Nature Box Sample Box Review!

Snacks make the world go round. Seriously though! As an on the move student, I need little treats here and there to keep my energy up through out the day so as not to completely burn out by the evening.  I had heard of the NatureBox subscription service a couple of times and decided to check it out. This service conveniently delivers you a box of nutritionist-approved snacks directly to your door once a month at a reasonable cost (more on that, later!).  Before I committed to this service, I decided to order the Sample Box to see if the snacks are even something I would enjoy.  Healthy is great and all, but the stuff better be yummy too!

The box only cost me $1.97 to cover the cost of shipping and it arrived in about a week and a half after I had placed my order. Inside the box there were 4 single serving size snack bags and one full size bag.

I received Tomato flavored Almonds, Cinnamon toast kettle kernels, Coconut Cashews, sesame seed crackers, and sea salt popcorn.

I enjoyed the flavor of all the snacks to an extent and I enjoyed the fact that the ingredients lists on all the snacks were short and full of words I recognized and could read! The one snack that completely blew me away though were the Coconut Cashews. Oh my goodness these things were insanely delicious and were honestly the thing that made me want to keep a subscription with Nature Box for at least a month.

So where to from here? I tried the sample box and enjoyed it which means I can go online to naturebox's website and select snacks for my 'pantry' (hellllooooooooo coconut cashews!!). These snacks that I select are going to be what's coming in my first official box from them in October! If you prefer a little mystery to your life, you don't have to add any snacks to your pantry and you can let NatureBox pick a variety for you! There are also options you can select for if you have specific dietary needs such as gluten-free, low sugar, low carb, vegan, etc.

The price breakdown is as follows:
3 snacks for $13.95
5 snacks for $19.95 (this is the default box!)
10 snacks for $29.95 (this box has two each of 5 different snacks so its good to split with someone)
20 snacks for $49.95 (this box has 4 each of 5 different snacks so its great for a family)

This subscription service also allows you to cancel really easily with just a click of a button from your profile settings, or you can simply skip a month if you just want to put your snacking on hold!

Try out NatureBox for yourself here: http://fbuy.me/bfpFE

Expect at least one post in the future where I review whatever food comes to my door next month! As I said, snacks keep the gears turning in my head during my long days at school...gotta keep going somehow, might as well make it tasty!

xxSJ

Life On a Budget and a Boyfriend Pick! NYC Individual Eyes for Green Eyes Quad

In a lovely care package Lucas sent me, he included this little eyeshadow quad! It is an NYC IndividualEyes quad formulated for Green Eyes. I've never used NYC eyeshadow before so I thought I'd give this quad a try!

The quad has a little plastic sheet inside giving you an idea about what each product and color should be used for. I think it's interesting that this product includes a cream primer and cream illuminator! If they work well then it could make this quad very well-rounded and useful!

This pallet includes purple shades to compliment green eyes. I was surprised that the texture of each shadow was quite buttery and smooth, particularly the deep berry toned shade. The light purple shade was the least pigmented swatched but ended up applying very nicely to my eyelid. 

All the shades have a bit of a satin finish.  They definitely aren't matte but not quite glittery either. I actually really like this finish for colorful shadows since it makes them appear a bit more smooth and allows them to blend together easily.  

When I applied these to my own eye, I used my finger to apply the primer all over my lid and then the illuminator under my eyebrow and inner corner.  I then used the lightest shadow on my brow bone and inner corner. I packed the light purple all over my lid, worked the berry color into my crease, and then deepened my outer corner with the dark purple. I also brought the dark purple under my lower lash line.

 I found the primer in this palette to be a bit hard to use and felt that it caused the shadows to go on a bit patchy. I would prefer to use my Urban Decay Primer Potion instead of it. The colors surprisingly had minimal fall out even when I was packing them on and I found them to be quite pigmented! The colors all go very well with one another and made my eyes look REALLY green!

I think the look I created with this palette turned out quite pretty and it is definitely something I would wear out at night.  It also totally inspires me with Halloween time so quickly approaching! This look would be so great if you wanted to go as Maleficent, Jessica Rabbit, Sleeping Beauty, a purple fairy, or Ursula the Sea Witch! Hey, villains can be hot and sassy too!

Finding colorful eyeshadows from the drugstore that work well is so clutch! This palette only costs $4.99 which is far cheaper than buying the comparable colors from MAC or Sephora to achieve the same look.  I prefer to find my colorful shades at drugstore prices since I'm not as likely to wear this type of look as often.

xxSJ

NOTD: New York Color 'Park Ave'

I recently received a care package from my darling beau, Lucas, and in it he included some nail polish to further fuel the addiction! He gave me some NYC polishes to commemorate my new home and I wanted to try one of them out right away! This muddy, gray, purple color is called 'Park Ave' and despite using the word 'muddy' to describe it, this color is gorgeous.  It reminds me of a prettier version of OPI's 'You Don't Know Jacques' (picture here!) with more purple and less green undertones.

This polish had an amazing formula that required 1-2 coats for full opacity. It dried very quickly to a glossy and perfect finish. I recommend this nail polish to everyone for the upcoming Fall and Winter seasons and for $1.99 a bottle, I'm looking to try more from this line of nail polish!

xxSJ

Makeup Geek Eyeshadows Review! And a little extra Z-Palette action...

I have recently been eyeing many a MAC eyeshadow to add to my matte neutrals collection, but before I made the big splurge, I watched a Youtube video in which Makeup Geek Eyeshadows were being absolutely raved about. Upon further investigation, I found that these eyeshadow pans are half the price of a MAC shadow at only $5.99 a pop and have very inexpensive shipping within the states. I thought I'd give them a shot!  They come packaged in a little cardboard slip, completely safe from dents or chips.

The colors I got were 'Cocoa Bear,' a red-toned warm dark brown; 'Creme Brulee,' a medium soft brown color; and 'Beaches & Cream,' a milky peach color. All of these colors were silky and buttery soft to the touch and swatched with awesome pigmentation. 

What I love most about these colors is how warm they are! They work beautifully together as a trio but will also work wonderfully to warm up other eye looks either in the crease or as a transition color.  The colors will work especially well as we transition into the Fall season!

I also bought a Z-Palette from Amazon to put these new shadows in and they fit like a dream! Z-Palettes are a really convenient way to mix and match your shadows and potted products to create your dream palette for everyday use or for travel.

The bottom of the Z-Palette is magnetized and the palette comes with magnetic stickers to put on the bottom of shadows you de-pot on your own.  Makeup Geek Eyeshadows come already magnetized, however, so they're ready to be popped right in!

I used only these three shadows to create an eye look displaying how warm these colors show up on the lid. They're simply gorgeous and they blend like a dream! I packed Beaches & Cream all over my lid, buffed Creme Brulee into my crease, then used Cocoa Bear to deepen up my outer corner.

I have absolutely nothing negative to say about my experience with these eyeshadows.  The shipping was fast and cheap, the prices were inexpensive given the quality of the product, and the shadows were everything I was expecting and then some! Now comes the hard part...resisting the urge to go on the Makeup Geek Website and buy every single one of those shadows!!! We'll see how long I last until you see another post with new colors I've purchased....let's be real, I probably won't resist that hard.

You can check out the Makeup Geek shadows here: http://www.makeupgeek.com/
xxSJ

Sephora Beauty Insider Birthday Gift 2014

If you're not a Beauty Insider at Sephora yet, what are you waiting for?? This free rewards program has really awesome rewards as your rack up points for every dollar you spend at Sephora, offers a special discount twice a year, and gets you a free birthday gift during your birthday month! This year, the free birthday gift was by Makeup Forever. I was so excited to try out some free deluxe minis from a brand I have little experience with. Included in the gift is a Smoky Extravagant Mascara and a Rouge Artist Natural Lipstick:

I wasn't all that jazzed about the mascara since there was one in the birthday gift from Benefit last year. The mini lipstick is so flippin' adorable though that it completely makes up for the repeated product. The color is N9, Copper Pink:

 I really enjoy this color! It is creamy and overall lovely in texture. It reminds me a lot of MAC's Fanfare lipstick.  I was not a fan of the mascara at all, unfortunately.  I found the wand to be far too large. The mascara was clumpy and fell off my lashes through out the day giving me raccoon eyes. The lipstick is awesome, however, and you can't beat the price!!

Seriously, become a Beauty Insider if you're not already... free stuff with no obligation to buy or open a credit card?? Sign me up!!

xxSJ

Mally Eyeshadow Stick 'Rosy Taupe'

Mally Beauty is a brand that has interested me from afar for quite some time.  This brand was created by Mally Roncal, a makeup artist who has beautified the likes of Beyonce, Heidi Klum, and Angelina Jolie and who believes in creating multi-purpose and easy to use products so us normal people who don't have a makeup artist putting on our face everyday can feel beautiful, too.  I'm all for brands created by people who know what they're doing and are still more or less run by a single person. They seem to hold a bit more integrity than brands that have spread a bit too far and turned into global corporations looking to shell out as many cheaply made products as possible for the mucho big bucks.  Mally, though 9-years-old, still seems personal.  I was lucky enough to be given an Evercolor shadow stick in the color 'Rosy Taupe' by my mom to try out!  

This is one of Mally's best selling items and I can definitely see why. It's just simply a fantastic product.  It comes in a pen like packaging with a cap you pull off to reveal the shadow stick.  The packaging is an easy twist-up which means no sharpening required! The packaging is a thin plastic and it feels a bit cheap which is my only complaint about this product. It would be nice if the product had a bit more weight to it.

The color is exactly as it self-describes, a taupey color with a purpley, rosy hue to it.  It looks pretty dark on my hand, but when applied to the eye it comes off as far lighter and pinker. This is one of those colors that I call a lazy day color.  Instead of using multiple eyeshadows to create a dimensional eye look, you can slap one color on your lid and blend it all the way through your crease and call it a day! The reflective quality somehow creates a beautiful depth to your eye that makes it look like you used multiple colors to achieve the look.

Here's my eye with just Rosy Taupe applied all over the lid and blended out with my finger. No other eyeshadows were used in this look! The product is smooth and easy to blend making it a winner in my book.  It also lasted the whole day with out creasing.

This Evercolor Eye Shadow Stick is $25. I think the price is fair given that this is a pigmented, well done product that should last quite a while. I believe in the Mally Beauty brand and hope that it spreads to Sephora and department stores! Right now I can only find it at Ulta and online at their website: http://www.mallybeauty.com/.

xxSJ

Stila Eyes Are the Window Shadow Palette 'Mind'

Stila is bringin' their 'A' game to the table, folks, so you best prepare yourself for what's to come.  Stila is a brand known for some of their cult favorite products such as 'kitten' eyeshadow and their all day liquid felt tip liner. Other than those few products, generally the brand has lacked a true following, particularly of the older demographic. With this in mind, Stila recently relaunched their eyeshadow palettes and have gone from cutesy and cardboard to sleek and beautiful. Presenting the packaging for their new 'Eyes Are the Window' Shadow palettes:

Gorg. I gasped when I slipped this out of it's glossy navy container.  This reflective palette is sleek and beautiful and feels so luxurious in my hands.  Though its made out of plastic, the palette definitely feels weighty and substantial when you hold it. It opens up to reveal a full size mirror on the inside:

Yaaaaaaaas. I love that this palette is all about the eyeshadows. No wasted space for a brush I'll never use or an eyeliner I'll take out leaving an empty cut out behind. 

The palette I got was the 'Mind' palette which features all matte colors.  This has mostly warm colors and I love the range of light to dark included. 

Swatched on my arm with primer underneath, I went down the vertical columns for the order of these swatches.  I at first was concerned as some of the shadows felt a bit hard and chalky and lacked pigmentation (particularly the lighter colors), but all it took was some rubbing away at the uppermost layer of shadow to get to the good stuff.  The colors were all true to what is in the pan (as I expected from matte shadows) and swatched beautifully on my skin.

If you are interested in the colors, there is a guide on the back of the palette as well as a little booklet included with the palette. The booklet also includes 3 different eye looks if this many eyeshadows is overwhelming for you to pick what colors to use at first!

The first time I used this palette, I wanted to go with a professional day time muted look so I used mostly the colors in the lower left area of the palette. I was tremendously surprised and excited by how warm the colors ended up appearing on my lids and by how easy they were to blend and use!

I think this palette is extremely versatile and unique given the range of matte colors you get in a single palette. If you like the shimmer, then this isn't for you, but for a warmer palette that will transition PERFECTLY into the Fall weather, this is THE palette to pick up!  This palette also comes in 3 other variations (Body, Spirt, and Soul) with slightly different colored packaging and different toned colors (including shimmers!).

This palette is $49 for 12, 0.51oz eyeshadows. For comparison's sake, Urban Decay's Naked palettes are $54 for 12, 0.05oz eyeshadows. You get quite a bit more product with these Stila products but the shadow formulations are quite a bit different from Urban Decay. It's all about what you prefer!

I am so pleasantly surprised and excited with my new toy! You know what else is pleasantly surprising? This:

Kitten in a pot!

xxSJ

Where Have I Been???? Update time!

I've made the pilgrimage from California to New York to begin my journey and dream of becoming a physical therapist! The past couple weeks have been filled with packing, moving, organizing, shopping, tears, laughs, meeting new friends, and starting classes! When I have time between the massive amount of studying I will be taking on (yeesh, this program is no joke, folks!) I will continue blogging as planned. In the meantime, here are a couple highlights since I've been here:

the most beautiful flowers on Austin Street

Sharing a birthday beer with my sister

My first trip to Citi Field!

A surprise visit from Lucas

the view from my apartment... the George Washington Bridge is my new nightlight

Signing out from New York, New York!

xxSJ