i don’t use make up on a daily basis. i use it only when i need to look nice, am going out, or need concealer to cover particularly heinous under-eye circles. i’m going to write about some of the products that i’ve found in the last couple of years and i’ve been really happy with.

when i do use make up, most of it goes on my eyes so most of this post will actually be dedicated to eye makeup!

1. for the base, i use neutrogena’s 3-in-1 concealer. as indicated in the photo, the product is actually a concealer, an eye cream, and sunscreen, all in one tube! i use it in medium because it’s so easy to blend.

2. eyeliner is something i really love. although i don’t use it as much as i’d like to, when i do put it on it’s always fun. for eyeliner, i used to always steal my mom’s covergirl’s perfect blend pencil liner in black. it doesn’t run too much, it’s pretty dark, and pretty cheap too.

i haven’t actually been using this liner lately as i’ve discovered a better product that is blacker, doesn’t run, and is easy to apply. it’s l’oreal and i absolutely love it. i wish i knew how to exactly describe the awesomeness of this eyeliner and just why it’s so amazing, but all i can say is that it goes on smoothly and doesn’t run! it’s l’oreal’s extra-intense liquid pencil eyeliner!

like i said, when i use makeup, it’s mostly around my eyes so i’ve got various options for liners. the previous two are awesome but as they are pencils, they’re not too precise when i’m applying them to my top lid. they are fantastic when you want that smokey eye/grunge look, but if you’re ever wanting that wingtip/cat eye look, liquid eyeliner is the way to go. one that i’ve found to be to be super extra special that most definitely does not travel is urban decay’s liquid liner. one warning, however, after application, make sure to not blink profusely for a few minutes as this does take a while to dry and it will smudge if you move around before it settles.

(i use it in black or as urban decay calls it, er, “perversion.”)

one more liner, guys, i promise. when i’m feeling particularly adventurous and maybe a big weekend of partying is coming up and i want to give my eyes an extra special touch, i like to use glitter! this i usually only apply very lightly: less is more. i apply it over a thick stripe of black eyeliner. when i put it over black liner, the glitter just pops! this eyeliner i attribute to giving me some of the funnest nights of my life. being the first girl pulled into a large circle of boys doing a jig on 6th street in austin? all thanks to urban decay’s heavy metal glitter eyeliner in “baked” (i.e. gold)! it’s really cute and sexy and just adds a nice touch to a classic look.

3. why is it that it’s men who are born with great long lashes and not women? why is it the supposedly fairer sex who are given the lot to suffer through life with thin and sparse eyelashes? sure, latisse sounds like a fix to this problem but also kinda gross. fortunately, we have mascara! mascara is tricky. sometimes i’ll see a girl with mascara that’s made her eyelashes all clumpy and icky and it just dissuades me from using the product at all. i use liner probably more often than mascara but, when i do use it, i can count on urban decay’s big fatty mascara. silly name aside, it comes with a huge brush that will extend and thicken your lashes.

when i’ve run out of big fatty or i simply can’t find it, i can rely on another mascara: bare escentual’s big tease mascara. it comes with this weirdly shaped brush that you’re supposed to use in some particular way but i don’t know what that particular way is. even so, my eyelashes look pretty nice when i use this mascara.

4. lips! only until very recently have i decided to venture into the world of lip color. i think it’s really tricky to find something that looks good, that won’t smudge everywhere, and that will stick around for a while. there’s a product i hiiiiighly recommend as it does all three: it looks awesome, it does not move an inch after application, and it lasts until the next day, baby. another great thing about this little godsend product is that it’s relatively cheap for it’s awesome performance ($10). ready for the reveal? revlon’s colorstay ultimate liquid lipstick! it comes in at least 20 different shades. the color that i use is “superb sangria.” it’s a dark merlot color (i don’t know really. purple-ish? maroon-ish?) and it goes with my dark skin tone and if i use it on a thursday night and i have work on friday morning, i have a super cute trace of lipstick still left! i’ve used it in “top tomato” also (a gorgeous red) and it’s also very nice. it comes in a lipgloss tube with one of those wands so it’s pretty easy to apply but careful! if you apply it where you don’t want it to be, you’ll have to be meticulous in removing it. whenever i go out of my lip line, i use a q-tip to remove the unwanted make up.

the most recent addition to my makeup bag came as a suggestion from naag.com, a beauty/culture website run by super model agynes deyn and her buddy fiona byrne. i totally recommend the website being checked out as they do a much better job of describing makeup than i do. so, yes, thanks to them i found the. perfect. red lipstick. i love that it’s incredibly matte, as in, the polar opposite of that bubblegum lip gloss that we all used back in the seventh grade, that nasty sticky stuff that comes off everywhere. (if only you knew where the inspiration for making lips look like that came from….) anyway, mac’s lipstick retro matte in ruby woo is seriously to die for. it looks fantastic! like i mentioned earlier, i have pretty dark skin so i was surprised to see how well the pure red lipstick looks on my face. it just goes! it’s a bright red color. it won’t bleed out of your lips nor will it empasize the lines on your lips. one thing, though, is that you do have to apply a few layers to make sure it lasts the night.

so that’s it, i think! like i said, i don’t use much make up, but i’ve found that these products are essential. for make up removal, i use neutrogena make-up cleansing towelettes. they’re not 100% perfect about getting rid of eye makeup but they’re pretty darn close to it.

i also use neutrogena’s one step gentle cleanser. it’s pretty good too!

well, i hope this was informative for some people. to the companies whom i’ve so blatantly endorsed and basically given free advertisement to, i fully expect crates of free products (i’m looking at you neutrogena and urband decay!). this was funner than i expected it to be; i’m surprised that i was able to write so much about makeup.

seriously, what’s the official word: makeup, make up, or make-up??

2. summer is also the time for magical connections between two people that would usually not be made otherwise. opportunities and situations present themselves on those hot days and nights that would never arise in the other nine months of the year. you find your summer-self behaving in ways that your fall-, winter-, and spring-selves would either shy away from, sneer at, and avoid completely, respectively.

say, for example, you’re at the house of a friend of a friend, enjoying a cool drink inside their well air-conditioned den. your friend and your friend’s friend are hitting it off and having a great time all on their own. you, too, are enjoying yourself, watching reruns of a favorite show while sitting next to the friend of the friend of your friend. he offers you a sip of his imported beer, and, seeing the big drops of condensation slowly sliding down the crystal clear glass, you can’t help but lick your lips in anticipation of the rich, dark refreshment. even though the air-con is on full blast, you realize that you’re still pretty stuffy and maybe it’s a little cooler outside. so you take the offered glass into your own hand and, while the glass is being transposed from one owner to the next, your fingers brush against his. you raise the glass to your lips but then realize that you’d much rather be outside. so you get up from your seat and head for the door, hoping that the friend of the friend of your friend follows behind you. when you open the door, you breathe in the sweet, night air and feel the cool breeze wrap you up. behind you is the friend of the friend of your friend. he shuts the door behind him and watches you as you finally take a sip of the indian pale ale he is so graciously sharing with you.

as you sip from the tall sweating glass, he says, “man, it’s hot out.”

finishing the sip, you reply, while looking down at your exposed toes (because you’re wearing sandals), “sure is.”

you look up at him, he smiles, and says, “uh, you’ve got a little froth-stache.”

embarrassed, you raise your hand to your mouth, ready to wipe the offending new accessory. before you can do the job, though, he grabs your hand and intertwines his fingers with yours. “wait,” he says. so you become this subservient version of yourself for a moment. with his free hand, he places a curled forefinger under your chin and uses it to tilt your face up. you think that this is the part in the movies where the girl gets kissed underneath the cloudless night sky when you can see so many stars, but then you feel that he’s really kind of just kissing that funny spot between your upper lip and nose, your cupid’s bow. and then you realize that’s perfectly fine because that part of you never gets properly kisses so you’re not going to complain.

“thanks,” you say as a hot flush creeps across your cheeks.

“no problem,” he replies.

when you realize that he still really hasn’t moved away and he’s standing a little too close, you look up at the sky because you can’t really stand looking into his eyes because you’re sure you’ll fall right into them and never get back out. as your heart rate slows, you decided to try to look at him. he, too, is looking up at the sky, at the stars, at the endlessness of it all. you see the taut skin that stretches over his adam’s apple, and you can’t help yourself. you bring your lips to that esophageal protrusion and get to know it.

after you get walked to your side of the car later that night by that nice young man and after he kisses you goodnight, you drive away with a warm feeling in your stomach that has nothing to do with the weather. there is some magical force that is pulling up the corners of your lips, whether you like it or not. then you realize that had it not been for the warmth of the summer breeze or of the position of the moon and venus in the sky that night or the freezing air inside the house or the shared pint of beer or that feux-froth facial hair, perhaps you would never have done any of the aforementioned. hypothetically, of course.

but that’s just what summer is known to do to people.

3. about three halloweens ago, i dressed up as an electrical outlet. silly, i know. it was a total diy last-minute costume and to kind of spice up the whole ensemble, i donned a long black wing with blunt bangs across the forehead. stupid costume aside, i thought i looked pretty cool, and it was mostly because of the wig. so that night, i kinda decided that i wanted to have my natural hair just like that. long, dark with bangs. fast forward to last summer and my hair is getting pretty darn long. i have never had successful bangs but i put on a brave face and head to the hairdresser’s. with me, i take my bff zooey deschanel (a picture of her anyway) and say, “i want those layers and i want those bangs.” she looks at me. “please,” i finish.

when i walk out of the salon, i feel awesome. that wonderful cathartic feeling that comes with shedding some hair buoys me for a good week. the next couple of months, however, are filled with me complaining about my goddamn bangs and how annoying they are and how they’re always in my face and some days i wake up and they’re just being totally uncooperative and now with these bangs i can’t skip out on washing my hair because then they get really oily and it looks like i have nasty grease hair and whydidievergetthesestupidbangs???

it’s been about a year since i got the bangs and i’ve grown them out. mostly. i can almost completely tuck them behind my ears and i can pull them up if i want to have an alarmingly high bun or ponytail. i miss them sometimes because i think i looked pretty okay with them.

now, though, my hair is kind of long. as in, down to my waist long. and i don’t know what to do with it! i’d love to do bangs again but they’re more trouble than they’re worth.

4. so this is potter-tastical year. in two days, it will be the 1-month anniversary of universal studio’s wizarding world of harry potter theme park. my brothers and i are planning a short vacation over to the park next month and we’re all stoked! the park was completely designed with j.k. rowling signed on as a consultant so everything’s got her stamp of approval. even the butterbeer is supposed to taste exactly how she imagined it. in her mind! j.k. rowling’s mind! butterbeer!

later this year, in november, the seventh installment (and part 1 of 2) of the film series will premiere. harry potter and the deathly hallows should be an amazing film and i can’t wait for it to come out.

5. i’ve come to the conclusion that ever july, i go into a mini-depression. luckily most of my friends are away for school or visiting family or something that takes them away so i’m allowed to sulk at my own leisure. this month i’ve been missing my younger brother like crazy as he’s currently on an epic road trip with my dad. one of my bffs is flying up east to visit her family, another is in california doing some crazy internship at a hippie school. another bff just got married and moved to florida and another one is in spain. i miss them all terribly, but this allows me to kind of feel sorry for myself and also really concentrate on my class and get an a+++.

+1. if i don’t update for the next month and a half, enjoy the rest of your summer and remember to free yourself to all opportunities!

2. The semester is fast coming to a close and I can’t wait. The long semesters always drag forever. I just want it to be over already. Although I hate summer with every fiber of my being, I always enjoy taking summer school because of its brevity.

3. My car was out of commission for a few weeks. On a night out with some friends, it just mysteriously stopped working. For a while, I couldn’t figure out what to do with it. Since I’m a mess when it comes to dealing with cars, I was just asking my parents to tell me what to do. They kept trying to get these flakey mechanics to come do a house call but they always bailed. Because they’re flakes. It had been pretty upsetting. Finally, I got it sent to a local reputable auto shop but, to repair it, it was hellishly expensive.

4. Since the repairs turned out to be so expensive, my grandmother offered to help me out. I said yes, but only on the condition that I would be allowed to pay her back. She didn’t want to agree to this at first, but she compromised, saying she’d let me pay her back half the original amount. It’s still a lot so I’m thinking I’ll get a second job for the summer.

5. Mad Men is returning July 25th! Awesome, right? I can’t wait.

2. This cinematic genius, Eli Roth, is currently dating a disgusting English socialite, notorious for poor behavior and drug abuse. Now, there are many reasons why I find her to be unworthy of his attention, but if I really went into all of it, I’d hate myself. I don’t want to waste effort writing about her, but I really think Eli could do much better.

3. I know this is a little late as the Academy Awards were almost a month ago, but I really want to go see Tom Ford’s directorial debut, A Single Man. As I live in a culture-less city, of course, the film never made it to theaters regardless of the fact that it was released in December of last year. Not only do I feel that Tom Ford is a talented individual and that is good enough reason to go see the film, it also stars one of my favorite actors Of All Time, Colin Firth. In the supporting cast there is also the fantastic Julianne Moore and the charming Matthew Goode.  In short, it has all the makings of a movie that I seemed to be programmed to love. Unfortunately, however, it seemed I would simply have to wait for the dvd or something because I didn’t know how else to see it. Earlier today I was checking the movie list on Fandango because I really want to watch Clash of the Titans, only instead of looking at those showtimes, I see that our local dollar theater is currently showing A Single Man! Isn’t that great? I really want to go see it tonight so, yes, I will be doing that definitely today. I’m sure I’ll love it.

4. I’m a pretty poor blog keeper. Clearly. Since I was about twelve (ten years ago!), I’ve kept some form of online diary. As horrifying as the idea is, it’s true. There are bits of me scattered all over the web, most of which I couldn’t find if I tried. None of them, however, have I ever had to pay for up until this blog. I have been paying for it for about seven months now, and I need to use it! I’m going to try much harder after my winter hiatus. I just wish there was some program on my computer that I could have that would just pop up every day and not leave until I’d written something substantial. It’s not that I find myself at a loss for what to write. No, that’s not it at all. I’ve got words coming out of my ears. I just think I’m easily distracted and I really have to sit down and concentrate on doing a simple task like writing a fairly unsophisticated blog entry like this. But, yes, from now on, I shall try to keep regular posting.

5. This month has come with crazy awesome magazines. On PAPER, Beth Ditto is on the cover. Nylon has Zoe Saldana; Esquire has Tina Fey; Details has Sam Worthington. These are the four that have caught my attention. I know Shia LeBeuouf is on the cover of GQ but, eh, he’s not that great. Of those four first mentioned, I only have PAPER, thanks to a gift subscription. I need to go get the other three. I read the article on Zoe from Nylon, and it was really good. She seems like a really rad person. I could have dedicated a whole FF bullet on her, but I didn’t want to make all five them totally related to films. So, yeah, go out and buy a good magazine because that industry needs support!

The Magnetic Fields – Swinging London
“I read your manifestos and your strange religious tracts/You took me to your library and kissed me in the stacks.”

The Pains of Being Pure At Heart – Young Adult Friction
“Between the stacks in the library/Not like anyone stopped to see/We came they went our bodies spent/Among the dust and the microfiche.”

Final Fantasy – Library
“Anna, Gerald, Henry Waugh/Let this longing retire/I will purge my shelf of classics/Watch them fade upon the fire/I will burn my every book/To warm your cold, cold blood”

Talking Heads – The Book I Read
“I’m embarassed to admit it hit the soft spot in my heart/When I found out you wrote the/Book I read”

My Morning Jacket – Librarian
“It’s not like you’re not trying, with a pencil in your hair/To defy the beauty the good lord put in there/Simple little bookworm — buried underneath/Is the sexiest librarian/take off those glasses and let down your hair for me”

The Beatles – Paperback Writer
“Dear Sir or Madam will you read my book/It took me years to write will you take a look/Based on a novel by a man named Lear/And I need a job/So I want to be a paperback writer”

Modest Mouse – Bukowski
“Went to bed and didn’t see/Why every day turns out to be/A little bit more like Bukowski/And yeah, I know he’s a pretty good read/But God, who’d want to be/God, who’d want to be such an asshole?”

Camera Obscura – Books Written For Girl
“he likes to read books written for girls/he prides himself on being a man of the world/in the darkest of places he gets his thrill”

Tahiti 80 – Open Book
“Your eyes are like an open book/One can tell everything from the way you look”

Morrissey – Reader Meets Author
“You don’t know a thing about their lives/They live where you wouldn’t dare to drive/You shake as you think of how they sleep”

Ryan Adams – Sylvia Plath
“And maybe she’d take me to France/Or maybe to Spain and she’d ask me to dance/In a mansion on the top of a hill/She’d ash on the carpets/And slip me a pill/Then she’d get me pretty loaded on gin/And maybe she’d give me a bath/How I wish I had a Sylvia Plath”

Saint Etienne – Lost In The Library
(No lyrics, but a great composition anyway that has a bookish feeling.)

Sia – Academia
“But to you I’m just a novel that you wish you’d never wrote”

http://drop.io/khvhpr59183#

I Know Sunflower Seeds Are Disgusting, But I Can’t Stop Eating Them - I don’t allow myself to eat them very often, but when I do, it’s awful. I’ll buy a 14.5 oz bag of the things and eat the whole thing in a matter of days. I’m guessing that I’m lured to them due to several reasons. They’re salty as shit. Everyone loves salt, right. Well, I’m no different. Sodium and I go way back. I also haven’t peed since 2002. Kidding. I also thing I really like them because of all the work I have to do to get to that delicious little treasure that is hidden with that crunch shell. I’ll usually pop several in my mouth at once but, from there, I focus my attention on little guy at a time. I love the delicious cracking noise as my molars apply slight pressure as the shell splits open in two pieces. From there, I use my tongue to fish out my tiny prize from one of its concave shelters and then chew it with relish. I never do this in front of people because it’s gross. There’s too much saliva and trash involved. And passion.

So What If I’m Kind of A Snob, It Just Means I’m Living A Higher Quality of Life… right?! - Whether I roll my eyes when I hear “Rock Star” by Nickelback gently blasting from the headphones of the guy walking by me or I make a gagging motion at my friend when she orders a whiskey and Coke with Jack instead of Member’s Mark, I think that I’m right and justified. Sure, I might secretly be jamming out to the over-synthesized choruses and non-artist-writtern of Miley Cyrus’s “Nobody’s Perfect,” but I can still make fun of you for listening to 3Oh3?!. Yeah, I can, and that’s because I’m right and you’re wrong.

I Am A Champion Dilly-Dallier/Lollygagger/Procrastinator. Whatever. I’ll Make My Mind Up In A Minute - Prime example of my tendency to put things off until the very last minute: as I mentioned earlier, I go to school and I work on campus too. This means I spend most of my time at school. Monday through Friday, I have to be on campus by ten or ten thirty. That’s a pretty good time, right? Not early in the morning at all, but I don’t waste away most of the day. To help me get to school on time, I set my alarms at 8:50am and 9:35am. One is to make sure I’m up and sentient and the other is my cue to GTFO of my house. Notice that neither are designated to actually wake me. This is because I have the natural ability to have my body and mind wake up on their own at about 8:20am. This is awesome, right? It should allow me more than enough time to get to class or work in an unrushed and timely manner. In reality, however, I almost never early for work or class. I’m usually right on time or one to four minutes late. At the moment I wake up, I tell myself that I have enough time to simply lie in bed and turn a few things in my head, whether it be the night’s dream or the day at hand or some guy or anything really. This laying in bed can last from fifteen minutes to half an hour. I get into the bathroom that’s only a few steps away and begin my morning regime. Pee, hands, face, teeth, and hair (I’m a night shower-er). The hair usually takes a bit. My hair is quite long and I’m a little bit obsessed with it so I’ll spend quite some time parting it, brushing it, and just trying to get it to look nice. After this, I got back to my room to check my phone and return any calls I may have missed or reply to any waiting text messages or, more often than not, check my usually-empty inbox, get on my LJ f-list, Delicious links, and, of course, Facebook. If I’m feeling sharp, I’ll also squeeze in a few games on my Minesweeper application. I’ll then boot up my laptop, start playing some music to get me in the mood to start the day with a positive attitude, and since I’m already here, I might as wellcheck my usually-empty inbox, get on my LJ  f-list, Delicious links, and, of course, Facebook. In addition, I’ll also check my Google Reader since I still have yet a good app to do so on my phone. By this time, it’s about ten minutes past nine but I’ve still got plenty of time. With Lady Gaga playing in the background, I stare contemplatively at my full closet and pick out an experimental outfit. I model it for a few minutes and poses in front of a full mirror, deem it too avant-garde, and switch to a more conventional outfit. This goes on for several more outfits until I’m exasperated beyond belief and I end up in my uniform: jeans, v-neck, cardigan, and flats. After I’m clothed, I turn on the tube and watch some music videos or a morning show or a movie. Next thing I know, It’s 9:42 and it takes me at least ten minutes to get to campus and find a good parking spot. I get to my car in the driveway, remember my backpack, car keys, or something else and then I’m actually leaving my house at ten till. And there you have it, I have written a huge paragraph to just hold off from coming up with three more thing about me. Fail.

May I Go Through Your iPod? Why Do You Have The Beatles The Times Here? The Dresden Dolls and Dresden Dolls? Son, You Need To Fix Your iTunes Tags. - Another thing I’m really fickle about is keeping my iTunes library in perfect order. The artist must be correctly listed (punctuation, accents, spelling), if there is a track with two artists, find out whose song it is and name it Main Artist – Track Name ft. Companion Artist. It is never both artists at once. Also, album art is a must. A quick ImageGoogle search will help you find what you’re looking for and even if nothing specific is found, just slap on there a favorite picture of said artist. Anything.

*Sniffle* No, I’m Not Crying Because I’m Sad I Got A Parking Ticket! These Are Angry!Tears! - I hate this about myself. Whenever I’m really angry, I cry. Unfortunately, openly weeping is usually interpreted as sad, so when I really just want to tear someone’s head off and feed it to my dog, I’m often regarded as being seriously wounded. I’m not. These are hot, livid tears of righteous anger. Not sadness.

Hey Everyone, Check Out My Brand New Ray-Ban Sungla…sses? Uhm, Gosh. I Was Just Wearing Them On My Head… Then I Set Them Down On That Bench But I Picked Them Up. Yes, I Did! Oh, god. - So I lose my shit all the time. Last year, I really did lose a pair of Ray-Ban wayfarers. I wasn’t stupid enough to leave them on a bench, but I was plenty stupid to leave them in a fitting room. Sigh. So many of my possessions have gone missing. I’ve lost wallets, students IDs, driver’s licenses, jeans, shirts, cellphones, Blackberrys, books, lip balms, CDs, cameras, earrings, bracelets, shoes, calculators, jackets, hoodies… I would go on but this is just depressing. I’ve actually Googled “Why do I always lose my shit?” with no satisfactory answers, so here’s to another twenty years of absent-mindedness and countless of soon-to-be lost items!

Well, this was fun!