Sunless Tanner Review: Fake Bake Flawless

Over the past month I've been testing out a new sunless tanner which I've fallen in faux-glow love with. At the recommendation of a friend I began looking into Fake Bake Flawless Self Tanning Liquid. Fake Bake can be found here for $24 dollars or at Ulta for around the same price. Ulta sells a combination of drugstore brands and higher end brands so I'm counting this as a drugstore product. The real secret is, however, that you can get this for about half the price on Amazon which is where I've been getting mine. I'm on my second bottle of the liquid (I buy the 6 oz) and I've gotten each bottle for about 12-13 dollars a piece.

One thing that I really like about this product is that it's little purple package includes everything you need. It includes the self tanner itself, a pair of purple rubber gloves, two different nozzles, and a new mitt. I clean my mitt after each use to keep it in good condition but after the seemingly hundred uses I get out one bottle, by the next bottle, I'm typically ready for a new mitt anyway.

As mentioned, the product comes with two nozzles, a more traditional flip top nozzle and a spray nozzle. I only use the spray nozzle because I like to spray the product directly on my skin and it's just so much easier for me to use. I like to shower and exfoliate, as with any self tanner, and put a little regular lotion on my elbows, knees, and ankles. Then I just slip on the gloves and spray the tanner on one leg and use the mitt to rub it in, then continue to the next leg, etc.

A hot topic in terms of self tanners is often smell. I can honestly say that this is the only self tanner I've ever used (and I've used a TON) that doesn't smell like terrible DHA. Self tanner smell is horrible, and some are certainly worse than others, this tanner smells like a coconut tropical paradise. Even after it's been on the skin for a few hours it still smells good unlike some other tanners that initially smell okay and then fade into a gross DHA smell. Speaking of fading, the color fades very nicely and evenly and doesn't blotch off like some tanners tend do (i.e. white inner elbows, etc). I work out every day and sweating the tanner off hasn't been an issue for me. In terms of longevity, I like to apply this every few days and in between I like to keep moisturized and use a gradual tanning moisturizer like Hemp Golden Glow or Jergens Natural Glow.

The color of this tanning liquid may look dark in the bottle or when you first spray it out, don't be alarmed, after you rub it in with the mitt and let it develop (I recommend overnight) it's a very natural looking brown that's not too tan or over the top. I use it on my face and haven't had any problems with it breaking me out. I like to just lightly use whatever is left on the mitt for the tops of my hands and my feet. This liquid is quick drying so I would recommend doing one appendage at a time so that it doesn't dry in weird splotches, I haven't had any issues with streaking or splotching (which is amazing) and always get a natural looking even tan with this. The best part about the quick drying formula is you can get dressed almost immediately after applying and not worry about rub off on your clothes or your bed sheets. There is no fake bronzing color so it doesn't rub on my clothing or my sheets, which I love.

I would 100% recommend this product, even for fair skin tones like mine. It's easy to use and a great value for the money. I have tried tons of tanners and this is by far my favorite, I never want to be without it!

First Impressions

I was on the hunt this weekend for some new waterproof make up for an event that I have coming up. I typically always purchase the waterproof versions of any mascara I buy anyway but I was hunting for some fun eyeliner that claimed to be waterproof.

Rimmel came through for me in the eyeliner department with their new Waterproof Scandaleyes Kohl liners! More so than the waterproof claim, what drew me to these was the new shades. I saw this wonderful looking nude which I just could NOT pass up. I'm always out for a cheaper nude liner as I like to line my waterline with it for day looks to look more bright eyed and awake, it takes away the red look of tired eyes. There are so many high end nude liners on the market that are really great but a bit pricey. These Scandaleyes were under $4 at WalMart so I grabbed the nude and a dark brown color. They had a decent sized color collection with a good variety of colors but the display had been picked over already at my WalMart so I chose the two I was most interested in at the moment. I was curious to test the waterproof qualities of these as well, as many liners claim water resistence or to be waterproof and that's simply not true.  In all, I wore the nude liner in my waterline and the brown along my upper lashline today and even at mid-day the nude was still in my waterline without smudging into my tear duct or being completely washed away by my blinks. These have proven, thus far anyway, to be quite water resistent.

Next, I had to pick up a mascara, as I can never pass up a new mascara. People in the beauty community have been absolutely raving about Maybelline's Rocket Volum' Express mascara so I opted for the waterproof version of that. I must say, I do like this mascara a lot upon first impression. The wand is quite big and the brush is quite large as well which is something that I like in a wand anyway. The bristles are the plastic type which can go either way for me, these ones in particular I like, though. They aren't the really hard type which can sometimes scratch my upper waterline while I apply so I was happy about that. The formula is buildable and not too wet but it's also not as dry as some other volumizing mascaras so I didn't find a lot of clumping which was great. I used two coats and was pleased with the result.

The last thing that caught my eye was an under eye concealer by Hard Candy called their Lite Brite Whipped Brightening Concealer. This seemed to be a new product and since I like Hard Candy's Glamoflauge concealer I figured I might as well give this one a shot. My hereditary dark circles and I are always on the look out for great concealers. This product has a consistency unlike any other. It says it's whipped, which I hadn't noticed until I got home, so I was so surprised by it. It is a dry-like whipped, though, more dry than the Dream Matte Mousse foundations, blushes and concealers. I was skeptical of this because the dry texture made me believe it would be easy to crease in the lines around my eyes, which is something I can't stand in a concealer. I've been wearing it all day, though, and it hasn't done that yet. I like the product thus far but I will need to keep testing it to see if it's really great or not. I got the shade 502 Medium because light looked very light and I didn't want reverse raccoon eyes. It fits my skin tone well for now.

Heatless curls

I love curling my hair but I feel so guilty when I use a lot of heat on it. Even if I use a heat protector I still feel like I'm slowly killing my hair strand by strand. This guilt does not always stop me from grabbing my curling iron, though, because I do often. I have long hair and I'm lazy, these two things combined mean that I often sleep late (the snooze button and I are well acquainted) and don't have time in the morning to curl my hair. To save myself time, I will use Conair Spiral Rollers. These things are great! I picked them up at Walgreens a long time ago for around twelve dollars, I got the package that contains both blue and pink rods, the pink are a bit wider and the blue a bit more narrow. I use both sizes in my hair when I do this, I don't see much of a difference in curl size. This is best done at night as it takes hours for my hair to set into a curl. I like to shower at night, let my hair air dry 100% because my hair is thick and if I did this wet, or even damp, my hair would not be dry the next morning. After my hair is dry I like to put mousse or some other type of curling product in it for two reasons. Firstly, I have naturally straight and hard to curl hair and product helps my curls last longer. Secondly, it helps to create more defined and less frizzy looking curls.

 

I bought this Not Your Mother's Kinky Moves Curl Defining Hair Cream recently and I really like it thus far. It was somewhere in the range of 6-7 dollars and I had to buy it because of the smell. I think it smells so good. Before I bought this, though, I was using Suave Professionals Captivating Curls Whipped Cream Mousse. The Suave also smells nice and has a really creamy and not so airy mousse texture so I feel like it can hold my thick hair better.

 

 

After I apply a curl boosting product I section my hair into two halves just above my ears and clip up the top section. I work from the bottom section first. I like to split that bottom section into two and bring it each section to the front of my shoulders. So now half of my first section is on my right shoulder and the other half is on my left. I split up my rollers and start rolling. There are two ways that I know of to roll with these but I only use this technique I'm going to demonstrate because it gives really nice spiral Taylor Swift inspired curls.

 

I grab about a one to one and half inch section of hair starting from the back. I like to do about 4 rollers on each side of my head.

 



I hold the roller behind the section of hair so that when I start wrapping I am wrapping away from my face, it's just my personal preference.

 

 

Then I use my free hand to wrap the whole section of hair down around the roller starting at the root and ending at the tip. I don't like to start rolling RIGHT at my root, though, I leave about an inch or so of hair unrolled. 

 Then, I just bend each end over to secure my hair, I know it seems like it won't stay but it really does.

 

I continue this process alternating pink and blue rollers (but I don't think it really matters) so that I have 8 rollers in my bottom section. Then I let down my top section of hair and begin in the back of my head grabbing sections. I don't really go in any particular pattern on my top section because I think it looks nice and natural when these curls aren't too structured. Sometimes I will clip my bangs back into a poof or I'll just leave them out of the rollers all together. I have rolled my bangs but the come out very curly because my bangs are quite short, they start at about my cheekbone and curl up to my eyebrow when I roll them. This set comes with 16 rollers which I find to be plenty.

These are foam so they are not very uncomfortable to sleep on and sometimes I cover my head with a scarf to sleep in them, but not all the time. In the morning before I put on my make up I unroll all of the roller and let the spirals fall a little bit because they tend to be EXTREMELY curly when I first take them out. After I put on my make up I like to just finger comb through the curls a bit to loosen them up and separate them. I also rub a little bit of serum or of the Kinky Moves between my hands and run it over my hair. Within the first hour or so of the day the curls fall nicely leaving these spiral waves:

 

 

I really love these rollers, they are a great way to get heatless curls that mimic the look you get from a curling wand. It saves me time in the morning and saves my hair from scorching heat.

From Day to Night

Let's just be honest here, some mornings we are too lazy to put on a full face of make up. Well, that tends to be most mornings for me personally. However, there are days where I like to be lazy in the morning and not put on much make up for work or running errands, but I know that I have plans later in the night where I'm going to want to look a little more made up. For those days I turn to my go-to night time smokey eye. This is what I will do if I need a quick make up look for night. I generally do a variation of this look (using the same techniques but different colors) whenever I wear a smokey eye for any occasion.

If I'm being lazy or am very pressed for time in the morning, this is what I'll do, a little foundation, concealer, and mascara:

 

 

Here are two palettes that I like to use on a daily basis whether it be for a smokey eye or any other look:

 

Below is the E.L.F. Little Black Beauty Book. I believe it was $5.00 and it has a good range of shadow shades all in one place. Some of the shades are better quality than others (some are chalky and some have chunky glitter specks) but for five bucks that is to be expected and over all it is a decent and versatile palette.



Below is my favorite nude palette that I used in my everyday face post (which you can find here) and it is the NYX Butt Naked Eyes palette.

To begin, I will choose an all over lid shade, I typically stick with something shimmery and neutral for this. Here is an example of a shade I usually choose from the E.L.F. palette:

And here is one that I would choose from the NYX palette. This is the one I chose to use today.

I put this all over the lid from lash to crease with a flat shader brush:

And then I bring the same shade under the lower lash line with a small angled brush:

 

Next I will choose a matte brown shade to define my crease and blend out the lid shade. I like to use E.L.F.'s Deluxe Crease Brush for this:



 Next I take any dark shade, here I chose this dark chocolate-y brown, on a pencil brush for my outer "V" area.

Here is where your particular eye shape comes in to play. The size of your lid and the shape of your eye will dictate where you place this shadow. I like a more cat eye look with a darker outer half of the eye so I start in the outer 1/3 of the crease and bring it over to the top of the lash line. (This creates the side ways "V")

I tend to keep dragging my brush further and further up past the crease making a half moon shape above the crease:

I usually add a good amount of darker shadow but you can definitely go for a softer look by using a lighter shade or just a lighter hand.

When I've made a shape that I am happy with I like to drag the same color with the same pencil brush to the outer half of the lower lash line so it connects with the outer "V."

 

To blend out the dark outer V into the very light lid color I will choose a mid-toned shade to place right in the middle of the lid.

I use a flat shader brush to pat the color on the very center of the lid and then flip the brush to the clean side and wiggle it back and forth a little to bring the dark and light shades together:

Below the dark outer V shade looks harsh against the rest of the shadows:

I use a clean crease brush to just blend out the color and make it look a little softer:

Last for the shadow shades, a highlight shade. I like to use the matte white on a smokey eye right on the brow bone and on the inner corner of the eye:

 



I am a cat eye and a liquid liner addict. My favorite liquid liner of all time is the L'Oreal Lineur Intense Felt Tip Liquid Eyeliner. I have used and liked other liquid liners but this one is my holy grail, if they ever discontinue it I don't know what I'll do. The felt tip is easy to work with and you can create a really thin line as well as a really thick line with it. 

I first line the upper lash line right to the end of the eye starting out thinner at the inner corner and gradually getting thicker toward the outer corner.

If you don't like liquid liner or a cat eye you can use whatever type of liner you're comfortable with, even a dark black shadow on an angled brush will work.

To make my wing I like to follow the natural line of the lower lash line and make a line as far as I feel fit. Some days I like a long and dramatic wing and others I go for a shorter more subtle wing.

Once I have that line down I just start from the top of the wing and draw back down to the line I already made at the lash line. This leaves me with a little triangle to fill in:

 

Here is the finished wing, it's easier than it looks and just takes a little practice. Resting your elbow on the table helps to steady your hand. 



Next I add another coat of mascara, there's no such thing for me as too much mascara when you have a smokey eye going on, your lashes can get lost agaisnt all of those dark shadows.

I also like to line my water line with a black pencil to add a little more drama and definition to my eye.

 

And here is the finished look, it took me about 6 minutes to do one eye so it probably takes between 10 and 15 minutes to do both. If I have extra time I will throw on some false lashes, but I didn't for this tutorial.

 

 Here is are both eyes, one ready for a night out and the other for a day at the office:

 

And finally, here I am with BOTH of my eyes done: