Tuesday, April 22, 2014

New in My Life

It's safe to say that my no-buy is officially over. From January to about the middle of March, I kept myself from buying any makeup to 1.) really use what I had and 2.) make an effort to save some money.  It worked for awhile - I was able to resist all the new products, new releases, and I was perfectly content rediscovering and finding new things in my collection.

However, eventually sales and the new summer products got to me and I had to add some new things to my collection.  Needless to say, my makeup buying is back with a bang, and I'm happily rolling in some new products!




I may or may not have jumbled up all my drugstore, Ulta, and other miscellaneous purchases with my Sephora purchases from dramatic purposes.

Click below to see the details!



Tuesday, April 15, 2014

Frittata - A Second Try Success


I tend to not consider too many of my recipes complete fails except on rare occasions when my pancakes become scrambled almond flour/banana/egg mixtures and my GF scallion pancakes become crumbles....but there are a lot of things that I wouldn't exactly call successes, either.

My attempts at frittatas could be placed in the "not so successful" category.  My first attempt for my family a few months ago -- perfect.  I can't even remember what I put in it, but I just remember everyone loving it, and it had the most perfect texture.  I know that I didn't put it in the oven at all, and I just let the eggs slowly cook on top of the stove. My second attempt.....wasn't so successful.  I think I added too much liquid (eggs + egg whites), making it too thick.  It didn't really cook right, and the center took forever to set, even after broiling it for a few minutes.


Determined to get it right again, I made it for a third time.



Success!

Saturday, April 5, 2014

March 2014 Favorites


I think I'm getting better at this....instead of being two weeks late, my favorites post is now up just one week late.  I actually don't have that many favorites, and they are all predictably products that I have posted about recently with a couple surprises here and there.  Apart from the blushes that I posted about earlier, I have been reaching for the same things pretty consistently.



 Keep reading to see what I've been using!

Thursday, April 3, 2014

Fyrinnae: the company that makes me giddy about makeup. Review, Haul, and Swatches!

I don't know what it is, but I've never really been into Indie makeup companies.  I have nothing against them, but I tend to forget about them, despite how FABULOUS they can be.  I think I can safely say that has changed.

Sometime around January, I had a sudden desire to start buying from Indie brands - I have no idea what prompted me to do so, but all of a sudden, I was spending hours browsing through various website and deciding what pigments and eyeshadows to get.  I think what drew me in was how complex different pigments could be - how one taupe shade could somehow have reflective shimmer in every color of the rainbow.  Most mainstream eyeshadow are not that complex, and let's face it - the prices of Indie companies is often more attractive, since a decent sized 1/4 tsp. sample is only around $1.75-$3.  These small samples are the perfect size to try a lot of different shades without having giant sizes of pigments that I'll never finish (MAC, I'm looking at you!)

Enter Fyrinnae into my life.  Within the beauty community, they are probably one of the best and unique Indie makeup companies.  Every time I see a look with Fyrinnae products, I'm kind of starstruck by how gorgeous everything looks.  The only thing that's tricky about Fyrinnae is that it can be difficult to order from them because their website is down a lot.  It's understandable - Fyrinnae is a very small company with a small staff, and since all their batches are handmade, it's easy to get overloaded with orders.  A lot of the times that I wanted to order something from their website, they were not taking orders, so when I saw that they were finally open again in January, I jumped at the chance to try some things out.

After furiously looking up swatches online, here's what I ended up with:



Keep reading for tons of pictures and swatches!