Weekly Beauty Tip #20: Mascara guard

Use a plastic spoon as a mascara guard to keep mascara from getting anywhere but your eyelashes when applying.

Review: OCC Lip Tar

Hello lovelies! I hope you are all having a wonderful Thanksgiving! I have a little treat for you tonight, I am waiting for some Black Friday deals on amazon so I thought I would post this review now instead of waiting for the end of next week.

Yesterday on a trip to Sephora my assistant/test model (my friend who helps me out with this blog and acts as my model. You can see her in several pictures on this blog) bought me my very first OCC lip tar. I have been looking at these for a very long time online and I was very excited that I was able to finally try it out.

I got it in the shade of Anime, this is the perfect shade for me. Not only is it a beautiful bright pink color  (I love bold lip colors) but I am also very into anime.

This is how the product was packaged. It comes in a very handy plastic pouch along with a mini lip brush. I really love the packaging, it is super easy to transport and contains everything you need to apply it except a mirror. The tube is small, it seems too small but it isn't at all. It is the perfect size and I will get into why later on in this review.

Here are some better views of the product and the brush:

 

 There is a little guide showing you how to use the product as well. It is extremely useful if you have never tried a lip tar before. 

Now onto the product itself. I completely get all of the hype. This is an amazing lip product. The consistency is creamy when it goes on and it dries soft and matte. It is very lightweight, you will forget that it's actually there. The pigmentation is awesome and very bold. The lasting power is amazing and so much better than I expected. I put it on this morning, ate and drank at Thanksgiving dinner and it is still in tact!

When you use this product, only use the very tiniest bit. There is so much pigmentation that you do not need much product. It is very trial and error with the lip tars. Make sure not to use too much, you can always add more easier than you can subtract. OCC's website ( http://www.occmakeup.com) says that if you use the amount of this product that you would with a traditional lip gloss, it will be enough to paint your entire face. They aren't joking either. I cannot stress enough that you should use the tiniest bit. If the product  bleeds or feathers, you have used too much. Even though this tube is little, you use the smallest amount of product so it will last a long time. 

To use the OCC lip tar gently squeeze the smallest amount of product onto the brush it comes with and paint your lips from the center out. The brush itself I thought was great. It made application more precise and easy. After you are done, wash your brush ASAP. Otherwise you will have a very hard time cleaning it off. I also recommend applying a moisturizing lip balm before applying and allow it to sink into your lips a bit.

Here is what Anime looks like on my lips, it is more neon in person:

 

Overall I am in love with this product! It is definitely worth the price. It also comes in so many different shades and OCC continues to debut new ones. You can now purchase this at Sephora in store or online. When I went to my local Sephora they only had 4 shades available, there are many more online. You can also purchase them from OCC's own website (listed above). I know I will definitely be getting many more of these!

Review: Seche Restore

It's no secret, I am a nail polish fiend. My love for nail polish and need to have many different colors is almost as bad as my lipstick obsession. I, like many others have run into the problem of my favorite nail polish going goopy and making it completely unusable. Luckily, I never threw them away and I was lucky enough to stumble upon a miracle product: nail polish thinner. Nail polish thinner is made to thin out those old, goopy polishes. If you start to use nail polish thinner, you may never have to throw out a bottle of nail polish again. This will also save you a ton of money and headache trying to find and purchase all of your favorite nail polishes again. This is something ever nail polish junkie needs.

Seche Restore is one of these nail polish thinners. I got it for a very decent price on amazon and it had great reviews. It comes in a box like this:

Inside of the box is the bottle of nail polish thinner, in a bottle with a screw on cap and a glass dropper.

It is a fairly decent sized bottle which really impressed me when I first opened it. I would recommend keeping this in the original box between uses so that the eye dropper doesn't get lost or broken. Overall I like the packaging, it is nice and it isn't too bulky.

Although I do not have pictures of the process, I can indeed tell you that this does work. It is fairly easy to use. Start with 2-3 drops of the thinner in a nail polish that needs thinning. The packaging directions tell you to roll the bottle. I recommend shaking it as hard as possible. You need the thinner to get mixed really well. Keep adding a little at a time and shaking until you have the desired consistency. I say a little at a time because if you put in too much, it's very hard to fix.

I used this on all of my goopy nail polishes. I used it on a range of brands such as OPI, China Glaze and Sally Hansen. It made one of my 6 year old OPI nail polishes like new. You may run into some trouble if you have glitter saturated polishes that are very goopy. I ran into this problem with another OPI polish.

When you go to use one of the nail polishes that you have thinned out, make sure you shake it well before using it to make sure that everything is mixed up together. You can also add a few more drops later on.

Over all, this is a great product, it really does work. I think every girl that uses nail polish should own this.

Weekly Beauty Tip #19: Thicker, longer lashes

If you want thicker, longer and stronger eyelashes apply vaseline to your eyelashes (make sure you get it on the base of them) every night.

Weekly Beauty Tip # 18: Create a new and unique nail polish color

Since I've been doing some nail tips lately and people seem to really like them, I thought I would stick with that for this week's tip. It is entirely possible to create your own nail polish color. How? Mix eyeshadow with clear nail polish. This works best if you use loose pigments rather than pressed shadows.

Weekly Beauty Tip #17: Fixing goopy, old nail polish

Don't throw away old nail polish! No matter how goopy and unworkable it is there is a way to fix it. Simply get nail polish thinner and your old nail polishes will be good as new.This will save you money since you don't have to go and buy all new nail polishes.

You use nail polish thinner by adding drop by drop until nail polish is the consistency that you would like it. Make sure you mix it up, a good way to do that would be to roll the bottle back and forth between your hands.

There are so many brands of nail polish thinner that it can be hard to choose. I would recommend using OPI Lacquer Thinner or Seche Restore (Top Coat and Laqcuer Restoration Thinner)




(Images from amazon.com)

Both of these have great ratings. OPI is the leader in quality nail polish with a trusted quality with all of their products. Seche Restore has just as great reviews and it comes with a dropper so you can control the amount you put in a bottle of nail polish.

I have ordered a bottle of the Seche Restore, I have a few nail polishes that really need thinning. I will be doing a review of this when I finally recieve it, after I use it.

A little note I think I should add: It doesn't matter what the brand of nail polish thinner, you can use it on any nail polish. You don't need to run out and get a certain thinner for each brand. Any brand that you chose should work with any brand.

Weekly Beauty Tip # 16: Ways to dry nails faster

Here are some tips you can use to help wet nail polished nails dry faster.

- Spray wet nails with a light coat of Pam cooking spray

- Let nails air dry  a little then put your nails into a bowl of ice cold water for 2-5 minutes. I use this method a lot and it does work if the water is cold enough and you leave your nails in long enough.

- Use a blow dryer or nail dryer

- Use a specially formulated quick dry spray/coating. I recommend using Sephora by OPI's quick dry spray.