Contour, contour, contour.

When I was in middle school, the only makeup girls would wear was eyeliner.. and LOTS of it. I had 1 eyeliner and used it on my waterline and that's it. As I grew older, I started experimenting with more and more makeup and now I have about 10 drawers full of makeup along with a counter top, as well. I remember when I first started using makeup, I use to get bronzer and put it all over my face so that way I would have more of a tanned look. I'm about 99.9% sure that every other girl did the same thing. Then, I discovered the beauty of YouTube, where a beauty community was slowly starting to grow. Many years later, I have become in love with makeup and want to learn and use new things every day. One of the things I found important was contouring. Contouring is basically going in depth where the shadows of your face are. If you do it correctly, it can make your face look skinnier and your makeup more professional. Kim Kardashian is well known for her use of contouring. Here is an example of how it would look before and after you contour:

Now, I'm not saying you're gonna look 20lbs lighter, but it does add structure to your face and make your face pop. I mostly use mine right underneath my cheeks so my cheek bones can look sharper. I wanted to share the contour kit that I use because I'm absolutely in LOVE with it.

I have been reading reviews on the KAT VON D Shade + Light Face Contour Palette for months and watched several YouTube videos that I decided that I should just get it. OH MY GOODNESS. I am so glad that I did!!! This is probably the best contour palette that I've ever had. The colors and so beautiful and cool toned. Sometimes I get colors that are warm toned and look orange on me but this one does not have the slightest hint of orange in it. The top three shades are used for highlighting the peaks or highest points of your face. I use the middle one - Lyric - and sometimes I will use the farthest one to the left - Lucid - because my skin is so light. To be honest, I have been really lazy and usually don't use the highlighting parts of this pallet because if I do concealer, I will just use my Laura Mercier Secret Brightening Powder. But again, that's once in a blue moon cause I get lazy with concealer. (Maybe I will do a later post on my highlighting routine) As far as the contour/bronzing colors at the bottom, I always start with the lightest one - Sombre - and use a small definer brush to sculpt in the lines in my face and then blend it through. I then go in with the middle color - Shadowplay - and really make the color deepen. I will sometimes even go in with the last color - Subconscious - and make it even darker but that's when I want a heavy makeup look, otherwise it's not used often. I've already hit pan on Sombre and Shadowplay and am close to it on Subconsious. I've had this palette for about 2 years now and I still have enough color left to continue using it. I think it's a wonderful contour palette and I highly recommend it. The palette will last you a long time and the colors can blend so nicely on your face so you don't have to sit there for 10 years blending. A little goes a long way so if you pick up just a little bit, you will have powder on your face immediately. The colors are pretty creamy and very pigmented. I think Kat Von D did a great job with this palette and she actually revamped these so the individual colors can be removed and replaced, instead of buying the entire palette.

I also wanted to mention that lately, these palettes have been spotted at Marshalls and TJ Maxx for only $19.99!!! (Compared to $49) So if you're wanting this and don't want to spend all that money, hit up your local Marshalls or TJ Maxx to see if they have it. Since I've hit pan on 2 colors I decided to browse around and actually found only 1 at TJ Maxx and bought it on the spot. I've heard that other ladies have seen like 10 of them at their stores so don't be discouraged if you don't find it, check every week and maybe you just might!! Keep in mind, these are not the replaceable colors so if you hit pan, unfortunately you won't be able to remove the colors individually. I think it's still worth it though. :)

Makeup Brush Cleaner

So I've recently been a part of a makeup group on facebook that has a bunch of ladies who have the same makeup obsession and give tips and tricks for different makeup techniques and such. I stumbled across a post which showed one gal who posted about using the soap 'ZOTE' for cleaning makeup brushes. Being the type of person who's willing to try out makeup tips, I decided to go and buy it and try it for myself. I made the mistake of looking in the body wash/soap isle and couldn't find it. I later found out it's actually in the detergent isle and only in Walmart. So I lugged back up to Walmart and finally found it. It was hidden on the very top shelf in a corner. It's a fairly large size, almost as big as my hand, so I found a sandwich size plastic bag to put it in, when I would be done. Coming back from my California trip, I had a perfume that cracked and spilled all over my makeup bag so I decided that it was time for my brushes to be cleaned and so nothing gets into my skin that shouldn't be. I bought myself a medium size black towel, a little basket to carry all the brushes, the ZOTE soap, and my pink brush cleaner mitt from Ulta. I actually saw that Walmart also has this mitt but I don't have a link to share because it's not online. Check your local Walmart because you might find the same or similar mitt.

Zote soap for cleaning brushes

I first wet the brush a little bit with regular water. I then went into the Zote soap and swished it around a couple times to pick up the soap and then used the cleaner mitt to thoroughly clean it and then layed it down to dry on the towel. I did this with all the brushes that needed cleaning. (I have around 50 brushes but I didn't clean all of them, just the ones that I used the most and needed to be cleaned.) At first, it was a little difficult because I had to break in the soap but once I got it, the cleaning process was a lot smoother. I can successfully say that the Zote soap cleaned my brushes and beauty blenders very well and they all came out great! Even the little spots on my beauty blenders were gone. I've had some beauty blenders for years and the spots would not budge, no matter how many times I tried, but with the Zote soap, they came off easily and with minimal effort. I recommend this product to anybody who's looking for a good brush cleaner! I left my brushes and beauty blenders to dry overnight on my black medium sized towel and they were in perfect shape the next day. Nothing was shedding or frizzy. The only thing is that the brushes I started at the beginning with were not very clean, but that was my fault because I didn't swish them in the soap as much as I should have. If I had gone back over the first few when I was done, they would have been just as clean. I would still say this soap did a pretty good job.

Do you know of any other good brush cleaners?!

A few of my brushes that needed to be cleaned. (Don't worry - I have a lot more lol)

Carli Bybel Palette x BH Cosmetics (Deluxe Edition)

Many of you may know Carli Bybel from YouTube. I personally found her on Instagram and thought she was some sort of model, but I was excited to see that she actually posted beauty videos because I always have thought that she's really beautiful. I've been into Game of Thrones recently and she posted a video of herself doing a transformation to Daenerys Targaryen and I think she looks so similar to Emilia's character that she could be her double and I wouldn't even notice. In the video she mentions her own palette and I recently was able to purchase it. The way that happened was I went to Ulta for one thing and just happened to pass by her palette with a sample display and one swatch led to another and next thing I know, I'm at the check out line with her palette.

The palette I got was the Carli Bybel Deluxe Edition 21 Color Eyeshadow & Highlighter Palette. I would say this is fairly large because this is the second edition to the first one she released, which is no longer for sale on Ulta's website. I would say it's smaller than Jaclyn Hill x Morphe's palette but larger than a Tarte Palette. The packaging is a white marble and very lightweight. It comes with 21 beautiful colors vs the 14 on the original palette. I was walking by the end isle at Ulta and happened to see a sample palette out for people to swatch and the more I swatched on my arm, the more I wanted to get it. I had to walk away from it but I couldn't stop thinking about the pigmentation, so I went back and ended up buying it. I thought the colors were very nice and the pigmentation of the swatches was absolutely amazing. The ones that drew my attention were the shimmers but I also thought the matte ones were beautiful. They were very creamy and went on smoothly and all it took was one swipe to get a good color swatch.

I had some more shopping to do at another store and the swatches stayed on my arm. Well, I noticed that I had moved my arm around and they transferred to my shirt and barely stayed on my arm. That's the only thing I did not like about them. They were great as swatches and even when I applied them on my eyes, but they come off very easily. I highly recommend a good eyelid primer and a setting spray if you plan on using this palette for a night out. I'm a huge Urban Decay lover so the primer I use is the Urban Decay Original Eyeshadow Primer Potion. And of course, the setting spray by Urban Decay is also the bomb dot com, which is called the Urban Decay All Nighter Long-Lasting Makeup Setting Spray. I've also heard that the Mac Prep + Prime Fix + is amazing as well. I, personally, have not tried it but it has great reviews.

As far as this palette goes, I think the colors are fantastic and the pigmentation is out of this world. It goes on beautifully and you can use any brush to pat it on. I recommend using Carli's YouTube channel to see what kinds of makeup looks she does with it so your makeup can look flawless too!

Club 25

My 25th birthday was two days ago (September 7th) and I already feel like a grandma. The first thing I did was wake up and clean. I did about 4 loads of laundry starting with mixed, whites, and 2 loads of my bed sheets. I took a shower and made myself look all nice and fancy so I would go out and have dinner with my boyfriend. We ended up getting dinner at Texas Roadhouse, which I've heard really great things about but I wasn't super wow-ed by it. I thought it was just okay. He is the absolute sweetest because he bought me a Denver Broncos t-shirt and Chanel perfume which smells absolutely amazing. (highly recommend it) I love how much he always thinks about me. He's the best!

My birthday has made me realize how much I should be thankful for. I am in such a good place in my life that I am so blessed to be alive and well at the age of 25. There are many people who don't even make it to 25 or have the luxury to celebrate their own birthdays. Even though I didn't really do anything big for my birthday, I still am very grateful for everything in my life. I am alive and well and that's all I could ask for.

Just like 2017, I have a feeling that my 25th year of life will be amazing. I am ready for all the things that are going to come my way, and maybe I will share some of them on there... stay tuned ;)

California Dreamin!

Recently, I was given the opportunity to travel to California for my job and it was amazing! I've never been to California in my life so it was all new to me. I took MANY pictures and wanted to post some of them on here because it was unreal to me how beautiful a place can be.

When we were travelling from the airport to our hotel, I noticed that California is very crowed. In Denver, we have many areas with just flat land, whereas in California, I noticed that they don't have any land where there was an open space. Their airport is next to a major highway and that was very strange to me. If you know anything about Denver's airport, you know there are several acres of land before getting to the airport so seeing the one in California being so close to people made me feel a little nervous for the people who live there.

During the 3 days I was there, I took every opportunity I could to be a tourist. I took this free trolley they had and went everywhere with a group of other ladies who also got to on this trip to California. We saw many, many people, houses, beaches, laughter, happiness, just about everything. The people there knew just by looking at us that we were not from there and were more than happy to let us know what the best places to go to were.

My favorite place we saw was Laguna Beach. If you are familiar with MTV at all, you know that they had a reality TV show called MTV's Laguna Beach: The Real Orange County. This wasn't anything special but I was in my teens and I loved following all their lives and it made me feel like I was a part of their group of friends. Being on the actual Laguna Beach brought back all those memories and I just had this happiness inside me that I was there! I finally got to see Laguna Beach!! Although I didn't get to see any of the people from the show, I did get to see the little shops and the actual beach and it was absolutely beautiful.

The last day we were there, we went and got breakfast at the Marina, which was also stunning!!!

Although I absolutely fell in love, I wouldn't want to live there. Everywhere I turned, there were people and houses, so much that it would overwhelm me. I would love to go back and visit and vacation but moving doesn't look like it's in my future.

So, thank you California. You were absolutely BEAUTIFUL!!! Until next time!

Hello September!

Welcome to the best month of the year!! This is the best month because not only is it my birthday month, but it's also the month that fall officially starts! I am a fall baby and I love everything about the fall season. I love how the colors of nature change and how the weather slowly becomes colder. It's almost time for leggings, sweaters, and boots. Sometimes I wish that I lived in Florida because I absolutely love warm weather but when Fall rolls around, I fall in love with the state of Colorado all over again. I hope to go on many adventures this fall, just to experience Colorado even more! I'm definitely not ready for the winter or snow, but I guess I will have to power through it to get to summer again.

Life has been absolutely great! I've decided to listen to my heart and it's lead me to the most amazing places. I've decided to trust God and put all worries to Him and let Him guide me and so far, it's been the best decision I've made. I've been a lot happier and even grown up as a person. I turn 25 on September 7th and I can't help but think that it will be a great year! I had a feeling that 2017 will be a good year for me and it has not disappointed me yet. I have found happiness, love, courage, strength, adventure all within 9 months. I have a strong feeling that my 25th year of life will bring me even more of those things. Looking back now, I don't feel like the same person I was 1 year ago. I feel as if I've matured and started to look at life a little differently. It could be because I found love, but I just feel happier with my life. I can finally say I feel like myself. I feel comfortable and happy and that everything will work itself out.

I hope your September is absolutely amazing! I have no idea what i'm going to do for my birthday. (Which is in 4 days!!!) I will take it one day at a time and see what 25 has in store for me. I can't wait!!! Life is so good!