Revlon Just Bitten Kissable Balm Stain

It's a balm! It's a stain! It's Revlon Kissable Balm Stain!

I saw this product on someone's blog. I forget whose blog it was, but they were comparing these to the Clinique Chubby Sticks and they said that the Revlon ones were almost as good and even better in some aspects.

The Revlon Balm Stains are cheaper than the Clinique Chubby sticks ($7-$10 vs $16) so I thought I would give them a try.

This was selling for $8.99 at Rite-Aid, but there was a BOGO get 50% off deal.

Anyways, this comes in a pretty package. The color is called "Sweetheart." The lip stain looks like a crayon, as you can see; it even writes like a crayon on paper. I was immediately excited, as I tend to be when I buy new stuff. When I bought this, I expected it to be a orange toned pink, but it was actually more of a fuchsia color.

It's balmy and has a pleasant minty smell. Because it's a balm, it leaves a nice moisturized sheen on your lips. It's very pigmented, so if you're looking for a more natural look make sure to put lots of lip balm on first. I've found that it makes the color a lot less harsh.
 

 

Here's the balm on my lips. It looked a LOT brighter than the kind of lip color I'm used to. It is a bright fuchsia. It's the kind of dramatic lip color you can wear without any other makeup. 

The Revlon Balm Stain lasted for the rest of the day, and was even there the next morning! It's really the most ridiculously amazing staying power I have ever encountered in a tinted lip balm. It's not as moisturizing as I would have liked it to be, but overall I really like it. Because it's so bright, it can really be the only makeup I wear. It makes for a fun 1-step makeup look!

I highly recommend this product. It's super pigmented and stays all day. It's not quite moisturizing enough to be a lip balm, so you also need to moisturize your lips, but it is very moisturizing compared to other lip stains which tend to dry your lips out.

I will definitely be picking up some more colors next week!

Contouring in 4 Somewhat Unsuccessful Steps

Contouring. Interesting word! It's like... contortionists. In a way it is. The goal is to create an illusion of a more well-defined face. Sharper features, higher cheekbones, and every other impossible thing that every girl wants but doesn't have. Except for HER.

 Who the heck is she, you ask? She is Nazanin Mandi, the gorgeous girlfriend of my favorite singer, Miguel. She likes cats. She also happens to be a model. See those cheekbones, that narrow nose, and those sharp features?

Basically, the goal of contouring is to look something like her.

Now, this happens to be a VERY difficult task for me. I have inherited my mommy's Japanese cheeks. I have the chubbiest cheeks ever. My chin is not very well defined, and basically, I look nothing like the lovely lady on the left.

Okay, so here's me. I have tried contouring in 4 steps. I forgot that contouring doesn't show up well when you smile, so I accidentally took my non-contour picture while smiling. Oops. And then I look really scary on the other 3 photos. Oops.
Picture 1, upper left: No bronzer
Picture 2, upper right: Bronzer under my cheekbones, so that my non-cheekbone cheeks look receded, if that makes any sense
Picture 3, lower left: Around the edges of my face and on the sides of my chin. This part did NOT go too well.
Picture 4, lower right: On the sides of my nose, plus i blended out the bronzer from picture 3


For the sake of exaggeration, I used e.l.f. contouring bronzer which is a darker color than what I would normally use. I thought it would turn out better in pictures, but it looks way too harsh.

Anyways, extreme contouring is NOT recommended for unskilled people like me and should generally be left to skilled people and professionals. Yeah, I wish I had more angular features, but I just was not born that way and need to deal with it.

However, I find it really interesting that you can change the shape of your features with a swipe of makeup. Notice how my nose looks a lot bonier in the last picture? It's definitely something worth experimenting with, maybe with a much lighter bronzer.

The Magic of Eyelashes

Yes, you guessed it. This post is dedicated to those tiny little hairs above your eyes called eyelashes. We all love eyelashes. They have the power to make our eyes look bigger and make us look more awake. It is our duty to make our eyelashes the BEST eyelashes they can be. I'm going to show you what I do to my eyelashes, then I will show you the comparison between plain vs curled vs mascara+curled eyelashes!

First, I curl my eyelashes. This, I think, is the most important part.

As you can see, I am using a Sheseido eyelash curler that I bought in Japan for the equivalent of about $9. They sell them here at Sephora for $19! That is so rude of Sephora to mark up the price like that.

To curl my lashes, I half close my eyes and make sure EVERY eyelash is between the rubber thingy and the top part. Then, I squeeze for about 10 seconds. It's pretty straightforward.

Then, I apply mascara. I tend to brush through my eyelashes once for length, then wiggle it up my eyelashes for volume, then brush through once again to get rid of clumps. For this post I used Urban Decay Supercurl Curling Mascara. I don't particularly like that mascara, but it came with an eyeshadow palette. It clumps very easily.

The upper left corner is without anything. The upper right corner is with an eyelash curler, and the bottom left corner is with an eyelash curler and mascara. The bottom right corner is my cat. He's just filling up space because I didn't have a fourth thing to compare.

This compares the same things in the same order as above, but they are full face photos (as you can see!) This answers my burning question of, "Do eyelashes really make a difference in how you look overall?"

The answer is this: Kind of. The reality is that eyelashes are just tiny hairs above your eyes, and there are MUCH bigger things in the world to worry about. Larger, more defined lashes do, however, help you get larger and more defined eyes. I also look kind of sleepy without curled eyelashes or mascara.

I am also astonished at the amount of time I have spent writing about eyelashes. Goodbye for now!