Fenty Beauty | YASSSSS

WHEN. WILL. YOUR. FAVE?

We all acknowledge Rihanna is beautiful and a style icon, so I am really excited that she is launching a makeup line. I''ll just cut to the chase, Rih has said that her line includes 40 shades of foundation! I swear by CoverFX but I am really excited to come across another brand that has many skintones in the range. Now that I am living somewhere with no diversity, I am really hypersensitive to pointing it out when I see it. I applaud Rihanna for putting more than "Light , Medium, and Dark" tones in her collection.

IT COSMETICS : WHY DOES EVERY ONE HATE BRUSHES?

First off, I am not a makeup guru. When I look at YouTube tutorials I notice everyone is obsessed with blenders, sponges, sili sponges... I even came across a video of a girl blending and contouring with a louboutin. I'm not sure what made her do that but it wasn't any help. I have a few brushes but I didn't like the way they felt. Coincidently it Cosmetics reached out to me about new products they have!  It was the perfect timing because I had no clue where to start when I came to new brushes. 

it Cosmetics has a special brush set at Ulta--" It's Your Beautiful Basics Airbrush 101 (5-piece face & eye getting started brush set.)" These brushes are so soft on your face but really distribute and blend my products well. I use Clarins blush, Coverfx face powder and Clarins contouring kit.  Both Clarins and Cover FX have excellent formulas so this is the perfect compliment. it also sent a blush (which I love the staying power and formula, it is is a little light for my skintone. It cosmetics is developed with plastic surgeons and dermatologists so everything is well tested and very pure. They do not test on animals, which is also a plus. 

KKW X KYLIE

I have at least 15 shades of nude lips colors and apparently that is not enough. I don't own any Kylie lip kit colors because most of my collection is made of colourpop (for those of you who don't know, they're the same company and 30% of the cost of Kylie's Kits) 

When Kim and Kylie both posted their upcoming lipkit collab I kind of fell for it. Colurpop generally does a take down a month after Kylie, so maybe I will keep an eye out because I have a feeling this collab will be very hard to buy. They sell out as fast as some sneakers.

GETTING MY LIFE WITH THE BODY SHOP

My whole experience in Portland has really been a bit of a whirlwind. I have been battling winter, trying to to get sick like literally everyone else (not an exaggeration), and with my back to back traveling I had one magic item packed that saved my life.
I review a lot of items and when it comes to beauty this the Body Shop was not in my daily rotation. The oils of life eye cream-gel is something I now swear by and have placed into my already 5 step beauty regimen. I always say I was born with bags under my eyes. When I am really tired they get bigger and darker, and when I am very very tired or sad, they get really puffy. The texture of this product is literally a gel-cream and doesn't leave a thick residue when it dries. I slathered this on every morning when I was in NY and it noticeably made me look more awake.

I am making strides to be healthy but it really is more difficult to transition than I thought it would be. There have been many twists since I have been here from moving, getting rear ended, gaining weight (even though I eat mostly healthier than before), and much more. If this was all happening a year ago I would be super depressed about it all, but I am still in pretty good spirits (for now). Taking care of you skin is so important in these times, it is so easy for everyone to tell you look worn if you do nothing to fight it!

Another item I have never tried before is this Liquid peel. I was a little adamant at first but I think it is really interesting. I use my Drops of Youth Liquid Peel about every 4 days just because it is a skin peel and would be too abrasive to wear everyday. You basically apply it to your skin and just start rubbing it until it leaves these gross clumps of dead skin in your hands. You really only need about a pump for your whole face so this product does a long way! I have been using it about 2 weeks and can definitely tell a difference in my skin.

The Body Shop is hitting it out the park AGAIN with these new skincare products. When I was younger I would walk by the Body Shop only because it smelled SOOO GOOD. You could smell it from many stores down, I always thought it was expensive but now that I am older and can see how long the products last and the quality ingredients in them, I really recommend them. If you are in the market for a new eye cream or peel these are reasonably priced and are made with quality concentrated ingredients that worked very well for me.

LOVE, MARA

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Clarins Love | Hydra Essentials and Colour Collection

Going in between Climates and cities is very difficult on your skin for many reasons. Sleep and food definitely make a difference on how your body will act, but on top of all that skincare is so important! We all know Clarins is my go to and today is the media preview that I attend every year! This year, I'm obviously not in Houston for it so they sent me a few items to enjoy from the Spring line.

I swear by the night and day cream but in Portland the climate is collllld. Lately it has been windy too so this new Hydra-Essential Cream is something I reach for.

According to Clarins:
Luxurious silky cream delivers all-day hydration to thirsty skin, while shielding it from the dehydrating effects of daily thermic shocks that leave it looking dry and weathered: sun, sudden temperature changes, indoor and outdoor pollutants and environmental stress. Quenches skin with Organic leaf of life extract—a succulent plant that enhances the skin’s ability to retain precious moisture—leaving it comfortable, radiant and perfectly hydrated. LINK TO SHOP

It feels silky smooth on my face and has a light scent but isn't bothersome. I have been applying moisturizer daily for the past 2 years an have seen a good improvement in my skin and it is always obvious if I skip a day from my routine.

A good skin care routine begins with serum. I swear by the double serum so this Hydra-essentiel is one I am still testing for the next month! At the end of the month I will let you know how I feel about this one. Serum is the deepest penetrating product so be sure to apply this first with the palms of your hands after cleansing your face. Anything residual I apply to my neck since the neck is also one of the easiest ways to tell age. There are many people that I see have botox and filler but one the eye pans to the neck, it's a give away for their age.

My collection would not be complete without two new essentials: Face Contouring Palate and Jolie Rouge Brilliant lipstick.

The Clarins Rundown:

Face Contouring Palette: Sculpt and define facial contours with this limited edition easy-to-use palette offering the perfect range of long-lasting shades. Formulated with Organic Sweet Almond Oil and the Clarins exclusive Anti-Pollution Complex, the powder leaves skin soft and protected all day. The beveled brush makes application easy. Available for $42 at all Clarinscounters nationwide and on www.clarins.com.

Joli Rouge Brillant: Clarins' exclusive Shine Booster + Complex and fine pearlescent pigments deliver a subtle, irresistible shine. Mango Oil nourishes, softens and protects lips from dehydration. The three new sheer shades are now available for $28 at all Clarins counters nationwide and on www.clarins.com.

The Joli Rouge Colors are ones I actually use the whole thing and finish. I have been out recently and I have been using matte lippies from Colour pop. The matte creme is ok but the actual lippies dry my lips out to the point they crack! Clarins does not do that at all , they stay hydrated and the pigment really is subtle. I need to purchase the soft Plum shade, I was given Tender Nude (surprise if you know me, I basically only own shades of nude lipsticks. 

PHEW. I am so sad I couldn't be in Houston for the launch but am thankful to receive many items to add to my Clarins routine. Even my mom enjoys this collection, it really is one that I am obsessed with. 

LOVE, MARA

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BLOGMAS| Clarins is Saving My Life

With the change in overall environment an overall skincare routine is something I need to get back into. I am out of double serum but I have some on order. I mention my Clarins love all the time but now more than ever it is an important apart of my daily routine. Even though it rains all the time I spend a lot of time feeling dry. Its also pretty cold so there are multiple things I use to make sure I stay looking dewy and moisturized.

Clarins Winter Must haves by malibumarablog featuring Clarins

Things I love:
1 and 2) are my multi active day and night creams. They both work overtime in their own rights. The night cream is perfectly moisturizing, the day cream us UV and anti pollutant properties. They help balance my face from my long days.
3) My new favorite Youtuber Charles Gross also loves this product! Its the Clarins lip oil in honey. You guessed it, with how cold and dry it is my lips are not happy! I generally wear an all day wear matte lippie in the day time, so at night I intensely moisturize my lips with this. Charles mentioned the applicator in his video and how big it is and he loves it. It is large to mimic a fingertip, because thats the easiest way to apply product on the lips.
4)Clarins Blush, I rave about this so much. Since there is basically no sun here, this is really helping bring some dimension to my ever paling face.
5)My booster serums! I mentioned them in this post before. I have been leaning on energy in the morning, at night sometimes I do repair or detox, it really depends on how the day went.


PHEW. Y'all winter ain't easy.

LOVE, MARA

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CURRENT OBSESSION: Nude Lips and How to Find the Perfect Nude.

I am such a season pusher, my nails are already a dark shade of gray and I am thrifting all the best nude, copper and olive green frocks I can find. My go to is typically nude for lips in the winter. My face and lips get very dry when it gets cold out but I have a set Clarins routine to combat that! I'll share my skincare routine later in the month because in actuality its just 88 and humid.
I JUST WANT IT TO BE FALL.

If you're like me and are prepping your closet, check out my tips below to find the perfect nude for your skintone!

Nude lippies by malibumarablog featuring a maybelline lipstick

When shopping for nude lip colors there is a lot to choose from! These simple guidelines below will put you in the right direction, there are so many nude shades out there, it's hard to tell which one is the right one!

FAIR SKIN TONES

Opt for more sheer and dusty pink undertones. Yellow undertones will wash you out. (MAC Cream Sheen is a great color!)

MEDIUM SKIN TONES

Hues with peach or pink undertones are amazing on medium skin. Opt for something slighty darker than your actual complexion, something lighter or the same shade will make you look sick. My go to is MAC Taupe. 

OLIVE SKINTONES

A tawny shade of carmel or taupe work best. Lighter options look like concealer on the lips! REVLON Nude Attitude is an affordable drugstore option.

DARK SKIN TONES

Chocolate nudes with shimmer complement this skin shade very well. Shimmer will add dimension without making the color look too flat. MAC Siss is a popular one and looks GRAND!

Hope this list helps! I just ordered a ton a colourpop colors for the first time and will be swatching them when they arrive! I have a lip color obsession and my makeup tray is becoming over flowed. I like to see a color on skin before I purchase them because lets be fair, a pale white model swatching lipstick in the demo doesn't help me. Colors will look different on my skin and its hard to find them swatched on darker tones. As I expand my lip color collection I will be sharing them here so I hopefully help with making recommendations!

Are there any colors you want me to try?

LOVE, MARA

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SPRING BEAUTY at HEB

Now that it is spring it's time to update my makeup palate. I can get nervous about trying new colors or products so drugstore brands are an affordable to experiment with new looks. Did you know that HEB has a full aisle filled with all of the drugstore makeup brands we know and love? In stores and online is how you can shop this, I have linked a lot of the items I used incase you want to try them yourself.

One stop shopping, huge selection online and in store, HEB has slowly become one of those stores I can walk around aimlessly on Sunday while I am grabbing my weekly grocery list. This is awesome, I tried out two drugstore looks that you can easily recreate. If you don't have an HEB by you, I feel sorry for you, AND you can order HEB Beauty from HEB.com. I created two looks below that are super easy to do yourself.

First up is a natural day look,  a fresh spring face.

After my typical tinted moisturizer and sunscreen routine I started by lining my waterline with NYX Eye and Eyebrow pencil in Taupe and used the same pencil from NYX in Brown for my brows. I applied Ardell Whispies in Black to give some pop to my eye. On my Lids I dusted the lighter gold tones on my eyes from the Revlon shadow palette. I didn't realize they were cream but they lasted a while on my lids!
*My trick for applying falsies is to cut half a centimeter from both ends so they can fit my eye and blend better. You can cut them into smaller pieces from there to apply them but cutting the ends is always manageable for me.
I lightly brushed my cheeks with NYX Blush in HDB10 Double Dare. It is very pigmented so when I say light, I mean LIGHT. I went over the top of my cheeks with NYX Liquid Illuminator to get a little glow.
Lips are Maybelline Matte Liquid. As a drugstore brand I am so obsessed with this liquid matte color's quality.  I need to come back to HEB to try all of the colors. This looks is incorporating NUDE THRILL. Its a great nude for my skintone.
To set it all since Houston is humid and hot, even in the spring, I used NYX Finishing Powder.

I put together a fun going out look as well! Nothing says spring better than a hot pink lip! You can take the natural look from Day to Night in 3 easy steps!

For a brighter look I swapped my lips for the Revlon Ultra HD Matte Lip Color. This color is 605-Obsession. This is another one that I would want to try every color in.
I lined my eyes with Revlon Colorstay Eyeliner to make them pop more and layered on a bit more of my NYX HD Blush in Double Dare. To ad even more volume to these lashes I layered in Milani Length in Seconds Lash Extension Fibers to create a more dramatic eye. This look I set with NYX Setting Spray.

Both looks are simple and a fun update for Spring! What makeup are you going to pick up the next time you go to HEB?

This post was sponsored by HEB, I was given compensation and compensation to purchase product for this campaign. All opinions are my own so back up off me. Sponsors make my blog possible and I thank you for supporting my blog and sponsors. 

CHEERS

LOVE, MARA

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Inside K Beauty

Korean Beauty is becoming a desired product trend in America but the roots of K Beauty are very interesting to me. In Korea there is a fascination with the idea of perfection. The desire for perfect features is more extreme than the American idea of beauty. It is very common to begin surgeries or procedures at 18. The lady featured talks about getting botox every 6 months since she was 18. She looks thin to me, but speaks of getting fat taken out of her body and placed in her cheeks. The video below chronicles some hotspots in Korea and an interesting look inside K beauty. I keep seeing people focus on just how cute the imported products are. While being super cute, the deeper story is something also worth sharing. I wish I would travel the world and talk about stuff like this. I never knew how big this industry is. 

   

In the video they mention the record label YG has their own beauty line and store. You already know I love YG, that is the home of CL one of my favorite Korean pop stars!  Below I list a couple products that you can purchase if you want to try some K Beauty! There are even some affordable Korean Beauty products that you can order on Amazon.

Korean Beauty Products by malibumarablog featuring Etude House

Tony Moly face care
lordandtaylor.com

Etude House lip treatment
koreadepart.com

Tony Moly eye care
lordandtaylor.com

Tony Moly beauty product
yesstyle.com

Holika Holika beauty product
koreadepart.com

Would you try anything?

LOVE, MARA

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CLARINS SPRING 2016

As a girl on the go its kind of hard to not look worn out over time. For example, this past week I was on a work trip for a conference and was rushing here and there and all week every night was a rush to events all over town. At the age of 26 its important for me to start thinking of ways to prevent looking like I'm aging. I try to maintain a zen lifestyle but there are a few factors that get in the way.
For the past year I have sworn by Clarins double serum and the blush is my go to. Now I have a couple new steps that I think will be amazing to add to my routine.

all photos by Steve and Houston Event Photos

Stress and lack of sleep leave a mark. The new Multi-Active cream for day and night are the perfect things to absorb all of my visible stress. Besides being antioxidant, uv protectant, it is also anti-pollutant. During the day, the day cream will make you look more smooth and toned while the night cream will appear more smooth and toned while waking up. I have the old Day and Night creams and if these are anything like that, I'm excited. I have only had these products for a week so tune in to the end of the month to see what my skincare routine evolves to. At $53 and $56, this is a steal for the size and quality of product. 

all photos by Steve and Houston Event Photos

Cover FX Make-Up | #Jointheclick

I had the pleasure of spending a fun brunch with Cover FX and the amazing Derek Selby, the Global Brand Ambassador.  So when it comes to coverage, I don't wear much (as seen below) because I never really can find my color. Then when I do it doesn't exist in powder, liquid, cream etc. I took one step into the world of Cover FX and my life was complete.

 I am G+60, which is a golden deep skin tone. There is a lot that went into the color theory that makes up the Cover FX line. They not only match their colors to real skin, but whether you have golden , pink, or neutral Colortone once you find your match, it's your match across products. You would think that this is standard practice but from my experience it's not. 

Star Wars X Cover Girl

Did anyone see Star Wars yet?  I am still waiting to see it so no spoilers!
I was able to pick up some of the covergirl collaboration items. I took a bit to find them but I am happy with the red color and mascara I bought. There is a little gift set with a Lip Gloss and Mascara that I can't find :(

There are 6 lipsticks and a waterproof and normal version of the mascara. I think there was nailpolish too... but I hate Revlon nailpolish.


Were you able to find anything?

CHEERS

LOVE, MARA

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LUMINESS AIR | Air Supremacy

I am happy to share with you that I am now a Luminess Ambassador! I recently tried the new Air Supremacy line in my shade and the staying power was impressive. Air Supremacy is the first ever line of spray on cosmetics. You probably have heard of Luminess from their air brush makeup kit. The Supremacy line has a low pressure spray to create a similar airbrush effect. The Air Supremacy line has blush, foundation, tattoo cover up and shimmer. 

Rated to last up to 10 hours, the Air Supremacy line lasted through my busy Sunday! These photos were taken at the Rice Gallery presentation of "intersections." It was just the start of a busy Sunday but this line had me looking FLAWLESS.

Application is very easy.
STEP 1: Prime your face. There is a Primer in the Air Supremacy line, I just used my go to primer. Staying power was still really good, I'm sure its even better with the actual line primer.
STEP 2: There are two ways to apply the product. You begin with shaking the desired color for 5 seconds. This is very important! Then spray problem areas with the can about 6 inches from your face using short light bursts. Long sprays will look blotchy.
You can also spray directly onto a brush and blend the product onto your face. I did a combination of both. Especially with the spray blush it was a little better to blend with a brush instead of spraying that onto my face,
STEP 3: Blend any areas that might look over saturated with a blender brush.

There is an easy walk through tutorial located here.

PRO TIP: If you have dark hair you may want to tie your hair back with a headband.

Lots of holiday looks coming soon. I always thought air brush makeup would be so expensive but this is life.

Visit the Air Supremacy Website to purchase AND for you, here is 15% off :) "107563370 "

Happy Holidays!

CHEERS

LOVE, MARA

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These products were sent to me for review. All opinions are my own so back up off me.

FOTD: DIPPED LASHES

One of my goals a few years ago was to learn how to apply strip lashes. It used to seem so hard but I figured it out and have used a few different kinds over the past years. With the popularity of eyelash extensions I contemplate it and then think about how expensive the refills are and forget about it. I might try extensions one day, but until then strips are for me. 

An old blog friend of mine Ibriz now has a line of 100% mink lashes and sent me a few pairs... why are they my new favorite? Friendship aside, tell me these don't look awesome! Can Dipped have their own extension salon because I love the way these look. I have like no eyelashes so this full look really opens up the way my eyes look.

You can follow Dipped on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dippedcosmetics/

They carry three different styles. The packaging is super cute and we can't wait to create some holiday looks for you later this month!


SLAYYYY.

 CHEERS

LOVE, MARA

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