Custom Foundation Made For YOU!

I think most women dream of perfect skin. With the age of photoshop and instagram filters, it can get even the most confident gal a little skin envy. 

I take extremely good care of my skin and focus on skincare in my beauty routine the most. Makeup just works better with good skin. However, I still need a little help from cosmetics especially if I want to vlog and take some selfies throughout my day. Like most, I'm forever on the hunt for the perfect foundation. I want something light, fluid, bendable, with no SPF. I don't want to feel the makeup on me. I want to feel and look naked, but also filtered. My skin is combination oily and dry and that can make finding foundation difficult. 

Prescriptives Custom Blend Foundation is my solution. Back in the day before I worried about what my skin looked like, I remember Prescriptives in department stores. I remember watching my sister and mom get custom blend foundations, powders, concealers, and lipsticks. I thought it was so cool! It looked like a mad scientist creating stuff. 

I had no idea that Prescriptives was still available online! Now they offer custom blend foundations over video chats and sending in your photos. You can watch my whole video explaining the process and how it works here. 

I've been getting many comments lately on my vlog channel about how beautiful my skin looks. 

First off, it's my camera, I have a really great camera that just does things on auto. 

Second, I take good care of my skin, so even without makeup I hopefully won't scare anyone. 

Third, I've been wearing this everyday as my basic go to foundation. It's the perfect mixture for my combination skin, with the natural finish I asked for, while also controlling my oily T zone. The color match is beyond amazing, you can't even tell the difference between my skin and the foundation. 

Prescriptives Custom Blend Foundation really is the solution for women who are looking for that perfect mix and color match. It's a pricier item at about $85 after tax, but in my opinion if your someone who just wants their perfect foundation and that's it, then why not invest on your own custom blend?

The packaging is frosted glass with a twist off silver cap. I wish there was an option for a pump. WHY WITH THE NO PUMP?! Your order includes a nice travel size foundation that you can refill for any travel needs.

If your having trouble finding that perfect shade or formulations, check out Prescriptives.com to make your own!

XOXO
Serein

Build Your Own Palette- Anastasia Beverly Hills Single Shadows

When Anastasia Beverly Hills launched their individual shadows, I was overjoyed! One of my favorite palettes in 2014 was the Limited Edition Amrezy Palette. The shadows were rich, pigmented, and neutral with just enough options for a slight pop of color. 

This year at IMATS I waited 2 hours in line to pick out my own palette. Something about buying shadows online for the first time is just so unsatisfying. I like to swatch and see everything in person. After some thought and knowing the 2 shades I had to have from the Amrezy Palette, I ended up with these 8 shadows. 

Caramel and Sienna were my two must haves from the Amrezy Palette. Caramel is such a beautiful warm neutral crease color. Sienna is a warm brown on the redder side and looks great to help blend outer corner shades.

The shadows are just as pigmented as I expected. Each shadow is $8 and with purchase of 4, 8, or 10 you get an empty palette which is usually $11.

I have to say for $10 they are great quality, lots of wearable options and a good alternative to MAC shadows.

What would shades would be in your customized palette?

XOXO
Serein

My Makeup Collection and Storage

I get many requests to do my Makeup Collection and Storage video on my channel. While I'm quite resistant to the idea of this video, I know many of my viewers want it.

As a thank you for helping me reach 10K subscribers, My Makeup Collection and Storage is now up for your view pleasure.

XOXO
Serein

The Best of 2014 Blushes

Today's video is all about my favorite blushers from the past year. 

Growing up I auditioned in my teens for musicals, TV, film, and commercials. My mom was pretty laid back and never the stage mom, but the one thing she always got on me about in the car from OC to LA was, "Put more blush on." 

Now my mom never really told me what to do... EVER! For whatever reason I was against blush in my teens, not sure why. I think maybe the fear of looking like a clown or something. Anyways when going in for all these auditions, you're usually put on camera in a poorly lit room. Back in the day on actual tape, so blush was kind of an important thing. 

Many years later, I'm no longer afraid of blush, in fact I kind of have a love affair with it. Watch my latest video to see what my favorite blushes have been for the past year. 

Also don't forget to check out the whole series "The Best of 2014 Products" here.

What have you been loving this past year that will carrying into 2015?

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

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.

The Best Liquid Foundations 2014

New Best of 2014 Liquid Foundations video is now live. You can watch the video here or below. 

Make sure to subscribe to my channel to get all of the Best of 2014 Makeup Products!

XOXO
Serein

The Tartelette Palette

When I heard that one of my favorite cosmetics company was coming out with a new all matte neutral eyeshadow palette I was so excited! 

Then I started to see photos and videos on the palette and became a little hesitant. The colors didn't look like they would suit me, but then I saw the palette in person at Sephora and it was LOVE. 

The packaging is beautiful. Sleek, high quality, and classy. I could see myself traveling with this palette. The variety of shades if perfect for everyday to smokey evening looks.

The purple heavy palette is probably more suited for hazel and brown eyed ladies.

Multi- Tasker is defiantly living up to it's name as a great cut crease shade, liner, outer corner day shade, and a great brow powder all in one!

I'm quite happy with this palette and especially since I haven't bought a new Tarte palette in a year.

What are your thoughts? Will you be purchasing this new baby?

Tartelette Palette

XOXO
Serein

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

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