Representative Democracy? Elections? Hiatus?

Hey all! As you might be wondering by the title, this post is not to say that I’ve changed my major or turning this blog in a political one, but I do have some good news! It could also be considered bad news in a sense.

I am going to be running as a candidate for my university’s upcoming generation elections, contesting the position of Pure & Applied Science Representative for 2012-2013. I had been contemplating this decision since last year’s elections and I’m still a bit shocked at myself for carrying through with it. I do intend to stay committed to the race for the candidacy as this may build my leadership and I may finally be able to make the difference in my faculty (FPAS).

I’d like to ask for you support at this time, because I may not be blogging or making videos as ofetn during the campaigning process. If you had not already realised, I was on a bit of an unannounced hiatus. The elections will be occurring in March, and I’d like to dedicate some time to campaigning, as well as my schoolwork.

 Hopefully my regular beauty posts, shall resume by the end of March, though I may blog ahead my favourites of February and the Asian Candy for March.

I will be creating a Facebook page for the campaign so you can follow it there if you’d like. The key incentives are Brotherhood, Honesty and Perseverance. I would like to unite my faculty to face the hardships of being a scientist and help them to realise that greatness can be achieved together.

Until next post enjoy your week!

Trendy Beauty for Spring 2012

I’m probably more than late with this post but since these things are still trending its still a good idea to write about it. There have been a number of things I’ve been seeing with lots of buzz from winter and they may continue through to spring. I’m just going to list them off and a bit of my thoughts on them.

Lipstick-Lip balm Hybrids:
From the infamous Revlon ColorBurst lip butters to the L’Oreal Colour Riche Balm … These lip products have so much hype surrounding them. It’s like the best thing since sliced bread! Everyone is now bringing out a lip moisturiser which boasts of a subtle colour pay-off as well.

Frankly I love it! Lipsticks have been around for a long-time and one thing they needed to perfect was the moisturising properties. Now with these new series of lip products it’s just amazing how they’ve combined a good lip balm with some actual colour. Before these seemed to only be available from higher-end brands such as Clinique, Lancome and Dior, just to name a few.

However, drugstore brands have been able to knock consumers off the department store brands to their grocery stores in search of these more affordable versions. Best thing is, EVERYONE seems to be loving them all over the beauty world. I CANNOT wait until they finally reach here! (Granted it may take another 2 months hahaha)

Tangerine Tango:
Named by Pantone as one of the colours of 2012. Corals and oranges were really hot last year and it seems they’re continuing the trend this year. Appearing everywhere, from clothes to beauty products, all the newest collections are including at least one tangerine colour.
I’m not too certain about my feelings to this colour being in everything as I’m not much of a orange fan, but I will be watching to see how it turns out.

I’ve also been seeing the Bright Charteuse, Honey Gold and Pink Flambe growing in popularity with the current styles. Actually I have a hand bag in a colour very similar to the Honey Gold. I at least understand why that is popular, it’s neutral enough to go with everything, yet bright enough to be a pop of colour.

Maybelline:
This cosmetic brand has been headlining the drugstore beauty realm from the beginning of 2012 with their affordable alternatives to the infamous M.A.C. paintpots, called the Maybelline 24 hour Color Tattoos. These are being coveted by beauty bloggers, enthusiasts and those in search of a great gel eyeshadow. Not only have they been winning people over with the Color Tattoos, but they have brought out a number of products with improvements on their older products, such as the Eye Studio and Dream.

Drugstore Brands:
I’ve talked about Maybelline in particular, but it really appears as if the drugstore brands are taking their game to a higher height. Improved formulas and packaging are winning over tons of cusomers who once stuck only to department store brands.

I can’t wait to see what’s in store for Spring 2012 and Summer as well!! What’s trending on your side of the world?

XOXO

Disclaimer: Images are not my own, hopefully I get my hands on some of these products eventually though!

Happy Valentine’s Day & Tutorial!

Hey everyone, as you could already tell my the title of this post tomorrow is the official day of LOVE! Many of us are going out or doing something special with our loved ones. For those of you going out, I’ve done this make up look to celebrate the occasion.

Actually I had done this look last week on whim and I really liked how it turned out. Being at a bit of a lost for a Valentine’s Day tutorial, I decided to retry this eye make up as it was cute, yet sultry enough to be worn for an evening.

Even if you’re not going out you can still try out this look if you like it, and if you’re single this February, who knows this captivating eye make up could draw some wanted attention to your gorgeous eyes and someone might even fall for you ^_^.

I used pink eyeshadow, which is in my opinion a much softer and less cliche colour for February 14th, and had darkened the crease with a deep mauve and charcoal colour.

Since the eyes are a bit colourful, I kept the lips soft and nude. Many guys do not like brightly coloured make up, it can be a bit distracting or some may even consider it intimidating. Plus with neutral lip gloss or lipstick, your guy will not be scared to kiss you  and risk getting lipstick on himself. Also try not to gloss it up too much if you do plan on wearing lip gloss.

Don’t overdo the blush either, check in natural lighting if you can to keep it to a nice flush, or a rosy glow. Although in the video it looks as if I have applied a ton of blush, it’s amazing how much of a flush it blended out to be (as you will see in the photos).

Sadly I have a Chemistry practical tomorrow too, so we’ll see how that plays out. So my boyfriend and I are actually staying in this Valentine’s Day, I can’t wait to spend some more quality time with him :). I’ve been quite busy lately!

I don’t want to say too much in this post, just in case he happens to read it, but I have a small surprise for my T. I really hope you like it. ^___^ hehe!

Products Used:
FACE:
Maybelline Fit Me Foundation- 350 Caramel
N.Y.C. Smooth complexion Bronzer- Sunny
L.A. Colors Dual Blusher- Cinnamon

EYES:
BH Cosmetics 88 Matte palette
Coastal Scents Hot Pot- M18, S28 (there are new colour names however these are the old ones)
LORAC OnScreen Duo- Caviar & Champagne
e.l.f. Essentials Waterproof Eyeliner Pen- Black
Black Kohl eyeliner
Maybelline Great Lash- Very Black
Boots Lengthening mascara Black Brown (brows)

LIPS:
e.l.f. Essential lipstick- Fantasy

Until next post, enjoy the tuorial and have a HAPPY and Fabulous Valentine’s Day!

XOXO

Micro-Haul from GFE

Hey everyone, in case you hadn’t already known, last weekend I volunteered at the Girlfriend’s Expo and had a great time. For more on that click here!

While I was there I was amazed by the number of make up brands and even the services available here in Barbados. I just got 3 things, as I was trying not to go overboard.

First I got a Sleek Make up I-Divine Palette in “Oh So Special”. The black in this palette is so saturated. I had seen this online and was so excited to see it on-sale there. I got mine from the Essential Trends’ booth.
 I was very impressed that they had tester palettes and insisted on giving out a Sleek bag specifically for the Sleek products.

Ash also picked up a lovely ColorClub nail polish from them and they also gave her free emery boards. That was a nice touch!

I love the packaging of this very SLEEK! hahahaa

I haven’t used my palette as yet, I was saving it for the photos hahah. But I can’t wait to start using it. I really needed a neutral eyeshadow palette. There was also the I-Divine palette in “Au Natural” but I was more drawn to this one from before.
Another cool one they had was the Acid Palette, covetted by many a YouTube guru, but not available in the USA because of FDA restrictions. There were some fluorescent colours in that one, very very bright!

This palette contains both matte and shimmery colours, with the black being matte.

The colours are as follows:
Top row: Bow, Organza, Ribbon, Gift Basket, Glitz, Celebrate
Bottom row: Pamper, Gateau, The Mail, Boxed, Wrapped Up, Noir

I love this huge mirror!

I also got this cute pure white shimmery poilish by Zoya called “Ginessa” from Bio Beauty. They had a selection of O.P.I. (including Shatter polishes), Essie and China Glaze.

I fell in love with this at first glance ^___^. It has the tiniest micro-glitter, so it gives a nice sheen. It looks perfect for a wedding if you ask me.

Finally I got an authentic Indian Henna Tattoo. It’s only supposed to last one week sadly, but it wasn’t too expensive. This was something I wanted for about a year now.

This is how it looked after the paste dried. (If you watch the video, you’ll see footage of it wet.)

I think this is two days after it was applied. It’s sooo pretty :). I think this is better than painting my nails lol. Sadly it’s wearing off.. and I don’t think it’ll survive until Tuesday.

It was pretty while it lasted ^__^ and I may get another at some point. (excuse the quality of those last photos, those were taken with my phone).

What do you think of what I got? Liked my henna tattoo? Would you get a henna tattoo?

Until next post, enjoy your week!

Must-do for next year: Girlfriend’s Expo!

Last weekend, I had the opportunity to volunteer at the Girlfriend’s Expo at the Lloyd Erskine Sandiford Centre (previously Sherbourne Conference Centre), and it was fantastic! I absolutely loved it! Both the patrons and the volunteers were treated very well. Although we would be behind the scenes running around, packaging goodie bags and such for the patrons about every hour, we still had a chance to browse the exhibits and enjoy the showcases the expo provided the patrons. In case you were wondering the expo ran for 2 days.

The exhibition is namely for females, however I realised that many of the displays, seminars and even the shows were unisex. So I would definitely recommend that guys attend too, especially because you could pick up something your girlfriend or wife has been eyeing before Valentines Day.

Taken from the GFE Facebook page

There were so many exhibitors present, from make-up retailers, car dealers, travel agencies, health and wellness (including sexual wellness), to apparel stores and major distributors.  I think one of the highlights was Move 2 More, a fitness centre which showcased pole and belly dancing. The pole dancing sessions definitely drew crowds to the entertainment room each day.

The seminars in the speaker’s room were very interesting topics ranging from the “power of the Purse” by Miche Bags, “20 Tips to Healthy Living” by Healing Earth Life Products to “Smart People, Smart Sex” by the Better Blends Relationship Institute.



Taken from GFE Facebook page

 Many of the exhibitors gave out samples, which is one thing that Bajans particularly love and there were many chances to win items from both the holders of the expo and exhibitors.

The best part for me, besides the food, samples and pole dancing, was the make-up displays. I was stuck by the number of brand names which I thought were not and would not ever be available in Barbados. But I actually saw very many of them, O.P.I., China Glaze, Essie, Eco Tools, Naked Cosmetics, Sleek Make up UK, Color Club, OCC (Obsessive Complusive Cosmetics) and Sugar Pill, to name a few. I just went a round the first day in awe.

Ash next to her new favourite car 🙂

I made sure to make some connections with the owners of these booths because it would be great to buy such cosmetics at some point. I heard so many good things about each of them! I tried not to splurge too much but I did get a Sleek Palette that I had been eyeing for a very long time, from Essential Trends and a Zoya Nail polish which was bought on whim as it was so pretty. More on those soon.

I also had the opportunity to meet a bajan YouTuber who makes the cutest bows ever! (remind me so much of Hello Kitty ^__^). She was really nice, and luckily Ashley got one of her bows in sequin black. I also saw two other Bajan YouTubers, however from start to finish their booth was always busy, so I hadn’t the chance to say hello.

There was also Make up Doll Cosmetics at the expo. I’m actually very proud of this bajan brand and I can’t wait to try more of their products. My first YouTube review was on their starter product, a beautiful gold eyeshadow I still have.

Another highlight for me was meeting Lashawna from ColourCoded, the group who had brought in PurseBuzz for an O2B2 session in Barbados! She was very kind, and Icouldn’t help but admire their booth. They were doing makeovers, and henna tattoos which I got one done (you’ll see in video), as well as selling BH cosmetics palettes (eyeshadow, concealer and blush palettes) and NAKED cosmetic pigments very affordable. I think they even had train cases!

Oh to be behind the wheel…

Like I said, Girlfriend’s expo was great for me and will definitely try to volunteer again! I hope you enjoy the photos, sorry about the quality, they were taken with my phone, but the second day I brought my video camera it was very busy, hahaha.

Until next post, Enjoy!

In the car off to an adventure ^__^

Finally.. ADELE- inspired makeup!

I’ve been saying I’ll do an Adele inspired look for the longest while, and here it finally is. I’m sorry it took so long, but who knew getting lashes on could be such a hassle… not to mention forgetting this tutorial so many times -__-.

 

My inspiration were these pics of the great Adele. She’s such an amazing singer and a gorgeous person.

Adele’s signature look is a neutral, but dramatic smokey eye with warm hues or bronzer along the cheeks and nude coloured lips. She just loves her FAKE LASHES and cat eyeliner (which I’m not all the great at, but I tried :). I took inspiration from these pics as well as added my own twists. I hope you enjoy the tutorial!!

I tried to film with natural light for most of the tutorial, but that happened to fail and I had to end up using a lamp as the sun set. Hopefully the lighting isn’t too much of a turn off…

Just playing around with the camera here, haha

Products Used:
FACE:
Maybelline Fit Me Foundation- 350 Caramel
N.Y.C. Smooth complexion Bronzer- Sunny
Maybelline Mineral Power Bronzer- Dark
L.A. Colors Dual Blusher- Cinnamon

EYES:
BH Cosmetics 88 Matte palette
Coastal Scents Hot Pot- S28 (there are new colour names however this is the old one)
e.l.f. Studio Matte eyeshadow- Charcoal
e.l.f. Essentials Waterproof Eyeliner Pen- Black
Black Kohl eyeliner
Ardell #46 Lashes (cut into demis)
Maybelline Great Lash- Very Black
Boots Lengthening mascara Black Brown (brows)

LIPS:
e.l.f. Essential lipstick- Fantasy
e.l.f. Essential Hypershine Gloss- Vixen

XOXO

Can you guess what’s different?…Texlaxed! HAIR UPDATE #2

Heyy all, as I had posted about a week ago, I was loving my natural hair, but I was a bit bored and wanted more versatility. I decided to texlax my hair.

Texlaxing gives similar results to texturisers and in my opinion, I had more control over how relaxed my hair would be. To texlax, one usually adds conditioner or oil to their relaxer or leaves in the relaxer for under the recommended time, to intensionally under process the hair. Texlaxing is supposed to keep some of the texture of your natural hair, while allowing you to wear it straight, curly or wavy. So insted of relaxing bone straight where hair may be subject to overprocessing, this method allows the hair to be uncoiled more safely as the relaxer works slower to process the hair.
One can choose how straight their hair would be depending on the time you leave it in and how diluted the relaxer is.

I chose to use the Organic Root Stimulator regular relaxer kit because ulovemegz from YouTube always uses this kit to relax and I love the results she gets on her hair. It was $16.99 for the regular which would have been way cheaper had I found in the beauty supply store, sadly they only had Super.

Also this kit comes with a lot of additional products, a few I was actually hoping to try out at some point. So I was very happy that it came in the kit. They were adequate sample sizes as well, so I was extremely pleased.

The next thing that I got was some cheap conditioner, because I really wasnt about to waste some good bucks on a conditioner that’s gonna get used up so quickly hahah. I love the VO5 conditioners, my favourite line is actually the Tea Therapy ones, they seem to work great for my hair given the price. So I picked up one of those to mix into the relaxer base. It was only $4.50 🙂

For added assurance that texlaxing would turn out the way I wanted, I researched some oils and how people use them in texlaxing. Most use Olive Oil, but that never seems to do much for my hair, save for drying it out. I hate the smell of it too, I’d rather cook with it haha. So I checked out some coconut oil which I happen to love the smell of and it’s not too thick either, which is very good for even everyday styling. I got a bottle at the pharmacy for about $6.50.

Finally, I bought some extra gloves from the pharmacy so both my sister and I would have a pair. I know how terrible it is to have mishaps with chemicals, your nails and hands may never be the same, so I definitely wanted to avoid that.

I mixed about 5 parts of the conditioner with one part coconut oil and mixd the concoction until it stopped separating. I didn’t measure exactly, just eyeballed it, but a good portion of conditioner, maybe 5-7 tablespoons. Then I added about 70% of the activator solution to the relaxer base and used the entire mixture of the conditioner and oil. Finally after stirring well I applied it to my hair from root to tip, back to front. The hair at the back of my hair always seemed to be more resistant, so despite the instructions saying from front to back I did the opposite haha. I left it in for about 7 minutes, omitting the application time. It did take longer to start processing because it was virgin hair, also as the relaxer was diluted.

As for the results, I loved them! While my hair was rinsed out my hair and shampooed my sister kept saying it looks so nice and wavy, I could’t wait to see for myself! And it was exactly that, I was so happy that I chose to texlax instead of just relax my hair.

I didn’t even get burned, which in my opinion is AMAZING! I’ve heard tons of horror stories of how bad relaxer burns and I’ve always kept away from it because of that. I did take some precautions with regards to burning. I washed my hair early in the week, since I knew I wanted to process Sunday. Also I avoided scratching my hair, I wore a satin bonnet, sectioned off my hair the day prior to the texlax and finally my sister based my scalp and hair line really well.

My hair is just as thick as it was natural but it feels weightless and more manageable. It now blows in the wind, I completely missed that feeling. My hair still looks natural and now I can fully rock a wash and go, which I’m stoked about. Before my hair would just clump together and get tangled so easily. Twistouts would be so tiresome I didn’t even bother with them. But now it holds a twist-out well and moisture also! It’s just sooo awesome ^___^. I can’t wait to try out more styles on my hair. This week I’m wearing it flat ironed. But more details on that later.

If you’d like more information on this processing technique,  you can check out this blog which I owe the credit to for their comprehensive post on texlaxing. Thanks Zan & Rob! You do not know how much this has helped me.

Until next post…

XOXO