Winterize Your Nails With Julep

Winter time can reek havoc to ones nails and cuticles. Between the cold dry weather and washing your hands extra to keep away the flu my poor nails could use a little TLC. 

Julep recently released an exclusive tutorial featuring tips on How to Winterize Your Nails. Below is the tutorial, all tips I truly believe in and sometimes neglect. 

My take on Winterizing Your Nails:

Invest in a crystal nail file. I hate the feeling of an emery board. A crystal nail file lasts longer, is smoother to use, and I will never turn back again after purchasing mine. 

Out of cuticle oil & cream? Rub a little olive oil or coconut oil on your nails and cuticles, works like a dream. 

In a real pinch? Use your chapstick or lip balm after washing your hands to hydrate your cuticles. 

Keep your nails shorter in the winter time, it keeps dirt and bacteria at bay and is easier to maintain. 

Take your vitamins! This will keep you healthy against cold & flu AND give you strong healthy nails and hair. 

Some of winter's hottest shades from Julep. My favorites are Ilsa and Sawyer. Of course when in doubt go for a classic red or deep blue. 

What are your winter tips for healthy nails? Favorite shade of polish?

XOXO
Serein

Good For You Makeup- Glo Minerals

In late 2014 I was asked to try Glo Minerals Luxe foundation. I had heard about the brand and knew a little about the company. Being a beauty blogger, I'm asked to try a lot of products, sadly most are not worth mentioning. Glo Minerals really shocked me with their Luxe Foundation and even made it to my Best of 2014 Liquid Foundations round up. You can watch the first impressions review video here. 

Of course after the success of their liquid foundation, I wanted to try more. Glo Minerals offered to send me their Metallic Smokey Eye Kit, Duo Shimmer in Candle, and Blush in Sweet. I then purchased the Concealer, Brow Powder, and Pressed Base myself to really get a feel for the brand. 

First off, Glo Minerals is 100% cruelty free, talc free, and paraben free! This is great news for those that have extremely sensitive skin. For the most part my skin can take a little beating, but for everyday wear, I need to be careful of the ingredients in my makeup. 

You can use: DRESSHAPPY15 for 15% off your entire purchase (MSRP only).

I do not make commission off the discount code or your purchases this was given to my viewers from Glo Minerals.

My favorite product that I have been using is the Dual Shimmer in Candle. Glo Minerals donates proceeds from this product to breast cancer, which makes it even more special.

The shimmer is so gorgeous and makes my whole face glow like an angel. I love the golden shimmer for highlight points, and the pale pink shimmer is beautiful on the inner corner of my eyes.

The highlight is some of the most finely milled powder I've ever touched and the products is ridiculously pigmented. I have to say if you buy anything, buy this highlight duo!

Next up is the Metallic Smokey Eye Kit. This is a beautiful everyday school, work, life kit. The name is a little misleading in my mind. I feel that this is a beautiful wearable everyday eye palette, but the metallic smokey eye name can put those natural eye look seekers off.

The palette is full of my favorites, neutral shades! I thought the shimmer might be too much, but it made for a very youthful glowing look. My only wish is for one matte shade in the quad to add a little more possibility.

The pigmentation is good, again very finely milled, long lasting, and easy to work with. I see college and young working adults loving this quad.

You can wear the base shadow all on it's own with a bit of liner and be good to go. There's a guide to how to wear the shadows, but I find these to be very versatile in wearing alone, all together, or mixing it up.

The next item that blew me away is the blush in sweet. I love what this blush did for my complexion. Sweet is the perfect name because this blush made me look bright, happy, and healthy. The powder if pigmented, bendable, soft, and oh so beautiful. I think anyone with light to medium complexion would love this great everyday blush!

I also tried the Pressed Base in honey light, one of their best sellers and I have to say I love it. It's a great build able coverage powder foundation. You can see me use it as a setting powder in my latest video about Glo Minerals here.

For those who want a quick no fuss face, you can use the very creamy concealer duo and dust the face with the Pressed Base and be good to go. For touchups the compact is great, just be careful not to cake it on throughout the day. If you add too much just mist with a setting spray or fancy water to bring back the luminosity on the skin.

The concealer was quite impressive as well. Smooth, blend able, soft, and didn't crease under my eyes. The coverage is good and I like that it comes with 2 shades.

I also purchased the brow powder and forgot how much I love brow powders! This Spring is going to be all about less is more and natural brows, so powders are a great quick way to tame my sparse brows. It's almost fool proof.

Overall I'm quite impressed with what Glo Minerals has to offer as a cosmetics brand. The foundation are truly unique and perfect for those struggling with sensitive skin. I'm a new fan and will be purchasing more in the future.

Have you tried mineral based makeup? What are some of your favorites?

XOXO
Serein

Creamiest Matte Single Shadows EVER

Colour Pop has done it again! This California, American made cosmetics company has come out with new matte shadows. I thought the satin, metallic, ultra- metallic, and pearlized finishes were beautiful, but these matte shadows hare to die for! 

This is the perfect finish for the more natural makeup lover. Mixing these mattes with metallic, ultra-metallic, and pearlized offers dimension and unlimited possibilities. 

The pigmentation is 100% vibrant and creamy. These shadows are not for the faint of heart. Check out my previous posts about Colour Pop Cosmetics.

typo: Bandit is actually miss labeled and is Farah

I've been consistent impressed with Colour Pop Cosmetics and even listed them in my Best of 2014 Lip Products as well as my Best of 2014 Eyeshadows.

Have you tried Colour Pop yet? What do you think of the line?

XOXO
Serein

The Best of 2014 Eyeshadows

This has to be one of my favorite videos in the series thus far. I love eyeshadows and it's my favorite thing to apply everyday.

Eyeshadows for me are the highlight of my makeup looks. You can do so much with eyeshadow and there's so many wonderful formulations and products out there at every price range.

My new video The Best of 2014 Eyeshadows will take you through what I have been loving for the past year from $5 to $75.

Watch the video below

Don't forget to subscribe to my channel so you don't miss anything!

XOXO
Serein

Jaclyn Hill Favorites for Morphe Brushes

If you have been on instagram or anywhere near youtube in the last few days, you might have heard about the frenzy going on over Morphe Brushes and The Jaclyn Hill Favorites. 

Basically there was a cyber breach that was causing some major traffic jams on Morphe's website adding to an already anticipated crazy rush of traffic to pre order Jaclyn Hill's picks of amazing shadows. 

I am blessed and fortunate enough to live about 15 minutes away from the store and decided on a whim to drive over and see if the coveted palette was available. 

Lucky me it was. After waiting about 30 minutes to get in, I decided to pick up 2 palettes, one for me and one to giveaway very soon on my youtube channel. Make sure to subscribe so you don't miss it. 

Originally I was stopping in to add to my collection of Morphe shadows, but with the craziness I decide to just pick up 2 of these palettes and go. 

Morphe makes some amazing shadows that compare to mac and makeup geek. Best part is they are $2.99 a pan! Guys this is seriously unbelievable! The quality is very pigmented, we are talking CRAZY. 

I've been a recent fan of Jaclyn Hill and I want to support YouTubers whenever possible. Think of it as karma :-)

I love her choices for this palette, the only thing I feel that is missing is a matte black in the palette, otherwise this is a beautiful set that is very versatile and wearable. While the shadows are very pigmented and blend-able, I urge beginners to remember this and blend, blend, blend!

Some of my favorite Morphe shadows are:

#20 the perfect dupe for mac's woodwink

#62 the perfect dupe for mac's cork

#90 the perfect dupe for mac's honey lust (I think better and more pigmented than mac)

Now there has been a lot of upset over this palette. It was originally suppose to be for pre sale starting January 1st. Starting at midnight the website had been very slow and difficult to get through. There were some cyber issues that Morphe tried to resolve as soon as possible. Then folks were upset over the shipping time. Many orders placed won't ship out to mid- late January. People were also upset that they sold out by the 3rd and were also selling at the store.

Here are my thoughts on the issues. Morphe is a relatively new and small company. They anticipated a huge amount of traffic to their site starting January 1st, but did not realize the evils of those who wanted to sabotage this exciting launch. Most likely Morphe hires someone to handle their website, and had to be at the mercy of their schedule, ability, and man power. If Morphe was Bill Gates or Steve Jobs I'm sure they would have fixed it themselves in 2 minutes, but Morphe makes makeup brushes and makeup products and they are good at that.

With all the madness, Morphe is sending out confirmation emails slower than usual and trying to solve problems as them come. I am sure that if your credit card has been charged YOU WILL get your confirmation email soon! From what I hear it is taking about a day.

January 1st was for pre order, I'm guessing so that Morphe could anticipate orders and prepare to ship out, buying themselves a little buffer time. Remember this is not the first time Jaclyn Hill has caused their site to crash. Expecting your product to reach you today is not realistic. You will be getting your palette within the month, it takes time, but your getting it no later than anyone else who ordered online. Need I mention Morphe is a relatively small shop? I'd also like to point out that shipping labor and costs are pricey for any business. While you the customer pays for shipping, most of the time the business is eating some cost here.

Being upset over Morphe selling the palette in their ONE retail store. Is this even something you should be upset about? Why would they not sell it in their retail store? They only have one small shop in Burbank, CA, that most folks won't be able to get to. If you had a shop would you not sell something that is on your website?

Basically at the end of the day this is a great palette for a great price. Your getting an amazing product curated by a great YouTuber. Let's cut Jaclyn and Morphe some slack. Jaclyn stands behind great products and Morphe is doing their best to get them to you. They are learning from this and I promise you they are loosing sleep trying to fill orders and get more palettes ready for sale because lets face it does any business want to have to turn away customers? NO!

If you ever get the chance, visit the store and see the people that work there. They love what they do and they work very hard. You can even see the shipping folks working in a frenzy out back. Let's also give props to Jaclyn Hill for being so influential and beneficial for a company. It's amazing the power of YouTubers these days. We should be excited, because YouTube is the voice of actual consumers.

So lets all take a breath, hope Morphe gets new palettes in ASAP (which they have promised to) and support a local business in the U.S.A.  as well as Jaclyn and at the end of the day, it's just an eyeshadow palette. We all love makeup, but seriously lets all relax a little.

XOXO
Serein

P.S.
I am not affiliated with Morphe in any way or know anyone personally.

Louboutin Blue

If you've been reading or watching my blog or youtube channel for a bit, you'd know the whole story about my wedding shoes which happen to be blue Christian Louboutin's. When they came out with the Louboutin Rouge polish this summer I immediately purchased the pricey polish. Read post here.

When shopping awhile back, my Hubs and I found the perfect shade of blue that represented my wedding shoes from the collection. I wanted, but held off.

For Christmas this year, Hubs really wanted to get this for me, sadly it was sold out so he did the next best thing, got me a Sephora gift card and I was able to go pick it up myself the day after Christmas plus a few other goodies. See What I Got For Christmas here. 

Watch the vlog where I purchase this beauty and get a peek of the beautiful display of all the polishes.

Christian Louboutin Polish in Wherever 

XOXO
Serein

What I Got For Christmas 2014

Just wanted to do a quick post and share with you my beauty loot from Christmas. Lots of folks like to film "What I Got For Christmas" videos, but I find it so hard these days when my presents are scattered from Black Friday through Christmas.

Here are the beauty items that I received this year. Hope you all had a very merry Christmas and A Happy New Year!

Christian Louboutin Nail Colour The Pops in Wherever
My husband really wanted to be able to get me this beautiful polish because of my wedding shoes. I talk all about why I would spend $50 on a nail polish here. Also I tell my story about the blue Louboutins and my wedding in my last vlog for vlogmas here.

Tartelette Matte Palette
While stopping in to pick up my polish, I saw the much anticipated tartelette palette. Seeing it in person I couldn't pass it up, especially when I knew I had a bit extra on the gift card I received. The palette in person is so gorgeous and non of the pictures I've seen has done it justice. More on the palette in my next posts.

Chanel Reverie Parisienne Les 4 Ombres in 236 Tisse Fantaisie
Chanel's new spring collection is out and I picked out one of the eyeshadow quads. The blushes while beautiful, just didn't look right on my complexion. More on this beauty in future blog posts.

What did you get for Christmas?

XOXO
Serein

My Winter Skincare Must Haves

My skin is combination oily. I get very oily on my nose and dry patches on my chin if I'm not careful. 

Come winter time, my skin goes into crazy mode. It's not sure what it is, it's dry, irritated, and oily. 

Many people don't understand that oily skin needs moisture and so does dry skin especially in the winter time. Here are my current go to skin savers at the moment, mostly oil based. 

Oil! Yes OIL! Especially if you are oily, oil can be your best friend. For my oily skin people, your skin over produces oil because it thinks it needs it. That's why you can be dry and oily at the same time. 

By using a high quality oil, like the Coco Kind facial repair serum pictured above on your skin, you tell your oily skin that you don't need to produce so much and also hydrate at the same time. 

Many of my viewers have been commenting on how glowing and healthy my skin looks, it's because of oil. I apply this oil based serum day and night before my moisturizer. At night I use a cleanse off oil (currently using one from coco kind) to remove all my makeup and dirt. Oil is great at removing stubborn makeup. 

During the day I just use a cleansing water on a cotton pad, then apply a toner, and this amazing oil to refresh my skin. The best part is the coco kind  facial repair serum is only $12! 

I've also been using body oils after my shower. I like the Aromatherapy Associates De- Stress Massage & Body oil which makes me feel relaxed. The packaging is so luxurious and beautiful too. During the day or when I'm in a hurry I'll use my Avene Body Oil, this one is great for travel since it's in a plastic bottle.

Now my hair has been colored and bleaches, so after any heat styling I like to bring back shine with this Agave Revitalizing Shine Spray. A little goes a long way and boy does it smell amazing! Start from the ends and work your way up.

My lips have been just as dry as the rest of my body and this does not work well with the bold red lips I like to wear this time of year. My go to lip scrub for a few years now has been Lush's Santa's Lip Scrub. It smells like cherry cola and tastes great! 

After my lip scrub and before headed to bed I like to apply a very heavy lip mask or lip balm. Currently i'm suing the Bite Beauty Agave Lip Mask. It's super think and hydrating, but smells a bit like tires. Also my husband hates the texture of this, but he loves the way my lips feel in the morning.

Lastly I like to use a exfoliating and hydrating mask once or twice a week. My current favorite is from SkinFoods. If you watch my vlogmas video you would have seen me shop at the SkinFood store in Glendale. This Black Sugar Honey Mask smells divine. It gently exfoliates and hydrates my skin at the same time. My skin feels amazing and plump after using this. 

One more tip before heading off to bed, this is a trick I learned from my voice teachers in collage, but alway sleep with a humidifier next to your head. The steam is great for your sinuses, vocal cords, and skin. I use a warm mist one in the winter time. 

Stay hydrated this season!

XOXO

Serein

Dior Holidays

I have been walking around drooling at the new Dior Holiday shadows for the last few weeks and I finally purchased one.

These beauties retail at $60 a pop, so I had to choose wisely and I could only choose one. My choice was the Dior 5- Colour Eyeshadow in 566 Versailles 

I choose this palette out of the 10 in the collection, because I felt that it was neutral enough to get some wear after the winter and holiday months. I mean spending $60 I want to get my use out of this baby.

The colors are rich, warm, and shimmery, perfect for the holidays and winter months for a bit of glamour. I will continue to use the palette mixing with my other more matte palettes. The silver is just beautiful and so fun to use as an inner corner shade.

The shadows are a quite hard in texture, but very bendable and easy to apply with brushes. I wouldn't say they are crazy pigmented, but they do apply nicely on the lid. The center shade in the palette (first from left above) was a little disappointing to work with as it's very glittery and difficult to transfer from brush/ finger to eyelid.

Did you pick up any Dior Holiday Shadows?

XOXO
Serein

Blush & Highlight Combo

An oldie and a newbie make the perfect flawless complexion. 

Growing up my mom always told me to wear blush. I rebelled like any teenager and avoided blush. I didn't want to look like a crazy clown. 

Well, like many things in life, my mom was right. Wear the blush. 

Blush does something to the face, it lifts, brightens, and adds color. Blush wakes up the complexion and makes us look youthful and healthy. 

A rediscovery and all time favorite blush of mine is mac's warm soul. This blush is the perfect mix of mauve, pink, brighting, slight shimmer shade for almost all skin tones. I have yet to find someone this blush doesn't look good on.

I heard that mac recently reformulated this perfection, and I'm sad about the news. I have yet to buy a new one, but when I tried it on in store, It was still beautiful with the reformulation.

Want to really brighten your face and wake up? Try a highlight. I'm loving this new discovery from Laura Geller. The Baked Split Highlight has the best of all your highlighting needs. You have a non shimmery, pearly highlight for daytime or natural looks. Swipe this on your highlight points and look like your woke up glowing. Use the shimmery peachy tone for a bit more drama and intensity. Both shades look beautiful on the eyes and inner corners as well.

In a hurry? Swipe warm soul on cheeks around the face, over the lids and add this highlight on your highlight points, few strokes of mascara, and a lip balm, your good to go and no one would be the wiser.

What are some of your favorite blushes and highlights? Did this post inspire you to dig through your makeup collection and find an old favorite? Tweet me your pics @sereinwu

XOXO

Serein

Makeup Of The Day- Warm Neutrals Edition

I'm really happy with today's makeup products and thought I'd share my warm natural winter look. 

Recently I picked up this beautiful Dior Holiday 5 Colour Eyeshadow palette in 566 Versailles. The colors are so warm and shimmer, the perfect festive natural eye makeup look. The shadows are so pretty and who doesn't love a luxury palette? 

After a brief visit to mac this week, I was reminded of an old favorite blush that I use to wear everyday. MAC Mineralized Blush in Warm Soul is so beautiful and one of the most wearable blushes on all skin tones. 

Thanks to a friend/ viewer I was recently given the new Chanel Perfection Lumiere Velvet Foundation. This has been out for a few months now, but it is a great alternative to my all time favorite Chanel Vita Lumiere Aqua Foundation. I wear beige 20 in both. Full review and First Impressions video will be up on Monday on my channel. 

A recent discovery has been the Laura Geller Baked Split Highlighter Duo. I first heard about this from Tati on GlamLifeGuru's Channel. On Wednesday I was having a pretty horrible day emotionally and decided to stop in to Ulta to put my 20% off coupon to good use. There were only 2 of these beauties left, and I 'm so happy I got this. It's got a matte side and a super shimmery side that works for natural looks and evening looks. 

Nars Radiant Creamy Concealer in Vanilla is a holy grail product for me. I love how it covers and brighten my under eye area. It lasts all day, doesn't crease, and is just a little magic wand. 

Today I broke out my new mascara from Dior and I have to say it's a slightly wetter formula version of Benefit's They're Real Mascara, both up there in price, but there's something about this Dior packaging that I am loving. 

What have been some of your favorites lately? Share them with me on Twitter or Instagram @sereinwu 

XOXO

Serein

Colour Pop Trunk Show

If you read my last post where I jumped on the Colour Pop Band Wagon, you'll know I'm a huge fan of the Los Angeles based cosmetics company that produces crazy pigmented lippies & eyeshadows all at $5 a pop. 

Yesterday I attended the Colour Pop Trunk Show at Sugerfina's The Americana in Glendale location. Arriving with the intention of purchasing a lippie for a friend and possibly a few more lippies for myself, I left with quite a bit more. 

It's just so tempting when everything is so reasonably priced for such great quality products!

Forget The Fruit Cake is a new holiday lippie set featuring all new shades. These lipsticks are so rich and colorful that a makeup junkie like myself cannot pass them up. 

The packaging is slim and sleek. I actually prefer the thinner lipsticks for precise application versus traditional bullet tubes. My only complaint is that once you twist these up they can twist back down not all lined up. Not a huge problem, just the OCD in me finds it a little bothersome, but you really can't beat the color payoff and price of these babies. 

The lippies come in the most adorable packaging perfect to wrap up with a bow and give as a gift for the holidays. You could even break up some of these kits and make you own little kits for the makeup lovers in your life.

Just look at that rich formulation for each and everyone of the shades!

The purchase of the night was their Lippies To Go Kit. I was so excited they had the Lippies To Go available, as it's sadly sold out online. It comes with 5 beautiful shades one end is a retractable liner and the other is a lipstick. You get the perfect on the go touch up lip combo. No sharpener needed. Bonus, I love that they look like my grade school markers. 

This kit includes Brink, my favorite everyday pencil and lippie I own already. Now I get to throw this baby one in my purse and always be touch up ready. 

Something about the Megan Naik quad drew me in. The combination of shades are so beautiful and warm for the season. I love the gold shade all over the eyelid on its own. These shadows are unlike anything I've ever used before. They feel so soft, creamy, and almost wet. They blend really well, are super pigmented, and long lasting. I've actually rubbed my eyes forgetting about my makeup and these suckers didn't budge!

For more details, read my original review of the shadows here.

On a whim I also picked up another one of their super shock shadow holiday kits in Down With Decorum.

I feel like these pictures don't do the shadows justice! The rich browns are my current obsessions and mixing these high pigmented shades with my everyday neutral shadows are perfect to add depth and variety to my look.

My favorite use for these have been pops of color on the outer corner. Using the shimmer shades on the inner corner and lining my lower lash line with different metallic or shimmers. The possibilities are unlimited!

This picture is after I swatched the shadows onto my arms! Just look at that!

My style and typical look is very clean, classic, and neutral. I love playing with color when done subtly and these shadows offer a great affordable option to add to your everyday makeup collection and spice things up a bit. Don't let the shades or pigmentation scare you away, I was scared at first, but they really are great to use and very versatile.

Seriously for $5 your not going to regret anything and the packaging is so adorable it makes the perfect affordable gift for any occasion, especially some last minute Christmas gifts.

Have you tried any Colour Pop Cosmetics yet? What are your must haves from the line?

XOXO
Serein