Favorite Fall Lip Products

 It is no secret that Fall is my favorite season.  I feel like I wait nine months out of the year for Fall.  The first cool night and I'm ready to break out the sweaters and boots.  I love pumpkin lattes,changing leaves, Thanksgiving and football games on cool Sunday afternoons.  Another one of my favorite things about Fall is dark, vampy lip colors. There are a lot of gorgeous products out there that help to achieve this look.  These are some of my favorites.

Revlon Lip Butters
Sugar Plum: The deep mauve color of this Lip Butter is great for those who like a little darker lip but can't quite commit to a super dark color.

Fig Jam: Hands down this is one of my favorite Fall lip colors.  It is a perfect brown-red with a slightly glossy finish.  One of the reasons that I love the Revlon Lip Butters is because they are so easy to use.  I can typically apply most of them without a mirror and they feel great on the lips. 
Red Velvet: A perfect deep cranberry red.  I am seriously obsessed with these things.  

Chubby Lip Pencils
NARS Satin Lip Pencil in Palais Royal: A deep wine color with a satin finish.  The only thing I had a little trouble with is feathering.  To help prevent feathering I used my Urban Decay Ozone lip pencil underneath as a base and it stayed put. 
Urban Decay Super-Saturated High Gloss Color in Apocalypse: One of the darker colors that I own, Apocalypse is a deep plum with a glossy finish. 
Cover Girl Jumbo Gloss Balm in Jam Twist: Jam Twist is more a wash of bright cranberry color and less opaque than the NARS and Urban Decay pencils. 

MAC Lipstick 
Talk That Talk (Limited Edition): This is a perfect deep maroon color with a retro matte finish.  
Dark Side (Permanent Collection): Dark Side is almost the twin of Talk That Talk but with a creamier texture and slightly glossy finish. 
Sweet Succulence (Limited Edition): This is definitely the darkest lipstick that I own.  It is a deep maroon that has deep purple tones. It is a lustre finish so it is the glossiest finish of the four lipsticks. 
Caliente (Limited Edition): Caliente was released with the Temperature Rising collection - it is a brown - bronze color.  It has a dazzle finish with glitter throughout the lipstick.  One thing I did not love about this particular lipstick is that the glitter can feel a little gritty on the lips.  However, that is not enough to keep it out of my favorites. 

Lip Gloss
MAC Lust for Life (Limited Edition) Lip Glass: Deep berry gloss with a lustre finish.  I hate that I love these limited edition products so much because it makes me not want to use them for fear of running out! 
MAC Liquer (Limited Edition) Lip Glass: This color is so difficult to describe - it is a bronze-brown color with hints of pink.  It is truly stunning. 
MAC Soft Serenade (Limited Edition) Lip Glass: While this is not a dark color it does look beautiful over some of the more matte lip pencils and lipsticks. It is a nude lip gloss with shimmery glitter. 
Revlon Colorburst Lip Gloss in Bordeaux: This is a great dupe for MAC's Lust for Life. 

With any of these deep colors I recommend using a lip liner to help prevent feathering and to maintain the deep color.  I have been loving my Urban Decay Ozone lip liner lately. It is a clear liner that helps hold color and stop feathering.  I have also been using my MAC Talk That Talk lip liner from the RiRi Hearts MAC collection.  It is a dark plum from the Pro Longwear collection and it seriously does not budge.

What are some of your favorite Fall lip colors?

My Current Foundation Routine

As a follow up to my recent post about my current favorite foundation I thought it would be a good time to write about my current foundation routine.  This tends to change because I am always trying new powders, foundations and concealers but for the most part these are the products that I have been using for the past few months.

Before I get into the products that I use let me first tell you a little about my skin.  I was not blessed with a naturally flawless complexion. I have very sensitive, temperamental skin that ranges from normal to oily.  I tend to breakout along my jaw and when I break out it gets extremely red and inflamed.  More often than not the skin around the pimples gets very dry and flaky which can be challenging to conceal.  I also deal with hyperpigmentation from breaking out.  It seems that almost every pimple eventually turns into a little dark mark aka one more thing to try to cover up.  Now that you know a little more about my skin and its challenges on to the products :)

I always begin by priming my skin.  I find that a good primer helps to create a smooth surface for my foundation especially around those dry flaky acne spots.  They also help my foundation last longer through the day.  Right now I am trying out the L'Oreal Revitalift Miracle Blur in the oil free version.  It has a nice texture and I find that it smooths out my skin but this product really is a miss for me mostly because of the price point.  I will be posting a full review on this product shortly.

I like to let my primer sink into my skin for a few minutes before I start applying foundation.  The foundation that I have been loving lately is the Cover Girl Outlast Stay Fabulous 3-in-1.  Right now I am the color golden tan but this will change in a few months as my summer tan really starts to fade. One thing I really like about this foundation is that it comes in a bottle with a pump.  I typically use two pumps of foundation.  I pump it out on to the back of my hand and then use my ring finger to evenly dot it all over my face. I really love using my Beauty Blender with this foundation.  I use the round end of the Beauty Blender to take all of that foundation and "pounce" it into my skin until it is all blended out.

While the Cover Girl foundation covers up most of my skins imperfections I still need a separate concealer to help cover up some of the darker marks.  The concealer that I have fallen in love with is the Nars Radiant Creamy Concealer.  I just discovered this over the summer and boy oh boy is this stuff amazing. I find that some concealers cling to dry skin but this one does not at all.  It really is creamy and covers up blemishes beautifully. Creamy is the perfect word to describe it.  I will just dot this on top of whatever needs to be covered up and then use my Beauty Blender to blend it out to a flawless finish.

I admit I have gotten caught up in the Kim Kardashian inspired bright under eye look.  I use a few different products to help try to achieve this.  I start with the MAC Prep + Prime highlighter in the color Radiant. Taking the highlighter pen I create a "V" underneath both of my eyes that starts right under my eyes and goes down to about the tip of my nose - the top of the "V" starts at about my tear duct and extends out to where my eye ends.  Once I have that area all filled in with the highlighter I use the other end of my Beauty Blender to lightly blend all of that out.  I don't over blend because I still want it to show up pretty light.  After all of that is blended out I take my MAC Studio Fix concealer in a shade that is about 2-3 shades too light for me (NW-20) and dot a little bit on top of where I just blended out the highlighter.  I find that this just adds to the lightening of that area.  I also blend that out with my Beauty Blender.  To set all of that concealer I use the Ben Nye Banana Powder again on my handy Beauty Blender.  I just tap some into the lid of the container and then using then pick it up using the pointy end of the BB and lightly tap it all over the concealer/highlighter underneath my eyes.

To set the rest of my face I like to use my MAC Studio fix powder.  I use a big fluffy brush and pat the Studio fix into my face.  I have to be careful with this product as it can look very cakey if applied too heavily.  To help combat against the cake face look I spray a little bit of MAC's Fix + on my face after I''m finished. I realize that this sounds like a lot of product but this is what I have found works to help me achieve a nearly flawless face that lasts throughout the day.

What do you use in your foundation routine?

What's in my Makeup Bag?

Hey Dolls!  So I thought I'd give you a quick glance into my makeup bag.  This does change from time to time but these are the staple I have had in my bag lately:

- Makeup bag is a Sonia Kashuk bag from Target
- Maybelline Dream Lumi Highlighting Concealer in Radiant
- NARS Lip Gloss in Belize
- MAC Lipstick in Blankety
- E.L.F. Contouring Blush & Bronzer
- MAC Eyeshadow in Phloof
- Clean & Clear Oil Absorbing Sheets
- Nivea Lip Butter in Vanilla & Macadamia Kiss
- NARS Blush in Orgasm
- MAC Mineralize Skin Finish in Medium Plus
- Benefit They're Real Mascara (trial size)
- Travalo Perfume Atomizer (filled with Miss Dior)
- Maybelline Infalliable Eyeshadow in Bronzed Taupe
- Wet n Wild Color Icon Eyeshadow Trio in Sweet as Candy
- NARS Lip Gloss in Chelsea Girls
- Urban Decay Naked Basics Palette
- Tarte Maracuja Creaseless Concealer in Medium
- MAC Pro Longwear Foundation in NC-25
- MAC Pro Longwear Eyeliner in Black Ice
- Rimmel Scandal Eyes Eyeliner in Nude
- MAC Lip Liner in Boldly Bare
- MAC Painterly Paint Pot
- Sephora Retractable Lip Brush

I know it doesn't look l like all of this will fit in that makeup bag but trust me it does ;-)

NARS Chelsea Girls...Fell in Love All Over Again

I recently re-discovered my love for NARS Chelsea Girls. I hadn't been using it for awhile because I needed to buy a new retractable lip brush. I also hadn't been using it because it is not the most convenient lip gloss to use since it comes in a pot. This girl is all about the convenience. However, it is hands down one of my absolute favorite lip colors. It is a light mauve, nude pink. It is a universally flattering color good on light or dark skin tones. I have once again fallen in love with Chelsea Girls - this is my holy grail lip color.

NARS Turkish Delight Dupe?!?

I am in LOVE with all things NARS. I am particularly fond of their lip products. My favorite lip colors include Turkish Delight and Chelsea Girls. I love the colors but don't always love paying $25 for lipgloss. I have been searching for a dupe for Turkish Delight. I have heard a lot of people saying that Bonne Bell's Lip Lites in Strawberry Parfait is a great dupe so I set about searching for it. Let me first say - this stuff is not easy to find! As I understand the only place that sells the Lip Lites is Walmart. 

I must have been to at least 5 different Walmarts looking for it! I finally caught a break and found it at a Walmart while I was traveling for work. Needless to say I bought their entire stock before I even tried it - I figured if I loved it I didn't want to go through the hassle of trying to find it again when I needed to replace it. I know, crazy. I'm glad I bought as many as I did because I fell in love with it. While it not an exact dupe of my beloved Turkish Delight it is pretty darn close. The Bonne Bell gloss is a slightly darker and a tiny bit deeper in pink but ever so slightly. The NARS Turkish Delight is a very milky pink but I actually like that the Bonne Bell gloss has a bit darker of a color. What it lacks in being an exact match it makes up for in scent and taste. It smells like a strawberry soda and tastes like one too. I hadn't used Bonne Bell products since I was in middle school and putting this on my lips takes me right back to the days of Lip Smackers! The price on these is right too! I think I only paid $3.49 for each one - this girl loves a good bargain!