Whats in my Z-Palette?!

Last Wednesday, after school and my grad night class, I went to Sephora to return my ambient lighting palette. I got 48$ back since I bought it in the VIB sale. I also had my $20 dollar off $50 coupon so you know I had to get something. I wanted to maybe get a Becca highlighter, but I really didn’t feel like driving all the way to the location near me that carries that line. I also didn't feel like spending my whole refund on one item! Those highlighters are HELLA expensive, especially if you factor in cost per wear, which I always do. If I pay $50 dollars for a foundation, I’m ok with that because I can use it every time I wear makeup, however I’m a middle school teacher so my everyday makeup routine does not usually call for highlighter. (Definitely not a 40+ dollar one). I just can't justify it. 

But that was a tangent!

I ended up using my coupon on a First Aid Beauty Skin Rescue Deep Cleanser, a Small Sephora Z Palette, and a (gotcha item from the travel section) the Kat Von D Lip Love Set.

I took all my new goodies home and re-did my Z palette! I have my Original Naked Palette in here, my UD Smoked palette that I de-potted that night, 4 MAC shades and my contour color that cracked horribly when I de-potted it. She's a beaut aint she!

what's in my z palette

I love it! It gives me so much variety and I can see everything I have at once. And now that I also have the smaller Z palette it gives me more options to mix and match for my travel makeup bag.

Hope you enjoyed!

Love, 

Jess 

Why I'm going on Project Pan

If you are like me (a Youtube beauty junkie) then you have been sucked into the vortex which I like to call “buy all the things!”

If you have had this moment you know what I'm talking about: You're watching a few people’s monthly favorites and before you know it you have a 5 different carts on makeup websites full of random items totaling a few hundred dollars.

Beauty bloggers and Youtube Gurus are influencers who often get sent products to try, they make money off of their internet presence and need to keep reviewing an trying new things to keep their audiences interested. ALTHOUGH I AM WRITING A BEAUTY BLOG AT THE MOMENT, I AM NOTHING MORE THAN A SMALL TIME BROKE-A** GRADUATE STUDENT! Maybe one day I’ll be on that level, but I assure you I am not currently. It’s great to learn about new products and want to try them out but for the everyday person, it can get out of hand quickly.

Because of this, I have decided to change my focus from “buy it all!” to “use it up!” There is an awesome project pan community on Youtube and in the ‘blogosphere’ where beauty lovers decide to focus on really enjoying, using and loving the products they have before indulging in more, more, more.

Last month I shared my makeup inventory, which was my way of holding myself accountable to the items I have. There are over 100 items on there and only about 5 empties. That means that I’m constantly buying things and either not using them or not getting through them before I buy replacements. 

I’m realizing that I don’t need to buy everything that I like, even if it’s cheap, because I have plenty of stuff at home I can use to get a similar look. DO YOU KNOW HOW MANY GOLD/BRONZE EYE SHADOWS I HAVE!?

For example I have 55 total eye shadows. It could take 3 months of constant use to finish an eye shadow and lets say I use 3 a day so that’s 12 finished a year. Going off that, it would take me 4.5 YEARS to finish the shadows I have now with everyday usage! That’s enough to discourage me from buying the 2 palettes I wanted this holiday season.

Just some food for thought. Sorry if I went OC on the caps lock!

-Love

Jess

Weekly Makeup Basket #1 WOC edition

I'm starting a project pan for 2015! I have a whole post on why I made the decision coming up tomorrow. But my first step is starting up doing weekly makeup baskets! The purpose of this is to challenge myself to focus on particular products and find awesome go-to looks that will come in handy when my panning challenge actually gets started.

I also noticed that every morning my tiny vanity table ends up a mess! It’s because I have too much crammed on to it. So in deciding what I will be using for a week or two I can pack my other products away and cut down on clutter.

So here are the shadows I'll be working with.

And the eye bases, the third one is MAC Indianwood

 Finally, my foundations.

NC45

Since this is my first time doing this I wanted to just focus on eyes and face  products. I didn't do a full face for a few reasons: 1. I don't own multiples of everything (ex. I own 1 face primer) 2. I still need to figure out what blushes and lippies look best with the eyeshadow  3. Since I'm new at this I didn't want to make it impossibly restricted. 

All the best, 

Jess

De-potting Adventures

I decided to take the plunge (or spatula) and de-pot my Urban Decay Smoked Palette. I got this one back when it came out in 2012 because I was on the “buy everything” bandwagon. When I did use it I mostly lived on Barlust because it’s like a more intense version of Smog from my original Naked Palette. Other than that I used the blue (Evidence), green Loaded) and purple (Rockstar) shades a handful of times. I decided to depot this palette because I realized that it’s not the perfect travel palette for me. The shades are mostly dark and smoky and when I travel I'm more likely to wear minimal or neutral eye shadow and I’ll wear a bright lip for going out. It just made more sense to get rid of the packaging and have easier access to the actual eye shadows on a daily basis.

Here are the results!

It was a super easy process I used the spatula provided in the Sephora Z palettes and used the no-heat  method from this video 

Stay tuned for my Full Z- Palette! 

Much love, 

Jess