July 2014 Favourites

Hey guys! A little delayed I know, but here are my beauty favourites for the month of July. 

Chanel Perfection Lumiere Velvet foundation: A natural finish, skin like foundation perfect for oily skin. Its watery formula makes it easy to blend, keeps oil in check and the finish is velvet indeed.

Nars Radiant Creamy Concealer: The best concealer I've ever tried. Covers dark circles, blemishes, acne scars, you name it. So easy to apply and blends beautifully.

MAC Mineralize Skinfinish Natural: A gorgeous setting powder that never looks too cakey or powdery on the skin, no matter how heavy handed you are. Keeps oil at bay and gives a nice glowing finish.

Maybelline Brow Drama: One of the better brow products from the drug store, a mascara like gel that keeps hairs in place while adding a touch of tint to them. Quick and easy, perfect for natural makeup days. 

Revlon Brow Fantasy: Another brow product I have really been enjoying. The pencil on one end is firm and allows you to fill in and shape your brows exactly how you want and the setting gel on the other sets everything down while adding little bit more colour.

Too Faced Natural Eyes Palette: The first palette I ever owned, and used it to death so of course I had to pick it up again. Too Faced shadows are up there with some of the best. Buttery soft, pigmented, and blend ridiculously well. Theres not a shade in here i wouldn't use and I'm in love with the sleek tin packaging.  

Bourjois Rouge Edition Velvet: One of the best liquid lipstick formulas around. They came in a range of different shades but for me the brights are where its at. Not at all drying on the lips, even though they are matte and when they dry the colour sticks around forever. No touch ups required

Maybelline Color Elixir: I need these in every shade. A balm/gloss/lipstick hybrid that make your lips look nice and full. 

Garnier Micellar Water: The Bioderma dupe. Read my post here.

The Body Shop Camomile Silky Cleansing Oil: Literally melts makeup off your face. No need to fuss with cotton pads and remover. Just rub into your makeup and wash off, perfect for when you come home from a night out. 

A Bioderma Dupe

So by now we all have heard that Garnier have released their Bioderma equivalent. But does it actually measure up? I was quite sceptical at first because whenever other brands release a new cleansing water competitor they never really hit the mark. Being either too greasy, having a funky smell, you get the drift. 

October Favourites 2013

I am a bit delayed as we are already nearly two weeks into November, but I did have A LOT of faves this month. It was my birthday and I did get a tiny bit spoilt which only enabled my makeup addiction (YAY!).

I said I had a lot of favourites, but I'm only gonna focus on skincare, because I want to go over the others in a bit more detail with swatches and things like that. 

Firstly, the L'oreal EverCreme Nourishing Leave In Spray saved my hair. I have quite thick hair and I haven't cut it in a while (hairdressers are scary), and it was starting to look very dry and dull. I used this after I shampooed and conditioned with the products of the same line and it is impressing stuff. It smells heavenly and left my hair feeling very smooth and looking shiny. It also made it much easier to blow dry and straighten. I would recommend being very light handed with this and combing it through your hair to avoid it weighing your hair down.

Origins is a brand I've wanted to try for ages and I'm so glad I started with these two. The Ginzing Moisturiser is really light, hydrating and sinks in really fast and makes my skin glow. The High Potency Night-A-Mins has a super cute name and feels great when you use it at night. It's thicker than the Ginzing and leaves your skin so soft and refreshed when you wake up. They both smell like oranges which is awesome and they do exactly what they say on the tin. A little goes a long way with both.

Lastly, the Clarifying Clay Cleanser by Ren I'm also so glad I discovered. I use it at night and you can really feel it deeply cleansing the skin and getting rid of all the junk from the day. I wet my hands and take one pump of this and massage it into my skin for a minute or 2 and it has cleared my skin dramatically. It does smell like clay which I'm not overly fond of, but once you wash it off it goes away.

Bobbi's Makeup Bag Essentials

Surprisingly I haven't tried many products from Bobbi Brown even though I've had a few things on my makeup list for a while. Quite a few bloggers have included Bobbi Brown products in their favourites videos/posts so I headed to their online store to trim my list down (ever so slightly).

Bobbi's Makeup Bag Essentials, immediately caught my eye. This exclusive online set includes, Wild Rose Shimmer Brick, mini Face Blender Brush, Twilight Night Long-Wear Gel Eyeliner, mini Ultra Fine Eye Liner Brush, mini Extreme Party Mascara and Nude Rose Rich Lip Color. 
Let's also mention the amazing gifts with purchase - samples of Hydrating Face Cream, Soothing Cleansing Oil, Instant Long-Wear Makeup Remover, Hydrating Eye Cream and a clear makeup case. IMPRESSIVE.

I haven't tried the skin care bits yet, *slaps self* but the shimmer brick and gel eyeliner are my favourites of the bunch, I have been using them everyday since I got them. 

Maybelline 24hr Color Tattoo

If you read beauty blogs you will know that almost everyone who features the Maybelline 24hr Color Tattoo adores it, and of course I am no exception.

Amongst the drug store brands there really isn't a very high variety of cream eyeshadows. I have very oily lids so finding one that will stay on is a bit of a mission. And I believe it has ended.

This eyeshadow is the most long lasting shadow of tried in cream form. It comes on very opaque and I just use my fingers to apply it and it dries within about a minute. I had it on from 7 in the morning till around 11 in the evening and it still looked the same as when I put it on. YAY.

I got the shade 'Bad to the Bronze', it kind of looks smoked out when you apply it alone and that appeals to my laziness when I have an early start. 

Mood: impressed 

Bourjois 'Rose Cupcake'

Bourjois is soon becoming a favourite drug store brand of mine. Their 1 Seconde Nail Polsih comes in a cute little variety of colours and the brush is quite thick, so you get most of the nail in one careful sweep. 

I got the shade 'Rose Cupcake', it's much brighter on than it looks in the bottle, and they go on ridiculously smooth. 

They're on sale at Priceline at the moment for $9 and I'm not sure how long that lasts for so don't be crazy and get one.

MAC Palette Construction

If MAC is a brand that you have no interest in (are you sick?!) there's one thing they offer that has got to tickle your fancy, their Pro Palettes. 

They're just empty eyeshadow palettes that you can get in different sizes and you just pick shades you love that you can get in the refill pan or de-pot the ones you have and pop them in. They also do this with their blushes and it's such a cool idea because I find with most palettes I buy I tend to stick with some colours more than others. Problem averted.

I got the empty quad and to fill it 'Naked Lunch' and 'Sable'. They're really good everyday shades and go well together. However they're looking pretty lonely next to the empty spaces, and I've got my eye on a few (15, actually) shadows that I think will work well with the brown theme I've got going on. I can feel another trip to MAC in the near future.

I also bought a paint pot in 'Painterly' as a base, and a travel sized Fix+, which I have no idea how to use so if you have any idea please let me know.

The Makeup #1

Who else gets excited when you find makeup that you've forgotten about? 

Uh, everyone!

This MAC eyeshadow in 'Banshee' was limited edition (found on eBay) and is a dirty pink/brown shade. It is a lustre finish so that means lots of shimmer. 
I packed that all over my lids and blended with my beloved 'Teddy' eyeliner on the top lash line and outer corners of my bottom water line. 

Next I applied a lot of Mega Plush mascara and to finish the look, I applied Nars satin lip pencil in 'Rikugien' which is one of the easiest shades to wear and enhances your natural lip colour. 

Bourjois Lip Crayons

I've never bought anything from Bourjois before or had any interest in it but the cuteness of these lipsticks drew me in and I had to try them. 

I love a good crayon-like lip product because they're easy to apply and you can just chuck them in your bag and touch up on the go. These Color Boost Lip Crayons are so smooth, feel amazing on the lips and have a really nice glossy finish. They come in four shades, Peach on the Beach, Orange Punch, Fuchsia Libre and Red Sunrise (which was sold out so I'll have to go searching for it), and are SPF 15. The colour pay off on these are way too impressive especially for a crayon, and last for ages.

Fuchsia Libre is definitely my favourite and I think they'll be really good in summer when your'e taking your makeup from a day to night look.

Bioderma + Hydraluron

Most of the time I'm a little late to jump on the bandwagon with skin products. My skins very temperamental. I had bad acne throughout high school and now it's quite oily and I have a bit of scarring (like the acne wasn't bad enough right?!). Before I use something that's getting heaps of praise I do my research, check the ingredients and of course check that it's been beauty blogger approved.

Almost everyone in the beauty world has a bottle of Bioderma Crealine H20 Solution in their makeup kits. I was using makeup wipes to remove my makeup at night and I was always left with panda eyes in the morning. Bioderma gets rid of every trace of stubborn mascara which I LOVE and all the makeup on your face. I just dampen a cotton wool pad with it a wipe all over my face before cleansing.
Hopefully I'll be able to find a bigger bottle of the stuff.

The Hydraluron from Indeed Labs is the best skincare product I've ever used, hands down, ever! It's a serum which maximises your skins ability to retain moisture. It does EXACTLY what it says on the bottle and it works instantly. I've only been using this for the past four days and I'm hooked! My makeup lasts so much longer throughout the day and I hardly get shiny in my t-zone like I did before. 
Everyone of every age should be using this product. Everyday, until you die. 

Dr Bronner's Magic Soap

Every week or so I like to give my brushes a really deep clean. Up until last week I was using just a normal facial cleanser when I took them to the bathroom sink spa. 

It did an okay job but I wasn't really 100% happy with it so after hearing about the Dr Bronner's Magic Soap I decided to try it. There are a few different ones, I picked up 'baby mild'.

What I do is wet my hand with warm water, put a small 5 cent piece amount in my palm, and swish my brush in it until all the makeup is gone. Then I rinse my brush under the tap with the handle facing down. This is really important because if your brush faces upward it allows the water to go inside, and will cause the hairs to loosen and shed. I always squeeze the excess water out, and lay them flat over a bench to dry overnight. I also reshape them while they're damp. 

The magic soap makes brush cleaning so easy, and is also good for people who have allergies or sensitive skin (and of course babies) as it's unscented and organic.

August Favourites

Here are the products that I have been using religiously this month.

Firstly, the Hello Flawless Oxygen Wow foundation by Benefit. This is so easy to blend and can definitely be built up to get the coverage you want and never sticks to my dry patches, WIN. 

The Mega Plush Volume Express Mascara from Maybelline. I LOVE Maybelline mascaras so much, I always recommend them over any high end mascara. I love this one in particular because there is less wax in the formula and it has quite a large brush, it works so well in giving me long thick lashes without having them stick together. The Shu Uemura curler is the best I've used. With curlers its always good to splurge, cheaper ones don't really do the trick.

From Nars I've been using three products almost everyday since I got them. Blush in 'Deep Throat', bronzer in 'Laguna' and the Radiant Creamy Concealer. Every time I use the blush and bronzer together they give me such a subtle, fresh look that's every day appropriate, and the concealer just brightens up my i-had-four-hours-sleep circles under my eyes and lasts ages.

MAC's fluidline in 'Blacktrack', I've had this for a while but when I first got it I was applying it with a small angled brush because I heard it was easier to achieve a winged liner. It was a bit awkward to use so I put it aside, then this month I tried it with a pointed liner brush and it worked SO much better. I'm not so scared of gel liners anymore. 

Finally, Chanel's lip colour in 'Rendez-Vous', so smooth and a great peachy-pinky-coral shade for summer. Even though it's not technically summer in Sydney. 

Hope you guys enjoyed my August favourites x

MAC Haul

As I've been reading more and more beauty blogs these last few weeks, my list of MAC products grows rapidly.

I ordered some things from the online store in a moment of weakness and the rest I went and picked up a day later because patience is not a quality I possess.

My online order included the 'Teddy' eye khol pencil, which is a beautiful bronze shade, a pencil sharpener (to go with my pencil, duh), lipstick in 'Lustering' and my favourite by far the Illustrated by Rebecca Moses face kit in brown.

If you're a MAC lover like myself and you live in Aus you of course know that all their products cost double than what they do overseas. So you can imagine my excitement when I saw this palette, which contains a blush (Melba), four eyeshadows (Orb, All That Glitters, Smoked Sepia, Showstopper), two lipsticks (Ravishing, Myth) and a double sided brush. If i were to buy all these products separately it would have left my poor uni arse living on 2 minute noodles and crackers for a week, so this was a pretty BIG bargain. Highly recommended.

The other products I got in store were the 'Mythology' eyeshadow, blush in 'Blushbaby' and the '217' brush which I haven't tried yet but I'm sure it will be AHMAZING.

My list is still longer than the river Nile I can assure you.