The beginning & a haul

So I decided to start a little beauty blog! Mostly because I love the beauty community (on youtube and the various blogs).  But also, when I find a new product and search on google, I get really disappointed when I can't find any reviews or swatches, and I love sharing my opinions on products.  I'm hoping maybe this will get me to be motivated to also start up making youtube videos, because I really love all things beauty related.
The beauty community has meant a lot to me in a lot of different ways.  I remember in 2009 so many things were going on in my life, my Dad was sick and dying of cancer, a lot of my college friends were parting ways, I said goodbye to the place of employment I had known for 7 years, and my life just didn't make sense. I remember searching and finding makeup videos from Kandee Johnson and Emily Eddington and feeling so inspired. I remember I had a lot of makeup but had no idea how to use it, and I remember one Saturday taking all my makeup into my living room and dumping it all out and watching videos and experimenting with it all.  I've always been very artistic and just a very visual person, but never really had a way of using love for art on a daily basis.  But now, I have fun knowing that the possibilities are endless and I can create whatever look I want and it can make me feel like a whole different person.  Makeup has the ability to make you feel so confident and I think that's a beautiful thing. 
My first post is going to be about a little haul I picked up this weekend.  Its not huge, but I'm very very happy with the products, and because they're newer and also may be limited edition, I thought I'd put my thoughts out there.

First off, I must write about the twilight highlighter, because it is probably the best purchase I've made in awhile.  I have to admit, as much as I really love the Twilight movies, I kinda laughed when I saw the display at Ulta because I thought it seemed really gimmicky and figured that they'd just made a bunch of sub-par products and stamped them with Twilight and knew that people would eat them up.  But the highlighter (Essence shimmer powder in 01 Bella's Secret) caught my eye because it didn't look ultra-chunky glittery and it was also a very flattering beige-gold color.  Plus it was a HUGE compact (0.38 oz - more than double the size of Nars albatross) and was only $3.99.  I figured I didn't have much to lose - plus I had a coupon for $3.50 off of $10 so I was basically gonna end up spending nothing on it.   Well, I am really glad I picked this up because it is AMAZING! The shimmer is very finely milled and it looks very natural on the skin.  Plus because its not overly warm, or cool I think it would look very good on a lot of different skin tones.  It is somewhat powdery so you do have to be careful when getting it on your brush, but other than that I can't say anything bad about it.  Oh, and its also paraben free, which is something I'm always very happy about.  I took a picture of it with my macro lens to show it as up-close and personal as possible.

Here's a swatch of it.  On my hand swatched, and blended out. On my finger very concentrated.

It definitely is more on the golden side but its not too golden where it would look bad on cooler skintones, like I've experienced with nars albatross.  I would highly recommend picking this up if you can find it!

The second product I'm going to review is the L'oreal Infallible 24hour eyeshadow in gold imperial. I have quite a few of the eyeshadows from this line and I really love them.  They are all really pigmented and shimmery and perfect for the holidays, and this shade is no exception.  I actually think I may like this one more than any of the others because it has very finely milled glitter particles.  It kinda reminds me of how the MAC reflects glitters look on the eyes.  And I love it because you can just add it on top of other eyeshadows as a light wash or pack it on with a sponge tip applicator, either dry or wet.  I had been wearing a mixture of Urban Decay Naked & Buck on my eyes when I got home after picking this up and I just swiped some of the L'oreal eyeshadow on my finger and smudged it on my lids and it looked gorgeous!
Heres a pic of it with my macro lens.  It really shows the tiny glitter particles. It literally looks like real gold leaf!

Heres some swatches as well as swatch taken with my macro lens. 

Its hard to do this shade justice in pictures! Its just too gorgeous! I highly recommend it. Also - if you already have the L'oreal infallible eyeshadow in Eternal Sunshine, and you don't think you need this shade, think again! :P Honestly I think this one is much much prettier than Eternal Sunshine.  Its more of a true gold than Eternal Sunshine.

I had been looking for a good true dry shampoo for a little while because I just wasn't too thrilled with the aerosol cans of 'dry' shampoo I had tried.  I found some of them made my hair kind of gummy and just didn't do what I wanted.  Plus I felt like they were SO heavily fragranced and I just didn't like the idea of breathing that in all the time. I didn't have much luck finding one at Ulta, so I ended up looking at my local health food store where I found the Giovanni 2-in-1 Powder Power Dry Shampoo. What drew me to this was the fact that the ingredients list was good and I really liked the bottle because it seemed like it would make it really easy to dispense it only at your roots and not apply too much. 
There really isn't an obvious smell to it which is fine by me because I don't really have a huge issue with my hair smelling bad after not washing it a couple days, and to be honest I could easily spritz a couple sprays of body splash or fragrance if I was worried about it.  I think this product works really well at volumizing and also getting rid of any greasy/oiliness.  I feel like I can get away with washing my hair less, and I love that because I know its better for the health of my hair to wash it less.

Heres the list of ingredients: Zea Mays (Corn) Starch, Avena Sativa (Oat) Kernel Flour, Stearalkonium Hectorite, Panthenola (Pro-Vitamin B-5), Kaolin, Vitis Vinafera (Grape) Seed Extract [Proanthocyanidins], *Citrus Medica Limonum (Lemon) Peel Extract, Panax Ginseng Root Extract [Ginsenosides], Silica, Natural Fragrance *USDA Certified Organic

As soon as I saw this Zoya nail polish in Logan on Temptalia's blog, I knew I needed to find it! Its absolutely beautiful, and also perfect for this time of the year.  I think its pretty obvious I love the holidays and anything sparkly & shimmery has my vote!  Every Zoya polish I've tried has been really nice and applies very smoothly and has a very nice consistency.  This one goes on pretty opaque and while you do need 2 coats for complete opacity I think it still looks really pretty with just one coat.  

Its got fine gold-green glitter particles, but when applied it has a pretty smooth finish, even without a topcoat.  

The last product I picked up is kinda boring, but I really wanted to give it a try.  Lately my skin has been freaking out and I had read that grapeseed oil works well for acne prone skin, so I thought I would try it out.  I can't really give a good review because I've only had it a couple days, but I will say it does absorb well into the skin, and while it does leave a slightly oily finish, its not horribly oily.  I never feel like its a waste to buy natural oils, because theres so many uses for them.  So if I don't like it on my face I can use it for a million other things.

So thats it for my little haul and reviews.  I hopefully will be putting up a new post at least once a week, if not more!