I haven't shared my favorite things, possibly ever on this blog. So I figured I'd share with you a few of my non-beauty favorites that I've been having a love affair with recently.

Mac OS X 10.9.2 
I somehow had a free software upgrade on my MacBook Pro and I am absolutely in love with it. I bought my laptop before I started college so it was long overdue and I was missing out on some pretty awesome features apparently. One of my favorites is Messages, it just really makes my life more convenient because I'm on my laptop way more than I'm on my phone so it's helpful to be able to reply to messages without having to switch devices. I'm also loving the mail notifications feature, it helps me to know if it's something that needs my attention immediately or if it can wait until later.

Spotify
I know I talk every week about how much I love Spotify, but I've really been loving it even more lately. By the way, if you didn't know, they're now offering Premium at a 50% discount to students and have some of the absolute best customer service around. If you're ever wondering what I'm listening to besides what I post for On Repeat, check out my playlists.

Pinterest
My love affair for Pinterest started back in my freshman year of college. I kind of left it to the side for a while but recently I've found myself spending a lot of time on there. Especially if it's slow at work and I've got my phone charged up enough. I've been on the hunt for a new hair color so Pinterest has been super helpful in the search. (ps - go give me a follow!)

Breakfast Smoothies
Let's just get this out of the way: I'm not a health nut. No matter how hard I try, I just can not give up my terrible eating habits. Recently, I've been trying to be a bit better, which has included incorporating a breakfast of something other than a coffee and granola bar. My usual go-to is pretty simple: a banana, a scoop of vanilla soy protein powder and some vanilla coconut milk. I've been loving these because I can still take them on the go, which is good considering I'm usually running about 30 minutes behind.

Marley Lilly/Monograms
Ask any of the other girls about my obsession with monograms and they'll probably roll their eyes. If I could put a monogram on everything I would (this is also the part of me that loves Lilly Pulitzer and anything preppy). Marley Lilly recently released an app, for free by the way, and not only can you shop, but you can make your own monogramed backgrounds. So naturally I went HAM and have about 20 on my phone now. Whoops. Sorry, not sorry.

My Kindle/Amazon
Amazon is always awesome, but as per my New Years Resolutions, I've been on a reading binge recently. I read through the Divergent trilogy (and also went to see the movie, of course) and am currently on the second book of The Maze Runner series. I've got a wishlist on Amazon.com about 5 pages long of books to read, so hopefully I'll make my way through them soon. I've also been loving my Kindle to work on instead of my laptop, especially if I'm at home hanging out (watching Netflix) and just have a couple quick things to do.

House, M.D.
Speaking of Netflix, let's talk about how the whole House series is now on there. I was in love with this show when it was on air but never really followed it completely, I would just catch episodes here and there. So now I've made it my mission to get through the entire series, start to finish.

Well, that's all from me for this week. What have you been loving recently?

xx
Tessa

Hello readers! I'm back. School was slowly suffocating me under a mountain of work so I had to take a step back for a while and focus on my studies. I'm so excited to get back to FBG and man, do I have a lot of stuff to catch y'all up on!

To begin with, I bought a couple new concealers at Target when I was home for Spring Break because my trusty Maybelline Undereye Concealer ran out. I decided to switch things up because I hadn't been as impressed with the Maybelline concealer in a while. Soooo I went with a couple new products!

L'Oreal Magic Lumi Highlighter in Light
     I've heard some reviews on drugstore dupes for the YSL Touche Eclat but had yet to try any of them out. I was browsing the beauty aisles at Target with Rachel and came across this little gem and she insisted that one of the beauty bloggers she follows had highly recommended it. The consistency is creamy and light but really does a nice job of concealing and brightening the underye area. It doesn't feel dry on my skin and the skintone match is pretty spot on. The only thing I don't like about this product is that I feel that it doesn't quite give you enough bang for your buck. There isn't a lot of product and I believe it cost about $11. Given, it's a dupe for a high, high-end concealer but I'm broke and can't afford that type of ridiculousness. Overall, I'd still recommend it.

Sonia Kashuk All Covered Up in 01 Porcelain
     I really needed a new concealer because the fact that I was using an undereye concealer for acne marks was sloppy and embarrassing as a beauty blogger. The problem is that I have never found a drugstore concealer that really works well for my skintone and stays all day. This concealer is packaged in a pot which is nice but also makes it easy to pick up too much on accident. It's rather opaque and has a good consistency. However, it doesn't last long on my face and it's a little too light for my skintone. I may try the darker one once I tan up a little bit this summer and see how it goes!

Welp, that's all for me today. Do you have any recommendations on drugstore concealers?

     If you've been a little out of the loop with FBG as of late, every Tuesday we post collaboratively. We blabber on about anything from makeup to movies so be sure to tune in dudes. Since the spring season finally seems to be creeping up on us, we're here to share our favorite fragrances to don this time of year.

 
      In my last post, I mentioned both of these products. They are pretty similar in packaging and formula and I thought a comparison post would do nicely for them. Maybelline advertises this product as a gel with pigments for see-through color. The Revlon Lip Butter claims to be a gel-like butter that gives a sheer color to the lips. I was actually kind of confused because I didn't really think of these products as gels.
     I own two of the Maybelline Color Whisper Lip Colors; Made-it Mauve and Berry Ready. I absolutely love Made-it Mauve. It is a perfect nude color for me. It's not super light and doesn't have a lot of brown tones, so it doesn't make my skin look muddy. The formula of this is really nice. I don't feel like I need a lip balm under it like I do with matte lipsticks (or lipsticks in general). That being said, I do use my ELF Lip Lock Pencil to help with staying power. I've noticed that with using that, it stays on for about an hour and half.
    The Revlon Colorburst Lip Butter is just as moisturizing as the Color Whisper Lip Colors. I will say that the color on these is a lot more sheer. The Maybelline lip colors are extremely pigmented, so if you are wanting a vivid shade but something pretty sheer, I would go for the Revlon product. I use the ELF Lip Lock Pencil with this product as well and it has about the same lasting power.

     Typically I’m a fairly sporadic reader. I plow my way through the first ¾ of a book only to then step away for months at a time. As a result, I usually have several books on the go simultaneously. I’ve quite enjoyed all the options I’m currently engulfed in. Attempting to motivate myself to finish these up, I’m posting about them. Go me.

TESSA
IV. Sweatpants - Childish Gambino
    Let me start this off by saying that it took everything in me not to post a song from Nashville this week.  I won't say which one in case I save it for a later pick. Continuing on to relevant news: how come no one told me I was sleeping on this album? It's been in my Spotify for months and I never quite got around to it. II. WORLDSTAR really got me started on this album, thanks to none other than our very own Rachel. Thus I finally gave it a proper listen and have pretty much listened to nothing else. Also now properly regretting him when he was in Kansas City. Apparently the music gods hate me.




TORI
If I Could Change Your Mind- Haim
     For some reason, I had convinced myself long ago that I severely disliked Haim. Boy was I wrong. I'm not sure I've listened to anything else the past two weeks. Any of the songs are a complete viable option, but "If I Could Change Your Mind," was probably the first Haim song to be belted out in my car. I want this to be in all caps but I'll refrain, but I am so livid that I thought I disliked them and I missed them when they were in Lawrence because I was being fucking dumbbb. That being said, you should still watch the video because it is one of my favorites of all time. Plus their style is amazing. Gahhh.


RACHEL
Teen Lovers - The Virgins
     This week is another selection brought to my attention via Spotify (P.S. - Tessa so kindly pointed out that Premium is now 50% off for students). I've actually not listened to much music in the past week, I've been much more into Audible. However, this has been all up in my speakers whilst I've strayed from a book. It's catchy, which is always a plus. And they were signed to Julian Casablancas' record label. Unfortunately (according to Wikipedia) they just split up this past November. Sad. Anyhow, this is definitely my favorite of their namesake album. I'd also recommend you check out Fernando Pando. 

First off, let me apologize for being an absolute shit blogger these last two weeks. My life is insanity, so it happens. And I'm sorry that I've failed at my New Year's Resolution for this blog but hey, new week and we're back on track. Now on to the real post....

When you're as pale as a ghost (I've only mentioned it about 500 times, right?), fake tanning is really your only option to catch up with those who actually have pigment in their skin. I know last summer I raved about the Banana Boat spray tan option, but I recently picked up a new choice and we'll see how it goes. In the meantime while we wait on my evaluation of that, I'll give you the rundown on my full fake tanning routine.

PREP
    Well let's just start with the obvious here: I always shower before applying a fresh tan. I know some people like to wait, but I'm a morning shower person, thus this gives my tan ample time to develop before I wash it off the next day. I also like to exfoliate for a couple days leading up to tanning, and usually shave my legs the day of because (1) I'm super lazy when it comes to shaving my legs, (2) your tan will fade the next time you shave and (3) it's an extra step of exfoliation to ensure that my skin is fully prepared to take on a spray tan. My current go-to exfoliator is Soap & Glory's Scrub of Your Life - it's foaming so it's not too harsh, but still delivers great results. Not to mention it smells really good. I've also been a fan of Tree Hut's offerings in the past. [Soap & Glory Scrub of Your Life not pictured, because I am a terrible blogger].

SPRAY
     I don't know how much detail I need to go into here. It's pretty self evident I think. My all-time holy grail spray tan is Banana Boat Summer Color Self Tanning Mist. My only complaint about this product is the smell, it says citrus but it's not great and it also lingers around for a while. Other than that it delivers great color and I've never had a single problem with streaking. However, a new one caught my eye when I went to pick up a new bottle for the upcoming season (because I'm realizing that my skin is as white as my Vans and it's not a cute look). I mostly bought it because it said it compares to St. Tropez, which I've somehow held off trying thus far. Anyway, it's Equate's (Walmart) version of their spray tan, but they also offer a mousse and a lotion, which may be tested later depending on how well I like this stuff.

MAINTAIN
     Moisturize, moisturize, moisturize. I can't say it enough. If you want your tan to last, the best way to maintain it is to moisturize, and not exfoliate but I think that goes without saying. I'm the laziest person when it comes to moisturizing, so it takes a lot for me to actually follow through with this step on a daily basis. Some of my favorite in my line up are Soap & Glory's The Righteous Body Butter, Jergen's Original Formula in the cherry almond scent, and pretty much anything from Bath & Body Works.

If you have any recommendations, I'm definitely open to them. Do you have a tanning routine? What's in your line up?

xx

Tessa