tips

Favorite Concealers + Tips

/ Kayla Hutchison / 13 Comments

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Hey beauties,

Today I am taking a break from talking about lipsticks to talk about something else that’s a staple in my makeup bag: concealers.For those that might be new to my blog, I struggle with insomnia and I’m an asthmatic, so my dark circles are super intense. It’s something that does make me feel self conscious, and I am okay with admitting that. I’ve had to deal with being told that I look “sick” most of my life, and it’s just at a point where it gets on my nerves a bit.

So, I’m a bit of a concealer junkie. I have tried so many concealers, but I do have a few that I want to share today that I have been reaching for often. I also want to share some of my personal tips for using concealer and setting it in place.

First, let’s talk about what I look for in concealers. Personally, I like something that is thicker, yet hydrating, and will brighten my under eye area. This highlights my face as well as brightens up my entire face, thus getting rid of my dark circles. My dark circles are very purple/blue in color, so using something brighter and lighter than my skin tone seems to be the best method for me. For reference, my skin tone is very fair with cool undertones.

Nyx HD Concealers in Porcelain and Lavender: I feel like this should not be a surprise. I have mentioned these concealers so many times in posts and used them in several Youtube tutorials. These are my holy grail concealers, and their consistency is much like the Nars Creamy radiant concealer. I do have the lavender one to lighten up the porcelain one (and any other darker concealers in my collection) but these two together are awesome. They can be a bit dry looking if your skin isn’t hydrated well.

Maybelline Age Rewind Concealer: I have a true love/hate relationship with this concealer. It truly does do as it claims and covers up dark circles, but I hate the damn sponge on it. I always take it off, and it’s really easy to just pop off and twist the product out. I just feel the sponge is kinda unsanitary, honestly. I do have to mix my lavender concealer with this one because the lightest shade is a bit dark, but the consistency of this formula is also awesome. It doesn’t look dry under my eyes at all.

LA Girl Pro Concealer in “Porcelain” Woo, another big surprise here. I also talk about this concealer often. This concealer is $3 from La Girl, and is so amazing. I know this is a cult favorite, but with good reasoning. Now that LA Girl has added more colors to this line, it’s perfect. I do hate the brush on this as well, but I can get past it a bit easier than with the sponge tip applicator on the Maybelline one. This concealer is the one that I probably reach for the most often right now.

Nars Creamy Radiant Concealer in ‘Chantilly” This is another cult favorite, and one that I got because I saw so many fair skinned youtubers raving about it. It’s also $30, and that’s really essspensive (said in my Kathleenlights voice) for a concealer. I do adore this formula though, and Chantilly is the lightest shade in my collection. I don’t have to mix anything with it, and it brightens my face up and I can use it as a highlighter. I do find that I don’t reach for it as often because of the price, which sucks.

Concealer tips: I have very dry skin, and I typically blend my concealer out with my finger tips at first, using light patting motions, and then I reach for my damp real techniques sponge to blend out the rest.

Very quickly afterwards, I set my concealer with powder. I do make sure to take my time with my concealer though, because if you set your concealer with powder and there’s creasing…you’re just going to be setting those creases in place all day. I use a translucent powder, and my current favorites are the Physicians Formula correcting powder in “Translucent” and Ben Nye’s Luxury Setting powder in “Cameo.” I find that these help my concealer to stay in place all day without creasing.

If your skin is extra dry one day, try setting your concealer with a damp beauty blender or sponge.

Also, under eye primers are a thing and are awesome. I have mentioned the Elf under eye primer a million times, and I will continue to do so. It’s $3 and very hydrating. I also use an eye cream every night before I go to bed. This just ensures that my under eyes will be smooth and ready for makeup the next day. It also helps to prevent fine lines and wrinkles. Skin care is super important, and I can’t stress that enough.

Well, those are some of my quick tips and favorite concealers at the moment! I hope you all enjoyed this post, or found it informing in some way. If you have any questions about anything, please feel free to ask! I hope you’re all having lovely days!

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Swatch Video: J.Cat Beauty Liptitude 24/7 Lip StainsWIld

/ Kayla Hutchison / Leave a comment

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Hey loves,

I uploaded a video to my Youtube channel last night! I think Friday may become my upload day? I dunno, still working on it. Anyway, I did a review + lip swatches of 5 out of 14 of the new J.Cat Beauty hydrating lip stains.

A few quick things:

These are highly pigmented.

They are semi matte.

The red ones do stain.

I love the heck out of this formula and the colors I swatched.

I bought all of these myself, except for the two that I got off Ipsy, but I also pay for that subscription every month.

The more I try from J.Cat Beauty, the more impressed I am. This formula is awesome, and until the August 1st you can get 25% off on these on their site.

Please watch my video and let me know what you think and if you like lip swatch videos!

Coming next week: Swatches of the Wet n Wild “High Flying Colors” palette

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Face of the Day: Coastal Scents Revealed Palette

/ Kayla Hutchison / 4 Comments

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Hey lovelies,

It’s Thursday, which means it’s time for a Face of the Day post! If you follow me on Twitter, you may have seen my internal, yet public, debate about what to do this week. Did I want to go sweet and pink, or bold and blue? I have a bit of a problem where I’m either very dramatic, or very low key when it comes to makeup. Anyone else feel the same way?

Bold and blue ended up winning my heart. I saw my Coastal Scents Revealed palette sitting in my holder and it was looking lonely and unloved. So, I decided to do a cool toned look for today since I did a warm look last week.

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My base was mostly my usual. Laura Mercier hydrating primer and my Nars Weightless Luminous foundation mixed with Loreal’s Magic Lumi foundation (my dream team). Concealer is La Girl HD concealer in “porcelain” mixed with Nyx HD lavender. My face is set with my Laura Geller balance and brighten powder in “porcelain” and my undereyes are set with Ben Nye’s luxury powder in “Cameo.”

Brows are Nyx’s brow gel in “black” and set with their brow mascara, also in black.

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I primed my eyes with Too Faced shadow insurance and my transition shade is actually Nyx’s single shadow in “SOS.” I ordered this shade during the Ulta sale, and it’s a lovely cool toned transition shade. I’ve been reaching for it a lot this past week.

I then went into the crease with a smaller brush using the matte taupe shade in the Revealed palette. Then I took the cool toned silver shade and placed that all over my lid. I love this shade, it’s probably my favorite in the Revealed palette. It’s very reminiscent of “Verve” from the Naked 2 palette, but it’s so pigmented and shimmery. I die.

I took a small angled brush and placed the black shade on the very outer corner and brought it in about 1/3 of the way on the crease and lightly blended that out with a small blending brush. Key here was light and small motions. I didn’t want the taupe and black to become muddy.

Liner is my usual, physicians formula eye booster in ultra black.

Lashes are Ardell double up #204. I was feeling dramatic.

Lower lash line is Nyx’s jumbo eye pencil in “milk” on the water line with “SOS” and the taupe shade from the Revealed palette blended out. I then placed the black shade on the very outside just to even everything up a bit. Mascara is Covergirl’s SuperSizer mascara. Inner corner highlight is Urban Decay’s “Polyster Bride.”

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Blush is Kat Von D’s everlasting blush in “Love Song.” I know I have talked about my love for this blush before. It’s the perfect cool toned pink for pale skin, and it lasts all day.

Contour is done with the Lunatick Labs cool contour kit. These are currently unavailable on their site, but that’s because they’re reformulating them! I believe they are trying to make the colors less soft so that they don’t break as easily and changing the packaging. Not totally for sure.

Highlight on the nose is Colourpop’s “Smoke and Whistles.” Gorgeous champagne shade. I don’t know why I haven’t been using it more often.

Highlight on the cheeks and brow arches is Babydoll Cosmetics highlight in “Mermaid Skin.” I love the absolute shit out of this highlight. It looks like mermaid skin and has a very subtle blue glow to it. However, I’ve been debating on whether or not to use this on my blog for other reasons…

I bought this highlighter a few months ago with my own money. It took over a month to get the product. Normally, this wouldn’t bother me because sometimes indie companies have long turnaround times. It happens. But if I’m trying to email you because your site says nothing about a delay and I have gotten no response or anything…I get worried. Anyone would, and frankly, it’s unprofessional in my eyes. Please don’t think I’m trying to bash anyone, I’m just being honest about my own personal experience. I feel that’s something I should do as a beauty blogger, which is why I’m mentioning it now. I’ve seen a lot of drama on this brand’s makeup page, and I don’t know what’s going on fully, but it is something I pay attention to as a blogger and consumer. I love this highlight, but I’ve noticed a lot of people complaining about not getting responses or their products. Always look into whatever brand you’re buying from. You owe it to yourself.

Anyway, now that I got that off my chest we can finish the post.

My lips are lined with Urban Decay’s 24/7 primer pencil and topped with OCC’s lip tar in “Technopagan.” I bought this during their 40% off sale, and I am so happy about it. I love this shade. It’s blue and purple at the same time. I can’t get over how absolutely gorgeous it is, and it’s like nothing in my collection thus far. Putting the primer pencil underneath definitely helped the color to standout and stay put throughout the day.

My mermaid collar is from salemcouture.com. Isn’t it fabulous?

That’s about it for today’s face of the day post! If you have any questions about anything mentioned, please feel free to ask!

Thank you for reading if you read to this point, and I hope you’re all having wonderful days.

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Tip: Turn Loose Shadow in a Liner

/ Kayla Hutchison / 5 Comments

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Hey lovelies,

Today I want to share with you all something I’ve been obsessed with doing lately, and that’s turning my loose eyeshadows into eyeliners! Colorful and different liners are trending at the moment, but not everyone has money to drop on a plethora of different Anastasia waterproof creams and liners.

So, I’m going to show you how I create a few neat liners for very cheap. The price of the spray, brush, and BOTH shadows cost less than one high end cream liner.

Intrigued yet?

Okay, now that I hope have your attention, I’m going to prove just how simple this makeup trick really is.

There are mixing mediums that you can buy from Inglot and MAC that are “made” for this job, but I personally use a setting spray. I don’t like the City Color All Set Setting Spray on my face, so I’ve been using it for creating liners. It works well, in my opinion. I found this setting spray at my local Five Below for $3.

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I take my cute little mixing palette (it’s actually just a gold coaster from Target, nothing fancy) and spray a bit of setting spray on the palette. Then, I take a bit of loose shadow and gently scoop it on top of the setting spray.

Pictured here is Shiro Cosmetics loose shadow in “War of Five Armies” (if you get the reference, let’s be best friends). This size is a sample mini, which still has a good amount of product, and the cost was $3.50. The other color pictured above was “Lingered in Twilight.”

I will start small with the shadow and mix it up with my liner brush (Real Techniques $5.99) and keep gradually adding both setting spray and shadow until my desired pigmentation is achieved. That’s the cool thing about making your own liner, you can go soft or go intense.

Because these are shadows, they’re not going to be completely waterproof, but this is fun to do when you want a fun pop of color on your eyes.

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Personally, I don’t experience much fading/creasing when using these shadows as liners and using setting spray, but results may vary based on your eye shape and skin type.

My eyes are fairly large and my skin is dry. Meaning, everything sticks to me and I generally don’t experience smudging with liner on my upper lash line.

However, for the price to buy everything you would need, you can’t go wrong. And if doesn’t go well, you still have two gorgeous shadows instead of two cream liners sitting around and drying up in a drawer.

I love finding new ways to use makeup! What are some of your favorite alternative ways to your favorite products? Comment and tell me about it!

I hope you all enjoyed this quick tip or found it helpful in some way.

Have a good day, beauties.

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Reviving Colourpop Shadows

/ Kayla Hutchison / 7 Comments

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Hey beauties,

Today I have something a bit different for you all today, and that’s a tip on how to revive your Colourpop shadows, or any makeup to be honest!

I have mentioned Colourpop so many times on my blog before. I love their products. However, due to their weirdly enchanting creamy-powder texture they can dry out quicker than most other makeup products in your collection. I have had most of my Colourpop shadows for about 7-8 months and the only ones that have had any issues are the matte ones. It was a bit disheartening, I will admit.

Colourpop claims that the shelf life of their shadows is 1 year, which is something to consider if you plan on placing an order.

However, what if I told you that you can “revive” a shadow that’s a bit dried out? Are you intrigued yet?

I saw Shanon from ShanShortcakeBeauty mention putting Mac’s fix+ in her shadows to rehydrate them, but I don’t have fix+ and I wasn’t about to throw money down on a bottle of vegetable glycerin water just to hydrate my colourpop babies.

I ended up using the Mitchell and Peach face oil that I received from a prior Ipsy bag. I don’t like this on my face, but it has served it’s purpose well in giving life to my dry shadows.

All I did was take the round side of an eyeshadow brush and create little dips in the shadow. I then placed the TINIEST bit of oil in the shadow pan. Seriously, start off slow and then build it up because putting too much oil in at once can separate your shadow and make it a pain in the ass to squish back in.

Once you’re done squishing and hydrating the shadow, you just place the lid back on and let the oil work it’s magic through the product. I was able to use mine the next day.

This really worked, and I’m so happy it did!

“Bill” is one of my all time favorite shades by Colourpop, so seeing Bill dry and unhappy made me sad. Turns out Bill was just thirsty.

Now Bill is smooth and pigmented again and ready for action. Is Bill, or any of the shadows I did this to, as pretty as they once were?

Nope. They have seen better days. They can be used again though, and that’s all that matters to me at the moment. It’s not even that the shadows were unusable before re hydrating them, they just weren’t as pigmented and it was bugging the crap out of me.

This method can work on other makeup items, namely cream shadows. More specifically, Maybelline Color Tattoos. Is it just me, or do those dry out in less than a month? Annoying, and I hate the thought of wasting products even though I don’t really buy Maybelline anymore.

So, I put a little oil in them and let them sit, just like the colourpop shadows. Also worked like a charm, and now as I clean out my shadow collection I think, “Do I trash it or can I revive it?”

However, I will say that if you come across a cream/gel powder product that is very dry and has a weird smell…I would personally always trash it. I don’t always obey the “shelf life” rule, because I keep my makeup stored in a very cool and dark place, but I do make sure everything smells kosher.

I hope you all found this helpful…or entertaining. If you try this on anything, let me know how it worked out for you!

As always, thanks for reading and I hope you’re all having lovely days!

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