Krystal's August Beauty Army Kit!

Well, I skipped on my July Beauty Army Kit, but my August selection window was pretty good, so I'm happy to be back with my monthly Beauty Army post. There were some selection window hiccups, but after emailing Beauty Army, they were able to fix it and my beauty profile was back to normal where I could retake it and re-scramble my sample selections. (unboxing video at the end)

Check out my past kits too: January, February, March, April, May, June

What Is Beauty Army?
Check out my pre-launch blog post explaining what Beauty Army is, what they have to offer, details on how much it costs and information on how to sign up for your very own Beauty Army Kit!
My Future LOVE For Beauty Army!: http://www.beautybykrystal.com/2011/12/my-future-love-for-beauty-army.html

Here's what I CHOSE for my August Beauty Army Kit:
Every Drop Beauty Spatula (full size)
Bath & Body Works Twilight Woods Shower Gel (3floz)
Besame Cosmetics Crimson Cream Rouge (.1oz)
Shea Terra Dark Chocolate Exfoliating Cream (1oz)
Cover FX Clear Prep FX (.24floz)
Atzen Lip & Eye Emulsion (.1floz)

EVERY DROP Beauty Spatula
Gain extra weeks of use out of each beauty product. Use with any size bottle or container, the Every Drop Spatula is compatible with all liquids, lotions and creams. It will not stain or retain odors.
Product Size: 1 spatula / $4.99
Sample Size Received: full size

BATH & BODY WORKS Twilight Woods Shower Gel
Bath & Body Works' exclusive formula is now enriched with Shea Butter for softer, cleaner skin in their bubbliest lather ever! Moisturizing Aloe Vera and skin-loving Vitamin E combine with the seductive scent of Twilight Woods to provide a lather that bursts with fragrance.
Twilight Woods is a hypnotic fragrance inspired by a romantic walk in enchanted woods
Top Notes: Juicy Berry, Sparkling Mandarin, hint of Coconut
Mid Notes: Creamy Frangipani, Soft Mimosa, Wet Honeysuckle, Wild Freesia, Apricot Nectar
For Best Results: Pour a button-sized drop on a mesh sponge, for the bubbliest lather. Rinse clean.
Product Size: 10 oz / $11.00
Sample Size Received: 3 oz

BESAME COSMETICS Crimson Cream Rouge
For instant rosy cheeks and lips there is nothing more timeless than our vintage inspired cream rouge. Just a touch of this concentrated cream will give you a natural flush, just like the very first time you were kissed!
Feels weightless and blends beautifully with any skin tone.
For Best Results: Apply with your fingertips to lips and cheeks. Designed to stay on all day, Crimson Cream Rouge is sure to delight.
Product Size: 0.26 oz. / $22.00
Sample Size Received: .1 oz

SHEA TERRA Dark Chocolate Sugar-Stone Exfoliating Cream
99.7% Natural. Indulgently rich, this fudge brownie like chocolate scrub is made with pure cacao mass and intoxicating vanilla. Sugar and pumice scrub away dull looking skin while softening it with shea butter.
For Best Results: Use daily on hands, feet and body. Apply to wet skin. Massage cream into skin in circular motions as you work away dead skin. Don't rush. Rinse off.
Product Size: 9 oz / $22.00
Sample Size Received: 1 oz

COVER FX ClearPrep FX
A matte foundation primer and anti-acne treatment gel. Helps prevent and heal acne blemishes, minimizes fine lines and pores, plus provides an instant mattifying effect. Will help facilitate blending and extend foundation wear. Tolerated by the most sensitive skin, this formula is oil free, fragrance free, paraben free and gluten free.
For Best Results: Using clean fingers or foundation brush, apply a small amount of ClearPrep FX onto the face. Use alone as a treatment or under desired foundation texture. Apply every evening on a clean face prior to bed for maximum skin benefits.
Product Size: 1 oz / $39.00
Sample Size Received: .24 fl oz

ATZEN Eye and Lip Emulsion
Calms tired eyes instantly; numerous peptides & retinyl palmitate energize wrinkle reducing activity. Dark circles & discoloration due to hormones & sun damage virtually disappear over time. Reduces puffiness & hydrates.
Benefits to the lips: Hydration and lip repair; reduces hyper-pigmentation (brown pigment) caused by sun damage or hormonal changes on the upper lip and around the lips. Reduces lines and wrinkles including pre-menauposal/menopausal lines around the lips. Keeps lipstick fresh for hours and prevents "lipstick bleeding". Without lipstick and for men, lips looks plump and healthy, have more color and improved blood circulation.
For Best Results: Press pump once and massage using fingers around the delicate eye area including lids and eyelashes until absorbed. Massage on lips and contour in the same manner.
Product Size: 1.0 fl oz / $75.00
Sample Size Received: .1 fl oz

If you are as excited as I am about Beauty Army - click here to join: (my referral link) Join Beauty Army

Then jump over to Beauty Army on Facebook and say "I just joined the beauty revolution! Thank you Beauty By Krystal for recruiting me, I can’t wait to choose my own samples!" (feel free to tag me in the post too)

You can also tweet about it by saying "I'm joining the #Beauty Revolution http://on.fb.me/oHF5yB Thanks to @BeautyByKrystal & @BeautyArmy #luxury #beauty #samples"

Waking up to Illamasqua

Every morning I check my emails on my phone while Jamison has his first meal. The first email I read was from the founder of Illamasqua, most likely a mass email but I still appreciated it nonetheless. I did not expect it to be so lengthy, but it was such an amazing and inspiring message to read that I thought I'd share it with you all in case you did not get one yourself. I'm pretty sure it went out to all those signed up for their newletters.

If you are new to Illamasqua, you can read more about the brand on their website, www.illamasqua.com

A thank you from the founder of Illamasqua I want to thank you for having an interest in Illamasqua. As owner and founder of the brand I have, and always will feel, a great deal of satisfaction and gratitude when our customers appreciate what we do. Whether you’ve simply looked round our store, browsed online or are a regular customer, I’m confident you will have noticed that we’re not like other make-up brands. And you’d be right. For a start, in the world of make-up, mass marketing does all the talking. So why am I taking the trouble to write you this personal letter? It’s because Illamasqua is a brand that, I believe, belongs to its customers as much as me. Illamasqua is unlike any other big beauty brand that has ever been created. We’re proud that our approach to business is almost Victorian in its thinking. In only three short years we have created a brand new fashion icon, but with good old-fashioned values of fairness, strong principles and a hard work ethic. We’ve built a global brand, but with the commitment and pureness of a family-business. In the beginning we were faced with a choice. We could invest all our money in creating a great product, or spend the majority of our money on marketing and a fraction on product. Without any hesitation we chose to invest everything into our product. We did this for two reasons. 1. We wanted to create a premium product that would be bought and bought again (A poor product only sells once). 2. We identified, before anyone else, that by embracing the community of bloggers and by making our brand and ourselves accessible through social media channels, we could establish a genuinely strong relationship with our customers that was far more effective than any multi million pound ad campaign. This decision to reject convention is still, I believe, one of our most fundamental. This is what makes us different from the other shallow beauty brands. It’s also what makes you different from other beauty customers – because our customers were drawn to Illamasqua, without it being sold to them. They ignored the make-up industry’s billions. Rejected their multi-million pound advertising campaigns and dominance of the beauty halls. Turned away from their glitzy advertisements and celebrity endorsements deals. Today, many industry commentators hail us as the fastest growing British cosmetics brand in years. This is all because our customers blogged, tweeted, emailed and evangelised. It’s thanks to them that we can refuse to be like everybody else. We refuse to pay for celebrity endorsements - preferring people to wear our products because they want to, not because they’re paid to. It’s a brave stand to take in an industry where celebrity deals are the norm. But we’ve never done anything normal, and it’s a decision that has paid off. Especially when celebrities who have deals with other brands choose to wear our products instead. We also refuse to allow our retailers to overlook our more creative colours by only stocking our best sellers. We refuse to use animal hair in our brushes even though it affects the levels of stock we are able to produce, and as such affects our earnings. But we refuse to abandon our principles, even when they cost us money. And we refuse to play the industry’s games, the best example of which is to tell women of a certain age that their time of colourful self-expression is over - that now they must choose to use ‘age-fighting’ products and beige, matt make-up. To us, hiding your age is like hiding your true identity, and we find it as deplorable as the unthinkable idea of telling you, our customers what to look like. So it won’t come as a surprise when I tell you that our latest campaign features older models. Why? Because Illamasqua is not just make-up for the skin. It’s make-up for a mind-set. The reason why we can make such stands is because of our independence. Unlike 99% of cosmetics brands, we are not owned by the big beauty cartels. So we see our selves as the ‘David’ to their ‘Goliath’. We expose the industry’s shameful tactics and throw them right back in their face. We’re proud of what we have created – the make-up, and a whole new book of rules. And we’re proud to have customers who believe so passionately in what we do. This support means that we can continue to challenge the beauty cartels. What we’ve achieved is unprecedented in this industry. Before Illamasqua, to launch a successful beauty brand you needed either 100 million pounds or 25 years to establish yourself. It also helps to be French. We had none of these things. But what we did have was the best product on the market and an understanding of how to speak to our consumer and, most importantly, how to listen. This letter isn’t asking you to part with your friend’s email addresses. Just tell someone about our journey. Over a drink. At dinner. On your way to work. Thank you for being part of our journey so far, and walking this road with us. I’ll be writing to you again soon. In the meantime, if you have anything you’d like to talk to me about you can drop me a line at Juliank@illamasqua.com or follow me on twitter at @JulianKynaston Sincerely yours,

JMK

Founder and Joint MD, Illamasqua

Cut & Blow: 50%-60% off on Macadamia Natural Oil

This morning I saved $27.00 (55% savings!) on Macadamia Natural Oil products on Cut & Blow. I've been signed up with Cut & Blow for a while now, and I have been patiently waiting for MNO to pop up in the short sales. I am highly dependent on the MNO Deep Repair Mask, so when I saw it on sale I jumped! I almost wanted to buy in bulk, but I thought I'd try the Rejuvenating Shampoo and Moisturizing Rinse Conditioner since they were so darn affordable!

So, I'm really excited for my order to arrive!

If you guys would like to sign up too, please use my invite link - if you invite friends and those friends make a purchase, you get $5 credit. So, join, invite friends, shop and save money!

My invite link: Join Cut & Blow!

NEW ELF Products/Packaging for Target Falling For Beauty With Attitude

I just got back from Target, had to "run" (not really running when it takes an hour to prep and pack up the kids to go anywhere in my VW Beetle, lol!) to pick up a new mouse and earphones as mine died this morning. While hiking my way back to the front of the store I went to see if they had any of ELF's newest products (new shades of their blusher/bronzer duo and new eye palettes) and on my way down the aisle I spotted the Falling For Beauty With Attitude display. I didn't even check if their were other brands in this special display, I saw ELF and whipped out my cell to snap a pic and then grab each bottle of polish, because I have a sick problem where I need every shade of whatever ELF produces ;)

Now that I'm home and gazing at my new pretties, I now see that these are not new shades, and maybe a couple of them are new to my entire ELF polish collection. No worries, no regrets, I happily spent $20 on all 10 of these snake skinned bottles. I may soon have an ELF museum in my beauty collection. They also had two ELF shadow palettes, tweezers, lash curlers, brushes, nail files and I think some cosmetic cases, but that could've been a different brand since I've never seen ELF sell hard train cases before. (I'm going back soon to get more photos of what they have in their display).

Follow me on InstaGram to be the first to see all my photos! :)

@BeautyByKrystal

FatMumSlims's September Photo A Day Challenge List!

I've been doing FatMumSlim's photo-a-day challenge for a few months (August was not as successful as I hoped) and I thought I'd help spread the word since it's a fun little community to be a part of. I already love taking photos, and I love sharing my photos so this challenge is always enjoyable for me. Even if you do not want to share your photos on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, InstaGram, etc. you can still partake on your own time. Take a break each day and snap a photo, "stop to smell the roses".

September photo a day challenge: Here's the list!

How to not fail photo a day

Anyone can join, you can share your daily photos anywhere you like (just remember to use the hashtag #FMSphotoaday so you can be a part of the community) or you can keep your photos to yourself.

(right click to save photo)

News Release: An Afternoon with Pauline Youngblood (Santa Monica, CA 8/23/12)

I'm feeling extremely jealous of my fellow SoCal bloggers who were lucky enough to attend the awesome Youngblood and NewBeauty event last week at Fred Segal in Santa Monica. I'm keeping my fingers crossed they bring an event to San Francisco soon ;) *hint*hint*

Check out tons of photos from the event here: http://awe.sm/e3vCq

Bathroom Closet Makeover

This weekend I spent a couple hours reorganizing our bathroom closet. If you saw my Mommy Blogger Vlog Day 4, then you may have seen my embarrassingly cluttered bathroom closet. Pretty much, when we moved into this house in January, we only unpacked the bathroom necessities and just placed them randomly on the shelves. We've slowly filled the closet and never took the time to actually sort through everything and organize it. I finally told BF we really need to clean it because it got so out of control, so I jumped on The Container Store's website and began searching for bins to fit our measurements and the vision I had of how I wanted it to look.

Here's what we bought:
Stacking Baskets with Handles: The flip down handles on our Stacking Baskets with Handles allow you to stack the same size baskets. Flip the handles up to nest multiple baskets of the same size together. They can be used to store toys, office supplies and paper, canned and boxed foods in the pantry - you name it!

I used the small and medium sized bins to sort all of our products by hair, dental, lotions, skincare, BF's items and my random cosmetics. I used the one large bin for my hair styling tools and brushes, perfect size! I love that these bins have a stacking option, I might even buy more of the small size for my makeup products.

Alright here are the before photos, no rhyme or reason (photos shown from top shelf to bottom shelf):

Now for the satisfying after photos, sometimes I just go open the closet and admire the organization (photos shown from top shelf to bottom shelf):

I also used one of the small bins to store all the mini samples we get to try out:

Jurlque $245 Giveaway!

Jurlique is currently running a giveaway where 20 lucky people can win $245 worth of prizes, click below to enter before it ends 9/4/12!

Sunny Brights Tutorial with Youngblood Cosmetics

I recently filmed this tutorial for my Beautylish account, it features a few amazing Youngblood products, which you probably recognize from my latest reviews. I have been obsessed with the Mermaid quad and the Tangelo lipstick, which I already knew I would as a lover of all things bright and colorful. But, I'm most impressed with the Youngblood face products, aww they feel so good!

Products Used (each product is linked to my review):

Youngblood Mineral Primer
Youngblood Ultimate Concealer (Medium)
Youngblood Pressed Mineral Eyeshadow Quad (Mermaid, Starlet)
Youngblood Incredible Wear Gel Liner (Midnight Sea)
Youngblood Pressed Mineral Rice Setting Powder (Medium)
Youngblood Luminous Creme Blush (Plum Satin)
Youngblood Eye-Illuminating Duo
Youngblood Lipstick (Tangelo)
Youngblood Mighty Shiny Lip Gel (Revealed)

*Product(s) mentioned were received for trial and review; these are my honest opinions