. They have single shadows (which are what I am going to show you today) and palettes.  I wanted to get a couple of their palettes but couldn't afford it at the moment. Maybe one day.
I had heard quite a lot about them from Marina of mCubedMakeup  so I decided that I would just take the jump and order a few eye shadows from them!

Their single eye shadows retail for $8 each. I thought that was a really good price for them! I'm assuming they had quite a lot more on their website because I saw people talk about mascaras and primers, but all I saw were shadows. Shame! :( I miss the good stuff! Bah
A lot of their shadows are also on sale! So check that out as well!

Oh! I also want to mention I did get a 15% off because of a Bella Shoot discount code, Zadidoll also has one.  ( bellashoot15 valid until 12.31.12 ). SauceBox also ships worldwide! I ordered mine 6 days before Christmas (on my birthday) and it took a bit longer to get here, but then again. I didn't really mind since I did it during one of the most busiest shipping months! :P

The 3 eye shadows I purchased were Coral Reef, Russian Rouge (more on why later) and Killer.

Before I get into the shadows I want to talk about the packaging. How cute it is?! Each shadow is in a cardboard container with Sauce Box written in lime green.

The top of the packaging is also very cute. Don't make me describe it, so I shall just show you.. so you can see it :P.

Coral Reef is a color that I don't have anywhere in my collection. It is a peachy-coral shade with shimmer in it. It is absolutely gorgeous! The texture of this shadow is very soft and silky. It is not soft enough to cause fall out so don't worry about that!!

Killer is a true grey matte eye shadow. I don't have any true grey matte eye shadows.. Okay wait..I have one its a L'Oreal Infallible 24/hr one.. I forgot I had that.. Killer is more cool-toned then Sultry Smoke. (i'll do a comparison in a later post) This has the same texture as Coral Reef.

Russian Rouge as you guessed is a matte red. This is definitely a true red and highly pigmented so be careful! It could stain! :P It's gorgeous though. The texture is not as soft as Coral Reef, but it is still soft.

Oh!! To tell you why I bought Russian Rouge. I heard their matte black eye shadow (which is sold out) and this one were compared to Sugarpill, so I wanted to try it out, since I have Love+ and do a comparing post. Maybe save you all a few dollars since SP is $12 and SauceBox is $8. We will see in the next post! xx

I can't wait to get more SauceBox cosmetics.. I really can't. I've got to save my pennies though! They are very affordable, but at the moment,  I just am broke. Which is okay. It helps curb the eye shadow/nail polish addiction LOL. I can't wait to see what they come out with in 2013. Whatever it is I bet it will be absolutely spectacular!!

Oh! Jeeze, almost forgot, SauceBox is also Cruelty Free! So, gorgeous shadows, cruelty free. What more could you want?

Don't forget to check SauceBox out on Facebook and on Twitter



Disclaimer: I paid for these shadows myself with my own money. I am not being paid or sponsored to do this blog post. All opinions are my own. 

Merry Belated Christmas!

I know I am putting this up almost 2 days late!
I hope you all had an amazing Christmas with your families!
If you don't celebrate Christmas,  I hope you all had an amazing Tuesday!

I got some pretty exciting news! (Well exciting for me at least!) Since Chris and I decided not to go to bed Christmas eve, because we had to be at my parents house for 9am, and we would have over slept... I decided to bake cookies. BIG surprise right? Hah.

Well, I had planned on sending the huge majority of them with my Dad to work. (He works at Zambia Smokehouse at Busch Gardens Tampa) and I sent, Snickerdoodles, Chocolate chip and peanut butter cookies. (I'm going to put the recipes on my food blog later this week) Well, I guess they were a hit because everyone was requesting for my to make MORE cookies! They are even wanting to pay for them. I never had the intention of doing it for money. I bake because I extremely like doing it, plus it helps me feel better. (before you say something, I rarely ever eat anything I make. I may taste to make sure it doesn't take like death, but that is about it. Just for your info :) ) Funny enough, when I was baking I had jokingly said (to myself and the cat. Chris wasnt home) That I should start a business doing it!

Hah, I'm so thankful I got my Grandmothers love for baking. Honestly though, it was such an honor to have people actually requesting for me to bake! It made me feel a lot better. I'm taking a couple of days off from baking though because I baked so much this month that its not even funny.I went through I think 20 pounds of Flour and just as much sugar.. I think about about 2 dozen or more eggs. It's crazy! I love it though :)

I do need your help though. Every time I try and type up a blog post here, I start drawing a blank and just exit out. In the upcoming year, what kind of blog posts would you like to see? I've got a blogging notebook and I'm going to start writing blogs out again, that way I can do it while I am out and about and bored :). I would just love to know what kind of posts you like to see!

Don't forget my giveaway ends in a few days!

I hope you all are having an amazing day today!

How did your Christmas, or Tuesday go?!

xx Autty

Wearing Your Heart On Your Nails .. Tutorial

Hello everyone!

This is my first time doing a nail "tutorial". So please bear with me! xx

In my NOTD for my birthday, I had put hearts on my nails and had asked if you wanted me to show you how I did them.  The lovely Rose wanted to see how it was done, so I figured I better do it before I forget. I'm going to be wearing these nails for Christmas so I did them in red and green. The hearts are a bit hard to do at first I must admit, but once you get it down how to make them, it goes pretty quickly.

You could use a dotting tool, but I don't have one. I used a Bobby pin, it's pretty much works the same way as a dotting tool. You just have to be a bit careful with the end of the bobby pin, I have realized that. So onto the tutorial!

Oh.. I am by no means good at doing nail art, so please don't mind them :P

What you will need:

1 bobby pin pulled apart

Your nail polish's of choice

Base coat

Top coat

Something to put your nail polish on.

Cuticle Oil (extremely optional)

directions:

First of all, you need to paint your nails. It doesn't matter the color. For this I used China Glaze 3D Fantasy. It's a holographic red polish.(it has been discontinued unfortunately, but with the influx and popularity of holographic polishes you will be able to find something like it.) I used two coats of this. I was to STRESS THE IMPORTANCE of letting this base coat dry completely. To where you can press on your nails and not seen any type of indentation. If your nail polish is not completely dry, it will mess the rest of your nail up.


Take your second color and place a small amount of it on the surface you choose. (It could be a piece of paper or I used the lid to my Bath & Body Works candle since I can clean the polish off and reuse it) With this step, do not place a lot, because it will start to dry and could mess your nail up as well.
Make your two dots on your nail where you want the heart to be. In this picture I places them pretty far apart, but the closer the dots the better the heart comes out in my opinion. The farther the dots the bigger the heart and it becomes a bit more complicated to get it looking uniform. This nail polish is Orly's Jealous, Much?

How far apart you place your dots also depends on the side of your nail as well. My ring finger's nail is quite large so.. :P

The next step requires you do dip back into where you places your spot of polish. The reason for this, is so that it is easier to drag down and create your first part of the heart.

Place the bobby pin in one of the first dots and draw down in a diagonal. Then repeat with the other dot.

And there you have it! Your very own heart manicure! This is perfect for valentines day, BUT I am deciding to use this for Christmas. :)

Let the heart dry and apply your top coat. If you want your nails to be completely smooth, you may need to add a second layer. In the picture above, there is no top coat as of yet because I am not quite done, they needed to dry :P

On the tips of my nails I used China Glaze Glistening Snow and on my left for the hearts I used Jolly Holly from China Glaze's 2011 Holiday collection.

(Okay no idea what happened to my nails. Over night they chipped and the polish shrunk. I'm very sorry for them looking like crap in the last two pictures.)

For my base coast I used Sally Hansen's Continuous Growth treatment and my top coat is Out The Door.

Tip: The hearts that you do with your dominant hand will wind up looking better than those done with your non-dominant hand..at least that is how it is for me :P

If you try this out, tweet me a picture! I would love to see how they come out!

Christmas Memories

Hello everyone!

I figured since it is 4 days till Christmas, it is now or never for this blog post. On my giveaway post, I asked everyone what their favorite Christmas Memory or Traditions were with their families or in general. I know I've not been blogging much in the past two weeks, I've been in a serious funk. I promise I will be out of it soon! xx

anyways.

I have quite a few Christmas Memories with my family.  I am going stay onto the tradition side of things for this post because the memories are amazing, but thinking of them make me cry.. good tears though and I think I have done quite enough crying in the past week :).

Every year my Parents go out and decorate the yard like crazy people. (lol) When I lived with them, I always helped them decorate outside, this year, I didn't get a chance to help unfortunately. My Mom wasnt going to decorate but the neighbors and other people kept coming around and asking her (for over a month) if she was going to decorate the yard this year. She didn't want to do it this year, because we always do so much, that by the time we get it all up, we feel like it's time to take it down. Extremely understandable! My Nephew helped them this year! :P He's too cute being almost 4 in February! 

This is from last year.. actually all of the pictures in the yard are from last year. The one inflatable on the right is Santa in an outhouse and he pokes his head out and goes back in and shuts the door. It's cute! In the back in our "Light Tree" is a Santa reading a list of names, his head turns. 

Now, this is not nearly as many inflatables as my Mom has. We actually had to get rid of quite a few of them because they had holes. :( Sad day that we had to get rid of the 8ft Penguin couple. haha I LOVE penguins. <3 My Parents gave our 8ft Santa to my Sister so they could decorate their yard a little bit. That Snoopy there on his Dog house is my Moms, she LOVES Snoopy.. well anything that has to do with Charlie Brown.. He is flying his house like he is the Red Baron. 

This is a bad picture, but you get a little close up of the Santa. Two of his bed post lights went out, but funny enough, they kinda went together haha. Those are the only pictures I have of the yard. It's been extremely more elaborate then this, BUT last year there was so much going on we didn't really want to over crowd the yard.. considering there are two dogs who go outside :P

Another tradition that we have been doing for.. jeeze I am not sure, we have been doing this for as long as I remember. One person in the house gets my Dad a Hess Truck. Normally it would alternate between my Brother, Sister and I, but it's been alternating between my Brother and I lately. I normally get it, but this year we decided to let my brother get it. :) 

The cool thing is this year they made it available for you to buy online! You can see all of the ones that they ever made, which is pretty freaking cool! :P They costs $26.99 plus tax, then whatever shipping is. I've never bought them online, since this is the first year they have done it. They are fully functional toys or you can collect them. We used to play with my Dads when we were kids, but we always made sure we were careful and we ALWAYS put them in the box. :P 

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="406"] SOURCE[/caption]

That is this years truck. I've not see what it does, but it's pretty cool :P .. actually they have an interactive thing on the website where you can see what it does, hah how cool! :P

Every year, no matter how old I am, just for the fun of it I like to check out Norad Santa and claus.com . Why? Because you can TRACK SANTA. How cool is that?! :P It is definitely a really fun thing to do with Kids. I did it with my nephew one year.

Claus.com is an interactive Santa Village. There are recipes, coloring pages you can print. You can even type your name or your childs name into the Naughty or Nice list and see what it says! It's a really fun thing to do. I really enjoy playing around with it every year and I just turned 22! Don't hate :P

Santa Tracker is exactly how it sounds. I honestly think this is so cool.  On Christmas Eve load it up and it shows you everywhere Santa has been it even has little videos of Santa flying through the cities. It's a really cool thing! 

Definitely check those out! 

Those are my two favorite traditions. I have more, but I decided lets keep it down so this doesn't get too long. :P

What are your favorite Christmas memories or traditions with your family!? I really would love to know!

I hope you all have a lovely day! xx

PS. don't forget there is still time to enter my giveaway! The link is above! xx  

Disclaimer: I am not affiliated with Norad Santa or Claus.com. I just wanted to share them with you all because I really enjoy the websites!

Birthday Nails!

Hello everyone!

I hope you all are doing well! Have you gotten your Christmas shopping done?! I know I haven't. I only have to get a couple of things though, so it's not too bad! :P

Since my Birthday was the 19th, I wanted to try a little nail art.

I painted each hand opposite of the other.

This was my first time ever trying to do any type of nail art, so they aren't perfect but I thought they were extremely cute!! :D

The polishes I used were:

Sally Hansen Continuous Growth Treatment

Orly Artificial Sweetener (pink)

Orly Faint of Heart (grey)

Out the door top coat.

(I won these in a giveaway, I know they were a collection, but I'm not sure you can get them anymore :( )

To make the hearts I just used a bobby pin :) Do you want me to do a tutorial showing how to do it?

Oh, that random piece of red on the one nail, is a piece of a rose. I was slightly bored when I started doing these nails. Haha.

I really love how they turned out! :D

A new subscription service?! Wantable.co

Hello Beautiful!

I want to tell you about a new subscription service, Wantable.co .

Wantable.co is a premium subscription box. They do makeup AND jewelry boxes, which I think it really cool. You can choose one or the other. Subscribing is a bit on the expensive side, but when you see what you get in your boxes, it's worth it. It is $36 if you become a subscriber or it is $40 for one box. You may be thinking that is a lot (and I agree), but you get between $80-$100 worth of products in a box. 4-6 full sized items, is really cool, considering it's all going to be makeup, or jewelry if that is what you pick.

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="368"] First open box[/caption]

When you go to subscribe, you take a quiz just like you do on every other box, but at the end, you get to choose between the products you DO want to receive and products you DON'T want to receive. I think that is really a good idea, because then the boxes become more customized to YOU instead of to a mass market. The categories you choose from are brows, mascara, eyeliner, nail polish, eye shadow, blush, highlighter, lip color. You get to pick your topics and I choose the first 5 because anyone who knows me, knows that I am really not into blush, highlighter, or lip colors. I am trying to get into them, but now is not the right time for it. :)

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="368"] Under the layer of tissue paper[/caption]

When the lovely people at Wantable.co offered me a box, I will not lie I just about piddled myself. I really couldn't believe it at first, so I was in a bit of shock, but then it sunk in. I was so giddy and I can't thank them enough for giving me the opportunity to try their service!  My box was ordered on the 10th, shipped on the 11th and I received it on the 15th. That is the QUICKEST I have EVER received anything in the mail, so their shipping is absolutely extraordinary. They even send you an email when you receive your box, which is cool, just in case you aren't home when your mail comes or what not. It is shipped out via UPS then it gets delivered by USPS.

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="368"] Under the perfume samples[/caption]

The way it is packaged is absolutely gorgeous as well. The box itself is a gorgeous deep purple (eggplant I would say) and the tissue paper on the inside is black. Under all of the products is that crinkles paper strips (I don't know what they are called) and those are also black. The entire package is wrapped to ensure nothing breaks. Needless to say, everything is packed with EXTREME care, so you receive your products in one piece. There are also two pieces of paper inside of the box. One that is basically a receipt and it has a list of the products that come in your box, the other side of the paper has a blurb about the box.  The second page has small pictures of the products, their descriptions and a description on how they would apply the products. They even give you little tips. I really like that. All of the tips come from their beauty expert Teresa "T" Sammarco.

There are definitely a couple companies in this box that I have never heard of... actually I have only heard of two of the companies out of the 6 individual companies. I got products from MiA BelleZZa, Color Club, MyFace Cosmetics, Swagger, Cosmetics, Spadaro and Kai.

Spadaro and Kai are fragrance samples, I don't mind getting fragrance samples, if I like the fragrance, I will use it, if I don't, I will find someone who does, that way it doesn't go to waste. I did get THREE fragrance samples. Two from Spadaro and one from Kai. The two from Spadaro are Doux Amour and Sole Nero.

Doux Armour is described as Ylang Ylang, Casablanca Lily, and Moroccan Jasmine are wrapped in Patchouli, Rare Amber and Sandlewood, then laced with Vanilla to form a new expression of sensuality.

Sole Nero is describes as Italian Citrus notes. Grapefruit, Orange, Lemon and Lime - are imbued with Musk, Sandalwood and precious spices. Sole Nero envokes fond memories of loves ones near and far.

Out of the two, I can't describe which I like more. Haha.

Kai Perfume Oil is a blend of Gardenia wrapped in white exotics. Unfortunately I can't use this. Both my Mum and I are allergic to gardenias.

I got two nail polishes from Color Club (full sized)  Perfect Mol-Ten and Lumin-ICEcent.  Both of these polishes are a metallic foil finish, I've just been getting into foil finish, polishes. These two are absolutely gorgeous though! Mol-Ten is a gorgeous green and Lumin-ICEcent is a gorgeous light blue. These two colors are just.. bah! I love them! I honestly do, they are gorgeous colors for really any time of the year.

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="368"] Lumin-ICEcent Left Mol-Ten right[/caption]

The next two products are from MiA BelleZZa. The first is a Eye shadow duo called Moca. The first shade is a metallic copper and a matte chocolate brown. Out of the two shadows, the matte color is the post pigmented in my opinion. You definitely need to build up the copper color to get it to look like it is in the pan. I would also suggest using a primer with these. Actually a primer is a must with these from what I found. You get a better color payoff. That is just using it dry though. From what I read on the paper, you can use these wet as well, so I will have to try that and let you know how it goes!

As for the second MiA BelleZZa product, I've not tried it yet. It is a creme liner in Marrone. It looks like it will be a gorgeous brown creme liner. (The paper says that this is smudgeproof, I will let you know when I use it!)

I got an eyeliner from MyFace Cosmetics. I heard about this company through BeautyArmy and I've loved their products so far. I've never seen this eyeliner before, but boy it is GORGEOUS! I got the Slinky liquid liner in Bell Bottom Blues. This is definitely a gorgeous eyeliner, I'm glad that it doesn't over power my blue eyes! It is a mix between saphire, midnight and electric blue. It's really gorgeous and I see myself getting a lot of use out of it. This liner does take a little bit to dry, not much, but you want to make sure you use this last that way you don't smudge it and have to fix half of your eye. (it happened to me)

The last product is from Swagger Cosmetics. It is a loose eye shadow. It is a deep red-purple shadow with gold undertones. This reminds me of the Volturi loose shadow in Dusk, but that is more purple based than the Swagger Cosmetics shadow. Oh! Looking on the invoice, this shadow is called Red Bone. It is not labeled on the pot itself, so I am going to have to do that soon so I remember the name. The pigmentation of this is fantastic, I see myself getting quite a lot of use out of this bad boy! :D

All in all, this was a FANTASTIC box. I really think that this company will go really far in the subscription box world. However, I do wish that it wasn't so pricey. I do understand why it is pricey. Giving full sized products in a box, wont come cheap on their end. So I do understand that. I just wish I could be able to afford a monthly subscription to this because it is such a lovely box! The people at Wantable.co are lovely as well. So friendly!

The retail value of my box this month was $85.20. That is a HUGE value for everything in the box.

Check them out on their Website - Twitter - Facebook

Have you tried/heard of this company before?! Let me know what you think!



Disclaimer: This box was sent to me for free from wantable.co for my honest review/opinion. I am not being compensated by this company to do this review, nor am I affiliated with them.