The Holy Grail of Sharpeners

Now maybe I'm last to this party but when I saw beauty blogger/beauty guru xsparkage talk about the Grindhouse sharpener from Urban Decay and how it came with the Loco Ocho 2 bundle and how amazing it was I got curious. Curious enough to look it up, see it was $10 and say "NOPE!" since you can get at least one sharpener for $1 at most dollar stores. 

Now, my Ulta haul was a total bust. I went and bought a tiny Ulta eyeshadow pallet for $8 and a new NYX pallet for $20+ and when I got them home I was super disappointed. My Ulta pallet had been opened already and was dirty, used and abused. Now I know how to clean and sanitize products so that didn't make me too wary, it was the NYX pallet that threw me over the edge. It's a pallet with a top compartment with all neutral eyeshadows and a bottom part with blush and highlight. I opened the top part and one of the eyeshadows was broken, which wasn't too bad because it's fixable with alcohol, tissue paper and a quarter. What got me was that I couldn't open the second compartment to fix the highlight that was also broken and spilling EVERYWHERE! 

Out of frustration I put everything back and went to Ulta today to exchange my stuff. One of the things I decided to pick up on a whim was the Grindhouse sharpener. (I know, long story, little pay off)

Grindhouse as I mentioned is $10 and can be bought at Ulta.com - Sephora.com - or UrbanDecay.com

It is double barreled, super sharp blades, has a removable top and bottom chamber for easy cleaning, and comes with a tiny scrapper stick. 

(I would have taken a picture but I didn't think about it until I used it so it's dirty and that seems unprofessional to me)

At first I have to admit I was a little impressed. Turning the pencil felt smooth and super easy. I turned it twice, pulled out the pencil and it looked almost NEW! I thought maybe it was a fluke so I tried it again.

Then I tried it on a lip pencil, realizing how important it is to have a good sharpened pencil when doing a darker lip outline. You don't want your pencil dull, making mistakes something easier to accomplish. And sure enough it looked as though I had never touched it. 

The worst pencils for my to sharpen are my NYX Jumbo Pencils. Even with most double barrel sharpeners I can never really get these to sharpen well. After doing this pencil I was sold. 

All in all, if you are an avid makeup user and have an extra $10 in your pocket I say go for it. In fact I may just go out and get myself another one for just lip pencils. It's amazing and totally lives up to hype but if you have a sharpener that does all that for you and is cheaper let me know in the comments section.

Thanks for reading.

XOXO

Jordana Lip Reviews

So since I'm addicted to buying all types of beauty products (and I say beauty because I'm on a very strange nail polish kick lately) and I'm really trying to start this blog, and get to doing stuff with it I decided to work my way around some new products that I bought recently and have been playing with for a while now. All the lip products are Jordana which you can buy at Walgreens and are fairly inexpensive.

Now if you follow my personal account on Instagram (beatlesxchic) then you know that I promised on Saturday to review them and to be honest I've been itching to try them ever since, but because I haven't actually taken them out for a spin I won't be able to give you an educated review on how long they last on your lashes. Also, like I've stated before all the pictures are cropped because I have a really awful 5 mega pixel camera and really awful lighting in my very pink room. None-The-Less when I try to use the sunlight in my room as lighting everything in my pictures get a pink tint. So with that, lets start this bad boy.

Okay lets start off with the simple stuff. The lip products.
First I decided to buy the Jordana Lip Out Loud Super Shiny Gloss in 104-BFF

Regularly $2.29 but Walgreens is having a BoGo 50% off sale right now so it was $1.14

Now as you can see in the swatch the gloss isn't very pigmented. It is a sheer gloss that has a hint of fuchsia in it, which in some cases is exactly what you want and/or need on some occasions. If you're lips are really pigmented naturally don't expect this product to do much more than look like a clear gloss. However, on the up side this gloss smells like candy. The sweet smell is powerful enough that you will smell it on your lips for a while after application. 

The gloss gives a very nice sheen, doesn't feel sticky or tacky in any way. It also doesn't give your lips that awful shine that makes them look greasy either. Over all I really do like the gloss but if you want something more pigmented for about the same price try the NYC Liquid Lipshine in Fashion Avenue Fuchsia which has more pigment to it and the color is basically what you would have expected from BFF, only be very aware that the NYC gloss is a little bit sticky and a thicker consistency. 

Now I also bought the Jordana Twist and Shine in 04 Candid Coral.

This lip balm stain is $3.29 at Walgreens.

Now maybe it's just the shade that I chose but as you can tell it isn't very pigmented. It does follow the big balm stain trend but it doesn't feel like the Revlon Just Bitten Balm Stain, it feels more moisturizing, and more light weight. However, with two swipes of the Revlon stain I get a fairly pigmented red lip, while with this one I kept trying to build up the color to no avail. But with lighter colors it's usually very normal to be less pigmented if, like I said before, your lips are more pigmented. 

You can see that on my lips it looks less coral and more like a soft pink. It does reflect light nicely and feels really comfortable on lips. In fact, dare I say I actually liked the feeling on this on my lips more than the Revlon lip stains. This doesn't wear as awfully on my lips and dry them out the way the Revlon balm stains did. However, my lips are super sensitive to dryness so you may not feel the same about the Revlon balm stains as I do. I am curious to try more of the Jordana stains in the different colors they offer though.

Lastly I have heard beauty bloggers rave about the Jordana lip liners and let me just say... wow.

I bought the Jordana Easy Liner For Lips in Sedona Red for $2.29

Sedona Red is a bit darker than I thought it would be. But my gosh is it gorgeous! It is the PERFECT lip liner for a shade like MAC's Russian Red which is a smidge darker than their more vibrant reds due to the more blue tint to it. I digress, my next post will have something to do with MAC reds though so keep an eye out for that.

I'm very pleased with this liner to be honest. First of all it's retractable which means that I don't have to carry around a sharpener with me, and if you are a make up artist you understand that if you can cut anything out of your kit, you do it because kits get incredibly large. Also when you're out and you need to reapply your lip stuff the worst thing that can happen to you is that you find out your pencil isn't sharpened and all you have to work with is basically wood. Now I usually use the MAC lip liner in Cherry for my red lip needs and while Cherry is the perfect shade for all the reds I have in my collection, and let me say I have a... ... few. BUT the Jordana liner is just... perfect. It glides on like a dream! There isn't any tugging at all it's just like buttah! It's just something that I want in multiple colors to add to my kit and personal collection because not having to sharpen something, plus the inexpensive price tag, plus the texture is awesome. I just wish they had more of a color selection than their 13 colors that they have on the website now. I would like to try their other retractable liners though.

Anyway, I'm done for the moment toodle-loo ^-^

Tid-Bits-

• I was listening to Lorde radio on Pandora and my gosh is it just a great mixture of female Electro/Indie Pop. 
• I have a big obsession with winged liner and red lips. 
• Don't know if I should do a red lips blog or just a red MAC lips blog.