Editions of Me

Congrats to KM Loove for winning my See Jane Run giveaway!  For the rest of you, fret not! Get 10% off your entry fee with the code SJRAMB239.  See you June 22nd!

I am back as a See Jane Run Ambassador for 2014, and to celebrate, I am giving away one free entry to the SJR Half Marathon/5k in Alameda on June 22nd! You have until Friday night 3/7 to enter! Please share this blog post and support See Jane Run! a Rafflecopter giveaway

Sugarpill recently released a new, limited edition pink eyeshadow for Valentine's Day called Smitten, and of course, I jumped at it. I'm not into Valentine's Day, but it's a good excuse to wear pink eyeshadow. - UDPP - Sugarpill Smitten  all over the lid - Too Faced Gilded Ganache  in the crease (all the Too Faced shadows listed are from the Chocolate Bar palette) - Too Faced Milk Chocolate  to blend out the crease - Too Faced White Chocolate  as a highlight - Too Faced Cherry Cordial  dabbed lightly in the outer corner - Stila Stay All Day Liquid Liner in black along the upper lash line - CoverGirl Bombshell mascara Also wearing: - ELF HD Blush in Superstar - UD Revolution lipstick in Naked

I just received an ELF ( eyeslipsface ) order I placed recently, and I wanted to post some swatches of some of the items for people to see if they need :) Prism Eyeshadow palette "Sunset" Rose gold is de rigeur right now, is it not? It was hard to choose just one palette, but I was really drawn to this one. I swatched it on bare skin (no primer), and as you can see, it's very pigmented. The texture is really soft (almost too soft, maybe? You may get fallout) and I didn't have pick up much for the swatches above. Long-Lasting Lustrous Eyeshadow Left: Toast; Right: Festivity Out of all the items, these might be my favorite things. They are cream shadows, but they are SQUISHY. Like, spongey in texture. It's like playing with Play Doh. I love these just because I'm fascinated by them. Very pigmented, but I don't think they last super long, because about ten minutes later, I was able to wipe them away easily with a tissue, and there was just a

Lipstick: MAC Viva Glam Rihanna Lip pencil: Urban Decay 69

And I’m not talking about body shape and size, I’m talking LITERALLY real women. It’s not uncommon for advertisers to piece together parts or features of several different women to create an uber-perfect woman for the final copy, and that has got to stop. It was hard enough living up to the beauty ideals that existed before Photoshop became so pervasive, but now that companies can digitally Frankenstein together their ideal spokesmodel or they can alter a real woman so much that she barely looks human, it has become impossible. And yet, the message still stands - “This is what you should want to look like to be considered attractive and desirable in our society.”  Well, screw that. I am not okay with that.

I admit, I tried to read this book years and years ago, when the whole Twilight craze was going on and other vampire books were being featured on the Featured table (oh god, remember REAL LIFE book stores?), but I couldn't get into it back then. Maybe I just wasn't patient enough to stick it out through all the new terminology, because you don't get a straightforward explanation of moroi , strigoi , and dhampir  until a while into the book. I finally decided to give it another try after the movie came out this weekend and my friends who HAD read the book and seen the movie raved about it, and then I saw this list on Buzzfeed . (Go read it, I'll wait.) It's like they were singing my song - female empowerment? Bechdel test? Unfailingly loyal friendship? Positive female sexuality? Anti-slut-shaming? Realistic and sympathetic depictions of mental illness? I have to see this movie NOW. Or rather, I needed to read this book , NOW. So I essentially finished it all

OH HAI cute packaging! Among some awesome items I picked up this weekend with my Ulta 20% coupon was Too Faced's Chocolate Bar palette, which has been highly spoken of around the blogsphere thanks in part to 1) the fact that it's made with cocoa powder and it even SMELLS like chocolate, and 2) its overall similarity to UD's Naked 3 palette (in terms of it having pink-based neutrals). So yes, when you open the box (which reminded me of my old-school metallic pencil cases from middle school), there is a pleasing scent of cocoa (like cocoa butter?) that wafts from the display of colors before you. It is vaguely reminiscent of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (the movie), and I half expected to find a Golden Ticket inside the box. (I didn't, but found instead a small lookbook featuring three different eye looks using the palette. Nice.) Here's a closer look at the eye shadows, which are all candy-inspired, by the way, with swatches below. The swatches