Simple, Fresh, Daily Make Up

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When I was a teen I wore make up daily. I always went for a good eyeliner , masacara and every once in awhile a fun eye shadow.  As I have gotten older and my skin has changed (thanks to my pregnancies) things have changed for me quite a bit.

My struggles:

  1. My skin tone is one of the hardest to match. Also I’m much lighter in the winter and much darker in the summer.
  2. Most make up irritates my skin or is way too heavy on my skin. Because of this I can’t use powder and only use liquid. But liquid make up is harder to find in my skin tone.
  3. Mascara can break out my eyes. I have small thin lashes so everything always clumps way too much!
  4. My lips. Oh my! They are full and round so only certian colors don’t make me look like a clown and match perfectly with the color of my skin. Gloss makes them look twice as big and when you mix gloss with color well then my lips transform into balloons.

So as you can see this is one of the reason I am not a fan of make up. It takes alot of work just to find what works for me and well I’ve wasted alot money over the years. And there has been plenty of make up thrown in the trash. Whats the point of keeping it when it doesn’t work?

It’s been 6 years since my last make up haul from Sephora and Mary Kay. It was the month of my wedding and I wanted to splurge. Now after my 6th baby I am in need of another one. Just to treat myself. After all no one and I mean no one should be wearing make up thats 6 years old… No wonder my face started breaking out. Huhhhh.

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I am normally a Covergirl… girl. But I thought I should try something different for once. And my last purchase of foundation was through Mary Kay (way over priced by the way) and I just was not interested in paying for something I knew I would not use often. Eventually I will have to replace my make up once again. One day ……down by the river in a van… I was reading my Redbook magazine and I came across this new foundation by Maybaline New York:  Fit Me! Matte +Poreless. So I decided to check it out.

What I love about this foundation.

 ♥♥  For one it matches my skin tone PERFECTLY. It’s Matte, which means I wont look super shiny! I am sure shine looks good on some of yall but it just makes me look greasy. Gross. So I love the matte. It looks more natural on me as well. Which is always my main goal. The foundation doesn’t irritate my skin and when dry, does not rub off so easily. No stains on me! Yay.  So make sure you have some kind of make up removal wipes to clean it off well. It is also thin. So you can easily add more without feeling weighed down. Honestly a thin layer is good enough for me but I have put it on thicker and it has even more coverage without feeling thick. My skin is still able to breath!

This one is a keeper! As long as they keep making it. I will keep buying it!

 

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For my lips I figured why not try another matte? I saw this also in my Redbook mag and went to hunt down a color that was right for me. I always look great in a soft pink. What I love about this Melting Pout Matte:

♥  It’s light weight, thin and the color is on point. But oh snap! I have one small compliant, it is D.R.Y. I tried but a base of chap stick on then applying this but that made it a weird texture. So then I tried to mix it with my Covergirl Fruit Spritzer (which is ancient they don’t even sell them anymore), and that changed the color and took away that matte finish.

I love the Matte look but I will be shopping for another one because this one is way too dry.

 

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As I mentioned above I have been through different types of masacara because of breaking out. So I was a little worried when trying a new one.  I did a ton of research reading reviews on different ones before making my choice. In the end I went again with Mabaline New York and picked up their Lash Sensational.

What I love about it:

It plumps up my teeny tiny lashes, and it has not broken me out at all yet. It applies evenly with no clumps. BUT its a little thick and this is the first mascara that I have ever had to fan my eyes to get it to dry quickly. I think I am going to stick with Maybaline though since it’s the first mascara that has not broken me out. I will just be trying different ones to find my absolute favorite.

All in all I still loved the way everything looked on me and have worn this easy make up look countless times in the last month.

This was my first make up review guys!!!! I hope you liked it. I will probably doing another one in the future since I wasn’t a 100% in love with the lip matte and mascara.  And I still have to hunt down a good eye shadow palette. More beauty posts to come so stay tuned!

 

Beautiful We Are

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I am a lover of natural beauty. So most of the time I don’t wear make up. My go to morning routine only consists of washing my face with something as natural as possible and applying a gentle cream or moisturizer of some sort. But every once in awhile I like to have a little fun and wear make up for no reason really. I do not think make up itself is bad I just don’t believe I need it to be beautiful.

My grandmother told me told me something that has stayed with me my whole entire life. She was an older women that when you met her and found out her age you would have never believed it. She didn’t look her age at all. After hearing a few of my friends ask the same question, I decided to get an answer. I asked her “How do you stay looking so young?” She said “I don’t wear make up and I take care of my skin.” From that day on I decided that was exactly what I would do.

When I was in my young 20’s I always heard women older than me say the darndest things! I would see a women one day at church and comment how beautiful she looked. I would immediately get these responses:

“Oh I haven’t put my make up on yet. I look horrible!”

“Well you know its all about good make up! You would not believe what I look like without it on!”

“Well you know I can’t leave the house without my face on!”

I never knew if they had make up on or not. I just saw a beautiful women before me. And true to my heart when I see something beautful I say something. When hearing these comments though it always broke my heart. Not one time did a women just say “Thank you.” They always in some way or another added something negative to take away from the positive I just gave them.

What my grandmother told me was not the only thing I carried with me about beauty my entire life. The Holy Spirit also gave me a word when I was a young teen. I believe the comparing and insecurity starts to comes full circle when middle school starts. Sometimes I would worry so much about what I looked like and scared someone might see if I was not well put together. One day I was looking in my mirror, just staring out myself for no reason, yes I was weird… and the Holy Spirit said to me “It does not matter what someone says or thinks about you. All that matters is what you think about yourself.”

So when those women said that about themselves it was a reminder of what God has told me. It hurt my heart but also created a passion to want to spread the truth of what beauty really was. This is why I created this section. It is not about natural make up or natural products. Although there will be times I post about such things. It is about spreading a truth that has been in my heart since I was a little girl. No matter what, you are beautiful the way you are.

There is no need to create yourself  beautiful or enhance your beauty because you are the very word itself. Beautifully made, loved and created. I will be having fun trying all the things to write reviews on! But more importantly my hope is this part of my blog spreads a passion for the women of this world to just love themselves how God has made them. In every season of their lives.

Love

J.S

The difference Between Soul Oneness and Spirit oneness Part 2

 

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I want to share with you a few paragraphs from the book ‘The Marriage Builder” I think It’s important to put these before I move on and show you the example of these truths in my own marriage and what God has done with us in knowing them.

“In explaining Spirit Oneness, my primary focus is on each partners individual relationship with God and how that spiritual relationship reaches into a person’s needs for security and significance.

“..if the foundation of Spirit Oneness is mutual dependence on the Lord for personal needs, then the foundation of Soul Oneness is a mutual commitment to minister to one another’s personal needs.”

Although my husband and I are not responsible to supply things to each other to make us feel significant or make us feel secure, we do have a responsibility to each other in helping one another by giving and ministering to each other the love of Christ.

A few years after my marriage and before this book came across my path the Lord spoke to me about who Eve was. He said to me “Eve was not created for the pleasure of Adam. She was not created to fill voids in Adams life. She was not created to be his servant. She was not created to change Adam or to help him in His relationship with God. Or make him a better man. She was created to be apart of Adam. To uplift Adam. To help him. To support him. To partner with him. To create with him. To walk with him all the days of his life.”

I could understand this only to a small degree. The Lord was showing me that as I women and a wife you are not your husband’s keeper and he is not yours. But for the first time ever I understood who I was as his wife. When we started reading this book I understood even more. That in order to be one with my husband I must minister to him as his wife. Not worship him, not even submit to him, but to minister to him. What would that look like?

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My husband works in the world sometimes all day. There are times he comes home more spiritually exhausted than physically or mentally. As soon as I notice it I make sure I remind him of what our Father has told us. Where He is taking us and what the word says about un-godly people. I am ready at anytime ready to minister truth to my husbands weary heart.

Sometimes my husband struggles with insecurity. He has dreams that God has placed in his heart and he sometimes feels inadequate to do them or feels like he wants to give up. I am ready to sow love and encouragement in him. Reminding him that God is the author and finisher of our lives and that His will for him will come to pass in His timing. To keep the faith and know that it will be through Him that theses things are accomplished. I always want my husband to know how proud I am of him and how far he’s gotten. I point out how much he has already done and the progress he has already made, proof of God’s provision and will.

To be one with our spouses we must be ready to minister to them even when we are not happy with one another. This is by far the hardest part of soul oneness. When things are not going well it is easy to leave ministry and step into manipulation. All of a sudden when your feelings are crushed you withdraw and refuse to speak to your spouse until you get an apology. You withhold sex from him or her because your don’t like how they have been treating you recently,.You put them in the “dog house” and send them to the couch to sleep. You refuse to allow them back in your bed until they are ready to comply. You withhold telling the truth about your feelings afraid of being hurt and let down.

All of these things are manipulation tactics. But we don’t see them that way because the world has taught us it is normal, acceptable or okay. And while its okay once again to draw boundaries, we are not to use the law of boundaries to control or punish one another. God calls us to be of the Word and not of the World. He call us to love like Christ loves the Church and to respect and honor each other. Nothing against Paul but these two scriptures in Ephesians should go for both sexes and not just penned to the individual ones:

“Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord.”

 “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.”

One day while we were heading out to go shopping I was highly upset with my husband. To control my reactions I become very silent. I shut my mouth when I’m hurting because I am a feisty little women and my mouth gets me into trouble. As I was praying on the way to the mall asking God to heal my heart and forgive me, the Lord spoke to me when I asked Him what to do about the situation. He said “Love as Christ loves the Church” He said it to my 5 times. So I looked over at my husband and apologized and forgave him as well. I chucked what he did as far as the east was from the west and moved on. This is the art of ministry in our marriages that creates Soul Oneness.

The more you sow into Soul oneness with your spouse the more your hearts will change toward one another. You may be the only one doing the sowing but remember that every seed will come to life. But what seed are you sowing? The law of sowing in reaping is inevitable. So try to start habits of sowing through ministry and not manipulation. Of course there is SO much more in the book, so again I will put it down below. Share with other couples you know even if they aren’t struggling. We all need these truths in our marriages and it’s best to know them now than too late.

May God be with you, keep you and bless you.

J.S