Jordan Nicole : May 2015

Sunday, May 31, 2015

Sugar

May Favorites

Hello Lovelies. I'm Jordan Nicole :) May has been a great month for me. Something about those summer vibes. Even though it rained here almost the entire month, there were still some really beautiful days. I am looking forward to what the rest of the summer has in store for me. Here are a few the things I was really loving for the last month!

Fashion

High Waisted Adjustable Bikini Bottom

I ordered this bottom online from American Eagle a few weeks ago. I have been looking for a high waisted black bottom for a long time and was very excited to find this. I really like the adjustable element. I even got my best friend Amanda to go out and buy a pair after she saw mine :)

Accessories

New Cartilage Earring

After my last final I wanted to do something spontaneous. I thought about all of my options and very quickly landed on finally getting my cartilage pierced. I left my apartment, got in the car, and went straight to Claire's. Fifteen minutes later I am walking out with my brand new piercing. I already had my cartilage done on my left side but I got this one lower down on my ear. I have a few friends who have it there and just thought it was so cute. I love it so far. It is still healing but I think it is going to be so cute with another earring :)

Beauty

Maybelline Fit Me Matte & Poreless in 112 Natural Ivory

I had been hearing about this foundation nonstop lately and when Kathleen even mentioned it on her channel, I knew I needed to give it a chance. I was very pleasantly surprised by it when I finally did. The coverage of this foundation is a good medium without feeling as if it is. It is light on the skin and feels very breathable. The claim of giving a matte affect is not false either. It does add a matte look to your skin, which I appreciate, though in the summer I tend to go for more of a dewy look with me skin. I think this will be my perfect fall/winter foundation. My favorite element of it is that as you blend it with your brush it almost starts to feel more like a power and dries to easily. I don't have to let it dry before I put of my powder. It is such a cool formula. For any of you with really dry skin, I'd be sure to use a moisturizer or a primer before using it, but I think it would work for you even. Plus another bonus in this line is that is offers shades that are very light. Sometimes when you are really pale it is hard to find a good shade, that isn't too dark. This range is considerate of that.

Urban Decay Half Baked Eyeshadow

Half Baked has always been my favorite Urban Decay eyeshadow. It is in my Naked 2 palette, which I purchased a very long time ago, and it is in my Naked palette. It is my most used shade from the two, but in the past month it has been my most used shade from all of my palettes. My favorite Youtuber, Zoe Sugg, has been rocking a lot of gold eyeshadow and it has just rubbed off on me. It is such a pretty look in the summer time :) She even did a great tutorial on a gold eye and coral lip look. You should head to her channel and watch it if you haven't yet. This gold is perfect for any eye color and will make them stand out, guaranteed.

Entertainment

Castle

My cousin Ellie has recommended Castle to me for years. I love Law & Order and Bones so it just seemed like a show I should have been watching. Well this month I decided I wanted to start but it isn't on Netflix or Hulu. I checked how much the first season was on iTunes. It ended up being $15 and so I bought it, figuring that if I didn't like it then it wasn't to much money wasted. It turned out to be a great purchase. I am now on season 5 in just a few weeks. School has been done so I've been taking some down time. It's a great show. Funny, witty, quick. The chemistry between Beckett and Castle is just phenomenal too.

Girl Online by Zoe Sugg

I have had this book since it was released but I just hadn't gotten around to reading it. I finally started it this month just before I went on vacation to Washington DC. I brought it with me and finished it on the trip. It is such a cute story and a great read. I am really looking forward to the second book coming out later this year. I love Zoe Sugg, she was the first person who really hooked me on Youtube a few years ago. I think she is immensely talented and that shows in her book. The paperback is coming out later this year as well, so if you don't want to spend the money on the hard cover then you could wait for that :)

Amber Fillerup's Instagram

Amber is a Youtuber & Blogger who has a wonderful talent with braids. She has the cutest little family and I follow her on Instagram. She travels the world with her husband and little boy. She posts so many gorgeous pictures of her adventures. Her Instagram isn't the only thing worth checking out though, head over to her channel too. She has amazing hair tutorials!

The May list of favorites isn't very extensive but that's just how it goes some months. I have been very busy with school ending and then going on vacation to Washington DC. I fell behind on here a bit but I will be catching up all summer long. I hope that if you graduated in May that you got to celebrate your accomplishments. You should be proud! If summer has started for you then I hope you are enjoying the sun shine and summertime :)

Thursday, May 14, 2015

Come See About Me

Benefit Cosmetics Gimme Brow Comparison & Review

Hello Lovlies. I'm Jordan Nicole :) My best friend Amanda gave me Benefit's Gimme Brow for my birthday a few months ago and I was so excited. I had really been looking forward to testing it because I was not into brow products at the time. She decided to buy me the light/medium shade because that is the one she uses and she felt like it would work for me as well. When I tried it however, it was a good deal lighter than my eyebrows. I'm a natural red head but my eyebrows are a deep brown and the light/medium shade was very visible against the natural color. It has a gray undertone that my eyebrows are lacking.

Armed with this knowledge and the desire to be able to really use Gimme Brow I decided to purchase the medium/deep shade. Amanda felt that it would be to dark but after testing it while I was in Sephora one day I decided that I really liked the effect it gave. Seeing as I was torn between which shade would be the right one for me to purchase before Amanda bought me my present I thought that others might be on the fence about which shade to buy too.

I decided that since I own both of them then maybe it would be helpful to do a post comparing the two and just reviewing the product in general.

Light/Medium Shade

The lightest shade available in the Gimme Brow line, the light/medium it greatly suited for anyone from natural blondes to light brown hair. I think that you can get pretty far into the browns before you really need to go darker than this. It has an undertone that feels cool toned and gray. This helps it feel like it would work for blondes that have cooler tones in their hair. Even lighter brunettes who have a mousy brown or dirty blonde hair color would be better off going with this shade.

On the other hand, if you are a darker brunette but aren't a fan of bold brows then this might also be the pick for you. When I applied it to my darker eyebrows I felt that it gave them a dusty look that made it clear that I was wearing a brow product. Amanda didn't agree with this though and said that if I had blended it better with a brow brush that I would have liked it. So I think that if your brows are darker but you want a more subtle look than you could make this work.

Medium/Deep Shade

This shade is clearly for anyone who had darker hair or at least darker eyebrows. My hair isn't dark, I would say it is right between light and dark, but my eyebrows are very clearly dark. I think that this medium/deep shade really compliments them and makes them feel full. I am a fan of a strong brow though, so my opinion of this shade is a little influenced by this fact.

No matter your opinion on eyebrows, this shade is a true, deep brown. If you have a medium to deep brown hair color I think this would be the better option for you. It is also deep enough that I think it would work for people who naturally have black hair. If you are a typical red head then you would probably need to stick with the light shade, but for me (I have auburn hair) the dark is perfect.

The Overall Product

I am a fan of this brow gel. I think that it does exactly what it claims to do. It make my brows look fuller and bolder. I typically add this step after I have also filled in the ends of my brows with powder. The combination really gives me the look I am trying to achieve.

This is a picture of me wearing both shades. The lighting made it a little difficult to really see the difference but I think it is still pretty obvious that the product adds a lot to the overall look of my makeup. I think it is also obvious that on the left I am wearing the medium/deep shade and on the right I am wearing the light/medium shade. If you can manage to look passed the awful face I am making (I think I was tired when I took that picture) I think that they really show the effect both shades give.

I hope that this little comparison/review helped you if you have been considering purchasing the Gimme Brow product. I really want to start doing more comparison posts because I know that when I am looking at makeup I always want to know the answer to the question "but what is the difference between the two?". Let me know if you've tried Gimme Brow and which shade you prefer for your own eyebrows in the comments below! :)

Benefit's Gimme Brow is available online at benefitcosmetics.com and online & in stores at Sephora and Ulta.

Wednesday, May 13, 2015

Eyes Open

Too Faced Better Than Sex Mascara Review

Hello Lovelies. I'm Jordan Nicole :) Simply put I can sum up this entire post in one sentence; this is the single best makeup product I have ever purchased. I just wanted to make it clear up front that the rest of this post will be spent raving about this mascara. I am sure that you have heard plenty of people rave about it but if you'd like to hear my reasons for raving, and my warning about flaws then you can keep reading my post :)

My best friend Amanda steered me away from this product. She had received the sample size in one of her epsy boxes and was not a fan. For that reason I put off buying this mascara for a while. I knew that I wanted it and I knew that people I really trusted loved it but Amanda is my best source of information when it come to makeup so I wanted to listen to her. I finally gave in and bought it after the temptation was just to much and I am so glad that I did. It is amazing. I can see how it wouldn't be for everyone. My Mama tried it and was also not a fan. I completely understand where the flaws could be big enough to make someone not like this product. When you first start using it the brush can be quite overwhelming. It is an intense product and with certain eye types it can be easy to make a mess, this is the problem that my Mama had. I tend to be a messy mascara applier so I had to learn how to apply it in a neat manner. From time to time I will get it on my eyelid but this is thankfully easy to correct with a q-tip.

The pros to this product are that it has a brush that applies mascara magically. I have long eyelashes so my aim with a mascara is never a lengthening brush. I want volume from a mascara. This one does that for me on a level no other mascara can. The closest I have come to the level of volume is Maybelline's The Falsies, which is my favorite drug store mascara. Now saying that this mascara gives me the volume I am looking for does not mean that it doesn't lengthen as well. It does. That just isn't my main concern when it comes to a mascara. The formula of this mascara is also quite wet so it is easy to manipulate my lashes while applying it. Sometimes I find that if I put on a mascara and my lashes are a bit wonky the formula is to dry to really reposition them. With Better Than Sex I can get every lash into place and when it dries I know that they will stay put. It is also an intense black. Some mascaras, even ones labelled very black, just don't have the color payoff I am looking for. If I wanted anything other than black then I would buy a brown mascara. When I buy a black one I am looking for pure black. I want my eyelashes to stand out and to make my eyes pop. That is definitely accomplished with this product.

I already stated this at the beginning but this is the best makeup product I have ever invested in. It is $23 which is very comparable with other mascaras in its league. If you have been thinking about buying a more high-end mascara then I would highly recommend starting with this one. It is my all time favorite.