Lips: NYX's Butter Lipstick in "Fireball"

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Hi! Hope you've all been having a great week. With 2014 settling in, cosmetic brands have been coming out with their usual new year releases, and one of the releases I was most excited for was NYX's Butter Lipstick. NYX came out with their Butter Glosses last year, which seemed to be one of the popular releases for 2013. I, too, purchased one - you can see my review of it here. I also purchased one of their Butter Balms - the second installment to the "butter" line - but have yet to review it. Not surprisingly, as the lipstick fan that I am, I was most excited for the lipstick addition to the line.

NYX's Butter Lipsticks have been showing up in Ultas on displays with a selection of colors, but NYX has recently launched the full line of colors on their website here. The color I'll be reviewing today, "Fireball," is the color I picked up from my Ulta's display. It was the only one of three colors left, and the other two were pale, chalky pinks that I could never pull off, so I settled for "Fireball," which I convinced myself was more than a red, my least favorite color in lipsticks.

Thankfully, it is.

Lips: MAC's Lipsticks in "Punk Couture" (LE) and "Instigator" (LE) [Punk Couture Winter 2013]

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Hi everyone. I remember when I heard about MAC's Winter 2013 collection, Punk Couture, back in October. It was being released alongside another collection, Magnetic Nude, on December 26, 2013, and I was not surprisingly looking forward more to its partner collection than this collection itself. Why?

Simply put: the stars of this collection are four limited edition matte lipsticks in dark, vamped/gothic colors - a finish and color range I typically don't wear.

As I started seeing pictures of these lipsticks, however, I decided to try some because the colors were unique for me and different from all the colors I already own. I've been open to experimenting with new looks and colors, and these lipsticks fit the bill. I also wasn't too scared of trying MAC's matte lipsticks after having so much success with their retro matte formula.

The colors I purchased were "Punk Couture" and "Instigator."

TL;DR: On Hormones [Part 1]: Why I Stopped Wearing Makeup

First off: Happy New Year, and hello to 2014. I hope you all had a wonderful, happy, and safe holiday season, and that 2014 has started off kindly for you. Now for today's post.

I didn't want my blog to become too busy, and so I've thought about this a lot. Long story short, all the 'health' details - at least in relation to birth control and laser hair removal - are very much beauty related for me, and as this is a predominantly beauty-based blog, they are indeed relevant to this blog's content.

Or you can call me lazy, which is fine, but I indefinitely want to share this, period. I don't care where or how. And I want to share it now. Especially now.

My name is Nikki and when I was 9 years old I went through what I like to call child's depression. That is, the phase of 'depression' that most kids/teens eventually crash through, where they 'hate themselves' and 'want to die' over whoever and whatever. For me, it was a matter of my parents getting divorced, my body hitting puberty just a year earlier, my face being covered in acne, and my grandmother having a stroke, which meant my mom spending a huge portion of her time in the hospital. I was used to going with her and my brother places, and with her temporarily out of the picture I had a ton of free time. I had my first laptop and Word became my best friend. For the next two or so years I would tear myself apart verbally in daily diary entries.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Hello hello. I know it's been a while since I've posted on here, but I wanted to wish everyone a happy Thanksgiving. I hope you have a wonderful holiday with your friends and family, or whoever you are close to. I also want to thank you all for taking the time out to read my blog, and comment on my posts. It makes my day to know that my reviews and experiences may be helping someone, even if it's with something small.

November is coming to a close and so is NaNoWriMo. You can view my progress here, if you're interested. I feel pretty confident that this time around, my novel will be complete in under 75,000 words (obviously I'll only be at 50,000-ish by the end of this competition but I've been structuring it to reach an end by 75,000 or less). In any case, this month has been tiring, and I know things won't ease up much once this competition is over because then the holiday season will be full-blown and my job is going to be insane.

With that being said, I do have reviews waiting to be written. I know I post mostly beauty reviews, so I won't go into detail about those, but I do have two music posts coming up as well, each regarding two of the artists I speak about the most on here (Sakamoto Maaya and Late Night Alumni). I still don't know what's going to happen with my idea for the separate health blog. If it doesn't come around, I'll probably just post updates here and there under my IceBlock section. We'll see.

Anyway, be safe during Black Friday. I won't be doing any shopping and in fact have to work tomorrow (tonight?) night. Either way, at least the weekend is right around the corner. :D

We will be in touch soon! ('<>')>

~nikki

Eyes: Lancome's Hypnose Drama Instant Full Body Volume Mascara in "Excessive Black"

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Hi everyone! I'm actually pretty exhausted of writing...haha. If you read one of my previous IceBlock posts, then you know I had planned on participating in NaNoWriMo 2013. Honestly, I didn't think I'd really pull through with it considering I have this blog and my full time job. But I'm happily surprised to report that I'm right on track, and 11 chapters into my book!

But that means I've been writing a lot everyday, too, lol. x_x

Anywho, today I decided to review a product I received in a Lancome holiday bonus giftset last year - you can view my post here to see what else came in the assortment of beauty minis. I think my opinions on this product are pretty fleshed out by now - even though the product I'm reviewing is a deluxe sample, I got about 4 months of use out of it and finished using it this past August. Clearly this review is overdue. :D

The product is Lancome's Hypnose Drama Instant Full Body Volume Mascara in the color "Excessive Black" - a mascara I've heard quite a few good reviews on. I was excited to try it as it was my first high-end mascara, and one that I got as a gift.

Let's get right to it, then.