New hair, EOTD, and Hot N Silky curling iron mini review

Last week, I finally gave in and got a long overdue haircut. I'd been avoiding it because my usual hair stylist moved, and I'm always a bit apprehensive when it comes to letting someone new try to tame my curly mess of hair.

Pre-haircut, my mane in all its untamed glory:

I've been trying to grow my bangs out, so they had gotten to that awkward in between length. The number of bobby pins I'd been using to try to keep them at bay was pretty absurd.

After! No idea why I'm so washed out here.

Since I liked the way the new haircut looked when the stylist used a curling iron, I decided to run out to Sally Beauty Supply to get a 1 1/4 inch curling iron.

So I picked up this guy!

I did something fairly out of character and bought this without doing any research. At Sally, it's $29.99 but if you have a membership it's $26.99. My membership definitely pays for itself every year.

I liked the looks of this one, especially since it has an automatic safety shut off after 1 hour. I'm a bit absent minded sometimes, so I like things like that.

Here are some other things that I like:

The on/off switch. Seriously, I like it. My last curling iron had on/off buttons located in a place where I was always accidentally and unknowingly turning the thing off while using it. And then I would wonder why it wasn't really curling my hair, until I realized that I had turned it off. Brilliant, I know. But it makes me appreciate this switch.

"How do I know when it's ready?" This light blinks when the curling iron has heated up.

I also like the way the temperature dial is set up.

I really like this curling iron. I'm glad I didn't look at the reviews on the Sally Beauty website before I bought it. There are currently two reviews on the site, both of which rate it as being a terrible product. Both reviewers on the site mentioned not liking the rotating tip. In all honesty, I haven't bothered holding it from the tip, so it could very well be terrible and I just don't know it. One of the reviewers mentioned that it burned their hair, which I haven't had an issue with. Obviously, if you put it on a high setting and leave it in your hair for a while, you're at risk of burning your hair. But it hasn't been an issue for me.

I'm  happy with my curling iron and my haircut! I also like the haircut when I let my hair run wild and free, but I don't have any pictures yet.

And here's my eye from that day:

 Please excuse the rogue bangs trying to give me caveman brows.

This is pretty much my go-to "I just want to brighten up my eyes" look. I used the two cream shadows from the Benefit Eye Gotta! The Annie Collection (which I will swatch in its entirety later). I applied Flash on the entire lid and Foiled on the outer corners. The mascara is Maybelline Lots of Lashes. I think it's a nice, simple and natural look.