Editions of Me

In truth, as excited as I was for UD's new Electric palette, I had already decided that it had a lot to live up to. No person who knows about the existence of brands like Sugarpill  could avoid making comparisons, I think. For me, Sugarpill is the end-all, be-all of bright, electric color, and though Urban Decay wasn't always famous for its Naked palettes, even the colors they had before weren't, like, ELECTRIC. They were edgy, and beautiful, and colorful in their range (in fact, Sugarpill's Cold Chemistry collection is the most Urban Decay-ish set of shadows they have), but not necessarily BRIGHT BRIGHT BRIGHT. Nonetheless, I was excited. There are some gorgeous shades in this palette, some Sugarpill-ish and some that are more along UD lines: I agree with other bloggers who say that a pure yellow would've been more useful than, say, the silver, and that this palette trends towards the blue side of the spectrum. But every shade here is really beautiful, an

I first read Divergent  (and the second book, Insurgent ) almost a year ago, so I had already known that there was going to be a movie, and I spent a lot of time on IMDB while I was reading just to match up names with (the actors') faces. In fact, the thing that got me interested in reading Divergent  was the fact that Shailene Woodley had JUST been announced as Hazel for The Fault in Our Stars  (one of my dearest, most favorite books), and there were a lot of people online whining, "She gets to be in both TFIOS  and Divergent ????" Hearing the two books get mentioned together a lot, even for that sort of a comparison, made me really curious. So, I spent the summer tracking the Divergent  tag on Tumblr and found all sorts of cool things about the movie, which was currently being filmed in Chicago, and I devoured all the interviews and panels from Comic Con, and I pretty much found myself obsessed with everything about Divergent , from the books, to the movie, to a cer

Take your negativity and piss off. Not that I've run recently (but I'm trying!), but I get kind of annoyed when I see people post stuff like the image above. Of COURSE I take it personally. I DO share my workouts on my Facebook. I post because I'm proud of having accomplished anything athletic, and I post because people have been moved to sign up for races or do whatever form of activity they love as a direct result of seeing my posts. (I'm not assuming, they've TOLD me this. And it's a great feeling.) I'm not here to tell people how to work out, and I'm not here to tell people TO work out. YOU DO YOU. I'm a big supporter of that. But not if that involves you raining on my hard-earned parade. Seriously, "unfollow" and/or "unfriend" are literally a click away. (God knows I make good use of those buttons.) I'm sorry-notsorry if you're annoyed that I wax ecstatic about the things I love, but if you can't deal wi

Well, three out of four. (Candy Crush was out of stock. But it WILL be mine, oh yes.) L to R: Frostine, Hotsy Totsy, and Kitten Parade I'm so excited to have these! They're not available through Sugarpill.net yet, but I found them at a store in LA, and I ordered them over the phone (since I'm not in Southern California). SQUEEE! These are really, really pretty, and as always, the quality is stellar. Well, Frostine is a little powdery, but that's just what happens with pastels. It's got this really great, subtle iridescence to it. Hotsy Totsy is the brightest of this collection, though pretty tame compared to other Sugarpill pinks we've seen before. It's got some sparkle to it. Kitten Parade is my favorite of the three, a beautiful peachy-pink with gold shimmer.  All smooth, all pigmented, all lovely. The last one that I'm missing is Candy Crush, which appears to be a sort of baby blue/pale aqua. I'll post when I get it :)

I love that UD occasionally sends out sample-sized versions of upcoming products, and I especially love when I manage to snag one :) So, this is interesting! I can't tell if this is just a new black pencil or if there are going to be a whole line of Velvet pencils in different colors, but the finish on this one is different.  It reminds me of charcoal, a very black charcoal. And much more matte than even Perversion, which does have a sort of sheen to it. Here, see for yourself: L to R: Zero, Black Velvet , Perversion Perversion is inky-black and extremely soft and creamy. It's got a touch of satin in its finish, and in my lighting, it leans a little blue.  Black Velvet is black, black, black, and I found it to be slightly harder in texture Perversion, less slippery, which you may like or you may not like.  Either way, if you're a black pencil enthusiast, you definitely won't want to miss out on Black Velvet when they finally release it. (I don&#

I haven't been to Cinequest in a while - I always want to go every year, but it's hard to make the time, and also I don't like going by myself because I like having someone to debrief with afterwards. Source: http://collider.com/breathe-in-trailer-images/ I finally made it to one last night! (It would've been two, but I was really sick and missed the other one I wanted to see.) My friend Jeannie and I decided to go see Breathe In , starring Guy Pearce and Felicity Jones. Primarily I was interested in seeing Felicity Jones, whom I've only seen in Northanger Abbey   (and of course she is wonderful in that). Overall I enjoyed Breathe In , and felt like jotting some thoughts down. The rest of this post will contain spoilers for the movie. Guy Pearce plays Keith, who was a rock musician living it up in New York City until he is forced to move to the suburbs to start a family. As the movie opens, he is preparing for yet another year as a high school music teache

I don't always think that movie tie-in makeup collections are a good idea (hi CoverGirl, did you even READ The Hunger Games/Catching Fire  before suggesting ways we could look like Capitol citizens?), but I was actually pretty gung-ho hearing about this Divergent collection from Sephora. In addition to the box set I'm about to write up below, there is also a separate palette  and a nail art kit . The movie comes out on March 21st, and I've been waiting for this FOREVER. (Okay, not really... I've been waiting for this since a year ago when I first read the books. Other people have been waiting much longer.) To celebrate my love for Veronica Roth's amazing trilogy and my love for quality makeup, I hereby kick off a countdown to the movie's release, starting with some photos and swatches: (Psst... I'm not going to explain  Divergent  to you because you can google. This post will assume you know the general story, and will not include major spoilers pa