As a continuation of my last post about my Favorite Face Brushes, I wanted to also talk about a few of my favorite eye brushes as well. With so many shapes and sizes of eye brushes out there, it can be a little tricky to navigate which shapes, textures, and densities will be most handy in your beauty kit. You can use this as a good basic guideline to figure out what you are missing in your eye brush arsenal!

Here is a recap of some of my favorite eye brushes, starting with the necessary basics and moving onto the more advanced set.
This is your basic flat shading brush which you can use to pack color on the lid, twice even (one color per side)! It's not astounding in any way, but definitely a go-to necessity.
Pencil brushes are an Asian girl's best friend. This little guy can help to define the tiny outer crease area that larger brushes make muddy and in a pinch, I can get away with using only this brush for an entire eye look. When looking at pencil brushes just make sure you get a dense one. Floppy brushes can't pack on color as well, which is an important factor for crease definition.

Merry Christmas everyone! I hope you are at home, relaxing with your loved ones and enjoying the holiday break. Tonight I'll be heading off to a couple different family Christmas get togethers, but I wanted to quickly post this year's Naughty & Nice list!


You may remember last year's list where I came up with my top 5 disappointing products and top 5 most loved products for this year and I wanted to continue the tradition.






1. Suave Dry Shampoo $3
Initially a medium-hit, this affordable dry shampoo ($3) is readily available at mass retailers and comes in a 5oz container. The smell is actually quite nice, like candied grapefruit, but the big miss is that by the afternoon my hair would become greasy again. Unacceptable in my opinion!


2. Covergirl Lashblast Length Water-resistant mascara $6.23
This mascara was a huge let-down for me. I was hoping for clean, long lashes and instead got wimpy lashes that neither held curl nor lengthened my lashes much. There is no volume added to speak of and it just did none of the things I look for in a mascara. Remember ladies, there is a big difference between water resistant (boo) and waterproof (yay)! Waterproof holds curl, water resistant does not.


3. B&C Pore Peeling Tsururi $9.80
After testing this out incorrectly the first time, I tried it out again with tips from helpful youtube comments who could read the instructions. ;) Sadly, even after massaging this nose mask as instructed, I found no difference in the state of my blackheads. I don't think I would repurchase this, plus is smells pretty strongly of glue and chemicals. I'd rather use my Queen Helene Mint Julep mask!


4. Shiseido Tsubaki Head Spa Extra Cleansing Shampoo $12.60
This shampoo was very liquidy and hard to manage. It doesn't spread well though the hair and smells very strongly, reminding me of tea tree oil. It left my hair stripped to the point where my conditioner couldn't compensate and my hair just felt drier. I'd skip this and try a drugstore option instead.

5. Barielle Intensive Hand Treatment Cream $20
This hand cream came with cotton gloves and the idea is to apply this at night to supposedly wake up with soft, supple hands in the morning. Instead I had waxy, coated hands that didn't feel super hydrated. The product just didn't sink into my skin even with the cotton gloves on all night. I'd rather stick with my beloved Crabtree & Evelyn Hand Therapy instead.

I love this color but it's definitely a bright one. It's more barbie pink compared to the fuchsia look of lollipop so I'd consider it a statement lippy.









This lipstick is my favorite of the bunch since it's the perfect everyday lipstick for my skintone. It's very wearable and looks good with any makeup. It is slightly more saturated in real life than in this photo.

Hey guys! It's officially mid-November and I can't help but think to myself that time is traveling by extra-fast this month. Maybe it's because I've started preparing gifts for Christmas and, like last year, I am preparing to donate an item to the BeautyBloggers.org charity auction. I'll give more information about this year's auction closer to the starting date (Nov 28th) but as a little teaser, I am donating a very special lipstick this year. ;) 

As I mentioned in the video, my favorite types of perfumes are fruity-florals and I try to avoid perfumes that have baby powdery scents and "old lady" classic perfume scents like the plague. They just don't work with my personal body chemistry and end up smelling very flat and unflattering.

I also appreciate adorable packaging like this cute DKNY Be Delicious apple! ^_^


Here are my top 5 altogether in their cute glass bottles.


Paris Hilton (2005)
Fragrance Notes: Frozen Apple, Peach Nectar, Wet Ozone, Sparkling Muguet, Freesia, Mimosa, Jasmine, Tuberose, Skin Musk, Sandalwood, Ylang Ylang, Oakmoss, Pheromone.

I'd describe this one as being "cute and sexy" on me. It's on the sweeter end of perfumes I like but it's great for a night out. It's purported secret ingredient is pheromone in case you want to bring all the boys to the yard.


Marc Jacobs Daisy (2007)
Fragrance Notes: Violet Leaves, White Woods, Strawberry, Gardenia, Ruby Red Grapefruit, Jasmine Petals, Violet Petals, Vanilla, Musk

This perfume is a lighter floral that is a bit preppy and appropriate for everyday. It's not too strong that it's distracting but it's still nice and put-together. I also find that this one doesn't seem to change on different people's skin as much as other perfumes, or maybe it just smells good on most people. The clean wearability reminds me of Clinique's Happy perfume and it's a good "starter" perfume for those new to fragrances.


L L.A.M.B. by Gwen Stefani (2007)
Fragrance Notes: Water Hyacinth, Violet, Fresh Pear, White Freesia, Jasmine, Muguet, Sweet Pea, Rose, Orange Blossom, Heliotrope, Peach

This perfume is one of my more sophisticated and heavier perfumes and has fresh, floral top notes but definitely has a cooler, muskier base to it that is more masculine than my other perfume picks. I like it for an elegant date night since it's very classy.


DKNY Be Delicious Fresh Blossom (2009)
Fragrance Notes: Apricot, Cassis, Grapefruit, Smooth Skin Accord, Blond Woods, Jasmine, Rose, Apple, Muguet

I really love this perfume as an everyday daytime fragrance. It's a bit sweet, floral, and feminine. The "Fresh Blossom" name originally scared me since I usually stay away from heavy florals but it's actually quite light and I absolutely love undertones of apple in it. It's a really nice balance of florals without trying too hard.



Some honorable mentions I wanted to include are:

Burberry Brit Sheer
A fresh, fruity floral that I don't own yet but want! I recall it being slightly more citrusy than my other loves, which I enjoy.



Salvatore Ferragamo Incanto Shine


Lacoste Essential
Clean, fresh, long-lasting, and sliiiightly citrusy without losing any masculinity in the process. Ugh, so sexy. I die. This is my current favorite cologne.

Since there is a Rock & Republic Beauty sale on Hautelook TODAY 1-24-2011 I wanted to post up this video I recorded this weekend. I didn't even realize there would be a sale so soon but I hope this review will come in handy for those of you who are interested in the eyeshadows!

If you don't already have an invite to Hautelook you can use mine to join here: http://www.hautelook.com/invite/836240
Here are the colors I own of the Rock & Republic Saturate Eyeshadow (click to view larger):


Veil - matte eggshell
Carat - creamy golden sheen
Exile - warm metallic honey-bronze
Vintage - warm matte brown with depth
Diffused - cool taupe (maybe similar to MAC Satin Taupe)
Lawsuit - duochrome with green flash over a burgundy-brown base


Snakeskin - grey-green-brown dusty awesomeness
Chronic - olive green with golden sheen
Envy - perfect forest green (maybe a MAC Humid dupe)
Jaded - a bright, shiny jade green
Electric - a saturated, glowy electric blue


Tempting - dusty, shiny purple
Paranoid - awesomely warm, matte, saturated purple
Twisted - glowy cool purple with a purple-blue flash

The colors that I LOVE the most from this collection are Carat, Lawsuit, and Snakeskin. Seriously, I could call nearly all of them my favorites on any given day though. I hope you can see from my swatches how high-quality and saturated these colors are. These swatches were with no primer at all, and they are the very swatches I did while making the video so it's not like I was trying extra hard to get great swatches.

Definitely HG material for me! :D

I also wore these during the video, but I'll talk about them in the future.
Rock & Republic Exhibition Pressed Powder in Satin
Rock & Republic Contrived Pressed Blush in Spank

Hope these swatches are helpful for those of you wanting to purchase from the Rock & Republic sales going around but were curious about the eyeshadows. My opinion? Absolutely try them out! You won't be disappointed, at least in the colors that I own. :)

If you bought some or own any already, let me know what you got in the comments!

(I bought these all myself. No disclaimers needed. :)