A New Journey Begins...

So this is my effort to actually blog. We'll see how well it pans out!

I have a new project underway and worse case scenario this is just going to be a great place for me to write my reviews about my project! I was inspired by the MakeupRehab subreddit on Reddit. For those of you that don't know, Reddit is the front page of the internet. It's a forum of sorts. On Reddit there are thousands of different subpages. There is a subpage for everyone. Typically I browse MakeupAddiction actively. It's a great place for me since one of my IRL friends like makeup much.

Anyways, a few people posted about cataloging and reviewing their entire makeup collection. Since I'm sort of in a monetary drought right now, I thought this would be a really fun way for me to get excited about my collection again!. I'm in the process of swatching all of my products, inputting them into a spreadsheet and writing reviews on them. While I do this, I am also identifying what products I want to destash and try to sell/get rid of.

I actually plan to do something similar with my wardrobe too!

So if you wish to see reviews on what I have in my makeup collection, stay tuned!

So far I have photographed my entire blush collection, minus the 2014 Tarte holiday blush palette and swatched my collection of ColourPop's Lippie Sticks.

I loooove the Milani Baked Blushes. They're fantastic. Luminoso is the most popular but the others are just as great.

Lippie Sticks by Colour Pop in shades (L to R) Grind, Chi Chi, Go FIsh, Wifey and Rocket.

I forgot that I had these lipsticks actually and I'm wearing Go Fish today and loving it! 

Inappropriate Jokes

While I was at work today, I was browsing one of my favorite time wasters, Reddit. Today while I was browsing the front page of the site when I came across a meme that is supposed to be for awkward situations.

In this instance, the sonogram technician is dealing with first time parents who are excited, whereas they have probably heard the same thing over and over again for years and make a joke. While it is funny, it is also inappropriate.

This is a case of needing to improve the micro level of heath communication. The technician is working directly with the patients, while it may be funny to him, the soon to be parents did not think so. While this may seem harmless, it can actually make the patient feel very uncomfortable. Imagine being a new parent and wanting to share your excitement of your newborn with everyone, but when interacting with the person who reveals the gender and any abnormalities, they don't take it seriously. That does not contribute to a healthy, professional relationship.

Also, while it may seem like a harmless joke, what if while investigating the sex of the baby, the technician notices an abnormality? Are the soon to be parents going to feel empathy from the technician, or feel comfortable working with them? Probably not.

While this may seem like a harmless joke to the technician, it really shows a lack of professionalism and empathy on the hospital. If i were in charge of training for the hospital, I would want to take a macro health communication approach and look for trends of inappropriate joking in those who have worked in that profession for a number of years. Chances are, the longer someone works in the field, the more numb they most likely are.

Movie Choices and Our Identities

In this week's chapter, we read about how we choose the media what we partake in, one of the ways is through selective exposure. The first thing that popped into my mind was my movie knowledge. Often, I am picked on by my friends or someone I am dating for not having seen any good movies. This was true, partly. Until this year, most of the movies I saw in theaters were kids movies, mainly Disney ones. So, when my friends would ask me if I had seen Zoolander, Anchorman, or some other popular movie, the answer was typically no. However, if they named any of the recent children's movies that had come out, I could easily give them my opinion.

It actually took me a while to realize the pattern of movie watching that I fell into. I would only pay the high theater prices for things that I really wanted to see and that tended to be a kids movie. I would tell myself that I wold watch the other movies when they came out on DVD, but typically they were forgotten. I also realized that there was a reason to this after a recent guy that I had dated dragged me to see movies that he was interested in to. A lot of the violence in movies went against my personal identity. I wanted to see happy movies that had happy endings, I didn't want to leave the theater having endured an emotional roller coaster or have violent images haunt me in the moments before I fell asleep. I just assumed that any movie that wasn't a kid's one would do those things to me. In turn, I missed a lot of awesome movies.

I love going to the movie theater to see a movie. Nothing is better to me than having the big screen, surround sound, and popcorn to much on during the movie. It has been my mission to break out over the past year and expose myself to some movies that I wouldn't have typically seen. I was mostly pleasantly surprised with the ones I have seen. I feel that this was due to a change in my personal identity that I have made in the past year as well though and was not something that I would have done otherwise. While my personal identity may be going through a shift, I do still find myself favoring the magical happy endings that can be found in things such as the recent Cinderella movie.

Superbowl Advertising 101

The Superbowl is the top spot for commercials and advertisements each year. The cost to have a spot during the Superbowl is astronomical, so the commercials that are aired need to be effective to make up for that price tag.

One example of a great Superbowl ad was the Tmobile Data Stash commercial shown here:

What makes this commercial a great one is that it uses all of the appeals needed for a persuasive argument. The first one that Tmobile uses is Ethos. The person speaking in this commercial is Kim Kardashian who is huge right now. She get's a lot of publicity whether it is for good or bad, but she knows how to take the spotlight. Even if she isn't a credible figure, she is well known which will get people to watch just for that aspect alone. Once potential customers are watching, Tmobile makes use of Pathos but in a ironic way. This commercial is set up like a stereotypical charity commercial would be where they are asking you for money. It seems like it would be sad, but what Kim says makes it funny and keeps the audience watching because they want to see what happens next. Tmobile wraps it all up with Logos. Even though this commercial is funny, it makes a good point. She starts by providing a fact that "millions of gb of data is taken back by wireless companies." Then she mentions that it is data that the audience is paying for. No one wants to pay money for something that they will use, so it is logical that the audience would want to switch to tmobile so that they won't lose their unused data.

This commercial is a brilliant because it is funny enough to entrance the audience but still provides a compelling argument as well.

A PR Nightmare

One of my hobbies is makeup. In order to keep on top of makeup news, new products and what not, I am part of a subreddit on the popular site Reddit called MakeupAddiction. One of the recent things that has been all over this subreddit has been the drama and public relations nightmare surrounding a brand called Lime Crime.

This is a smaller makeup brand that not everyone has heard of but it was very infamous on MakeupAddiction. The owner of this brand has had a dark history of shady business practices but until recently it had been mostly forgotten. In the past month though, it came to light that there was a major security breach in their site that caused customer credit card information to be stolen. There were several incidents of this happening and later on it was made known that Lime Crime had been aware of this breach for a few months. Most people understood that security breaches can happen but what made this worse is how the owner of Lime Crime handled the situation. 

It basically became a PR nightmare. Everything that should have happened didn't and everything that shouldn't have happened did. They denied the accusation for a long time, when they finally did have to, they didn't offer an apology to those affected and tried to shift the blame elsewhere. They also, as usual tried to cover up the problem by deleting negative comments about the situation from their social media age. Regardless of what they did, it was definitely still out there. I did a search of the hot posts about Lime Crime in MakeupAddiction, and these were 3 our of the top 4. 

What Lime Crime should have done was first issue some "first-level" changes such as issuing out an apology to all of their customers and taking responsibility for what had happened. This would have made a majority of their customers much more understanding and prevented their image from getting so tarnished. "Second-level" changes could have easily come next where they shut down their site sooner and looked into the issue. These two things would have diffused the situation immensely and would not have made any impact on the companies values. 

Anti-Vaccine PSA

We have all heard about the anti-vaccination movement and more recently how there was a measles breakout in Disneyland of all places because of it. While most of us agree that this is completely ridiculous and that there is no reason to not vaccinate, it is still a big issue.

Recently, Jimmy Kimmel had a segment of his show dedicated to talking about the anti-vaccination movement. This was a great example of entertainment-education. The skit was funny as he joked around about it and equivocated not vaccinating your child to letting them smoking cigarettes. He understands that no one is going to take medical advice from a talk show host even though they did take it from forwarded emails and Jenny McCarthy, but he has real doctors come onto his show to give a public service announcement.

This skit was pretty brilliant to me. Jimmy mentions how the anti-vaccination movement is pretty big in Los Angeles right now which is where his show is filmed. His show is very big in the US and probably pretty big in LA as well. Therefore, it is certain that people who believe in anti-vaccinations as well as people who know someone who believes in it will be watching. His videos tend to go viral as well, with this one having nearly 4.5 million views on YouTube right now. Chances are, this is a message that will spread. Anti-vaccinators are going to avoid the typical places that you would see this message, but they are not expecting it on a talk show, therefore it's a pretty great, unsuspected way to get the word out there.

What makes effective health communication?

I love my dad to pieces, but he cannot quit smoking for anything. He has been smoking since he was in his early teens and he is 62 now. That is a long habit to quit. He has tried to quit countless times and has been successful countless times until something puts him back onto them.He has tried pretty much all the methods and even though his family begs him to, it can't be done permanently.

What makes matters worse though is the way his doctor communicates with him about this. My dad is from a small town and the hospital there isn't too large. He has been seeing the same doctor for years and years. His doctor communicates in a doctor-centered style rather than patient centered. You have to know. My dad is a stubborn man. He does not enjoy being told what to do by anyone, even it is in his best interest. When his doctor tells him that he HAS to quit cigarettes every time he goes in and continues to lecture on about the risks of cigarettes to him, my dad won't listen. It is so bad that my dad will even avoid the doctor because he knows that he will just get a lecture about quitting. Of course the doctor just has the best interest of my dad in mind here, but since my dad has been smoking for over 40 years, he has probably heard it all multiple times. It's not like he doesn't know that it will kill him. 

What my dad needs is someone who is more patient-centered in their style of heath communication. He needs someone who will ask him open ended questions and that will let him take the reigns of the conversation. My dad has to decide on his own that he wishes to quit smoking in order for it to actually happen. Hopefully, he will find this one day or his doctor will learn to change his style, because all he is doing right now is scaring a man off from seeing a doctor even if he's in need. 

What Makes a Bad Lip Reading So Funny?

Happy Super Bowl Sunday everyone! If you're like me that you're about to start prepping for your Super Bowl party. While I was thinking about all things football related today, I happened to remember the new version of NFL Bad Lip Readings that came out recently. I love these video's, they so such a good job "intepreting" what these NFL players must be saying. I crack up every time I see them.

But what makes this video so good? Is it just that they make it seem like the players are speaking nonsense? No, it is the non-verbal communication that the players are using that emphasize the new words. Alone, the words they add would just be nonsense.

 First off, at :10 in, the player looks like he is creating illustrators with his body to emphasize something. He also seems pumped up. This add's so much more enthusiasm when he says "we gotta eat the breakfast".

At 1:04 in, the reporter and the coach are using regulators to control the conversation, we see the reporter move the microphone over to the coach to signal that it is his turn to speak and answer her question. He says "well friends of mine know that I don't like you" and he walks away. This regulator makes it seem as if he is walking away to end the conversation and again, emphasizes the words that he just spoke.

The words that are added, while funny, are only hilarious when we take into account the non-verbal language the players are using. It really show's how much of a part non-verbal communication adds to our messages.

Preconceived Notions

I've never been a big fan of South Park or The Simpsons, however, I love Family Guy. It is up there as one of my favorite TV shows. I came across this clip the other day on YouTube. It is a compilation of some of the stereotypes that the show has made fun of. 

After watching things, I realized how much TV makes fun of typical stereotypes. It is all in good fun and I am not offended by it in the slightest, but after reading a section in my textbook about stereotypes and how they influence the way we interact with others, it made me think. Do I have certain expectations about people I meet based on stereotypes?

I think that we all do. For instance I recently made a friend that is from Toronto, Canada. Based on what I've seen in the entertainment world about Canadians, I expected him to be ridiculously, overly nice and polite. While he is a very nice person, I wouldn't say that he's more polite or nice than my American friends. If I wasn't aware of that stereotype I may be disappointed by my friendship in him since I had such high expectations.

You would think that I would know better as a Chinese American, I've been subjected to stereotypes my entire life, some true and some not so much. I guess it goes to show that we really do need to be aware  of our perceptions of others to prevent preconceived opinions.

Clashing Identities

I am one of those that while I have a particular racial identity, I have a different ethnic identity. I am half Chinese and half white. My mom's side is completely Chinese. However, since I was born in a small town in New England and I have lived in the United States my entire life, I have always identified with the white identity more than the Chinese one. 

Over the past month, I have traveled to New Hampshire to see my dad's side of the family and also to New York to visit with my boyfriend's family who are also white. I feel comfortable around them. I know what to talk about and I know what is expected of me, because I identify with them. However, over the holiday's I spent a lot of time with my moms side of the family. I will also be going on a vacation with them  in the next month that is in talks of currently. Spending time with them is what always confirms my white ethnic identity. I don't feel as comfortable around them as I do my dad's side. The culture that they grew up in is much different than my own. Different things and behaviors are expected of me and I don't feel that I understand or fit in. 

Don't get me wrong, I love both sides of my family, but learning to identify with both is challenging. 

Sunday Social

Hello Everyone! This week I am linking up with A Complete Waste of Makeup for Sunday Social. This should be fun!

This Weeks Questions:

1. When you were little what did you want to be when you grew up? A singer. I used to LOVE to sing. All the time. Since I was from a small town everyone thought I was fantastic too. I loved being in the spotlight. 

2. What was your favorite way to kill time as a kid? I loved to play outside! Every day my friends and I would always go out and ride our bikes. I don't really know what we did all day but I miss those days. 

3. When did you get your first cell phone? Some time in high school...not everyone had them back then so it wasn't a big deal for me not to have one. I think it was some crappy flip phone haha. 

4. What is your favorite magazine to read? Currently, Glamour! I love seeing all the fashion, beauty and hair articles.

5. What is the one random object people would be surprised to find in your purse? Food. It's not rare for me to be carrying around a snack or my lunch. 

That is all for today! Stay tuned for a review of Birchbox Man soon!

Nail of the Week

Bonjour mes amis!

Everything is going great in my world lately and I hope the same is true with you!

I'm not going to ramble on, but just cut to the chase. Here are my nails this week!

I am loving my nail length right now! I never have my nails this long. It makes me feel like they are fake. I am also quite proud of my little updated french mani. Definitely cute and a little boring for me as far as colors go but that could easily be fixed. What do you think?

These were very easy to complete, just paint the base coat (I used a beige color since I do not seem to own white), make diagonal swipes at the tip of your nail with a bright color or metallic color like I used and then diagonal swipes of black over the color once it is dry. Be sure to leave a strip of the 2nd color so that it shows up under the black and TA DA! You're done with a nice updated french mani.

I hope you all enjoyed this weeks nail of the week. Have a great day!

Thursday Thoughts

Hello Everyone! I know that I missed out last week but this week I am linking up again with Jen over at Ramblings of a Suburban Mom for this weeks Thursday Thoughts!

-My puppies are driving me crazy this week. One cannot seem to stop peeing in his crate and the other hasn't been spayed yet so she is in heat and starting to bleed everywhere! I cannot wait until this stops.

-I completed my second day of C25K yesterday. It was supposed to be Tuesday, but I was sick and would have passed out on the treadmill. I know it may not seem like much but for me to get back up and do it after the first time was so hard is definitely an accomplishment!

-I'm loving Duolingo. Who knew learning a new language could be so fun?

-I have been very frustrated with my lake of beauty/subscription box posts on this blog. I really do want to post more about beauty but its been difficult to find inspiration. if you have anything that you would like me to talk about, please feel free to put out a request! I plan on doing a water marble nail art tutorial soon but my Incoco Nail Strips are still going strong and I haven't had the heart to take them off yet!

Thats pretty much it for me this week. Not too much going on. Hopefully next week will be more exciting :)

New Season, New Life

Hey everyone :)

Yesterday was a really enlightening day. I'm dying waiting for school to start and to finish my degree. I want to do things now that will help me be who I want to be. So yesterday I started two things.

C25K
I've been wanting to start this for forever but I kept putting it off for one reason or another. There are always excuses that you can come up with, but yesterday I just was in the mood to get off my butt and start doing things. So I completed Week 1 Day 1 of the challenge. Even though it may seem extremely easy to a lot of you, it was a huge feat for me to complete 20 minutes of walking/running. I wanted to quit halfway through. I figured that doing some of it was better than none of it but I wanted to do this. I always quit and this was something I wanted to accomplish.

I'm writing this here in hopes of it keeping me more accountable. I figure that if I think there are people I am reporting to that maybe it'll help me go back. It is only three days a week so there is no excuse of not having time. I really would like to lose about 30lbs and this will help me get there. I've never been a runner but my goal is that at the end of this program I'll be able to run a color run or a Disney marathon. Keep me going people!

French
I have always wanted to learn another language. I've always regretted my mom not teaching me chinese when I was younger. Other languages fascinate me. I was supposed to learn another language when I went away to the Air Force long ago but obviously that didn't work out. I've regretted the opportunity to learn a language there too. I was in Spanish classes during high school and even my first year of college but it never stuck. I am on a quest now though to learn French. I love French. I think it is a beautiful language and everyone down here doesn't speak it. Besides, if I plan on moving to Canada or Europe in the future it could be useful.

I plan on using two main sources to help me learn. First off is going to be Duolingo. Duolingo is a free site where you can learn a few basic languages. There is a tree guide that you work your way down. I like Duolingo because its fun and painless. I also find it effective, with Duolingo you translate from English to French and from French to English. You practice writing and speaking. 

The other site I plan on using is called italki. With italki there are a few different options. You can have paid lessons with a real teacher that resides in that country and is certified to teach, you can have people that are from that country but do not have a teaching certificate teach you for cheaper or you can connect with a local and exchange languages. With the language exchange, they help you with whatever language you are learning (the language they are fluent in) and you help them with the language that you are fluent in (english in my case). I love this site and that all of the options involve you speaking with another human being. It is said that the only way to become fluent in a language is to speak it. 

These are my goals. I don't know if I'll succeed. I don't know if I'll quit once school starts and I become busy, but I really do hope to keep them up. What are your goals?




***I did not receive any compensation for either of these sites. I just discovered them and genuinely believe in them.

Weekend Wrap Up

Hey everyone! I hope you all had a great weekend, I definitely did even if it was too short.

In this weeks edition of weekend wrap up there really wasn't too much going on until today. Friday and Saturday were spent lounging around the house. We did go to Applebee's on Saturday night though, and we haven't been in years. Typically I don't go to Applebee's unless I'm in NH, but I was very sad to see that they replaced the maple butter blondie with the butter pecan one. Still good but not as good.

Today was a great day. I finally convinced Joe to go to Blizzard Beach with me so that's where we spent out morning. Unfortunately, I left my phone in the car and was not able to get any pictures. If you are in Florida though I definitely recommend going. It was so much fun! I like the slides/rides better at Typhoon Lagoon but Blizzard Beach has the better lazy river and wave pool in my opinion.

We ended up getting very hot and tired of waiting in lines so we headed over the Epcot. Joe was thirsty and wanted to have a drink or two ;-).

I love Epcot, I think it is one of the parks that cannot get old. Partially because of the alcohol/food options. 3 months til Food and Wine Festival!

If you happen to be in Epcot and like Tequila, Mexico's tequila bar is the way to go. They have SO many different ones. Joe ended up getting a Avocado Margarita w/ rosemary salt on the rim. It sounds weird but let me tell you, it was great. This is also coming from someone who doesn't like avocado...or tequila lol.

I opted for a moscato from Italy's Wine Cellar instead. Definitely the best moscato I've ever had, not that I'm a great judge of these things.

I think one of the things I like the most about Epcot, is it lets you feel like you're in another country without leaving the park. I'm dying to travel these days so this is a great way for me explore on a budget :).

Our trip ended with the new ice cream parlor that is in france. They boast 16 flavors that are handmade. I originally thought this ice cream would be the same as all the other places but I was definitely wrong. As a huge ice cream lover, it is very creamy and flavorful. Some of the best ice cream I've had!

We ended up coming up and eating Pei Wei and thats pretty much wrapped up the day. I'm not looking forward to work tomorrow but at least there is another weekend coming up after that. I hope everyone's weekend was fun. Enjoy summer while it is still here!

Incoco Nail Strip Review/Nail of the week

Happy Thursday everyone! It is the downhill slope after hump day and I hope all of you are just as excited for the weekend as I am. It has been a quick but stressful week for me at work that is for sure. Do you have any plans for the weekend? Let me know if you plan on doing anything fun! I received these Incoco Nail Strips from Birchbox AGES ago, but I hadn't gotten my nails to the length I wanted them until recently. Last night I finally took the time to put them on. Each week I plan on featuring a nail color or design that I am wearing that week. This week they are the Incoco Nail Strips!

I received these strips in the "freshly picked" color from Birchbox. They only sell this and two other colors on Birchbox but when I checked out the Incoco site they had several more. They sell for about $10 but if you use Birchbox to get one of them you can get 10 points I believe!

 

 As always, I struggle with putting on nail wraps. These said that they were a base, color and top coat all in one but I used a base and top coat anyways. I wanted to make sure they stayed on for longer than two days. I thought I did a terrible job of putting them on last night but then as they finished drying all the bumps/bad edges fixed themselves! I think they came out as a success. They are very pretty and summery if you ask me and they didn't take more than 15 minutes to put on. Once I put them on a used a nail file to get rid of the excess. Overall I like these and it'll be interesting to see how long they stay on for. I hope to try the new Essie nail wraps soon which are also $10. Does anyone have a favorite nail wrap brand that they like? If so, comment below to let me know!

What type of face moisterizer do you use?

I am in desperate need of a new face moisturizer and I really want to try something new. So i wanted to know if you all use a higher end brand like Kiehls, or if you just pick up something from your local drugstore. Leave me a comment saying what you use! :)

Weekend Wrap-up

Hello! Weekend Wrap-up is just going to be a weekly post as to what I was up to over the weekend. My life is pretty boring but I thought it'd be a nice weekend thing to do so you all can get to know me a little more. 

-Friday night involved heading downtown to my favorite spots, Ibar and Backbooth. Ibar has a indie music themed night on Fridays and this week's was kind of lame, but Backbooth does 80's music every Friday and it's always so much fun! There definitely weren't a lot of people there though since it had been monsooning until 10ish.

-Saturday was almost a wash out but it turned out to be pretty fun. The plans were to go to Disney World with Joe and his sister but someone *cough*cough* (Joe) had a bit of a hangover. His sister and I ended up heading to Epcot by ourselves. Traffic was terrible but once we got there we ate at Seasons. Now, my advice is that if you end up at Epcot and are looking for something quick to eat, you HAVE to eat at Seasons. It's a grab and go kinda place but let me tell you, the food is great! After that we did Soarin' and Test Track and went over the France for a pastry. We ended up trying the new ice cream parlor in France. I thought it was going to be normal ice cream, but supposedly its "homemade". OMG IT WAS SOO GOOD. I will definitely be going back. 

-Sunday (today) was a lazy day. We just laid around on the couch and hung out all day on the computer and playing video games. The puppies definitely enjoyed themselves though and ended up very tired out. 

That's pretty much it for me! I'm hoping to have a review on Hard Candy's CC Cream coming up soon so stay tuned for that if you are interested. Comment below and let me know how your weekend was!

July Ipsy Review 2013

Hi everyone!

As promised (just a few days late) I am posting my review for Ipsy today. For those of you that do not know, Ipsy is a subscription service for beauty samples. It is very similar to Birchbox and it was founded by makeup guru, Michelle Phan (love her). It is $10 a month and you fill out your profile to customize your bag to yourself. The best thing about Ipsy in my opinion is that every month you get a makeup bag as well. Prior to this month, my purse was a mess but now with this makeup bag I have everything organized. I'm not sure what I'll do with the bags once I get a few more but I'm sure I'll find something or someone to give them to.

This month was actually my first month receiving Ipsy and I was ridiculously excited to try it out. I love Birchbox, but I have heard from a lot of people who think Ipsy is a lot better. Hopefully you'll be able to make your own opinion after reading this!

Ipsy comes in this adorable pink bubble wrap bag. You cannot miss it in the mail box, but everything was nice and save inside!

This is kind of the first look. When I pulled it out of the bubble wrapper everything was inside of the makeup bag and there was a card naming the theme for this month (beach beauty) and the brands you can receive discounts from. Instead of reviewing products for points like with Birchbox, Ipsy teams up with the included brands to offer you discounts on the products that you like.

BH Cosmetics Eyeshadow Palette -$1
This was a sample of the eyeshadows from BH cosmetic's California collection. It included three shades, hollywood which is a dark purple/blue, San Francisco which is a medium brown with a bronze hint to it and Malibu which is a gold color. I actually did like these colors even though they obviously don't go together but the pigmentation on them wasn't that great. It took a lot of product to get them to show up for the brown and gold, but I also have very tan skin so that might be part of it.

Coola Mineral Sunscreen - $5
I have yet to try this out but I've heard great things about this brand and Supergoop as far as sunscreen is concerned, so I'm excited! Has anyone ever tried it before? Also, I heard it has a matte finish. Has anyone thats tried this found it to be true? I have very oily skin so sunscreen always makes it worse.

BigSexyHair Weather Proof Hairspray-$6.99
Oh hair spray. I have so much of you and no idea how to use you! I've gotten a few different samples of hair spray and I have my own but I don't really use it much. I used to curl my hair with my chi and used it then but I don't anymore so they are just sitting there. I was really hoping that I would've gotten the beach spray instead of this. Oh well, I'll use them eventually or give them away!

Derma e Microdermabrasion Scrub- $8
I'm really excited to try this. I've never used a facial scrub before so I'm not sure what to expect. It smells good though! Has anyone ever tried anything like this?

Pop Pouty Pop Crayon- $4
This was my favorite item out of the bag!! I don't have many lip items so I was very excited to get this. It's a really pretty coral color. I already have kind of dark lips so it doesn't make them darker but tints them this bright coral color. It's super pretty and not too much color if you're looking for something not too crazy.

All in all this bag was worth about $24.99 and thats not including the makeup bag itself! Definitely worth more than the $10 it cost. I wish it had included the benetint that some got but I loved everything except the hairspray. In comparison to Birchbox I think I'd have to say they are about equal in my mind. I loved most of my Birchbox as well. I do have to say that in size comparison, Ipsy definitely wins. These samples were huge and closer to full products. I will definitely be getting next months.

If you are interested in learning more, click here: Ipsy. If you want to subscribe, please click here: Subscribe to Ipsy.

**This post contains a referral link but no compensation was received and all opinions are mine.

Today I am linking up with Ramblings of a Suburban Mom for Thursday Thoughts in my first ever link up! (I'm so excited).

-My first Thursday though is, yay! This is my first Thursday thought.

-My Ipsy finally arrived today. It had been held hostage for a couple of days at the post office. Idk whats been up with stuff lately but my Birchbox seemed like it was stuck for ages too. I also might have been a little impatient.

-I have no idea where this week, this month, or summer has gone! It is going by so quickly

-I'm very excited to have this weekend off entirely and next weekend. This is a rare even but something I'm definitely thankful for.

-I'm making cakepops this weekend, or at least thats the plan. Maybe if they turn out well, I'll include some instructions/recipe. I don't really like to call it a recipe since I'm not actually making the cake (its a box mix).

-I am sooo close to finishing this season of The Vampire Diaries and it is killing me. I can't decide what show I want to finish up next. Maybe Downton Abbey then True Blood? Who knows.

Well that's it for today, I don't have much. There's only about 5 minutes left of Thursday anyways.