Must Watch YouTube Video!

A few months ago Lauren Curtis uploaded an amazing video to YouTube. I felt like sharing it with you ladies tonight. I personally found this super helpful and informational. Enjoy!

Vaniply by Vanicream

I've had a dry patch on my hand since around June (I have had very bad eczema my whole life). It comes and goes, but it's been getting really bad recently. I have tried a total of 3 ointment/steroid prescriptions from my dermatologist, but they would typically make the patch go away for a day at most & then it would come right back, sometimes worse than it was before I used the ointment/steroid. 

Since none of the prescriptions were working, I decided I wanted to try some non-prescription products and see if any of them worked any better than the prescriptions did. I did my research and found that Vanicream had a new product, an ointment called Vaniply. I love Vanicream products (I highly recommend the Lite Lotion), so I was very hopeful about Vaniply. Before I ordered it, I called my grandpa (who is also a huge fan of Vanicream- he literally has a Lite Lotion in every room of his house) to see if he had tried it yet. Turns out he had tried it and he loved it. He even offered to let me borrow his to see if I liked it before I bought it. 

The first thing I noticed about this product was that it feels exactly like Vaseline, which I haven't had much luck with with my eczema (but I love it for my feet), so I looked at the ingredients to see if there was any Petroleum Jelly in it. Turns out it is Dimethicone, not Petroleum Jelly, which I believe is the active ingredient in Dermasil lotions. I love Dermasil, but the results aren't very long lasting for me, so that worried me a bit...

While reading everything on the back label, I noticed that it said it was for lips and skin. Since my lips are always super chapped, I decided to try it on my lips as well....

I LOVE THIS STUFF!! I put it on my lips during the day & put my Revlon Lip Butter right on top. Revlon Lip Butters usually turn into a train wreck when applied on dry lips, but with the ointment on them it glided on like a gem. It stayed on all day and you couldn't even tell how chapped my lips were! It made my lips super soft. As for the dry patch on my hand...I applied it to the patch before bed and when I woke up in the morning the patch was literally gone AND it hasn't come back since (1 week, which is the longer than any prescription ointment I tried). 

This stuff is amazing. I highly recommend it, whether you are using it as a lip treatment or a skin ointment, it's superb. AND it's safe for kids and those with sensitive skin (like myself).
Here is the link to the Vanicream website: http://www.psico.com/products/products.cfm

$6.99 at Walgreens. $5.29 at drugstore.com 

*This is not a sponsored post.*

3 Ways to Accentuate Freckles

1. Use a medium or light coverage foundation. My favorite is the Clean foundation by Covergirl. Using a light/medium coverage foundation will allow your freckles to be visible, but it will also even out your skin tone.
2. Use translucent powder. Starting at the top of your nose, swipe your favorite translucent powder (my favorite is Smoothers by Covergirl) across your cheeks. Swiping will disguise your pores and make your skin look almost airbrushed.
3. Wear blush. Blush is probably the easiest way to accentuate freckles. A beautiful peach toned blush will bring out the darker pigment of your freckles, making them more noticeable.

There are so many ways to accentuate your natural features, rather than try to cover them up. Let me know if you want to know how to use makeup to accentuate another specific feature. :)

Happy.

This post will probably make you think I'm crazy. I promise I am, but only a little. :)

I am getting my haircut next Monday. This haircut it going to be a special one- it's going to be a fresh start (no, I am not shaving my head!). I am choppin' off my dead ends!

Ever since middle school I have straightened my hair. I only pulled my hair in a pony if I had a soccer game or I was going swimming. I did it out of insecurity; I didn't think I would be pretty unless I actually styled my hair. A few months ago I realized that was completely insane. I realized I could pull my hair into a pony tail and still be the same, beautiful me. 

But did I change anything? No. I continued to straighten my hair every.single.day. My sister would give me a hard time about my patches of broken hair. She told me it looked awful and told me how bad my school pictures were going to look because of it. And I totally cried about it. I wanted to fix it, I really did!

One night I decided I was too tired to straighten my hair (I straighten it at night so I won't have to in the morning), so I braided it. Just 2 simple pig tail braids. That one act of pure laziness led me to an entire Summer without putting heat on my hair.

Tonight I straightened my hair for the first time since May. I looked at my hair- like up close, not just in the mirror. I didn't see 6 inches of split ends and broken hair, but I saw healthy hair- for the first time in years! And it made me so happy! 

I just want to challenge you all to do something that will make you happy. Trust me, it's worth it!

That's all :) Goodnight!

Love, 

Brooke

Rave: "Watt's Up!" Soft Focus Highlighter by Benefit

I was recently given the "Watt's Up!" highlighter by Benefit. At first, I was almost positive I wasn't going to like it. The color was too close to my skin tone, I didn't think it was going to blend well, and I had never really had luck with highlighters before. After a few weeks of sitting in my makeup cupboard, I decided to use it as my highlighter for a natural look. I threw it on, blended it quickly, and ran out the door without even really looking at it. In the car, I looked in the mirror to check my makeup. I kind of freaked out when I saw the amazing look this highlighter gave me. I have used it everyday since then.

This highlighter retails at $30.00, I got mine at Sephora.

I love this highlighter so much! It's super easy to apply and blend, and it's very creamy and lasts almost all day. The color is absolutely beautiful as well. I just apply it right above my cheek bones and blend with my fingers. It seriously takes like 10 seconds to apply!

I LOVE this highlighter and I definitely recommend it! Go check it out & let me know what you think!

**This is not a sponsored post.**

True Beauty

**The beauty this post is about is a totally different kind of beauty this blog is centered around. I blog about beauty as a hobby- a beauty that doesn't define you, but something you do for fun. This post is about a deep beauty- the kind that does define you.**


 Once upon a time there was a girl named M. M was asked to homecoming and was super excited; it would be her first homecoming dance! M, her mom, and her sister went to go shopping for a dress. The first store they went to had a lot of dresses, but there was only 1 dress M liked. She thought it was beautiful! She went to try it on. It didn't fit. M asked the fitting room attendant if they had the same dress in a bigger size. The attendant told her that the dress M had already tried on was the biggest size they carried. So M went to another store to see what they had.

The second store had even more beautiful dresses! Almost immediately after entering the store a worker approached the girls. She asked who they were shopping for. M said that they were shopping for her. The worker then told M, without even asking M what size she was, that the largest size they carried was an 8 and told M to try another store.

M walked to the car with her mom and sister. As they began driving away, M started to cry. She said that she was "too fat". 

Unfortunately, that's not just a story. That happened today...
 It never ceases to amaze me with how the world portrays beauty. According to the world, beauty is being a size 0, having the most expensive clothes, wearing hardly anything, etc. In fact, if you Google the definition of beauty, this is what it says-

"a combination of qualities, such as shape, color, or form, that pleases the aesthetic senses, esp. the sight."

I want you to know that the world's definition of beauty is not what beauty is. Beauty is not what the world says it is. You do NOT have to look like a model on the cover of a magazine in order to be beautiful.

Beauty can be seen, but it is something that comes from the inside and shines out. To be beautiful, be yourself, be kind to others, have high moral standards, treat others the way you would like to be treated, and most of all be you {beYOUtiful}. Don't be the world's kind of beautiful- they have it all wrong! True beauty cannot be painted on, surgically created, or purchased.

Beauty comes in all shapes and sizes and is a rare, very valuable treasure.