Friday Makeup Favorites

Makeup is a huge part of my life. I try never to leave the house without a full face of makeup on. Since this is my side business--I want to be the best advertising I can be. These 5 makeup products are my 5 favorite products for everyday wear. Whenever I leave the house I have these on. Some of them are cheap, and some are expensive. All are quality and get their money's worth.

1. ELF Primer
This stuff is like $5 and it feels better than many other primers out there on the market. It helps my makeup stay all day and look flawless without making me oily. It mattifies my skin perfectly. I just love this stuff. You should always prime your face everytime you wear makeup. One of the biggest mistakes that people make is skipping this step. Skincare is so important to a flawless look.

2. Mabelline Dream Lumi Highlighting Concealer
This stuff is one of my favorite new finds. I wrote about this once before--but it is that special. It has replaced by heavy duty MAC and Benefit concealers. I put a coat on before foundation and a coat on after all of my makeup to highlight. It is DA BOMB!!

3. Buxom Lip Plumping Gloss
Admittedly, I am not a lipstick person. I would rather wear gloss. I love the warm tingling feeling that this gloss gives me. It is long wearing and rarely sticky. I am impressed with the colors in the collection and hope to own all or most of them eventually. Try this stuff. You won't be sorry.

4. Bobbi Brown Gel Eyeliner
My cousin has been wearing this stuff for years. This past Christmas she gifted me some and I have been in love ever since. Yes, it is very pricey. To be honest, though, I don't feel that the drugstore brands quite live up to the staying power and pigmentation that this stuff can give you. It will stay all day and all night. I have slept in the stuff and it does not budge. When you have hours where you need to be presentable, then this is what you need!

5. Lorac Unzipped Palette
I am an Urban Decay Naked Palette fan, but I LOVE this Lorac palette. I think that it is much better than the Naked 3. The shadows in this palette are much larger than the ones that you get in the Naked palette and I love their pigmentation just as much. The champagne color and rose gold color are my favorite. I use them daily on myself and on many of my clients. They just look good on all skin tones. While it is expensive--I think it is worth the money.

What products are part of your everday routine?

Wedding Makeup on a Budget

Check out this beautiful Bride! I had so much fun doin gher hair and makeup this morning for her big day. It really is such a priviledge to get to be a part of someone's wedding day. I take it very seriously that they have chosen me to make them look their best. Because I take this seriously I try to find the best products for my clients.

I love makeup—BUT it can be really expensive. When I became a makeup artist, I had to invest a pretty penny over many months to slowly build up my kit to include higher end items. I didn’t want to break the bank all at once—so it has been a slow process. Now that I have been working for a little over a year, I have built up enough of a portfolio to start applying for the major makeup brand’s Pro cards. These cards are for Makeup artist and other industry workers, and they carry pretty nice benefits—including discounts on makeup products.  I am so excited to be able to buy those high end products that will make my clients feel super pampered without having to invest half of what I made from that particular job. I mean--$50 for an eye shadow palette is a little ridiculous. It is especially so when you go through them as quickly as I do.

So in the meantime I have learned to pick and choose. While I do have a lot of higher end items—I have also found a lot of gems that get the job done for a lot less. They enable me to keep more of my money in my pocket for that dream home we are saving for.  Here are a few of my favorite drugstore makeup items.

NYX—I LOVE this brand. It is highly touted by makeup artists across the country as having a high end look for a bargain price. I wouldn’t really call it a drugstore brand—because most drug stores don’t carry it. But it is in the drugstore section of Ulta—so I think that counts. Here are my FAV NYX products

·         Eye shadow base in Skin Tone—I use this as an eye primer. I think it is comparable to the MAC paint pot. However, they do not have that many colors.

·         Lip Pencils—while they are not as creamy as the higher end brands—they get the job done, are highly pigmented, and last for hours and hours.

·         Baked Blush—I love the color pay off of these blushes—they are better than most drugstore brands.

·         Matte Lipsticks—they are creamy, yet matte. Many matte drugstore lipsticks look chalky—but these are A-MAZING. My favorite color is Pure Red. It’s intensely beautiful.

·          Mineral Foundation Stick—I use the darkest color they have to contour and the lightest color to high light. Then I just blend, blend, blend. They go on smooth and creamy and melt right into your skin with a dewy finish. I love them just as much as the Bobbi Brown foundation stick, and for a fraction of the price.

·         The Wonder Pencil—This thing is awesome and versatile. I use it to correct brows and high light around brows and inner corner of the eyes. It is great for covering blemishes and even lining lips for bold lip colors such as Reds and oxbloods.

Revlon—This brand is a true drugstore gem. I use several Revlon items each and every day (that I actually put on makeup that is). Many makeup artists use the 24 hr Revlon Colorstay as their main foundation. I use this foundation for weddings because it has great coverage and it stays put.  I also love their Colorstay Liquid Pen Eyeliner for making winged eyes on all my clients (and on myself). I like it better than the high end brands hands down! I cannot live without their lash glue which has a brush for easy application. Squeezing glue out of a tube is just not going to work in a pinch.

Maybelline—I love their eye brow pencils. LOVE them! I use them on each and every client. Even though I do have a discount with Anastasia Beverly Hills (easily the pro favorite for brow products), I haven’t invested in their pro brow palette yet because I am happy with these pencils.

ELF—Elf can be found at most targets and is a great brand. I love their mineralize primer, and their HD setting powder.

Salon Perfect—these lashes are the bomb. I get them at wal-mart and get so many compliments on them from my clients.

This look was achieved with the following products. They are separated by drugstore or high end

Drugstore—Revlon Colorstay Foundation, NYX Mineral Stick Foundation MSF09 for contouring, Salon Perfect Lashes Demi Whispies, Revlon precision Clear Lash Glue, Revlon Color Stay Liquid Pen in Blackest Black, NYX Baked Blush in Wanderlust, NYX Lip Pencil in Peekaboo Neutral, NYX Glam Lip gloss in Do the Hustle, NYX eye shadow base in Skin Tone, NYX eye liner in Black, Mabelline Brow pencil in medium brown.

High end—Benefit Erase Paste in Fair, Lorac Behind the Scenes Eye Primer, Too Faced Lip Stick in Spice Spice Baby, Too Faced Chocolate Soleil Bronzer, Bare Minerals illuminator in the Shining Moment, Urban Decay Naked 2 eye shadow Palette, Lorac Unzipped eye shadow palette, Buxom by Bare Minerals Mascara in Black, Lancome eye shadow in Trendy Intense.

P.S. I did the hair in this look as well J

When I am not JUST P's Mommy

Since I started this blog it has been pretty exclusively about my journey into motherhood with baby P. However, I do want to delve into my favorite hobby and part-time job—being a makeup artist.

I did not go to cosmetology school—and I am constantly looking to learn more, but I feel that I have made a good little niche for myself in the makeup world. I don’t have a booming business, but this is partly by design. I am happy with just a job or two a weekend so that I can focus mostly on my most important job—being P’s mommy.

I think that it is VITALLY important for a mom to have a creative outlet. Creativity keeps you in touch with your spirit. It keeps you sane when times are hard. It keeps you from becoming JUST someone’s mom. I have found with these weekly outings that I get time to just be Caroline. Not J’s wife and not P’s mommy. Just me. It’s refreshing and it keeps me happy.

I work a lot with one of my best friends in the whole world, Sarah of OWN Boudoir and Sarah Esther Photography. She has photographed me a million times. She did my engagement, wedding, and P’s newborn and 3 month photos. She is INSANELY talented and crazy fun to be around. She has given me a great opportunity to work with her boudoir clients on a weekly basis and I am so grateful that she has taken that chance on me. I hope that I make her proud.

The number one reason that I love working with Sarah is that we are able to make women feel beautiful. Each and every woman that walks into that studio has a story to tell. A lot of them are brides about to get married who want to give their groom an incredibly sexy gift on their wedding day. Some of these women are wives who want to spice up their love life. My favorites are the women that do this for themselves—they want to capture themselves at their very best. They want to feel beautiful inside and out. That is what we do for them. It makes me feel great about myself inside and out—and I hope it rubs off on them!

I’ve done a few weddings here and there and am dabbling into doing hairstyling (on a limited basis). I have a wedding coming up this month that I am super stoked about.

I operate mostly on word of mouth—it is crazy how the opportunities come in. I get calls and facebook messages from people who heard of me through a bride I worked with and it makes me smile. It  means that I have done a good job.

It is a great way to supplement my income while I am staying home with P. Although, that is not really why I do it. I do it to get away from it all for an afternoon and step into the fantasy of girly, pretty, and sexy things. I get to be that trendy well-manicured mommy that seems to have it all and a bag of chips—even if my life is SO not really that way.

My goal from here on out is to share more of this side of my life with each of you. AND maybe give you a few beauty tips and tricks here and there.

Happy Sunday everyone!