I'm a girl that loves all things glitz, glam, fashion and beauty. Although I don't personally wear much makeup sometimes I do like to add a bit of glam. My makeup essentials when I want to be extra glamorous is lipstick(Any color I love bold color lipstick but most the time I'm wearing Ruby Woo), my Mineralized Skinfinish Global Glow highlight by MAC which was $32, my go to and only mascara I use called Zoom Lash by MAC which was $16 and the last product I use is my Prep+Prime Fix+spray by MAC which was $22, I spray it on my angle brush when applying my highlight so that it is on the ultimate levels of come thru("Highlight on come thru" is just a phrase I use to describe great highlight lol). I love these products and they are my go to's for when I wear a bit of makeup, I was blessed with great skin and all I really have to do is add lotion and it looks like I have on foundation and highlight lol. Don't get me wrong I love a beat face and I'm fascinated with the art of makeup and watching people do it(YouTube videos on hair, makeup and fashion are life) , but I'm just too lazy to do a full face of makeup on myself, but when I do decide to take the time to beat my face(which is very rare) I like it very natural, with a great yet subtle pair of lashes( mostly use Ardell lashes), a colored lip and extraordinary levels of highlight come thru(You have to bathe in highlight, okay!! You have to glow honey, its all in the glow!). Although these are my essential products you'll probably catch me wearing just lipstick on an everyday base, a little glam goes a long way. As stated by the influential, iconic and classic Audrey Hepburn "I believe in manicures. I believe in overdressing. I believe in primping at leisure and wearing lipstick."
Good Fashion Reads!
For the past couple of months some of the good magazines that I've read are Rihanna for Vogue April 2016, Lupita for InStyle 2016 and Kerry Washington for Elle April 2016 which were all really good issues filled with great fashion tips, Spring trends, and great articles. Each month you should pick up at least one thing to read whether its a magazine or a book! I can already see that there are going to be a lot of great magazine issues and covers this year because we've already started out with great issues from Essence, Vogue, Elle, Cosmopolitan with great covers featuring Taraji P. Henson, Beyonce, Rihanna, Lupita, Teyonah Parris, Viola Davis, Willow Smith and many more. I already feel its going to be a great year for fashion just from what I've read in these magazines and the predictions that I have come up with. Magazines are always a great way to keep up with the latest trends, get tips and keep up with celebrities.
#WeeklyStyleMoments
This week's #WeeklyStyleMoments
The right kind of shade: Some of the sunglasses I'll be rocking this Spring
Spring is here and this is the season when we start shopping around for this season's fashionable sunglasses, sunglasses are such a great accessory to any outfit, it adds a chic look to your outfit while protecting your eyes from the sun. Sunglasses are a trend and an accessory that has never went away and probably never will, they come in so many designs, colors and shapes such as aviators, cat eye, big and round making them so versatile. Sunglasses range in price from about $5 to $500+ and can pretty much be bought anywhere. The three pair that I have in this picture I got them all from Forever 21 for no more than $10, I personally love big and round sunglasses . Make sure you start grabbing your sunglasses for this spring and summer, also sunglasses are something that you can keep for years with the proper care so the ones you buy today you can still wear a year from now!
You can make new fashions without buying something new!
Have you ever wanted to achieve a certain look but didn't feel like you had the right clothes in your closet? Well you probably do have them you just have to be creative with what you have! I have used so many pieces of clothing for something other than what it was, for instance I've used dresses and skirts as shirts and in this picture I used a fringe skirt as a belt, I loved the look of a fringe belt, but I didn't have one nor did I feel like buying one, but I had this skirt from a few years ago that was now too short so I got the bright idea to use it as a belt and the outfit came off as I pictured, I paired the fringe skirt (or should I say belt lol) with the new Young $tylish Lifestyle "Boss Lady Ritual" t-shirt(which will be ready to order soon), Forever 21 black jeans , and black and white heels from Sheikh shoes. I loved this look and will be doing it again. When you want to create new looks but you either don't want to spend the money or don't have the money to spend then use the resources you already have and just get creative with your clothes and you can make all new looks, nobody has to know the shirt you're wearing is actually a dress or the dress you're wearing is just a over-sized shirt. Have fun with your clothes and get creative without spending money but make sure you don't look crazy!
Colors belong on your lips too!
What's better then lipstick?! Well my answer would be that there's nothing better than lipstick, You could say I'm a lipstick collector, I have over 20 lipsticks all of them being MAC for the most part. I am a MAC girl all the things in my make up bag are MAC and they are all lipsticks or lip gloss mostly. I may not wear makeup too often but you can almost always catch me with lipstick on, so why not share my favorites with the rest of the world. From left to right is: 1. Stripdown lip liner, Peachstock lipstick and C-thru lipglass as a combination; 2.Ruby Woo Lip liner and lipstick(ruby woo is my favorite as you can probably tell and I wear it almost everyday, a great red lip is sexy and goes with everything, its a statement in itself it's my signature) ; 3. Mahogany lip liner and Please Me lipstick; 4. All Fired Up lipstick; 5. Nightmoth lip liner and Ruby Woo lipstick (this is my favorite ombre and combination); 6. Smoked Purple lipstick: 7. Cork lip liner. These aren't the only combinations or lip colors that I wear but they are my favorite, these products are great and as previously stated they are all MAC but there are probably other brands that have these colors or some similar.
Get your nails right for this Spring season
Spring has already approached us and it is starting to get warmer out, you are switching out your winter wardrobe for spring. Spring calls for wearing brighter colors, more prints, floral, and many other things like our heels change as well, you can now wear more open toe heels without your toes freezing. When a season changes yes we change our wardrobe, but sometimes we forget to change our nail and toe polish colors and they are just as important, for spring you want your nail color to be a bit lighter for your Spring fashions. Some great nail polish colors for the spring season are yellows, red, pink, orange, green, blue and whites, anything that is bright or a soft color is great for the breezy and cool weather. Winter and Fall are the seasons that you wear the darker colors but Spring and Summer is your chance to lighten it up, beautiful colors serve a beautiful purpose especially on your nails. The nail companies that I love the most are Essie and OPI because they give the best color options, variety and quality even though they are more expensive they are worth the money, but there are some nail polishes that aren't as expensive but are still great quality in my opinion, such as KleanColor and Sinful Colors. The great thing about nails is that you can get as creative or simple as you want but still get a great manicure.
You DON'T have to do the big chop to get your healthy hair back!!
I know that a lot of the time when you hear about natural hair or your hair growing back people say that you have to do the big chop, but that isn't necessarily true, my hair was very damaged and it grew back with the proper care and attention and I didn't have to cut off my hair or a huge amount of it, my hair is growing more than every now and is really healthy. About four years ago my hair was really heat damaged and suffering from lots of breakage, as a kid and in my preteen years I always had long hair but when I started flat ironing my own hair it all went down hill from there, I also had a bad experience when I went to go get my ends clipped by someone and they clipped off more than just my ends. After getting tired of damaging my hair I started going to my hairstylist Veronica and she nursed my hair back to health, she is the only person I trust with my hair. I've had red hair for about three years and I have never had any breakage or my hair didn't dry out and that is because my hairstylist knew how to properly take care of my hair and was able to show me how to as well . If you are looking to go natural or just simply nurse your hair back to a healthy state try doing some protective styles such as braids, sew-in or anything that will give your hair a break from heat or any other damage because I know that helped me a lot! Since I am natural to give myself a big of variety of hairstyles without flat ironing my hair I do different natural hairstyles (There are so many YouTube and Instagram pages dedicated to natural hair that can show you so many techniques and styles) and I rarely ever flat iron my hair and I use a select few natural products(check out the post from about three weeks ago for details on these products). Also to give my curls a bit of a different outcome I try different techniques at night such as braiding my hair and then flexi rodding the braids, braids and then twisting them into bantu knots and I've used vent rollers. If you're a fan of hair vitamins I have used Hair Infinity pills and they work well for me and I also heard that Mane Choice is a good hair vitamin retailer. To tie everything in here's some main tips on nursing your hair back to health or becoming natural; 1. Don't flat iron your hair everyday, 2. If you use perms or relaxers stop and maybe try going natural for awhile, 3. Protective style, 4. Get a silk bonnet and scarf to wrap your hair with at night, 5. Don't use too many chemicals in your hair and 6. Get a hairstylist that you can trust, knows what they're doing, professional and has been in the hair game for awhile. I love the healthy state that my hair is in now, the bounciness it has and all of the growth I am seeing.If you want to go natural don't be discouraged by what others may have to say, healthy hair is better than long hair. Let your curls be free, like I always say the bigger the hair the closer to God lol.
The sale section is the best part of the store!!
This past weekend I went to a few malls and these are the things that I got! When I went to Twelve Oaks mall I got the patchwork fur sleeve jacket which was on sale at C'est la Vie for $75 and the original price was $150 I didn't mind spending the $75 because I fell in love with it as soon as I saw it, the second thing I got at Twelve Oaks was my MAC Zoomlash mascara which was $17 I absolutely love this mascara and have been using it for awhile now, I had to go buy this one because apparently the one I had grew legs and walked away lol . Also this weekend I went to Great Lakes Mall and if you don't know what that is it's the biggest mall in Michigan and it is full of outlets! I got the gold dress for $5, the black fringe dress for $5, the gold heels for $7, the denim jumpsuit for $7, the rings for $7 the sunglasses for $7, and the olive green hat for $5, all of these items were on sale at Forever 21, there was a huge sale section and everything was an additional 50% off! I know a lot of people steer away from the sale section in stores but a lot of the time the sale section is the best part of the whole store it's just a matter of patience and looking.
Birthday fashion greatness
My birthday was this past Sunday, March 13th, and I just wanted to do a recap on all of my outfits just in case anyone had questions.For the first look I went to a ball at my school and I chose to wear a sequins tube top I got from H&M for $7, a tulle black skirt that I got from Forever 21 awhile ago, and a black blazer that was apart of my work uniform awhile ago lol. For look number two I wore this black dress that laced, I got it on sale at Forever 21, these fuchsia thigh high boots that I got on sale for $50 at Akira and a purple faux fur jacket. For look three I wore a floral set that I got from Akira for $35 total, these sparkled heels that I got from Forever 21 for $7 and a faux fur jacket from Forever 21. The last outfit that I wore was a black jumpsuit that I got on sale at Forever 21 and I paired it with a black blazer and my sparkly black heels. I hope that if you guys had any inquiries about my birthday outfits this answered them, I think that I may start doing a weekly recap of the outfits I wear during the week.
The Greatest Book I EVER read, and it's called Gentlewoman!
I just recently finished reading a book called Gentlewoman: Etiquette for a Lady, from a gentleman by Enitan O. Bereola II , and this book was absolutely amazing. I feel that every woman and even man should read this book . I am such a book worm, I love reading for pleasure and with reading this book I never got bored or distracted. This book contains the raw advice to women about confidence, self-respect, standards, and morals all from a man and his prospective, it's not a man giving his opinion on what he thinks he knows and trying to get women to change to be better for a man, it 's the complete opposite! This book is about women realizing who they are, the power they hold, learning to be happy with yourself before trying to be happy with someone else, knowing your worth and never settling for less than deserved, also knowing how to accept things for exactly what they are such as taking a compliment and simply saying thank you and when something good comes into your life don't try to find the bad in it just simply take it as something good. This book gives advice on how to be the respectful and classy woman you were born to be and also how to proudly wear the crown you were born wearing. This book contains so much vital information that everyone should be aware of so make sure you get this book, nothing in this book is sugar coated, it is the raw yet genuine truth. I bought my book from Amazon for about $20 including taxes and shipping, so go get yours and the author Enitan O. Bereola is currently on tour, I will definitely be in attendance when he comes to Chicago April 16th, I don't want to spill too much juice about the book because I want you all to read it, but just know it is absolutely amazing and was worth every bit of the $20 I paid for it!
Don't know what to do with sweats? Well here's three ways to wear joggers!!
So a lot of us think of chill clothes and sweats as just that SWEATS, something we only use when we aren't doing anything and just want to be comfortable, but would you believe me if I said that they are useful for more things than just that? Well they are believe it or not! You can dress up sweat pants and joggers! Here I did three different looks, but they all surround the same joggers that I got from Forever 21. Look number I paired the joggers with a tank top, lace bralette for a little bit of spice(lol) and a faux fur vest all from Forever 21 along with these silver heels from Sheikh shoe store, this look is pretty chill yet chic and I put on my Candy Yum Yum lipstick from MAC to spruce the outfit up just a little more this look is great for the movies or lunch with the girls or anything fairly simple and chill. Look two I paired the joggers with a denim button up shirt that I got from Target or Forever 21(I can't remember which one it was but you can find these anywhere), a denim vest that I got on sale for $20 at Zara, and these nude Sam Edelman heels I got from Lord & Taylor , I chose to wear this statement necklace with it to make the outfit stand out more, this look is fairly dressy, it can be worn anywhere. For Look number three I paired the joggers with a plaid shirt dress from Forever 21, a faux fur vest from the Neiman Marcus Target collection , these cute timberland inspired heels from Sheikh shoes, and this black floppy hat from Forever 21, this look is great for when you're running errands and want to be cute, going to the mall or date night. I hope I was able to help you guys find different ways to rock your "chill" clothes, Style isn't about what you have it's about how creative you can be with it.
Get into these bell bottoms
Get into these bell bottoms!!!! First let me start off by telling you how important it is to have a pair of bell bottoms in your closet, as a fashionista you should have two main types of jeans in your closet which are the boyfriend jean and bell bottoms, these types of jeans are very versatile and fashionable in their own right, you can dress them down or dress them up! I got these bell bottoms for only $12 from Zara during their sale!!!! What a great deal right?! Bell bottoms are great because they hug all the right curves, are high waist, and long no matter how tall you are, what more could you ask for in a pair of jeans?1 They can be paired with any top such as a blouse, turtleneck, sweater, blazer, etc etc . But the hard part is finding the right shoes to wear with bell bottoms, since they are so long you'll want to wear a pair of shoes with a heel or a platform , but if you don't mind them dragging the ground you can wear flats. I paired these bell bottoms with a white turtleneck from Forever 21(I love turtlenecks), a suede fringe jacket from TJMaxx, a faux fur vest from Zara, and I just put on a pair of Minnetonka fringe boots because I was running errands so I didn't want to wear heels (Because I decided to wear these shoes my pants wear dragging the ground because they're so long and I'm only 5'1, but I did a cool trick and saved the bottoms of my pants by just folding them under).
When you don't have anything to wear you make it!
The shirt that I'm wearing in this picture can you believe that it didn't come like that? It was actually just a regular mesh shirt from Forever 21 that I had only worn once that I decided to just cut holes in! You know how you were originally supposed to wear a certain outfit and you end up wearing something totally different and it comes out better than you thought? Well that's what happen with this outfit! I originally planned on wearing something completely different to this art show I attended, but it was snowing really bad(the Chicago weather was hating on my new outfit) so I had to put together something else to wear and I COULD NOT figure out what to wear, I didn't know what to do, then I got the bright idea to cut up this shirt I never really wore before and I paired it with some ripped jeans, gold jewelry, a white fur shall collar from Zara, a really cute bra for decoration, a black bomber jacket, and these cute sunglasses from Forever 21. The outfit came out really cute and I'm proud of this last minute outfit and what I originally bought to wear can be saved for something really special!
Natural Hair products that work GREAT!
For all my natural girls I'm going to give you some of the products that I use that work great! Let me just start off by saying any product by Shea Moisture and Cantu is always GREAT! Don't get me started on this Murray's edge wax, it's the BOMB it snatches your edges for dear life! This Shea Moisture Curl & Style Mix with coconut and hibiscus is so great and it smells wonderful, it's great for my hair because it leaves a wonderful lasting smell, I use it when I flat twist and bantu knot my hair and it keeps it moisturized, gives it a great curl, and it's specifically for thick and curly hair, Shea Moisture products are expensive, I paid $11.99 but the product holds up to the amount you pay ! The next product is the Cantu shea butter natural hair coconut curling cream, it smells great but I don't use a lot of it because it tends to make my hair kind of soggy when I put too much my curls don't come out nice, but its good for using it to slick down your hair, gives your hair a little more moisture and a great smell, this product was $8.49, Cantu products are expensive as well but like Shea Moisture its worth it. The last product is the Murray's Edgewax which was only like $4.99, it slicks my edges down, doesn't turn my edges white like some other edge control products. Being natural is very expensive but it's best to spend the money on the products that work the best, but here's a disclaimer *NOT ALL PRODUCTS WORK FOR EVERYBODY* what works for me may not work for you and vise versa, but these are just some of the products I use while being natural and anything with coconut is great for your hair.
Mixing your younger fashions and making them your new fashion statements!
These ruffled socks are everything! They are the ultimate girly accessory, when I saw them I just had to get them in both colors(if they had other colors I would've gotten them all), they are a major fashion statement and can spice up any outfit, they are best paired with pointed toe heels, but as you can see I paired the pink socks with a pair of Just Fab round toe shoes and it came out so cute. These socks give a very chic and classy appearance and they're very affordable, I got them for $8.50 at Nordstrom(can you believe they were only $8.50?Yeah well I can't either!) Girl you better go grab you some!
Beyonce Formation Video Jewelry Inspiration
I know everyone has seen Beyonce's latest music video for her new song Formation!!! She was giving us all types of life from the choreography, the lyrics and definitely the outfits! Well this jewelry look here attracted me the most, I love huge jewels and statement jewelry and this here was heaven, these two necklaces(Yes there's two!) by the amazing jewelry designer Drew Ginsberg (IG @Dylanlex) was everything and then some, for this Valentine's day weekend I did my own rendition of this jewelry statement by using one big statement necklace I had along with two other necklaces to give the choker look along with the statement piece. If you want to recreate this look like I did you can and you don't even have to go out and buy anything if you're a statement jewelry lover with lots of jewels!