I gave up doing blog posts favourites very early in 2015, but I’ve found I actually enjoy filming them as a video!
What I Bought This Month – February 2016 Haul
Monthly haul time! Enjoy. đ
Let’s start off with the only item I actually BOUGHT this month! Inglot‘s Duraline was a must have for me since my Inglot red gel liner turned gloppy on me. Duraline will soften up gel liners that have gone a little bit stale (or any other cream product). I’ve put off buying it for a while now, but when my red gel liner died, I knew it was time to invest. đ
So, that may have been the only item I bought this month, but I am very, very lucky to have a ton of beauty blogging friend in Toronto and we do swaps every few months. It gives me a chance to get rid of product that don’t work for me, and pick up ones that could potentially be love at first sight. So here’s the goodies I got from a swap:
I realize these are empty Inglot palettes, but I am SO excited for that! I love Inglot‘s system of palettes, and I think the packaging is beautiful, but it annoys me to buy packaging every time I go to buy shadows. Now I’ve got three empty palettes I can fill with beautiful colours!
I do not need shower gel. At all. And yet, I always grab for it when I see it at a swap. Why? Maybe because I always considered shower gel as so unnecessarily expensive in stores that I really don’t want to pay for it again any time soon. I love shower gel, and this smells wonderful, but it’s gone to the back of my “to use” pile of shower gels. I’m sure I’ll get to it… at some point. lol
One of my favourite YouTubers (StrwberrySweet – mostly does Project Pans) panned one of these Josie Maran Argan Infinity Creamy Lip & Cheek Oil relatively recently, and I wanted to see what they were all about. My initial reaction is that I’m not super keen on the scent of them, but that it wore well and looked good!
This Boscia Intensifying Moisture Pack + is sitting in my medicine cabinet and while I’m writing this up I realize I haven’t even got a clue as to whether this is a facial cleanser or a moisturizer. Heh.
I’ve harped on about my problems with eyeshadow primers before so I won’t bore you with the details other than to say I love trying new ones. Benefit‘s Air Patrol is adorable looking and I’m excited to see how this one holds up!
I love Aveeno‘s skincare products and I’ve been using them for the last… 14 years. Eek. Anyway, I haven’t tried out their Fresh Essentials range so I’m looking forward to using this one.
More shower gel! I got sucked in by the scent of Vitabath‘s Sweet Pink Peppermint – it’s more of a Christmasy scent, so I’ll probably bust it out in November.
MWAHAHAHAH!!!!! The Body Shop‘s Satsuma scent has been one of my favourite scents throughout my entire life and yet… my husband doesn’t like the scent of it. I haven’t repurchased it since I used my last big tub up of the body butter… but now I have another one. đ
NYC‘s Liquid Liner has been touted as one of the best matte black liquid liners at the drugstore and I hadn’t gotten around to picking it up! Initial reaction: DEFINITELY matte, DEFINITELY black… but I’m not in love with the way the tip of the brush is cut. Hmmm… maybe I’ll just cut it myself.
No one wanted this Misslyn nail polish in 756… which was great for me since I wear this kind of silver disco polish on my toenails 24/7 so picked this one up since I’ve never tried a Misslyn polish before.
I know NOTHING about this B Kamins brand… but the body lotion says “Maple” on it. It, however, smells nothing like maple, so I was totally duped. đ
/GASP
I couldn’t believe someone brought this to the swap. I had lusted over this Galaxy Chic palette years ago when BH Cosmetics released it, but never bought it because like everything else in the makeup world… you become so inundated with products you end up buying some, and not others. The colours, the marbling, the names of the colours… everything about this palette makes me so, SO happy. I’ve used it twice now and love the shadows. Not a matte in sight though, so it’s not a standalone palette.
A new mascara for me to try out: The Maybelline Lash Sensational. I’ve still got a lot of mascara left in my currently opened tubes, so it’ll be a while before I bust into this one.
I’m not too familiar with Etude House‘s makeup, so I was excited to see a few items by them. This is essentially one of those matte lipstick crayons. I like it, but I don’t love it.
Not tried this one yet… this is by Etude House as well and I think it’s just for lips.. but may be for cheeks as well. It’s still sitting in my “To Use” pile!
Oh wow. Okay… I had heard about Coloured Rained via NikkieTutorials on YouTube, but never bought any. BUT THIS IS AMAZING! IT’s nowhere near as drying as the Colour Pop liquid lipsticks – instead this one is so much more comfortable on me lips. I may need more…
Unfortunately, Clio‘s Lipnicure was a straight “into the garbage” item. It applied patchily and then just really poorly. To the point where I removed it mid-day at work and it was a disaster to remove. I threw it straight into the trash. đ
This one astonished me. Too Faced‘s Loganberry La Creme lipstick was discontinued about a year ago and I was never able to get my hands on it. Imagine my surprise that someone would want to get rid of it! YESSSS!
A face mask via THEFACESHOP. This’ll be my first time using anything by THEFACESHOP.
A brow kit from Annabelle that has turned out to be wayyy too dark for me, but it has worked when I need to darken up my eyebrows to look more like someone else (see my The 100 Wanheda/Clarke tutorial).
Another Annabelle brow product! Brow Show is light enough for me so this has actually been working out and it’s really easy to use. Not enjoying the huge size of the pencil, but the product is nice!
And we’re done! I’m doing pretty well conserving my money for IMATS New York, and these swaps are definitely helping me to keep products rotating in and out of my collection1
Swatch Sunday: LORAC Mega Pro 2
WOW. This was a palette and a half to swatch and edit! There’s 32 freaking colours in the LORAC Mega Pro 2! I got this palette in December as a gift from my mother-in-law (via Ulta since we were in Wisconsin at the time) and I’ve been playing around with it ever since. Enjoy the swatches!
LORAC Mega Pro 2 Swatches
Skincare Saturday: Mary Kay Into The Garden Foot Scrub
So, as I was sitting down to write this post and make sure I had the details right for it, I realized I was actually reviewing a foot scrub that’s part of a whole pedicure set (see that whole she-bang here). Â But it was the foot scrub that really wowed me, so I’m talking about that aspect of the set!
This is Mary Kay‘s limited edition spring 2016 Into The Garden Foot Scrub. And it’s truly like any other foot scrub – it has a thick creamy texture with some medium sized particles in it that help to slough off dead skin. Realistically, this isn’t going to do much on my severely callused and roughed up feet (thank you soccer and long-distance running!), but it does FEEL really, really nice. Anyone with less roughed up feet than mine would find this is a scrub that works well because the beads are abrasive enough without being harmful. I found my feet felt weirdly polished. Not something I’ve ever felt before!
The part that really got me about the Into The Garden Foot Scrub is the scent of it. It’s not overpoweringly “I AM OLD WOMAN, HEAR ME ROAR” (aka smells like potpourri and cloying flowers) – instead, it smells like a fresh garden grove that leans more towards the scent of grass than it does flowers. And I LOVE that. I personally smell hints of mint and lime, but I can’t find a scent list for it, so that’s just a guess.
The Into The Garden Foot Scrub is actually part of Mary Kay‘s Pedicure Set which also contains foot fizzies, an emery board and toe separators and retails for $35 CAD.
The product featured in this post was sent to me for consideration.
Seek Inspiration in Strange Places
Admittedly, this post is actually a year out of date, but I still wanted to post it.
Allow me to explain. My boss at work wears funky socks. Last January (2015) I was inspired by his pink and green socks to wear the same colour eyeshadows the next day. I had this idea in my head to take photographs of his socks for five days in a row and try to do makeup inspired by them. Of course, the doofus then wore RIDICULOUS socks with like… 10 colours in each of them (obviously to annoy me since he knew I was going to do this) and that kind of killed my motivation.
BUT! I did create two looks based on his socks and I figured I’d share it even if it is a year out of date. In the end, I never managed to do all five looks, which is what put me off posting this in the last 13 months, but hey, let’s not waste the fact that I did find inspiration somewhere unique!
The sock that inspired it all. These pink and green socks inspired the following look:
I didn’t really care if the colours were bang on, I just liked the way the two colours worked together to create a striking contrast.
The next pair were a relatively straightforward inspiration:
I think mine looks naval, or something. The white from the socks didn’t translate as much onto my eyes (I tried for white eyeshadow but it got kind of lost.
I encourage you to find inspiration in a weird place and use it to your advantage!
Also, I’ve finally caved and am no longer just stalking YouTubers on Snapchat. Find me here:
