My 5, 10, or 20 minute makeup routines using drugstore products

I've always been pretty girly.  I can remember going into my mom's makeup kit and putting on her blue eyeshadow and red lipstick when she wasn't paying attention.  (Side note: my mom never worked as a party clown, this was just the early 90's.)  Once I hit adolescence and encountered all the glorious wonders it worked on my skin, makeup became less fun and more of a necessity.  Unfortunately, my skin never got the memo that I am no longer 12, as I still deal with breakouts.  Thankfully, I have learned which products to use and which ones to avoid to make sure I don't aggravate my skin even more.  I usually wear makeup in some form every day.  Some days I wear more than others depending on the time I have to get ready.  I wanted to share my three easy routines that I use when I have 5, 10, or 20+ minutes to get ready for going out the door!

Before...
I always start my skincare routine by cleansing and moisturizing (preferably something with an SPF).  I find there's no worse feeling than putting makeup on a dirty or oily face.    

5 minutes...
-BB Cream

This stuff is pretty awesome, and I think it was only like $3 at Target.  It works similarly to a tinted moisturizer.  It doesn't have much coverage, but it masks any redness and makes my skin appear to be all the same tone.  I use the shade 01 Light.

-Powder

I know I said drugstore products, but I have never found a powder better than this one.  You can buy it on Amazon for around $25.  I normally don't spend more than $10 on any product, but this is my exception.  I love GloMinerals because it's mineral based (if the name didn't give it away) and it has the best coverage out of any powder I've ever used.  I would highly recommend it! I used the shade Natural Fair.

-Blush

E.l.f. products are pretty incredible given that most of them are less than $6.  I like this blush because it's the perfect shade of pink to give my cheeks a little pop of color.  This color is called Shy.

-Mascara

I have 4 different mascaras that I really like, so I switch them up depending on which one I grab first.  I find that mascara is one of those basic things that unless I wear it, I don't even look fully awake.  All of these are in some shade of black.

 

 10 minutes...

 

All of the above, plus:

-Foundation

The Almay brand is my go-to when I want good coverage without looking cake-y.  It also has salicylic acid in it, which helps to clear any breakouts while it covers them.  Way to pull double duty, Almay!  The 3-in-1 from Covergirl is my newest foundation, so I'm still getting used to applying it.  I think I prefer the Almay one though.  Almay is in the shade Buff 200 and Covergirl is in 810.

-Concealer 

We all know the frustration of having breakouts that still seem to show through even when you feel like you've caked your face in foundation.  I'm obsessed with the L'Oreal True Match concealer.  It works wonders for covering up anything.  I use the NYX stick more for undereye circles since it's kind of the consistency of a crayon.  L'Oreal is in the shade C-123 and NYX is in Porcelain.

-Eyeliner

This eyeliner is new, but I already love it.  I apply it with the slanted brush pictured below.  Since I'm pretty pale, I feel that black eyeliner can tend to look a little harsh on me, so I opt for some shade of brown.  This one stays put and has a nice shine to it without looking cheap and glittery.  This is in the shade Brownie Points.

20+ minutes...

All of the above, plus:

-Primer

I've been recently loving using this primer right after moisturizing.  It helps keep my foundation smooth and not slide off from getting oily throughout the day.  

-Shadow

This shadow palette was super cheap and it has everything needed for a pretty smoky eye.  It comes with a highlight shade and an lid primer.  This one is in the shade 945-Midtown Mauve.

-Lipstick

Any sort of lip color is super recent for me (with the exception of playing with my mom's lipstick as a child).  I always felt way too done-up.  But let's be honest, if Taylor can pull off a red lip (classic thing that you like) then, by golly, so can I!  Maybe not...but I decided it was worth a shot.  I haven't done it too often, but I think it looks really pretty for special occasions.  The red lipstick is in the shade 308-Retro Red and the berry color is in 501-Berry Rich.

A few other products...These are all the brushes I use.  From left to right:  angled brush for eyeliner, powder brush for concealer, fluffy powder brush, eyeshadow brush, foundation brush, and blush brush.

 I hope this was helpful!  If not, sorry for totally wasting your time, but then again, you're the one who sat and read the whole thing.  Let me know if you have any questions about any of these products!

 

 

Half marathon update

My half marathon is just under two weeks away.  I had big dreams of completing it and feeling super accomplished, but at the moment it's looking like I'll be doing good just to finish at all.  About three weeks into training, I started noticing a weird pain that ran all the way down the outside of my left leg, mainly focusing on my knee.  I looked it up and it appears to have something to do with my IT band.  For awhile I tried to push through it, but it got to the point where all I was doing was limping.  Pretty soon I was limping even when I was just walking.  I could barely put weight on it when I hadn't been running for days.  I don't think that's normal.  I would take a few days off and then try to get back into the swing of my routine, but it just wasn't working.  I knew I would have to take off longer than a few days to fully recover, so I didn't run for about 4 weeks, hence the lack of training posts.  I finally started running again last week, but having taken off a month, it was rough.  I'm now back up to 4 miles, but I have resolved myself to the fact that this race is going to be awful.  I'm going to do the best I can anyway.  I am most likely going to sign up for another one in the fall so I have plenty of time to prepare and do even better.   

Training- week 2

This week was a little better as far as time goes, but I've still been having some problems with my lower legs.  I started a new training method where I'll run for 4 minutes, then walk for one minute, and continue that pattern until I've completed my mileage.  I have found it to be pretty helpful, since mentally it's much easier to push myself for 4 minutes at a time than to think "okay...I've got 4 miles to go.."  But that's just me.  I've had to run on the treadmill this week since it's been pretty cold, or maybe I'm just a wimp.  For the running segments, I would set the speed anywhere between 6.2 and 6.7 mph (avg pace 9:40 to 8:57) and my walking pace to 4 mph (avg pace 15:00). The average pace evened out in the end and I was pretty pleased with my times considering it was only my second week, but two of those days I would get about a mile in and the shin pain would come back, so I'd have to walk more often than I would have liked.  I'll most likely take a week off or so, just to rest my legs and rule out a stress fracture.

Tuesday- 3 miles, avg pace 10:30

Thursday- 4 miles, avg pace 10:30

Saturday- Supposed to be 4 miles, but ended up 2. Avg pace 10:22
This was when I really started to worry about the pain in my legs.  I thought I could finish my miles by walking, but even that was pretty excruciating, so I decided it was time to stop.

I was supposed to run 3 miles today, but like I said, I'm taking a few days to a week off just to rest and ice my legs.  We'll see how it goes after that.

Half Marathon training- week 1

This week was the first of 12 weeks of training for my half.  Before I share how the week went, I'll give you a quick rundown of what my weekly training plan looks like.
Sunday- short
Monday- rest
Tuesday- short
Wednesday- rest
Thursday- medium
Friday- rest
Saturday- long

Last weekend was Disciple Now, so I had to rearrange my days a little bit.

Saturday- 3 miles, average pace 11:44
This was a bit slower than I had hoped, but for the first day, I'll take it.

Monday (MLK Day, so I had the day off work)- 3 miles, avg pace 9:54
I definitely think this is wrong...

Thursday- 2 miles, avg pace 10:33
About halfway through this run, I started feeling some pretty bad shin splints coming on, so I decided I needed to cut it short.  I was aiming for 3 miles, but that just wasn't going to happen.  Given the fact that I had to do some walking, the pace wasn't terrible.

Saturday- 3 miles, avg pace 11:21
This was supposed to be 4 miles, but again, the shin splints.  I think it might be my shoes. I bought them in May, but apparently that's too long to use the same shoes. I went to Dick's Sporting Goods that afternoon to look at shoes, fully intending to get a professional opinion and then purchase the pair I liked on Amazon. #sorrynotsorry. I have a pretty flat arch, so the lady recommended a stability shoe.  Before I even left the store, I bought a pair of Asics GT-1000 3's on Amazon for $20 cheaper than the store.  They should arrive by Tuesday.

Sunday- 4 miles, avg pace 10:54
This is technically the first day of week 2, but since I switched my long and short days, I figured I'd include it in week 1. My friend Melissa came over this morning to run it with me. She's insane training for a full in February and routinely runs about an 8:30 mile, so I was a little nervous about running with her.  She's actually running the half with me (just for fun, might I add) so she was super nice about going a little slower than she's used to. My legs were still a little sore, so I made her walk quite a bit, but even still, I'm pretty happy with my pace.

We're expecting a few days of snow and rain this week, so I may be stuck on the treadmill this week. We'll see how it goes!

Brave

Have you ever felt like you allow fear to take over your life? Sorry, too heavy? Let me start over. Good morning! Beautiful day, isn't it? There. Now stop avoiding the question. Last week I finished a book called Let's All Be Brave by Annie F. Downs.  Y'all, it was incredible.  The premise of the book is simply an encouragement to stop living in fear and just step out in faith and do something brave. It doesn't even have to be anything huge, just something that you would normally look at and think, "Someday I'd like to try that" or even, "I could never do something like that". As I was reading, I started thinking back on all the times I didn't allow myself to do something out of fear of failing.  My family took a lot of vacations when I was little.  We would load up our RV and hit the road. My sister and I usually loved it. We would get to the RV park and see all the other kids that got dragged taken on vacation with their families and immediately hope to make some friends. Being the protective, older sister that I was, I'd send Kerry to scope out the prospects. Meaning, I would send her on a mission to approach kids at their campsites or the playground and say something like, "Hey! We have marshmallows at our trailer. Wanna be friends?" while I looked on anxiously from afar.  However, I feel like what often got said was more along the lines of, "My sister wants to know if you wanna be her friend," making the scene of me gawking in the distance even more weird.  The point is, I sent her to do the work because she was/is fearless.  She can be friends with anyone.  Even back then, if she got rejected, she would just shrug and move on to the next marshmallow-loving kid that wasn't creeped out by the chubby girl back at the trailer holding said marshmallows.  For me, the idea of approaching anyone and asking to be friends (especially without marshmallows) was out of the question. Even still, it is very rare that you will see me approaching anyone just to make conversation.  Maybe that comes off as rude, but really it's fear of rejection and failure.  Failure to look cool. Failure to be funny. Failure to make them want to talk to me ever again. Well let me tell you..reading this book really struck something in me.  I'm tired of living in fear. I decided to take the author up on her challenge to do one brave thing. So, I signed up for a half marathon! Insane? Maybe. Brave? I definitely think so.  Maybe this won't cure my fear of rejection from people, but it will definitely be a step towards conquering my fear of failure in general.  I'm excited to start training.  I'll also post updates of my training progress to have some accountability. Here's to 2015, and here's to being brave.