Beauty Favorite || Coconut Oil

One of my recent favorite beauty products is also one of the cheapest beauty products I've ever purchased. Readily available for around $7 at most grocery stores, coconut oil has been my savior for the past few months for anything from skincare to haircare. 

Instead of listing the benefits and possible uses for coconut oil here, I suggest you look around online because there are so many! My two favorite uses for coconut oil are: 

1) Nighttime eye treatment - I use coconut oil instead of an eye cream at night and the next morning the skin around my eyes looks sooo plump and hydrated. The oil takes a while to sink into the skin, so it's best as a heavy night treatment, not for under makeup. 

2) Hair mask - I slather a ton of this stuff into the ends of my hair and after I wash it out, my hair feels unbelievably silky. Again, I prefer to use this as a night treatment. After I've slicked my strands with the coconut oil I throw my hair up into a bun to keep it off my face, sleep in it, and wash it out in the morning. I prefer to use a more clarifying shampoo to wash this out because if I don't make sure my hair is nice and clean the ends can feel a bit greasy even after I've washed them...because coconut oil is just that hydrating. 

I should also note that once I finish this jar, I'm planning on buying a jar of virgin coconut oil, which contains all of the proteins and lauric acid that the refining process strips out, and is therefore even better for your skin. The jar of coconut oil that I have is technically only meant to be used for cooking, but I've still had great results. 

P.S. Sorry for the crappy photo. The lighting's not that good because I took the picture at night - I suppose I just had a sudden need to rave about coconut oil...

Review || Sephora Summer Starter Kit

A couple weeks ago Sephora had a deal for Beauty Insiders where you could get their Summer Starter Kit, a 500 point reward, for only 250 points. It just so happened that I had 250 points, so I snatched this little guy up as quick as I could. Unfortunately, this kit is no longer available on Sephora...but I thought I would do a review of each of the individual products because I would be willing to purchase some of these full-size, and others I thought were just so-so. 

I was really excited to try out this Dr. Jart BB Cream because I had never tried a high-end BB cream before. Before this I had only tried the Maybelline Dream Fresh BB Cream (which I actually use a lot on the weekends and every day when I'm at the beach). At first I couldn't decide if I liked the Dr. Jart version, but after a couple uses I decided that it works really well on me as a lightweight base. It looks very natural as long as you don't use too much, and it has the added bonus of SPF 25. I can't say that I have seen any skincare benefits so far though, and it's definitely not a one-shade-fits-all-skintones type of color. I'm on the lighter side of light-to-medium and I wouldn't recommend the shade of this BB cream to anyone with super-pale skin, very tan skin, or dark skin. Another con is that it kind of emphasized any dry patches on my skin. 

I've seen a lot of beauty gurus on YouTube with the Dr. Jart Water Fuse BB Cream, which (of course) makes me want to get my hands on a sample to compare with the Black Label version before I can 100% say I would purchase a full-size of the Black Label. But as it stands now, I'm leaning toward purchasing this after I finish the sample. 

In all honesty I've only tried this Shiseido sunscreen a couple of times so far. I'm planning on saving it for when I have to do more walking outside--right now I'm working in an office and my skin rarely sees the sun, so sun protection is not my #1 priority (Is that bad? That might be bad). But I can say that it didn't feel like anything special...it wasn't particularly lightweight, it wasn't particularly heavy. It just felt like a sunscreen for your face. Rather than purchase a full-size version of this sunscreen, I would rather find a cheaper version at the drugstore or use a makeup primer that contains SPF. 

In my opinion, the sample of the Hourglass Mineral Veil Primer is the star of the Summer Starter Kit show. It literally feels like I'm putting silk on my face when I use it and I only need the tiniest amount to cover my entire face. It's also a nice alternative to the Laura Mercier Radiance Primer for days when I don't want any added sheen from my primer. I will definitely be repurchasing this and I would definitely recommend trying to get your hands on a sample. Just as a side note: the largest size offered at Sephora is a pretty pricy $52, but you can also buy a smaller, $18 bottle that would probably last you a really long time. 

I don't have too much to say about the Lancome Hypnose Star mascara. It was just kind of "meh" for me. I actually used to looove Lancome mascaras and consistently repurchased them...but that was before I discovered the beauty that is Maybelline The Falsies. To be fair, this does make your lashes look nice and long. I didn't think it was very volumizing though. All in all, it wasn't a bad mascara; I just didn't think it was any better than a number of cheaper drugstore mascaras, and it definitely isn't worth the $28 price tag.

I feel like everybody raves about the Anastasia clear brow gel, and Anastasia brow products in general. I was really looking forward to seeing how this measured up to my Maybelline Great Lash in clear (literally the only brow gel I could find at the drugstore). Unfortunately, I was a little bit disappointed. The good this about this brow gel is that it really, really keeps your brows in place throughout the day. I just dislike the crispy, crunchy texture it leaves on my brow hairs. It doesn't bother me that much, but I'm also not impressed enough with this product to pay $22 for a full size.  

I don't have that much to say about the bareMinerals Multi-Wrinkle Repair treatment either. I should probably give it to my mom to see how she likes it -- or maybe I just haven't used it for a long enough period of time. The most interesting thing about this product is that it advertises an "ActiveSoil" complex, and it actually smells like dirt. I'm not saying this is a bad thing; it actually makes me believe the claim that there's some sort of special "soil" ingredient in the treatment. Overall, I don't know if this product is for me, but I would recommend trying it out if you have problems with wrinkles.

Fashion || Midi-Rings

Ever since I started watching The Persian Babe's YouTube channel a few weeks ago (don't know why it took me so long to find her. What have I been doing with my life?), I've been obsessing over the silver midi-rings she wears in all her videos. I think they go with everything and add a little bit of an edge to an outfit without going over the top. I also have a silver hoop in my cartilage piercing and I like that they match that as well.

Barbara (The Persian Babe) got her rings from a website based out of the Netherlands called Fashionology, but her specific rings are no longer available on that website. Regardless, Fashionology's prices were also a little bit steeper than what I am willing to pay for simple silver rings, so I opted for a seller on Etsy. The store name is Serge And Destroy and I bought the Sterling Silver Knuckle Rings in a size 3. To be honest I probably could have done with a 2.5 for at least one of the rings, because a 3 is still a bit loose on my ring finger...but I have very small hands so most people should be fine with a 3 or 3.5.

The most important thing I learned through the online midi-ring search process, though, was that you are supposed to subtract three sizes from your normal ring size. This made sense for me, because the normal size of my middle finger is a 6.

By the way, my nail polish is Essie's Smooth Sailing.

DIY || Vanity Stool

BEFORE

For the past couple of weeks I've been doing DIY project after DIY project because I'm going to be going back to school and moving into a new apartment in a little over a week. First I stained an Ikea bed, then I made a slipcover for an Ikea couch, and repainting my dresser is on the list for this weekend. In between these fairly major projects I slipped in this little guy: the vanity stool "makeover." I'll be posting about my bigger, better projects later on, but I figured I'd start with the simplest one first.  

The reason I wanted to redo my brown vanity stool was because, as you can see, my vanity is white, the drawers I use to store my makeup in are white, and the stool just looks like the little black sheep of my vanity family. I actually used to have the crappy white stool that came with the vanity, but that broke years ago. For a while I was actually considering buying a completely new vanity stool, but I decided against it as stools typically go for about $30 and a can of spray paint only costs $5. (By the way, when I move I'm going to replace my well-worn, plastic Target drawers with the small Alex drawer unit from Ikea. I'm excited.)

AFTER

It took the entire can of spray paint (FYI: I used Rust-Oleum White Lacquer Spray Paint), and my finger felt like it was about to fall off by the time I was done (am I the only one who finds the little spray paint buttons incredibly hard to push?!), but I'm really happy with the final product. The best thing was, it was a super easy project. All I had to do was unscrew the cream-colored seat from the brown legs, and then spray the brown until it was an opaque white. Once it dried it re-screwed the seat on and voila!

The before and after pictures weren't taken at the same angle, but you get the idea. It's just a small change, but I feel like my whole vanity area now looks more like a single makeup station now. 

Healthy Food || Good vs. Bad Peanut Butter

I swear I eat a piece of peanut butter toast almost every day. My mom actually craved peanut butter toast a lot when she was pregnant with me, so I like to think her cravings were somehow passed to me. I'm not sure if that's scientifically possible, but I'm just going to pretend it's true. Anyway, all my life I've been a Creamy Jif girl. I generally try to eat as healthily as possible, but I could never bring myself to give up my regular Jif, even though it's common knowledge that it contains a lot of added sugar and salt.    

That all changed about 3 months ago, when my best friend finally convinced me to make the switch from regular Jif to Jif Natural. It ended up not being that much of a big deal for me, as the two taste extremely similar. The upside of Jif Natural, besides the fact that it's "natural," is that it has about half the sodium of regular Jif and contains more vitamins. Both types, however, contain vegetable oil, and to be honest if you are just going off of the nutrition info and ingredients listed on the jar, it doesn't appear that Jif Natural is that much better for you than Regular Jif. (Which is probably why they taste so similar.) But the point is that it's a step in the right direction for me, right? Maybe one day I'll be able to make my toast with peanut butter made only from peanuts. Baby steps. 

Anyway, the main reason I'm writing this blog post is to point out the huge difference between two peanut butters that might both be perceived as healthy alternatives to regular Creamy Jif. The two contenders for "Healthiest Jif Peanut Butter" are Jif Natural and Reduced Fat Jif. Spoiler alert: Reduced Fat Jif loses. 

Here's what happened. I was making a piece of toast and ran out of Natural Jif halfway through. This was clearly a PB emergency, but luckily I also had some Reduced Fat Jif in my fridge (which my mom had purchased; I feel the need to shift the blame here), so I grabbed that to finish off the toast. But when  I took my first bite, I could immediately tell something was off...the peanut butter just wasn't melting on my toast as it normally does. And the texture was oddly grainy, which is never a good thing. Long story short, I checked the ingredient list on the back of the Reduced Fat Jif, and it turns out the first ingredient is corn syrup solids. What the heck does that mean?! To make matters worse, the second ingredient is sugar. Peanuts are actually not even listed as an ingredient on the jar; just pea protein and I have no clue if that is derived from peanuts or peas. According to the Jif website, their Reduced Fat PB is only 60% peanuts, and the label on the front of the jar claims that the spread has a "Fresh Roasted Peanut Taste." Gross. 

For your reference, here are the links to the nutrition information and ingredients of Regular Jif, Jif Natural, and Reduced Fat Jif. 

Addendum: I know that Jif has also released something called Simply Jif, which (according to the Jif website) contains 1 gram less sugar than Regular and Natural Jif, and 15 grams less sodium! I think I'm going to try this one out next. I clearly care about peanut butter way too much, have you noticed? 

Bottom line: Peanut butter is delicious, and always read the labels of the foods you eat!

Review || Laura Mercier Radiance Foundation Primer

This Laura Mercier Primer was the first makeup primer I've ever tried. I first started wearing foundation about six months ago (before that I just used concealer), and after a few months a saleswomen at Sephora convinced me that I needed a primer to keep my foundation in place all day. I was skeptical at first because, to be honest, the saleswomen's makeup looked like she had caked it on with a spatula. I also didn't feel like my makeup was melting off that much throughout the day...I get small blemishes in my T-zone occasionally, but my skin isn't that oily. 

But of course after a few weeks I got curious, and after I watched this video by Vivianna from Vivianna Does Makeup, I had to add the Laura Mercier Radiance Primer to my beauty wish-list. I ended up buying it during my Spring break; it was around $30 but I've had it for about 4 months and it's still going strong. 

The first day that I used this primer I really noticed a difference in how my foundation looked; it still appeared fresh and my face looked a lot more "perfected" than it normally did. So as far as staying-power, the Laura Mercier Radiance Primer gets a thumbs up from me. 

Now on to the "Radiance" part. I wouldn't ever want to wear this primer alone on my face (unless I only applied it to my cheeks for a dewy glow) because it definitely adds a shine to the areas it's applied. And even though my skin is pretty normal, I still don't want shine on my forehead or chin. However, once you put your foundation or even a BB cream over the primer it looks really nice and creates a dewy finish. You can adjust the dewy-ness of the overall effect by changing up your base. I get a more dewy look to my skin when I use a tinted moisturizer or a BB cream, and a more satin finish with dewy cheeks when I use my Makeup Forever HD Foundation (which I mainly apply to the center of my face). 

Bottom Line: I would recommend the Laura Mercier Radiance Primer to anyone who loves that dewy-skin look. 

Disappointing Products

I love it when bloggers and YouTubers make blog posts and/or videos about the products that disappointed them. I don't like spending my money on crappy products and I'm sure you don't either. The thing is, I've probably spent tons of money in the course of my life on various products that didn't live up to their claims...so consider this blog post a cautionary tale.

CVS Eye Makeup Remover Wipes

I probably wear some form of eye makeup every day. Once the day turns to night, though, I need to take off my makeup so I can hit the pillow au naturel. This means that eye makeup removers are an essential part of my makeup and skincare regimen. I don't have the money (or the desire, to be honest) to test out high-end makeup wipes or cleansing balms, so I typically scour the drugstore for different makeup removal wipes so I can figure out which kind I like best. 

The CVS Eye Makeup Remover Wipes definitely do not win the title of "Best Drugstore Makeup Remover." These CVS wipes are supposed to be a knockoff of these Neutrogena wipes, and are packaged similarly. I've never tried the Neutrogena version, but if they're anything like the CVS version I don't want to. There are two main problems with these wipes.

First, they're not "ultra-soft pads." The container is lying to you. The first time I used these my eyes hurt and felt like something had been rubbing them much more abrasively than the eye area should be rubbed. In the photo above, you can see that one side of the pad has little cotton nubbins that are great for exfoliating your face and removing your foundation...but I would not recommend using that side for your eyes. Note: I used the opposite, nubbin-less side to remove my eye makeup, but it still felt very rough. The second problem with this product is that all of the makeup removing liquid is pooled at the bottom. This means that the first couple of wipes were extremely dry to the point of being useless. On the other hand, the last couple of wipes were dripping with more remover than two eyes would ever need. 

Seche Vite Top Coat

I've repurchased the Seche Vite Top Coat multiple times. I love that it dries quickly and makes your nails super glossy...but I'm not afraid to say it. For all the hype Seche Vite gets on beauty blogs and YouTube channels, it's just not the best top coat out there. In some ways, it's actually pretty terrible. Many people avoid the Seche Vite Top Coat because it contains toluene, which can cause birth defects. In my opinion, the fact that you're only exposed to the toluene for the short amount of time that you're using the polish, and the fact that it evaporates once the polish has dried probably means that Seche Vite is safe to use. But people definitely have different opinions and I would advise a quick Google search on the subject for those who are curious about the different sides of the "Is Seche Vite safe to use?" debate. 

Anyway, my beef with this top coat lies elsewhere. As you can see I'm only about 1/2 to 2/3 of the way done with this particular bottle, and already the polish has become super thick and gloopy. As any nail polish fanatic knows, gloopy top coats do not make for pretty manicures. It's hard to apply, and you have to layer it on a lot if you want it to look smooth. It also causes my nail polish to peel off in one piece only a day or two after I've applied it. This annoys me. I do not have time to constantly repaint my nails because of Seche Vite's BS peeling issue. I don't think I will finish this bottle, and I've already picked up a bottle of the Essie Good To Go Top Coat, which I really like so far.