DIY Charcoal Acne Face Mask

So, the big thing right now is charcoal. Charcoal masks and charcoal face washes have become huge because of the purifying effects charcoal can have on your face and how well it can clean out impurities and shrink your pores. I have tried one charcoal mask by Boscia and LOVE it, it's more of a peel than a mask, but after using it my face feels clean, fresh and luminous.

While on Pinterest a few weeks back, I came across a couple DIY charcoal face masks and have been wanting to give one a try. One of them included Elmer's Glue and Activated Charcoal, but after reading some reviews, I saw that this mask wasn't the best idea and can really be painful and bad for your skin. Then, I found one that included a few simple ingredients and was directed for acne-prone skin, perfect for my skin type! So, I gave it a try and am going to share with you the recipe and the results now!

So here is what you need and how much it costs:

3 pumps of Aloe gel ($2 at Walmart)
1 Capsule Activated Charcoal, open the capsule and use the powder only! ($5 for the whole bottle at Natural Grocers)
2 Drops Melaleuca a.k.a. Tea Tree Oil  ($25 from doTerra or $6 at Target)

These ingredients can cost you as little as $13 and you could get A TON of this DIY mask for that cost. Totally worth it. The Aloe gel feels amazing on your skin, even if used alone. It has healing "powers" and has that soothing, cooling effect. If you've ever used it on a sun burn, you know what I mean. The Activated Charcoal can be taken as a "body detox' and does amazing things for clearing out toxins and impurities in your body. It does the same thing for your skin! It completely detoxes your skin and clears out your pores, and all it takes is one tiny capsule. Melaleuca, also known as Tea Tree Oil, has anti-fungal, antibacterial and anti-viral super powers. This oil can be used for such a wide variety of things, but for your skin, and specifically for acne, it's a miracle.

As you can see, all these ingredients alone can be amazing for your skin. Mix them together and you get a super-refreshing and detoxifying mask for your skin. Before mixing the ingredients together, keep in mind that the Melaleuca has a very strong, minty smell and if you use too much it will make your eyes burn. I actually made that mistake the first time I tried this, I used 3-4 drops and my eyes were watering and my nose was running because the smell was so strong.

Once mixed, the mask will look like this. Completely black with a gel-like consistency. A little goes a long ways so while this doesn't look like enough for your whole face, it is, I promise. I used this spatula style tool (can you tell I don't cook or know anything about kitchen utensils??) to mix it up and to apply the majority of it to my skin.

It can definitely get a little messy, the charcoal is BLACK and turns everything black. So keep a paper towel nearby to help keep things clean. As you can see in the photo above, I left my eye area and lips out since those are sensitive areas. Once you have the mask fully applied, wait for it to dry. It doesn't take long to dry, maybe 5-10 minutes depending on how thick you applied it.

Once the mask is dry, it will look matte on your skin and that's how you'll know it's time to rinse. I used this baby washcloth with warm water to lightly scrub the majority of the mask off my face. Keep in mind, use a washcloth you don't care about because the charcoal definitely stained the one I used. You can even use a paper towel if you'd rather not stain a washcloth. However, I used this washcloth because it's super-soft and gentle on my face. Once I rubbed off most of the mask, I finished with splashing some cool water on my face to rinse off the rest and close up my pores.

While you obviously won't see instant, acne clearing results, your skin will feel amazing and refreshed. After a couple of days, I did notice that a lot of my spots cleared up and stayed that way for about a week! Yes, it could have been a coincidence, but either way, I really loved the results and the way this mask made my skin feel.

If you've never used any of these ingredients on your skin before, I would proceed with caution in case you may have and allergy or reaction to any of them. However, all of these ingredients are natural and I have never had any type of reaction (minus the burning eyes from the scent of Melaleuca) to any of these products. Depending on where you buy them, this mask can cost more or less. The doTerra brand of Melaleuca will obviously be more expensive than if you were to buy Tea Tree oil from Walmart or Target, but you should get the same exact effect not matter where it's purchased from.

Thanks for reading! If you try this mask out, let us know how you liked it on our social media! Follow @kaitandbre on Instagram or find us on Facebook at Facebook.com/kaitandbre

XOXO,
Kait

Clothing Haul - Baby Girl Winter Outfits

Today I wanted to share a couple things that I picked up over the weekend at Gymboree! The whole store is currently 40% regular price items and the clearance is also an additional percentage off. Plus, I had a coupon for 20% off my purchase that I got to use on top of the sale! So of course I couldn't pass on these outfits for Isla.

 

They have new winter collections out and I died when I saw how cute these two prints are! The outfit on the left is a super soft, thick cotton sweater like material. It feels really warm and comfy, it has a bit of a stretch to it too. The dress on the right is corduroy material. It came with a little pair of bloomers to wear underneath, and I already have cream colored tights that will match perfect! 

 

Here are close ups of the prints:

The next two outfits are Christmas themed. The item on the left is a one piece, I love the little collar and polka dots. I thought it would be so cute with a white furry jacket we already have. The outfit on the right is a "present" onesie and matching red pants. Adorable!

 

 

I also picked up a couple packs of socks and this hat. We all know it gets SO cold in Montana in the winter, so these will be put to use!

I hope you enjoyed this little haul! If you are needing new baby/kids clothes I would definitely check out Gymboree, you can't beat the sales!



 

This post may contain affiliate links. All products shown were selected by me and purchased by me. Post contains my genuine recommendations and opinions.

No-Carve Pumpkins

With Halloween being just around the corner, we thought it would be fun to decorate pumpkins! I think that we can all agree that carving pumpkins is messy, time consuming and difficult! So after getting some inspo off of Pinterest, we decided to get creative and paint our pumpkins. We were able to get the pumpkins, paint and supplies for just around $15 each. The paint we chose is by Craft Smart at Michaels, they were around $1 each, and we were impressed by the quality for being so inexpensive. We also bought glitter. The brand was Recollections, it was $6 contained 6 different colors of glitter. We only ended up using two of the glitter options but it was still a good price and we have a ton leftover for future use! 

Kait's Pumpkins

I was hesitant to do the candy skull with my larger pumpkin because I am no artist! I did 2 coats of white paint and waited for it to dry. I then went straight to work, starting with all the parts that required black paint. I then used my colored paints for all the accents and fun designs. Yes, if you are really looking, it's not perfect. But they look so cute on my front porch and I really love the way it turned out!

My glitter pumpkins also required 2-3 coats of paint because the neon colors I bought weren't very opaque. I even added a little bit of white to help. I did the glitter very first, brushing Elmer's Glue on the stem and dumping glitter over top.

Bre's Pumpkins

These are my take on donut pumpkins! Like we mentioned earlier, we found inspiration on Pinterest and when I saw someone else's version of these I fell in LOVE with the idea! They are too cute. And who doesn't like donuts?!

These were super easy to create. I first mixed brown and white paint to make a light cream color, I used that to paint the whole pumpkin and stem. Once that dried, I took a pale pink, blue and brown and painted the top half of each pumpkin to look like frosting. Once that dried, I painted on the sprinkles with a small brush. That's it! So easy and SO cute.

My other pumpkin was this tiny little thing. I loved how small it was and how long the stem was.

I put glue on the stem and then poured the glitter on top. I wiped off any excess glitter on the pumpkin and then went in with black paint. I really like how it turned out!

During The Process

We went into this having NO idea what we were doing. Which is what I love about this project because we ended up with the cutest painted pumpkins and it took little to no experience with painting. We set up some paper to keep my table from paint and glue and went straight to work.

Tip #1: To make the paint dry quicker, use a hair dryer! The heat speeds up the drying time, it sort of "bakes" the paint. 

Tip #2: If you are using glitter, do the glitter portion before you use paint. That way you can be a little messy and it won't get stuck on wet paint in areas that you didn't want glitter.

Tip #3: If you are using a neon color, add a tiny bit of white paint or it's going to show up translucent on another color or on the orange pumpkin.

Tip #4: Make sure you have a wide variety of brushes! We ended up using almost every brush we bought for different details. We also bought the large brushes for painting the entire pumpkin one color and it took far less time than it would have with a smaller brush.

Lazy Sunday: Favorite Clothing Site!

Today as I was hanging out around the house, cleaning my daughter's room something 

occurred to me:

I need to share my newest online shopping spot!

 

What prompted this thought was the fact that I was wearing my favorite tee shirt from said place..

 

 

How cute is it?! I wore it over to Kait's a couple weeks ago, and she loved it so much that she went online and bought it too. 

On days where there is no time to even brush my hair, when I have changed countless dirty diapers and the house is a complete disaster, I love having this shirt to wear as a cute reminder that I'm a mama! And it's the most amazing thing ever!

 

Its an online clothing store with, the website is ILY Couture. I could go on and on about how cute everything is, but its better you just see for yourself.

 

I love these graphic tees:

 

And these:

 

 

 

 

I want it all!

 

So many cute pieces, click here to check it out, you won't regret it!

What are your favorite websites to shop on? Please share in the comments below, I would love to discover something new!

XO, Bre

 

This post may contain affiliate links. All products shown were selected by me and purchased by me. Post contains my genuine recommendations and opinions.
 

 

 

My Current Favorite Accessories

Hey there! Today's post is all about a couple of my go to jewelry pieces! I usually wear pretty simple/basic clothing items, so I love using accessories to add some personality to my outfits.

I have added the links to everything below!

The first thing I have here isn't jewelry, but an accessory that I am obsessed with!! This critter bag charm! He is the cutest thing. The colors, gem eyes and gold hardware are just perfect. Unlike the Fendi charms that started this trend which are $1,000+, this guy is $14 at Nordstrom.

Chokers have been a big trend lately, and I'm loving it! This was only $12 at Nordstrom. Its a really delicate black strap with a tiny gold sphere in the center. I bought it last week and apparently I wasn't the only person who had to have it because now its sold out and I'm not able to find it on the website :( Here is another one that I love that is similar!

I am also wearing two cuff bracelets that frequent my rotation. The first one is a thin gold band with small black gems across it, it's simple and goes with everything! The second bracelet is a gold cage cuff. I love mixing and matching these with other peices.

A closer look. They can be found here.

This is a necklace combo that I have been wearing for months, these two silver necklaces layer really well together! The disk has my daughters name engraved on it, so its very special to me. The engraving is free too which is awesome. The other necklace is a silver crescent with little white gems across it.

Here is a closer look! I forgot to get a shot of the earings, but these studs are what I'm wearing. They can all be found here

The last two items are pieces that I have owned for over 3 years! I have worn the crap out of them but they are still in amazing condition. The bracelet is stretchy and the charms/spikes move freely, so its comfortable to wear. The ring is chevron with white gems! They are also here!

Other side notes:

The lip color that I am wearing is MAC Hug Me

My nail color is Essie Figi

My bag is the Michael Kors Kirby

Thank you so much for stopping by today!

XO, Bre

Organizing Makeup on a Budget

For those of you that know me, it's almost humorous that I'm writing this post. I am one of the most disorganized people you will ever meet. However, I love the process of organizing wether or not I keep things that way or not. Since we've started this blog, my makeup has gotten completely out of control and unorganized and frankly, a disastrous mess. 

As we were writing down ideas for blog posts, I had the idea of doing an organizing post and better yet, organizing on a budget. Having a baby and a mortgage and a shopping problem, our budget is tight in my household and I know a lot of you are the same way. So, I went out and bought the most inexpensive containers/drawers/trays that I could find and managed to reorganize my makeup for around $30.

Looking at the above photo, it's hard for me to believe that ALL of my makeup is in this tiny enclosed space. Typically, it's scattered all over my table, in different purses, diaper bags, bathroom drawers and in my car. I gathered everything up, cleaned it all and found a place for it. I even have extra room for all my future makeup purchases which are inevitable. 

As you can see, I have the majority of my makeup stored in this plastic drawer set that I got at Target. I bought it for $12.99 and it holds a surprising amount of makeup! You can find it here.

On the top, I have 2 tin buckets holding my brushes and my liners, lip pencils and mascara. Each of these tin containers cost me $1 (each) at target. You can find them here. I also have my foundations stored in a rectangle acrylic tray that I actually got for free from a previous retail job because they were going to be thrown away. But, I found some that are similar from The Container Store and you can find them here. 

Next, I have all of my lipsticks and glosses stored in a round, plastic basket that actually came as a gift basket with baby shampoo and lotion which I got as gift for my baby shower. I couldn't find anything like it anywhere online (unless you want to buy the gift basket for $10 here) but I found something better from The Container Store which is actually meant for lipstick storage. You can find it here. With the remaining area on the top, I just used for my makeup removing wipes and a few face masks.

In the first drawer, I stored all of my face powders, concealers, blushes, bronzers, highlighters and face primers. I could have easily just tossed them all in there with little to no organization, but for the sake of this post, I gave it a little more effort and used two acrylic trays to separate my powders, concealers, and my blushes and bronzers. These are the makeup categories I own the most of so this drawer is packed full. I could have spread it out a little and put some of them in the middle drawer where I had some extra room as you'll see below, but I wanted to keep everything in their own categories. It makes it easier for me to keep it organized because everything is stored in the order I use it while doing my makeup. If you're on a tighter budget, you could easily do without these two acrylic trays and cut $10 from your total cost.

In the second drawer I have my eyelashes, eyelash glue, tweezers, brow powders, pomades and gels, and all my single eyeshadows. I used to only buy these Bare Minerals eyeshadows and I really love them because they can be used wet or dry. Rose Pearl is on of my all-time favorite, I'm pretty sure it's discontinued but if you can find it somewhere, snatch it up before it's gone because it's the most beautiful dusty rose color. Anyways, I finally discovered palettes and I haven't bought too many single eye shadows since then. But I still have my very favorites that I hold on to. I have more lash glue than I need, but I use both clear and dark. The dark glue is nice if you don't want to use eyeliner because it leaves a darker strip and makes your lash line really stand out. I plan to fill this drawer more as I collect more lashes and eye shadows, so for now I will leave the empty space.

Last but not least, the third drawer is storing almost all of my eyeshadow palettes with the exception of my larger Tarte holiday collection palettes. Out of all of my makeup, I love eyeshadow the most. I wear it every single day and I do something different with it every single day. I have a very wide variety and in the future I may rank all my palettes from favorite to least favorite. My newest one is the Urban Decay Ultimate Basics Palette and I LOVE LOVE LOVE it. I also just recently got the Kat Von D Shade + Light Contour Quad in Matte Purples and it's so beautiful.

When I went to Target to purchase my drawers and containers, there were so many more expensive items that I would have loved to buy instead. I will list some of the things I found and loved and include the links to them on Target.com. All the photos below I saved directly from the Target website.  

This Nate Berkus Desktop Organizer would be so cute for holding makeup brushes or eyeliners and lip pencils. It was $14.99 so it didn't fit my budget.

This cute cup would have been perfect to hold really anything. Brushes, lip glosses, liners, lip pencils. It is $7.99 at Target and you can find it here.

This Desktop Tray by Nate Berkus would fit perfectly inside on of the drawers to help with some extra organization, but it costs $19.99 so if you're on a budget, this may not work for you. However, it's super cute!

If you have a smaller collection of palettes, these Letter Sorters work perfectly to store them. I have too many, so I would have had to buy 2 or 3 of these which cost $12.99 each, so these didn't fit my budget either.

This is the one item I almost splurged on. I loved it enough. It's a Threshold Glass and Metal Vanity Organizer and it would be great for storing palettes, lipgloss, lipstick, foundation.. pretty much anything and everything. It would have replaced a few of the acrylic containers on the top of my drawers but since I already had some of those items, I didn't need to spend the extra money. It's currently on sale for $14.99.

I hope you enjoyed this post! This blog has inspired me to get organized the last few weeks and I hope this post inspires you to do some "fall cleaning".

XOXO,

Kait