scorched summer skin

now I don't know about you, but I remember being a little kid and never worrying about sunscreen. I didn't even have my first real burn until I was in college and boy, was that a slap in the face with reality. The older you get, the more susceptible your skins is to damage- especially the sun. there seems to be a new tradition with my skin that I always get one good burn the first weeks of summer. you'd think I'd learn from this over the past few years, but of course, this year didn't prove to be ANY different.

sitting by the pool with a bunch of my girlfriends last sunday left me looking quite an adorable shade of pink. lucky for me, my skin decided to forgo the bubbles that I got a few years ago and instead chose to stay pink, turn into tough leather and then develop cute crater like patches of dry skin- lovely I know. While some might be saying that this is a bit TMI, it's important for you to understand just how terrible my skin was, to understand how AMAZING this product I found at Sephora truly is!

I just popped into Sephora really quick while out to lunch to see if they by some miracle had the Buxom Gloss in "White Russian" (which they did- it's just as amazing as I hoped for it to be!) (possible review? hmph we shall see) and decided to see if anyone there could point me in the direction of something to help my poor skin. Of course I happened to be standing in from of the Murad section right under a section that said something along the lines of "Too much sun?" and offered an entire assortment of creams, serums and treatments for those who are a bit scorched. The link above takes you to the Sephora website and has a Starter Kit with minis of the entire line. I just asked the associate for a sample of the Serum and the Night Lotion to try out and see if they were worth the $60 (yikes!) and $89 (double yikes!) price tag.

side note- most people don't know this, but you can ask Sephora associates for samples of the majority of everything within the store FOR FREE! so next time you're thinking about taking the leap and dropping some serious dough on a new foundation or face cream, give it a test drive first!

but back the creature that was my face- this stuff is AMAZING! I woke up the next morning after using both the serum and the night lotion and honestly saw a difference in my face. It wasn't so leathery and had started to crack, which at first scared the heck out of me, but then I realized that it was a good thing! I shedded like a snake for a day or two, and now all that remains of my horrible face is a few new freckles where the worst of the burn was. now while these products were expensive to say the least, how amazing they worked just shows that you get what you pay for when it comes to skin care.




exactly a week after I started using the miracle serum and cream- here's my face completely sans makeup! I was just about ready to swear off staying a member of the general population, thank goodness for Sephora :)



xx,
Marissa

lashing out, again!

long time no blog, I know... I know! But this blog hiatus has made way for HUGE changes in the life of little ole' me. A big girl job, first and foremost- only a year after graduation but hey, whatevs! and relocating back to my parents- wompp, wompp.

it has however been great to be back in the element of what I studied in school, know a lot about and honestly are truly interested in. Not many people can say those things about their career, and the fact that it's my first full-time job out of college, I'd say makes me a pretty lucky girl! :)

but onto more important things, namely mascara and all things lashes! A while back I did a post on my favorite drugstore dupes for amazing high-end mascaras, and have a new amazing one to add to the list. now I can't remember if it was the girl I work with who has the most amazing lashes that recommended this to me, or i just lucked out- but either way, we may have a new Holy Grail mascara to add to the list!

if you loved the look that Lacomé Hypnôse Doll Lashes gave but hated the $26 price tag, then look no further than L'Oreal Telescopic Carbon Black for an almost exact dupe! This mascara gives you the long and gorgeous look of falsies without all the bother.










keep in mind these pictures are taken wearing the mascara over my other mascara (Benefit's BADgal lash) from this morning and still gave mile long lashes with minor clumping. ah-mazing!

if you're used to a big fat brush applicator, don't be turned off by the small bendy plastic brush. you'll get used to it and love the long results you get!

xx,
Marissa

chop shop

Somewhere, a fat lady must be singing. She has to be, since I'm finally happy with my hair. A couple weeks back I posted that I was finally, after 15 months!, getting the haircut that I desperately needed. I found a great Aveda salon in Marblehead that had amazing reviews online went ahead and made my appointment. The experience was great, and I left feeling beautiful, but the more time passed, the more I realized that it wasn't exactly what I wanted. So, instead of being bummed and letting it grow out, I took matters into my own hands. I went back to my roots and made an appointment at the salon I've been going to since I was a little girl (that my entire family still happens to use- btws) and could not be happier!

Hello gorgeous hair!









I went in with a few pictures of Kourtney Kardashian (my Holy Grail of gorgeous locks) and left with full, bouncy va-va-voom hair. Love, love, love it! If you happen to be in the North shore/Boston area, check out Toni at Incognito Revealed in Swampscott. Ah-mazing!

xx,
Marissa

walk it out

so like the rest of the modern world, a new year means a New Year's revolution. however, unlike most people who make big and extravagant resolutions like quitting smoking or working out every single day- I decided to be a little more realistic. making smarter, and better choices in my every day life and basically just being healthier. my new apartment, literally blocks from the beach (which still makes me squeal with delight- btws) has jump started a desire to walk the beach whenever I can. I started this morning, a lovely day off, with a couple mile walk on the beach before dropping my car off at the mechanic.

now, I don't know about you, but I can't be expected to get physical without some Jazzercise worthy duds. Hello- duh!


lime green sports bra and neon pink love pink shirt. perfect! just excuse the mess that is my face and hair :)

and while working out, getting in shape and general exercise are of course super important, a great landscape is certainly the icing on the cake. can you get much prettier?!


walking the beach, the city in the distance, movin' a shaking to some nicki, jay-z and wiz- can we get much better? nope.

xx,
Marissa

ps. guess who's finally getting a haircut tonight?! 6:30 cannot come soon enough!

my-oh-my eyebrows

ever have those random pieces of information that you heard somewhere, sometime completely randomly- but for some reason they just stick with you forever? if you're like me, this occurs pretty much on an hourly basis. during the shower, I always remember that I once heard that shampoo should only be used on your roots and conditioner is meant for the "ponytail area" of your hair. so for the rest of my life, I have this nagging voice dictating to me proper shampooing and conditioning practices. or how eyelashes should be curled not just once at the base of your lash line, but again in the middle and at the end if you want them to really curl. so even I'm pressed for time and rushing through my makeup, I always take time for that step.

but for the sake of this blogpost, the one most important tidbits has to do with my most discussed features- my eyebrows. a person's eyebrows are what frame their face and draw attention to their eyes. they should be like sisters and not twins. as an Italian girl with very thick hair, my unruly eyebrows have been the bane of my existence for as long as I can remember. (insert picture with bushy eyebrows here) it wasn't until I discovered the miracles of waxing, that I realized my true eyebrow potential. Now while there were a few slip ups along the way (who doesn't remember the ever popular and universally unflattering look of pencil thin eyebrows?!) I managed to find a shape, thickness and all out perfect eyebrow for myself.


tool of the trade:
eyebrow brush/"spoolie"
tweezers
small manicure scissors
hard angled eyeliner brush/stiff eyeliner brush
matte eyeshadow: choose the color that corresponds with your hair color/eyebrow color. brunette: dark brown (not black!) blonde: light brown red: medium brown/chestnut




pardon the close up but this is my brows naturally before any grooming/filling in

the best way I've found to shape my brows is to follow their natural shape as much as possible. straight up from the inner tear duct of your eye is where your brows should start, and about a 45 degree angle from your outer corner is where they should end. now, I naturally have very strong brows, so the beginning part of my eyebrow is a bit larger than some people are comfortable with, but I start my arch right about where my pupil begins and arch it slightly through my whole brow. because of over-plucking during my teenage years (curse me!), my brows end a bit earlier than they should. easy fix with the stiff brush and dark brown shadow!

using short strokes with a stiff brush and shadow, I create the strong start to my brow. I continue with that same pattern through the front of my brow, filling in any sparse areas and making them look nice and full. be careful to use a light hand when doing these short strokes, you don't want to have eyebrows that look colored in- too cartoony! to fix my sparse ends, I use the same stiff brush and shadow, except this time I wet the brush to give me a nice clean line. I continue following natural line of my brow, getting thinner as I get closer to that 45 degree angle mark. to make sure they look natural and not drawn on, I take an eyebrow brush or spoolie and brush through my brows and over the line. the last step is to pluck any stray hairs that fall outside the defined brow area and trim the tops to make sure everything is neat and in line.

it sounds like a ton of steps and seems a lot more complicated than it actually is. eyebrows probably take up 5 minutes of my entire makeup routine, but trust me when I tell you that it makes a world of difference!

xx,
Marissa

ombre nails

so, what's it been like a millennium since my last blog post. shame, shame- i know! but here i am with something beautiful, girly and a la lauren conrad. so what could be better? nothing right?!

the ombre trend has been everywhere for quite some time, and honestly i don't see the trend going anywhere anytime soon. from hair, to handbags, to fabrics and even nails- slight variations in color are quiteee the bee's knees ;)

to get this look i used five different green nail polishes (all varying ever so slightly) why a single person needs that many slight variations for almost the exact same color may be many people's first reactions, but not mine. my nail polish addiction is a bit of a problem, and green is my favorite color, but hey cheaper and less dangerous than crack. win, win- right?

OPI "Gargantuan Green Grape", Charlotte Rousse cheapie mint green polish, Sally Hansen Insta-Dri "Mint Sprint", OPI "Jade is the New Black" and Orly "Wandering Vine"

give it a try- pink, mauve, red, purple, blacks.
xx,
Marissa

blogs and 'zines

one of my favorite parts about quick CVS runs is the magazine displays during check out. while the celebrity trash magazines are fun to flip through, it's always the fashion and beauty magazines that are the ones I actually grab. lucky has been a favorite of mine for a while, and I love the stickers they include to make it easier to remember which things I'm currently obsessing over. i feel like an editor-in-chief tagging the things that I love, and making note of certain articles for blog posts (that is, as long as I follow through...)



notice, all those tabbed pages? my bank account is not going to be very happy with me. and hi, that sequined fish scale skirt- to die for! even though the print media industry (books, magazines, etc.) is on the outs, there's something about flipping through the glossy pages of a magazine that reading blogs just can't match.

what are some of your favorite magazines? are you a fashion gal like me, enjoy getting scandalous sex advice from cosmo, or need your fix of trashy celebrity gossip?

xx,
Marissa