Swatchery Version 2.0!

Baby Lips! Here we go again!

I've been challenging myself to wear red lips this week, so I thought I'd go back to "Cherry Me", a color from the Baby Lips standing line.

Now, my husband and son have both said this was clearly red. I offered my son some once when he said his lips were dry, and he turned me down, because he didn't want red lips. I don't think it's all that. Check it out:

...that's not clearly, obviously red, right? Am I crazy?! I mean, it's redder then my natural lip, but not by a lot.

I've been known to recommend this particular color to people who wanted to learn to wear red lip color though. Red, without being RED, right? If you're a cherry chapstick sort, this is a nice way to ease in the direction of red.

I'm a bit of a packaging junkie, but I also appreciate that this is a bright, colorful package - orange with red letters - so it will stand out, wherever you are.

It doesn't break the proverbial mold as far as formula, or longevity is concerned, so just to give you the short strokes on that - nice formula, terrible longevity. Sometimes these come a little scented, this one wasn't. The scents are never overbearing. They're almost kind of fun - I routinely make the comparison that these are like lip smackers for adults, so they take you back a little bit. :)

Stay beautiful, everybody!

I literally can not stop purchasing Baby Lips. It's a real problem! But at least you get to see them on someone before you buy, right? Everybody wins!

Are My Eyes Glowing?!

I mean... are they?!

Kind of? But like...no. Not really. Since I've gotten older, I - like many of you I'd guess - have bags when I never did before. I have wrinkles when I never did before, it's a hot mess. I've started buying eye creams when I never thought about eye cream, I'm always looking out for the newest tip or trick.

In one of my Ipsy bags comes this little gem:

Glamglow Brightmud, which promises to minimize dark circles, puffiness and fine lines, while delivering bright, hydrated and "amazing" eyes. Glamglow is virtually a cult favorite, the entire line treasured by beauty afficinados everywhere. Admittedly, this was my first experience with the line, I was pretty excited!

Since this is my first experience with the line, I don't know if this is how it's packaged regularly, but this is the package I opened. Curiously, I follow the instructions and tap it on.

Y'all, this is not cute:

So basically, don't wear this if you're in front of someone that you want to think you're really hot, because this is not...

Especially if you're following it with some Queen Helene Mint Julep mask in the t-zone. Yes, I own some. And yes, if you've got oily skin, you should too!

So, Sephoras notes on the Brightmud eye mask says you'll see results in as few as 3 minutes, I left it on at least 10, partly to get maximum results, and partly so I didn't have to rinse off one mask while leaving one in tact.

I felt a little light tingle, almost a cooling effect when I wore it. It's not overly scented, no stinging or burning. I kind of expected the black pieces to flake off as the mask dried, and they didn't.

So does it work?

Yes, but not overwhelmingly so. My eye area definitely looks lighter, and brighter. And the wrinkles are absolutely less pronounced.

But let's be serious you guys - Glamglow Brightmud retails for (and I'm not kidding) $69 for 12 applications. For $69, I ought to have the eyes of a teenager! For the sky high retail price tag, I'm just not sure I could justify the extreme price tag you guys. It'd have to be a real "treat yoself" type of day for me to go in on this, for sure.

So I'm not ready to pull the trigger on the full sized product, but if you are, Sephora's got your back.

No self-respecting eye cream junkie owns a blog without talking about eye cream a few times. I've done it before!

Fresh Food Friday "Hey...This is Pretty Good!" Edition

Still plugging away, working through Trisha Yearwood's "Georgia Cooking in an Oklahoma Kitchen" cookbook, and I was really skeptical about this one, you guys. It sounded kind of like a mismash of all sorts of stuff, and I just wasn't sure I'd like it. Check out the recipe, and you'll see what I mean. Aren't you a little skeptical? I sure was.

At any rate, I gave it a shot:

I did this a little bit the semi-homemade way, and just bought one of those $5 rotisserie chickens from the store, rather than seperatly prepare a chicken. Mayo, relish, eggs. Bada-bing. The eggs are new to my grocery store, they're called "Grazing Fields" eggs, and they're farm fresh. They're so fresh, a number of them actually still have the stamp on them from what field they came out of! You can purchase them for 40 cents per egg, or $4 for a dozen at any Busch's, if you're in SE Michigan.

Deboned chicken and shelled eggs!

Cut and dice them in to bite sized pieces like so:

Add the mayo and relish, stir, and bingo-bango;

Chicken salad!

I was really skeptical of this one, like I said, it seemed like sort of a mismash of stuff. But this was really good. I was pleasantly surprised! For a wide variety of flavors, none were particularly overwhelming, they work really nicely together. One of the notes in the book is from Trisha's sister, who says she's known to have this in the mornings spread on toast, and I'm not sure I'm ready to go that far with it, but it's really good!

None of the picky eaters in my house have tried this yet, and there's a lot here to trip them up anyway - my son doesn't like pickle, and my husband doesn't like mayo. With a different method of serving, I believe this would be gluten free or darn close to it, but my vegetarian friends would have trouble here - chicken and egg is a lot of substitutions to make! 

Last weeks "Fresh Food Friday" edition - which also included eggs, mayo and pickle relish, is over here!

Swatchery...

I've talked at pretty good length about Maybelline Baby Lips. If you're new, here's the short strokes: I'm a big fan. They're generally a nice little pop of glossy color. Low fuss, low maintenance. Which is great, cause sometimes that's exactly what you're looking for.

Rather than give you the schpeil again about my opinions, here's a quick swatch!

This shade is "Melon Mania", which was brought back at Christmas as part of their "customer favorites" display.

Where some of the Baby Lips colors also have a bit of flavor, this one doesn't really. You'll also notice, it's mostly gloss, there isn't a lot of color to speak of with this one. Maybe a bit of pink, that's about it.

Baby Lips aren't terribly long lasting. And mileage varies on how long lasting they actually are. But like I've said before, I buy them for the little low maintenance pop of color, which unfortunately, this one doesn't deliver on that anyway, it's too similar to the color of my own lips.

So I like the formulation in general, but not this color in particular.

There's my two second opinion! What say you, beautiful?

Two seconds not enough? I can talk about Baby Lips for a long time! No really, a long time!

Eyebrows!

I've posted to tell you guys about my husband, and his nuttiness with all things eyebrows before. He is generally mystified when it comes to makeup (as most guys are. I'm not expecting he's unique.), but the one that gets him every time is eyebrows. He doesn't understand why it's bothering me when it looks like a herd of caterpillars is marching across my forehead. Dude. It's not cute. My eyebrows aren't thick, but they do take up a lot of space on my face. You gotta take care of that mess.

So since I'd never really talked about filling them in before, let's talk about filling those babies in!

Natural brows;

See what I mean, about them not being thick, but taking up a lot of space on my face?

Filling in your eyebrows is a necessary step. It doesn't matter how - there's no bad way. Pencil, wax, gel, it doesn't matter. Powder. Still doesn't matter. Find your way that you prefer, and go your own way, baby. Pro tip: fill in from the middle to the end of the brow first, and then go back for the beginning. Your touch tends to be heavier at the beginning, and you don't want that heaviness right at the front. More often than not, if you're thinking that you don't like the "heaviness" of a filled in brow, it's the heavy front that you're thinking of. Start in the middle. You'll be much happier.

Today's product:

ELF eyebrow kit!

The darker colored side is a brow gel - which in my own professional opinion looks more natural than a brow pencil. The lighter colored powder is a setting powder to set the gel in to place. Honest, you could make it without the powder, just depends on how set in place you like your brows. I'll do whatever the notion strikes - sometimes I powder 'em down, sometimes I leave 'em. You do you, baby!

Gelled in to place. And...

Gelled and powdered. See what I mean? The difference is pretty subtle. But I'm obviously feelin' fine!

ELF is a line that's pretty hit and miss. They have some products that would be a steal at three times the price, and some that are hardly worth the cost of the packaging. This is one that's absolutely a steal. This is a great product! Buy this and use it. If you're not sure about brow gel and just want to play before you buy one that's expensive, buy this anyway. Just own this product, however you get there!

See you later, my gorgeous friends!

I've blogged about how crazy I think my husband is for not noticing my eyebrows. Get a chuckle about how unobservant my husband is, over here!

Fresh Food Friday - "Team Garth Vs. Team Trisha" Edition

Still plugging away through Trisha Yearwood's "Georgia Cooking in a Oklahoma Kitchen" cookbook, and I found a curious recipe - "His and Hers Deviled Eggs". If you didn't already, you've got my attention now Trisha. What do ya got?

In the notes for the recipe, she explains that she and Garth's moms each made Deviled Eggs differently when they were growing up, and she couldn't really decide which to feature, so she decided to feature them both. Try them both, eat the one you like.

And the "Hers" version is kindly reprinted by Food Network, here.

The merry band of misfits, as they were. The yellow mustard and the mayo get used for both sides, the butter and relish each only make one appearance. As I was making this at 11:00 pm, I literally made myself A deviled egg. That's why you only see the one. The hydrogen peroxide and dum dum pop are photo bombers, they're not included (but they're strangely good luck for me, the only versions of this shot that I liked were versions that they were included in. Pictures. They're weird.)

Team Garth:

Mustard, butter, and mayo. Add yolk. Stir. And I was tinkering with the quantities quite a bit, because the recipes were written for 12, and I was making one. This is a dramatically scaled down version. And I did discover that this mixture grows quite a bit, so if you like this one...apply sparingly. You'll get it everywhere.

Team Trisha:

Basically the same, but the butter has been replaced by pickle relish. Add your yolk, stir. This mixture grows a little not nearly as much as the mixture from Team Garth does though.

Salt. Pepper. Serve.

The "Team Trisha" final product.

The "Team Garth" final product. I wonder if I'd come up on the shrunk down quantities a bit more scientifically than I had, if this growth wouldn't have happened the way that it did, but do you see what I mean by growing? It's everywhere!

So I've sampled both now. And I can tell you that I am unequivocally, no questions asked, Team Garth on this one. I'm not picky, I've got no particular food allergies, but there's just something about the combination of pickle and mustard that I just really don't like. The "Team Garth" egg was much more mild. I don't think anyone can argue that "Team Trisha" makes a much more cosmetically attractive egg, but long live Team Garth!

Since I usually talk some about allergies - unless I've really missed something, there's nothing in here gluten free, but there is - as there seems to be in her recipes - dairy at every turn. So you'd have to work that one out. It seems like the substitution for the mayo would be easy enough, but I don't know how you'd work around that big EGG problem.

Digging these recipe walk throughs? Check out last weeks!

Did you see this recipe here? If so, welcome!