February 2020 – The Hustlin’ Homemaker

Top 5 | Purple Nail Colors

A few weeks ago, I posted my top five favorite PINK nail colors, so I thought it would be fun to post my top five favorite purple colors! Pink and purple are my favorite colors to wear on my nails. I just love girly and feminine nail colors. Here are the top 5!

My first favorite is Essie Go Ginza.

This is a very light pale purple cream with a slight gray to it. This is light enough that I consider it to be a neutral.

Next up, Nails Inc. Unicorn Wishes.

This color is so fun. This is a lavender colored multi chrome. The color shifts as you move your nails from purple-y pink to blue. It is so pretty, but sheer. I have three coats on here.

One of my favorite colors of all time, OPI Show Us Your Tips.

This color is a shimmery periwinkle that is GORGEOUS in person. This color is also a bit sheer, so I have three coats on here.

Next up, a Zoya polish in the color Zara.

This is a light purple with a golden duo chrome shimmer. This is unlike any other color I have, and it is so pretty.

Lastly, Essie Play Date.

This is the perfect purple for spring! It is a pinky-toned purple cream color that is pretty opaque. I only used two coats here.

That is it for my favorite purple nail colors!

What is your favorite purple?

Thanks for reading! xx

February Beauty Faves

Hello! I can’t believe it’s almost March! Today I’m going to share some products I’ve been using and loving all month long.

I’ll start off with some hair products.

I have been wearing my hair straight a lot this month, and I like to work ONE pump of this Living Proof Restore Smoothing Blowout Concentrate in my hair before blowdrying. The consistency is a serum and it smells so good and really smoothes the hair. I blow dry my hair with a round brush and this, and it gives the perfect blowout. I am almost out of this, so I will definitely be repurchasing.

When I want to put waves into my hair, I blow dry it and then I wrap sections of around my curling wand. After I am done making the loose waves, I hold up the hair I’ve curled from the top, spray some of this Sephora Collection Texturing Spray in, and then put it down and kind of scrunch it. It gives some texture and volume to the hair, and makes it look kind of undone and tousled. I love the smell of this and how beachy it makes my hair look.

Next, a skincare fave I have been using for a few months. This is the Paula’s Choice 2% BHA Liquid Exfoliant.

This product is a chemical exfoliant that is supposed to unclog and shrink pores, smooth and even out skintone, and help with acne since it contains salicylic acid. I don’t have trouble with acne or breakouts, but I had noticed my skin looking a bit dull and my pores looking larger. I decided to try this since it is top rated on the website. I apply a little bit of this to my skin every night and leave it on. After a one week purging period, my skin was so much brighter, clearer, and just smooth looking. My husband said it looked like I was wearing foundation when I wasn’t! I honestly can’t believe the difference in my skin. My pores are totally shrunk down, and I feel like my skin looks so youthful and bright.

Lastly, a few makeup faves.

Benefit Roller Lash is one of my favorite mascaras of all time. It is pricey, but it really lengthens my lashes and keeps them curled. I don’t like the price, but I do love this mascara and the packaging!

This gorgeous highlight is going to be so so pretty for the summer, but I’ve already been wearing it! This is the Artist Couture Diamond Glow Powder in Illuminati, which is a beautiful silvery champagne color. This is a teeny sample, but it has lasted almost a month. I’ve been using it over my blush and in my inner corners of my eyes for highlight. I love it and will need to get the full size soon!

Here’s a swatch!

That’s all the faves for this month!

What have you been loving?

Thanks for reading xx

Reading Wrap Up | February

It’s almost the end of February, which means it’s time for some book reviews. I read 4 books this month, and I have some really good ones to share with you!

Before She Knew Him By Peter Swanson

This book was recommended to me by my friend Heather, who knows I love a good thriller with a twist! This book did not disappoint. A girl named Hen and her husband move into a new house and go to meet their new neighbors. At their house, she sees a trophy with a name on it that she recognizes from researching a murder case that she used to be obsessed with. Something about her new neighbor seems off to her, and she wants to get to the bottom of it. This book was so good and had a big twist at the end! Loved it.

Look Again by Lisa Scottoline

I have read a few books by this author, so this one looked really good. This is about a lady who gets a missing child flyer in her mailbox, and she can’t stop thinking about it because the child in the photo looks exactly like her adopted son. She doesn’t know what to do about it- if she should find out if her son is this boy in the picture, or if she should just throw it away and forget it. She thinks about what would happen if he isn’t legally her son and what would happen if she found out the truth. This book was really good. As a mom, the story was kind of heart wrenching at times, and of course, there was a big twist at the end!

The Woman In Cabin 10 by Ruth Ware

I was on the waitlist FOR EVER for this book at the library, so I was so excited to finally read it. This was about a woman, Lo, that is aboard a cruise ship for work, and hears (and thinks she sees) something terrible happen to the girl in the cabin next door to hers. All of the passengers on board are accounted for, and no one knows who was in that room, except Lo, who was the only one who saw her. This book was good, I was expecting kind of a big ending or maybe a twist, but it was predictable and just not that great to me.

Regretting You by Colleen Hoover

I LOVE Colleen Hoover’s books and have read a bunch of them. This one is fairly new, so I was eager to read it. This one was really good, I could see it being made into a movie. It is about a mother who suddenly loses her husband in a car accident. She has a sixteen year old daughter to raise who she doesn’t get along too well with, so after the accident, things are not good between them. She starts to question the accident, and finds out about the secrets her husband was keeping from her.

That’s all for the reading wrap up! More book reviews to come next month!

Let’s be friends! Follow me on INSTA and GOODREADS!

Thanks for reading! 🙂

Makeup I Always Repurchase

You know how you have those certain makeup products that you always go back to? You know, the ones that never fail you!

I try a lot of makeup, but there are special products that just can’t be beat! I am going to share all of those today. If you have been reading my blog for awhile, you will probably know all of these already. Here they are!

I went through my collection, and I am sharing only the things that I have repurchased MULTIPLE times. These are things that I don’t want to live without!

Let’s start with my three base products.

I’m a powder foundation girl, and I’ve used Bare Minerals for over 10 years. I even wore it on my wedding day! A few years ago, I stopped using the loose powder and traded it for the pressed version. I love the pressed version more because it isn’t as messy as the loose powder. This compact lasts me a whole year, and I use it pretty much every single day. It gives me the light coverage I want and I LOVE it. I wear the shade 04 Aspen and I use this brush to apply it.

Next is the Too Faced Milk Chocolate Soleil Bronzer. This is the 4th or 5th compact I have purchased of this. This bronzer is matte and only a few shades darker than my foundation. I apply it all over the perimeter of my face and under my cheekbones. I can also use this to contour since it is matte. Bonus – it smells like chocolate!

Lastly is the best concealer I have ever found, the magical Tarte Shape Tape. I have been using this pretty much since it came out, and it’s one of the only concealers that covers my dark circles and doesn’t crease. Love this stuff. I wear the shade Light.

Next, some eye products.

Like the rest of my makeup, I like my brows natural, so I use a powder to fill them in. This Anastasia Brow Powder Duo has been my go-to for 4 or 5 years now. I use a small angled brush to apply a teeny bit of this to my eyebrows using short quick strokes. It fills in the sparse spots and still looks natural. I wear the shade Dark Brown.

Next is my favorite mascara, the L’Oréal Lash Paradise. I love to try mascara and I do have a lot of high-end faves, but for the price and quality, this one takes the cake. It is super black, it lengthens like crazy, adds volume, and holds the curl all day. I have been using this for about 2 years, and I don’t buy anything else.

I don’t wear a lot of black liner or liquid liner, so I go for a dark brown liner. I think it looks a little bit more natural and not so harsh against my fair skin. UD 24/7 Liners are THE BEST, and I have used them for years. I don’t even try other brands. I use them on the upper lashline, lower lashline, the waterline, and they last all day. My favorite shades are Demolition and Bourbon.

On to lips!

You won’t usually find me in a bold lip. I go for the “my lips but better” look. My favorite lipstick of all time is MAC Syrup. It is the perfect sheer and shiny pinky purple, and just looks so nice with my skin tone. It is moisturizing and perfect. I have repurchased this more times than I can remember.

For favorite gloss, it’s hands down the Dior Lip Maximizer. A long time ago, I read an article where Sarah Jessica Parker was raving about this gloss, and I had to try it. As soon as I did, I was hooked! I just like to buy the sheer light pink color, which is all it used to come in, but now they have a bunch of shades. This gloss smells like vanilla, it subtly plumps the lips (feels minty and tingly), and it LASTS. It’s not sticky, and it looks good over any lip liner or lipstick.

Here are swatches of the lippies.

Mac Syrup, Dior Light Pink

So that is it for all of my repurchased makeup products!

What products do you purchase over and over?

Let’s be friends! Follow me on INSTA and GOODREADS!

Thanks for reading! xx

EAT | Creme Brûlée

Hello! Today we are getting fancy! One of my all-time favorite desserts is Creme Brûlée. I always order it for dessert and I love to make it at home. It is easy, delicious, AND you get to play with fire!

Here’s how to make it.

What you need:

2 cups heavy whipping cream
1/2 tsp vanilla
1/8 tsp salt
5 egg yolks
1/2 cup sugar
more sugar for sprinkling
BLOWTORCH

First off, preheat your oven to 325 degrees.

Combine cream, vanilla, and salt in a saucepan and heat. You want to get this hot, but not boiling.

After it’s hot, set it aside.

In another bowl, combine egg yolks and 1/2 cup of sugar. Beat until fluffy.

This next part is a little bit tricky. You need to add the hot cream, but you don’t want to scramble the egg yolks, so you need to temper it by pouring just a little bit of the hot cream in, whisking it together fast, and slowly pour the rest in, and whisk together. It will be a foamy consistency.

Next, we need to pour it into our ramekins, so place four of them into a baking dish.

Slowly add the mixture to each of the cups. These are 8 oz ramekins.

Lastly, we are going to fill up the baking dish with boiling water. Pour it in only halfway up the ramekins. This prevents the custard from browning around the edges.

Place (CAREFULLY) into the oven and bake for 35-40 minutes, or until it’s set. This particular batch took 38 minutes, but it differs each time. You can tell if they are set by opening the oven and jiggling the pan a little bit.

TA-DA!

So, you need to refrigerate these (I always leave them overnight) so that they are really cold. When you are ready to serve them, take them out of the fridge, sprinkle some sugar on top, and torch ’em. Torching them makes that crunchy caramelized sugar top that is OH SO delicious.