In honor of Coachella 2014 kicking off this weekend I came up with my ultimate music festival outfit and makeup bag! For those of you who aren't familiar with Coachella let me introduce you. Coachella is the ultimate music experience where people from all walks of life, young and old, gather together to catch a glimpse of their favorite artists and sway to their funky beats. You'll find designated hula hoop spots, pin-ball machines, and a BEAUTY BAR. What? Is this real life? Yes, it is. There are a handful of music festivals happening this summer and you'll see lots of bohemian inspired outfits and wrists clad with earthy inspired jewels. Berry lips are going to be big as well! Here are my festival picks!

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Now that you've put together your ultimate festival inspired outfit lets talk about your makeup bag. Keep in mind you'll be outside in the glorious sun (thanks for showing up) working on your summer tan and although everyone likes a good glisten, you don't want to look like you went for a swim. That's where Clean & Clear oil absorbing sheets come in! Just swipe those babies across any area with excess oil and the shine is gone! I also like to keep a setting spray in my bag to keep my makeup looking fresh, especially when I'm going to be outside all day! Keeping a cute ponytail holder in my bag is a necessity and bonus, they double as a bracelet! Functional and fashionable, what more could a girl want? If you're going for the ultimate festival experience then you brought a tent with you! Way to go girl! Dry shampoo is going to be your life saver. Just a little spritz at your roots and you'll have the luxury of looking like you have freshly washed hair! People will probably ask to use your shower but the jokes on them. Last but not least, sunscreen! This little stick of magic by Murad is a dream come true and its a twoferI While it shields your gorgeous face from harmful UV rays it's also made with Vitamin C to protect your skin and slow down the aging process! Now you've got all the essentials to dance your booty off and look fabulous doing it!

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Christmas can be every month

Have you ever had buyers remorse after purchasing a product or longed to try it out before you commit? Well guess what? Your wildest dreams just came true! That is right, you can have the luxury of a beautifully packaged box set on your door step every month filled with the most talked about and up and coming products. Its like Christmas every month! Let me introduce you to a few of my favorites!

Birchbox- I first discovered birchbox on the sandy beaches of Maui in a Cosmo magazine (take me back) and couldnt stop thinking about what a great idea this was! I am always in the market for a new product and this was a great way to test it before buying. Signing up was so easy and only cost $10 a month. $10 a month for a totally adorable box filled with 4-5 different products was a STEAL in my opinion and I singed up right away! Whats more exciting about birchbox is they recently launched two new boxes, one for the men in your life and another filled with lifestyle goodies! You can sign up for your own birchbox here.

Ipsy- Ipsy's tagline is "beauty by you" and they hold true to that. What makes ipsy so great is they have designed a quiz that helps the company find products specifically tailored to your style for only $10 a month! You will find anything from Zoya fingernail polish to Benefit cosmetics all neatly packaged in a totally darling makeup bag! Double score if you ask me. Sign up here for your custom Ipsy bag.

Glossy Box- I love glossybox and the boxes are just that! GLOSSY (and pink)! Glossybox is the creme de la creme of beauty boxes. Every box includes 5 deluxe size products chosen from over 120 different brands for you to try. Here's just a few of the brands they are affiliated with: Butter London, Tarte and Redken. Because you are receiving deluxe size samples instead of trial size you will be paying $21 a month. Sing up here for your very own glossybox. You wont be sorry!

Now go out and get your trial on girl!

-Stay golden

Not all shampoo is created equally

Warning! This post is not for the faint of heart. What I am about to tell you may be disturbing for some. Please proceed with caution.

 Alright, if you're reading this it's safe to say you are a brave soul and I commend you for that. I want to talk to you about something crucial to that gorgeous mane of yours. Your shampoo might be doing it wrong. Yep that's right, what you're slathering all over your tresses every morning could actually be doing the opposite of what it said it would. Also it may be potentially harmful to your health if your are not purchasing your shampoo from a salon or specialty store.

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You may be asking your self, "why shouldn't I buy my shampoo at Walmart?" Are you sitting down? The majority of shampoos, especially salon brand, bought at a grocery store is made up of mostly water and who knows what else. If we were to analyze that Bumble and Bumble shampoo you just bought next to the same shampoo bought at say... a hair salon you could see that the formula is not the same and has been watered down and possibly tampered with. This is called diversion. Diversion occurs when a company purchases a product, in this case shampoo, and changes the formula (in other words opens it up, dumps out half the product and fills it up with whatever they can find) and sells it to other companies at a marked up price without stating the changes that have been made. Aside from having mystery ingredients your black market shampoo is filled with a plethora of parabens, a.k.a. preservatives and sulfates, a.k.a. cleaning agent. One sulfate to keep your eye out for is 14 dioxane which contains an agent directly linked to causing cancer! Can you believe that?

Next time you're taking a late night stroll down the shampoo isle and reach out for a bottle, check yourself before you wreck yourself. Seriously!

All purple everything!

Isn't purple the thing dreams are made of? Cotton candy, Lisa Frank posters, otter pops, the list goes on and on. Basically what I am trying to say is purple has always been up there on our list of favorite colors and its also Pantone's color for the year! Radiant orchid to be exact. If you aren't familiar with Pantone lets get you up to speed. Pantone is the "world-renowned authority on color" and  declared its first color of the year in 2000. Radiant orchid is a color that I am particularly excited about being the color of the year because its so versatile and a color I believe anyone can rock! Last year's color was emerald (if I told you I didn't have an emerald green manicure less than six times that year I would be lying) but lets be honest, unless your dressing as a peacock or the great and powerful Oz for Halloween emerald green is a little difficult to incorporate into your daily makeup look. That's why radiant orchid is so cool, you can put a hint of purple almost anywhere any day! Heck, you could paint your face purple and you'd be cool in my book. Here are some of my favorite ways to wear radiant orchid! Isn't Scar- Jo's makeup to die for?

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Too many eye shadows, not enough eyelids

 You walk into a store find one or two shades you love and by the time you leave you have a surplus of eye shadow in every color and texture on your face. In other words you went a little overboard. I've been there. More times than i would like to admit. When I was a freshman in high school I got my first eye shadow palette from urban decay. Ya know the one with midnight cowboy? Oh that midnight cowboy was my all time favorite shadow. I liked it so much in fact that I slapped it all over my eyes. Like, all over. When my dad would pick me up from school he would ask me if things got a little messy in art class... I wasn't even in art class. It was that bad, and that's because I was totally clueless when it came to eye shadow. Throughout my many years of "getting crazy in art class" (thanks dad) I learned a thing or two about wearing eye shadow properly and I'm excited to share them with you.

When choosing your eye shadow or shadows there are three things to keep in mind, texture, tone and what the shade is like (light, medium, dark).

Eye shadows come in three different textures
Matte- absorbs light, no shine
Shimmer or frost- reflects and draws attention
Shine or luster- dewy sheen

Shadows also come in different tones. Warm, cool or neutral tones. When I first learned about this I was super confused, but warm, cool and neutral simply means how much of a yellow/peach tint or blueish tint something has. A product with a yellow/peach tint to it would be considered warm and a product with a more cool hue to it would be considered cool. A mixture of both is, you guessed it, neutral!

Now last but not least lets talk about shades.
 Light- which draws attention, enhances and area and makes it look larger
Medium- which gives dimension and is for blending
Dark-  which adds depth and minimizes the area.
One way I was taught to remember this is light brings forward and dark push back.

So folks, that's what I've got to say about eye shadows. I hope you found the information helpful. Now get out there and take those sample shadows by storm and stay golden!

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Free what?

It's 11:30 p.m. I just finished another hilarious episode of the Tonight show with Jimmy Fallon (bravo good sir) and the only thing on my mind is my pillow and the back of my eyelids. However, I still have my makeup on. Do I take the extra 5 minutes and wash my face or forget about it and hit the sack? I'm still in my early twenties, my skin can handle a little sleepover with makeup. Right? Right....? W R O N G!  After doing a little research ( here's a little secret, I LOVE researching.. weird right?) I found an interview with a dermatologist who busts the myth that sleeping with your makeup on is O.K. Now please feast your eyes on the most important piece of information you will ever read....

"Sleeping in your makeup can result in unnecessary exposure to the free radicals in the environment, which the makeup holds on to, "says Dr. Schweiger. "Free radicals cause the breakdown of healthy collagen, which results in fine lines on the skin. Additionally, makeup can clog the pores while you sleep, resulting in the development of acne."...Read the rest of the article here.

Um, hello?! Fine lines? Unnecessary exposure and acne? Say it ain't so! No body's got time for that! So please, take the extra 5 minutes to wash your beautiful face. You'll thank yourself later when you're a 35 year old being mistaken for a 24 year old with stunning skin! I've included a few of my favorite late night products that I love. I challenge you all to go to sleep without any makeup on for one week and then tell me the improvements you were able to see! If don't have any good late night products give one of these a try and be sure to let me know how you felt about them!

Bliss Triple Oxygen Instant Energizing cleansing foam || Carisonic Mia2 || Say Yes to Cucumbers face cleansing wipes || Boots No7 Quick thinking cleansing wipes || St. Ives Apricot Blemish Scrub

Let me call you back, my eye brows just melted off

Eyebrows. Everyone's got them so whats the big deal? In my opinion eyebrows are the most flattering feature on a face if done correctly and here's why:

The picture speaks for it's self doesn't it? 

 Did you know that eyebrows actually correlate directly with emotion? For example,  you're getting yourself a coffee and the barista turns around to hand you your drink and she says "here ya go!" with the most inviting and friendly voice but when you look at her face you notice her eyebrows are thin, curved like a rainbow and slowly traveling off her face. Then you notice she looks like shes about to cry. Now all of the sudden your confused by the friendly tone in her voice and sad look on her face and you spend the rest of your day at work wondering if you said something to offend her while ordering your coffee.  All the while her eyebrows were just giving of the wrong emotion. Oops!

Here are a few things to keep in mind to achieve your perfect brows!

Whats trending:  Bold, thicker, natural brows are trending right now.

Less is not more: Be careful not to over pluck E S P E C I A L  LY in the "in between" area and toward the "tail" of your brows. Over plucking in both theses areas will actually make your face appear wider and no one wants that! Here are the 4 reference points to consider when shaping your brows.

Two shades darker: As a rule of thumb, when choosing a product to fill in your brows whether it be a shadow, pencil or gel always shoot for two shades darker.

Don't forget to set: This is the golden rule for brows! Setting your brows ensures that they stay on your face looking fresh all day rather than slowly creeping off your face onto your cheeks (its okay, its happened to the best of us). Any product you use that is wax based such as a pencil or a pomade needs to be set with some sort of powder. I like to use Ben Nye neutral set which is a transparent powder or an eye shadow of a similar color to set my brows . After I've set my brows I will brush the brows straight up and then over with a brow gel to make sure no hair is out of place!

Here are a few of my favorite products to achieve your best brows. Stay golden!

Angled Brush || Anastasia Beverly Hills Brow Genius Kit || Ben Nye Neutral Set Powder || Make UP For Ever Aqua Brow || Spoolie Wand || Two Faced Brow Envy Kit