I'm working on streamlining and organizing my kit. Before I commit to this style of swatching, I thought I'd tap the hive mind to see if there's a better way?
If you don't know about the cosmetics company store, it's basically an Estee Lauder outlet. Any Estee Lauder brand is going to be between 30% to 50% off at any given time. Anything that's Christmas holiday limited edition will be there when it doesn't sell in the store. They have a 6 for $60 deal several times a year where you can get any single item for 10 bucks if you buy six items.
They're usually inside of outlet malls, I don't know that their online store is well stocked, but this is how I was able to fill out my kit for a fraction of the cost. I then take those powders and repress them with a 2,000 lb arbor press into 26x26 alwan magnet tins from Amazon. That way I can keep my kit fully stocked but very lightweight because I no longer have 30 to 50 lb of mirrors and packaging waste dragging me down.
I love all of my jewelry, and am having the best time designing my own custom pieces. I'm so glad there's a dedicated place for those of us that like big rocks. I have a nine and a half size finger and a 1 carat looks like a speck of glitter on me.
Thank you for helping me refine my look. I'm a person that does a different look every single day, I've never repeated a look before in my life. But, at 43, I've found that I look older when I go heavy or dark.
I pulled apart my makeup collection (last slide) and took all the natural, soft focus colors and textures out of it for myself. I am a makeup artist who hasn't done makeup in a couple years so my kit is quite large.
Because my brows are naturally see-through blonde, and barely there, I'm struggling to find a way to do a natural brow that doesn't make me look like I have no brows. But I'm working on it!
It's crazy that I'm so much better at doing other people's makeup than myself because I can't be objective about myself like I can be a client.
I'm reworking all of my makeup into color stories instead of buying new stuff. This is Natasha denona eyeshadow, Mac eyeshadow, and Made by Mitchell cream eyeshadow.
The tiny eyeshadows on the bottom are repressed by me with a 2,000 lb arbor press into watercolor tins.
Hello!
I love makeup and was a makeup artist for a chunk of time, but I think I've always struggled with being objective about my own face. Maybe I use too much highlighter or my concealer placement isn't really helping the hollows under my eyes. I haven't done any fillers or Botox yet.
The only time I feel "dead" in my makeup is when I wear the season I supposedly am, which is a soft summer. Also known as muted cool toned neutrals.
I'm a level 8 strawberry blonde and have green eyes with a blue ring. Thanks to perimenopause, I tend to keep my hair in a bob between my chin and my shoulders to hide that it's thinning and my curl pattern is graying into a bog witch frizz.
About half of these colors have been pulled out of pallets and repressed with a 1-ton arbor press in 26x26 mm magnetized cups. The bottom ones were custom 3D printed by my husband, I wanted them to be like the prism libre powder quads.
I used the about face highlighting pearls, Mac glowplay blushes, a couple Patrick Ta blush duos and MAC loose pigments that I mixed and pressed myself.
So I now have five different finish options from a highly reflective glitter Pearl, a highlighter, a low lighter, a satin, and a matte.
I also have custom mixed the deeper skin tone shades without any talc or any white, so the binder is actually glycerin, alcohol, jojoba oil and aloe vera. What this means is, if I'm using this on someone with a deep complexion, there will be no gray or white cast when they look sideways. The the Pearl particles are suspended in almost like a butter texture so that their skin shows through.
Product list:
Patrick Ta blush duo left on red
MAC Glow Play Blushes
MAC pigments in melon, rose and tan
About Face Highlighting Pearls in arabesque
Danessa Myricks Blooming Romance .
About half of these colors have been pulled out of pallets and repressed with a 1-ton arbor press in 26x26 mm magnetized cups. The bottom ones were custom 3D printed by my husband, I wanted them to be like the prism libre powder quads.
I used the about face highlighting pearls, Mac glowplay blushes, a couple Patrick Ta blush duos and MAC loose pigments that I mixed and pressed myself.
So I now have five different finish options from a highly reflective glitter Pearl, a highlighter, a low lighter, a satin, and a matte.
I also have custom mixed the deeper skin tone shades without any talc or any white, so the binder is actually glycerin, alcohol, jojoba oil and aloe vera. What this means is, if I'm using this on someone with a deep complexion, there will be no gray or white cast when they look sideways. The the Pearl particles are suspended in almost like a butter texture so that their skin shows through.
Product list:
Patrick Ta blush duo left on red
MAC Glow Play Blushes
MAC pigments in melon, rose and tan
About Face Highlighting Pearls in arabesque
Danessa Myricks Blooming Romance .
I love the availability of unique diamond cuts that are grown in a lab. I was able to source the main Stone, a 5.28 carat old mine cut cushion second hand from a Reddit forum for lab diamonds. The natural blue diamonds on the side are an upgrade that the jeweler gave me from my mismatched smaller ones.
A very long time ago, I used to work at Robbins Brothers when Skip and Steve still owned them. I've always loved jewelry and wanted to design my own, but the cost was prohibitive and I didn't want to work with mined stones that have an unethical production process.
It was also important for me to find a local Jeweler so that I could make sure my money was going to the person making the piece and not some business exploiting labor. After my nightmare with Luvansh last year, it felt good to have an actual human to interact with who wasn't missing deadlines, ghosting me, and then sending me chat bot responses.
Also, the color on the blue diamonds is so beautiful, it's like a teal blue and the sparkle is unreal.
Sometimes I watch Coco snuggling with the children or chasing after them in the waves to keep them safe (even though she hates water)
I think to myself, this is just the standard for them. The baseline. Normal. This incredible example of the best canine companion is the bar from which all future dogs will be compared.
I've never had a smart dog before, I also never knew I had never had a smart dog before. But Coco is beyond the border collie or poodle or Belgian malinois intelligence of being able to learn a trick in a short period of time.
Her type of intelligence is her ability to read the room, read a person, read energy, and adjust it. I have a habit of digging out ingrown hairs on my legs and she seemingly knows from the third floor and will come down and interrupt me because she thinks it's a self-harm habit. She went with her brand new bone to go in her little fairy cave but heard my daughter crying, looked back, dropped the bone and sat with her licking her tears.
Coco knows exactly what I'm asking of her without ever being trained in any way. She just does it. I didn't have to teach her. It was time to end the walk and go home. I just started saying "home" and she would turn around and start walking towards home.
The craziest example of her understanding what I'm saying is the time I got lost in a housing complex that was enormous and every single unit looked identical. I had dropped my kid off in the afternoon and thought I'd remember which unit it was when I went to pick him up. But it was dark, and I got turned around, and then I couldn't even find where I parked the car because this sprawling complex looked identical from every angle. Coco looked up at me, and I don't know why but I said " I'm lost, I don't know where the car is."
What do you know, she turned around and made a beeline a grassy area down a side street and there was the car.
She is a rescue, we had a neighbor going through a nasty divorce who needed a temporary Foster for her while she secured new housing. Unfortunately, the new housing didn't allow dogs and so coco is a foster fail.
I am not a hair stylist, but I do dye yarn and wool for a living rainbow colors, so this was shockingly easy.
I used 20 volume with bleach and did a rough paint of a balayage and left it for 10 minutes, then I went in with a full head of bleach to the roots for another 5 minutes because she's about a level 5 naturally.
I bought three neon colors from ero and mixed a rainbow. I looked through tons of rainbow placement tutorials and ended up just making up my own. I sectioned her hair into a bottom layer, a middle layer, and the crown.
I took 1 in chunks on either side of her face frame and painted them pink on the bottom. Then the chunks on either side of that behind her ear were orange. Then the chunks on either side of that were yellow. Then the middle strip once I got to the back was green.
The second layer I did purple first by her face, because she asked for pink and purple around her face. Then blue then green then yellow. When I got to the crown, I went back to Pink, orange, yellow, green, blue. The reason I wanted to do the chunks ch instead of each section of hair having a rainbow is because it would be a nightmare to touch up that type of dye.
My only regret is that I didn't do this on dry hair, her hair was very wet from washing out the bleach so the colors aren't as vibrant. Next time I will apply on dry hair.
I know 10 years ago rose gold makeup and hair had a choke hold on everyone, but it's been my shade of existence since I was a teenager. I have had so many professional hairdressers give me a pinky copper balyage and they're obviously very pretty. But not the shade I saw in my head. All the examples here are my own dye jobs using Wella color charm.
I follow Guy Tang and saw quite a few of his tutorials using his products. For some reason I thought they were professional only, so I never tried to buy them. But I found out you can get the permanent and demi-permanent along with the rose booster over the counter without a license.
This is the absolute perfect shade for me. I'm a natural level 8 warm blonde who is graying significantly. So I can't go below a level 8 in my regrowth or it will be way lighter. Which looks like I'm balding. Anyway, this is 10 RG permanent in the roots and 9rg Demi for the mid-lengths and ends. I used the rose booster in both formulas which made my head flaming hot pink, but in real life this color is so soft and warm and ever so slightly pink.
Next month I'm going to do a quick bleach wash with the rose booster and then repeat the color. I guess if you want something done right, you got to do it yourself.
My dream ring is being made, and the jeweler (Madette from Etsy) messaged me to suggest this diamond instead of the one I chose. I love that he went through his collection for one with better cut and clarity.
I'll be back when it's delivered 🎆
This dog does not know she's from a backyard breeder that got dumped at the pound when she didn't sell.
I've seen her bark so hard at a 9 lb schnauzer that it physically blew her backwards and vertical onto two legs.
She's an absolute legend in the lizard, squirrel and bunny hunting division. She likes the chase, not the kill, cuz she's a lady like that.
She found a bovine thigh bone in the bushes on a walk that's nearly her size and dragged it home anyway.
She has trauma from previous family's children throwing her in the pool for fun, but still dove into ocean surf to "rescue" my kids when she saw they went too far.
I've never known such a lion hearted dog in such a compact size. She saw an off leash dog come running up to me and threw herself in the middle with the snarl and presence of a doberman. But she's not dog reactive at all. She must have known something I didn't.
I love my little battle dwarf.
I paid $952 for a 5.28 round and $2600 for a custom setting from Luvansh.
Lots of great reviews here and online so I went with them even though it's pricier than Etsy/international vendors.
Communication was great until CAD approval. I had to chase them and received 3 different ship by dates that passed without a word from them. I had to reach out and ask where the tracking number is when it kept failing to materialize.
If they had been clear and proactive in communication with me about missing the deadlines, I would have been totally cool with waiting. But having to pester them and be told over and over that it would ship on X date and then hear nothing 8, 10, 14 days after that deadline passed was so disheartening.
For this reason, I don't recommend getting custom work. I was compelled to write this review because they've asked me in follow up emails to please rate and review my experience with them 💀
So here it is 🤷🏼♀️ I spent years researching my dream custom ring for my 15 year upgrade and by the time it arrived I was so bummed out I couldn't even be excited about wearing it. I still think of them every time I put it on.
These are from Madette on Etsy, the setting is rose gold halo with pink diamonds, 5 carat pink lab center stone and pave white diamond band.
I've wanted this ring for more than ten years, can't wait to finally see it on my finger in August 💍💕
Every Face, in Just One Case! My goal was to be able to do bridal makeup and be able to streamline the base makeup application for bridesmaids.
There could be lighter to deepest all represented in one short morning and having to dig for 7 different palettes to get everybody done is just not an economical use of my time.
So now I have 32 base shades and 16 color correctors and shade shifters all in one palette. Liquid foundation is super heavy and has a much shorter shelf life. I can take these highly opaque, matte foundations and add liquid luminizers for a glowy base, moisturizer or primer to make a thinner coverage and mousse medium for a soft matte cloud skin effect.
Products are the MUFE HD skin palettes, MAC color correction palettes in light and medium deep, 4 JCat Beauty foundation palettes.
Empty tins and palette from Alwon on Amazon.
Every single day I see posts here about house not selling, multiple price reductions and no buyers are interested. This is my response to that, as a seller who can't afford to take the 10% equity loss when we're moving internationally to an even hotter market than here.
I live in a VHCOL area 8 miles from the beach in SoCal. We put our house on the market in October last year, and our agent let us know by the time we were ready to list, that the market had fallen off a cliff in just 6 weeks. We got 2 offers, both 10% lower than comps and our unit had major upgrades compared to recently sold units.
So we pulled it and decided to do a total facelift before re-listing. But, the market has fallen even more. We're out $20k in renovations and 6 months of my labor making the place turn key ready. There's been no rebound. So, I'm just waiting it out while doing renovations and refinishing.
My mortgage is $1900 and my interest rate is 2.7% so why would I sell in such an abnormal market?
We're moving internationally but work remote so the option is there to wait, and if circumstances change and we have to sell before the market recovers, so be it.
If you can rent it out month to month or air BNB or take a savings hit and rent in your new location til your home sells, do it.
We had a neighbor list at $500k and it took him 3 years to sell the place, eventually going FSBO to an equity firm.
That house was promptly resold for $300k more 2 years later. As the song says, you gotta know when to hold em and know when to fold em.
I used Ion lightner and 20 volume in a 1:1 ratio and 15 minutes of processing time.
I rinsed and wrapped my money piece section in foil and did a bleach bath all over to break my base and brushed the money piece back in for the last minute of processing.
Is it perfect? No. Is it $600? Also no. Next time I won't be doing my own back pieces, that's hard to do blind.
I'm a natural level 7/8 blonde who used to be a strawberry blonde before
I got the marble mosaic from floor and decor, and it was an ass and a half to cut the edge pieces. I did resurface the wall to be flat but apparently door frames are never perfect 90° angles so I couldn't just cut the tiles in half. And most of the white ones didn't cleanly cut in half for some reason.
Overall, I'm obsessed and already planning the kitchen backsplash when I'm done refinishing the cabinets.