What's in my purse makeup bag?

My purse makeup essentials!

- Sephora Mineral Makeup compact
- Too Faced Pink Leopard mini compact
- Too Faced Flat Kabuki Brush
- Dior Addict Gloss in Draped Lilac (Nordstrom LE)
- Too Faced Lipstick Lip of Luxury in Free Love
- Too Faced Glamour Gloss in Peek-a-Boo
- Tory Burch sunglasses fabric case
- Sephora hairband

Pre-Fall Fav Look #3!

I've dubbed this one the "Dior look"....

Makeup products used:
- Bare Escentuals Foundation & Mineral Veil
- Bare Escentuals Foundation & Full Face Brushes
- Dior Awakening Blush
- Too Faced Pink Leopard bronzer
- Too Faced Candlelight highlighter
- Dior Golden Savannah eyeshadow palette
- Urban Decay Sin eyeshadow
- Dior Wild lipstick
- Dior Addict Gloss #157
- Diorshow Mascara
- Fairy Drops Scandal Queen mascara
- Ulta Charcoal eyeliner

Favorite Pre-Fall Makeup Looks #1 & #2

Two of my favorite looks for the early months of Fall 2012!

Look #1 includes items from MAC Cosmetics, Dior, & Too Faced:

Full product list:
- Prime Time Primer
- Amazing Cosmetics Concealer
- Make Up For Ever HD Foundation in 110
- Bare Escentuals Mineral Veil to set
- NARS Mata Hari blush
- Too Faced Pink Leopard bronzer
- MAC eyeshadows: Vanilla, Naked Lunch, Era, & Satin Taupe
- Dior Extreme Addict Lipstick in Bow Cherie
- Dior Addict Gloss in 157
- Cover Girl Lash Blast Mascara

Look #2 includes items from Urban Decay, MAC Cosmetics, & Chanel:

Full product list:
- Bare Escentuals Prime Time Primer
- Amazing Cosmetics Concealer
- Chanel Vitalumiere Aqua Compact in Beige Rose 22
- Sigma F80 Flat Kabuki Brush
- MAC Cosmetics Mineralized Skinfinish in Medium
- Bare Escentuals Full Face Brush
- Too Faced 'Who's your Poppy?' blush
- Sonia Kashuk blush brush
- Too Faced Pink Leopard bronzer
- Too Faced Teddy Bear Hair blush brush
- Too Faced Candlelight Highlighter
- Sephora fan brush
- Urban Decay Naked 2 Eyeshadow Palette: Bootycall, Suspect, Tease, & Snakebite
- Sonia Kashuk eyeshadow brush
- Urban Decay lid primer
- MAC Cosmetics lipstick in Patissiere
- MAC Cosmetics lip glass in Evolution Revolution

July favorites!

All of my favorites from the month of July!

Dior Fall 2012 Swatches

Here are a few swatches (be forewarned, I'm not the best at swatching!) of the Dior Fall 2012 Golden Savannah eyeshadow palette...

Four Golden Savannah eyeshadow colors in the order they appear in the palette:

With the fifth highlighting color in the center, I feel like it is extremely glittery... I don't know that I will use this particular color much:

And some close up pictures of the Dior lipsticks as well... love these colors!

Wild lipstick, from the Fall 2012 Collection:

And some recent purchases... Extreme lipstick in Cherie Bow, and Addict lipsticks in Palace & Pink Cherie:

Dior Summer & Fall 2012 Makeup Haul!

I was super excited about the Fall 2012 Dior collection, so I decided I needed to get to Nordstrom's ASAP to look at the items in person... Sure enough, they are gorgeous and saturated taupe-y neutrals - perfect for a crisp Fall day when you just want to toss a cardigan & scarf on before you go... I do love my neutrals.

Also a few fun lipsticks for summer caught my attention, my favorite being Dior's Palace - a gorgeous Coral color that has just enough color without being over the top!

Shown:
- Dior Fall 2012 Golden Savannah Eyeshadow Palette
- Dior Fall 2012 Wild lipstick
- Dior Palace lipstick
- Dior Bow Cherie lipstick
- Dior Pink Cherie lipstick

Current Nail Polish Collection & Storage

It was requested that I share my current nail polish and how I store it in a You Tube video. I'm showing my collection in two videos, the first just a general overview - and the second video will be a more in-depth look at my Zoya collection, which is my favorite brand.

May Favorites!

Some of my favorite products from the month of May!

I'm so excited that I finally found a new vanity to meet my needs! It is the Hamilton desk from Target, I love the details on the sides and that it has one large drawer for extra storage and will be sharing a more in-depth look at my new vanity organization in a future blog post. I moved my handbag storage into my closet, so I am also re-doing my closet organization right now and found some great items at the Container Store to help with the organization. I'm loving the closet organizers in the Como print.

Como Handbag Storage Bin, www.containerstore.com, $21.99

Other favorites of mine from the month of May include:

- Marc Jacobs "Daisy" perfume: I originally wasn't wild about this when I first purchased it back in the winter... but I'm loving it now that it is warmer out.
- Too Faced Natural Eye palette: Just as the name suggests... perfect natural daytime eye looks!
- Fairy Drops mascara: Fabulous volume that doesn't smudge and is long-lasting.
- Dior "St. Tropez" nail polish: Beautiful blue for spring.
- Butter London "Slapper": And electric teal color that is definitely a show stopper!
- Zoya "Reagan" & "Lara": Two beautiful pink polishes from the summer collection that are going to get a lot of wear!

Thanks again to Jen from myhousewifelife for the amazing gifts for being a finalist in her contest!

Michigan Shopping Haul!

As a follow-up to my Michigan shopping videos... I wanted to share my Michigan "shopping haul"! We had a great time visiting and I did just a bit of shopping, anticipating that my birthday would be coming up in May. I took a few trips to Sephora, ordered another pair of Tory Burch shoes from Saks Fifth Avenue, and had some fun Zoya polish waiting for me when I got home!

My haul!
Zoya polishes: Lotus, Chloe, Gilda, Rory, Kimber, Zuzu
Dior polish: St. Tropez
Chanel Aqualuminere Compact
Tory Burch Revas in Royal Tan
Sephora: Complexion Kit, Sephora makeup bag, Philosophy Full of Fortune shower gel, Too Faced lipstick in Free Love

I hopefully will be sharing my "birthday haul" in the next week or two, which will be comprised of mostly beauty items!

My perfume collection!

I've had a great time watching perfume collection videos on You Tube lately... so I decided to make my own!

My current perfume collection video:

I've been so into perfumes lately... one of my missions in late 2011 was to find a few great perfumes so that I eventually could find a signature scent. I'm still on the hunt, but have found a few new favorites during my trials.

I decided it would be a bit too much to go through the details notes of each scent in the video, so I'm putting more of the details in my blog post here! Once you start looking at the notes of each scent, I think you can start to see a trend of what type of fragrances I lean towards...

Fragrances shown from the mirrored tray...


- Dior, "Miss Dior Cherie"
Miss Dior Cherie is a floral fragrance, with notes of Italian Mandarin, Egyptian Jasmine, and Patchouli.
- Marc Jacobs, "Oh, Lola!"
Oh, Lola! is described by Sephora as vibrant and flirty, with notes of Raspberry, Vanilla, Peony, Pear, and Cyclaman.
- Chanel, "Chance eau Tendre"
Chance eau Tendre is described as delicant and radiant, with notes of grapefruit, quince, fresh green notes, Jasmine Absolute, and White Musk.
- Juicy Couture, "Viva La Juicy"
Viva La Juicy is a very girly floral scent, with notes of wild berries, mandarins, honeysuckle, gardenia, jasmine, amber, caramel, vanilla, and sandalwood.
- Michael Kors, "Very Hollywood"
Very Hollywood is a seductive floral scent, with notes of mandarin, gardenia, and vetiver.


Fragrances on the dresser tray are...
- Marc Jacobs, "Daisy"
Daisy is a flirty floral scent, with notes of strawberry, violet leaves, ruby red grapefruit, gardenia, violet petals, jasmine petals, musk, vanilla, and white woods.
- Vera Wang "Princess"
Princess is described as a soft oriental scent, with notes of water lily, lady apple, mandarin meringue, golden apricot skin, ripe pink guava, Tahitian flower, wild tuberose, dark chocolate, pink frosting accord, precious amber, forbidden woods, royal musk captive, and chiffon vanilla.
- Sephora, "Hello Kitty"
Sephora's Hello Kitty fragrance is a sweet floral scent, with notes of cassis sorbet, Italian mandarin, apple, magnolia blossom, freesia, orange flower, tonka bean, vanilla, and musk.
- Chanel, "Chance"
Chance is a young floral with notes of white musk, hyacinth, citron, pink pepper, jasmine, fresh vetiver, orris absolute, and amber patchouli.
- Burberry, "Brit"
Brit is a floral oriental scent, that has notes of Italian lime, icy pear, green almond, white peony, sugared almonds, amber, mahogany, vanilla, and tonka bean.
- Dolce & Gabanna, "Light Blue"
Light Blue is a sexy floral with notes of Sicilian citron, bluebell, granny smith apple, jasmine sambac, bamboo, white rose, cedarwood, amber, and musk.
- Emporio Armani, "She"
She is a floral oriental with notes of angelica, cardamom, bergamot, mandarin, heliotrope, vanilla, cedar, and musk.
- Vera Wang, "Sheer Veil"
Sheer Veil is a white floral, with notes of champagne rose, lavender dream rose, violet, white stephanotis, gardenia, and white lily. Perfect for any wedding day! 
- Sample size Bond No. 9, "Madison Square Park"
Madison Square Park is a fun floral fragrance, with notes of grape hyacinth, huckleberry, prairie dropseed grass, red leaf rose, red hunter tulips, and teakwood.


What I'm lusting after....
- Bond No. 9, "Madison Square Park"
- Gucci, "Guilty"

Fragrance note information courtesy of Sephora.com and Bond No. 9 blog.

It's Leap Year Wednesday!

Okay, so I did have pink polish on today... but it wasn't picture worthy because it is chipping and I haven't had time to redo it. I have on Zoya Brie though, which is a gorgeous, creamy deep pink. Pictures will be posted eventually... once I have decent nails again.

I did a fun video for Leap Day though, kind of a "I just wanna talk about whatever I wanna talk about"... and did a video on Sephora free gifts and beauty insider rewards. I also showed the 100 point Dior gift that I received back in January and hopefully will eventually have 500 points saved up sometime in 2012 to get the Dior 500 point gift that is a charm bracelet and deluxe perfume sample.

Hope everyone had a great Leap Day! It was cute that all of the birthdays on Sprout today were for 4 year olds!

My Sephora & Ulta "semi-haul" video ;)

I hate the word haul... but here are some recent purchases that I made in January & February from Sephora, Ulta, & Narscosmetics.com.

Dior Diva Reward Club

I'm a sucker for rewards clubs... I absolutely love them! Sephora's Beauty Insider & VIB program is one of my favorites, but I have a case full of "store loyalty" cards that proves - if it's free and involves some sort of reward... I'm in!

I love the idea of getting something free on a good day - but getting something free as a reward for something you were going to buy anyways is a win-win for me. I stumbled upon the fact that Dior has exactly this sort of program for beauty purchases!

I've used Diorshow mascara for years, and Dior Addict Ultra Gloss lip glosses are also some of my favorites. So when I found out that there was such a thing as a reward program for Dior beauty purchases - made at any authorized retailer (not just at Dior.com) - I was psyched!

How it works is you send in your receipts from any Dior beauty purchases you've made within a 12 month time period (or shorter time period, if you've saved up the appropriate amount of points for the reward you are wanting) and mail the receipts in the the Dior Diva Club redemption center. They send you a free gift based on the amount of points you've accumulated! This seriously has to be one of the best kept beauty reward club secrets ever!

After I found out about the program in December 2011, I sent in a few receipts I had from purchases in 2011 for the 100 point gift. The program redemption form states that you should receive your products within 6-8 weeks, but I found that they had a super quick turn around time and received my free gift a mere two weeks later!

It was presented beautifully in a Dior logo lined box:

The 100 point gift is a deluxe sample gift bag, with deluxe samples of J'Adore perfume, Capture Totale, Diorshow Mascara, and a Dior lipstick mini.

They also have reward levels for 250, 500, 1000, 2500, and 5000 points as well. I'm planning on saving my points up for the 500 point level next - the "Charming Diva" level - which gifts you a Dior charm bracelet and perfume deluxe sample. (Which I've been dying for since I missed the Sephora 500 point gift that was out in November 2011 and sold out in two days while I was off busy having a baby... that was also a Dior bracelet & perfume sample. I'm hoping the Dior Diva gift will be similar.)

I see myself wearing a few extra coats of mascara in the future to work towards getting my 500 points!