Juelp Maven Box!

Hello beauty lovers!!!  Let me tell you about my favorite subscription box of alllll time!!!  It's called the Julep Maven box and it is a nail polish company that makes fantastic, high quality, high end polishes (they are $14 a piece at Sephora).  This wonderful box is $20 dollars a month, you get two nail colors and a bonus item or two and always a cool quote that is a keepsake I love and put on my mirror every month.  Like most subscription services you take a quick quiz and they give you a style profile.  Mine is Boho Glam.  However, if you go to the site and see what colors are being offered and you don't like the colors in your box, you can easily switch with no additional cost.  Bonus: if you buy every month you earn Jules which you can use on the site to purchase extras or add on to your box or if you save them pay for that months box.  

So onto my August box:

 August marks the second anniversary of the Maven subscription service and thus the box being pink and having flowers, it is usually black and has the word Julep in white.  The extra that came with this month's box was a package of Forget-Me-Not seeds that say"Thanks for helping us grow into something beautiful."  Sweet right?? The quote that came with this month's box states: "And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful that the risk it took to blossom." Anais Nin.   Now maybe I'm just weirdo but these little extras that they throw in are so sweet.  I always look forward to what the quote will be every month.

Now onto the items that I knew I was going to receive. 

This month I wasn't really into the colors in the Boho Glam box, I have no idea what they are now but at the time I didn't think that I would ever wear them and so I chose instead to get the Classic with a Twist box.  The polishes I received were Veronica, which Julep describes as a "modern mauve creme," and Sylvia, which Julep describes as a "lilac purple creme."  Both colors are absolutely gorgeous!!!!! I can't wait to wear them!!!  I also received the Doublestep Foot Treatment and Friction Stick.  Julep says, "This no-mess shea butter treatment nourishes and moisturizes feet, stimulates circulation, and prevents blisters."  I look forward to trying it, especially if it helps with blisters!

Because I have ordered for so many months now, I have enough Jules to not only pay for my box but for an add-on as well.  I chose this little beauty!

This is the color Bea, which Julep states is a "lemonade creme." In case you haven't noticed I looooove their cream polishes!

That's all for this month's box and I will be posting these for every box that I get.  If you would like more information on how to become a Julep Maven click here > http://www.julep.com/rewardsref/index/refer/id/61297/ and you can enter this code >> 4719869 at sign up.

As always thank you so much for reading!!!

Soooo much love!!!!

Rachel

Eye of the Day!

Hello beauty lovers!!!  As promised in my last post, I told you I would keep you in the loop as I tried out different looks using the items I got in my haul.  This is my Eye of the Day look.  This look features the Stila In The Know palette.  I hope you enjoy it as much as I do!

Alright, so this is the look...the end......hahah jk!  

The words are the colors and their placement.  I first applied Stila Prime Pot in Taffy.  I used Wind on the inner third of the lid, and Desert on the other two thirds.  I used a pretty precise brush that I have from Coastal Scents (there is no number) and applied Driftwood in an outer v and into the crease and then blended slightly with a clean fluffy brush.  I then took a tiny amount of Fire on a fluffy brush and swept it just above Driftwood in the crease.  I then applied Air above that and a transition and brow highlight.  I also ran Driftwood underneath the bottom corner of my lower lash line just to connect the look to the under eye...it just looked to bare to me.  I then applied a thin line of the Maybelline Master Drama Eye Liner in Midnight Master to the top lash line and the Urban Decay 24/7 Eye Liner in Deep End to the water line for a slight pop of color.  Then I curled my lashes and applied two coats of Yves Saint Laurent Baby Doll Mascara.

  So there you have it!  I love this look, I really felt like my eyes were especially blue today because of the more warm tones used in this look.

Thanks for stopping by!!

Sooo much love!

Rachel

Birthday Haul!!!!!

Hello beauty lovers!!  Before I get into my birthday haul,  I just want to let you know that you can now follow my blog on Bloglovin!  It's an awesome site that lets you follow a variety of blogs and get daily updates on any new posts, I highly recommend checking it out! Follow my blog with Bloglovin  

As you know I have been saving my money for the last month and a half to have a birthday shopping spree.  Of course, things came up that made me spend my money elsewhere so I didn't have tons and tons to spend but still spent entirely too much on some wonderful items that I can't wait to share with you!!

I first placed an online order with Sephora!

  
I ordered three of the Obsessive Compulsive Cosmetics Lip Tars.  The coral shade is Grandma, the red shade is Stalker, and the fuchsia shade is Pretty Boy.  Unlike the name suggests, these are not thick but actually very thin but you literally only need the tiniest drop to completely cover the lips.  Seriously, sooo amazing!  They each come with the tiny lip brush and are crazy long wearing! Two thumbs up!

I also ordered a small size of the Soap & Glory Hand Food hand cream.  Smells wonderful and feels wonderful!  Absolutely love this as well!

Now of course with my Sephora purchase I got a ton of samples and my birthday gift (I chose the Fresh lip balms).   Love love love and will keep you updated on the tiny mascara samples that I got.

 Now onto the actual in store shopping spree at ULTA!!!!

 The first thing I threw in my bad was the Tangle Teezer! This funky little brush makes some serious claims but I have heard wonderful things about it so I will let you know if I love it or not!
The little insert says:
"The Tangle Teezer boasts a revolutionary teeth formation that delivers speedy and gentle results.  Helps minimise hair breakage caused by mistreatment when detangling.  Promotes healthy looking hair by noticeably increasing shine, leaving it looking silky smooth after styling." 
We shall see :)

I also picked up this Batiste dry shampoo in the Rich & Elegant Paisley scent.  So far I like the scent and of course I will let you know how I feel about this dry shampoo later.

I also picked up a new eyelash curler because mine broke!  Tragic day for me. Haha

Since I'm already on lashes, I picked up these Katy Perry by Eylure lashes in Sweetie Pie.  When I get false lashes I usually go for very natural looking ones.  I don't like the whole there's-a-huge-caterpillar-sitting-on-my-eye look.  These are right up my alley!

Ok I have a swatch picture to follow this description of these lovely products.  The collage from top left to right and so on are Essence I <3 Extreme Mascara, NYX Butter Gloss in Peach Cobbler, NYX Soft Matte Lip Cream in Antwerp, and NYX HD Photogenic Concealor in Porcelain.  The photo on the right is the Urban Decay 24/7 Eyeliner in Deep End.

I will say right now, that I am already in love with both glosses and the eye liner.  The colors are amazing and sooo pigmented! Seriously in love!

From left to right, NYX Butter Gloss in Peach Cobbler,
NYX Soft Matte Lip Cream in Antwerp,
Urban Decay 24/7 Eye liner in Deep End, and the last swatch is on an eye liner that came with a palette I bought, Stila Smudge Stick Waterproof Eye liner in Halfmoon.

This picture really doesn't do these colors any justice but it's the best one I could get; however, I am sure I will post a nail of the day using these gorgeous polishes!  They are from Essie's new collection!  On the left is Sunday Funday, a pinky-coral shade with shimmer and on the right its Naughty Nautical, a teal with shimmer!  I loooooove them!!!

This lovely palette is the Stila In the Know palette and is my very first Stila purchase.  It comes with 10 eyeshadows, a Smudge Stick Eye liner in Halfmoon (swatched above), and a lookbook with 6 different looks.  The Stila Prime Pot was a free gift with purchase and is in the color Taffy.

The colors from left to right are: (top row) Air, Wind, Desert, Clay, Earth, (bottom row) Driftwood, Fire, Rain, Smoke, Ebony.

These colors are super pigmented and I am really loving the color of Fire, it's a deep rusty orange that I know will make my blue eyes really pop! 

I apologize because the quality of this picture isn't super hot but I promise the quality of the shadows really are! 
From left to right these are random swatches of Earth, Fire, Smoke, and Ebony.


That is all for my birthday haul!  I am absolutely thrilled and excited to start playing with all of my new purchases and will definitely keep you all updated!!

As always thank you sooo much for stopping by!!!

Soooo much love!!

Rachel

First Ipsy Bag!

Hello beauty lovers!!!  I have a new subscription box to tell you about!  It's called Ipsy and I have to say that so far I'm impressed :).

So without too much blah blah blah here it goes.

This is the July Ipsy bag, super cute and fun-filled!  I received 5 products that were chosen for me through the Ipsymatch quiz that I took when I signed up.  

The first product is the HealthySexyHair Beach Wave spray. 

I am super excited to try this because one I just ran out of my sea salt spray and this brand happens to make my favorite leave in conditioner as well!! Super excited to try it out!

I also got the Pop Beauty Pouty Pop Crayon in Coral Crush.

The swatch turned out more pink than it actually is but I really like the color of this product.  I also like that it's a twist up. It has a a very slight minty scent and feel to it when applied and lasts a decent amount of time. Thumbs up!

I also received a Coola SPF 20 moisturizer.

This is a brand that I have never used before and I am looking forward to using this little guy.  You all know how much I looooove my SPF! :)

The next product I am pretty excited to try out!  It's the Derma e Microdermabrasion Scrub.

This is a 100% natural product with no parabens and is cruelty free. The texture it very gritty but very small granules and I love to exfoliate my face with a product that actually feels like it's exfoliating as opposed to the exfoliaters that have two or three beads in it that don't really make a difference in the way my skin feels.

Now for the product that I was super excited about but terribly let down with: the BH Cosmetics California Collection Sample Pack.

When I first opened this little package, I got super excited because I had heard good things about this company.  Even more excited when I saw the colors because I loooove some brown and gold and with a pop of purple...I envisioned an entire look with this mini palette alone.  And then I swatched it.  My first swatch was with no primer and I had to press hard to get any of the purple and brown to show up at all...the gold was a little easier but still not great.  Then I thought that when I swatched them for this post that I would use my e.l.f. Eyeshadow Primer and that maybe would fix my problem.  As you can see it didn't help the purple too much.  The brown might be a touch better and the gold looks pretty but I can't imagine how much work I would have to do to actually get those colors to show up on my eye.  Sad sad day for the pretty eye look I envisioned.  I'll still probably try to do a look with these shadows and let you know how that works out for me haha!

Overall, I really loved this month's Ipsy bag and the items I got in it.  Totally worth the $10 I spent and I look forward to more months with Ipsy. 

On a more random note, I've been thinking about starting a Back to Basics series.  Starting with skincare and going through every aspect of makeup that I can think of.  I'd like to get your opinions on what you're most interested in or if you would even want to read something like that.  Leave me a comment below or leave a comment on the Rachel Louise Beauty Facebook page.

Thanks sooo much for stopping by!!

Soooo much love!!!

Rachel 

PS If you're interested in checking Ipsy out for yourself click here.

New Job and New Love ;)

Hello beauty lovers!!  As I mentioned in my life update post, I got a new job.  It's a part time job and it deals with makeup!

I am an Estee Lauder and Clinique Beauty Advisor at Macy's!!!!

I am so excited to finally get to announce it and to learn as much as I can about both lines and get to put them on people! AHH!

As you can probably guess, I will have to of course be using both lines and will clearly need to experiment with all of them so I will be trying all kinds of different products from both lines and letting you guys know what I'm really loving!

The very first product that I tried was the Double Wear Light foundation. 

Double Wear Light by Estee Lauder

   It has the same coverage and staying power as the famed Double Wear but is a little lighter in consistency.  Great foundation, the only downside was that they lightest shade was still too dark for my very pale skin tone.

Enter Double Wear.

I apologize for the finger printed box but I just have to say holy cow is this stuff awesome!  The coverage is amazing and it's pretty much the first foundation to ever actually match my skin tone!  I wear the shade 1C1 Cool Bone. It dries to a matte finish and is seriously flawless! The first time I wore this foundation one of the girls asked if I was wearing something different and then said "You look like a porcelain doll."  Now usually I would be like eww, creepy doll but my skin literally looked that flawless.  And it was definitely not flawless, due to the hormonal breakouts I'm dealing with at the moment. I'm not kidding that this stuff is worth the price.  Don't walk, run to go get this foundation.  Seriously wonderful!  On another note, the staying power is incredible and not only does it stay on all day, it looks fresh all day too.  It's been hot a muggy this past week and working around food usually melts my makeup off pretty quickly and this held up all day long with work and everything.  Yesterday it was blazing hot and I went to a co-workers outside wedding and this foundation never budged.  I am telling you, phenomenal stuff!

Ok that's all for this product haha.  More to come I assure you!

Thanks as always for stopping by!

Soooo much love!

Rachel

Little Black Bag Experience

Hello beauty lovers!  It's only been about a million years since I've posted but I swear that I'm going to have more for you very very soon.

For now let me tell you about my first experience with Little Black Bag.  Now if you've never heard of Little Black Bag here is a little scoop.  On Little Black Bag there are tons of designer items that are majorly discounted.  You go on, fill out a style quiz, and are given many options to choose from. You pick your main item and after you check out are given a couple of bonus free items.  Then the fun begins, you are allowed a few days to trade your items with others on the site if you so desire.  You can offer up any of the items in your bag for any of the items in other people's bags and see what others are offering up.  In the end you could have the original items that were in your bag or a completely different grouping.  It's kind of neat. 

Now for my first Little Black Bag I got a deal from MissJenFabulous on YouTube.  For the price of shipping only, I got a limited amount of choices and only one extra pick but for $5.95 I figured that I'd try it out.  

Here are my items:

This necklace was my chosen item.  It was called the Bar Necklace from the brand All The Rage.   I don't remember the retail price of it but it was more that 6 bucks haha.  This was also highly highly wanted,  everyone asked me to trade this pretty little necklace.

This was my stylist pick.  It's a temporary hair dye by Clairol in the color Fuchsia Plum.  I had the exact same item as my original item but in the color Red and since my hair is already red I thought I would offer to trade someone for a different color.  I know other stylist picks were lipgloss and some eyeshadows for the same deal that I got.

Overall, I think that this is a really neat idea.  I like subscription boxes but I don't always love everything that I get in them when they are random samples.  With Little Black Bag I get to chose what I want and try to trade those that I'm not so interested in.  

The price of these boxes do vary with what you choose as your main item but them most expensive option that I've seen was around $70.  But it is totally up to you as to what you spend. 

As always if you have any questions, just click the links above or leave a comment. 

Thank you so much for stopping by and checking out my blog! 

Sooooo much love!

Rachel

Would You Rather...Makeup Edition

 Hello beauty lovers!!! I saw this tag on Beauty Broadcast's blog and thought it was too much fun and so here it is!  I hope you enjoy!

 

1. Would you rather lose all of your mascaras, eyeliners, lipsticks, and lip glosses or lose all of your palettes and eyeshadows?

 First off losing any of my makeup pains me but I would much rather lose my palettes and eyeshadows.  Simply because I don't have many full face palettes and I feel like on a good skin day all I really need is eyeliner, mascara and a little gloss and I wold be totally good to go.

2. Would you rather chop off all your hair or never be able to cut it again?

 Chop it all off, it'll grow back right? Haha

3. Would you rather have a coral cheek or a pink cheek?

 Coral hands down!  I feel like it is a universally flattering shade and can work with so many different looks that this one is actually a no-brainer for me.

4. If you had $1,000 to spend, would you rather buy clothes or makeup?

 Silliest question ever, of course I would spend $1000 dollars on makeup.  Most people would think I was crazy but I don't care.  Thinking of all the possibilities makes me wish I really could have $1000 to spend on makeup haha.

5. Would you rather apply lipstick as eyeliner or eyeliner as lipstick?

 I don't like this question haha.  I guess lipstick as eyeliner but I don't want to do either haha.  If i chose eyeliners as lipstick my lip colors would be very limited and dark haha but I can't imagine lining my eyes with my bright red lipstick either, yuck.

6. Would you rather only shop at MAC or Sephora?

 I honestly don't own any MAC makeup and it's not because I don't like the brand it's simply because I haven't ventured into it yet but I still have to say I would rather shop at Sephora with all of the different brands then be stuck with just one.

7. Would you rather only use one eyeshadow color or one lip color for the rest of your life?

 One eyeshadow color, for sure.  I love my different lip colors so much and if I chose for example the Maybelline Color Tattoo in Bad to the Bronze for my lifetime eyeshadow I would be totally ok with that.

8. Would you rather wear winter clothes in the summer or summer clothes in the winter?

 Summer clothes in the winter, I could always layer haha.

9. Would you rather have dark nails or bright nails all year round?

Bright nails!  I do love the look of dark nails every once in a while but I'm usually rocking a bright polish.

10. Would you rather give up your favorite lip product or your favorite eye product?

I guess I would give up my favorite lip product (Revlon Lip Butters) because I am so addicted to my favorite eye product (Maybelline Eye Studio Gel Liner).

11. Would you rather only be able to wear your hair in a ponytail or a messy bun?

I would have to say messy bun.  I can dress it up or down with accessories, wear it high, low, to the side...I don't always love ponytails when it gets hot because I really don't want it sticking to my neck and face so yes definitely messy bun.  Plus done right they are tooooo cute!  

12. Would you rather never be able to paint your nails again or never use lip gloss?

I actually don't use lip gloss a ton, usually only on a easy maintenance makeup day do I swipe on a gloss and go.  So I would have to say never use lip gloss again because lord knows I love painting my nails!

13. Would you rather shave your eyebrows and have none at all or Sharpie them in everyday?

Omg this is seriously the worst question.  Like really?  I guess I would Sharpie them in, oo yuck the thought of that is so awful haha.

14. Would you rather live without makeup or nail polish?

This isn't fair either, I loooooove nail polish but I would say that I would give it up for my makeup.  

So there it is folks! I hope you enjoy and as always thank you so so so so much for stopping by and reading my blog! I appreciate it more than you could ever know! 

Sooooo much love!

Rachel