9 Tips to Banish Cake Face!

After a very rough month or so health wise and sleep wise, my face is in rough shape.  I did not wash and moisturize twice a day like I should have while I was sick and my skin shows it.  When your skin is dry, uneven, and full of dead skin layers, cake face is so hard to avoid!
Luckily I found a scrub and a face oil that really help! I can now actually salvage my poor skin and have my foundation apply smoothly without the dreaded cake face look.
Since I have been struggling with this and researching tips and tricks I thought I would make a post with all of the useful tips and tricks out there.  There are so many things you can do to help avoid cake face:
1. exfoliate (2-3 x's a week) 2. moisturize (2-3 x's a day) 3. add some oil to your foundation before applying (see demonstration here) bonus tip: if you have dry skin or lots of texture to your skin avoid watery, or very thin liquid foundations. You can even put your skin type into Sephora's website and see recommendations for foundation based on your skin type) 4. apply foundation with a beauty blender or soft foundation brush 5. try to stipple (push foundation straight into your skin) instead of rubbing the foundation around your face 6. use downward strokes when applying foundation (peach fuzz generally grows downwards on your face and you want it to lay smooth and flat not stand it up) 7. make sure your foundation is completely dry before adding any finishing powder 8. press instead of rubbing powder in 9. use a glycerin, moisturizing setting spray
Thanks for reading!!  Sorry there are no pictures in this post, my camera lens is not able to pick up cakey vs. smooth makeup difference :(

There's a Dupe for that!

Remember those commercials for the iPhone?  The one that told you if you had an iPhone there was an app to do anything that you might ever need to do?  I bet you can hear it in your head right now..."There's an app for that."
Did you know that almost every high end makeup product has a similar, cheaper counterpart?  They call them dupes.  There are tons of them!  Go ahead, pick a high end product, and I bet, "there's a dupe for that!"

For example, the other day I saw some MAC swatches on a girl's blog.  The shade "amber lights" caught my attention.  It was gorgeous!  But it was also about $15 for one eye shadow.  Eek!  Well guess what auto populates in my Google search as I type in "MAC amber lights."   "MAC amber lights dupe."  

I can look through the swatches and find a product within my budget.  I can then read reviews on that product to confirm it's worth a try.  Then I can own a similar product for a fraction of the cost.  Yes!

From looking at the pictures..the closest (it's almost identical) shadow is from wet 'n wild.  It's in a trio called "I'm getting sunburned" and it's only $2.99.

Have fun dupe finding!  Do you know of any great dupes?  Share your finds in the comments below :)  Thanks so much for reading!!

Linking up: Makeup Monday

Make your cheekbones POP!

I follow Benefit cosmetics on Instagram.  They have some pretty cool marketing and their products always have the funnest names.  Yesterday they posted a tip called "the jelly doughnut."  You use illuminator around your cheekbones/apple of your cheeks and then put blush in the center of your "doughnut" and blend.

I tried it yesterday...Wow!  I have never had my cheeks look so sculpted and gorgeous.  These pics really don't do it justice.

Before (sorry it's so blurry)

Can you see the ring of shiny color on my cheek?

Ring and blush in the middle, preblend

The finished look!  I think this is easier and maybe even better than highlighting and contouring. I used my e.l.f. all over color stick as my highlight because it is somewhat frosty.  I used my e.l.f. baked blush in rich rose to pack in the middle of my circle.  Then I blended the edges of the circle and the middle with the blush.

You've got to try it!  Thanks for reading :)

Linking up with: Fry Sauce & Grits, Makeup Monday

Cold Water Nail Polish Trick

I saw this on Pinterest and I was both skeptical and excited.  I love having my nails done, meaning I love how they look when they are neatly painted.  

I do not like painting them.  It is a pain and I struggle with not painting all over my cuticles and skin.  I also struggle with having enough time for them to dry before I have to use my hands and dent, scuff, or ruin the polish.

So here's my test of this "hack."

This is my right hand.  I took pictures of it, because it is always sloppier.  This is before soaking in cold water for three minutes.

This is post soaking.  The nail polish is completely dry!  I touched it, rubbed it, even scratched it and it didn't budge.  The polish on my skin also didn't budge even with rubbing and scratching. :(

Next I layered on my next shade.  I like to layer colors to get new shades.  Usually it works really well for me.  So I painted another layer (after drying all the water off of my hands and nails) and tried the water trick again.

This time I pulled my fingers out after three minutes and they obviously weren't dry, so I got colder water and tried again.  It still didn't work.  I had to go about my day at this point and this is what they looked like approximately 10 minutes later...super frustrating!

So this hack kind of works.  It does not get the polish off of your hands and did not work with my OPI polish.  It worked great with my e.l.f. polish though.  

I'll keep experimenting with it and let you guys know if I figure something else out.

Thanks so much for reading!!

P.S. see this post and many others at the BeYoutiful link party :)

**Update the next time I tried this I couldn't get it to work with my e.l.f. polish on its own :(