Dorm Tour

  As a Resident Assistant, I'm lucky enough to have a big ol' room all to myself. Because my room was built as a double room (and we are sometimes assigned temporary roommates if there is any overflow), I have furniture for two people. It's super awesome! I have two desks, two dressers (10 drawers total), a walk-in closet with plenty of shelving, a small shelf/entertainment center thing and TWO BEDS!

    At first I had my beds separated because I wanted to use one as a couch. But, it never got used that way and my room didn't feel as cozy as I wanted it to. Also, I originally put the TV in a weird spot in relation to the cable port, so I had to feed the coaxial cable under the rug and it was just ugly and annoying. So I decided to put my beds together (two twin XLs make a king), move the TV and basically just rearrange everything. Here are the before and afters:

These next two pictures were taken on the same day. It was like 3 days 

after I moved in and I didn't realize it until I was writing this

 post, how bare everything looks! I'm glad I decided to rearrange things!

    

 This is my closet. I've kept everything the same, so no changes here!

Here's my bed as I was in the process of rearranging everything. The picture doesn't 

capture the entire room because it was so messy.... so so so messy (what's new). 

At this point, I had my TV in the corner and on top of my fridge.

This is my room now! I added some ivory sheer panels behind my bed to

act as a "headboard" and add some soft texture to the cinderblock walls.

I also added a cube-storage-unit-thing in front of my bed, which my TV now sits on.

    As you can see, my color scheme for this room was gray, orange and teal. I really like how everything came together. The bed set is very ruffly and girly but I feel that the geometric print of the rug and throw pillows makes sure it doesn't feel overly-feminie. Also, that's not a real bed skirt. I just took a white flat sheet that I had and tucked it in under the mattress.

Here's where I got the things

• Lamp Bases- Walmart (still haven't found the perfect lamp shade)
• Throw pillows- DIY
• Rug- Walmart
• Bed set- Walmart (don't recommend)
• Cube-storage-unit-thing- Home Decorators
• Sheer Panels- Ross (pack of 2 for $5.99!)
• Sunburst mirrors above bed- Marshall's
• Teal plush throw blanket- Big Lots

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Rook Piercing Experience

Happy birthday to me!

    For my 19th birthday this year, I decided I wanted to get a piercing. I debated between a double helix, forward helix, tragus and a rook. After like three weeks of debating I finally decided on my right rook. I did so much research- this includes journals, blogs, videos, forums, etc. I wanted to know everything about the rook piercing specifically and elastic cartilage piercings in general.

    Everybody's first question when getting a piercing is, "does it hurt". I can't tell you if it will hurt for you, but it didn't hurt for me one bit. I felt some pressure and heard LOTS of crunching, but there wasn't any sharp or pinching pain. I'm not really sure why it didn't hurt.. Lots of adrenaline? The extreme crunchiness distracted me? I had anticipated so much pain that the actual pain was nothing? You would think that a huge needle going through a fairly thick piece of cartilage would give me some sort of wave of pain...

On a pain scale from 1-10, I would rate it a 1.

    My piercer was awesome and totally knew what she was doing. So, the needle was all the way through in like .63 seconds and she had the jewelry threaded through in 1.5 seconds. So in total the piercing was over in under 5 seconds.

    I chose to get white opal colored gems on a surgical steel curved barbell. The gems tend to look mostly light pink, but I still like them! I was told that a barbell was better for healing than a captive bead ring because the rings tend to get caught a lot more.

    As of now, I'm cleaning it 3-5 times every day and it seems to be working out fairly well for me. I haven't had much crusties (sorry, gross word), any bleeding and basically any problems so far.

Here is the swelling progression.

                                   1                                                                                                  2

34

     It didn't start swelling til about 30 hours after I got it pierced. It wasn't too bad. The swelling went up and down for a couple days. Most of the swelling came after I cleaned around the jewelry. It's in such a weird spot that it's almost impossible to clean it without moving the jewelry! Also, your initial jewelry should always be long enough to accommodate swelling, so that's why the barbell looks so long.

 Here's what it looks like now- 6 days after! 

VERY minimal swelling and very low pain!

The actual area of the piercing itself doesn't hurt that much, I was more sore in the helix area (which most people refer to as "the cartilage". Even though most of your ear is cartilage.....)

I'm planning on doing an update after 1 to 2 months of having it pierced.

Do you have any unique piercings?

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DIY| Studded Canvas

Yay it's my first DIY post!

This canvas is SUPER easy to make, and you only need a few supplies.

 I already had most of the supplies so this cost me a grand total of $1! (plus tax)

You will need:              

• A canvas (you can even use piece of wood)
• A stencil of some sort (you can free-hand or make your own stencils and print them out)
• Tacks (find the tacks that look like studs- I found a pack of 300 at the dollar store!)

Optional: Hot glue, paint

   

    First thing you want to do is paint your canvas if you're not happy with the color. Mine was originally used for something else, so I decided to paint it. Luckily, we had some left over black spray paint from an earlier project so I didn't have to spend any money on that!

Print out your stencils on paper and cut them out! I used 400p bold Times New Roman.

     

This is the same sheet of paper. I wanted the least amount of paper scraps possible!

I am so incredibly impatient and impulsive, so I didn't even wait for the spray paint to dry. This actually worked out pretty well for me because I wasn't exactly sure how to trace out the letters onto the black anyway. Maybe a pencil would have shown up? Who knows. All I know is that sticking the paper on the canvas before the paint dried worked great!

I liked the look of even spacing between everything.

Place a towel or a sweater in the underside of the canvas to support it while you're pushing in the tacks. It takes a bit of force to get them through the material.

               

Start filling in the letters with the tacks! This takes some time, but once you get the hang of it, the process goes really fast. The tacks are going to have to overlap to make sure the paper underneath is completely covered. This part is a lot of trial and error. Don't be afraid to reposition the tacks.

This isn't where it's actually going to go (it's for my dorm), but here's what it looks like hanging out on a random wall!

Use hot glue to cover the back of the tacks once you like the way everything looks. It kind of works like the back of an earring. This isn't completely necessary, but I wanted to be extra sure they weren't going to come out when I move!

     You can use any word, shape or color combination you like! I'm thinking about making a second one that says "MORE" and then hanging them next to each other. We'll see :)

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Transitioning.

    I originally started this blog for make-up and beauty related things only. However, that realm of the world hasn't been inspiring me like it used to. As of right now, I'm into home decor, DIY, etc. So basically I'm more into lifestyle things than make-up and hair. This isn't to say that I don't enjoy beauty related things, but that fire has somewhat fizzled and I'm ready to get back into blogging.

    Therefore, I want to start writing more about the things I'm currently into (which will always be changing) and to stop feeling restricted by my domain name (Beauty by Asia) and the title of my blog (Be Beautiful). After all, beauty isn't just in make-up. Beauty is in everything, right?

   Thanks to everyone who has followed my blog for not pressuring me about putting out new content. Whether is be because you absolutely don't care about it at all or you've just forgotten about my blog or if you've made a conscious effort to not bring it up- thank you. It's taken me forever to realize that the only person pressuring me to write stuff was myself! And that's just silly.

I'm super excited about what's to come.

Say NO to animal-testing!

    After some research (it didn't take much), I've decided to no longer support cosmetic companies that use animal testing! It's very sad to see what they do to the animals in their testing facilities.

    I've decided to use up the products from brands that do animal-test, but they will no longer be featured on my blog. After I use them all up, I'll only be purchasing from cruelty-free brands!

    Yes, that means having to give up some of my favorite products, but I don't want to support such a cruel practice. I urge you to take a step back and reconsider your choices as a consumer!

BRANDS I WILL NO LONGER SUPPORT:

Revlon: Sorry Colorstay, we're breaking up.

Covergirl: I was on the road to kicking you out anyways.

L'oreal: Ehh, I can live without the Voluminous mascara.

Maybelline: This one will be tough, but I'm moving on to bigger and better things.

Neutrogena: My favorite face wash. Looks like I'm gonna have to find something else!

Almay: I never really liked you anyways, Almay.

Why animal-test guys!? There are SO many successful companies 

out there (I'm about to mention a few) that put out great products without torturing animals. 

BRANDS I WILL LOVE FOREVER (as long as they continue to not animal-test):

Rimmel: SO happy about this one!

NYX: I've always known NYX to be cruelty-free. I LOVE YOU NYX… FOREVER

Physician's Formula: I've never tried much PF because of their high prices, but maybe I will now!

Milani: I have a few Milani products I really love! I'm looking forward to expanding my collection.

ELF: I WOULD HAVE DIED IF ELF ANIMAL-TESTED. ELF IS MY FAVE FOR LIFE!

Wet 'n Wild: Oh yeah, baby. Cheap and nice to animals!

Jane: A recently re-launched line that I'm excited to check out.

Flower Beauty: I've never tried anything from this brand, but I've had my eye on a few things!

There are, of course, more brands that I could add on to each list. 

But these are the companies that I'm focusing on for now.

Join me in my journey to stop supporting companies that are not cruelty-free!

Check out this blog to see whether your favorite company is cruelty-free or not!


peta.org is always updating us with cruelty-free news 

Review| ELF Prism Eyeshadow Palette in Naked

    I recently ordered this palette off of eyeslipsface.com after hearing loads of good reviews about it. Aren't the colors so pretty!? They are all VERY shimmery and look metallic if applied wet.

Shades from left to right:

•  A warm whiteish champagne (my least favorite, though I still like it)
• A very pale golden-yellow
• A true rose-gold 
• A golden-bronze (my favorite)
• Deeper bronze with a TINY bit of rustiness to it
• Much cooler deep brown

What I think you should know before purchasing:

1. The quality of these shadows are great and consistent throughout the entire palette.

    There isn't a single shade that is superior in terms of quality or performance. They are all very pigmented, super-soft and blend out beautifully.

2. They produce lots of fallout.

    Due to the extremely shimmery nature of these eye shadows, there tends to be quite a bit of fallout. Just do your eye makeup before your face makeup and there should be no issues!

3. They tend to slightly fade throughout the day.

    Use a primer with these shadows and that problem is solved.

4. They apply best if packed on with fingers or sponge-tip applicators.

    These shadows are almost like pressed pigments. Don't use a fluffy brush to sweep the shadows on if you want full color! Keep the two sponge-tip applicators and use those for the best pigmentation. (This also helps prevent fallout.)

5. You can't find them in-stores.

    At this point in time, these are not available in stores (as far as I know). I am always checking out the new displays when I am at the drugstores and have yet to find these. You can always find them at eyeslipsface.com!

6. Retails for $10.

    ELF always has some sort of promotional going on so you can usually find some sort of discount! I paid $5 for my palette, but I definitely think its worth $10 if these types of shadows are your favorite!

The Prism Eyeshadow palettes are available in three different shade combinations! 

Naked (pictured), Smoked and Sunset!