June Favourites 2014

Real Techniques Miracle Complexion Sponge / I've always been a fan of dense synthetic brushes to apply my foundation, so I was really surprised when I tried out this makeup sponge and ended up loving it! It applies my foundation so smoothly and evenly and I find application is quicker when I use this too! If you haven't tried this sponge you need to! (Review)

L'Oreal Ideal Moisture Day Lotion for Normal Skin SPF 25 / For the summer I wanted to get a new daily facial moisturizer that had an SPF. The foundation I often use (Covergirl 3 in 1) has SPF 20 but I wanted the added sun protection of a moisturizer as well. I picked this one up on a whim and I'm really enjoying it. It doesn't affect the wear time or application of my foundation on top of it and my face hasn't gotten sunburnt at all since buying it, so it must be working!

MAC Extra Dimension Eye Shadow in Lorelei / This eyeshadow has been perfect for creating beautiful golden summery eye looks. It's such a beautiful peachy gold shadow, and the packaging is amazing too! (Review)

Essie Too Taboo / I bought this nail polish this month and it has been on my toes since. It's such a perfect pedicure colour! It's a beautiful bright purpley-pink that is unlike anything else in my nail polish collection and I absolutely love it!

The Body Shop Honey Bronze Bronzing Powder in 01 Light Matte / This is the star of this post in my eyes. I bought this bronzer when I saw it was on sale for 50% off at The Body Shop after wanting to try it for a while. I am so, so glad to finally have this bronzer in my life. It is by far my favourite bronzer I've ever used. It's so smooth and applies and blends so nicely. It's also the perfect light shade for my fair complexion! If you're a pale girl like myself you need to try this bronzer!!

MAC Blush in Cheeky Bugger / I picked up this blush from the MAC Osbournes collection that was released this month and it has pretty much been my daily blush since! It's a beautiful peachy shade that goes so well with any makeup look. (Swatches)

Wet n Wild Mega Last Lipstick in Just Peachy / I've owned this lipstick for a while and for some reason I had it in my mind that I didn't like how it looked on me so I never ever wore it. Well I pulled it out again this month and I've been loving it! It's a matte peach that works great with most eye looks! These lipsticks are so long-wearing too!

Maybelline Instant Age Rewind Concealer / I finally gave into the hype and picked up this concealer. I've been using it for a couple of months and I'm enjoying it! It's not too heavy of a concealer for the under eye area which is nice. I don't have too bad of dark circles so this does a good job concealing the little bit of darkness I have under my eyes.

Urban Decay Ink For Eyes Liquid Eyeliner Pen in Perversion / My Stila Stay All Day liquid liner was running low so I picked up this liner a few months ago. It took me a while to get used to it but I have really been enjoying it! Application is really easy and it's super black! I can really easily create winged liner with this too, which I do daily. It's really long wearing and doesn't fade or smudge at all throughout the day!

The Fault In Our Stars / This is a little honourable mention/non-beauty favourite that I had to throw in here. TFIOS has been my favourite book since I first read it when it was released in 2012 and the movie came out this month!! I saw the movie the night before at a 'The Night Before Our Stars' event and it was so, so good. I've seen the movie 2 more times since then and I can't get over how great the movie is. If you haven't read the book - read it; and if you haven't seen the movie - see it!

What were some of your favourite products this month? Let me know in the comments!

Stila Stay All Day Liquid Lipsticks + The New Black Glimmer Twins Duo

A couple of weeks ago I got an email from the FLARE Magazine email list and inside included a $50 gift card for The Shopping Channel website! I thought there must be some sort of catch but after browsing the site, filling my cart, and entering the coupon code, my grand total went from $48.24 to $0.00! I thought I'd share with you all what I ordered!

I got a nail polish duo from The New Black called Glimmer Twins in the Black Ice shade and it included a black cream polish and a silver glitter in a black base. I applied 2 coats of each polish in the swatches abover, and in the third swatch I applied 1 coat of the glitter over 2 coats of the black cream!

Now, for the thing I was really excited about! On the website they were selling a set of 2 full-size Stila Stay All Day Liquid Lipsticks for only $39.99 (they retail for $29.00/ea.)! It came with the shades Bellissima, a pale nude peachy pink, and Beso, a true bright red. These apply with a doe-foot applicator and set to a completely matte finish. I'm a big fan of matte lips and I'm loving these so far! They remind me a lot of the NYX Soft Matte Lip Creams (which I love) and they have a similar sweet scent to them too! Also, as their name states, they're super long wearing which makes them even better!

Love & Beauty Forever 21 Sun Kissed Eye Palette

In a recent order from Forever 21's website I decided to order one of their eye shadow palettes simply just because I was curious to see how good quality they would be. I ordered the Sun Kissed palette for only $7.80 which is such a great bargain for a palette. The palette is in cardboard packaging and has magnetic closure. It also has a mirror inside. The palette is almost identical in shape/size to Stila's In The Moment palette.

The palette includes 10 shimmery neutral eye shadows. There's a good range of shades in this palette with light to dark colours as well as warm and cool toned neutrals. When I swatched them I was so pleasantly surprised! I swatched them over no primer or base and they all swatched beautifully. Some were a little powdery but overall I was super impressed! They all applied very smoothly and were very nicely pigmented. There wasn't really a dud shade in the palette! The only thing I wish this palette had were a couple of matte shades. But I have plenty of matte shadows in my collection that I can wear with this palette to create more contrast in texture. 

If you're on a budget and looking for a new neutral summer palette I'd really suggest checking this one out!

Real Techniques Miracle Complexion Sponge Review

So I finally got my hands on the Real Techniques Miracle Complexion Sponge! I love the few brushes I have from Real Techniques and after hearing a few rave reviews of this sponge I thought I'd try it out! Real Techniques now offers international shipping on their website and shipping for this sponge was under $2 which was really great. This sponge is similar to other beauty sponges in that you dampen them, they grow in size, and then you use them to apply your foundation or other cream/liquid products. I've never tried the Beauty Blender, but I have tried various cheap "knock-offs" of it but have never been super impressed.

This sponge is much softer than other sponges I have tried in the past. I used the flat side to pick up and apply foundation all over my skin and used the pointed corner to get the foundation into harder to reach areas. I then used the flat edge again to blend out my under eye concealer and it worked beautifully. This sponge gives me a lighter application of foundation than what my usual buffing brush would, but I found to really like that for the hot summer weather lately. It feels nice to have a more lightweight feel on my face but the coverage is still there!

Overall if you're looking to try out a makeup sponge but don't want to spend $20+ on a Beauty Blender I'd highly recommend trying this one out! You can get it for $6 on the Real Techniques website!

MAC Osbournes Haul and Swatches!

Today the MAC Osbournes collection is in stores! I went to my MAC counter first thing in the morning to check it out and picked up a few things!

I got the lipstick from Kelly's side of the collection in the shade Kelly Yum Yum. It's a satin finish bright blue-based pink. I don't own Candy Yum Yum from MAC so I thought I'd pick this one up! This is less matte and slightly less bright than Candy Yum Yum.

The other things I got from the collection were the blushes! I got the Kelly blush in Cheeky Bugger and the Sharon blush in Peaches and Cream. Both blushes are a satin finish. Cheeky Bugger is a soft peach and Peaches and Cream is a medium peachy pink. Both shades are really soft and pigmented.

I haven't tested these products for wear yet but they all swatched beautifully and I can't wait to try them out! Let me know in the comments if you got anything from the MAC Osbournes collection!

eBay Synthetic Kabuki 10 Piece Brush Set Review

A few weeks ago I got this 10-piece synthetic kabuki brush set in the mail from eBay. The set cost me around $12 with free shipping which is a great bargain. Since it was from eBay, however, it took quite a while to get to me. But since shipping was free I didn't mind so much.

To others in the beauty community I'm sure these brushes look quite familiar. They're basically knock-offs for the Sigma Sigmax Kabuki line. I have one brush from the Sigma line, the F80, and I love it, so I wanted to try these out to see how they compare!

The first 5 brushes in the line are larger face brushes. So far I've used these for foundation and they're fantastic. The only one I haven't used for foundation is the 2nd brush here, the pointed one, which I have been using to blend out larger areas of concealer. The other 4 brushes all work great for foundation though! They aren't as dense as the Sigma brush I own, but they still work wonderfully. I don't find them making my foundation apply streaky or uneven. I have seen 1 or 2 hairs shed, but over the course of a couple of weeks of testing that's not too bad. My favourite of these 5 would probably be the 5th brush shown here, the angled brush with slight tapering at the top. It makes applying foundation so quick and easy.

The other 5 brushes in the set are these smaller brushes. Each of these smaller brushes are in a style similar to their larger counterparts (like the Sigma Sigmax line). When I received them in the mail, one of these brushes was really loose and the ferrule popped off the handle basically right away. It won't be a problem to glue back on though. So far I've tested these brushes for a variety of things. I've used them to blend out concealer, to apply cream eye shadows, to blend out cream shadow pencils, to set my under eye concealer with powder, and even to apply translucent powder over a lipstick to give it a matte look. Overall I'm pretty impressed with these brushes. The only downfall is that these ones are a little flimsy since they're not very dense. That's good for a lighter application of some products, but it can be hard to get concentrated products on an area if that's what you're looking for.

Overall I'm happy with these brushes and I would recommend them to anyone looking to get some synthetic brushes. I do prefer the larger face brushes over the small ones, but I'll still continue using the small ones I'm sure. These aren't as high quality as the Sigma brushes, but they are a really good alternative if you're looking to try something similar for a lower price. These brushes are also incredibly soft, and not rough whatsoever! They all hold their shape really well after washing them as well.

If you're interested, you can find these makeup brushes on eBay here!

What beauty products have you tried from eBay? What was your experience like?

May Favourites 2014

Marc Anthony Healing Macadamia Oil Body Butter / This month I've been using this body butter nearly every day. It's really moisturizing and also smells amazing.

Minicci Necklace / I got this necklace from Payless this month and I've been loving wearing it. I wear a lot of black and white so I love the colour this adds to an outfit. It's not too heavy of a necklace either so I can wear it all day without it bothering me. I really want to get a couple more statement necklaces like this for summer!

Tarte Lights, Camera, Lashes! Mascara / I got this mascara as a 100 point gift from Sephora this month and I've been loving it. I've pretty much only ever used drugstore mascaras (besides the odd sample here and there) but I'm seriously considering buying this mascara when I'm out of this sample. It makes my lashes so long and volumized!

LUSH Grease Lightning / I picked this up about a month ago and I've been using it almost every night this month as a spot treatment on blemishes. It helps clear them up and I like knowing there's no harsh chemicals in this product. It pumps out as a clear gel and I just dab it over any problem areas after washing my face at night!

NYX Mauve Blush / I'm a big fan of the NYX blushes and I picked up a new one this month! Mauve is a soft warm pink with a matte finish. It's such a lovely everyday shade that works with any look. It's also very nicely pigmented and lasts all day!

Marc Jacobs Honey Perfume / I got such a great deal on this perfume this month. I found it at Costco for only $50, when at Sephora this size of the fragrance retails for over $100! It has notes of pear, juicy mandarin, orange blossom, peach nectar, apricot, honeysuckle, honey, golden vanilla, and smooth woods. It's such a nice, fresh and fruity fragrace that is so perfect for the summery weather we've been having lately. And the bottle is too cute!

eBay Angled Synthetic Brush / I got some brushes from eBay in the mail this month and they're basically knock-offs of the Sigma Sigmax line. I'll be posting a full review on them but I've been really loving this angled synthetic brush for my foundation! It blends the foundation into my skin really smoothly and easily and makes applying my foundation quite fast!

MAC Mangrove Lipstick / I have completely fallen in love with this lipstick. I was never an orange lipstick person before this lovely tube came into my life but now I'm obsessed. This is such a beautiful matte orange-red. I feel like this lipstick really suits my complexion which I was surprised by! It also stays on for hours and hours. (Review)

Essie First Timer / I got this nail polish last spring but I wore it again this month and I had forgotten how much I love this polish! The polish is such a unique and beautiful colour. It applies smoothly and opaque in 2 coats and lasts quite well without chipping.

Urban Outfitters Dreamy / This nail polish is a beautiful powder blue/periwinkle polish with a very slight silver shimmer throughout it. I love periwinkle shades for nails and this is no exception! It did chip fairly quickly but I don't mind painting my nails often anyway.

Rx7 25mm Curling Wand / I got this curling wand for my 19th birthday (hauled here) but over the past couple of years I was only using it maybe 2-3 times a year. I used to be really slow at curling my hair but this month I've been experimenting some more with it and I've started curling it quicker by doing larger sections. Now I curl my hair a couple times a week and I love how it looks! You can see some pictures of my curled hair on my instagram!

What were some of your favourite products this month? Let me know below!