My mother has always been pretty tolerant of me wearing makeup at any age. She’s the type of person who’s not afraid of wearing red lipstick, purple eyeshadow, or glittery pink lipgloss. I’ve had photos of myself when I was about 4 years old with red lipstick and a face covered in bright pink rouge!

I guess the first time I really used makeup on my own free will was during the tween years where almost about every other girl wore lipsmackers lip-balm, roller glosses (my favorite were from N.Y.C.!), and glitter gels smeared all over the face I had a green tube from lip smackers and it smelled like kiwi

I started wearing makeup on a daily basis when I was in the seventh grade. My staple was liquid liner. My mom would actually help me in the morning to apply it! I also wore dark brown lip liner with plain lip gloss on top. Yes, the chola look. Hey, it’s not my fault! This was the look for the area and time I lived in, I was just doing what the other girls were doing lol.

I tried using foundation at the end of seventh grade. It was from Neutrogena and it smelled and felt disgusting. I didn’t need foundation at all. I only used it because my best friend wears it and I wanted to be like her or something lol. That really put me off of liquid foundations. I tried wearing foundation again junior year when Sephora first started carrying Bare Minerals. Then I moved on to Everyday Minerals. Only until about a year ago did I try liquid foundation again which I like. I only wear Make Up For Ever foundations. They’re great!

I started getting creative with my makeup thanks to this one event. Ulta once had a buy one get one free sale on URBAN DECAY!!! It was awesome. It was the first and only time that’s ever happened. This was in 2005. Being the teen that I was, I was always drawn to Urban Decay products because of their edgy packaging and fun colours. I bought A TON of products! Probably $200 worth. Urban Decay was a bit cheaper then too. Each shadow ended up being about $7 after the BOGO. I’ve always waited for that sale again, but I heard that’s it’s never going to happen because it didn’t do as well as Ulta or Urban Decay hoped it would.

So I would say that I actually started off with Urban Decay rather than MAC as most people in the online beauty community are. Urban Decay always has a special place in my heart. I’ll forever be an UD girl! Most of my eyeshadows are probably from Urban Decay and I love love love their liquid liners!

I got into MAC when I started driving at 16. Honestly, I liked shopping at Sephora rather than department stores because I liked the more casual atmosphere. I didn’t like having to deal with an associate or artist one to one. I was especially intimidated by the MAC counter. My balls finally dropped and I bought my first MAC products! My first lipsticks were high tea and freckletone, my first eyeshadow was beauty marked, and my first lipgloss was c-thru. For a while, I was using only MAC because I found out that some of the shadows I bought were exact dupes to some UD shadows I had. I wanted to be exclusive to one brand so that I can remember what colours I owned. Now though, I use UD again because I am better at remembering what I own regardless of brand.

In high school, I wore bold and bright makeup or full blown smokey black panda eyes. I honestly was in my own little world and had no idea that a stripper smokey eye wasn’t appropriate for school. I just wore what I wanted! I came to the realization that I couldn’t wear whatever bold makeup I wanted when I started college. That was the first time I practiced how to do “neutral” looks. I’ve never worn them. Prior to that, it was all drama baby!

I like using MAC the most because of the price for quality. Compared to other high end brands, MAC is inexpensive. They have a wide range of colours, finishes, and products suitable for anyone. I also like that I can get a free lipstick, gloss, or shadow if I have six empty recyclable MAC containers. This is why I like MAC a bit more than Urban Decay. Urban Decay is a bit more expensive and they don’t have a program like b2m where you get a free product. Another one of my favorite brands is Make Up For Ever which is only available at Sephora in the states as of now. Their foundations are fantastic and all their products are pro quality. I have a bit of NARS as well. Their glosses are my favorite and their blushes are nice as well. My collection consists of mostly MAC, Urban Decay, and NARS with other brands here and there.