Review + Swatches: City Colors Eyeshadow Trio Falling Leaves

City Colors Cosmetics
eyeshadow trio in Falling Leaves
Hey everyone! Today is a review on the City Colors Cosmetics eyeshadow trio in Falling Leaves.  I received this is my January ipsy bag and have fun trying it out.  I'm actually kind of phasing out of eyeshadows for the most part.  I tend to go for a lot more neutral colors these days and don't put much variation in my everyday looks.  I liked the oranges of the Falling Leaves trio because they were still on the "neutral" side kind of with just a bit of warmth.  This is a perfect palette for fall obviously but I think they're great winter shades too.

Swatches
This trio contains a matt pumpkin base shade, a light peachy orange, and a dark bronze brown shade.  Overall, I thought these were nicely pigmented, especially the darker color, which also happens to be my favorite of the three.

Application:
These pigments apply pretty smoothly.  The matte orange isn't quite as pigmented as the other two so it does take at least two layers to get the rich orange.  I didn't find a difference in color payoff between using primer and not using it.  At least the few times I've used them so far, I haven't had an issue with much fallout which is definitely a plus for me.

Longevity:
 When I wore these colors on Friday, I used Thank Me Later eye primer. After 4 hours, I found these colors still looked the same with no creasing.  After 8 hours, there was a bit of creasing.  This may have been the fault of the primer. Today, I have applied the colors without primer and at three hours, color still looks good.  I'll update at the end of the the night if it showed creasing without using a shadow primer.

Price:
City Cosmetics lists this trio on their website as $5.99 which I think is a great price and is pretty accurate as to what I would say its worth. Its better than some of the cheapo brands but not quite as pigmented as higher end eyeshadows like Too Faced. For $6, this little trio is a pretty good deal and a great compromise if you're looking for a convenient eyeshadow palette.

VERDICT:
3.5/5


I thought this was a nice little eyeshadow compact with three shades that compliment each other very nicely.  I have red hair, green eyes, and fair skin and the colors worked very well on me.  They blended fairly nicely although the matte shade was a little bit harder to work with and not as smooth.  Pigmentation was midrange, I've seen worse but I've definitely seen better.  Would I buy this again? Maybe. If I found a good deal on the price then sure.  I have a couple other products from City Colors Cosmetics so I feel like I'd try other eyeshadows based on this review.


UP NEXT: e.l.f bb cream review for pale skin and NYX HD concealer.   Also thinking about a weekly Indie "try out" post, but I'm to ideas! Tell me what you want to see. :)


FOTD: Crimson Glam

IG: @thescarletjamie
Hey there everyone! This was my FOTD on Friday but I posted something else that day so this had to be a bit later. I tried to put these products in order of use and of course I started on a clean, moisturized face. Most of these products are things I don't ever use, ever. Today was a snow day so I felt like experimenting. The foundation, in particular was a test. I've used it a couple of times before with a stippling brush and really didn't like it. This time, however, I used a damp beauty blender and two coats with quite a bit of setting powder and my opinion improved significantly. Let me know if you would like a review or swatches of any of these products listed! xo


Face:

  • Primer - Smashbox Photo Finish
  • Foundation - e.l.f. BB Cream in Light
  • Concealer - NYX HD Concealer in Porcelain
  • Powder - City Color HD Powder
  • Contour - NYX HD Blush in Taupe
  • Blush - e.l.f. Baked Blush in Rich Rose
  • Highlight - e.l.f. Golden Bronzer in Golden (I used the lightest of the 4 shades

Eyes:

  • Primer - Elizabeth Mott Thank Me Later
  • Lid - Be a Bombshell eye base in submissive
  • Outer and Crease - treStique mini shadow crayon in Kona Coffee
  • Upper and Lower Lash Lines - NYC Kohl Liner in Jet Black
  • Eyeliner - Yanqina Waterproof liquid eyeliner pen
  • Mascara - Smashbox Full Exposure Mascara in Jet Black
  • Brows - Wet 'N Wild Coloricon eyeliner in willow


Lips:

  • Liner - Blue Heaven Kajal black eyeliner
  • Lips - J.Cat Wonder Lip Paint in Red Potion


Hair:
Second day hair refreshed using bastiste Dry Shampoo and curled random pieces of the top layer with a 1" clipless tapered curling iron.

I have a review coming on a couple of these but let me know if there is anything in particular you want to see.  Have a fun week everyone!

P.S. Follow the twitter account @tsjbblogger and instagram @thescarletjamie.  I also have a new official email for site related love, comments, and inquiries:  thescarletjamie@gmail.com. Follow these accounts or shoot me an email to say hi!

hair TIPS + my new haircut!



For today's post I wanted to share with you some hair related tips for those looking to keep their hair healthy and beautiful - some dos and don'ts if you will.  Here is a great graphic from Madison Reed that talks about ten "hair myths" that are commonly found circulating the web.  I'll be listing my few of my favorite tips here but take a look at the graphic to see the full list.   ALSO at the end of this post I'll be unveiling my new hair cut and color!!!!

DO drink water and eat healthy! This tip isn't on a graphic but I find it very important.  It kind of goes a long with just eating healthier in general.  When you're not getting the right nutrients, you body uses what it can get to maintain essenti

al processes - hair growth isn't one of them.  Eating healthy, drinking water, and getting the right amounts of minerals means your body will be able to allocate resources to stronger, shiner and overall better hair.

DO trim your hair! Trimming your hair won't make your hair grow any faster technically, but what it does do is makes your hair look fuller.  When you grow out your hair, many strands will experience breakage during the growth process, causing the bottom third of your hair to be significantly thinner than the middle.  If you grow your hair out super long but never trim it, the bottom section will end up looking scraggly and unflattering.


DON'T use heat.  This is a hard one.  I don't know about you but I love me a nice curling iron. Unfortunately the damage from overusing straighteners and other tools can be irreversible.  If you have to use heat tools, use a heat protecting product and don't use the highest temperature setting (chances are you don't actually need it that high for it to be functional anyway). I've been using TRESemme for several years now and its a favorite.

DON'T over process your hair.  Bleaching or leaving hair dye in for too long, or bleaching too often can seriously kill your hair.  It can leave it porous, dry, brittle, and lifeless.  I'm sure you've all heard the horror stories of your best friends, ex-friends, mother's dog sitter who burned her hair off with bleach.  Its important to take it slow and let your hair have some downtime.  I know its hard to be patience when you have a dark color and you really need platinum like now. But give your hair time to rejuvenate between bleaches and dyes and it will thank you for it.





Now, for my hairs. Ta-da!!

Probably most of you don't know this, but I chopped off my hair at the end of December just before Christmas.  I was in the mood for a post-wedding hair change and cut off about ten inches to a "semi-blunt bob". Here is a picture from today that showcases the cut one month later.  At the time it was cut it was a faded mousey brown and hit about the middle of my back.  Because I was dying (#pun) to get back to my beloved scarlet, I had the stylist try to copy a previous red color I had.  It ended up not being red enough and looked too brown after a week so I re-dyed it myself.

Here you can also see the color my hair is now.  This is about three weeks after dying with Loreal HiColor in red.  As you know I try a lot of different boxed hair dyes so this was the first time I had used dye that had to be mixed with developer.  It has now faded from a bright ariel red to a the perfect rich coppery auburn that I love.  I'm still unsure if I'll be using this to redye in a couple of weeks but if anyone wants a review/tutorial let me know.


Thats all for today! Let me know what hair tips you have! Stay tuned for a face of the day post on the above look. :)


P.S. Related. Madison Reed has a fun hair quiz you can check out to see what color you should try next.

Try the World: Food Box Review + Discount!

HEYY. Two posts in one week?! Today I come to you with a review on the Try the World subscription box.  I got this as kind of a family Christmas present on Black Friday after I saw an add on Facebook for 3 boxes for the price of one.  I love buying subscription boxes as gifts. Normally, the subscription costs $39 to receive a box with 7-8 products every two months.  The more months you pay at a time, the cheaper each box becomes.  The Black Friday special I found was to receive the Holiday box as well as the Spain and Paris boxes as a bonus for $39.  I also found a coupon code that was valid for Black Friday only and ended up paying only $24 for three boxes. Wow. Yeah. So thats tip number one, scout retailmenot.com for coupon codes to see if you can get a discount. Now for the review. I'm going to try to do this systematically so I don't ramble too much.

What's In the Box: 
Each full size box contains 7-8 full size products. The box they are sent in is this fabulous Tiffany blue box that's very sturdy and could easily be reused for other purposes.  The individual products are nested in a fake grass wine crate filler stuff (<-what?).  Inside is also a fold out card containing information about the items you have received.  What's cool about this is that it has a lot of well thought out extra info too.  Each box as a curated playlist (via Spotify!) that you can find on their website as well as a recipe and tips to enjoy the box with your family or date. Here's the products included in each of the boxes we received.
Holiday Box:
  • Mixed Berries dried, Finland
  • Chocolate Truffles, Canada
  • Yerba Mate Tea, UK
  • Ginger Snaps vanilla flavored, Sweden
  • Extra-Virgin Olive Oil, Israel
  • Panettone sweet bread, Italy 
  • Acai Dessert Sauce, Brazil
  • Fruit Filled Cookies, Morocco
Paris Box:

  • Clementine Fruit Jam
  • Finishing Salt
  • Sables Cookies
  • Tea
  • Whole Grain Mustard
  • Salted Butter Caramels
  • Herb Blend
Spain Box:
  • Paprika
  • Citrus Crumble Cakes
  • Extra Virgin Olive Oil
  • Floral Jam
  • Turron
  • Salsa Tumaca Con Ajo
Each box also comes with a 20% off code from items in their shop

Value: $40 feels slightly steep for one box, I'd be more willing to pay like...$30. However, I'm a known cheap skate so honestly, for what you're getting $40 shipped is a great value.  The products and packaging all seem high quality.

Selection: We seemed to get a lot of olive oil, but that's okay because my husband is kind of obsessed with it. We loved trying all the sweets and the different teas and the hubby loves the spices. Just like with any subscription box, you're going to get things you maybe don't care for.  For me, I like the option of trying new things and don't feel like I missed out if there is something I don't like.

Recommended? Absolutely! I love all the thought that goes into curating these boxes - the products, the packaging, the info card, the playlist, the recipes, the date ideas, etc etc.  I truly felt like I could try the world from my living room. 

If you're interested in trying out the Try The World boxes, you can sign up via this link: HERE and get $15 off your first box.  

Also, check out the Try the World spotify playlists to get a sneak peak of countries offered.  We loved the Turkey playlist. Click Here

Let me know if this looks like something you'd be interested in trying! I'm also curious if people in the countries featured actually eat that stuff regularly...haha.  Stay tuned for future posts about my Forever 21 finds, a cheap random Ebay haul, and mooore!






How I worked through my anxiety and planned my wedding

As some of you may know, I got engaged at the end of April of 2015.  My boyfriend and I had always had open communication on the subject and knew we wanted a summer wedding. We weren't concerned about a long engagement considering we had been long distance for so long.  Unfortunately, a summer wedding didn't work out so my next choice was October.

I wasn't one of those overly excited bridezillas.  In fact, I dreaded the idea of planning the wedding and avoided it at all costs.  At first I thought it was because I was second guessing my fiance somehow.  After a lot of soul searching, I realized it was because I was overwhelmed by idea of planning and figuring out details.  I was never one to fantasize about my dream wedding so I had no idea what I wanted.  I ultimately decided a simple beach wedding was the way I wanted to go. So I looked at a packages in the Carolinas, Georgia and Flordia despite my family and friend's pleas to have the wedding in Missouri or Illinois.  My fiance and I decided on an October date in Charleston and had everything all lined up.  Then the anxiety settled in once again.  Here's an example of 10 seconds worth of thoughts that went through my head every time I tried to finish plans:

"How many people should we invite? I don't really want anyone to come.  He does.  If we don't invite his family they will be offended.  But why can't we just elope? But I don't want to deal with everyone being mad at me.  Okay so just parents and siblings, But then thats five people just from his side. And then you have to invite grandparents.  And can you invite grandparents without inviting aunts and uncles? What about cousins? Okay now the guest list is really big and I don't want all those people to come.  I won't be comfortable and will just be stressed the whole time.  What about a reception? If its a small number then we can just...not...right? How small is small? But if we are making people travel then we have to provide them with cake or something...Oh. Now Granny says she wants to make the cake for us. Okay, I guess Granny is invited now..." etc, etc.

Anxious overwhelming thoughts went on like that for months.  We never finalized the October date and lots of tears were shed and my fiance and I fought about when we would have our wedding.  I knew he was taking it personally.  I wasn't trying to put it off. I wanted to marry him, but I couldn't control my anxiety enough to take things one step in at a time.  So he decided we could put it off until I felt better.  School started up in the middle of August, we moved apartments and I was able to get a doctor to prescribe me a different brand of anti anxiety medication.  Things were starting to improve a little bit.  My fiance had finally agreed to live with me before marriage, something he had always been opposed to and I think that ultimately helped me relax a little bit.  I was trying to conquer too many obstacles at once and my mind was getting overloaded.

At the beginning of October, we picked a date in November on a whim.  We told close family members six weeks an advance and purchased a wedding package near St. Augustine, Flordia.  My mom was mildly irritating at us spending $3000 on a packaged wedding.  She didn't understand why I just couldn't have planned the same thing myself for a cheaper price.  I'm sure I could have, but I explained to her that I couldn't handle all the planning and the stress of figuring out details was making me dread my own wedding.  

Not to say that a packaged wedding didn't come with its own stress.  We had a slightly unpleasant wedding planner after ours randomly disappeared on maternity leave without notice. There was an issue with billing due dates and we were stressed and having to put up half the cost of the wedding on short notice.  We procrastinated vow writing, music picking, and wedding band buying - not because we didn't want to be with each other but I think because I was putting so much stress on everything being perfect.  I didn't want to plan details but I had this notion that this was my wedding day.  It was only going to happen once and everything needed to be how I wanted it because I wouldn't be able to ever experience again or go back and fix things if it didn't work out.  That's one of my major anxiety triggers to date.  The idea that its my "only chance" to do something so I have to see everything there is to see and pick everything there is to pick so I don't feel disappointed or regretful.  The fact that this was such a big life occurrence made it all the more worrisome.


Ultimately, this story ends on a good note.  Alex and I got married on November 13th, 2013 at 4pm at the River to Sea preserve in Marineland, FL.  It was mild with a breeze, the sky was clear and the sunset was a gorgeous mix of orange and purple.  We had 12 guests in attendance. My parents, my mom's husband, and my brother along with my husbands parents, sisters, and grandparents.  Yes, we had to deal with some of his family members expressing distaste over the guest list and location and there was also an issue of a certain someone recording the ceremony even though we requested this not occur, but these issues were dealt with in a respectful manner (or brushed off) and everyone moved on.

My bouquet was perfect, my dress fit, my hair that I had done myself looked lovely and it was a beautiful ceremony.  All the things I had thought were going to be big issues like not knowing where to stand or what to do if I was wearing a veil and it was windy - were all simple things that came with ease on the actual day of the wedding.  I pride myself on the fact that I was uncharacteristically low maintenance on my wedding day for a typical bride.  My hair was kind of done on a whim because it didn't turn out like I wanted and I was able to move on without stressing over it.  I put on my fake nails the 2 minutes I had before getting in to the car to head to the beach.  My dress hem was a bit too long but I didn't trip nor did I have to walk down the aisle with my dress hiked up in one hand.  My father even made it on time to walk me down the aisle.  During the ceremony my veil was flying all over my husband-to-be's face so I immediately just took it off and handed it to his mother, no big deal.  I wasn't nervous, I was comfortable and happy.  My husband cried when he saw me walk down the aisle and I cried when he sang me his vows.  It was beautifully perfect.

The moral of the story is that it sucks to have anxiety and depression when you have such important things going on in your life.  It affects your motivation and your ability to be proactive and productive.   Don't automatically assume you're having cold feet if you're putting on planning. Its okay to take time and reflect on what you really want and don't want to stick to it.  Its okay to have to make adjustments to traditions because your social anxiety permits you from having a 200 person guest list.  Its okay not to have a bridal party or send save the dates or have a fancy reception.  The people who matter to you will show up, your husband or wife to be will love you and thats all that matters.  Saying "Don't sweat the small stuff" is easier said than done but I promise the day isn't in the details. <3