A Quick Review: Josie Maran Cosmetics

Okay, so I’d bought the JMC Beauty In a Box from Sephora in May, but hadn’t had time to write a proper review. Here’s a quick one:

Argan Illuminizer (my favorite!)

I like using this on my forehead, cheekbones, and chin for that extra little glow. I also dab a little at the inner corners of my eyes as well as my browbones and my eyelids in a pinch (like when I forget my eyeshadow… which happens sometimes).

Blush/Bronzer Duo

The blush is nice – nothing special, really – but the bronzer came out orange.

Argan Color Stick in Rosey

The Argan Color Sticks not only smell divine, they are easy to blend out and are very natural-looking. I’ve found that it works best after applying powder and letting my make-up sit a little. When used too soon, it can smudge everything and make blending a nightmare.

I love it not needing to think about how to match my lip color and blush. Just swipe the color stick (I have both colors, actually) on and voila!

Argan Natural Volume Lip Gloss in Soledad

My lips are very pigmented as it is, so I didn’t notice this peach-colored gloss do anything but give my lips some shine.

GOGO Instant Natural Volume Argan Mascara in Black

The mascara isn’t anything special. It doesn’t curl my lashes but it does apply evenly and gives my lashes a nice thick look, and it washes off easily enough.

Hair Serum

My hair is pretty healthy and I haven’t seen it do anything special to my hair. My scalp is also oily anyway, so I don’t really want to put more oil on it. You must, however, use VERY LITTLE of this stuff. I mean, it is oil and if you put too much, you’ll just end up with oily hair that’s flat and limp.

Organic Argan Oil

It doesn’t perform any better than my CVS pure vitamin E oil. I do like the little dropper so that you can use only what you need, but seeing as it is ridiculously expensive, you’d want to use one anyway.

Obviously, the big draw here is there’s organic argan oil in all of its products. My skin is too problematic for any natural remedy to help, so I really can’t say if using them helped at all. But I do love the Luminizer – it’s a great multi-tasker on face and body. (Décolletage, anyone?)

Recommendations: e.l.f. Studio products

If you are a make-up newbie or a wannabe make-up artist, and you want to get a feel for the basics, you need to jump on e.l.f. Studio cosmetics A.S.A.P.

And if you’re a make-up veteran, you might wanna stock up on some pretty good basics. Here are what I recommend:

1. Make-up Remover Cleansing Cloths – cheap, effective, pleasant-smelling.
2. Lip Stains – Lucky Lady is my go-to MLBB (My Lips But Better) shade. It is a stain, so I put lip balm on then put the stain over that.
3. Lip Balm SPF 15 – It has SPF and looks cool for a lip balm.
4. Make-up Mist & Set – It’s cheap and I love it when it’s windy and cold out.
5. Eyebrow Kit – I cannot do a photoshoot without this. I usually just use the wax side, and the powder side serves as eyeshadow in a pinch.

When I travel for photoshoots, I make sure I have these along. Not only do they work, I won’t shed a tear if they’re lost!

I love my eyebrows.

Review: Benefit Cosmetics Beauty In a Box

1. some kind-a gorgeous suits my skin tone perfectly (I’m between Golden Beige and Rich Ginger in Revlon PhotoReady foundation) and makes my face look even and flawless. (Well, except for my acne scars – the foundation faker is pretty sheer.) It’s so lightweight, you don’t know it’s there and no one else will either!
   Tip: Use a little spatula to take out some product and dab on your face with your fingers before blending it out. The sponge doesn’t get a lot of product, most of which will just stay on the sponge.
2. creaseless cream shadow/liner in r.s.v.p. is a pinky champagne (so not really a true champagne) color that creases just a little itty-bitty bit after 4 hours. (My eyelid is normal – not very dry, not very oily.)
   Tip: Start with a very small amount of shadow and then layer. The small amount of product I used creased; any more will end up looking bad.
3. girl meets pearl comes out looking pink, but it is very sheer and after blending out, imparts a pretty pearlescent sheen that comes out almost gold on my skin. I needed to use quite a bit of it for it to show up. Definitely wait for your make-up to set before putting it on – it should be the very very last thing you do. Otherwise, it’d just smear your blush and your powder becomes weird and slimy.
   Tip: when you first get it, you’ll need to click like 30 times before any product reaches the top. Be patient! You can sorta get a feel for where the product is in the tube by gauging the weight. Once you feel the top end get heavier, slow down the clicking until you see the pink stuff start to ooze out of a few holes.
4. dallas box o’ powder is the perfect bronze – not glittery, not even shimmery, but totally natural-looking. It looks absolutely gorgeous on my cheeks! I love it I love it I love it!
5. a little bit Badgal lashis the same as the regular Badgal y/n? I don’t know. The regular Badgal doesn’t hold the curl of my lashes, but it does make my lashes look naturally thick.
6. THEY ARE ALL FULL-SIZED. I paid $48 for $114 worth of products! You wanna do math? Let’s do math. Multiply 48 by 100, divide by 114, subtract from 100 and you get 57.9% savings!

If you’re medium-toned and want to try out a bunch of Benefit Cosmetics products without spending a bomb, and still have plenty of product left over to give away if you find you don’t like it, you must snap this up from Sephora A.S.A.P.!

In which I take a ton of photos of myself :)

Make-up breakdown:

Revlon PhotoReady foundation, concealer, and powder
Benefit Bella Bamba blush
MAC Fluidline eyeliner in Blacktrack
some cheap false eyelashes I bought in Singapore
e.l.f. Studio lip stain in Lucky Lady

Cooking With Jenna (and other stuff)

Welcome to another episode of Cooking With Jenna!

It wouldn’t be a perfect night without watching “Chopped”. Or “Top Chef”.

White wine + crab meat linguine (courtesy of husband) = YUM.

But I was wrong. It was perfect-er because of S’MORES.

My husband is the best.

One evening, I cooked flank steak.

7 Looks With Stila Convertible Colors

The day I took these pictures, my skin was the best it had been since the end of November! Wheeeeee! Damn you, Singapore, what with your delicious fatty oily food and horrendous climate!!

All I did was apply the CC with my fingers on both my lips and cheeks.

These are hard as bleep to blend out!

What I ended up doing was dotting a bit of CC on my cheeks, blending as much as I could with my fingers, then dabbing the excess with toilet paper.

(If I didn’t blot the excess, I looked like a clown.)

Camellia is nice nude on my lips, but looks oompa-loompa-ish if you don’t blend it out on the cheeks well.

Initial Review & Swatches: Stila Convertible Colors

I’ve said it many times before: the less brainwork the product requires, the more brownie points it wins with me.

Enter Stila’s multitasking Convertible Colors!

To me, it’s a no-brainer: make it apparent on the outside what is inside, so that I don’t spend three minutes just looking for the color I want!  The entire casing is (almost) the same color as the product.

This is my biggest beef with my MAC lipsticks.  They’re all black and the name stickers on the bottom of the bullet are all silver.  I know most of the names, but there are some that I don’t.  Even Urban Decay lipsticks have colored stickers, which are helpful.

Stila makes it a cinch.  No flipping cases upside-down and opening them up one-by-one.

Product photos next!

Warmth and comfort

Needing a fix of Singapore cuisine, I picked up instant mee goreng from the Chinese store.

Seeing those two words made me smile.

(They mean “good already.”)

There’s a reason the instructions say to boil for three minutes: the noodles are supposed to be springy and al dente, not soggy and limp!

While the fried goodness that is a block of instant noodles go for a swim, I put together the rest of the ingredients…

…which are packets of vegetables oil, soy sauce, flavoring powder, chili, and dried fried shallots.

Mmmmmmmmmm.  What a beautiful mess.

Reviews of Josie Maran Cosmetics and MUFE

I love me some free stuff.

Really, who doesn’t?

Josie Maran Cosmetics held a little contest on Facebook. She wanted her fans to say what our favorite ways to conserve energy are.

I answered:

I use reusable cloth bags for my shopping. When I drive my (hybrid) car, I dress warmly instead of turning on the heater.

And I won!

I needed to take photos for my passport renewal so I took the opportunity to test the Argan Color Stick.

I LOVE ME SOME MULTI-TASKERS.

The first thing I noticed was the beautiful packaging. Doesn’t it look luxurious and gorgeous?

The second thing I noticed was the scent. It’s gingery and herbal! It really came through when I swatched it on my hand.

See that beautiful pink color? It’s creamy, contains no shimmer, and is easy to blend. The result is a very natural-looking blush on the cheeks and a sweet pout! (You can see it in the photo below, but pardon the, er… not-very-thorough foundation application. I wasn’t trying to impress anyone. )

You can see a video here of Josie applying the Color Stick. I recommend checking it out – she’s way waaaay prettier and much nicer to look at.

In my prize package was also a pretty powder blush in Fever.

Reviews: Benefit make-up palettes

The Sunday Funday Maggie palette was one of the palettes I brought with me to Singapore.

Anything that takes the guesswork out of matching colors wins brownie points with me!

The Sunday Funday palette has a nifty mirror in it on the other side of the flip-top.  It’s a really nice size (sorry, forgot to take a photo) and it doesn’t have any warped effect like some cheaper compact mirrors do.

It comes with a bronzer, a cheek/lip stain, a lip gloss, four eyeshadows, and two double-ended brushes.  The only thing I don’t like about it is the brushes tend to roll around – they won’t stay put in their little compartment.

But think of all the looks you can come up with!  Just bring along your foundation and powder – think of the space in your luggage that you’d save!  And everything in one place, no having something come loose or fall out, so no digging around in your luggage to look for it.

Two (or three, depending on how much of a flush you want and, of course, your skin color) little Xes on on my cheek and blend, blend, blend.  The result is a very subtle barely-there pink flush.