C.C. Solomon's Blog, page 12

Fun and Quick Halloween Costume Designs for the Cosmo Gal

So in the spirit of Halloween I thought I couldn’t let my birth month end without a post on fun Halloween costumes for the urban gal who wants to look made up but not on a huge budget.

I am a huge Halloween gal so I have a bag stuffed with costume ideas. And if you are a makeup gal like me this is a great time of year to go all out with your looks. Here are some ideas I’ve tried or seen that are great for a gal who wants a cute (or just fun) look without a high cost.

Dark Fairy

This is a super easy one to do. All you need is a black dress or black separates, some black wings and maybe a head piece. You can also add fishnets and elf ears. But the key is the makeup. Some people are super skilled here but I am more average. All you may need outside of your normal makeup pallet is some white paint or liner.  Go with a smoky  and lined up eye, dark contouring/blush, some highlighter on the tops of your cheekbones. Then I added some black and white dots above the brow. I then did some creative liners outside the eye with the black and white pencils. Finish off with dark lips.

Black Cat

This is a simple and fun look. All you need are some ears, maybe a tail and a collar. Wear all black. The rest is makeup. Here is a fun and easy look to copy below.

Fallen Angel

Another easy and creative idea that is a play on words. An angel that literally fell and hurt herself. You need some wings and a halo and all white outfit. I slightly bent the halo, stuck some leaves in my hair, Band-Aid on my forehead and wrapped my hand.

Vampire/zombie

For a zombie look just cut up a shirt, add some red paint, makeup. On the face do red shadow up to the brow and below the eye. Go over with dark eyeshawdow above and below. Use a black pencil for wavy lines below the eyes. If you are going zombie use the liner to make z shaped “scars” on your face add two short horizontal lines across the Z lines. Using red lipstick or pencil add “blood” around the lips. Go for dark lips.

Goddess

This is a glamourous option. On the eyes go for gold/bronze colors. Line the upper lids with a gold eyeliner out to a cat eye. Copy that with black pencil on the bottom. Highlight cheekbones, tip of nose, inner corners of eyes and inside brow bone. Finish with some red lips and top with red glitter.

Cleopatra

Blue shadow, highlight brow bone. The real look is in the liner as shown below. You can go however you like but this is a common and easy look.

Cartoon

This is a super easy look. For this I would go with face paint to help really make the look pop. White dots on the face (I’ve also seen this done with red and just as effective), blue to make tears under the eye and outline with black pencil. Outline the nose, eyes, lips, jaw, a line under the cheekbone, collar bone (and cleavage if you want) with black pencil. Red lip and white rectangle shape on the bottom lip to emulate shine. If you want to add more emotion you can do two short vertical black lines between the eyebrows. Painting on the Pow sign is optional.

Happy Halloween!

Money Saving Weekend in NYC

So I’ve been to New York City several times. Mainly to Manhattan and Brooklyn. So I should really be ashamed that I’ve never blogged about my travels there before. If you know my blog you know that I’m a girl that likes to shop and dine within a reasonable budget. With that in mind I thought I’d take you through a good weekend for a cosmo gal.

Now this is really a mini guide and not all encompassing. I’ve written other posts about how to plan a perfect trip tailored to your needs. I also am not going to go into all the touristy things you should do while here. By now everyone knows about the staples: Statute of Liberty, Empire State Building, the MET, Broadway… So instead I’m going to break this down to food and shopping (the nightlife is seriously overwhelming so I wouldn’t dare direct you on what to do, I suggest going to Yelp and keying in words that meet what you are looking for like R&B, martini, happy hour).

Where to Stay

Typically I go to SoHo when I come to NYC because it’s near the shopping I like. Nothing is cheap lodging wise in this city but I like to stay at the Holiday Inn Express in SoHo. it’s pretty reasonable.  However, my most recent stay led me to a unique hotel called the Yotel. Several major cities world wide have this brand and it’s supposed to be this automated boutique hotel for a less expensive price.

 

When I first got to the place I was confused. The theme of the hotel is like a plane. They have a couple of greeters at the door with “mission control to major tom” t -shirts (homage to the David Bowie song). But then you go and check yourself in! I went to one of many computer kiosks, put in some information and out pops a receipt and my card key. Hmm, so then I take an elevator to my room which is labeled as a flight number or cabin on my receipt.

Once inside, the room is super modern and super tiny. There is no closet. Pretty much a bed that can electronically move back and position like a couch and then goes all the way down. Flat screen TV and a tiny desk/night stand. There is a small area to put a suitcase and hang clothes and you can also store under bed. Behind a curtain is the bathroom area with shower, a window, safe, iron/ironing board and sink with decent counter space and a fabulous lit mirror making it perfect for selfies!

Overall, I did like the hotel but you have to be comfortable with the person you are staying with because there is no privacy. And I’m not a fan of the movable bed, I need a sturdier mattress. Also there is something to that live human interaction. I tried to call before I arrived and was never able to reach anyone. I also emailed and left voice mail messages. Nada. The hotel had an information desk with people so that was helpful and it did have a restaurant and cool rooftop bar so you weren’t totally on your own. There is also a gym. I’d say it’s a cool idea but there is something to hospitality.

Where to Eat

I’m a foodie but not much of  a snob about it. I’ve eaten at several places so like nightlife I can’t tell you where to eat. It’s best to Yelp it up and explore on your own. However, if you try Chinese or Italian you  are on the right path. I’m not a huge chain person but since many of the local chains in NYC are only in those areas, it’s new to me! I like the local chain Ollies for Chinese food. For breakfast I went to Friedman’s and it was super delish. Get there early like before 10am early. Juniors, a diner type restaurant, also has great American food with a selection of cheese cake to make the calories worth it all. If cheesecake isn’t your thing you must try Magnolia for their cupcakes. Another local chain that was randomly featured in Sex and the City, I usually check it out when I’m in town. They also have an online shop. Yum. As a side note, I found out about that shop on a Sex and the City Bus tour which I would definitely recommend if they still have it.

Where to Shop

Ok if you are a Gucci, Prada girl this is not the post for you. I love shopping and my idea of splurge shopping is buying full price at Banana Republic. No judgement for those who do the high end I just can’t do that and travel. So when I’m out and about finding cute clothes and beauty on a budget is my goal and NYC is great for that.

The local beauty supply stores in Manhattan have everything. Recently I went to Beauty 35 near Hells Kitchen and they had all of the lower brand beauty and hair goods. Also check out E.L.F. Cosmetics store in SoHo. If you are into monthly beauty box subscriptions Birchbox has a store in SoHo as well. 

For department stores check out Macys Flagship and for some deals go by Century 21 an inexpensive department store

For costume jewelry, I love So Good Jewelry also in SoHo. It’s a large shop with all types of costume jewelry that fits every type. If you have the patience also check out Hells Kitchen Flea Market on a Saturday. There’s a lot of crap there but some really funky jewelry pieces and I always walk away with something (and you can haggle so that’s a plus).

For clothes, here is my caveat: I only go cheap for trendy pieces that aren’t timeless, casual and evening tops and summer dresses.  Treat yo self when it comes to work wear and jeans. So if you want some cheapie items I typically stop by Mystique Boutique (has an online store), Amsterdam, Necessary Clothing, Uniqlo, Buffalo Exchange (a chain vintage store, also located in DC). In general once you are in this area I say just walk around and you’ll find a lot. So maybe just pin point one of the boutiques for directions and then take off and explore. You’re also near a lot of good eats near Canal street. And if you want to go mainstream like H&M or high end, there are plenty of those places around as well.

Enjoy your time and I hope this helps!

Beauty Haul: Color Pop, Make up Forever Etc.

I recently made some makeup purchases as is my habit. My current addition is colourpop. They are lucky they don’t have a brick and motor store. So just going to do a quick review of some of my latest beauty purchases for those makeup freaks like me.

Colour Pop:

Matte Lippie Taurus

Highlighter Avalon

Ultra Glossy Lip My Jam

Eye shadow Bae and Nillionare

Overall love the colors. Can never go wrong with Colorpop.

From Left: Makeup Forever Artist Shadow, ColourPop Avalon highlighter, Nillionare and Bae eyeshadow

 

I also purchased Dermablend blurring moose camo foundation which claims to help decrease the appearance of textural imperfections in the skin. While it doesn’t quite do it perfectly, it does cover up any pigment imperfections and helps minimize large pores. However, I’m not sold on it being good to hold back oiliness just yet. I mix it with It powder no more pores which is my truth so can’t tell  yet. One note, no make up is a cure all but you have to put it on right to get the best effect. There are tons of youtube videos on how to put on foundation to hide flaws. Here’s my quick and dirty, put it IN the skin not just on. This is why beauty blenders are so popular. Press the foundation in the skin, don’t just smear it across the face. Tap/press the color in all over the face (yes, this will take time), then lightly blend it all. This helps with covering the imperfections.

I also go Urban Decay Perversion mascara which made my lashes say Hey. Although not a cheap product. Real talk, Loreal Voluminous Butterfly mascara works just as well and is my every day go to.  Finally I got a sample of Makeup forever artist shadow. Nice but nothing to write home about. They have other products that I prefer.

 

Finished look with Taurus on my lips and My Jam on the top in the center. Avalon highlighter above my check bones and at the tip of my nose. On my eyes, Make up forver on the lids with Nillionare over top. Bae in the outer corner. Perversion mascara on. Dermablend on the skin with It Powder on top. A simple wet and wild black eyeliner on top and bottom of eye water lines.

St. Augustine, Florida

My family is from Jacksonville, Florida but all my visits there I have never been to St. Augustine. One of the oldest cities in the U.S., this adorable little town is about 45 minutes from the Jacksonville airport. It’s only a ten minute drive from Ponte Verde beach.  If I ever had to suggest a great place to visit for couples St. Augustine/Ponte Verde are it. Sure there is a college in St. Augustine and it can be a bit fratty so be mindful of when you go. I went just when school was beginning so it was a good mixture of all types.

Ponte Verde is a great place to rent a beach house, which gives you your own patch of beautiful private beach. Then when you get a little bored mosey on over to St. Augustine for some shopping, eating, and drinking. There is a large outlet for name band shopping but the real joy is going into the Old City part. Old buildings, historic sites, tasty restaurants and cute boutique shops.

For food, check out Brunch for, well, brunch and Harry’s Seafood Bar and Grill for, well, seafood!

For shopping check out the Red Pineapple.It’s near a ton of other shops as well. Stroll through the area and manage your funds or you’ll spend it all on clothes, food and knick knacks!

When there check out the Tini Martini Bar for all of the martinis. Pricy at $12 a martini but one is the size of two so it works out. Great place to sit out on the patio and people watch. They also have live music.

Sangrias Wine and Piano Bar is another good location for drinks, music, and people watching.

All and all, a cute town for history buffs, beach folk and those who like a slow paced scene but want something social.

Blue Apron: Overall Thoughts

So after a month of various meals from Blue Apron I can finally give a full unbiased opinion of my time with it.

Pros

You make some nonstandard meals so it makes you feel all fancy and stuff.

Everything I make, if I stick to the directions, is tasty. Some more so than others but I feel more confident when I cook. Which makes me more confident to cook for others.

It’s fresh. All ingredients are all natural, farm to table style.

You can pick the type of food you like and don’t. So if you are vegetarian or don’t eat red meat you aren’t stuck with meals you won’t eat.

It’s affordable. Especially for a single person. At $60 a week, that’s like 6 meals, since each meal is two serving sizes, for $10.  Not bad

Cons

It can take some time. Usually the recipes show that it’ll take around 30 minutes to make. Welp, that ain’t true. On average each meal takes 45-60 minutes to prepare. But most good meals aren’t fast!

Serving Size. It’s a bit big. Most meals are about 700 calories. Which isn’t great for those trying to lose some pounds. You have the benefit of making your own food, which is always best. And it’s tasty. But it won’t matter if it’s still high calorie. However, I won’t say the company should reduce their size. Sure some folks might think that the calories work for their diet; other’s should just be mindful and reduce or substitute certain ingredients.

You can’t pick all of your meals. You get six types of meals a week if you are on the 3 meal a week plan. However, you can’t mix and match everything, which is annoying. I know there is a reason for it but I don’t like it.

Outstanding Thoughts

Not sure if they do meal repeats; I’d really like to get certain meals again. However, at the very least I still have the recipes…

Wish they had this for breakfast, lunch, and dessert.

In sum, I’d recommend it if you have the patience and dedication.

How to Handle a Haunting: When Ghost Dates Come Back

We’ve all been there, you meet a guy (or girl). You go on a date or a few dates and then..radio silence. I’ve written about people going “ghost” before. But what do you do when that person comes back to haunt you?

No not this type of haunting from a romantic interest.

 

This has happen to me more times than I care to mention but I’m always left with many conflicting feelings.

Outrage- Who does this guy think he is coming back and trying to talk to me after his rude behavior?

Pride- More than likely he went ghost because he met another person. So now he thinks he’s going to come back after it didn’t work out with the other person like I’m some second runner up? Harumph

Curiosity- What kind of excuse will he have for his behavior?

Conflicting Feelings- You’re annoyed but if you really liked this person at the time you might be open to going out to see if they are worth a second shot.

Hesitation- You decide to go out and see this person but you’re guard is WAAAY up and it might take a while to get comfortable trusting them again.

My advice for handling a haunting? First really decide if you even want to be bothered by this person again. Then if you think you might, acknowledge the behavior and make it known that it wasn’t cool. I think if it’s ignored then the person may feel it is ok to repeat the same bad behavior which ultimately is a waste of your time and emotions. If they give a response that sounds plausible or apologetic, decide if you accept.

Are they asking you out again? If you want to see them I suggest meeting up on your own terms. Maybe limit it to a drink, not too far from your home. I think it’s fair to limit your time and energy with this person to protect yourself then decide after the meeting how you want to proceed. If you decide to rekindle it then move forward but proceed with caution. You should still have fun together but that person has some making up to do.

Ultimately, as the saying goes, when someone shows you who they are believe them.

Beauty Haul: It Cosmetics

If you can’t tell by now I am a sucker for some makeup. I also struggle with super duper oily skin, pores of life, and adult acne (seriously why haven’t we come up with a cure for that yet, ah yes, because there’s money in buying acne products, grumble capitalism grumble).

Anywho, there I was watching a TV show when up pops a lengthy commercial for It Cosmetics. I’m in a few make up facebook groups and I keep hearing about this brand. It sells in places like Sephora as well. Yet, here it was on TV promising all sorts of skin miracles from covering roseasa, dark circles, acne marks, wrinkle, large pores. You name it. It’s supposed to be a really cutting edge brand tested by plastic surgeons. And they had a sweet deal on a sample kit of the Beautiful You collection so I went on line and quickly made the purchase.

Some days later I got several products, some in travel size. Here are my thoughts:

Bye Bye Foundation- I believe this was a travel size. The claim is that it gives you full coverage without looking too cakey. One pump of the color didn’t get me exactly full coverage but it gave me much better coverage than other makeup. A second coating would do wonders I’m sure. I will say that it did help a lot against oiliness. I usually need a mattifying primer but didn’t need one with this (ok I forgot to put it on but turns out it worked). Also it is SPF 50 which is  a big perk. Biggest con- limited shades. I got the darkest color they had and it was still a smidge lighter than I’d prefer. I’m light/medium brown so this really excludes a LOT of skin tones.

Bye Bye Pores- I got this in a travel size and in a matching skin tone color. This is like wiping magic on your face. I have pores the size of pot holes (ok I’m exaggerating…a bit). So nothing was going to make them totally disappear into an alternate dimension. But this comes pretty close and it keeps the oiliness away. One of the few times I actually felt ok with my skin.

Bye Bye Anti Aging Concealer- got this in a travel size. This right here…*gets the holy ghost* is the truth. I will be buying this. It blended smoothly under my eyes and over spots. This concealer matched my skin tone better than the foundation. I don’t have dark circles but if I did I’d wear this all day all night.

Vitality Lip Flush 4 in 1 Reviver Lip Stain in Je Na Seis Quoi- On first sight I thought this was just a fancy chapstick. But I was wrong. It conditions your lips and brings out the natural pink in your lips so you look nice and pretty without being made up . There are other colors in the collection so I’m curious to try them as well

Hello Lashes 5 in 1 Mascara- I got it in a travel size. It’s suppose to prime, volumize, enhance, tint and curl. Really made my lashes pop. I’d get it again.

CC Raidiance Vitality Brightening Crème Disc- This was a full size contour pallet and consists of a bronzer, blush and highlighter. I lived the bronzer ad the blush was nice against my skin tone. The highlighter was a bit ashy on my complexation but it looked great on darker and lighter skin tones on youtube.

Heavenly Luxe Complexation Perfection Brush- I paid less for the whole kit than what this brush usually cost but let me tell you, this brush is everything! Feels like feathers on the skin and really helps press in the color for making pores look smaller and covering marks. Don’t even bother using a beauty blender.

All in all a lovely brand. Here is my look with all of the products. In my opinion it all came together for a very natural look!

 

 

 

 

Makeup Fav: Too Faced Chocolate Palette

I usually reserve my pricey makeup purchases for foundations and the occasional wonder mascara but then I said one day ‘Cat, treat yo self’. So I went to my local Ulta (or was it Sephora?) and got the popular Too Faced Chocolate Palette. And it was well worth the price because I love it!

I was looking for a palette with colors that would show well on my skin tone and this one does the trick!

With a good eye primer the colors show up nicely on brown skin. The package comes with a few how-to looks for those who don’t know where to begin. Here are a couple of looks I’ve done.

I also looked to YouTube for some good instructions on looks to copy and make sure I get my money’s worth out of this product. Here are a couple good tutorials.

Smokey Eye Look

Purple Smokey Eye Look

Glam Eye Look on Brown Skin

Gold Eye Look

If you’re looking for a good department store brand eye shadow set I think this is worth the money.

 

Brown Cod Fish

So I’m doing another post on my adventures with mail order cooking via Blue Apron.

This time a brown butter cod fish.

Here’s what they sent me:

butter

oregano

3 cloves of garlic

purple potatoes

corn on the cob (which I had to cut the corn off of the stalk)

2 pieces of cod

malt vinegar

shiitake peppers

shallot

Here’s the process in pictures

cooked the cod in olive oil and butter and then put the malt vinegar over it. Extra sauce went over the vegetables.

 

The final result: Another win!  So far Blue Apron has an advocate in me. Next up…Tinkerbell Pepper Quesadillas

Cooking: Chicken Burger

So I finally gave in and decided to subscribe to Blue Apron. I’ve been eye stalking them for some time and I think food services like these are awesome for single people or just a couple who wants to do more home cooking but may not be as creative or talented on their own in the cooking division.

Out of all the many services out there I picked Blue Apron because I could tailor it to the type of food I would eat (I don’t eat red meat) and it was priced well for the market.

They shipped the ingredients in a large box with ice in it. All of the ingredients and step by step picture recipes are included. The sauces, butters, seasonings are all included as well (except for salt and pepper and olive oil).

I decided to go for what I thought would be the easiest of the bunch to make: Chicken Burgers.

I won’t go into the recipe (unless requested) but I will give the basic ingredients and tell my cooking story through pictures.

ginger

2 cloves of garlic

tomato

one stalk of lemon grass

2 small/medium potatoes

cilantro

ground chicken

mayo

soy sauce

hoisin sauce

sriracha suace

2 burger buns

The end result was super good. I cut up the potatoes and baked them and made the burgers on the stove top. I don’t like mayo but the mayo-hoisin sauce was actually pretty good. Even after burning the buns, it was still good.

First meal a success. Next up…brown butter cod fish.