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I definitely splurge on makeup. Love Laura Mercier & T. LeClerc for loose powder and Guerlain's Meteorites. I'm hooked on YSL lipsticks and love Lorac and Nars blush. I am not very picky about eyeshadows and will use most anything. For mascara, I use Great Lash.
Skin Care: Wash/tone/moisturize = Origins. Eye cream = MAC. Foundation Primer = Smashbox. In other words, I don't go crazy with prices. I use all the products very sparsely so it all lasts a very long time. I usually end up buying 2 jars of moisturizer yearly - the rest lasts around a year each.
Makeup: MAC for eye liner and shadows, Wet & Wild for eyebrow pencil. Bare Minerals for bronzer (I don't use blush), and Bare Minerals for foundation in the summer, with MAC liquid foundation in the winter.
Body care: There's these kiosks at the malls, usually run by Israeli guys who try to convince you to let them sample their stuff on your nails. They have this amazing hand creme in their kit, and they also sell it seperately. It's mostly natural and smells like fresh-powdered grandmother (it's a fond memory kind of smell, I can't explain it). This stuff is amazing, and I use it on my legs. For my hands I prefer Body Shop's hemp hand creme.
Nail care: I bite my nails. No care at all, though occasionally I'll remember to rub a drop of the shopping mall oil I got with my first tube of hand creme into my cuticles.
Hair care: Last time it was Garnier, the time before was Tresemme. I'll probably switch to Nexxus or Sebastian next time around, depends on what I can get cheap at ACE Beauty when I run low.
Splurges: Futurist foundation by Estee Lauder; day and night-time moisturizers from Clinique; Elizabeth Arden Ceremide Capsules ; Lancome's eye dark eye circle concealer.
Savers: Drugstore powder and blush - Sonja Kushak; Drugstore eye make-up and mascara. Cetophil Cleanser. AHA Product.
You should try learning to do your own hair. I don't know how you prefer it styled but with the right products & tools, I'm sure you could do it yourself. It will take trial and error but once you get it down, it is so worth it. I can afford to get my hair done but I just felt it would be so much better if I could learn to do it myself, not to mention all the money I would save and could use elsewhere. My hair looks just as good as when I went to the salon and its all me. I don't have to worry about appointments being booked up, or my stylist going out of town, or any of the things that come up when you're dependent on a professional for your hair care needs. I can travel anywhere I want and not have to worry about trying to find a stylist, learning to do my own hair was one of the best things I could have done.
If you need a professional for trims/cuts, you can go to a salon school and pay like $8 for a senior student to cut your hair and it will be just as good as a professional cut.
Forgot about the beauty schools. Thanks for the tip.
Splurges: L'Occitane's whitening serum and exfoliater, Elizabeth Arden's Day moisturizer (I swear by this cream), Shiseido's night cream, Chanel's lipsticks
I use a cheaper moisturizer for my neck - anything on discount - L'Oreal, Garnier, Simple...etc
I just recently started using Estee Lauder skin care products including the repair night serum, foam cleaner and skin lotion.
I splurge on VS perfume, primer and lotions.
I get my nails done with gel once in a while.
As for makeup, I wear drugstore makup except my pressed powder is Mac and IMan.
Skin Care: Wash/tone/moisturize = Origins. Eye cream = MAC. Foundation Primer = Smashbox. In other words, I don't go crazy with prices. I use all the products very sparsely so it all lasts a very long time. I usually end up buying 2 jars of moisturizer yearly - the rest lasts around a year each.
Makeup: MAC for eye liner and shadows, Wet & Wild for eyebrow pencil. Bare Minerals for bronzer (I don't use blush), and Bare Minerals for foundation in the summer, with MAC liquid foundation in the winter.
Body care: There's these kiosks at the malls, usually run by Israeli guys who try to convince you to let them sample their stuff on your nails. They have this amazing hand creme in their kit, and they also sell it seperately. It's mostly natural and smells like fresh-powdered grandmother (it's a fond memory kind of smell, I can't explain it). This stuff is amazing, and I use it on my legs. For my hands I prefer Body Shop's hemp hand creme.
Nail care: I bite my nails. No care at all, though occasionally I'll remember to rub a drop of the shopping mall oil I got with my first tube of hand creme into my cuticles.
Hair care: Last time it was Garnier, the time before was Tresemme. I'll probably switch to Nexxus or Sebastian next time around, depends on what I can get cheap at ACE Beauty when I run low.
I know exactly what you're talking about as I was given a sample of it but I didn't like the smell cos it reminds me of a old lady lol. Besides the smell it is a good cream.
I know. It's good, but not spectacular, something you'd expect from an expensive one...
You mean your lashes are naturally nice...? Well, I wasn't blessed with good lashes to begin with and I think medication affects them, too, so I'm always on the look-out for a decent mascara and get the same results. I don't know why it's so hard to make one! Today I found EL Sumptuous Extreme I'd tossed aside. Turned out it wasn't dry and worked somewhat better after removing the excess (too much excess!). That's another thing... Can't anybody friggin figure out how NOT to get all that excess out?!
Also, in my experience, the trial sizes are often different (better) than the full-size mascaras. I wonder what the deal with that is...
I'm not really trying to be sarcastic here, but what in the world is the purpose of getting fake nails looking "like" they're natural...? Can't they just be natural?
My lashes are thick but pale halfway down. So I get the clump problem with a lot of mascaras and have to use a brush or comb or roll excess product out of the brush usually. The elf one of pretty good for not having extra goo. The normal one anyway in the studio line. Haven't tried the waterproof. You may like trying to swipe whatever formula on a clean teddy bear spoolie brush and applying it from that brush instead of the product laden tube's brush. Swipe it light on the spoolie from the product's' brush though. Don't dip it.
note on nails...if I want long ones I have to go fake. My real nails are thin and bend or snap off. No matter what my diet is. I just always had thin nails and fine hair strands (dense but babyfine otherwise I would think it was a nutritional issue)
I don't really have the money to "splurge" on anything right now, but in my normal financial situation I splurge on the following things...
Hair products - I have very thick/coarse, curly, long red hair, so the cheap products just don't work for me. I care less about the shampoo, but for conditioner & after-products I'll easily spend up to $40... favorites being Bumble & Bumble, Ouidad, and Rene Furterer Karite.
Facial products - Again, I can't just use anything, due to having sensitive fair skin. I don't use facial products daily, but when I do it's usually Shiseido with ProActive for spot treatments.
Soap - I don't necessarily splurge, since the products I use are still cheap... but with my allergies, I am quite picky about WHAT is used.
Makeup - Same as above, with probably 90% of my makeup coming from MAC.
As for what I don't splurge on, I'd say things like toothpaste, body wash/spray, deodorant, nail polish (love those Sally Hansen nail color pens!), body powder, etc.
Nails: I get a shellac manicure every 2-3 weeks done with an american tip. It lasts until they take it off, it's much stronger than regular polish and doesn't damage the nails. My nails are my own, natural nails which is a plus.
Hair: Right now I have John Frieda shampoo and cond. as well as a clarifying shampoo (which I use once a week). I also use either S-Factor Smoothing Lusterizer Defrizzer and Tamer in the humid weather and a serum for the winter fly-aways.
Face: Boots #7 and Roc eye cream. I wash my face with Head and Shoulders (recommended by my dermatologist for a skin issue I've been having). Before that I was using oil of olay foaming face wash.
Make-up: Bare Minerals foundation, Clinique bronzer, clinique eye shadows, L'oreal Million Lashes on the top (LOVE this stuff!), Cover Girl Lash Exact for the bottom lashes. I've got tubes and tubes of lip gloss but my favorite one is Vitamin water Lip gloss...which has since been discontinued. There isn't much left either so that will be disappointing!
Skin: Aveno body wash or Bath and Body. I like Bath and Body Body cream in Dark Kiss and use that every day, or Jergens when I don't feel like a lot of scent.
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