Benefit Cosmetics Little Love Potions Product Review

Tags

beauty, benefit, christmas, cosmetics, gift, makeup, review, sephora

I love Benefit Cosmetics, so when I saw this set of 10 sample-size products, I knew it would be a perfect Christmas gift!  I’m almost out of some of these products now, and it’s been less than a month.  Struggles!  Check out my reviews of each one.

1 // Hoola Bronzing Powder — This powder is very light and fine, so it’s easy to get a sunkissed glow.  Be sure to tap the excess powder off the brush before you apply it, or else it will look splotchy.  Remember less is more when it comes to bronzer!

2 // Hoola Lip Gloss — I don’t usually like lip gloss… I still have memories of slathering gross, sticky, way-too-shiny lip gloss on my lips in junior high.  Blah.  This lip gloss is great because it’s not sticky, but still leaves lips feeling soft and looking pretty.

3 // Watt’s Up Highlighter — I love Watt’s Up, but I wish the applicator on the sample-size product was a bit larger.  I usually dab it on my finger, then apply it that way.  I also use this right under my eyebrows.  Be sure to use your finger to blend it into your skin: it can look harsh if you don’t.

4 // It’s Potent! Eye Cream — This stuff really is potent, but considering my horrible undereye bags that never go away no matter how much I sleep, I like the product a lot!  It’s very hydrating and moisturizing, but it’s not greasy.

5 // The POREfessional — I LOVE this product!  It makes my skin look so fresh and smooth.  If I was going to buy a full-size version of any of the products in this set, it would be this one.

6 // Posie Tint Lip and Cheek Tint — I’ve only ever used this as a lip tint because my cheeks are usually red enough on their own in winter!  It works nicely and stays on for a long time, yet it’s easy to remove.

7 // High Beam Highlighter — Unlike Watt’s Up, High Beam is a liquid highlighter that you apply with a small brush.  I use this product on the apples of my cheeks.

8 // Bad Gal Lash Mascara — This mascara is a classic, and of course it’s good!  I love sample-size mascaras because I don’t feel like I’m wasting product.  Mascara doesn’t keep for long (ew eye bacteria) so sample-sizes are perfect.

9 // Stay Don’t Stray Eye Shadow Primer — I like this primer, but I tend to think that all eye shadow primer is the same.  It’s on par with Urban Decay Primer Potion for sure.

10 // “That Gal” Face Primer — I’m really into this product: it just makes your skin look good.  I apply a small amount on my face before I put on foundation, but usually after I put it on, I realize I don’t even need foundation anymore… it’s that good!

Have you tried Benefit Cosmetics?  What is your favorite product?

Christmas Collage

Tags

ballet, Chicago, christmas, collage, cookies, daisy, family, gingerbread, holidays, nutcracker, photos, traditions

Happy holidays, everyone!  I absolutely love Christmas, and I always take lots of photos around Christmastime.  I put some of my favorites into a little collage for the blog.  Look forward to a post about my 2014 goals soon!

Clockwise from top left:

// Gingerbread cookies that I made with my boyfriend.  I love baking and decorating cut-out cookies.

// A pretty Christmas dinner salad and Christmas cracker!  Crackers are a tradition for my family… my cousins and I always open them at the same time and laugh about the silly gifts inside.

// The Auditorium Theater in Chicago.  My mom and I see The Nutcracker ballet every year, and I absolutely love the theater.  It’s very old, so watching a show there feels like going back in time!

// More cookies and I made with my family.  You can never have too many Christmas cookies!

// The yearly present pile at my grandparents’ house on Christmas.  These gifts were for 20 people, not just me!

// Daisy checking out the box of treats we got her for Christmas.  My sister and I spent about 15 minutes choosing treats for Daisy at Target.  We loved that Buddy Biscuits are made of natural ingredients that we would give to Daisy at home.  And they’re shaped like people!

What is your favorite holiday tradition?

Season’s Greetings

Tags

christmas, daisy, holiday, merry, photo, wordless

❤ ❤ ❤

#MIMM Christmastime

Tags

christmas, coffee, daisy, dog, holiday, macy's, mimm, monday, santa, toffee, tree

Good morning, everyone!  Thanks for your comments on my last post; I’m working on a shopping list printable right now, but it’s taking longer than I expected.  I promise I’ll be done soon!

In the meantime, here are some #MIMM photos from this week.  I love Christmastime, and my week has been full of shopping, baking, and snuggling with Daisy and a cup of coffee.  Last quarter, I started drinking coffee that isn’t in Frappuccino form.  Because frankly, even coffee Frappuccinos taste more like coffee ice cream than actual coffee.  Every time I tried coffee in the past, I was put off by its bitterness.  Someone told me that you don’t drink coffee because you like it, you drink it because you need it.  And that’s true.  I started drinking it at a time when I needed it, when I had a lot to do and no energy, and now I like it!  I knew that it would happen sometime out of necessity.  Now I have a pretty solid routine for how I like my coffee.  Not too hot, with a stevia packet and a little bit of flavored creamer.  I know the flavored creamers are full of artificial flavorings, but whatevs.  Vanilla, peppermint mocha, and toffee are some of my favorite flavors.  The cute snowman mug makes it taste better, too!

Last week when my boyfriend and I went to Eataly, we also stopped by Macy’s on State Street to look at the decorated windows.  Honestly, I thought the windows were kind of terrifying.  Lots of creepy dolls.  But check out this gorgeous tree!

We took Daisy to see Santa at PetSmart.  She loved it!

For a little while…

Daisy is a little confused about this whole Christmas thing.  She keeps checking out the presents under the tree.

And wondering why we dress her in Christmas jammies.

But she’s just so cute in them!  And they keep her warm when we take her outside.  It’s very snowy in Chicago… I can’t wait for a white Christmas!

 

Today I’m linking up with Katie’s Marvelous in my Monday!

 

What is your favorite part of the holidays?  Any big plans?

Gingerbread Cookies

Tags

baking, christmas, cookie, cooking, food, gingerbread, holiday, recipe

I know I’ve been posting many recipes lately, but I can’t help it.  I just keep cooking things and I want to share them!

Gingerbread cookies just shout “Christmas” to me.  They make the house smell wonderful, taste like a blend of wintery spices and sweets, and can be decorated to your heart’s content.  For an obsessive-compulsive cookie decorator like me, gingerbread cookies are perfect canvases.

These cookies are delicious and easy to make.  I chilled the dough for 1 hour in the freezer, then 1 hour in the fridge.  This yielded the perfect consistency for cutting out cookies.  This dough holds its shape well when baking, and the cookies look adorable!

Gingerbread Cookies from Taste of Home

Ingredients

• 3/4 cup butter, softened
• 1 cup packed brown sugar
• 1 egg
• 3/4 cup molasses
• 4 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons ground ginger
• 1-1/2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1-1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 3/4 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1/4 teaspoon salt

Directions

1. In a large bowl, cream butter and brown sugar until light and fluffy. Add egg and molasses. Combine the flour, ginger, baking soda, cinnamon, cloves and salt; gradually add to creamed mixture and mix well.

2. Scoop dough onto a sheet of wax paper.  Wrap up the dough, and shape it into a disk.  Refrigerate for a few hours or overnight.

3. On a  floured surface, roll dough to 1/8-in. thickness. Cut with cookie cutters. Place 1 in. apart on ungreased baking sheets.

4. Bake at 350° for 8-10 minutes or until edges are firm. Move to wire racks to cool.

    

Sorry I’m Not Sorry + Winter Wishlist

Tags

christmas, class, college, diet coke, festive, hashtag, holiday, iphone, Madewell, sorry, thrift shop, winter, wishlist

…for listening to “Thrift Shop” by Macklemore over and over on Spotify for the past 26 minutes.

…for shopping online way too much.  Because apparently Cyber Monday lasts the entire week this year.

Printed Phone Case, Madewell, $18.50

…for buying myself a Diet Coke as a reward for getting to class early.  Sometimes you just need one.

…for Instagramming said Diet Coke while studying before class today.  And I’m pretty sure one of the scary graduate students saw.

I cannot wait for Winter Break.  I love the holiday season, but it’s difficult to fully experience it on a college campus.  It’s just not as festive.  I’m excited to go home and do all my favorite holiday things.  That being said, here is my Winter Break Wishlist.  It’s like a Christmas gift list, except it’s a list of activities that I want to do.

1. Bake Cookies

2. Go shopping in Chicago

3. Organize my closet

4. Go sledding

5. Jump on a trampoline while it snows

6. Cook homemade pasta sauce

7. Go for a run

8. Make scrapbook pages

9. Spend an afternoon wrapping presents

10. Make lots of sorority crafts

11. Whatever else I can think of 🙂

What is on YOUR Winter Wishlist?

Houston Trip!

Tags

christmas, class, college, cookie, doubletree, fruit, goals, healthy, houston, luna bar, meineke car care bowl, new year, Northwestern, texas, thinkthin, tree, winter

This past weekend, I went to Houston with my cheerleading team for the Meineke Car Care Bowl!  It was so much fun and such a great experience!  Houston’s warm weather was great, too.  I got a tan!  Just kidding, I don’t get tan, I get burnt.  I look like a ghost as always.

On the way to the hotel, we saw a purple car!  It may look blue in this picture, but trust me, it was definitely purple.

Houston is such a pretty city!

More bus views…

This is the view from my hotel room, check out that gorgeous sunset!

I packed a big box of healthy snacks!  I brought the oranges, but the other food was free on the airplane!  Except for the half-and-half, which was randomly in the hotel fridge.

I also packed Luna bars in my two favorite flavors…

And ThinkThin bars, too.  I love these bars, but I wish they weren’t so expensive!

The best part of staying at a Doubletree?  The cookies!  An oatmeal chocolate chip cookie = the best treat after a long day of traveling.

Aside from the cookie and endless peanut M&Ms, I tried to keep my diet pretty healthy and clean during the trip.  I have the most energy when I eat natural, healthy foods, but it was tough to resist all the tasty temptation that comes with traveling!

It was strange seeing Christmas decorations juxtaposed with 70 degree weather!  Being from Chicago, Christmas = cold weather, and Houston was very different!

The day before the game, we had a lot of free time, so we spent the day at the Houston Galleria.  WOW this was the biggest mall I have ever been to!  They had every store imaginable, and even duplicates of some stores.  I bought a grey top at Nordstrom Rack, but resisted the urge to spend all my money shopping!

On the day of the game, there was a lot of fog and humidity.  We couldn’t even see the top of this building!

Being in the stadium was AMAZING!  It was so big and the crowd’s energy was incredible.  While it is nice to be home now, I’ll be back at college tomorrow for the winter quarter.  My schedule looks great this quarter- I’m taking classes that I’m really excited about, and I don’t have an 8:00 class anymore!

I don’t like making New Year’s Resolutions because they always seem way too big to accomplish.  So this year I decided to break up my resolutions into smaller goals, starting with winter quarter…

I hope I accomplish all these goals!  Gotta stay accountable.

What are some of your goals/New Year’s resolutions?

What did you do for New Year’s Eve?

Christmas 2011!

Tags

angel tree, christmas, coffee, guilt, holidays, inspiration, iphone, iphone case, lululemon, quotes, salvation army, tea

A great quote for Christmas:

“It’s not what’s under your tree that matters, but who’s around it.”

This is such a great quote and I think it applies to every day, not just Christmas!  We all get so hung up (myself included!) on buying gifts and cooking food that we forget the real meaning of Christmas: to celebrate the birth of Jesus and/or to spend time with family and friends!  I added the “and/or” for the sake of political correctness.  Everyone is valued here!

Regardless of the quote, we had a tree (and a lovely one, if I do say so myself) with presents waiting for us on Christmas morning!

All ready for Christmas breakfast… these dishes only make an appearance once a year.

Presents under the tree!

The mini trees!

I’ll be blunt: I really dislike receiving gifts.  I always feel like I don’t deserve them, and I feel guilty for getting stuff that I don’t really need when there are so many people in the world who don’t have the bare essentials.  This year, I made a very detailed list of only items I actually could use, and asked for any other gifts to be in the form of gift cards that I could use whenever I wanted.

I did receive a new phone!  My old one was a Palm Pixi and I was adamant about keeping it until the letter “p” key stopped working.    This is an iPhone 4G S!

Check out this case!  It’s heavy-duty because I tend to drop my phone a lot.

Workout tanks from Lululemon!  Stuff from this store is expensive but fits great and lasts forever.  I ask for it as gifts because Thrify Me never wants to buy clothing from Lulu with my own money!

And their new pink color rocks my world.  That may sound corny, but there is no better way to describe my love for this color…

An insulated mug from Starbucks!  My dad got this for me because he is tired of me carrying my tea around campus in a plastic mug I got for free.

Check out the cool rolly-ball-thingy that is used to open and close the mug!

I also helped my mom buy gifts for a child from the Salvation Army Angel Tree.  It was so much fun shopping in the toy section at Target again; it totally brought me back to the days of longing over Barbie dolls and Easy-Bake ovens!

I finished decorating some sugar cookies to bring to my grandparents’ house.  Definitely left that task until the last minute, but at least they look nice!

This is the recipe I used…

We made a cookie plate for my grandparents.  It had sugar cookies, gingerbread cookies (from a tube of dough… gingerbread dough is TOUGH to work with!), peppermint patty-stuffed chocolate cookies, and Oreo cookie fudge!

 

Here are a few inspirational thingies I found…

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And some questions for you!

Do you like receiving gifts, or are you the awkward, guilt-ridden type like me?

Coffee or tea?

Chicago Trip!

Tags

bakery, Chicago, chocolate, christmas, cupcake, dress, fancy, Foodlife, gingerbread, holiday, salad, sprinkles, staycation, vacation, water tower

My family and I took a mini vacation to Chicago!  We left around noon on friday, checked into our hotel, then headed to Foodlife in Water Tower Place where I got a ginormous veggie-filled salad and a wheat roll.  Foodlife is a big food court-style restaurant, but instead of fast food everything is better quality and so delicious.  If you’re ever in Chicago, stop by for lunch!

After lunch, I took it upon myself to try on crazy expensive dresses and not buy them…

We stopped to indulge in cupcakes from Sprinkles, aka the best cupcakes ever!  Mine was a dark chocolate cupcake with chocolate frosting…

The hotel put little boxes of fancy chocolates on our pillows!

And this little gem.  Donald Trump would put his face on water bottles…

We woke up to a beautiful view of the Chicago River…

And fell asleep to it, too…

My mom and I in the hotel room… it was so luxurious and relaxing, I didn’t want to leave!

Seeing gingerbread houses like these makes me want to be a pastry chef…

Then I remember that I’m already in college.  Though baking all day would be fun.

Look!  Fondant snow people!

On Friday, my mom and I went to see The Nutcracker!  We go every year, and it is always amazing.  I absolutely love the venue: the  Auditorium Theater.  Being there makes me feel like I’ve traveled back in time, with all the gold and the ornate décor…

It was a great trip with the family, and Chicago is an awesome place to do some last-minute Christmas shopping!  I can’t believe Christmas is tomorrow; this year has flown by!

Merry Christmas Eve!

Sticky Notes

Tags

banana bread, chocolate, christmas, dark chocolate, decoration, dentist, eyeliner, forever21, fudge, holiday, makeup, notebook, shampoo, shopping, sticky note, Target, tree, vegan

My love affair for sticky notes continues… I used them to study for finals (which must have worked because I did well on them!) and now I use them to remember things.  I have the memory of an old lady when it comes to stuff I don’t want to do.  Such as go to the dentist…

Does anyone else despise going to the dentist?  I’m all for oral hygiene, I brush many times daily and floss more than most people do, but that metal tooth-picky-thingy that they use makes me want to cry…

 

I am also thoroughly convinced that they sell everything on Amazon.  Remember when it sold just books?

 

My Target list of “bows and eyeliner” turned into a mini-shopping spree.  But it was all on sale so it’s okay.

I decided to wait to buy a dress at Forever 21 until after Christmas when I have gift cards and things are on sale.  But since I was already there, I picked out a new makeup bag…

Best $5.80 I’ve ever spent.  I love the pattern and the glitter!

 

Yummy food…

This peppermint bark is dangerous!

Baking…

my favorite banana bread

fabulous fudge… it may not look pretty but it tastes divine!

Easy Fabulous Fudge:

1. Line a loaf pan with foil, but do not spray it!
2. In a medium pot, combine 1 12 oz. bag dark chocolate chips, 1 cup semisweet chocolate chips, and 1 can fat-free sweetened condensed milk.
3. Melt on medium-low heat until everything is melted and gooey and amazing.  Stir it the entire time to make sure the bottom doesn’t get burnt.
4. Add 1/4 teaspoon salt and 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract; stir.
5. Pour the chocolate mixture into prepared pan and spread it out evenly.  At this point you could top the fudge with crushed candies, sprinkles, chocolate chips, whatever you like!
6. Refrigerate for 2 hours, or until the fudge is cold and firm.

Yum!

This was fun to make… I felt like a chemist melting things over the Bunsen burner!  If I ever become a chemistry teacher (haha like that will EVER happen…), then I am totally going to make my students make fudge as a lab.  I think I’m going to make more in different flavors and give it as holiday gifts! 

 

I just finished my workout (30 minutes on the elliptical while watching Teen Mom 2 + abs), and now I’m going to put up the Christmas tree!  My family has 2 trees, and my mom saved the smaller one for me to set up.  Yay!

 

Questions for you…

Do you like going to the dentist?  Apparently some people do!

What’s your favorite kind of fudge?  Being from the Midwest, fudge is a big deal!  It comes in many flavors and is sold by the pound.