My eyeliner experience

My favorite eyeliners in order:

1. Clinique Cream Shaper
2. Estee Lauder Double Wear Stay-In-Place

I really love the Clinique Cream Shaper in Black Diamond, Starry Plum, and Chocolate Lustre.
The other colors I've tried from that line are Egyptian and Brown Sugar, however, those colors didn't look right on me and hardly use them.
I've also used the Clinique Quickliner for Eyes Intense in Intense Black, Intense Ebony, Intense Plum, and Intense Chocolate. I liked the Intense Chocolate but the other colors were too harsh for me.
There is a non-intense version too, but overall, I prefer the Cream Shaper from the Quickliner line. I also tried out the Clinique Brush-On Cream Liner in deep brown which I really liked. So much control for a liquid look.

For Estee Lauder, I only tried the Double Wear Stay-In-Place eyeliner in Coffee and Graphite. I love them, especially the Coffee one.

For Lancome, I tried out the Le Crayon Khol in dark brown and Artliner in black. The Artliner brush was all bent out of shape and it's ok if i want to go liquid, but the bent tip made it harder to line in a straight thin line. And the tip dried out fast. I didn't think it was worth the money. The Le Crayon Khol in brown was ok, I think it was more lighter or has some yellow in it. I didn't like it as much as the Estee Lauder Double Wear in the coffee color.

I did try out Shiseido Accentuating Cream Eyeliner in black, it was nice and also gave you so much control like the Clinique Brush-On Cream Liner but it bled after an hour of wear and smudged easily.

The only non-department store brand eyeliner frequently was Loreal Pencil Perfect. I liked it ok, but it would smudge to my bottom lid after 2-3 hours. When I upgraded to Clinique and beyond, I hardly had that problem.
What I could remember of using Cover Girl was that it was more like "play" make up. It never lasted or the color was never the color you thought you were buying. It always ended up lighter or took you over applying it to really show up. I thought the same with Avon.
I had bad reactions with Mary Kay and stayed away from it.
Maybelline was a step up from Cover Girl but their products never lasted long on me and their lipsticks gave me an allergic reaction so I stopped anything Maybelline.

Finding my complimentary colors

Lately, I been wanting to start wearing red lipstick again because why not?

So I forgot what it's like to go out and find the color that looks best without testing them all over your hands which in turns makes your hand red stained all over. Anyways...I wanted to pinpoint what range of colors I should look at.

So I started by figuring out exactly what my undertones are and all the stuff out there can be a little confusing. Eventually, I stumbled upon this website that describes if you're an Autumn, Winter, Spring, Summer. I liked it a lot, I think it really explained a lot of things I have always been wondering. I have also been buying some shirts that sometimes look horrible on me because of all the new cool trendy colors (I really hate neon/80s colors, and pastels).
The Chic Fashionista really answered a lot of my questions and even had other articles about face shape, body shape, etc. The Chic Fashionista

My discovery was that I'm a Deep Winter and my sister is a Deep Autumn. It made a lot of sense how she can never wear my colors and make up and vice versa.

Examples:
True bright reds, black clothes, and bright jewel tone colors look good on me. My wedding dress was white, which complimented me better than the ivory ones. But if I wear white too much, I looked really washed out, so I tend to stay away from white. Silver jewelry looks better than gold on me. So I'm a cool undertone but you wouldn't really be able to tell reading up about undertones.

My sister can wear off-white, she tends to pull of shades of brown way better than black (hair, clothes, make-up). She can wear gold, but growing up, gold was "uncool" so she would wear silver anyways.

So thinking about this, I was able to then see what kind of make up I should throw out or give to my sister because now I can match them better for my skin tone type.

The only problem is that as I started getting older, certain things can age me. For example, black eyeliner can really make me look older, so I have to choose softer colored eyeliners...which now brings me to my eyeliner reviews.

Clinique Super Balanced Foundation.

One of my previous posts mentioned that I am a heavy Clinique user.

So this is a quick review of the Super Balanced and Even Better foundation line from Clinique.

Super Balanced - The color I use in Super Balanced is Cream and I used this for a very long time. Once in awhile, I would try out one of their new products but always reverted back to this. I was never a foundation wearer until I got older and needed some more coverage. My biggest thing that I look for in a foundation is long lasting, natural looking, and shine/oil control. So it is pretty hard to find a matte, natural look in my opinion. Anyways, Super Balanced was great. As I got older, my skin got drier and this started looking more cakey on me. (I am also playing around with a ton of moisturizers which I'll probably later review.) One thing I did love about it was that it control oil/shine really well. I just had to set it with powder in the morning and not touch up for the rest of the day. It is more drying I would say than most other foundations and I think that is the reason why it controlled shine/oil so well. I complimented it with Clinique's Dramatically Different Moisturizer in Gel during summers and Lotion in the winter. It also was one of the foundation that never broke me out (actually all of Clinique's foundations never really broke me out) where as before I would have random acne attacks from most of the non-department store brands.

Even Better - I used a color close to Cream but I forgot the exact name. It somehow ended up looking more dark brown on me and I didn't really like the texture of it. It also did not control shine well.I also didn't see the benefit of it evening out my skin tone, maybe I need to combine it with all the Even Better products for results. And I did not think it looked as natural on my skin, it definitely looked like I was wearing foundation. It felt heavier because the texture is creamier. So I eventually gave this to my sister, which she liked a lot but it was not for me.

Lancôme Miracle Teint review

I am a huge fan of breathable, close to natural foundation. I recently bought this foundation because it seemed my skin changed as I got older. It got more dry, my skin was usually combination normal, then with thyroid problems, the medication I took dried out my skin more where I became dry combination. Old make up and cleaning routines stopped working and I started breaking out where I started using Clinique only.

Clinique has always helped me maintain perfect skin. If I did get a zit, the emergency gel would help it go away in a day or two. My husband started having bad breakouts and I bought him their acne system and now it has stabilized him really well. His skin type is oily. So because of how well Clinique products worked for me for maintaining good skin, I switched to their make up line. I was a huge fan of their Super Balanced in Cream but my skin started getting drier where it felt like my cheeks would crack. And it started to not look as natural as I would like, very caked where around my eyes and nose/cheek areas. So I decided to experiment with a few brands. 

The Lancôme Miracle Teint looked awesome and was completely light feeling. Felt like you weren't really wearing make up. It did seem like your face glowed with it on. I got it in the buff(w) shade but it was too light for me. No big deal though because it blended really well. However, I should have remembered how I had tried Lancôme powder foundation when i was younger and it made me break out bad. Well, same situation here. I started getting itchy skin wherever I put the foundation. It then became extremely itchy zits and red. I immediately stopped using it and aggressively treated my face with my Clinique acne products and also temporarily switch back to my Clinique Super Balanced until I can get another foundation to try. It only got bad after about two weeks of application, but by that time I had thought with a week trial it was fine and threw away the receipt. So I couldn't return it because Lancôme did allow me to return it since I had ordered it online with the receipt and their foundation return sticker. 

So, I had to give it away because I had a hard time last time trying to return a Christian Dior foundation and didn't want to deal with the stuck up counter ladies. I think they are the reason why I just avoid the counter at all cost. I do spend a fair amount on make up to try but I normally buy it online to avoid those ladies because they always mismatch me on colors and just shove new and expensive products at me only to give me a hard time when I want to return it because it looks terrible on me at home. The only time I go to them is when I run out of something I forgot to buy online or to look at the color in person to make sure it works for me.

Lancôme Miracle Teint is awesome but did not work well with me at all.

My version of Deviled Eggs (SPICY!)

So around Christmas time, I was trying to figure out what to make that would be different for Christmas. So this year, I decided to "invent" my own style of Deviled Eggs. I don't really have accurate measurements, everything is to taste. I can try and probably guess the amounts.

1 - dozen eggs
Cupid Mayo brand - It's Japanese. Otherwise regular mayo can work as well.
1/2 cup of diced pickled Jalapenos. Reserve the juice.
Salt and Pepper to taste (optional)
2 tablespoons of Sriracha hot sauce in a squeezable bottle. The jar kind has seeds and is more spicier.

Boil eggs for 10 minutes. Remove from heat and cool. Peel and cut in half, removing the yolks into another bowl. Add diced jalapenos, 2 tablespoons of pickled jalapeno juice, 2 tablespoons of sriracha and as much Cupid Mayo (maybe 3/4 cup - 1 cup?) you need to make it soft. Add the salt and pepper to the mix. Spoon (because the jalapenos will be too big and clog up any type of piping you have) into the egg white halves. Sprinkle with Paprika. Refrigerate for at least an hour before hand to let the spices soak in.

 My family likes spicy food and this was a huge success.

Taco Stew

So one day I had an idea for a stew that was different. When I was pregnant, it was the cold months so I ate a lot of beef stew and grew very tired of it. So about two weeks ago I decided to invent a stew. I'm sure there are already Taco Stew out there for the crockpot but I thought I was being cool and inventive.

So I just blindly went to the grocery store and bought items I thought would be good in my Taco Stew. I like my food spicy, so you may want to turn down the Jalapeno flavor a bit.

1 - 14oz can of chicken broth
1 - (15oz) can of Hominy, drained (I chose yellow just on a whim)
1 - (15oz) can of Pinto beans, drained
1 - packet of Taco seasoning (I had chosen Ortega Garlic and Jalapeno flavored)
1 - (10oz) can of Ro-Tel hot (habanero)
2 - small tomatoes, diced
1-1.25 lbs of ground turkey meat
1 - Avocado
Shredded cheese (optional)
White corn tortilla chips

Add the tomatoes, ro-tel, hominy, beans, chicken broth and taco seasoning in a crock pot. Mix to dissolve the seasoning and then add in the ground turkey. Break up the ground turkey and set it on low for 6-8 hours.

Serve with tortilla chips on the bottom to soften them up, topped with shredded cheese and diced avocado. Enjoy!

Bitter Melon

Growing up, my mom use to make bitter melon. My siblings and I would never eat it, it was so bitter and overpowered whatever dish it was put into. But as I grew older, I somehow liked it's distinct bitterness, especially when it is fried with eggs.

Very quick and easy to make. I don't like onions but my recipe calls for it, I only use it to cook and get the flavor from it but I don't like to eat it. Anyways, below is the recipe I used.

5 large eggs
4 tablespoons of fish sauce
2 small bitter melons, cleaned and sliced thin
2 crushed garlic cloves
1 tsp of pepper
1 tsp of salt
1/4 cup of sliced white onions
1 tablespoon of oil

Add eggs, fish sauce and pepper in a bowl and beat the eggs to mix all of it together. Add half of the sliced onions to the egg mixture and set aside. In a skillet/wok, heat up the oil. Add the garlic and the rest of the onions and cook it up until it has a nice fragrant smell, then add the bitter melon. Stir fry the bitter melon, sprinkling it with salt while cooking until the bitter melon is slightly soft. Add the egg mixture to it and start folding the eggs and bitter melon together until eggs are done. You don't want to overly stir because the eggs will break to small pieces and just "vanish."

Enjoy, should take less than 10 minutes to cook.