MAKEUP!

Hi all! As Jesse would tell you, I've gone a little makeup crazy lately, and I'm loving it! Him, not so much. I thought I would show you some of my awesomely cool makeup finds for the eyes. First off are the Stila Smudge Pot gel eyeliner trio, in bronze, gray, and black:

Next up are the Fluidline gel eyeliners by MAC. The colors going left to right, and up to down, are Silverstroke, Macroviolet, Brassy, Sweet Sage, and Blacktrack.

Next up are some gel liners from Coastal Scents, and the one on the far left is by Lola.

The colors on my hand, left to right are Coastal Scents colors: 24K Gold, Gold Bliss, Grapevine, Feline, Exotic, and Summer Fun. The Lola color is called Fiji.

So, for the gel liners, I am really getting into these. With regular liquid liners, I find that they tend to pull on my eyes as they dry, and some of them flake like crazy. And with pencils, they don't seem to stay long or they end up transfering to my eyelid.

These new gel liners, they have amazing staying power! Seriously, sometimes it's almost a pain in the butt to get them off, because they are water resistant.You can use these gel liners as an eyeshadow base as well, to make the eyeshadow you place on top *pop* with color. I really love the Stila bronze color, and the MAC Sweet Sage. They are both dual colors, in that the bronze is a brown with copper reflects, and the Sweet Sage is a gorgeous olive green shimmer. I bought the MAC Blacktrack on eBay before I really knew what to look for, and I know now that it is not authentic. That's not to say you can't find authentic things, you just have to know what to look for.

I wasn't sure how I was going to like the Coastal Scents liners, so I didn't get all the colors I wanted, but you can be sure I'm going to go back and buy more. Also, they have some really great brushes for super cheap. They are not MAC quality, but then again you're only spending $3 instead of $18. I'll take that.

As I now work at eBay, I find the time to peruse their makeup listings. I found this gem, the 120 palette by Beauties Factory, for under $20 and free shipping, plus they sent me some free makeup brushes as a gift. I'm thinking they gave the brushes as a gift so they could mark the entire package as "gift" on the customs form. Because this eyeshadow palette came from Hong Kong.

And before any of you say anything about how makeup from China is horrible for you because they put lead in everything, I haven't read one report stating these shadows have killed anyone, and it seems like most makeup is made in China these days. But, if it bothers you, Coastal Scents also sells a 120 palette for cheap.

If you have a store called The Cosmetics Company near you, you should totally check it out. You can see if they have a location near you here.

They sell authentic overstock items for the Estee Lauder (who owns MAC), Clinique, Prescriptives, Origins, Bobbi Brown, Flirt! and more for quite a bit cheaper than you can pick it up at the normal stores. One thing I recommend, though, is to check your purchases before you pay for your items. I didn't check my gel liners until I got home, and Frost (a white shimmer Fluidline) was completely dried out. So that was $10.50 down the drain. Yes, I said $10.50, but the Fluidlines at typically $16.50, so that's quite a deal. I should mention the Coastal Scents liners are only $6.95, and they frequently have coupons.

Here are some great websites where you can find discount name-brand makeup:

beauty crunch
All Cosmetics Wholesale
Cosmetic America

I'm going to go shopping again with a friend tomorrow to check out the MAC counter at Nordstrom's. MAC has a product called Paint Pots that are cream shadows and I am highly interested in them. However, I haven't used them before and don't just want to buy any willy-nilly, so I'm going to go test them...then maybe go to The Cosmetics Company and purchase a few.

I almost forgot to mention! I found an online store called The Perfumed Court that sells decanted perfume. This is perfect for me because there were about five scents that I wanted to try out from the Sephora store but didn't want to purchase the entire bottle, and this company has all the scents and they decant them into sample size containers. I choose little 1ml glass vials, pretty small, but they were only $3 a piece, and I would rather pay that than the full price only to find out I don't like them. Those should be coming in the mail in a few days, and I am very excited!