Opening Subscription Boxes | Birchbox + Vinyl Me, Please

It's that time again to open some subscription boxes! This time around I'm going to be opening the February Valentine's Day box and March Women's History Month box from Birchbox. This time around I received a lot of cult skincare products that I've been curious to try out. I also recently signed up to my first music related subscription service- I know, I can't believe it took me this long. The subscription service that I went with is the popular Vinyl Me, Please. What makes Vinyl Me, Please different is that each month they send you an exclusive pressing of a record that "everyone should own." With each record you get a custom cocktail recipe and artwork that pairs perfectly with the record of the month. Sounds cool, right?

Birchbox November 2016

You know what time it is? It's time for my monthly Birchbox! This month's theme was "The Finish Touch," which basically covered all those products that one would use to pull a look together. Sometimes little liner, blush, or even a step like exfoliating makes a world of a difference to your face. With only two more months left in the year, I really expected Birchbox to deliver an amazing box. I do have to say that Birchbox have set a really high standard for themselves with the past boxes I've received, but this box was definitely different to say the least. I won't try to spoil anything for you guys but this box is certainly worth checking out with your own eyes.

Get Ready With Me: Blogger Lunch

This past Wednesday I was invited by Neiman Marcus to attend their fall trends presentation and lunch. If you've been following me for a while, then you know that I've been going to these trend presentations ever since I had a pixie cut and they're one of my favorite events held in San Diego. As a blogger you always have to look and feel good when going to one of these events, especially this one that's all about upcoming trends. Now I'm not the trendiest when it comes to fashion, but makeup is another story. I'm desperately waiting for fall right now so I can start to wear my dark and berry lipsticks on a more regular basis. Plus it would be really nice not looking like an oil slick anymore. In this post you're going to see a quick "Get Ready with Me," as well as some of the looks from the presentation.

Review | Benefit Gimme Brow vs. Essence Make Me Brow

I know everyone and their mothers loves Benefit, but in the past I've been very underwhelmed by their gimmicky products in cute packaging. Despite that I was still excited to test out the cult favorite Gimme Brow after hearing so much about it on YouTube over the years. Recently Benefit relaunched all of their brow products, so now all the products come in art deco inspired chrome packaging which is really eye catching. After I received the Benefit Gimme Brow in my May Birchbox I got so many requests to review it and compare it to my favorite drugstore brow product, the Essence Make Me Brow. Both of these products have a very similar name, formula, and even the packaging is reminiscent of the old Gimme Brow packaging. So I put these two brow products to the test for a few days and I'll be letting you know whether it's better to splurge or save your money.

Birchbox June 2016

This is now that sixth Birchbox that I've received, so that means that I've been officially subscribed for half a year! I have to be completely honest with you and say that I've been really happy with my Birchbox subscription so far. I have really enjoyed the variety products I've received, the option to choose a sample each month, the boxes themselves, and the Birchbox point system. This month's sample choice was the newly repackaged Benefit Gimme Brow which I've never tried before. And I also received a very exciting item in June's box that I had been wanting to try out for the longest time! Clue: It's perhaps the most hyped about hair product within the blogosphere.

Get Ready with Me: Spring Edition

It's the first day of spring and I'm bringing back the Get Ready with Me videos! For this Get Ready with Me I'll be showing you this very easy spring makeup and also styling some frizzy 3rd day hair. While recording and editing this I started thinking of my past Get Ready with Me videos and boy have I improved my videos since then. The first one I ever made was recorded and edited on my iPad mini and it featured one very awkward voiceover. Kind of crazy, huh?

Birchbox March 2016

The March Birchbox is here! This time around I didn't even get to choose any of the samples or the curated box because everything sold out super quickly. Not going to lie, I was a little bummed out that I wasn't able to pick one of the 4 luxe hair samples but maybe that worked in my advantage. This month's box has to be the best Birchbox I've received to date! Not only is the box itself absolutely adorable, but I was super content with the six samples I received. Yes, I got six instead of the usual five.

Blog Sale

I've been wanting to do a blog sale for the longest time because I have so much makeup that I no longer use. A few years back I was all about the bright colors and glittery eyeshadows, which is clearly not my makeup style nowadays. I was debating whether about how to do this blog sale for the longest time since I've heard a lot of bad stories about blog sales in the past. When Poshmark announced that you could now list makeup I immediately jumped on that bandwagon. I've been a Poshmark user for over two years and have sold a lot of my clothing and accessories through the app, which is why I chose it to host my blog sale. I just trust on the app a lot, and there's a few benefits by shopping the blog sale through the Poshmark app that you wouldn't get otherwise.

Ethereal Eyes with Ulta

Say hello to today's model, my mom. When I went to Ulta a few weeks ago, I was originally going to be the one modeling two of their five spring obsessions but I decided to switch things up last minute. My mom is a woman who has lived through many dramatic makeup eras. There was the overly bronzed 70's, the bright eyeshadows in the 80's, and don't forget about the dark lips in the 90's. For her age, my mom looks amazing but she doesn't like stepping out of her makeup comfort zone very much- even if trying something new will make her look more youthful. For that reason I had Angie try out the "ethereal eyes" trend on my mom, and let's just say that she thought she looked "waumaci" (wow + amazing). 

Contouring with Ulta

I'll be the first to tell you that I'm not the best when it comes to contouring. I can bronze up my face without a problem, but defining and creating shadows doesn't come naturally for me. Contouring is one of the biggest trends of 2015, so when Ulta reached out to me about creating a video about one of their five spring obsessions I knew that I wanted to learn how to contour my face. Angie, one of the prestige brand managers in San Diego, guided me along my contour journey and showed me how to contour with both cream and powder products. Let's just say that I'm no longer intimidated by a little contouring.

Face of the Day | Copper and Green

You already saw the outfit I wore on this day, now I'm going to be showing you my makeup. I got the LORAC Pro Palette a few weeks ago after hearing about for over a year on YouTube. It was one of those products that looked very nice but I felt like I didn't need in my life. That was until I got a coupon from Ulta that allowed me to get the palette for a discounted price so I was like "why not?" Now I'm super glad that I made that purchase because so far I've been loving that palette. On this occasion I decided to play with two of the warmer shades in the palette to create a copper shade that provided the nicest contrast to a forest green sweater.

Neutral Valentine's Day Look

Valentine's Day makeup usually feature red lips and rosy cheeks but this is no ordinary Valentine's Day look. As you may know I've been a fan of neutrals for a while, but recently my love for neutrals has reached an all-time high. You may recognize this makeup look if you follow me on Instagram because it was the same look that I wore on Christmas Eve. For me this is a perfect look for any occasion because you can wear anything without having to ask yourself "will this go with my outfit?" This makeup tutorial is in collaboration with Betzy of the channel Betzy Carmona so if you want to see a more sultry look for Valentine's Day just go ahead and watch her incredible tutorial. Now let's take out all the neutral makeup from your collection and let's get started.

Face of the Day | Plum Lips

You might be wondering "where were you last week?" If you follow me on Facebook or Twitter then you would that my MacBook Pro was acting up a lot. The trackpad began having problems on Monday and I couldn't do anything with my laptop because the cursor just wouldn't select anything. To top things off my card reader wouldn't let me import pictures, so as you can tell I had an very off week with technology. But being disconnected from the blogging and YouTube world worked wonders on me. For once, I was finally able to rest and think about some great ideas for upcoming posts and videos which has been really tough for me recently. I am happy to say that everything is back to normal with my laptop (thank you Apple!) and I got a new card reader which seems to be working great, so now I'm going to show you a face of the day which was meant to go up last week.

Empty Products #4

Uploading this one blog post took forever! I started off the day like any other day- checking Twitter, listening to music, and getting prepared to upload photo files to my laptop when disaster struck. Once I inserted my DSLR's USB cord both my MacBook Pro and power cord just died on me. Since I'm so freaking attached to my laptop, I started panicking and drove to the Apple Store with no appointment. Thankfully the lovely people at my Apple Store were able to fix it and I've ordered a card reader in case the USB cord is damaged. Now that we have that out of the way, we can begin talking about the beauty products that I've recently finished. Some were great, others were not. If you want a quick-ish (emphasis on the -ish) run through then watch my latest video.

Tutorial | Easy Holiday Look

It's day 3 of holiday week! Today I have a very easy holiday makeup look perfect for a casual Christmas or holiday party. It is a very simple and quick tutorial for those that don't have a lot of time to get ready. I actually worse this to my grandmother's birthday yesterday except I changed the lips so they could match my orange sweater. On Friday I'm going to have a more glam makeup option for those who want to look like a goddess on Christmas.

Berry Lipsticks for Fall

Although it may not feel like fall where I live, it is officially that time of the year when berry and plum hued lipsticks become acceptable in society. Let me be the first one to say that some trends are meant to be broken not followed, but darker makeup just goes hand in hand with cooler climate and longer nights. As a dark lipstick addict it was hard for me to come up with a list, but nevertheless I picked eight of my favorite shades that will make your lips become the envy of everyone.

Disappointing Products #1

There's nothing worse than knowing that you've wasted money on bad products. I try to do my research prior to buying a product but sometimes I just end up giving into the hype. Not all products are bad though, some just simply didn't work out for me. Watch my latest video to find out which products have disappointed me.