Lime Crime and Makeupbee Collaboration (Part One!)!

So one of the awesome things about being a "Queenbee" on Makeupbee is that you get to take part in some really cool collaborations.  It's awesome getting access to brands and products I might otherwise not be able to afford or I just might not know about them.

One of these brands is Lime Crime.  Queenbees, if they wanted to take part, were able to select two eyeshadows, a lipgloss, a lipstick, and an "eyeshadow helper" (which is their primer).  With eyeshadows, I can always find colors I like, not a problem, I chose what looked like a deep green ("Medusa") and a nice purple color ("Empress").  Lipsticks I had a hard time picking just one that I wanted to try but I went with a nude color, "Coquette".

But when I got to the lipgloss section, I had a hard time deciding.  I'm not a dark lip kinda girl.  I wear nude or light pink lips like all the time.  When you look at Lime Crime's lipgloss selection, you will see neither of those colors haha.  They have a red, a reddish pink, a purple, a blue, and a gold.  So I had to think about which one I'd be most likely to wear so I decided on the purple, which is called "Kaleidoscope."

I was so excited to try this stuff that as soon as it got here, I went off to do a look with one.  So here's what I came up with:

Please excuse the beyotch look on my face in this picture haha 

What I used:

Lime Crime's Eyeshadow Helper

Lime Crime "Medusa"

Inglot 414 P (a pearly, dark green)

Inglot 351 M (a light off white color for a highlight)

some false lashes that I don't know who they're by or what style they are

MAC Blacktrack Fluidline

Lips:

A purple eyeliner

Lime Crime "Kaleidoscope" lipgloss

For me not being a dark lip girl, I actually think this came out pretty.  Of course, I didn't stay wearing the purple lips but I liked it while it was on.

A few things about the lipgloss: it's a dark color.  I applied it the first time without lining my lips first (I don't have a purple lipliner).  BIG MISTAKE!!  You can't just throw this on your lips, rub them together, and go.  That's not happening with this color.  You need to line your lips and then apply this almost as if you're applying red lipstick. 

I did swatches of the shadows over 4 different bases/primers to see how their Eyeshadow Helper compared to the others.  I also did a swatch of Sugarpill's "Poison Plum" to see how it effected that as well.

And after doing this little experiment, it made me wonder why in the WORLD does anyone waste their money on Urban Decay Primer potion????  Look what it does for those shadow colors!  A big fat nothing!!  The only reason I have it is because a sample came with the Naked palette!

The eyeshadow helper feels almost waxy and it definitely brings out the metallic-ness of the shadows more than the other bases.  But I mean, if the eyeshadow helper does the same thing for the shadows that NYX's JEP "milk" does, then that will let me skip a step I do in my eye makeup routine almost every day, which is always cool.

I don't obviously have any solid feelings about these products yet as I literally just got my hands on them today.  But so far so good!  

Thanks so much for checking this out!!  I hope you all have a great New Year's!!!!

GRANDMA ZENTNER GOT HER NAILS DID!

New Years nail design/ mini tutorial

hi!!!, this time i decided to write in english (is just a little bit lol and i know it's not perfect). I was going to do a blog post explaining this nail design but when i was painting last night i decided to do a mini tutorial with pictures, so here it is!!! enjoy ;)


This are the things that you need! but if you want to change the colors it's ok, for me the colors that represent new years are golden and black.

24 carat by kleancolor, a golden nail polish this one doesn't have a name but it's from wet n wild, a black nail polish, a make up sponge and a top coat

step 1: paint your nails with the golden nail polish

step 2: with a make up sponge grab a little bit of black nail polish and start pressing (not to strong) on the free edge of the nail and the color has to look softer in the middle of the nail.



step 3: add a tiny layer of golden glitter in the middle of the nail, i used 24 carat.

Note: you can leaveyour nails like this if you want to or continue with the next step!!

last step: with a white nail art pen or with a toothpick write ''happy 2012'' on the nail and you're done!

FELIZ ANIO NUEVO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I've got the blues!

Well, not the sad kind of blues.  I've had this Eye Kandy Cosmetics' Sprinkles "Berry Blast" eye glitter for a while and I really haven't used it very much.  It's kind of a dark color (but it's sooo pretty!) so it really would only, in my opinion, look good over a bit darker of a color.  

So I went with that today.  I wanted to use "True Blue" from Calypso Minerals because, for one, I thought it'd look great with the glitter on top, and for two, it's like the most beautiful color in the world.

So here's my look!

haha sorry this picture is a little weird, the wind was blowing

Have I told you how much I LOVE "true blue"???  It's so pretty!  It's like an electric royal blue.  Love it.

What I used:

TFSI

NYX JEP "milk"

Calypso Minerals "True Blue" matte pigment

Calypso Minerals "Drama" matte pigment 

(you can get Calypso Minerals from their etsy shop)

MAC "vanilla" pigment as a highlight

MAC Blacktrack fluidline

L'oreal Voluminous Carbon Black mascara

And then, of course the glitter!

I don't know what my deal is lately but I put glitter on everything haha.  I LOVE LOVE LOVE matte shadows with glitter on top.  I can't get enough of looks like that right now.  I don't know if it's because New Year's Eve is coming and I think glitter is the best thing you can wear on New Year's Eve or what it is but I am glitter-ing it up haha.

I hope you all have a fun and SAFE New Year's!  And if you do some rockin' makeup, make sure you take some pictures and leave me a link to them!!

Sparkle sparkle!

Hello cutie pies!

Today I tried to do something creative but the pictures turned out horrible. :( I'd like to do this look some other time though on a real model and have the pictures taken by someone who knows what he's doing :P

Here's a picture anyway:

Hope you like it! :)

Pink and black sparkly New Years Eve look

Hello cutie pies!

Here's the promised tutorial right in time for New years eve! I love the combination of the colors pink and black and the sparkles just adds something extra fun to the look :) 

By the way, when I photographed the Northern Lights look I turned up the saturation on my camera and of course I forgot to turn it down again for this look. And since I'm far too lazy to fix it on all of the pictures in Photoshop, my skin looks as red as a traffic light...

Wear this if you think a gothic version of Barbie is a good idea. 

Don't wear this if being mistaken for a dragqueen is your worst nightmare. 

This look is fabulous with green eyes! 

So, let's get the tutorial started :)

Step 1

Start with priming your eyes. I'm using UDPP. Since we don't want any smudginess on this look later we're going to thightline our eyes in this step. As usual I've used my Isadora Inliner "Indian ink", but you can use any soft, very black liner you like. Make sure to really rub it in between your lashes to make your lashline really dark. 

Step 2

Add NYX Jumbo pencil "Milk"to your lid and smudge it out gently with your finger. We do this only to intensify the pink color, so if you have another similar eyepencil in pink, now will be the perfect time to use it. :) I, however, don't own any pink eyepencils so white will have to do for me. 

Step 3

Add a pink eyeshadow to the lid on top of the eyepencil you used in step 2. You can use either a shimmery one or a matte. I've used Make Up Store Blush "Matt glory". Note that I've put the color slightly above my crease. This is because my eyelids are a teeny tiny bit hooded and I am going to create the cut crease slightly above my natural crease.

Step 4

Now you want to create the cut crease. I've used the Mac #266 angled brush and a matte, black eyeshadow. My black eyeshadow is Make Up Store Microshadow "Pollution".

The easiest way to do this is to look straight into the mirror and start drawing the cut crease right above your natural crease (or in your natural crease depending on your eyes) and work outwards. This can be a bit tricky, but if you've got any questions feel free to ask :)

Step 5

Now you want to add some "height" to the drawn creaseline. I did this by going over it with the same angled brush as before (to which I added some more black eyeshadow) and dragging the colors upwards in small feathering motions. (This would have been SO much easier to show you in a videotutorial! I swear I'll try to get a camera soon!)

Blend the edge gently! You don't want any harsh lines but you don't want to overblend it either. You can also add a highlight underneath your brow to make blending easier. I used a Mac #217 for blending, but if you've got a little less space between your eyebrow and your crease you can use a smaller brush such as the Mac #219.

 Step 6

First, if you hadn't already done that, put on your foundation, concealer and stuff like that. 

Using the same angled brush as before (and the same eyeshadow) I created a little flick in the inner and outer corners of the eye. To get this even on both your eyes can be a little bit tricky so doing an outline with a white eyeliner pencil might be a good idea. White is so much easier to erase than black!

Step 7

Fill in your eyebrows (I've used what was left of the black eyeshadow on my angled brush). Put on a volumizing mascara and some dense eyelashes. I've used Clinique High Impact Mascara and eyelashes from H&M. Since we want the pink color of the eyeshadow to show we might don't want our lashes to be too long. 

Step 8

Put on some pink glitter! I prefer to use glitter eyeliner for this since it's the easiest method :) The glitter eyeliner I've used is "Fuchisa" by Make Up Store.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

The photoshop brushes I've used to create this frame comes from 

http://falln-stock.deviantart.com/

Purple Nubbins!

As I mentioned in my last post, Marisa and I decided to do a polish swap, and I now have a ton of new polish to try out! Some of them I'm trying to wait to show you until I have some free edge, since my nubbins don't do any polish justice, but I guarantee I'll wear them within the next 2 weeks and then re-swatch them when my nails grow out.  Last night I was in a purple mood, and I have had this Savvy polish sitting in my untrieds for months and months, and finally was inspired to try it out. I paired it with this awesome purple glitter from Love and Beauty that Marisa sent me, and the result is pretty cool! You can't tell in pics, but in person it looks almost like my nails have droplets of water on them! Very cool!

Anyway, I used Savvy Nail Lacquer in Gotcha Grape. This little beauty is a lovely medium purple with flashes of blue and some lovely subtle pink shimmer. This is the first time I have used a Savvy polish, and I really dig it. Application was perfection, very smooth with zero thickening, bubbling, or streaking. Here I used 2 thin coats for opacity, but one coat was actually very cool looking! Reminiscent of Sally Hansen's Virtual Violet. Dry time was also impressive; by the time I had finished my second coat, my left hand was almost completely dry. I'm definitely going to pick up some more Savvy colors next time I am at Sally's. Their selection is a bit limited, but there are some gems hidden among the usual colors. But enough babble! Pictures!

Here is Gotcha Grape all by herself in my battered light box:

NOTE: I apologize PROFUSELY for my insanely dry, angry cuticles and fingers. That's what happens when you realize that you didn't get all the damned nail glue off previously and spend a good hour soaking in acetone and scrubbing like a mad fiend to get that sh*t off! Yet another reason to NEVER WEAR FAKES AGAIN!! Thankfully my skin and cuticles is much happier after some intensive overnight moisturizing.

So let's pretend my skin isn't uber dry and angry about being scrubbed like mad and just look at the polish, isn't this a beautiful color? My camera actually managed to capture this color beautifully (although I have no idea wth is up with my pinky in that last pic....it isn't smudged...I think maybe I managed to get something on my lense..), which is a very rare occurence with purples.  I love, love, love the pink shimmer in this girl - I don't have any purples with this kind of pink shimmer, and since I love pink and purple together this is kind of a no brainer for me. 

I love this color all on her own, but I was dying to try out the Love and Beauty Dark Purple glitter polish that Marisa sent, so I layered that over Gotcha Grape. In person, it really does look like I have little water droplets on my nails! So neat! However, I think that Gotcha Grape is really too dark to show off how gorgeous L&B's Dark Purple is, so I'll be wearing it again with a much lighter base soon.

Dark Purple is my first Love and Beauty polish, and combines 2 of my favorite things: Purple, and Glitter! It's a very sexy deep purple glitter with larger hex glitter in a clear base. It applied like a dream, I had no problems getting the hex glitter to stay where I put it and there's enough of the hex glitter that I didn't have to keep dipping and digging around the bottle to pick some up. Top coat is an absolute must though, since for some reason this dries rather dull. I never go without top coat unless I'm using a matte (and even then I sandwich), so that isn't a big issue for me.  Again, please forgive my horrible dry skin and angry fingertips and cuticles.

Love and Beauty Dark Purple Glitter over Savvy Gotcha Grape, Lightbox:

This combination really doesn't show just how beautiful this glitter is. I think I may pair it with SH Virtual Violet later this week and hope for some good sunlight for pics. Also, a huge thanks to everyone that has been supportive of my poor little nubbins! It makes me feel much better about continuing to blog while I grow my nails out to their former glory. I really hope none of you ever have to suffer this strange ordeal!

In case you guys missed it, I kept breaking nails due to some overzealous buffing (at least that's what I think happened. I can't think of any other cause for how paper thin my nails became, and now that I have cut them back they're already looking much thicker.), and I finally had to just give up and cut them all back. I was also having some issues with my free edge curling toward each other at the corners, which was aggravating, confusing, and concerning. Nothing is wrong with me healthwise, but my doc did remind me that since I have lost a lot of weight (When my son was born in My of 2010, I weighed 168 lbs,  I was 143 when he was conceived and a size 8 or so, for a total of 25 lbs gained during pregnancy. Since his birth, I have dropped down to 124lbs and a size 3/4), and my hands have obviously changed since I've lost all the weight, a fact that hadn't crossed my mind for some reason! Still, that didn't really explain the strange curling free edge. Combine both those issues and you have an OCD nail blogger's nightmare. I told myself that since they will grow back, it's not a big deal, but whenever I see pics from even a couple months ago, I want to cry. I miss my nails! My hubs and a few friends have told me that they think my nubbins are cute, and that means a ton to me. And like I always say, it's about the polish, not the length/shape of my nails, right? Plus my MASH plates are very small, and with the nubbins I can actually use the full nail images without having to try and double stamp.

Ok, enough out of me! It's time to go and change my mani. I have this strange need to wear a creme polish tonight, so I pulled out one of my untried Essies and am going to rock that baby! I'm debating stamping them as well. Let's see if I can't make these little nubbins shine! ;)

Happy Polishing!
-Kimber

New banner! :D

Hello cupcakes!

Today I made a banner for my blog :) I don't think I'm 100% happy with it but it will do for the moment.

The amazing photoshop brushes I've used to create this banner comes from:

http://falln-stock.deviantart.com/gallery/5279175

I've spent my afternoon taking pictures for another tutorial that will hopefully be posted here tomorrow :)

Here's a sneak peak!

Northern Lights

I'm back! :)

I've had a great Christmas holiday and now I'm back home again. Hope you've had a fabulous holiday as well!

The look of today is inspired by northern lights which is a commonly occurring phenomenon in the northern parts of Scandinavia in the winter.

My eyeinfection is getting better but I still don't want to put on any makeup on my left eye so you'll just get another picture of my right one ;)

I think this makeup would look great on people with really dark skin and black/dark brown eyes! :) 

List of products

Face

*Clarins Everlasting Foudation "Ivory"

*YSL Touche Éclat

*Isadora Perfect Loose Powder "Velvet transparent"

*Make Up Store Blush "Matt glory"

Eyebrows

*88-palette

Eyes

*Urban Decay Primer Potion

*NYX Jumbo Pencil "Milk"(used as a base on the lid)

*Make Up Store Cybershadow "Buzzer" (outer corner)

*Make Up Store Eyedust "Bamboo" (outer corner)

*Shimmering White from 120-palette (middle of lid)

*Matte White from 120-palette (highlight)

*Make Up Store Blush "Matt glory" (inner corner) 

*Make Up Store Microshadow "Pollution" (used as eyeliner)

*Shimmering lilac from the 120-palette (under the eyes) 

*Isadora Inliner "Indian ink"

*Clinique High Impact Mascara 

*Ardell False Eyelashes #110

Lips

*Anything nude with a pink undertone would probably go with this look :)

Purple and Orange Cut Crease Look using Sugarpill

I did this look yesterday because I've been trying to come up with some more ways to use the Burning Heart quad from Sugarpill.  I really love the way orange and purple look together so I figured I'd give this look a go.  It's just a cut crease using the orange on the lid and the purple on the crease, but then I blended the purple back up into the orange.  So here are the pictures!

Again, with this type of look, I feel like I should be at a sporting event haha.

The white is Inglot DS 496 and I used some of NYX black eyeshadow as well.  The orange is Sugarpill's "Flamepoint" and the purple is their "Poison Plum."

I get so bummed when it's cloudy outside because I feel like my pictures just don't come out as well when I have to use my flash.  I don't know.  Oh well, I guess this is how they're going to look until it's spring!

And please please please, if you haven't voted for Meredith Jessica's look on makeupbee, please head over there and do that!  She's only about 25 votes from first and she's doing a MASSIVE GIVEAWAY! if she wins, but you'll have to have voted for her to be able to participate (the rules are on the giveaway link)! 

I mean, why wouldn't you want this gorgeous look to win?  Let alone get yourself a chance to win a $250 shopping spree at Sephora!?!

So please vote!!!  The contest ends on January 2nd!

Thank you all so much for checking this out!!!  I hope you all have a great week!  And a safe New Year's Eve!  I don't know if you've heard or not but AAA is providing free transportation and towing on New Year's Eve between 6 p.m. and 6 a.m. New Year's Day for anyone who's had a little alcohol so nobody has to drive or get in the car with someone who's been drinking!  It's totally free (the first 10 miles) so if you've had a drink on New Year's Eve call 1-800-400-4AAA and they will get you home safely!  There is no excuse to drink and drive!