It's the holiday season and I lured myself into Sephora to scope out all of the holiday gift sets, mini sets, fragrances, and all the other goodies. I was also hoping to get to swatch any Huda palettes that were on display at Sephora and luckily the New Nude palette was on display, and there was one left for sale. I swatched the glittering shades, fell in love, and quickly grabbed a hold of my very own palette to take home. Having a little security device attached to the palette, the slightest jolt of me lifting it out of the display case set the device off to embarrass me throughout the entire store as I kept shopping since no workers even batted an eye. Finally, someone approached me to assist and allowed me to leave the palette at the front counter while I continued to shop, so I could save myself the embarrassment of walking around Sephora with a beeping and blinking palette.

I also decided to pick up a lip gloss from Anastasia Beverly Hills because clearly having 76 other pink shades to choose from at home is just not enough. At this point, this is becoming a collection and just acquiring more shades of pinks and nudes is like a game...that one can never win.

The Fenty Beauty counter was another big hit. Rihanna has hit said gold with the release of her incredible beauty line. Every item perfectly curated and thought through. I decided to get myself the Diamond Bomb and be that girl that leaves behind a little glitter everywhere she goes. The diamond bomb glitter is so finely milled and buttery to the touch, I know I will use it. I have been looking for something that will give me that glimmering glow. This summer was all about the glowing oils, but my long hair, and living in South Florida, puts an end to that fun real quick.

I enjoyed my little retail therapy session and have quenched my holiday thirst for Sephora goodies. I will be sharing my little haul from Kylie Cosmetics on here as well so keep an eye out for that. In the mean time, I will be doing a look and swatches using this palette and the lip gloss that I picked up. I'm excited to share!

This shirt reminds me of that one episode of Seinfeld where Jerry Seinfeld is wearing this puffy shirt that he refers to as a "pirate shirt". Kramer and another woman start a clothing line and Jerry is going to model the puffy shirt because the pirate trend is going to the next big thing according to their style predictions. The episode is hilarious and every time I wear this shirt I think of it. This style had a huge comeback when Gucci reintroduced the puffy shirt, and many other clothing brands started to follow along.

I did some early cyber Monday shopping today. KKW Fragrances dropped at all Ulta stores nationwide today for a limited time. I have purchased one KKW Fragrance around Valentine's Day when KKW released her adorable V-day hearts perfumes. I loved the BFF one and went for it due to the scent of marshmallow and vanilla tones that were in it. The downside is that you can't smell the fragranced before you buy them, but the V-day collection was $35 and that doesn't really hurt. Luckily I love the fragrance and it is one of my staple scents. KKW Fragrances have released a Crystal collection and a Kimoji collection, but I could never decide which ones I wanted, and not being able to smell them to see if I liked them totally turned me away...until now! I headed down to my local Ulta and smelled to my little hearts desire! I decided that I must have the Crystal Gardenia scent, and I actually picked it up. I also have my heart set on the Kimoji peach scent. It was so fresh and fruity.

The KKW Crystal Gardenia scent hit a high note with me. I knew I just had to buy it right away because it reminded me of the scents I was around when I traveled to the Cote d'Azur in France.  Women there smell divine. Every woman I walked past had a lingering, beautiful scent. I couldn't pinpoint if it was a scent of jasmine, honeysuckle, or gardenia. When I smelled the KKW Crystal Gardenia, it smelled so similar to what I dreamed about in France, that I just had to have it. I'm going to douse myself in it and walk round like those gorgeous French women down the streets of Cannes.

How was your day? Did you buy anything during the cyber Monday sales? Or perhaps on Black Friday?

This weekend was an eventful one in Miami, Florida. Besides the Heat playing against the Lakers, the Miami Book Fair was in town! I was especially excited for this Book Fair because one of my favorite authors was going to be present! This author introduced me to the magical world that she had crested in her first book, and I had already put in my preorder on Amazon to get whisked away in Book 2.

The next thing that I purchased are two new lipglosses from the DOSE of Colors X iluvsarahii collections. These colors were exactly what I have been looking for, and consistently use in my makeup routine. I was due for a refill on my favorite nudes, since I'm running low, so these will be my replacements. I have recently discovered DOSE of Colors and I am loving the texture and feel of their glosses. When I first say these shades from this new collection, I knew I would add them to mine. The first shade is called "Barely There" and its a very pretty finish nude. It glides on smooth and gives off a great color payout. I don't even know if I will ever need to wear lipstick with this gloss. The second shade is called "Brillo" and it is the most gorgeous golden glittery gloss I've ever seen. I can't wait to use it as a topper to any shade of lipstick, It would make any lipstick shade pop and sparkle without feeling gritty and dry. Each lipgloss cost $17 at Ulta.com. I also have my eyes on some of the liquid lipsticks from this collection, but I feel as though I would need to see those and swatch them in person to decide. I have ever tried the DOSE of Colors liquid lipsticks before.


 

Steam has been an important part of my skincare routine ever since I discovered a steam room at my local LA Fitness gym. After my workout, I would rinse my face, apply a mask, and head into the steam room to get my skin dilated and ready for a nice deep pore cleansing afterwards. My favorite reason for steaming is that it's so relaxing. I mean...can we take a moment to look at how relaxed I look in this first photo? It makes me want to go steam my face again. 

I played in my makeup again today and went for a peachy-brown look using my Too Faced Sweet Peach eyeshadow palette. I went for a look without any eyeliner and I love how emphasized the lashes look! I think I may start to do more looks without any eyeliner. I just look how clean the eyes look. Don't get me wrong, I still love a sharp winged liner that looks like it could cut you, but this subtle focus on shadow blending, color, and lash length has given me life!

My favorite foundation at the moment is between Too Faced Born This Way foundation, and Estee Lauder's line of Double Wear foundations. I can't decide which one I like more because it just depends on how my skin wants to behave on a certain day. I've also been very happy with mixing the two foundations to totally match my skin needs and color at the moment. Priming your skin is very important and I am not a fan of the typical primer. I prefer an oil based product that absorbs nicely such as Yves Rocher's line of facial oils. I prime my skin by washing it, applying my facial oil as a moisturizer and then applying my foundation and continuing my makeup routine.

I may not be a fan of facial primers but I am a fan of eyeshadow primers from time to time, but I did not use any eyeshadow primer today.

Check out the products that I used and let me know if there are any products that you are currently loving to use in my comments section.

Barcelona, Spain was the second and final stop on our overseas family vacation for the summer of 2018. What a city Barcelona is! We fell in love as soon as the Barcelona sun touched our smiling faces. I say this because our first night in Barcelona was not so pleasant, and I'll tell you about our experience so that you know what to expect in case you arrive to this beautiful city on an evening flight.

My family has become the "just go see the beauty in the world" family, and we have been making it a goal of ours to get out there and create memories together. This summer we decided to explore London, England on the first wave of our family vacation. This trip was booked through my favorite travel site which I have blogged about in the past. If you're interested in learning how you could get out there at an affordable price, click on the travel tab in my menu bar and check out my post about TripMasters.com titled - Travel the World For Less! Or you could click here for the post!

Today's glam was created using Luminess Cosmetics. Luminess is a company that is known for their gorgeous air brush foundations, but this look was not created with their airbrush foundations. Instead, I used their gorgeous nude collection eyeshadow palette, easy to use brush tip eyeliner, and my new favorite mascara.

Happy Mother's Day! I hope everyone had a fantastic day well spent surrounded by those that they love. I had a wonderful Mother's Day at my amazing mom's house. My brother grilled the best BBQ that I always try to recreate at home on my own, but I can never get it to be as delicious as his BBQ! My son spoiled me with the cutest handmade bracelets, a necklace, and a hand written card. Those are my favorite!

YouTube sensation, Laura Lee recently dropped a new eyeshadow palette and I just had to get my hands on it after locking my eyes on one particular glittery shade that just captured my attention instantly. I have been obsessed with rose gold toned looks lately, and "Jay Bird" was going to my perfect glittering rose gold to top off my eyelid.

I've found my new obsession in Colourpop cosmetics! Their new collection with Shayla's Makeup has my over the moon in love! I can't believe that I have missed out on this awesome brand and their high end quality makeup that is priced like drug store makeup. I know I'm not the only one that is obsessed with this collection as it is sold out on the Colourpop website, but the good news is that this entire collection will be restocked on May 11th! Act quickly because I'm sure it will run out quickly just like the first time around.

Today was an easy going day which called for an easy going outfit. I decided to channel some festival vibes with this flowy, winged, open shoulder top from Forever 21. This top is so comfortable and totally put my easy going outfit together. I paired it with my favorite jeans from Fashion Nova, and a simple pair of white strappy sandals.

Tarte has released an amazing new palette for all of us 99% mermaids, and it's beautiful. Tarte Be a Mermaid Eyeshadow Palette. This palette, which is a limited edition, costs $42 and is available everywhere Tarte cosmetics are available. This palette contains 14 shimmery and matte finish shades that are just perfect for looks inspired by the mythological creatures.

A little retail therapy was just what I needed, and it's just what I did! Ulta was there for me in my time of need, and had exactly what I needed in stock and shipped quickly like the true MVPs that they are. There were some things that I absolutely needed, and others that I just had to try.

Visiting Miami in the near future on a family trip? Bring the family to the Frost Museum of Science in the heart of downtown Miami. Make sure you plan to spend a while here at this museum as it houses many beautiful exhibits for children to enjoy and interact with. My son was particularly fascinated by the huge tanks that hold sharks, rays, and fish along with the local florida animal habitats that are on the top floor of the building.

I think I am addicted to this chocolate gold! This palette has been my go-to lately and I am loving how each buttery shade is so smooth to apply and lasts all day! I went for a golden gradient look this time. It was so easy to do using 4 shades from this palette for the gradient golden look across the lid and the gorgeous highlighting color to blend them out.

For my lid, I started out with "Love and Cocoa" on the outer corner and swept it in a cat eye formation into my crease. I then added "Old Money", "Famous", Chocolate Gold" and "Honey Dipped" in order from outer corner to inner corner by patting the color down my lid next to one another in a vertical line pattern. I used a fluffy blending brush to gently blend the colors together and then swept "Rolling in Dough" across my brow bone and added Anastasia Beverly Hills "Amrezy" highlighter to highlight my brow bone.

What a perfect day to wear this gorgeous white flowy dress! I'm loving this look on a gorgeous sunny day. This beautiful flowy white maxi dress is from Papaya clothing (www.PapayaClothing.com). I also picked it up in an olive color because I love how comfortable and relaxed this dress is. It has such a romantic feel to it and the crocheted upper portion gives it some character. I believe that you could never go wrong with a good maxi dress and with the summer months coming up, I will be loading up on cute maxis!

Check out Payapa Clothing for plenty of affordable styles! I still can't believe that I got this dress for under $30. I keep checking back to see if they have restocked in other colors, just in case I want to get it in a gorgeous light blue or blushing pink.

Here is a look that I did today using my new Too Faced Peel Off Glitter Liner in "Yes Way Rosé". I couldn't wait to finally do a look with this glitter liner. I chose to use it in my crease to create a cut crease look on a gradient pink lid. I mixed multiple colors of coppers, pinks, and golds to create the colors on my lid and then added the glitter liner in my crease and it gave the look the perfect pop.

Paris has been on my radar for as long as I can remember and when I finally landed in this dreamy place, I shed tears of joy. I couldn't believe that I had finally made one of my biggest wishes come true and I got to enjoy it all with my husband and our son. Paris stole my heart and I can't wait to return and enjoy the city for a longer period of time. Our vacation to Paris started with my discovery of www.TripMasters.com which made the booking of flights and hotel a breeze and at an unbelievably affordable price.

I recently purchased a new Rose Gold Apple MacBook and many people have asked me why I chose this model over a MacBook Pro or other MacBook options. The simple answer to this question is that I wanted something compact that will be easy to travel with, and I love the rose gold! Aesthetically, the MacBook Air is just not my cup of tea, but it is a similarly compact laptop for those looking for a smaller, thinner option. The Air also comes with a smaller price tag as well so it could be your choice based on price alone. Being an Apple fan, I believe that you can never go wrong with whatever you choose within the brand.

This MacBook purchase is just an addition to my little Apple computer family. I purchased this laptop as a supplement to my existing iMac and MacBook Pro. I just find the MacBook Pro to be too bulky and heavy to travel with and wanted something that was thinner, lighter, and overall smaller in size.


I take a lot of photos, and most of them are either on my iMac or stored on a flash drive. If you are looking for a computer to be a main source of work, storage, and play, then I suggest you may want to look into the desktop iMac or MacBook Pro. If your intention is for a supplemental computer to work on the go and not necessarily for storing all of your (thousands in my case) of photos, then the MacBook or MacBook Air is the right choice for you. Again, you will survive if you use flash drives and outside sources of memory to store most of your photos or documents.

Using programs like Photoshop, Lightroom, Final Cut, and other large software programs will slow down your computer if you do not have an adequate amount of so keep that in mind. You really have to think about what it is that you will be doing on your laptop to truly determine which one would be right for you. My rose gold MacBook has 512GB of storage, which is plenty for my intentions with this laptop. The cheapest MacBook Pro has 128GB of storage but a faster processor than my MacBook.

Walking into the Apple store and asking the "blue shirts" always ended up with me being led to the MacBook Pro, which is not what I wanted. The buzz word "photo" led every one of the Apple store employees to try to tell me how more memory would be path for me, but 512GB or memory is more than enough for what I plant do with with this laptop as a supplement to my collection.

Now if you're really concerned with storage and memory and you don't care about the versatility of a laptop, then its a no-brainer - go for the iMac. Most of them have either 1TB or higher of memory which is plenty for someone like me.


The new MacBook is a thing of beauty. The new technology in the keyboard is fantastic. It's almost as if the buttons are floating and pressing them is as easy as a touch. If you have not heard about the new design of the keyboard, I suggest you head over to the Apple website and check if out on the homepage for the MacBook. The website is beautifully designed to show the difference between the traditional scissor mechanism for the keyboard buttons in comparison to the new butterfly mechanism that is used now to create a thinner and more precise keyboard.

So many new specs have been added that has allowed Apple the ability to create a super thin, and light fully functional compact notebook. The processor itself works on just 5watts of power allowing it to run virtually silently and generates less heat, which eliminates the need for a fan.

On the more obvious side, the new color options may stand out to some people. I for one, fell in love with the rose gold and just had to have it. This notebook is also available in gold, silver, and space gray.

You won't have the glowing apple logo on the front of the laptop, but instead a beautiful metallic apple logo. It's a small thing to give up to have an aesthetically sound, compact device.