Beauty Box Five : July 2013

{ Unboxing : July 2013 }

"

Beauty Box 5 is a monthly subscription service that delivers a package of sample products to your door every month.

"

Quoted from website: www.beautybox5.com

Birchbox : July 2013

{ Unboxing : July 2013 }

"

Birchbox delivers luxe beauty samples to your door each month. Find out what you love, and buy with confidence.

"

Quoted from website: www.birchbox.com

Ipsy : July 2013

{ Unboxing : July 2013 }

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Founded by Michelle Phan. Personalized beauty products & offers (makeup & more)! Subscribe to the Glam Bag. Membership is free.

"

Quoted from website: www.ipsy.com

Sample Society : July 2013

{ Unboxing : July 2013 }

"

Beauty Bar recognizes that the most luxurious thing we can give you is time. It's the reason we curate your favorite specialty brands, deliver exceptional customer care and bring the most exclusive beauty collections to your doorstep in as little as a day.

"

Quoted from website: www.beautybar.com

Ipsy : June 2013

"

Founded by Michelle Phan. Personalized beauty products & offers (makeup & more)! Subscribe to the Glam Bag. Membership is free.

"

Quoted from website: www.ipsy.com

Beauty Box Five : June 2013

"

Beauty Box 5 is a monthly subscription service that delivers a package of sample products to your door every month.

"

Quoted from website: www.beautybox5.com

Birchbox : June 2013

"

Birchbox delivers luxe beauty samples to your door each month. Find out what you love, and buy with confidence.

"

Quoted from website: www.birchbox.com

Beauty Army : May 2013

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Choose up to 6 beauty samples each month for $12.00. Skip the month anytime or re-take your beauty profile to see a different selection.

"

Quoted from website: www.beautyarmy.com

Sample Society : June 2013

"

Beauty Bar recognizes that the most luxurious thing we can give you is time. It's the reason we curate your favorite specialty brands, deliver exceptional customer care and bring the most exclusive beauty collections to your doorstep in as little as a day.

"

Quoted from website: www.beautybar.com

Beauty Box Five : May 2013

"

Beauty Box 5 is a monthly subscription service that delivers a package of sample products to your door every month.

"

Quoted from website: www.beautybox5.com

Ipsy : May 2013

"

Founded by Michelle Phan. Personalized beauty products & offers (makeup & more)! Subscribe to the Glam Bag. Membership is free.

"

Quoted from website: www.ipsy.com

Birchbox : May 2013

"

Birchbox delivers luxe beauty samples to your door each month. Find out what you love, and buy with confidence.

"

Quoted from website: www.birchbox.com

Tutorial Video Anastasia Beverly Hills : HyperColor Hair & Brow

Also seen on the Pretty in My Pocket blog. These powders are now available from ULTA!

Anastasia Beverly Hills : HyperColor Hair & Brow

"

Get an intense flash of color without dyeing, bleaching, or spending hours in the salon. Apply to brows with an angled brush or rub the powder onto the tips of your hair or streak it for outrageously fabulous looks that wash out with ease. Set with hair spray when applying to hair or HYPERCOLOR™ Brow Gel with applying to the brows.

"

Quoted from website: www.anastasia.net

Meet Jessica M. - Guest Blogger

Photo ©
Simply Everything

Simply Everything
www.simply-everything.com

Jessica is a blogger, traveler, wife, sister, daughter, and friend. She goes by the name of Jessica McClendon and Make-up Artistry is her thing. She is an absolute junkie for cosmetics and all things BEAUTY related. Her roots are that of a true southern girl out of East Tennessee but at the moment she is blogging from Detroit, Michigan.

Currently Jessica is transitioning into a sweet little new married life, and her simply-everything blog is exactly that. She posts about traveling, loving life, doing a little reviewing & checking out the latest greatest beauty products, along with having cheesecake & a fine glass of wine. :)

Too Faced #BBOM

I just wanted to write a post and thank Too Faced Cosmetics for choosing me for Beauty Blogger of the Month, Level 2, this month for April.  I feel so honored.  Here is the review that got me nominated: Too Faced Cosmetics - Tinted Beauty Balm.  So naturally, next month's giveaway will feature Too Faced Cosmetics!! So excited!

Also congratulations to Jacqueline Frahm, A Brilliant Brunette and Casey Yee, Beauty 101 for also winning #BBOM.  ♥♥♥

Clinique Almost Lipstick Review

...my first not so good review.

This is a picture of the display that I took.

March Giveaway Winners

March Giveaway Winners and April Giveaway announced!

*Note: Entry #636 was disqualified after verification and #249 was then chosen as the 5th winner.

CSS Lesson 01 - Custom Navigation Blogger Buttons

I've had several people ask me how I did my custom navigation buttons at the top. (Home, Portfolio, About, Contact, Etc.)  This post will explain.  I will try and answer simple questions that you might have...but I did go to school for this and cannot do it for your blog, for free.  I'm still paying back student loans to have this knowledge.  So if you are interested in custom creations or coding, please get in touch and I will be happy to send over a quote.  Also feel free to leave suggestions for future CSS Lessons.

Since today (03.25.12) the Sunday #bblogger chat was about CSS, HTML and design, I figured today was a perfect day to start doing mini lessons on design tricks I have figured out with blogger.  I was actually going to post this before the chat, but my screen on my computer decided to play dead, so I had to go sit in the Apple doctor office aka The Genius Bar to get them to give my poor MacBook CPR.  Luckily they brought it back to life, so I'm able to continue this evening with my normal computer activities. (thank goodness!!)

On the Pages tab in the blogger dashboard, you have the options: "Top Tabs", "Side Links" or "Don't Show".  For this tutorial, they will need to be set to "Don't Show".  For the URL links below, this refers to the specific page URL that you are linking to.  Don't forget, links are case sensitive and the "http://" must be included in all the URL links, otherwise the links won't work.

Make sure the total combined width of all your buttons together does not exceed the width of your blog....otherwise your button line will have two lines, which for my OCDness, is a complete design disaster.  My blog is set at 930px, so I set my document size to 900px wide x 40px high. That gives it 15px on the left and right for margin.  They I slice them up individually and crop each one, so they are different image files.  Your height can be anything, depending on if you have short or tall buttons.  I also make all my buttons the same height, so they line up evenly on the baseline, without having to do extra coding for each button.  Upload your button graphics to an image hosting domain, like photobucket.com or dropbox.com.  After you have your graphics uploaded, follow the coding instructions below.  Have fun!!

HTML DIRECTIONS
-----------
• LAYOUT Page
• ADD CUSTOM HTML/JavaScript Gadget
• ADD the code below and link appropriate URLs with your blog button graphics.

* Notes:
URLTOBLOGBUTTON can be (.jpg), (.jpeg) or (.png) just make sure to change the extension in the html code.

**** FOR HTML CODE ONLY:  ALL " [ " characters will need to be changed to " < "  and ALL " ] " will need to be changed to " > " when adding the codes to your HTML/Javascript Widget.

START HTML CODE BELOW THIS LINE --------------------------

[div id="customPageLinks"]
[a href="http://www.URLTOBLOGPAGE01.html"][img src="http://www.URLTOBLOGBUTTON01.jpg"/][/a]
[a href="http://www.URLTOBLOGPAGE02.html"][img src="http://www.URLTOBLOGBUTTON02.jpg"/][/a]
[a href="http://www.URLTOBLOGPAGE03.html"][img src="http://www.URLTOBLOGBUTTON03.jpg"/][/a]
[a href="http://www.URLTOBLOGPAGE04.html"][img src="http://www.URLTOBLOGBUTTON04.jpg"/][/a]
[/div]

END HTML CODE ABOVE THIS LINE --------------------------


CSS DIRECTIONS
----------
• TEMPLATE Page
• Edit HTML
• Open Template Designer
  - Advanced Tab (bottom, last one)
  - Add CSS (bottom, last one)
• Add the code below.

* Notes:
The height should match the height of your buttons.
The width can either be the total width of your buttons or the width size of your blog.
The margin-top & margin-bottom can be adjusted to make space more or less space between your buttons.
The padding-left can also be adjusted to line up exactly where you want it. A padding-right can also be used.
" padding: 10px; " will add 10px padding on all 4 sides; right, left, top, bottom, or add.
" padding: 0 10px; " will add no padding to top and bottom but 10px padding to the right and left.
Background-position refers to the position of the (.jpg) button.


START CSS CODE BELOW THIS LINE --------------------------

#customPageLinks {
      height: 40px;
      width: 900px;
      margin: 0 auto;
      padding-left: 40px;
}

#customPageLinks img {
      background-position: 0 0;
      margin-top: -15px;
      margin-right:-5px;
}

END CSS CODE ABOVE THIS LINE --------------------------

Glamzy App

I discovered this application today and thought I'd share with all my fellow beauty lovers.  It is called Glamzy and it is an app to create face charts for make-up.  It has a pre-built library with colors from Mac Cosmetics and Makeup Forever.  You can even adjust the brush size, the opacity and the density of the brush edge.

To get started, first choose your face shape.  Your options will be "Rectangle", "Square", "Oval", or Circle".  Next you will choose your face style, meaning light make-up, normal or overdramatic.  After making those selections, your blank canvas will appear.  Using your fingertip, you will apply colors from the library to create looks.  Of course your looks can be saved (pro version only), e-mailed or submitted to the Glamzy Spotlight Gallery.

The colors are easy to apply, even though it is going to take some practice learning techniques.  An option to change eye color is also available, which is nice, when thinking about doing face charts for models.  One trick I did discover: if you tap on the apply button, it will turn to a zoom tool, so you can take a closer look and then zoom back out.  I do wish they would enable an undo shake (like text does in messaging), instead of having to click back and forth, between screens for undo and/or redo.  Also a smudge/blend tool, with a strength slider, would be super helpful.  If you mess up, you can use the foundation color or white to erase mistakes...or blend over with a new color.  All in all, I really like this app and I believe it will grow to be an industry standard tool for make-up lovers in this digital age. 

To help spread the word of this wonderful app, I am giving away, one free copy to one winner.  Please see rules below for more details.  This app is available right now in the Apple Store for $2.99 and is compatible on Android, iPhone and Ipad.

RULES:

To enter this giveaway, tweet the following tweet: " The newest, must-see #beauty app is here @glamzyPro.  Win a copy from @alElizabeth today! http://goo.gl/iwVzQ ")  Tweet up to twice an hour, each tweet will count as [ +1 entry ], but make sure to put all your entries in the rafflecopter widget below.  You can also earn [ +2 entries ] by following @glamzyPro on twitter.  Giveaway ends March 26, 2012 at 12:00 am EST.  Winner will be announced Monday. 

Giveaway Rules:

1. You will be responsible for entering your giveaway entries through the rafflecopter application above.  All entries are verified and any one caught cheating will automatically be disqualified and entries will be removed.

2. Giveaway is open internationally.

3. There will be 1 winner for this contest.

4. Winner will be picked at random.

5. Contest starts March 23rd, 2012 at 8:30 am and ends March 26th, 2012 at 12:01 am EST.

6. You must be over the age of 18. If you are younger, please ask your parents for permission to enter this giveaway!

7. I am not responsible for the custom charges in your country and I am not responsible for the package once I have sent it.

8. The winner (1) will be notified via twitter and will have 24 hours to respond with their e-mail address and app version preference (Android, iPhone, or iPad). Failure to respond will result in forfeiting the prize and another winner will be chosen.

9. I will share the winner's user-name in a future video and on twitter. By entering this giveaway, you are consenting to this.

10. Prize will be sent as a gift through iTunes.  You are responsible for having compatible equipment and software.