Do Braids Help Hair Grow Longer and Stronger?

I wanted to bring up this "myth" so that I can hear what you guys think on the subject.
I have always heard from my mother and several other people that braiding the hair will help to make the hair grow faster and stronger. I have never believed that the action of braiding the hair alone will help, but that genetics and lifestyle play the biggest role in the health of the hair. But then I started to think back to when I was younger.

Ever since I can remember, my mother had always braided my hair every single night. And she would very often braid my hair on a daily basis. As a child, I had extremely long (all the way to my hips) and healthy hair. I had my hair this way up until 7th or 8th grade. When I was in 9th grade, I chopped off my hair, and stopped braiding it. I think from then onwards, I have not been able to grow my hair back to it's original length. So I have been thinking of trying out this method of braiding my hair every single night, and also occasionally during the day. Of course, straightening my hair has also played a role in making my hair less healthy, so I also want to minimize the use of heat on my hair.

Braids will also be a hot hairstyle for fall/winter~

I adore this photo!

And of course being a huge Star Wars fan, I am also a huge fan of Princess Leia's braided hairstyles.

What are your guy's thought on this? Do you believe that braids will help hair to grow faster? Do you have any methods for faster hair growth?

FOTD: Sultry Snow White

Snow White is the image of innocence, purity, and all that is fair. This look is not like that at all. This takes the classic Snow White lips and turns it into something seductive and theatrical. This is not a look for the faint of heart.

 Products Used

FACE & CHEEKS

-Skin79 Oriental BB Cream

-MAC Powder Blush in 'Eversun'

LIPS

-NYX Round Lipstick in 'Snow White'

EYES

-MAC Mineralize Eyeshadow in 'Smoked Ruby' 

-Dolly Wink liquid liner

-Prestige My Blackest Lashes mascara

NAILS

-Rescue Beauty Lounge 'Piu Mosso'

 For a less intense look, simply apply less of the eyeshadow, and blend out the edges, like in the look below.

And in case you are wondering, I did not go to class like this xD I was just having a little fun at home. Although, I would not be scared to go out like this, in all honesty. And it makes for a great costume look.
I absolutely adore NYX's Snow White lippie! I did not have a lip liner on and it looks great on its own. It was only about $2 as well. Super affordable.

What do you think? Too much? Great for Halloween? Makes me look like a prostitute working the streets?
Any comments are valued ;)

The Lipstick Compendium: MAC 'Asian Flower' Sheen Supreme

MAC Sheen Supreme lipsticks are a range of lipsticks that are supposed to be both moisturizing but also very pigmented. The recent Seasonally Supreme Collection included several new shades of the Sheen Supreme, including Asian Flower.

Asian Flower ($14.50, permanent) is a purple toned pink with multi-colored micro-shimmers. It is not too cool toned or pale, so it is more wearable for many skin tones (unlike many other purple lippies).
I have no exact  dupes for this color but I have one similar shade. The closest is Lime Crime's 'Airborne Unicorn', which is a little more of a cool toned purple, has no shimmers, and is more pigmented. Just for reference I swatched MAC 'Up the Amp' and CoverGirl 'Divine', which are purple toned, but have more red tones than pink. Oddly, Divine looks very red on my arm, but when applied and the lips is is much more pink and thus looks more similar to Asian Flower on the lips.

Asian Flower     /        Airborne Unicorn          /    Up the Amp         /           Divine

PROS:
-I personally LOVE this color! It is very flattering on my skin tone
-It has a very glossy finish and it moisturizes my lips
-The fine shimmer in this color makes this lipstick a little more unique
-The packaging is very sleek and different from  regular MAC lipstick packaging which makes it easier to distinguish between all my lipsticks
-It lasts about 3-4 hours on my lips, which is pretty god considering it is very moisturizing

CONS:
-The tube is a little difficult to open. I feel that I really need to tug at the cap in order to remove the cap
-It can settle into lip lines
-It sometimes clings to dry spots
-It was so difficult to photograph! It looks so ugly on my camera! Haha xD

Me wearing Sheen Supreme. I hope you can see @_@

Thank you for reading :D

September Favorites 2011

Another month has passed by so quickly! And here is another post of my favorites for this month. Hope you enjoy :)

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1.Reviva Labs Makeup Primer
This was sent to me in the beginning of August, and I have been using it since them. It is the best primer i have ever used and I am very impressed with it. I will most likely be purchasing it with my own money once it runs out. My bottle is about half ways, so it should last me until the end of this year or so.
2.LORAC Oil Free Luminizer in 'Pearl'
I used this lumizer consistently this month. I admit I had forgotten about it in the past months, but I rediscovered and I can't believe I shad not used it. Although, I also must admit that I have a new highlighting powder which I absolutely love, so this might be slightly forgotten once again.

Primer   /  Luminizer (I applied waaaay too much product on my hand)

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3.Prestige My Blackest Lashes mascara
If you have seen any of my EOTDs, you might realize that I have been using this mascara very often. For the price, this is a really great mascara! I am pretty much done with the tube above, and I will be repurchasing it. Check out my review HERE for more details.

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4.Stila Smudge Pot in 'Little Black Dress'
This smudge pot was from the Barbie Loves Stila collection. I got this when the collection came out, but I lost it before I ever used it. I had painted my room and removed everything from my room, and this ended up a box which I forgot about and it was left in my garage. I recently found the box and I was angry that this beauty had evaded me for such a long time. This is the closest dupe of MAC Young Punk eyeshadow, but in a cream shadow form. It is a black base with gorgeous purple shimmers. What I love about this, beside the color, is that it is extremely long lasting and waterproof. I wore this to the recent Blink 182 concert, and it stayed put all night (can't say the same thing about my foundation though!). I believe this was LE, but I checked online and saw many places you could purchase it from (eBay, Amazo, ect...) for a relatively decent price.

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5.MAC Sheen Supreme in 'Asian Flower'
I absolutely love this shade and I have been wearing it so much since I purchased it. The color is phenomenal, it is moisturizing, and the staying power is quite good for a super moisturizing lipstick (3-5hrs). I adore wearing this lipstick in conjunction with either MAC Young Punk eyeshadow on my eyes, or the Stila Little Black Dress Smudge Pot (as shown above).

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Favorite Songs:

Sleeping With Sirens "Let Love Bleed Red"

Sleeping With Sirens "If I'm James Dean, You're Audrey Hepburn"

Favorite Shows

Doctor Who

 Breaking Bad

Hope you are all loving the month of October! I know I am~ New season of Dexter and How I Met Your Mother, anyone?

Illamasqua Theatre of the Nameless

*WARNING! Picture heavy post~

Promo Picture

First of all, what an awesome collection, Illamasqua! Beautiful promo pictures, amazing makeup, great products,and a genuinely creative name and theme. Everything was executed so nicely~
You may know of my huge love affair with Illamasqua products, which started from the very first lipstick I purchased, and has lead up to many more Illamasqua purchases. So it is no surprise that I am super in love with some of their recently released products ^_^

Nail Varnish, Lipstick, and a Pure Pigment

'Kontrol' Lipstick ($22)
This is a blue-toned dark purple, which is perfect for the up coming fall/winter. This is a matte finish, but is not drying at all. On the contrary, it is very smooth and creamy. Because it is a darker color, it is slightly more difficult to get an even coverage. But with a careful application it will apply perfectly. I was surprised how much I loved this color! I thought it would be too dark, but it actually looks very nice. It is a sophisticated goth-like lip color.

The color reminded me of ghastly, Haunter, and Gengar. The pictures are not in order though, because Haunter was my favorite. He was cool looking, detached hands!

I am wearing Kontrol lipstick

'Beguile' Pure Pigment ($24)
A very shimmery sheer white with amazing holographic shimmers. This color is really easy to ignore; in pictures and in the container is looks like any old shimmery white. I personally thought this when I first saw it: "Meh...I've seen better." I was really wrong! Once I swatched it, I saw the true potential and beauty that was Beguile. The base color, which is white, is very sheer but this pigment is not meant to be an opaque white eyeshadow. The point of this pigment is to be used for it's shimmery goodness, which will  add an amazing sparkle to any look. A must have for Illamasqua and shimmer lovers!

I had on Beguile in the inner corner~ Separate post on this look soon :D

'Kink' Nail Varnish ($14)
Kink is a dark forest green color that dries to a rubbery finish. This new finish is really weird, but awesome! It is like a mix between a cream and a matte finish; a very perplexing combination indeed! I rather like how it looks and it certainly is very unique.
The formula is amazing: completely opaque in one coat! I must be honest though. I am not a huge fan of dark greens, so the color of this doesn't awe me too much. But, this polish looks fantastic under a black shatter polish! I have received so many compliments on my nails when I wore Kink and OPI's Black Shatter together.

(Picture below) I had been wearing this manicure for about 5 days before taking the photos!

Verdict
These three products are merely the tip of the iceberg. This collection offers so many more amazing products that I still need to try! But I do really love all three of these products, my favorite being the lipstick in Kontrol. I highly recommend Illamasqua products, especially the products from this collection.

Rating: 9/10 (-.5 for price; -.5 for local availability)
Recommend? Most definitely!
Repurchase? I would repurchase many of my Illamasqua products~

You can check out:
Previous Illamasqua Posts
Illamasqua website
Sephora page for Illamasqua

*This post contains products that were sent by PR for consideration and review. All opinions are my own regardless. I am not being paid to review these products.

Butter London 'No More Waity, Katie' Nail Varnish

Hello everyone! I hope you all had a great weekend! I had a very interesting weekend myself. I was caught up between a lot of homework, hanging out with friends at a bar, and going to see Blink 182 / My Chemical Romance/ Matt and Kim. It was really fun, but today I am feeling like a zombie. But enough of me, let's get right to business.

Butter London nail polishes are extremely well known here in the beauty community. I had never tried one because I felt anxious about the price. But I was lucky enough to find that my local Nordstrom has Buttter London in stock. I tried on a whole bunch of different colors and purchased two of them, one of them being No More Waity, Katie. I thought I was going to love this color because it is purple with silvery/purple glitter. What is not to love about that?

Formula
Butter London nail polishes have a great formula, but this definitely did not meet up to the Butter London quality. One coat is rather sheer, two coats is decent, and three coats is completely opaque but it looks goopy and uneven. It dried fairly quickly though, so that was a good thing.But I feel that this could have been better if it was more opaque with less coats.

My Complaints
Although the formula was not the best, that was not the main issue with this polish. I personally though that the finish of the polish was very dull. Even with a good top coat, it would end up looking really dull and just plain unsightly. I know a lot of people love this polish, so I am not sure why mine looked so ugly. I had on 3 coats + top coat and it looks okay in the pictures. But after 2 hours of applying a top coat, it looked dull again. I even tried using different top coats, but the same thing happened.

Verdict
I wanted to like this, I really did. But I just hate how incredibly dull it look on my nails, and it aged my hand a couple of years. When I first applied the top coat, it looked great. But a couple hours later it looked dull again. At $14 per bottle, I didn't think this was worth it so it was returned from whence it came. If you have been lemming this shade, I would suggest trying it out in store if you can, because I was thoroughly disappointed! But again, that is only my own opinion, and many of you will love this.

Rating: 6/10 (-1 for price; -2 for the formula, -1 for the dull quality of the polish)
Recommend? I recommend this Butter London nail polishes, but I personally do not recommend this color.
Repurchase? Nope. That should be obvious, right? :D

Thanks for reading ^_~

Revlon Diamond Lust Shadows

A couple days ago, I picked up three of the Revlon Diamond Lust shadows because 1) they looked gorgeous and 2) they were on sale. I have never tried any Revlon eyeshadows and these just seemed exceptionally pretty.

I picked up: Night Sky, Neptune Star, and Plum Galaxy.

 These are a little gritty because of the holo glitter, but overall they apply nicely when they are patted onto the lid. They are extremely pretty and the colors are really nice as well. I believe they are about $5 originally and I got them for $2-$3 since they were on sale. It is a great deal, especially because of how pretty they are. *~* I am star struck!

Neptune Star

Night Sky

Plum Galaxy

Night Sky   /  Neptune Star  /   Plum Galaxy   all over Pixie Epoxy

Night Sky   /  Neptune Star  /   Plum Galaxy   on their own

Look using Neptune Star HERE.

If you love shimmer/glitter, check these out before they are gone. I have only seen these on limited edition displays, so check your local drugstores ^_^