Top 6 Tips to Save Money on Buying Beauty Products

First, I'd like to wish everyone a very merry Christmas!! Also, a happy 6th day of Hanukkah!! We have a cool guest post today by Brenda Lyttle, so without further delay... here it is!

Top 6 Tips to Save Money on Buying Beauty Products

Who doesn’t want to look beautiful? But with the environment, food and age having taken a toll on your skin, you need beauty products not only to enhance your beauty but to also protect your skin. With prices of almost all beauty products touching the sky, it is understandable that you want to do some budgeting. Given below are 6 ways in which you can get branded beauty products without going overboard with the expense:

1. Follow brands on social networking sites – The newest way to promote beauty a product is by writing about it on social networking sites like Twitter. If you follow these brands, you will come to know of contests, giveaways and other promos. You can then take advantage of these promotional tweets and get products.
2. Signing up for Emails and newsletters – When you visit a company’s site, you are often asked to sign up for its newsletters. Most of you would ignore this as it clutters up your inbox and rightly so. But those who know better sign up because they know that this is a way by which get to know of discounts and other promotional offers. These special offers can be used to buy your favorite beauty products.
3. Buy the bigger packet – When you buy a product, remember that a bigger packet of the same is better. You can save a lot of cash. This is especially true in case of hair products like shampoos et al. When you compare rates, you will notice that a bigger packet is cheaper than a one-ounce packet.
4. Free Samples – When you are a regular at the beauty salon or at a cosmetics shop, you get to know the beauty artists. Always show your interest in the products by trying out new shades of makeup. Ask questions about the upcoming trends. When the artists see that you are interested, they may offer you free samples.
5. Guinea Pig – Plastic surgeons need guinea pigs for demonstration to students. If you talk to the medical spa and agree to an audience of students who can watch you while you are being given treatment, then the spa will give you discounts on the procedure.
6. Drugstore Products – Instead of always using big names when you buy cosmetics, you can try out drugstore makeup too. Sometimes, you hit the jackpot when you get a good deal on a product that is as good as a branded one.

Be aware and connect with cosmetic companies so that you can get good deals and save cash in the process.


Brenda Lyttle is a beauty expert and a freelance writer. She is a regular contributor for the site, http://www.acnebook.net/.  

Until next time,

The Wicked

Holiday Lip!! Sales and promo codes!

First off, I would like to wish everyone a Merry Christmas! For those of us who are hispanic I know we celebrate Christmas Eve, so enjoy and have a great time with your loved ones. I would also like to thank everyone for reading our blog!! Thanks guys!!

So now let's get down to business. Below are a few steps on how on how to apply your lipstick in order to make it last. I know most of us will be eating and drinking so we need something that would be long lasting. 

First, make sure your lips are clean and have nothing on them. Then apply a light concealer all over your lips. This will make your lipstick last all night and will bring out the color. 

Next, apply a nude lip liner all around the edges or your lip. I reccommend filling in the edges a bit to make sure the lipstick doesn't bleed.

Finally, apply your lipstick, with a brush to make sure you get every spot and the corner of your lips. From experience I have learned that if you apply a sticky lip gloss on top it will make the color stay longer because it adds an extra layer. Try to find a clear or a color close to your lipstick, but don't use a very shiny lipstick. You don't want to look like you just finished eating some greasy chicken. 

With these steps I have lasted a whole night without having to retouch (hate retouching) . But of course try to be careful and avoid licking your lips. 

elf cosmetics 

Free $10 gift card with orders of $20

Promo code: GC10

Urban Decay 

Free shipping on orders over $35

Until next time, 

The Wicked

Sugarpill Chromalust Loose Shadows!!

First, I'd like to apologize about the lateness of this post. I wanted to post earlier but had last minute present things to do. Well, I don't want to delay this any further as I am SOOOO EXCITED about what I have to show you. I got it today and couldn't wait!

The box! How cute is that! 

My four eyeshadows: Junebug, Tiara, Magpie, Stella

The creator, Amy, signs all packing slips and even includes this cute postcard thing and awesome sticker!

Junebug, Stella

Magpie, Tiara

All the shadows have a little symbol that goes along with the name, most of them are vegan and all of them are cruelty free.

The tops of the bottles are imprinted with the logo, not stickers! And the bottoms are the same as the bottoms of the boxes.

Junebug, Stella, Tiara, Magpie

Junebug- Metallic forest green 

Stella- Black with blue, pink and purple glitter

Tiara- Silver

Magpie- Metallic dark almost navy blue

Junebug

Left: swatched on bare skin.

Right: swatched over Urban Decay Primer Potion

Bottom: swatched wet

Stella (top)

Left: swatched on bare skin

Middle: swatched wet

Right: swatched over Urban Decay Primer Potion

Tiara (middle)

Left: swatched on bare skin

Middle: swatched wet

Right: swatched over Urban Decay Primer Potion

Magpie (bottom)

Left: swatched on bare skin

Middle: swatched wet

Right: swatched over Urban Decay Primer Potion

First and foremost, you need to enlarge these to see the amazing detail and glitter in all the shadows. They are really opaque, but since they are loose shadows I really suggest a primer. You can see from my photos that primer intensifies the color and also really helps with staying power. It took me forever to wash off the primed swatches. 

The quality of these shadows is awesome. Even with the amount of glitter and shimmer in each they are really soft, not at all gritty. Also, the price of these is great for the amount that you get for the money. It's $12 for 5 grams compared to MACs pigments that are 4.5 grams for $20. 

In terms of the company as a whole, I love it completely. Sugarpill was started by Amy Doan (aka Shrinkle). She really takes so much care in everything she does, from the packaging to hand signing every packing slip to the fantastic quality of her products. You can see these shadows and a whole line of other loose and pressed shadows here : http://www.sugarpillshop.com/

Until next time,

The Wicked

Laura Mercier 'Lingerie' Spring 2012 Makeup Collection & Chanel Knightsbridge Makeup Collection

Laura Mercier 'Lingerie' Spring 2012 Makeup Collection

Eye and Cheek Palette

Eye Shadow: Buff Pearl Luster, Tawny Apricot Sateen, Rich Cocoa Matte, Pale Pink Matte, African Violet Luster, and Black Plum
Blush: Rose Desire and Fresh Peach

Creme Cheek Color

Oleander - dusty rose
Innocent Peach - dusty peach

 Sheer Lip Color
Nude Lips
Baby Lips
Kissed Lips

Lip Shine
Tempting Coral
Naked Apricot

Tightline Cake Eye Liner
Charcoal Grey

Chanel Knightsbridge Makeup Collection

 Poudre Tissee in Brompton Road

Rouge Allure
Hyde Park- a vibrant coral-pink named after Royal Park London
Kensington- brilliant fuchsia named after London's most posh shopping district
Belgravia- vibrant rose named after a right historic region in London

Levres Scintillantes

Until next time, 

The Wicked

Cosmic Nails!

I've been contemplating doing some holiday themed nail art, but the end of December really crept on me! So I have something else thats super fun!

Hah! Love them. Definitely enlarge this to get more detail. 

Close up of my thumb.  I like how swirly it came out, like a real galaxy. 

I used a slew of different things for this:

1. Manglaze Matte as Muder for the base

2. OPI Alpine Snow

3. OPI Siberian Nights

4. Orly Frisky

5. Sinful Colors Nail Junkie

6. Revlon Silver Dollar

7. Forever 21 Silver (small holo glitter)

8. A tooth pick

9. A makeup sponge

10. A top coat (I used Seche Vite)

So, what you have to do is first do the base coat, then use the makeup sponge to make the galaxy looking shapes. I first used Alpine Snow for the shape, then Frisky and Siberian Nights to kind of outline the shape that was in white. Then I moved on to the glitter, also with the make up sponge, Silver Dollar then Nail Junkie around the colored outline. Next,  I used the Forever 21 holo glitter polish and sponged it all over the nail. Then I used a tooth pick to make the white dots that represent stars. Finally a coat of Seche to smooth everything out. So that's the gist or it, I know this is probably pretty confusing without pictures to go along with the instructions, so I can do a tutorial if you guys so wish. 

This was my first try, and it's pretty easy and comes out really cool. Just a note, if you want to use Silver Dollar like I did, definitely be careful with not putting too much on because it's pretty opaque and can muddle the overall look. So there you go, cosmic nails. Totally awesome!

elf blush and bronzer swatches

elf bronzers

 right  to left- Golden Bronzer, Cool Bronzer

 Warm Bronzer

 top- Cool Bronzer   bottom - Golden Bronzer

Warm Bronzer 

Elf radiance blusher 

 Top to bottom- Shy, Glow, Blushing,  Flushed

 Left to right- Shy, Glow, Blushing,  Flushed

elf blush 

 Pink Passion

Until next time, 

The Wicked

Zoya Jem

I had originally had thought about getting this polish when Zoya had that awesome buy one get two free promo where I got Anja, Cynthia and Petra. I was really in between Petra and Jem for my last shade, but passed on Jem. But now! Thanks to one awesome flash promo I was able to finally get it and man, I'm glad I did.

Jem, two coats. So... how pretty is that?!! This is definitely a polish that you need to see in person, but the photos come pretty close. It's a shimmery dark almost berry/ burgundy color that sometimes looks more purple depending on the light. The shimmer in it is awesome, it has pink and gold fleck-ish shimmer. In the bottle this polish is really cool, because you see these amazing swirls of gold shimmer. Beautifullll. It really can change color pretty drastically in the light, so it very difficult to capture all the different facets of this polish. 

The formula on this is typical, awesome Zoya. Great pigmentation that makes for a super opaque polish. You could technically get away with only using one coat if you apply a thick enough coat the first time, but two coats intensifies the color. Also, dry time is really fast just like most other Zoya polishes. This one does need a top coat though, because it will dry a little dull (which I can totally overlook since this color is so pretty and dullness is easily fixable with topcoat). :)

Until next time,

The Wicked