Today in Shopping...

So, I bought some things...

Nails of the Week: Shesawai Stoked and China Glaze Lux & Lush

Here is this week's manicure. Shesawai Stoked ($7.99 at Winners) and China Glaze Luxe & Lush (from the Hunger Games collection).

(Uploaded from my iphone, so the quality isn't fantastic. I'll take some in the daylight tomorrow and hopefully be able to show you the true colour of the Sheswai polish.)

Sheswai polishes are 3-free.

Edited: October 31, 12:01 am

Aaaaaaaaand as promised, better pictures!

To see that adorable compact I'm holding, you're going to have to wait for the next post!

A Short Introduction & Review (Real Techniques Brushes)

It started out innocently enough. Experimenting with lipstick and mascara. Then it escalated to eyeliners. Pencil at first, and then it wasn't before too long that I discovered liquid. Liquid eyeliner changed me. It did things to me. I couldn't get enough. I had to have it in all the colours. And oh, glitter...

Before long I was rocking a smokey eye almost daily. Things were getting out of control. I had 20 different pink lipglosses in my purse at any given time. Just getting emails from MAC would make me swoon. Finding out limited editions weren't available in Canada would throw me into a rage.

But I looked flawless.

I don't quite remember when my love affair with makeup began. I'm fairly certain it stemmed from the obsessive lust I harbour for stationery and art supplies. I had a pretty extensive collection of colouring books growing up, so it was probably around the time I outgrew colouring Jem's face and just started doing it to my own.

Skip ahead a few years and I've amassed an eyeshadow collection that would make a drag queen blush. Heh.

I'm self taught, and this was long before the days of youtube video tutorials (which I love.) I would scour books and magazines for the latest trends and techniques and visit makeup counters questioning (and probably annoying) artists. I practically slept with my Kevyn Aucoin books under my pillow.

It felt like a drug, when I would pull out my brushes and start the routine of doing my face. There was a high about it. The kind of high you get when you are doing something you love and you know that you are so fucking good at it. And there was a peacefulness that came along too. It was just so easy that sometimes I thought I'd winged my eyeliner in my sleep (and with my late nights, I often was.)

It was during the last couple of months of my last semester of my writing program that things started to change. I was so stressed out with school and my boyfriend at the time was being distant and I was so riddled with anxiety about leaving school for the first time ever and having to get a grown-up job and be a functioning member of society that I had the worst eczema breakout of my life. It was under my eyes and it was so bad that the skin around them was constantly swollen.

I had to stop wearing makeup. And I did, more or less. (You can pry my mascara out of my cold, dead hands, as long as I don't come back as a zombie and eat your brains.) And once my life and skin settled down I was finding it hard to want to get up half an hour earlier than I needed to just to wear a purple smokey eye. I started paring my look down to foundation, winged eyeliner, mascara and I'd often forgo lip products often and just opt for a swipe of lipbalm. It was just... easier.

Fast-forward a couple of years and I'm starting to find that inspiration and passion I had once again. So I will use this space not only for stories, but also reviews of products I buy and things I love.

I thought I'd start by reviewing a set of brushes I bought recently.

Real Techniques Brush Review

About 6 (or 8?) weeks ago, I bought a few of the brushes from Real Techniques*. I've been curious about them for a while now, and as someone who is always on the quest for the best foundation brush (and eyeliner, and mascara, and concealer...) I could not resist the Expert Face Brush. I bought a few brushes from the collection off of Amazon and I've been using them pretty much daily since they arrived.

Since my favourite is the Expert Face Brush, I'll review that one last.

I also bought the Shading Brush (which, if you buy it from Amazon, you get 2 for $11.98). In the 6 or 8 (maybe 10?) weeks I've been using the brushes, I've probably used these the least. It's not that I don't like them -- they do their job -- but I haven't really done any looks that I'd require a shading brush for. At least not for their intended purpose. Because I got two, I dedicated one as a concealer brush and one as a shadow blending brush. As a concealer brush it has been fine for blending my under eye concealer, although, I prefer a brush with a bigger head for this job (I usually use the Sephora Pro Airbrush  Concealer Brush #57) because I have monster dark circles to to conceal. It is great for the teenier spots you want to hide, though.

The Setting Brush has such a great shape for powdering under the eye/setting concealer and small areas, which I prefer, since I don't like powdering my whole face due to my dry-scorched-earth skin. I just powder where I absolutely need to (namely setting my under-eye concealer.) And because of the shape of the brush I've also used it as a contouring brush; the shape is fantastic for getting right under your cheekbones and along the bridge of the nose.

I LOVE the Fine Liner Brush. I've been using it a lot (going back and forth between the liner brush with MAC's Fluidline and Eyeko's Skinny Liner lately.) It holds its shape and is firm enough to follow my lash line without moving where I don't want the brush to go, but it's also flexible enough to create a sharp, clean cat eye too. I'm not a big fan of angled brushes for liner, only because I learned using fine, straight brushes and this brush I adore.

Last, but not least, is the Expert Face Brush.
I LOVE THIS BRUSH. Let me say it again. I LOVE THIS BRUSH. Seriously. I have so much love for this brush. It's dense, so it holds product well, but it doesn't suck it into the bristles like I've noticed some stippling brushes tend to do. And it blends flawlessly. I load the brush with product and press it into my skin, concentrating on the areas that need more products (where I have scars or uneven colouring) and then I buff it into my skin and my foundation just disappears right into my skin. It's brilliant! There is just really not much left to say about this brush, except that it is perfect and if you are going to buy any foundation brush, I recommend this one.
Go out and buy it. Right now. Go on. I'll wait...

Ok, so now I assume you will have this glorious brush on its way to you. Time for my overall opinion (because it's oh, so important.)
I love them. They are great quality brushes, and even more so due to the price -- these brushes won't even put a dent in your wallet, not a scratch even.
Check out the website: http://realtechniques.com/ and have a look at retailers near you and the rest of the collection.

I'm giving these 4.5 whatevers out of 5 on my arbitrary scale of which I haven't determined the specifics yet. I'll update this when I figure it out.

*Real Techniques brushes are designed with pro makeup artist Samantha Chapman, Real Techniques brushes combine high-tech materials with innovative design to make creating a pixel-perfect look easier than ever.