Wednesday, December 8, 2010

XXI Love & Beauty Nail Polish Swatch - Gold

I went to Hollywood/Highland today and, even though I walked in with the intention of buying some form of clothing, I walked out of Forever 21 with a bottle of nail polish and a nail jewels set to bling out my nails. I thought I would swatch the nail polish. :) It's a very nice orange color that doesn't stand out too much because the actual color is so light. I was most attracted to the sparkles in the polish. This is 2 coats with no base or top coat.

To rate this color... (kind of making this up..maybe I'll have a better scale for the future if I decide to swatch more varnishes)

Color - 3/5 - Soft and pretty, but not as vibrant as it looks in the bottle even with 2 coats. Maybe 3-4 would do the trick.
Formula - 2/5 - Thin enough to apply easily and quickly, but not thick enough for a good color.
Smoothness - 1/5 - I can feel every bump from the glitter. They will probably chip off easily.
Price - 5/5 - Can't go wrong for price with a fairly large/average size bottle for $2.80!

Overall - 3/5 - It's a nice color, but not one that I love and would wear all the time. Bumpiness is weird for me since I prefer very smooth polishes.

I'll post my recent Sephora hauls soon too~ Look forward to 3 hauls coming up, haha! Just today I bought $40 worth of purely O.P.I. Oh me oh my.

What is your favorite Love & Beauty varnish color?

Monday, November 22, 2010

Makeup collection

After staying up for almost 72 hours, I decided to lose more sleep and take pictures of all my makeup stuff. Yay 48-hour Social App Hackathon~ I'm really happy about it though; my team won 1st place with our edu-tainment game, which can be found at apps.facebook.com/pdgames :) Please check it out when you have the chance~!

This was last weekend, so it's a little outdated since I bought more makeup since then (my poor wallet...) but I'll blog about the new stuff later. :)

I'm really new to Blogspot....so the formatting might be kind of odd. Maybe I'll mess around with the HTML later, haha.

Brushes

Color Contacts/Circle Lenses

Nail Polishes

False Lashes

Mascaras

Pencil Eyeliners

Liquid Eyeliners (and 1 Creme Liner)

Lip Glosses

Lipsticks

Blushes

Shimmer Powders

Concealers

Primers

Eyeshadows

Powder foundation/pressed powder

Liquid Foundations

I have way too much makeup....that I don't use.. :( Sad thing is...this is just what's at college with me. There's more at home... Maybe I'll do another post when I'm home for winter break. I wish I had a train case or something to put all of this in though... Any suggestions?

Friday, November 19, 2010

E.L.F. Brushes



First review! I might as well while my brushes are still here and next to me drying after I've used Sephora's Daily Makeup Brush Cleaner on them. I got the 2 oz. Daily Cleaner To Go sometime last year for $6 and it's been great! I don't use my brushes too often, so the "daily" is kind of a lie for me, but so far after over half a year, I've only used up half of the spray bottle. It's super convenient too because it's a spray.

On to brushes!

Almost all my brushes are the ones from the E.L.F. Studio 11-piece brush set. To the left is what they look like in their pouch/case.

I love the Studio line brushes because they're cheap but soft and sturdy. They don't shed at all, unlike the E.L.F. Professional line total face brush that I have. They are also really gentle on the skin, unlike the E.L.F. Professional line concealer brush that I've tried. The $2 extra for Studio line makes a huge difference.

As much as I love how handy and cool this set is though, I really only use about half of the brushes in it (bolded). The set comes with a
  • complexion brush
  • fan brush
  • concealer brush
  • small smudge brush
  • angled foundation brush
  • powder brush
  • small precision brush
  • small angled brush
  • eyeshadow "c" brush
  • blush brush
  • and contour brush.
In my opinion, the 5 that I use are really the only ones I need for cosplay.
  • I use the complexion brush for pressed powder for lightly finishing off my look (because this drugstore princess is too cheap for HD finishing powder, haha), and the rest of the brushes for their name-implied use.
  • I find that the eyeshadow "c" brush is good for everything eyeshadow-related for me; I don't need the other eyeshadow brushes.
  • I use the blush brush both for blush for female characters and for contouring using a darker shadow for crossplaying male characters.
  • Although, I suppose the small angled brush would be good for cream/gel liners and as a lip brush. Personally, I don't use cream/gel liners or have a need for a lip brush, so I hardly get to use that brush.
  • As for powder foundation, I actually prefer the design of the E.L.F. Professional line total face brush to the Studio powder brush.
  • So if you don't cosplay and are going for exclusively Studio line, you could probably switch out the blush brush for the powder brush.

Studio on the left, Professional on the right.

Overall, I would say to wait until E.L.F. has one of their many 50% off Studio sales, and nab this set for $15! It's such a great deal. If you really can't wait, the original price of $30 is pretty worth it too, considering how much other brands cost. Each brush on its own is $3, so with the set you are getting an extra brush and the pouch/case for free.

If you just want one brush out of the entire E.L.F. Studio line, I would say the eyeshadow "c" brush is a must-get! It really works for everything for applying and blending eyeshadow so you definitely won't regret shelling out the $3!

tl;dr Studio brushes are pretty awesome, especially the eyeshadow "c" brush. Just sayin'.

Saturday, October 23, 2010

Hello world!

Hi everyone. :)

First post, finally! I suppose I should introduce myself! My name is Kio and I am a sophomore at USC majoring in Computer Science (Games). Yeah, it's a pretty awesome major. I am just getting more into fashion, makeup, and the like. I used to be a huge tomboy. I still am a little bit, but shhh. ;) What else...oh, yes! I love to cosplay, so a lot of my entries might be about cosplay makeup, color contact/circle lenses, and wig care/styling as well~ It's kind of hard to talk about myself, haha. I would love to talk to you all, whoever is out there!

The name is "Drugstore Princess" because I like having nice, shiny things.....however I am but a poor college student, so I get almost all my things at various drugstores for $5 or less. (Usually only $1-2 to be as frugal as possible!) I hope my drugstore adventures will be able to help anyone else like me who can't afford to buy MAC or other more-expensive brands. I do get many free sample things from Lancome or Estee Lauder when my mom buys her cleansers and they come with free gift packs, but those make up almost all of my higher-end products. I also like to get the free foundation samples from the cosmetics counters at Macys. :)

I created this beauty blog to help me keep track of all the random things about fashion, beauty, health, and fitness in my life. I hope some things I write about will help you too someday ♥

Thanks for reading~!