Naturalla Beauty

 I've reviewed a couple of their other products before (here and here), but I have to say, I think these lip glosses are my favorite thing I've tried from My Beauty Addiction.  I received two of these in a gift exchange and I liked them so much that I recently purchased the other two myself.

Product Description: Our Pretty Lil' Puckers are a thick creamy gloss that is very emollient and highly pigmented. 

Packaging: Soft, slanted tip squeeze tubes.  

Price: $5.00 for 10 grams of gloss.

My Opinion: Fantastic lip glosses at a super affordable price!  I love the squeeze tube packaging, which lets you control how much gloss you want to apply.  I usually just go for it straight from the tube, but it's also simple enough to use a lip brush if you prefer to apply that way.  

MBA's Pretty Lil' Puckers are thicker than a lot of other natural glosses and they have a great, shiny finish.  Of any natural gloss I've tried, I think these come the closest to that shiny, almost vinyl look that some petroleum-based glosses have.  And, while they aren't sticky, they're fairly long-lasting and manage to keep everything feeling hydrated the whole time too!  In fact, my first thought on trying them was how much they reminded me, in terms of feel, of my beloved Revolution Organics lip gloss that I've been resisting repurchasing ever since it ran out towards the beginning of the summer.

Colours: I have four of the eight available colours, and pigmentation does vary amongst them.  Rumors (bright electric coral) and Party Girl (medium pink with hints of mauve) definitely live up to MBA's highly pigmented claims and have almost the pigmentation of a liquid lipstick.  The lighter colours, Candy Baby (light, slightly frosty pink) and Buff (light nude) are more sheer and let a good deal of my natural lip colour peek through.  All four have some shimmer in them, but it's most visible on the lips in Buff, and barely noticeable in Rumors and Party Girl. 

The Bottom Line: These glosses are definitely a product I would repurchase.  They work nicely both on their own and layered over other lip products and the price really can't be beaten!  I've also received only the best customer service from My Beauty Addiction, which can be purchased either on etsy or from their independent website.  If you do plan on ordering, I recommend checking out MBA's Facebook page first, since there are often sales and specials that are only advertised there. 

  

I can't believe it's already practically fall!  The summer has flown by and it obviously hasn't been my best blogging time.  But, I had the day off work yesterday and I spent it doing some blog maintenance.  There were a bunch of things I've been wanting to do that have kept getting put off, so it feels great to have finally gotten them done!

By now, you probably noticed the new design.  I liked the old design, but I felt like it was a little busy, which did make it harder to read sometimes.  I really like this new look - it looks a lot cleaner and more polished I think. 

I'm also ridiculously proud of the social media icons I added to the right side bar.  I'm not the most savvy about the more technical aspects of blogging, so finally getting these done and functioning was a big deal for me.  There are links to my email, facebook, twitter, and pinterest, as well as links to my RSS feed, bloglovin, and hellocotton, in case you want to follow any of those ways.  The twitter and pinterest are fairly new, but the rest were clogging up my sidebar before, so again, it's a lot cleaner looking this way!

In terms of posts, I've got some great ones coming up.  Look for a review of some My Beauty Addiction glosses in the next couple days, as well as a recipe for a DIY clay mask that my skin has been loving lately.

And, that's all for now I guess!  I'd love to hear what you think of the new design!

Several of the blogs I follow do food posts on Fridays and I've decided it's high time I joined in!  I realize I haven't written much about this, but I love to cook.  I'm constantly reading recipes for ideas, but when it comes to the actual cooking, I often opt for throwing things together and tweaking as I go over following a recipe to the tee.  

A couple weeks ago I got my hands on a rather large basket of asparagus and this is what I ended up making with it:

I've always been intimidated by blush.  My face is already on the pinker side, so I worry that even the slightest hint of blush will make me look like a tomato face.  As a result, blush is something I've only [cautiously] started wearing very recently.  

Lucy Minerals already makes my favorite foundation and finishing powder, so when I decided to dip my toes into the world of blush, theirs was, of course, one of the first companies I thought of.  I ordered five of Lucy's try it sized blushes and set to experimenting.  Try it sized blushes are $2.50 and are full 5 gram sifter jars, which is the same size as most mineral eye shadows.  They're also universally very pigmented, so a little really does go a long way - even the trial size will last a good while!  Full sizes come in 20 gram jars and are $12.

Now on to the colours.  I chose three more traditional blush shades - Petal, Hyacinth, and Juicy Peach - and two shades I thought might work as bronzers or contour  colors - Sunny Bronze and Healthy.  I also received a free sample of Matte Sedona, which I've also swatched below.  

The Bottom Line

Lucy Minerals' blushes are another huge hit for me.  They're nicely pigmented and blend very easily.  Of the lot, Juicy Peach is my favorite.  It's a natural looking peachy/nude shade that's a little on the sheer side.  It's great for adding definition and brightening up my face without screaming that I'm wearing blush and has become my most-worn cheek product of late.  I love that I can throw it on quickly and not have to worry about looking overdone.  

Lucy Minerals has yet to let me down.  Like everything else I've tried from them, the blushes are high quality and affordable.   I'd definitely recommend giving them a try if you're in the market for some new blush!

  

I've been wanting to start concocting more things myself, so when my regular, purchased deodorant stopped working so well, I decided it was the perfect time to try my hand at making my own. 

I found a ton of different recipes, but I didn't really follow any of them, opting instead for just adding ingredients to a bowl until my mixture reached a decent consistency, then crossing my fingers and hoping for the best.  Surprisingly, it turned out pretty great!  (What didn't turn out so well are the photos of this adventure, so I hope you'll forgive that this post is a little lacking in that department.)

 

Here's the recipe I came up with:

2  1/4 tsp baking soda

3  1/2 tsp arrowroot powder, corn starch, kaolin clay, or other baking soda buffer

1 tbsp coconut oil

10 drops lime essential oil

4 drops orange essential oil

4 drops eucalyptus essential oil

4 drops spearmint essential oil

What's nice about this recipe is that it doesn't require any heat, so it's super quick to whip up.  I just stirred together the dry ingredients, then mixed in the coconut oil and essential oils until everything was well combined. When I first made it, in the winter, it was fine at room temperature, but since it's gotten warmer, the coconut oil stays liquid and I find it too messy to use that way.  Instead, I've been storing it in a small jar in the fridge, then just scooping out about a pea-sized amount to apply.  As long as you're planning to store it in the fridge, you could also put it in a deodorant tube, since it's stay solid enough to apply that way too.  Alternately, you could try adding in a little beeswax, which will help it stay more solid at room temperature.

One last thing that's worth mentioning is to always make sure you're using high quality essential oils.  I use Young Living, since a lot of the essential oils you find on shelves are diluted with other junk or extracted using chemicals.  

I'm not the smelliest person to begin with, but this has been keeping me totally stink-free throughout this hot, humid summer.  What's more, I'll even catch whiffs of the deodorant during the day, which is kind of nice, since I do like how it ended up smelling.  It's super simple to make and ends up being cheaper than a lot of natural, store bought deodorants.  Also, you can control exactly what goes into it and you play around with the recipe until it's exactly to your liking! 

 

Have you ever tried your hand at making your own deodorant?  If so, how did it go?