July 2018 - Boxy Charm Subscription Review

Here we are at the absolute last day of the month and I am just now getting my Boxy Charm review up. Well, you can rest assure that I have tried everything multiple times so I'm good and confident about the products. So let's dive right in..

The theme this month was "Road Trippin". I received 5 full size products; Crown eye shadow pallet, Dr. Brandt eye de-puffing gel, Wander Beauty mascara, Chella Beauty eye brow cream, and Note Cosmetics silk blush.

Let's start out with the Crown Brush - Fuego Eye Shadow pallet, retailing for $29.99 US dollars.

It has 6 matte and 4 shimmer shades in a variety of warm tones. As you can see the pigment in each color is absolutely fantastic. Below you will see just how I made my eye look with the pallet.

While I have plenty more pallets that have these similar shades, I would most certainly pay the $30 for this one. It has a nice selection of colors that I feel you can get various looks with, but the size of the shadows in each pan are huge and the quality is very top notched. If you are wanting a terrific quality pallet with these types of shades I do feel good telling you that the $30 price tag would be well spent, in my opinion.

Ok, next item on the list is the Dr. Brandt No More Baggage, Eye De-Puffing Gel for $42.00 US. I love Dr. Brandt's products and his Pore Dermibrasion cream is my all time favorite....except for the price of course. But my thoughts on this product wasn't as positive this time.

While it seemed to slightly correct the under eye color, I don't have too puffy of eyes to really see if the works on. I don't have perfect under eyes by any means, but I just don't have severe puffiness. I think that the only reason it corrected the color a bit was because the color of the product is an orange-ish color that will off set the blue undertones of the under eyes. But for puffy eyes, I just can't give you an honest opinion.

But, one thing I will say is that I don't like how it sat under my makeup. It actually started to show a ton of texture mid-day under my eyes. Which is something I never have. So unfortunately I can't recommend this product, whether it be $42 or even $4.

Moving along to Wander Beauty Curl and Volume mascara which retails for $24.00 US.

This was a very wet formula at first and wouldn't give too much volume. But after about a week or so, it finally dried up enough to make the volumizing really amp up. I love the wand on this mascara....but I love ALL curved brushes because they just fit my eye so much better than the straight wands.

My only concern would be the curling effect. It doesn't seem to have any at all. It doesn't seem to weigh down the lashes at all, but I can't say if it keeps the curl. My lashes will stay curled after I use a lash curler anyways, so I don't know if it will help with that or not. But I did NOT get my curl from the mascara alone.

Basically, it's a good mascara, it gives beautiful volume to my lashes, I adore this type of wand and I thought the longevity was wonderful. I actually wore this to the funeral we went to over the weekend and while it did run some with tears (its not waterproof, nor did it claim to be), it was still very easy to manage and it didn't smear everywhere. I was able to clean it up with a tissue and it didn't get all on the top of my lid from my wiping of it.

So I like it, but I am not quite sure I'd spend $24 for it.

On we go to the next product....

This is the Chella Eye Brow cream (in Taupe) that retails for $26 US. I might say this is my favorite product in the box!!

This is on side an angled liner brush and on the other side a cool toned, taupe colored brow pomade. It's the size of a lipgloss, that's how small it is. I love how compact this little baby is and the color is absolutely PERFECT for my brows. I am just a happy little camper when I find perfect matching brow colored products....so all I can say is YES I'd happily pay the $26 for this product. It's absolutely perfect for me....I think I'm going to buy another on to keep in my purse and one in the trailer for our traveling. Where has this been all of my life?

Okie, dokie, the last product is a silk blush by Note Cosmetics and retails for $11.99 US

I think this is such a cute blush and I don't mean "cute" as in "size", it's just cutely packaged. I do like the color, despite the fact that in the pan it looks almost burnt orange, it's actually a burnt rosy shade. The swatch on my arm shows the color at it's full potential. On my cheeks I had it very lightly dusted on....I wasn't sure of the product then, so I went safer than sorry.

I like how soft and rich this blush is, and the name "silk blush" really does sum it up quite nicely. I like the blush color, performance, I think its a very nice high end feeling product and the package is so weighty to the touch and very sleek.

I do think I'd pay the $12 for it....I pay $10 for the Milani Rose blushes and I think this blush is worth the extra 2 bucks. So yes this is a keeper.

Well, all in all the total of the box retails for $133.98 and I paid $21 for it....not too shabby if I do say so myself.

My stand outs were the mascara and mostly the eye brow product, and my only fail was the Dr. Brandt de puffing gel. But overall, I thought this box was a real winner for me.

 If you want to check out Boxy Charm subscription you can use my referral code.  There is absolutely no pressure whatsoever to use it, but if you do, thank you so much, and I hope you enjoy your subscription as much as I do mine!!

Other than that, I believe that's all there is for me today. I hope you enjoyed today's post and found it helpful. If you already subscribe to Boxy Charm, let me know how you liked yours for this month and what you got, I'd love to know.

I will be back again tomorrow with another "Can you guess the high end look?", I'm excited to show this look off, I love how the eyes came out. So until tomorrow, take care everyone.

-Kim

Maybelline Lemonade Craze Tutorial

Happy Monday!! I am excited to bring you another Lemonade Craze pallet tutorial today. It reminds me of tea with lemon, even though I didn't touch the yellow color in the pallet....sounds stupid, but it does. LOL Anyways, let's get into the post.

This is a very warm brown look, and I think it would work nice for most times of the year and occasion. It does not boast that beautiful yellow because I wanted to go a bit subdued this time, but it's still a simple way to use this pallet for a quick look. I hope you like it.

Ironcially it greatly resembles the Peach Punch and Too Faced look I showed last time....see?

I suppose you could use either pallet then to get this sort of a look. :) But I personally thought that (in the day light) the Lemonade Craze pallet is slightly more warm toned with the brown color. Hhmmm, what do you think?

Anyhoo....if you have the Lemonade Craze pallet, just know that you create this look, also. :)

For my look I used the Maybelline Lemonade Craze pallet, Peach Punch bronzer pallet for my blush and bronzer, Physcian's Formula brown eyeliner pen and Revlon's Suede lipcolor in Flashing Lights.

So first thing I did was take Sweet Tea and run it through my crease.

Next I took Coral Punch and packed it on my eye lid.

I used Old Fashioned to deepen up my outer V area and somewhat in the crease...I actually meant to keep it in the V but as you can see I went over a touch too far.

I went back with Old Fashioned and a flat definer brush and ran it along my lower lash line.

I used a cream pencil liner in my lower water line, the brown eye pen on my top lash line and then coated the lashes with mascara.

I decided to use the bronzer and blush from the Covergirl Peach Punch pallet and then I went with Revlon's Suede lipstick in Flashing Lights 040 for my lips. That's how simple the looks really was to create.

I think that while I like this look, I still love the yellow color and have had much more fun using it than anything else in the pallet. I'm sure that's because this look can be created with a number of other pallets and that might be why I feel this way about the look.

Ooh, I almost forgot to tell you, I just might have came across what the Lemonade Craze pallet is supposed to be duping. I won't know until my order gets here, but as soon as I do, you will be the first to know, I promise. But, I couldn't wait to at least let you know that it just might be a possible dupe alert. :)

That's all of the posting I have for today. I hope you all have a beautiful Monday and great week!! I will see you all soon, until then take care.

-Kim

July 30th Weekly Goals

Happy Monday!! I realized one thing I missed so much about blogging was my weekly goals list.  I love to write out what I have to do during the week.  It allows me to see it and execute it accordingly.....ok that may not be the entire truth, I will admit, sometimes my life just can't deal with "to do" list.  But it's  good way for me to at least make a hard earned attempt as executing my "to do" list.  But anyways, here we go...

The hubs was off work all weekend, but none of us were at home.  We had a death in the family and had a funeral to attend plus two luncheons in memory of Brad's uncle Paul.  What all of that means is that I didn't get a single thing done in the house.  So my first order of business is to get the house put back together.

HOME:
I will go forth with my usual weekly home blessing which consists of 8 items (I will update this page soon) that I do as quickly as humanly possible.  The sweeping and mopping in total takes me about 15 minutes to do, the dusting, vacuuming, sheets and cleaning the fish tank (the fish is named Gyarados, after a Pokemon 😏) each take 10 minutes to do and the last four times take a total of 5 minutes for all four.  So that puts me at an exact hour to clean my entire house.  Not too shabby for a 2200 sq. ft. house....at least that's my thoughts.  But I don't always do it all in one day.  A lot of the times I will break it down into two or three days.  So this morning, I can check off the fish tank, because I did this before I left for work.

• Sweep / mop
• Dust
• Vacuum
• Change Sheets
• Gyarados fish tank
• Wash bath mats
• Scooby's Bowls...this is the dog's bowls, they get gross if they aren't cleaned each week
• Microwave

I like to work on one spot in the house each week and this week is the living room and the front porch.  This week's zone cleaning I am going to have Caleb tackle his Legos and toys that he has laying around the living room and have him get those put away.  I will be doing the detailed cleaning with doors, blinds and fans in the living room for this week.  

MEALS

Being that today is Monday, I will not be at home for nearly the entire day.  Mondays are the days that Caleb and I go see my grandmother in town and visit with her until the hubs gets off of work.  Of course I still have to feed my family, therefore I always make sure I plan for that.  Tonight we are going to do sub sandwiches for dinner.  I will buy a loaf of french bread and cold cuts and assemble it all together and dinner will be ready in a matter of 5 minutes.  But for reference, here's the rest of the week's meals.

Monday:  Sub sandwiches, pickle plate, chips, watermelon

Tuesday:  Spaghetti, corn, garlic bread (Tuesdays are either spaghetti or Tacos.  (if it were up the boys we'd only eat the tacos, but I can't handle tacos every single week so I substitute another favorite of the boys, spaghetti)

Wednesday: Pork roast in the crock pot, green beans, flavored rice

Thursday:.......I might have to get back to you on this one. 😁....I'm not entirely sure what to fix on Thursday.  

Friday:  The hubs is off work, woohoo!! That means it's Brad's day to cook....I better make sure there's something good in the freezer for him to heat up. 😂  I don't, won't and will NEVER complain about him heating cooking dinner for us.

I only plan thru Thursday (and sometimes not even) because we might go out to dinner on Saturday or Caleb and I might plan a movie night and have fun little munchies on the couch for dinner, so Saturdays are something we just go with the flow on.  But that's our meal plan for the week.

PERSONAL

Caleb and I always have a plan to go to visit my grandmother on Mondays to check on her and make sure she doesn't need anything and mostly to give her company. So Monday's schedule is to visit with Granny.

My next personal goal for the week is to finish my research on a paper I have for school to write.  I am working on my Bachelors degree currently and my class I am attending is computers and their make up.  This is NOT the sort of "make up" I am very interested in, but it's required so I have to get it done.  So my research for the paper is my goal this week.

Another thing we have to attend is a cubscout meet.  We are meeting at the local college to do a Stem activity whereas the boys will be building robots with legos.  Caleb's super stoked about this activity...me not so much....I just don't care for Legos or robots.  But Caleb and Brad are excited, so I'll just be there to take photos. 

Lastly we have a birthday party to go to and that requires us getting this friend of Caleb's a gift.  I don't like going places during the week after work so I think we might go after the Cubscout thing on Friday....we are going to be cutting it close by a day but I'm sure we'll be fine.  

BLOG

My final item on my list is my blog post schedule.  It's all about the peach and lemons this week and there will also be one post on my Boxy Charm.  I want to get up one more post on the Lemonade Craze pallet, a tutorial and then my final review.  I also want to post a tutorial on the Peach Punch pallet as well.  But I have got to get up my Boxy Charm for July....um before July is over, preferably. 😀

So that's all the goals I have for today.  I should have my Lemonade Craze tutorial up soon...and as soon as I get my Sephora order in, I will see if I am correct as to what this Lemonade Craze pallet might possibly be duping...I won't know until I get my order, but I will be sure to let you know what I find.

That's all for now, I will be submitting my tutorial really soon so be on the lookout for that.  Until next time, take care.

-Kim

I'm back and ready to make up....I mean makeup....I'm talking about the Covergirl's Peach Punch pallet compared to Too Faced Sweet Peach

If you haven't seen me post in a while (um, like almost a year now) it's because I have been posting over at Steem It - A Day at 523

It's where you can post and have your followers upvote your post and it then pays you in steem currency.  Which ultimately is similar to crypto currency.  Over the past year, I have realized that I have missed my own personal blog here on Blogger and wanted to greatly get back to it.  I actually have been posting quite regularly on Steemit, but have decided to feature my posts on both of my platforms.

Today's post is all about the pros and cons of using Covergirl's Peach Punch eye shadow pallet.  I will also be comparing it to Too Faced Sweet Peach pallet and tell you what I see is similar and different between the two.

Ok, here we go with the comparisons of the shades (including shade names) between Too Faced Sweet Peach and Covergirl Peach Punch pallet.  

And the swatches of them both.

Now my thoughts on the Covergirl....

I will go forward with the pros to this pallet first.  The pigment is wonderful, the shadows are very soft,  the colors are beautiful, packaging is quite sturdy and the price ($9) is outstanding!! 

The only real con I have with this pallet is that it needs one more "off the wall" or statement color to make it more versatile.  To be completely honest, there would only be one color change I'd make, if I were to have made this pallet myself.  I would have taken out the color #4 and added a green (like Too Faced Bless Her Heart).  

A lot of the looks I created kept coming out so similar to each other and I couldn't begin to recommend something that I felt just "ok" with.  And because I am not one for giving up on my makeup, I decided to look into it a bit more. 

Finally I realized that the Maybelline single shadow in Khaki Camo would be a nice addition to this pallet and it only cost $4.  Therefore bringing your total cost to $13 for achieving very similar looks to the Too Faced Sweet Peach pallet which cost $49.

Now please know that the green is not a dupe, it's just similar to the green in the Too Faced.

The green allows the user to keep from having "peach only" looks.  

And so, for $4 more I'm quite happy with buying a very nice Maybelline single shade....BTW the Khaki Camo is GORGEOUS as a one shadow look.  I will have to do a tutorial using it to show you.  

Why not change the purple? Or add in a different purple?  I had thought maybe that was the case that the purple would be what is needed to create a different look.  After all you will see a nice lighter shade of purple in the Too Faced.  While I think that can be true, I also feel that the purple serves as the deep smokey color needed to create dark looks.  And you can put the purple over a white liner or cream shade and get a little lighter color of purple.  

You can't make a green out of nothing, so that's why I chose the green as the much needed shade.   I have realized I just put waaayy too much thought into this whole thing....

Now back to the actual pallet.....

A con that some may have is how soft the shadows are, because they will have a great deal of fall out and will kick up in the pan....I think you can see a bit of kick up on my photo in the Covergirl shadows #5 & #6. 

The Too Faced doesn't kick up quite that much, well not hardly at all, so the fall out is less.  I actually don't know how Too Faced has such soft shadows that don't have much fall out to them...but they have somehow managed to figure it out.  

I have said before that fall out is not a deal breaker for me, I like soft shadows and a lot of them will tend to have fall out, but it's worth noting in a review.

Now some miscellaneous stuff about the Covergirl pallet.  There is a scent to it.  It's not quite as much as the Peach Punch blush and bronze pallet, but there is a definite scent.  It's a sweeter smell than the Too Faced pallet, but it's not overwhelming to me.  But if you don't like scented pallets than you won't want either of these.  

The packaging is very sturdy, though not as cute as TF Sweet Peach, but still nice and sleek and I like that about it.  I also like how compact this pallet is, so it's travel friendly and the lid will snap shut really well.  So sleek and sturdy, check.

As for my ultimate thought, I do like this pallet.  Although, I have grown to really, really like this pallet now that I have a go to green color to add.  It's quality is extremely nice and if you are wanting the very trendy peach looks and don't want to fork out the $49, then I'd happily tell you to go for it.  

I will be posting some looks using the Peach Punch in my upcoming posts, but for now I wanted to give you my Pintrest board of the Too Faced Sweet Peach pallet looks. 

Too Faced Sweet Peach Board

You can see where I have pinned many looks that you can either replicate or get very close to replicating the looks using the Covergirl Peach Punch pallet.  Note that some looks will require you to use the green color as well.  I think because I have green eyes, might be the reason I go for green colors. :)

I hope you enjoyed my review, found it entertaining or the very least, helpful.  I want you to be able to create the much coveted peach looks that are all the rage for the summer, but I also want you to be able to afford to go on summer vacation as well.....hence why I say let's only spend the $13 and not the $49.  ;)  

I love doing these posts and I hope you enjoy reading them.  If you have any questions, please leave me a comment below.  

Is there a look you are wanting to try but don't want to pay the high end price?  Let me know.  I will work hard to find similar if not duped products to allow you to look your best for the least amount of money...um, but still good quality.

That's all I have for today.  I hope you all have a beautiful weekend and a happy rest of your Friday.  Until next time, take care.

-Kim