Dynamic Duo

I love when I find 2 things that equal a perfect pair, don't you? Especially when I have found a pair of 2 that makes the perfect transition lip color into fall. It is quite trendy at that.

ELF Lipstick in Classy: 

A beautiful medium pink bordering on the deeper side with cool undertones. I have heard it is a dupe for Angel by MAC, by the way. Cream finish. Smells like candy. Only $1. 

NYX Lip Liner in Dolly Pink:  

Gorgeous pink with very cool purple tones. I like to line my lips with this, then fill them in slightly before I put on Classy over top. The 2 of them really compliment each other and create a really unique shade on the lips! Plus, if you apply your lip colors in this fashion, the color will last on your lips longer.

Soft Lips: 

 I thought I would slip this in here since I apply this 15 minutes before my lip color. It makes your lips smoother (obviously) so your less likely to have chapped lines to worry about your lipstick sinking into. It also makes the color stick even better once that creamy texture is gone from the lipstick.Didn't know that!

(not pictured)

Plus, this combo makes your teeth whiter from the cooler undertones. The trick is, to find a lip color with blue undertones (or with cooler undertones) to counteract the yellow on teeth. Now saying you have yellow teeth (: They also sell sheer blue lip glosses too which I find to work the same. Too bad I lost mine!

How to find your perfect lip shade:

Identify your undertones: warm or cool. 

-Veins that look more greenish indicate yellow undertones which means that your skin tone is warm. Olives skin tones are generally warm.

-Veins that look more blue indicate blue undertones which means your skin tone is cool. Red undertones are generally cool.

Now that you know your undertone, find a lipstick that is 2 shades darker than your skin tone. When choosing a lip liner, choose one that is either the same shade as the lipstick, but 1 shade lighter would be ideal. That is why Dolly Pink and Classy are the dynamic duo for me!

I hope these really quick easy tips make your lips happy this season! 

I talked about this in my last favorites video that I did not yet put up on the blog. Enjoy (:

Whats your dynamic duo?

kisses,

Erica

Nothing Else Metals

is my favorite duo chrome polish to date. In some light, it looks as if you painted 1 side of your nail 1 color, and the other side another color. I just love that. One thing I love from the duo chrome/ oil spill polishes is that it can take on a life of it's own.

If you love duo chrome's, you gotta try this! It is from the new line from Essie and they have a couple other colors (all duo chrome) that would fit your mood or style.

Quite frankly, this was rather easy to apply. It dried rather quick. I used 2 coats. I lasted for like 2 days maybe. I can't find a nail polish that would last longer then that anyways (suggestions?)

This was a gift from my boyfriend's mom, so thank you Barb! She's probably not reading this but yah no, just in case (:

NOTW post's are never long. If you have question's let me know. Other than that, I think I just about covered everything! 

As always,

thank you for reading!

xoxo

Erica

Bath & Body Works Haul

I haven't bought anything from Bath & Body Works in months! I think it is my favorite store, which is weird because of the odds and ends they sell: soap, body spray, candles, wall flowers, & hand sanitizer. I, of course went right for the candles. They had fall stuff out but I haven't been able to buy any candles from the summer yet! I had to.

Coconut Water

"A favorite of local islanders, a tropical blend of coconut milk and sheer vanilla with subtle notes of pineapple and sparkling citrus" 

This was is my favorite. I would have got a big one but they were all out until next year. Dammit! This coconut smell is really creamy. My favorite kind of coconut scent! I love coconut. Period.

White Sands:

"like the first long days of summer at the beach- sparkling grapefruit & sandalwood with coconut milk and summery jasmine"

Close tie to my second favorite. Did you guys remember those perfume Barbies from the early 90's? This is what this one reminds me of. It smells good! Nice and nostalgic. Prominent note would definitely be the jasmine.

Oceanside:

"Refreshing as a long getaway to the ocean - watery greens and cucumber blend deliciously with juicy melon and peony petals"

This one smells really clean. That's all I really have to say about it.

I always thought I was someone who gravitated more towards fruity scents along with food scents. Turns out I love florals as opposed to fruity scents. Who knew? Sadly, the season is over to grab any more delicious floral candles for the rest of the year. Thank God were heading into food scent season (: 

If you love florals and food scents like I do check out my Yankee Candle haul from the beginning of the summer. No need to worry because they have their candles all year round.

Lastly, I need your help again. What would I do without my followers any more? I basically need some HTML help. I need to fix the padding and margins as well fixing my pictures in the side bar true to size. Can anyone point me in the right direction? I have googled it a million times and tried 10 different ways to go about it. Thank you!

Enjoy your rest of the summer,
Erica

Pictures From the Week

actually from the last couple of weeks.

small DG Haul

Sunset sky in Ohio

Flowers from our 3rd anniversary

Thank you babe!

Clouds from an evening sky in Ohio

Fishtail Braid! Finally learned how to do it! would you like a tutorial?

Wal-Mart Haul: Puppy clothes on sale for $2! and Nail Strengthener from Sally Hansen on sale for $1. Don't waste your money on the nail strengthener.

Come follow me on twitter @MeetMissJackson! I tweet most of my pictures, giveaways, and other thoughts (:

till next time

xoxo

Erica

Nicole by OPI Kardashian Nail Polish

From the words of Karen Smith from Mean Girls, my nail beds suck! haha!

If you decide you don't wanna click on this blog, but you see it in your feed, I wanted to fill you in on a sale going on at Ulta. You can grab a set of your own Kardashian mini nail polishes for $2 at Ulta. That makes each polish 50 cents! Just a heads up! They have "Sophisti-Cuties" with deeper colors, & "Celeb-Bitties" with pinks & reds.  I decided to grab "Sophisti-Cuties".

I want to give you a review on this because they are good points and bad points with this little deal. Obviously the price is nice, but then again you get what you pay for. Each polish has 1/8 fl. oz. that means they are not that big. I would say you can get around 7 manicures with it....maybe more? maybe less? Thats a round about.

The good thing is that you get to try the line of polishes to see if you like the formula/color on your skin before you grab a bigger one.

The formula of the nail polish is ok. The first coat looked really streaky & sheer. Once your on your second coat, it starts to look even. After the 3rd coat, it looks opaque.

The polishes lasted on my nails 2 days without chipping. Every other polish I have used will only last that long anyway so nothing really special there. What did stand out is the fact that it is pretty shiny once it dries down.

Now for the bad part's.They come with a really small brush. Because I am used to bigger brushes, I wipe off the excess from the brush into the bottle. With the mini's, I realized I shouldn't do that because the brush is so small, you really don't have any excess. 

One thing that really was a deal breaker for me was the fact that there isn't a shaker ball inside the polishes. I think that is a necessity because when I don't shake up my nail polish, it gets really think and harder to work with. If it had the ball inside it, I think you could get a few more mani's because of it.

Let's brake it down for you in bullet point fashion. If you want more info in the bullet points, simply see above

Good Points:

-Your paying 50 cents a piece at Ulta for 4 mini polishes.

-The formula is not crap. It's not the best either. It's just so- so.

-Once it dries, it is nice and shiny.

Bad Points:

-Small brush, which takes a second to get used to.

-No shaker ball. That means the polish will go bad much quicker.

xoxo

Erica

Avon Haul

I used to sell Avon & since then, I realize that it is hit or miss. I have tried so much stuff I know what I love vs. hate and I had to stock up on my favorites. Well, not all my favorites but I got the necessities....actually no I didn't. Just 1 necessity. Let's just get on with it.

Chocolate Scrub: Bought it on a whim because it looked like an ice cream cone. So glad I did because I haven't smelled anything this fantastic in a long time. It smells like chocolate ice cream, as the name would suggest. As for the scrub, it is nice as well. Has very tiny granules so your not killing your hands when scrubbing your body. It is also creamy at the same damn time. If your just getting into body scrubs, this would be a good first stop because it isn't uncomfortable to use, as some of them can be. I have just been scrubbing my hands with it because I want to smell like it all day to be completely honest!

Avon Makeup Remover: If I could recommend one thing to someone who has never tried Avon before, this would be it. It has a lotion consistency which I think is the trick. It's really simple. Massage lotion onto lids/lashes. Wipe softly with a tissue. Repeat if necessary. That's it! I rarely find myself having to go back for a 3rd time to try and get the rest of my makeup off. Rarely. With oil makeup remover, I find that it is a little harsh on my eyes. It sometimes can take a lot of scrubbing with an oil based makeup remover. No worries with Avon's. Avon's is #1.

Nail Polishes: Avon nail polishes have always been pretty good. Let's face it, most nail polishes only wear for 2 days without chipping. Any brand. This brand is no different.

Sunshine (Cream Finish)

Coral Beat(Cream Finish)

Lucky Penny (Sequin Finish) 

Lip Tint in Coral

Glazewear Sparkle Lipgloss in Rave

Glazewear Shine Lipgloss in Darling Pink

all a buck a piece

I also grabbed an Ergonomic Eye Liner Brush. I needed one! No Picture. I am forgetful! Oopsie!

here's the Avon Haul video! I hope you guys like it and go check out my channel!

Ok! Was a haul, now it's a review. Whatever. I wanna dive back into blogging and shot out a couple blogs w/in the next couple weeks or so- Ima try my best! Any of them you would like to see over another? Let me know!

Lip Liner/Lipstick Combo

 American Eagle/Wet Seal/Bath & Body Works Haul

Pictures from the week

Kardashain's Nail Polishes

I started my new job this week but having a job never meant no more blog!

don't forget about my Youtube channel!

if anyone else makes videos, leave your channel links in the comments so I can check you out!

Sound good? Good!

see you next time!

xoxo
Erica

NOTW: Oil Spill

Hey there! Today, I just wanted to share a really quick Nail of the Week with you guys! If you remember, I bought this nail polish - The Gap's Gold Rush - when I was in Pittsburgh with my boyfriend. I was thinking it was a dupe for Chanel Peridot and you if you click you can see for yourself. 

Usually these nail polishes with the duo chrome, oil spill effect are always really thin once they are dry. That holds true for this nail polish too. The up side to that is even though it is really thin, you can get away with one coat for sure. I think that it has something to do with the fact that it is multidimensional. I have been really loving only painting 1 coat on my nails if I can get away with it because I notice that it will actually stay on longer. When I am doing 2-3 coats + a top coat, my nail polish will just peel off in 1 piece in a day or 2. Because of that, this nail polish lasted a couple days longer than the norm on my nails. On the 5th day, it started to chip.

Moving on, for $6 I like the polish. If your looking for a Chanel dupe, you have just hit a gold mine!  (HAHA!)

This type of finish is so freaking hot this fall! I have been seeing Oil Spill polishes of all colors, holographic nail polishes and metallic nail polishes everywhere. Literally. Everywhere. I am going to have to invest in some more!

I will be back this week with my July Favorites and an Avon Haul! Yes! I have videos to go along with them too! Also, I am re-vamping my blog too! I have been working on it for like a month and I am ready to get all the HTML stuff figured out so there's isn't going to be a huge mess (I have learned my lesson about HTML messes!) but just an FYI (:

See you soon!

xoxo

Erica

Physicians Formula Eye Shadows

Keeping up with the 30 Day Blog Challenge, (which I ditched weeks ago! oopsie!) the next topic is My Favorite Brand. That was where I stopped doing the 30 day challenge. Simply because this was a tough one. How could I pick just one favorite brand? I just could not do so. There are so many brands I love I wouldn't wanna leave any out! However, I would love nothing more then to make a recommendation.

One of my favorite brands is Physician's Formula. Even though they do not have many lip products, which may be my favorite beauty product ever. That is also debatable. PF has some really awesome eyeshadows! And awesome blushes but that is a whole 'nother blog post!

Top 2 Bottom: For Blue Eyes, For Brown Eyes, The Nude Palette

Top 2 Bottom: For Blue Eyes, The Nude Palette, For Brown Eyes

Overall, each palette always has great colors that coincide with each other. I think they are an ok price, somewhere around $10. I found 2 of these on sale for $6 a piece. Score! 

Today I will be going over "For Brown Eyes" only. To see the Nude Palette complete with dupes and swatches, click!

The eyeshadow pigmentation is nice. They are not as velvety as Stila eye shadows, but I would say they are very comparable to Urban Decay as far texture and pigmentation goes.

The "For Brown Eyes" palette has to be my favorite one out of the 3. That's just by chance I guess because I do have brown eyes. But, blue colors really flatter brown eyes too! Im just a sucker for cooler colors and purples. Yummy. I could go on and on about the color combinations. Here's my favorites:

If I could have one complaint for my readers, I would say the fact that some of the colors in the palette take up only a small space wouldn't be ideal for everyone. It's not really ideal for me either, but you will only find darker shadows in the smaller spaces. I don't have any problem getting my crease brush into those smaller/darker colors, but I am brushing it's neighbor color by a hair. Keep that in mind. Usually I find that I don't need as much of the darker colors than I do the lighter colors anyway, so I am cool with it. For 2 reasons:

1.  In most cases, darker colors are more pigmented then lighter colors. PF shadows would be one of those cases. Looking back I wished I would have swatched the lighter ones, but again, I do have swatches of the nude palette here. It's not that the lighter ones aren't pigmented, they are! It's just that I find that I have to pick up color twice with lighter colors. I will only need to stick my brush in the darker colors once.
2. I need more of the lighter colors and less of darker colors anyway. I think most people would agree. So if I get less of the darker colors in the palette, it's fine because I only need that much.

The packaging is nice and durable. It comes with a slanted sponge tip applicator which I think is nice to have. You can use it for any of the darker colors to put over top your eye liner to seal it on. The brush also comes in handy when I want to add some eyeshadow to my bottom lashes as well. 

Lastly, here's my Stella puppy who needs to be in the middle of everything. She loves to stand right in front of my light source when I am trying to take pictures! Then I start snapping pictures of her and she runs away! lol!

Complete hit! Obviously your color preference may vary but I guarantee you will find a PF palette that you will love!

So if you learned anything from this blog post it would be:

1. Physician's formula eye shadows are the bomb &

2. I am extremely indecisive.

you learn something new every day!

About the 30 Day Challenge that I started 2 months ago (lol) I will still be finishing that challenge, but I will do them sporadically (yes, I learned that word from Clueless). So be on the look out for those. 

do you learn vocabulary from movies?

whats your favorite eyeshadow at the drugstore?

 Have a fab weekend, girl (or boy)!

till next time

xoxo

Erica

p.s. Have you checked out my first video?

July Birchbox in Review Form + My First Video!!!!!

Hello! I cannot tell you how exited I am about my first video! I had so much fun with it! I have been blogging her for a year and a half and I thought this would be the next natural step.

Thank you to Kari who has already stopped and said hello over in video world! I was more exited about posting it on blogger then I was on youtube! lol! I think that's because you all have always been so awesome to me and your support means more than anything! Youtube can get kinda hairy at times it seems like. People are bitches.

Now, I need your help.

First let me know if you liked it! I know I am going to have to fix that lighting issue! But some of this to me is hilarious. Oh God! Just like a got better with blogging, I will get better with videos too! LOL!

Secondly, if anyone that knows anything about video's and video editing, tell me about it! I have Windows Movie Maker and I cannot edit my video there without it a) cutting out the last part of the video & b) compromising the quality. If you know any blogs about it too, leave them down below too.

Thirdly, I want to know what you usually like seeing in video form and what you would rather see in a blog post.

Now on to the Birchbox! Basically, I try all of the products I got in my box, so that way I can give you a better opinion on them all. I already took pictures of everything so I am going to include those in here too. Plus the shots I have of my trying to show you the stuff suck because I don't have a viewfinder so here they are! If you wanna know what I thought of everything, you will have to watch the video!

Honest opinion's that are constructive would be awesome from you guys! And also if you have any tips on editing or Windows Movie Maker, that would be just as awesome too! Can't wait to hear everyone's opinion!

 if you wanna subscribe to my youtube channel, I am MeetMissJackson or Erica Jackson so check me out!
I made a whole other account just to have to name MeetMissJackson but I guess I am still Erica Jackson! Dammit!

till next time
xoxo
Erica