New to the Handbag

Hand cream is one of those few products that when I put them in my bag or on my bedside table, I forget to use them. However, this offering from Grown ensures I will never do such things again.

This is such a beautiful hand cream to use. it smells ahh-mazing and sinks in to the skin fairly quickly so you avoid problems such as your iPhone slipping out of your hands post application. I've also used it on other areas of dry skin and grazes and it smoothed those out instantly, I love a good multi purpose cream and this ticks all the boxes.

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.

Essie Chinchilly

During the week I head to Priceline  to look for new products to feature on my blog. It's conveniently close to where I work which I'm starting to realise is a bit dangerous for me. 

The other day as I was searching through the aisles on my beauty mission, I almost peed my pants with excitement when I noticed a stand full of brand new Essie nail polishes. 

Finally! After I calmed myself down I was looking through and they ALL looked cute but I opted for 'Chinchilly'. It's sort of like a deep grey/mauve/purpley colour thats looks a bit different in certain lights. It's very sophisticated and a nice change from my usual pink-red-black rotation. 

They're not available to buy online yet so if you've got some spare time, I'd recommend going into a store and having a look.

Now the question remains: exactly how many of these will I accumulate before the years end?

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

Product Exile

I'm always keen to try new primers or any product that claims it will make my makeup last for long periods of time. So you can imagine my excitement when I had discovered that Benefit had come out with their new Stay Flawless 15- hour Primer. I'm HUGE fan of Benefit cosmetics, their cute packaging sucks me in more times than I'd care to admit, and I'm an avid user of the Porefessional as you could have guessed. 

So, long story short I have exiled this product straight out of my beauty bag for several reasons:

1. It's glue-stick application form makes it harder to get product in the smaller bits of your face like under eyes and around nose etc.

2. Once I put it on my skin it felt extremely tacky which I did not like

3. I like to tap my foundation on with a brush then blend outwards, this primer was so sticky that I couldn't blend much at all and left my whole face very blotchy

And lastly after much struggle, I realised there was nothing I could do to save my makeup and had to take it all off and start again. 

I've read a lot of reviews on this before and after I tried it and the general consensus is that its working for every other woman out there, so why not me?!

What do you think of Stay Flawless?