Stila in the moment eye shadow palette

Hi everyone! I hope everyone is doing well and the weather has been kind.

The Makeup Squid has gone through some changes recently and I hope you like them.

Today I will be going through a new palette I picked up recently through my adventures in makeup land.

I will admit this was a impulse buy. No thought, rhyme or reason here, just sheer madness.

This is actually my second Stila purchase, so I am pretty excited!

First of all I love the little quotes inside of these palettes cute and inspiring.

Sarah Lucero is a makeup artist you can read about her at sarahluceromakeup.com

If she had anything to do with the palette itself is unknown to me.

This palette boasts 10 colors and includes a eye liner.

The casing is card board. It has a very slim and sleek design it comes in a shimmery Lilac color.

The palette includes a full size Liner in a Purple shade called "Tetra".

The liner is a deep plum shade and had lavender glitter flecks in it.

The first swatch is with firm pressure, the second with a more light hand.

This stick applies smooth and does not tug on the skin.

It is a full sized and self sharpening.

The First Five Shadows

Instinct is a very shimmery white shade great for the inner eye area and brow bone highlight.

Impulse is a beautiful light shimmery pink, great for adding dimension to the center of the eye.

Glance is a Very fun and dramatic purple, great for a nice pop of color on any smokey eye.

Improvise is a deep plum shade with some shimmer in it, this color is a great crease color.

Catalyst is a soft black with flecks of silver here and there, great for a softer eye look.

These shadows were applied with a finger and no primer.

The Second Five Shadows

Desire is a lovely barley there color, great for blending and softening lines.

Wonder is a gorgeous peach shimmer that can be worn alone for a wash of color or as a accent color.

Spontaneous is a beautiful champagne shimmer that is perfect drawing attention to the eyes.

Whim is a brown/copper shimmer with gold flecks, worn alone or with others this is a great shadow.

Captivate is an amazing taupe shimmer color perfect for the crease or outer V.

These shadows were applied with a finger and no primer.

This palette includes a lookbook with some amazing looks. 

The Round Up

The Pros

Colors blend well

High color payoff

Good color range

Liner included

Cute case

LookBook

The Cons

No matte shades

Final Thoughts

Even though I did not have my sites set on this palette, I am glad I picked it up.

Even though I have a thing for mattes I know I will be grabbing this palette to add a touch of shimmer and sparkle to many eye looks.

This product was purchased with my own money.

All thoughts and views expressed are my own.

Thanks for visiting! Please like & share this post. Leave me a comment and don't forget to leave your blog links :)

Blogs are like shopping

Blogging, Tips and advice.

Okay, we all know that this is a picture of a beauty aisle. It can be located at our local drugstore or a super market. I know that whenever I am in one of these places I am going down that aisle no matter how big of a rush I may be in, I always make time for this aisle no matter what.

Now, I do always go For my favorites first, pick up what I am running low on or checking to see if there is a sale on any of my regular items.

But what if a new product calls out to me through the corner of my eye? What if it been something I wanted to look at before but never got the chance to give it a look/see?  Is it the way they have it displayed that is drawing me closer? Is it next to a product I already love? Is it yelling at me I can fix, Enhance or Make things easier on your beauty routine?


If you haven't figured it out by now, I am talking about blog posts. Earlier today as I was tweeting a fellow blogger Kellie at beautyeverafter.net who was in a conversation about how often to post to a blog.

Now, if we see the blogging community as a shopping aisle this will help to decide how often to post.
People will go for their favorites automatically, but maybe, just maybe,  you can catch there eye and get them to visit just like the new product in the shopping aisle I mentioned above.

Keep your posts coming, someone, somewhere out there, needs to hear what you have to say.
You ever noticed when picking up a product they put all the good information and key points upfront where you can see them quickly, turn it over and you have information that is even more important on the back, but lets face it the key words on the front brought me to the back of the product.

If you aren't getting feed back or views right away don't panic. Ask yourself this question. How many times do you have to see a product before you pick it up to look into it? For me this is about three to four times before I say okay let me see what this stuff is all about.

The look of the product is also important. Now I am not saying hire someone to redo your blog. But I am saying make it pleasant to look at, easy to read and most importantly only say what needs to be said.
We live in a  140 character society, so keep it short, simple and sweet :)

We read first with our eyes good photos that go along with your post draw people in. On blogger, bloglovin etc.. they show a large picture and a small caption about your post, so the pictures you use should be clear and relevant to your post, give them a reason to click through to your blog.

Think about nail polish, I can remember "I am not just a waitress" by O.P.I better then I can remember any other red colored polish. Why because I thought it was an awesome name for this red nail polish! yes, I say awesome, because its awesome :)

Make your post stand out instead of "Smokey Eye" why not "Seductive smokey eye that will drop his pants"
Silly but it made you think didn't it?

Think about beauty/fashion magazines their captions make us laugh, but we are turning the pages to find the article. I could go on but I won't. I have to practice what I preach. Wink, wink.

So to wrap this long winded post up, I am saying keep going, find ways to stand out. Your audience will find you. Hell, you found me and that means something :)

Remember blogs are like shopping we are always looking for something new and improved.

P.S If I offended you with the word "Hell". I said it again ;)

If you liked this post please let me know what you think!
Please like & share and dont forget to follow :) http://www.interwebschic.blogspot.com

How to get real twitter followers

When I started my twitter account @themakeupsquid I had a following of 0.
No friends to call and say hey! follow me. No one.

Currently I stand at 1500+ I have only been on twitter for around 3-4 months now and today I am going to share with you how to get real twitter followers.

I know there are sites out there who say they can I've you tons of followers for a price, BUT!
I can promise you they won't interact with you and they probably won't me around much longer.
Millions of these accounts get deleted daily by twitter for spam, so you will just end up spending your money.

Before we begin your twitter reign lets go over some things.

1. Do you have a niche? If you have a niche you want to be followed and follow people within your niche.

2. Do you have your profile setup? When ever I follow or get followed I always look at the profile of the account holder. I check for a website, followers, followed, picture, recent tweets. These things tell me if this is a spam account or an actual person.

3. Do you have your Facebook account linked to your twitter? Before you do so please know that every tweet, retweet and  favorite will go to your face book time line. I personally like this in the fact that it keeps my Facebook page active even when I haven't looked at it in days. This is your preference and up to you.

Now that we have covered that let move on.

How to get real twitter followers

Go to someone in your niche this could be anyone, but you don't want a big name with 15k followers because you will get drowned out. Look for someone that has 1200 followers go to their followers the people that are following them and just go down the list and follow those people.

The reason you are following them is because they are interested in your niche and will most likely follow you back. Don't follow all 1200 in one day follow around 50 from that one person.

Twitter lets you follow and unfollow 150 people a day. You don't want twitter to flag you for spam so don't go crazy with the following.

Do this again in a day or so to someone else within your niche lather, rinse repeat.
If you continue this for a few days your followers will grow.

Interact with your followers, retweet, thank your new followers for following publicly not in direct message.
This way their followers will see they followed you and may want to follow you too!

After the first 500 followers I stopped doing the follow thing and my twitter now has a life of its own.
I always make a rule to follow back and check often for people who have stopped following me and have returned the kindness. A**holes.

If you would like you can follow me on twitter I always follow back.

Good Luck!


If you liked this post please let me know what you think!
Please like & share and dont forget to follow :) http://www.interwebschic.blogspot.com

Removing time and date from your blog posts

When I am reading a blog and I see the date it was written it takes away the value of the information given.
I mean if I am searching for something and a post is dated 3 years ago I will skip it, but if it is current within a year or so I will read through.

You can make all your post timeless, by doing a little work in your blog settings.

The Blogger version is pretty simple.

Go into your settings menu, then click on language and formatting.

Date header: is where you can choose your option to only show the day of the week the post was published instead of the day/month/year format.

Timestamp Format: Is where you adjust the time the post was written, rather than 12:89pm date/month/year format.

The comment section is important also, I always read the date when a comment was posted so do the same for then too.

Comment Timestamp Format: Make sure you set the time to the same and the timestamp format above in the last step.

Click save settings and your posts are timeless :)

This is not a good format for blogs about things pertaining to time and dates.



If you liked this post please like & Share. It Makes me happy :) Laurie M.

Finding your Blog name

Finding blog name is important if you want to stick around for a while.

This blog was called Makeup, beauty and me.
When I realized I was posting more on blogging advice
rather then makeup beauty or me, I knew it was time for a change. The name I had chosen didn't have anything to do with what I was saying. I know some people probably got confused because of the change, but it's better it happened now rather then later.

 Finding a universal name can be very hard if you want an online presence, everything will need to match in some way. the "MakeupSquid" wasn't very hard because no one is named the "MakeupSquid besides me.

But interwebschic was a bit of a hassle. I wanted a blog name that had something to do with the "Net" and at the same time have a female voice.

 I don't want a different twitter identity, But you should have one main twitter account to represent you online. This name should match somewhat across all platforms of social media.

 If you are a new blog and aren't happy with your blog name, change it now before while no one is noticing. Make it something that represents you, your personal style and give the readers a general idea of what your writing about.

There is a website called spinxo.com that helped me find both of my blog names. They ask for info like your hobbies, likes,etc.. and a keyword and they generate hundreds of names for you to chose from. Through this site you can see if your chosen name is available on all social media platforms.

This site really makes finding your online identity very simple and I like simple.

 If you liked this post please like & Share. It Makes me happy :) Laurie M.

How to create a favicon

makeupbeautyandme.blogspot.com

Whats a favicon?

A Favicon is the little graphic on your page tabs on your favorite browser, they are also listed right next to the names of the links in your favorites.

This is a good form of branding, Look at my favicon on my page tab, its that little pink bow :).

every brand needs a favicon, I mean we all the the blogger icon right? That orange B, or that blue G from the Google home page. Well you want one too right?

I am going to show you how to make one of those awesome little icons for your own blog or website.

First you need an image this image can be anything you want it to be, but it must be a even square.

500x500, 1000x1000, as long as it is even it will work.

You can make one yourself if you like but it isn't necessary. You can take your blog button and turn it into a favicon or your face if you like.

I went through a google images and did a search for royalty free png. graphics and found my bow.

png. is the best file format as it is a transparent graphic.

once you have found your image go to 

http://www.favicon.cc/ 

1. click import image

2. choose your file

3. click the shrink to square icon option

4. Click upload

Now you are going to see a bad pixelated version of your image, don't panic.

Click the download button and save the ico file to your machine.

Now log into your blogger account and go to your layout page. and on the top left corner

you will see a favicon widget thingy. Click it and upload your file!

This will take a few minuets to show up on your page, but its there I promise.

I added my blog to my favorites and i shows my favicon right next to my page name I love it!!

I hope this help! if you need any more help please let me know, Good Luck!

If you liked this post please like & Share. It Makes me happy :) Laurie M.

Whats a Niche? Do I need one?

If you are blogging you have probably heard the phrase "your niche" floating around.

makeupbeautyandme.blogspot.com

Well today I am going to explain what a niche is, as well as if you need a niche to blog.

I Personally don't feel you need a niche, but the blogging Gods say that you do.

You can expand your niche, I have a beauty blog that I used to add blogging tips and tricks to.
And actually those were my most responded and viewed posts.

But I did not like that  I was writing more about blogging tips than beauty.
So I created a second blog that focus more on blogging advice and the whole makeup of my beauty blog.

So the Gods are correct a niche is needed.

A niche covers your subject matter, Makeup, fashion, family, food. Pretty much what ever your passionate about is your niche.

Do you need to be an expert? Nope.
As long as you love it, you can write about it.

You can expand your niche from "makeup" to "nail colors" and so on, but it should stay within your boundaries. Don't write and Makeup and Fishing, unless your write about wearing makeup while fishing.

If you liked this post please like & Share. It Makes me happy :) Laurie M.