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Beauty: NYX Haul and Update on Ear Stretching

Posted Jul 26 2008 12:00am

I don't know why I keep ordering lipsticks and glosses. I own so many of them, but they just sit in my makeup station (or purse) for the rare occasion that I remember to apply something other than a lip balm on my lips. During the day I often reach for a clear balm instead of a gloss, because I don't need to apply it while looking in a mirror - I'm not as talented as the women I see smearing lip products on the go, with no help of a reflective surface and have it look perfect.

I placed an order with Cherry Culture a couple of weeks ago, and hauled some NYX round lipsticks and jumbo lip pencils. I don't have (m)any lipliners, so I figured the lip pencils would be an easy solution.

NYX Round Lipstick in Fig - Despite the price of these lipsticks going up (from 99 cents to $2), they're still a great deal for girls on a budget that are looking for moisturizing and pigmented lipsticks. All of the round lipsticks go on smooth and creamy, and they don't feel heavy at all. Fig is a pretty pink shade.

NYX Round Lipstick in Tea - I prefer this shade over Fig for its versatility. It's a neutral shade, so I would be able to pair this with more eyeshadow combinations. I discovered that the bottom of these lipsticks contain a little more lipstick than you might think - Tea was shipped to me with a loose bottom; the bottoms of the round lipsticks show the color of the product, so that if you decide to store them upside down, you can pick out the shade that you want with more ease - instead of picking up a black tube of lipstick and flipping it over to read the cap or open it to see what shade it is. The bottom houses a bit more lipstick, so if there's nothing left in the tube and you don't have another one on hand, you could use the little bit in there for a few more applications.

NYX Jumbo Lip Pencil in Pink Nude - these pencils are $3/each on Cherry Culture, and come in a variety of shades. Pink Nude, as you can see, is a light pink frosty shade. It's a bit too pink for me to wear alone, but it could be a good shade to layer on top of a lipstick.

NYX Jumbo Lip Pencil in Iced Mocha - another shimmery shade, which would look great paired with a neutral lipstick. I would even wear this by itself, since it's a nice neutral color.

NYX Jumbo Lip Pencil in Coffee - this is probably my favorite pencil out of the group. It's a creamy shade, but it has a nice gloss to it, so it doesn't look dull at all.

NYX Jumbo Lip Pencil in Pecan - solid, glossy color. My least favorite out of the bunch. The thing that I dislike the most about Cherry Culture and NYX is that they don't really show adequate samples of their product shades. Half the time the images on NYX's site don't show up, and if they do, they don't really match the shade that Cherry Culture posts on the same item. Pecan looked like a nice shade online, but I was disappointed when I opened it. It's got too much orange in it for my personal preference, but I still think it's a nice shade. I'm probably going to post this on the Blogger Swap, if anyone's interested :)

NYX Jumbo Lip Pencil in Narcisse - this is such a lovely, deep fuschia (or maybe magenta?) shade. Narcisse has shimmer in it, as you can see, but like the rest of the NYX lip products, it goes on light and creamy.


I mentioned in a previous post that I wanted to start stretching my ears. I have yet to get to the piercer's to get a second set of lobe piercings in my ears (so I can still wear some of my regular earrings), but the stretching is coming along well. I'm not planning on anything too obvious, but they're going to be quite a bit larger than before. If you're wondering why I want to go to a piercer instead of just getting them pierced at a Claire's at the mall or something, it's because of the method used at an actual piercing studio.

Piercers will use a hollow needle to create a piercing for you, which actually takes out a piece of your skin (kind of gross, I know) so that you're left with a larger hole than what you would get with a piercing gun. A piercing gun uses the jewelry (usually a stud) to pierce through your skin to create the hole. This causes more trauma to your skin, since it's a fairly blunt tip that goes through your skin with a large amount of pressure. Speaking from experience, it hurts a lot. My mom had my lobes pierced when I was a baby, but I have 2 cartilage piercings in my ear - one with a gun and the other with a piercing needle. The gun left my ear swollen and red, and I developed quite a bit of scar tissue that took over a year to fully heal. The piercing needle didn't hurt as bad as I thought it would, and the piercer switched the captive ring in quickly so I didn't feel much pain. Healing time was 6-8 weeks and until my ear was no longer tender.

You end up paying more for the piercing needle, but for me, it's worth the cost. My piercings/tattoos take a long time to heal, and my body can sometimes create too much scar tissue if there's a lot of trauma to an area, so the less trauma I cause my body, the better.

That's my left ear, with a 12g piercing. My right ear has a bit of scar tissue so it's at a 14g right now. Regular earrings are around 16g or 18g; the lower the gauge number, the larger the hole. I plan on going down to a 10g, until I can figure out my work situation and all - having a government-related job means I need to stay pretty conservative with piercings/ink. The pinchers in my ears have pointy ends to make it easier to get it through your ear until the hole retains its size. Another option is to use a plug, which is a small tube of plastic; the ends are rather blunt, so it's safer to use a pincher first.

I have segment rings to use once the piercings have healed; they look like seamless metal hoops. There's a little segment of the ring that pops out so you can put the jewelry in, and then pops back in to close. The segment rings look more like regular jewelry too, so my holes won't look so obvious.

Update 7/27/08: I had to laugh when I saw a comment from Mark this morning - Mark is my BF. He's all jealous that I posted a picture of my ears, but not of here is a photo of Mark's ears. Happy now? Now everyone will be able to see your bright orange ears! :)

As you can see, Mark is wearing a 0g in his ears. Those are eyelets in his piercing; similar to a plug, but with a hole through the middle. Those particular eyelets are made of silicone, so they're lighter than other plugs/eyelets. He's getting a 00g pair in the mail next week, same color. If anyone ever decides to stretch their ears, please be patient and go through the process slowly - you don't want your ear to rip or tear by trying larger sizes before the skin heals. Also, at the size that Mark has now, the holes will never fully close, so make sure you reallllly want them!

Next on my list? Lots and lots of ink for the fall. My beauty binges are coming to a halt so that I can save up money for my ink. I can't wait!

Nic Nic: I want to have a floral piece done on my side, but it may take some work because I want to cover up an old tattoo (kanji characters in black ink) in the process. I also want to have it blend in with the butterflies and lotus on my back, so it will be a large piece as well. I'm thinking about cherry blossoms, or dogwood flowers, or some other kind of flower that grows on a tree (using the branch to cover up the black ink)...I need to make an appointment with the tattoo artist!

Mark: maybe this will prompt you to actually write in your blog now :)

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