Thrift Eye

In the latest installment of makeup adventures on Thrift Eye…

I was recently given 3 lipsticks and 3 lip glosses of my choice by the team at Bare Minerals/Bare Escentuals and I thought they would fit in perfectly in my ongoing online quest to find (and share) the best makeup tips and my techniques. While they did give me the products, these opinions came about without any influence as I tried them for myself.

So my initial reaction was realizing that the brand I had so well known and recognized for their mineral makeup was actually making more than just that! Getting to try out these lip colors really gave me the opportunity to explore the rest of the brand! Plus, they are based out of San Francisco, so technically I am supporting local! Since I had never tried any of their lipsticks or glosses, I really didn’t know what to expect. And it was especially exciting since the last two years, I have been experimenting with many different types of lipsticks, from department store through drugstore. So I was pleasantly surprised by what Bare Minerals had to offer!

Up first were the lip glosses – I’ve actually strayed quite a bit from gloss ever since I really got into wearing lipstick and glosses became too damn glossy (does anyone know what I mean?). So these glosses provided just the right amount of gloss that didn’t make me feel like it was 2001 all over again.

Gloss in Hot Shot
A light touch of coral

Gloss in Stunner
A berry stain

Gloss in Dare Devil
A shimmery pigmented wine

Overall, while I like the texture of the glosses and they have a minty tingle that I actually really enjoyed! But as you can see in the pictures, the subtleness in colors is way too subtle for me. I can barely tell the difference between all three. Next time, I would definitely try to ensure that there was a bigger variety before purchasing more glosses that may not be that much different from one another. In the meantime, I’ll just layer these over other lipsticks to give them a gloss.

Lipstick in Get Ready
A slight rose with a touch of pink

Lipstick in Risk It All
A pink with a punch

Lipstick in Call The Shots
Another red to add to the list of perfect reds!

The lipsticks on the other hand, were all exquisite! They go on very smooth, have the lightest gloss to them but the colors are so rich! I’m especially excited about wearing Get Ready all the time, especially for work – I do my makeup in the mornings and adding a touch of lipstick gives my face color at 7am, but I don’t want to look like I’m instead going to a party (my other go-to morning pink is Eternal Rose by L’oreal Infallible).

I’m giving the lipsticks big thumbs up! I highly recommend visiting a Sephora, Ulta, or other beauty counter that carries Bare Minerals to try all the colors if you’re a lipstick lover like me! Several other Bay Area bloggers have gotten a chance to try out these lip colors too (I’ll try to add their links as I find them).

The man often behind the lens of many of my photos, my boyfriend Jorge, has been taking on some really fashionable and creative projects. His last shoot, Mad Scientist came out absolutely amazing and I asked him if I could share the pictures with you guys here

Model: Valderiz W
Styling: Roma Oeh & Dayne Arron
Make Up: Gary Nomura Febus
Photo: Jorge A. Novoa
Studio: BlueSky LightGrid

It was such an interesting theme and the set looks amazing!! I love the mix of gritty and grime with fashion.

A long overdue makeup post! I’ve been itching to make one again – especially now that my hair has changed. I think any time your go through major hair changes, you should re-evaluate your makeup routine. The long hair made me feel like I could accentuate different things, but I also felt like I could hide behind it.

My idea behind this, because I work a 9 to 5, is to create a look that can quickly transition from work to night. It helped that I had a really bare face this day. I have been keeping my day makeup extremely minimal. So it was fun to add lots more fun makeup for this evening. I have been wanting to try darker and richer colors to compliment the auburn in my hair.

This is me after work, I have very little foundation on from the morning, and all eye shadow I had wore off. I also don’t wear mascara to work most days now. Especially since I work in an office by myself, I thought I’d give my eyelashes a break.

I have been making an effort to fill in my eyebrows just a tiny bit – the difference is so subtle. At this point I have also added Benefit’s Porefessional to take away some of the shine and the Boing/Lemon-Aid concealers to, well conceal.

Here I added the eye elements – a rich purple hue mixed with some gold (from an old Avon eye shadow palette). My Eyeko purple eyeliner that I got in a Birchbox some time ago, and my current favorite mascara, Benefit Badgal.

Normally I could just stop here. But I wanted my eye color to be darker with more depth, so I did some shadowing (and blending) with the same purple lightly mixed with a black eye shadow. Then some blush. Currently using and loving my E.l.f. blush from Target.

Last but not least, the lip color. Currently enjoying this vampy Metier de Beaute red that was given to me by Neiman Marcus a while back. It has a nice texture that isn’t too glossy or dry.

Perfect for a night out

Too goth for you? Add an accessory that lightens the whole look.

Not only that, the look can easily be transitioned by just switching the lipstick color!

Just remember to have fun and experiment. The more you try different looks, the easier it will become to perfect your application and sense of what works for you! Some days I wear no makeup, some days I wear a little, and some other days I wear the brightest lipstick to work even though they’ll probably think I’m crazy.

It’s also good to experiment with different brands to see what is worth paying the big bucks for and what is not. I like some of the Benefit products, but they can get pricey, so I take full advantage of the small sizes for sale at Ulta for a fraction of the price. I’ll have to do another post comparing department store vs. drug store makeup.

I think I’ve also said this before, and not to sound like a crazy preachy mom, but you really have to wash your face every night! This was part of the reason I stopped wearing mascara most days too – I was tired of finding that gunk inside my eyes (that cant be good). The Benefit BadGal seems to be the least eye gunking mascara for me.

Hope you enjoyed my (not so) little post :)

A few months ago when I finally had time to plug in my record player after one long year of no music, nothing came out. The record player would just not work. I had listened to one of those as seen on tv CD compilations from the 70′s and I really wanted to listen to my Carole King album. But the damn thing would not play music! I resisted all temptation to kick it – we even opened up it up to tinker with it, thinking we could somehow magically fix it. If I could show you how incredibly simple the insides of this record player was, you would be just as shocked as we were to see that we wouldn’t be able to fix something that was nothing. So I closed it up and didn’t think about it for a few more months.

Then the other day I tried again, and….it didn’t work again. But in frustration I turned it on and off about 50 times and you know what? It turned on! I think the on knob just wasn’t triggering the switch to connect to power. I don’t know what happened, but I do know that I’m so happy it’s working again. So much that I wanted to take a picture with it before we went out for a few drinks the other night.

My look was very  retro – my makeup was a bit more exaggerated than I typically wear, most notably the eyebrows. I wish I could have thick eyebrows all the time!

Dress: Vintage Guess thrifted. Tights: fleeced lined tights (BEST thing for winter!). Shoes: Banana Republic, thrifted. Headband: American Apparel twist scarf. Blanket: vintage Hudson Bay. And if you’re feeling cool – Tapestry by Carole King :)

I’m starting to feel like I’m meant to be in vintage all the time!