January Beauty Buys: Hits & Misses

Ah, January. 

While I'm cooped up waiting out the polar vortex, my skin is dry, my hair is flat, and I'm seriously sun deprived. 

What else is there to do except buy things... Here are my latest hits & misses!

   

      

HITS

hair:      Blow Pro Dry Texture Spray, Ulta, $19.75 (don't forget your coupon)

• I hate my hair in the winter, and this stuff brings it back to life.
• Love how it styles. After blow drying, just spray on and move around to your liking. Finishing with hairspray is optional, but I like to seal the deal with some hairspray.
• It's perfect for short hair, especially on those days where it just lays there flat.
• Double use as hairspray and root volumizer.
• Basically I could just praise this stuff for days and days. I love it.
• However, I don't really love the price. I feel like I use a lot of it really quickly and that it's going to be gone before I know it. I'll be looking for a cheaper alternative to try out next.

skin:     Burt's Bees Herbal Blemish Stick, Walgreens, $8.49 

• (That's a little overpriced - I got mine 50% off on a whim. Check around for deals.)
• I love this as spot treatment. Use it for a couple days in a row to rid icky blemishes.
• The smell is really strong, but not unpleasantly so.
• I don't really like the rollerball feature... feels like all my zit germs are getting stuck in the rollerball. So, just use it on a q-tip or a cotton ball!
• Overall it definitely quickly cleared up my problem areas. I like it a lot.

beauty: Maybelline Baby Lips Electro Lip Balm, Target, $3.49 

• The color is not at all as shocking as the stick depicts. It's actually a girly sheer pink that is universally flattering.
• I was skeptical of this tinted lip balm because of the cheaper price, and I really don't care for Maybelline that much, but I really love this balm.
• It goes on smooth like chapstick, hydrates as well as chapstick, and leaves behind a pretty color. What else could I want?

MISS (just one this time)

body:      Burt's Bees Honey & Shea Body Butter, $13.00

• Terrible smell. It's like Play-Doh and grossness just mixed together. Apparently this wasn't always the case, but Burt's Bees recently changed the formula and now it's gross-smelling. Just my luck.
• Totally overpriced.
• Runny, thin consistency. I expected butter to be a little thicker.
• Doesn't hydrate my skin any more than regular lotion does.
• Nothing special / not worth the moola.

Until next time!

doing it right: star street style

While Ms. Theron was out gallivanting with Sean Penn and picking up sbux, I couldn't help but die over her killer street style and even more noticeably, that crazy/sexy/cool hair flip/curl thing. 

As a gal who chopped off all her locks in lieu of Charlize's amazing Oscar 'do circa February of '13, and as a gal who is currently playing with growing it out a bit (as it seems Ms. Theron is, too), this simple roller or curling iron trick is definitely going in my limited hairstyle tool kit. #pixieproblems

Honorable mention of the week: Reese Witherspoon and her pink sweater. Really I just love everything about her and her street style is always im-pec-uh-ble. Also, um, the way she is wearing that solid gold cuff is insanely genius and of course it fits just right over her sweater. Plus one for her wardrobe staple Reed Krakoff bag.

Why I love them both: menswear. I will probably be rocking a plaid button down + sweater tomorrow, and when my hair grows out again I'll finally be able to wear my fedora a little better. Also, wayfarers. Always wayfarers.

weekend craves: #Lolla edition

Getting stoked for the weekend?

I'm heading to Lollapalooza Friday & Saturday, and I cannot contain my excitement.

Lolla has everything I love wrapped up into one jam-packed weekend: music, fashion, food, Chicago, alcohol, and sun. Oh and did I mention music?


But let's talk fashion first. Here's what I'm craving for this upcoming incredible weekend:

1. A killer dress.  Be you. Rather wear cut off jeans and your favorite tee? DO IT. I tend to live in dresses so...

2. Sweet sunnies. I like a funky-fresh-retro pair.

3. Ear danglies. a.k.a. ear cuffs, but danglies sounds better. I just recently went on an ear cuff craze and bought like 4 different kinds. So, fingers crossed that trend stays relevant for a while.

4. Converse. Two points for addition of quirky anklet.

5. Badass lip color. I just got this color last week. It's way less vampy than the picture shows, but a little (or a lot) of vampy isn't gonna hurt.


Oh, I couldn't leave out the music, so I put together a little sample playlist of the acts I'm most looking forward to seeing. Enjoy!


peace. love. rock & roll.

definition of "it girl"

IT GIRL STATUS. 

I can't get over how cool Michelle Williams looks in her new Louis Vuitton campaign, and I can't get over how much I want to BE HER. 

Her lip color, her skin, those eyebrows, the nail polish, HER HAIR.  Rocking the growing-out-the-pixie phase like no other. So vampy. So edgy. Yet so fresh.

Off to fill in my eyebrows, don a red lip, and attempt to achieve that perfect blonde hair color...