February Favorites

I feel like it was just yesterday that we were all celebrating New Years and now we're in March already.  WHERE HAS TIME GONE?  Seriously though.  Enough about that let's get onto my February Favorites.  I went back to school in mid-january so since then I've been wearing minimum amount of makeup to go to class, that will explain the little amount of makeup products that I have for this month.

Beauty Favorites

Maybelline The Falsies Flared Mascara:  I did a review on this mascara in a previous post.  I basically raved about how much I LOVE it and I've been using it religiously since then.  Mascara Review.

Maybelline DreamLumi Touch Highlighting Concealer:  Like I previously stated I've been wearing very little makeup this month.  This concealer has been my "foundation" for the last couple of weeks.  When going to class I really don't feel like wearing my higher end foundations so I just wear this under my eyes and the problem areas of my face.  Then I set it with my MAC Mineralize Skinfinish which also gives me a little bit more coverage.  I really do like this concealer, it does the job.  I will be repurchasing this again.  

L'oreal After Hours Nail Polish:  I also did a post on this polish,  I feel like this is the perfect dark shade for year round.  I find myself wearing this constantly.

Up & Up Nail Polish Remover:  I bought this from Target recently and it's an acetone remover.  As much as I love painting my nails, I wouldn't switch up colors as often because I would hate to remove my nail polish since it would take forever, specially when using dark shades.  Now with this acetone remover it's SO EASY removing nail polish, you just dip your finger in the container and it's gone.  I'm constantly changing up my nail color now.  

Boots Expert Anti-Blemish Cleanser:  Oh how I wish I lived in the UK, so I could be able to buy from all the different beauty brands that they have available.  I bought this from Target since they have a few (probably like 2 or 3) British brands available.  This foaming cleanser I find it very similar to the foaming cleanser by Clinique.  I used the Clinique cleanser like two years ago when I had really bad acne, and it really did help A LOT with clearing up the acne I had.  I find the Boots cleanser as a pretty good dupe for the Clinique cleanser.  It has been clearing up the few acne issues I have at the moment.

Boots Expert Sensitive Gentle Refreshing Toner:  I love this for removing my makeup (except eye makeup) and then after I use the foaming cleanser that I mentioned above to wash my face. 

When I watch or read other's favorites I always enjoy it when they mention other things that aren't beauty related.  Since this is my first favorites post I thought it would be a good idea to show you other things that I have been enjoying this past month. 

Music

One Way Or Another by One Direction:  One Direction made a cover of this song for the official single of Comic Relief.  All the proceeds of this song go to Comic Relief which is a charity that helps those in need in Africa & the UK.  I really like how they added their own special twist to the song.

Champagne Supernova by Oasis:  This song links to one of my favorite t.v. shows for this month.  All I will say is that Arnold Peters made me rock out to this song.  I hope at least one person reading this knows what I'm talking about.

Mirrors by Justin Timberlake:  I first heard this song when JT performed it at the Brit Awards.  I've never really been a fan of his but I fell in LOVE with this song when I saw him perform it.  The lyrics are beautiful and I must say Jessica Biel is one lucky girl.

T.V. Shows

Scrubs:  I have been OBSESSED with this show, it's all I've been watching on Netflix for the past few weeks.

My Mad Fat Diary:  A British t.v. show which is based on the book "My Fat, Mad Teenage Diary" by Rae Earl.  I found out about this show through the many GIF's that were going around in my tumblr timeline.  The series follows teenage Rae as she recently was released from a psychiatric hospital, after she attempted to hurt herself.  It's so upsetting that series one only has six episodes.  I'm now anxiously waiting for series two.  Since this show is only aired in the UK, I watched all of the episodes on Youtube if anyone outside of the UK is interested. Champagne Supernova was played on the series finale.

What were your favorites for the month of February?

Thank You for Reading!

KISS ME ON MY TULIPS

I'm not the type of person that likes to go by the rules. Meaning, "Oh you can't wear this certain color because it's not Spring/Summer/Winter/Fall."
I don't care! For example this bright fuchsia pink most people would say is a spring or summer color. It's Winter right now and I'm wearing a super bright color. I like to wear whatever I'm in the mood for, one day I can be wearing a super dark polish and the next day I'm wearing a super bright polish. 
Specially in winter it can be really helpful to incorporate a touch of color to your wardrobe, nails, etc. as it can help brighten up your mood, eliminating those winter blues.

Kiss Me On My Tulips (the name is SO freaking ADORABLE) is the current nail polish I'm wearing at the moment. I'm in love with this shade of pink!!
Sorry I'm not the best hand model!


Thank You For Reading!

LIEBSTER AWARD

The Liebster Award is given to up and coming bloggers who have less than 200 followers. It's a great way for new and undiscovered bloggers to meet new people, get more followers and find blogs that they want to follow.

I want to say a massive THANK YOU to Nini Kat for nominating me for this award. I've seen this award going around since I started blogging but thought I had a LONG way to go before I got nominated for any sort of award. So I was shocked to learn that I had been nominated by Nini Kat so early in my blogging "career." So thank you once again!

The Rules:

1. List 11 facts about yourself

2. Answer the 11 questions asked by the blogger who nominated you

3. Ask 11 new questions for the bloggers you nominate

4. Choose bloggers with less than 200 followers to nominate

5. Let everyone know they've been picked

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

11 Facts About Me

1. I live in New York but I was born in California. I've been living in N.Y. since I was 8, I'm now 20

2. I first started really wearing make-up when I was 17 years old, I probably only wore mascara before then

3. Currently I'm obsessed with watching the show Scrubs, I started watching it on Netflix 2 weeks ago, I'm in the middle of season 3 now

4. I absolutely LOVE One Direction

5. I'm the youngest of four siblings

6. I LOVE COFFEE, I get headaches if I don't drink coffee during the day

7. Everything that I know about make-up I've learned it through YouTube

8. One of my fears is aging, what I mean by that is getting old to the point where I can't do anything for myself & have to be depending on others for my basic needs

9. The #1 song in my iTunes Top 25 is The Writer by Ellie Goulding, with 485 plays, I absolutely LOVE all of her music

10. I didn't go to my senior prom & I don't regret it to this day, contrary to people telling me that I would if I didn't go

11. I LOVE Italian food & Sushi

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

11 Questions from Nini Kat

1. How did you come up with the name of your blog? My name is Karla but my cousin called me Karly and the name just stuck with me, Michelle is my middle name. And the M is for my last name. You know how Beyonce has Sasha Fierce  well Karly is my thing.

2. What's your favorite ice cream flavor? Chocolate or Cookie Dough

3. What age would you go back to, if you could? I'm the type of person that looks forward to the future, I don't like to dwell on about the past

4. Who's your style icon? Taylor Swift, her style is simple & chic

5. If you won $1000 to shop in one website, where would it be? TOPSHOP

6. What's your most hated fashion trend? I don't think I have one

7. Would you have more fun designing shoes or clothes? Neither

8. Would you rather fight a horse sized duck or 100 duck sized horses? MIND FUCKED!! But umm a horse size duck

9. What's your favorite website to pass time on? YouTube

10. Favorite Blogger or Youtuber? I have 3 of them Sammi, Estée, & Zoella. They all have blogs & Youtube channels.

11. Do you feel the weather where you love gets in the way of your outfit choices? YES, considering the fact that we just had 2ft of snow this past weekend in N.Y. and we're expecting more in the next few days. So it's not like I can go out wearing shorts and sandals at the moment

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

My Questions for Nominees

1. What inspired you to start blogging?

2. Favorite Blogger or a Blogger that inspires you?

3. Beauty product you can't live without?

4. If you could live anywhere in the world, where would you choose to live in?

5. Favorite song of all time?

6. If you could have any celebrity's wardrobe, who would you choose? 

7. Favorite holiday?

8. Favorite food?

9. Favorite place to shop at?

10. If you could have dinner with someone dead or alive who would it be?

11. Celebrity crush?

MY Nominees:

1. Shelbey

Besides having her own blog Shelbey also has a YouTube channel, so check both of them out. She has awesome makeup tutorials! & a really likable personality!

2. Samuel James Morris

His blog is one of my all time favorites, go check him out. Trust me you wont regret it!! 

I had a hard time choosing blogs to nominate since I'm still new to this and most of the blogs that I follow have over 200 followers, trust me there's a lot of other blogs that I enjoy reading but the purpose of this award is to nominate people with less than 200 followers.

MAYBELLINE THE FALSIES FLARED

I know, I know I'm late jumping on the bandwagon for the oh so famous falsies mascara.  This mascara is probably the MOST POPULAR talked about drugstore mascara in the beauty community.  I bought this mascara at the end of December and just recently like four days ago decided to take it out of its packaging and try it out for the first time EVER.  Why has it taken me this long to finally try it out since I've bought it?  I've just been enjoying using my Benefit They're Real Mascara.  As much as it's talked about I never saw the hype around it nor did I feel the need to go out and buy it.  Boy do I regret not buying this mascara so long ago. 

My first impression when I opened the tube and saw the mascara wand "hmm this wand kind of reminds me of the Mega Plush Mascara."  So I instantly  thought I was gonna hate it.

                                             (top wand: the falsies. bottom wand: mega plush)

 A little background on the Mega Plush Mascara: I HATE IT!! Buying the Maybelline Mega Plush Mascara was my first time ever buying a Maybelline mascara and lemme tell you I was DISAPPOINTED with this mascara.  I only bought it because it was what was "POPULAR" in the beauty community when it was released.  All the beauty guru's on Youtube were obsessing over it saying how AMAZING it was,  so of course since I'm a mascara hoarder I had to go out and buy it.  All the hype behind this mascara was that the it had a flexible wand, meaning that you could bend it in many different ways that you wanted.  Also it was Maybelline's first ever gel-mousse mascara.  If I'm being honest the only reason I purchased this mascara was because of it's packaging,  the teal and hot pink tube. What can I say I'm a sucker for cute packaging on makeup products!

The Mega Plush didn't do anything for my lashes.  I have naturally long lashes,  and this mascara didn't do my lashes justice.  Maybe it's because of the brush but when I apply the mascara my lashes end up looking really messy and they get stuck together or clumpy when I  try and move the wand around my lashes.  Also after you apply it and your lashes dry they start to feel flaky. And f.y.i.  Maybelline advertises this mascara saying that it won't get flaky.  WRONG MAYBELLINE!  I don't think I've ever hated a mascara as much as I hate this one.

My first impression when I applied the falsies flared mascara was "O M G" I was literally speechless. With just one coat it separated my lashes so well, and gave them so much  length and volume.  Then I went on to apply another coat, so basically I only applied two coats of mascara and I was fully satisfied with the way they looked.  My lashes look AMAZING with just two coats of mascara.  I'm usually one that likes to wear at least two different mascaras to feel satisfied with the way they look, but for the past few days the falsies has been the only mascara I've been wearing and I'm VERY HAPPY with the results I've been getting from it.  This has definitely become one of my favorite mascaras!

My eyelashes WITHOUT mascara.

My lashes after applying two coats of the falsies mascara!!

If you have never tried this mascara before I DEFINITELY RECOMMEND you do!!

I really want to try out the new Maybelline Volume Express The Rocket Mascara, have any of you tried it out if so what are your thoughts on it??

Thank you for reading I know I've rambled on a lot in this post sorry!!

M.A.C.

So this past weekend I took a trip down to M.A.C. because I was on the hunt for a lipstick that I've heard a lot of good things about recently. The lipstick I was looking for was Brick-O-La, needless to say I didn't buy it. But I did buy a few other items.

I only got three things. I bought Woodwinked eyeshadow, Amorous lipstick, and a four eyeshadow palette.

Woodwinked eyeshadow.

This is one of M.A.C's most popular eyeshadows & I'm so happy that I finally bought it because it's such a gorgeous color. The M.A.C. website describes this as a warm antique gold. I describe it as a warm bronzy shade.

Amorous lipstick.

Like I said earlier I went into M.A.C. hoping to buy Brick-O-La after reading amazing reviews from Estee (EssieButton) but after trying it on I wasn't too pleased about it. So I browsed through the rest of the lipsticks and found Amorous (satin finish), this is a deep pink/cranberry color. I'm absolutely in LOVE with this lipstick.

I also bought this four eyeshadow palette. Originally I went in hoping to buy the fifteen eyeshadow palette but they were all sold out, I would order it from their website but they are also sold out. So I settled for this. I plan on depotting my other M.A.C. eyeshadows and placing them on here as well as woodwinked. 

Swatches of Woodwinked and Amorous.

Do you have any recommendations of eyeshadows or lipsticks I should try out next time I go to M.A.C. if so let me know down below in a comment!

Thank you for reading.

KarlyMichelleM

Most Used MakeUp Brushes

Besides makeup being my first true love/obsession my second love would definitely have to be makeup brushes. I personally don't like applying makeup such as foundation with my bare hands, I've tried to but just never liked the feeling of it. So brushes are a MUST have for when I'm applying makeup. I don't have a massive brush collection but it's decent. There are some brushes that I use more than others on a daily basis. The following brushes that I will be showing you down below are probably my favorite brushes that I always use no matter what I am doing with my makeup.

Top to bottom:

Sigma Flat Top Synthetic Kabuki F80 & Sigma Flat Angled Synthetic Kabuki F88: Both retail for $18 or you can get them in a set. I've had both brushes for a little bit over a year now and I've been in love with them ever since. Both brushes are AMAZING for applying liquid foundation, even though I do prefer the F80 a little bit more over the F88. They blend out & buff your foundation to a flawless finish. They're really soft and dense. I've never had them shed thus far. These two brushes are the only brushes I ever use to apply foundation both serve & give equal results. I never use your typical foundation brush, the F80 and F88 are my "holy grail" brushes to apply foundation.

Sigma F50 Duo Fibre: This brush retails for $20. I really like this brush for applying blush, it gives me a natural and blended out look to my cheeks. It picks up just enough product without making you look like a clown. 

E.L.F. Stippling Brush: Retails for $3. This stippling brush is way less dense than the sigma F50. I also use this brush for applying blush when I want a hint of color to my cheeks but not too noticeable. I've read some reviews on the elf website where people say that they use this brush for applying foundation, I've never tried doing that since I don't feel like it's dense enough for it to buff out my foundation.

E.L.F. Kabuki Face Brush: This a really inexpensive kabuki brush, retails for $6. Amazing quality, really soft & dense. I always use this kabuki brush to apply setting powder after I've applied foundation. I would really recommend this brush. And I've had it for almost two years and it's going strong for the price that it was. I've barely had any shedding from it. LOVE this brush.

Sigma Tapered Blending E35 ($12) & Sigma Blending E25 ($10): I absolutely LOVE both of these brushes. Both do as they say, they blend out eyeshadow but they are absolutely amazing if you have small eyes like I do. They get into your crease and blend out eyeshadow like no other. The E25 is also great for applying eyeshadow all over the lid, as you can see I have two of them a regular size and a travel size brush.

Sigma E05 Eye Liner ($10): Here I'm showing you a bright pink travel size version of it, I also have the regular size. This is my favorite brush for applying gel liner. It's so easy to use and apply gel liner, makes a great winged out look.

I know a lot of people LOVE the Real Technique brushes and trust me I plan on getting some of them SOON. Hope you enjoyed this post.

What are your favorite makeup brushes?? Tell me down below in a comment!!

Thank you.

KarlyMichelleM

FOTD: DARK SIDE

For today I thought I would do a little "Face of The Day" kind of post. This is the makeup I wore today on a lazy sunday afternoon, hence the fact that I woke up around 2 in the afternoon. What can I say I LOVE to sleep. For this look I wanted to keep it simple in the eyes and face but go all out on my lips. Excuse my ungroomed eyebrows, its been like a month since I've got them waxed!!

Products Used

-Urban Decay Naked Skin Foundation

-Rimmel Stay Matte Powder

-Urban Decay Eyeshadow Primer Potion

-UD Eyeshadows in Naked (all over lid) & Buck (crease)

-L'oreal Voluminous Million Lashes Mascara

-Benefit They're Real Mascara

-Maybelline Dream Lumi Touch Concealer

-NARS Blush in Dolce Vita

-MAC Lip Pencil in Currant

-MAC LipStick in Dark Side

Hope you enjoyed this post! Any questions please feel free to leave them down below in a comment & I'll get back to you! 

Thank you.

KarlyMichelleM

After Hours

In a previous post I mentioned that I had purchased this nail polish by L'oreal in color #550 After Hours. This was my first time buying a L'oreal nail polish so I didn't know what to expect from it. The first thing I noticed when I opened the bottle was the smell. Like all nail polish it had the smell they all usually have, with this particular bottle the smell was really strong. I'm fairly used to the smell of nail polish but the smell of this nail polish is just SO strong I felt the need to tell you all. Besides the smell I'm quite pleased with this nail polish, with just one coat it applies as it looks in the picture. This is not black as it might look from the bottle, it's a navy blue off black (I'm awful at describing colors). I feel like this is a nail color that I will be wearing all year long not just in the winter time.

This definitely has become one of my favorite nail colors for this year so far. 

Sorry for not posting in the last few days but I came down with the flu and had absolutely no energy for anything. I'm slowly getting better now.

Thank You.

KarlyMichelleM

Review: Kate By Rimmel

I recently purchased a lipstick from the Kate By Rimmel line. I've seen these lipsticks a lot around the web but never really cared for them much. I was at Target browsing around the makeup section and came across the Kate Moss lipsticks, once I saw that they retailed for about $4.99 they instantly called my attention. I browsed through the selection of colors they had available and decided to purchase color # 01, a bright red.

Kudos to cute packing.

First impressions:

• Applies really easy and true to color. I would recommend you apply a lipliner because it can bleed through a little.
• Smells really good, almost like candy.
• Stays put through out the day, I applied it on at around 3pm and didn't remove till 11pm.  Only needed the occasional touch up after eating & drinking.
• Doesn't dry out your lips but you should always apply a lip balm before applying any sort of lip color.

When ever I wear this lipstick I always get complimented on how a pretty color it is. If you haven't already checked out the Kate By Rimmel lipsticks I would definitely recommend you do so because they are so worth the price and the quality of the lipstick is amazing.

If you have any questions please let me know down below in a comment. Thank you.

-KarlyMichelleM