the favorites | september 2014

Hello, beautiful people! Long time, no blog!

I'm a bit late this time for favorites, but I thought I'd kick off October with a collection of things that I've enjoyed using for the past month.

makeup

I made a rediscovery this month in the Naked Basics palette from Urban Decay. This is exactly what it sounds like, a perfectly neutral palette with five matte shades and one satin highlight. Walk of Shame and Naked2 are my personal favorites; I'd be perfectly happy if Urban Decay released a duo of just those shades.

Another rediscovery has been my Make Up For Ever Full Cover concealer in Pink Porcelain. I use it primarily as a spot concealer, and it works brilliantly for that. Plus, on days when I want the lightest base possible, it blends out beautifully.

I've played with brows more this month after a triumphant location of my Anastasia Brow Wiz in Taupe, which I thought I'd lost in May. I don't fill in my brows all that often as they're pretty full as is, but this helps me out when I do.

Finally, new in this month are the LORAC Pro palette and Darling Girl Glitter Glue. The former I got to treat myself after a particularly thorough destash when a 20% off code was available; the latter I got to help my indie shadows stay on my lids. Both have been quality investments so far: the LORAC shadows are richly pigmented and blend very nicely, and the Glitter Glue has actually convinced Mother of Dragons to stick around for longer than an hour. I'm very impressed with both of these items and expect to get plenty of use out of them.

fashion

I don't know the brand of my adorable bunny watch, but I wanted to share it anyway. My roommate got it for me over the summer as I love bunnies and am notorious for my tardiness. This little guy hops around on my wrist about every other day, and I love it!

tea

My lovely roommate introduced me to Zhena's Red Lavender tisane at the beginning of the month, and I am so grateful for that. As the name suggests, it's a blend of rooibos and lavender, which when combined provide a cup of relaxing antioxidants. It's lightly sweet on its own, but it also goes well with a tiny bit of raw sugar. I can't recommend this enough and will buy my own canister when I see it in stores.

What were your favorites during September?

the rediscovery | bourjois color boost lip crayon

For those of us who love beauty in the United States, we have it pretty good. Prices here are relatively low, and we have a truly overwhelming variety of products available to us.

There are a few brands, though, that are much harder to find in the States that our friends across the pond can find in every Boots and Superdrug around. Among these covetable brands is Bourjois, one of my favorite drugstore brands that I finally got to play with when I studied abroad last fall. While I was living in the United Kingdom, Bourjois's Color Boost lip crayons took the high street by storm: just about every beauty blogger was featuring them, and nary a negative review was to be found.

I ended up buying one of every shade except Orange Punch throughout my time in England, although I've given away or had to throw away all but one of them: Red Sunrise. A lovely sheer-medium red with pink undertones, it's a no-fuss balmy lipstick in the vein of your typical chubby stick. I have to be careful while eating with it on, but it fades beautifully, and it feels comfortable on the lips. It doesn't last for ten hours on me as the long-faded packaging would claim, but it does last well with only minor touchups needed if I eat or drink a lot of tea.

If you live in the States, these babies will cost you about the same as a lipstick (before shipping, that is), and I think they're worth it. I heartily recommend these if you're interested in a comfortable, balmy lip color that's fairly easy to maintain.

the collection | pencil eyeliner

Top to bottom: Cynthia Rowley Beauty Silver, Rimmel Nude, M.A.C. Coffee, Urban Decay Perversion, Urban Decay Ransom, Urban Decay Mushroom.

Left to right (once swiped, once smudged): M.A.C. Coffee, Rimmel Nude, Cynthia Rowley Beauty Silver, Urban Decay Ransom, Urban Decay Mushroom, Urban Decay Perversion.

Oddly enough, pencil eyeliner is one of the things that has taken me the longest time to master when it comes to makeup. I first learned gel eyeliner and was very content with it, but I felt the need to branch out a few years ago, and here we are now.

I have swatched all the pencil eyeliners I own in the above photo. Each swatch is one pass using the same pressure I would on my eyelid. In every second swatch, I have smudged the liner by stroking each swatch three times with my fingertip.

As you can see, half of my pencils are Urban Decay 24/7 Glide-On pencils. I love the creaminess of their formulas, and they make some of the most unique shades. Sadly, Ransom has been discontinued, but there are plenty other options to satisfy your purple cravings. Mushroom is my favorite shade: I have a thing for unique taupes. It sounds like an oxymoron, but it adds just enough subtle definition to rock. Its only downside is that it smudges rather sheerly, so it needs a little more layering than, say, Perversion, which is blacker than the dark of ages past.

My two least used eyeliners of the bunch are the Rimmel Scandaleyes Waterproof Kohl Kajal in Nude and the Cynthia Rowley Beauty eyeliner in Silver. I bought the Rimmel liner for my waterline on sleepy days, but I can't stand tightlining, so it was a waste of $3. It is a nice formula, but the shade isn't even that great for me: it looks orange on me. If you like brightening up your waterline, though, this could be the product for you—you could even use it as concealer in a pinch if it's close to your skintone. As for Cynthia Rowley's lovely Silver, I simply don't have much need of that shade. I received it in a Birchbox a couple of months ago, but I haven't used it other than swatching it admiringly. It really is gorgeous, though: whenever I decide to use it, I'm sure that I'll love it.

Finally, the pencil that really started my foray into flick-less liner: M.A.C. Coffee pencil. I'm quite a fan of Tanya Burr, and I love the look that Jim gave her in one of her "My Boyfriend Does My Makeup" videos, which included this pencil. Tanya raves about it pretty consistently, so I decided to try it out. At first, I was taken aback by its stiffer texture, but it seems to have aged rather well in the year I've had it. As you can see, it smudges rather well. If I want to use eyeliner but I don't want a cat eye, I run this along my lashline and smudge it out with a pencil brush. It's a great standard liner, but I may try Demolition from Urban Decay once I'm out of this.

Which pencil formulations are your favorite? Do you prefer pencil, liquid, or gel?

the (belated) weekend manicure | sugar dune

In a continuing theme of spring polishes in summer, this week I'm wearing the indescribable Tom Ford nail polish in Sugar Dune. Like Blue Orchid, this shade came out in this past spring collection, which is why its cap is white as opposed to Tom Ford's usual black.

As you might expect, this is by far the most expensive nail polish I currently and likely ever will own. For the price, I'd expect more from the formula: it takes three coats to reach opacity, and it doesn't always apply smoothly. The brush is decent but unremarkable—again, a pity in a $32 polish. OPI has better brushes for a quarter of the price.

Where this polish truly distinguishes itself, however, is in its shade. It's a pale, creamy pink-toned beige that has tied with Nails Inc. Gel Effect in Porchester Square as my favorite neutral nail polish. It goes with just about anything I wear—not that I'd let that stop me—and it lasts a respectable amount of time.

Will I ever purchase another polish this expensive? I think not.

Will I use this one up? Almost certainly.

the skincare | clinique take the day off cleansing balm

Is there anything more satisfying than no-faff skincare that actually works?

When it comes to beauty, I think not.

Enter the Clinique Take the Day Off cleansing balm, a product that I found due to none other than the great Caroline Hirons herself. Mrs. H is an industry veteran: she knows her stuff, and she shares her no-nonsense approach to skincare at her treasure trove of a blog.

Pictured above is actually my second consecutive container of this balm. Using it looks like a pain at first glance, but it's really as simple as swiping the surface of the cleanser and treating yourself to a facial massage. I take the cleanser itself off with a hot washcloth, but I know some, like Tanya Burr, prefer to emulsify the balm into a milk before removing it.

Since using this to remove my makeup, I've found fewer lower-lashline smudges in the morning, and my skin seems to like this remarkably inoffensive cleanser. It's admittedly not too easy to pack, but I can see myself repurchasing this for years to come.

A true holy grail cleanser? Sounds good to me.

the collection | blush

Clockwise from top right: Tarte Cheek Stain in Flush, Bobbi Brown blush in Desert Pink, NARS blush in Deep Throat, Jouer Tint in Peony, Tarte Amazonian Clay blush in Amused, Josie Maran Coconut Watercolor Cheek Gelée, Bourjois Blush Exclusif.

Mistinguette can be found in the middle of the top row. Deep Throat is directly underneath it.

Left to right: Bourjois Blush Exclusif, Tarte Cheek Stain in Flush, Josie Maran Coconut Watercolor Cheek Gelée in Poppy Paradise, Jouer Tint in Peony, Tarte Amazonian Clay blush in Amused, Bobbi Brown blush in Desert Pink, NARS blushes in Deep Throat and Mistinguette.

I was a bit of a late bloomer when it came to makeup. When I finally learned to apply it, blush was among my first purchases. In fact, I still own that blush over six years later: the Bobbi Brown blush in Desert Pink. I've worn it off and on again since then, but my taste in blush has gravitated toward lighter, brighter pinks since then.

Cream blushes are my true loves when it comes to adding a bit of a flush. I'm naturally quite redness-prone, so a little goes a long way, and I find that creams look the most natural. The Jouer Tint in Peony is a classically creamy formula, intended for both lips and cheeks, although I tend to reserve it for the latter. My one cream-to-powder option—a formula that I don't like as well as a traditional cream—is the Bourjois Blush Exclusif. I got caught up in the hype surrounding the Bourjois cream blushes, but when I finally got to the UK, none of the shades seemed to suit me. Fortunately, this came out around that time. It supposedly adjusts to your unique skintone—hence its name—but I suspect it just responds to the skin's pH. Nevertheless, it is indeed a bright, pretty pink that travels well. You can see that I've hit pan both on it and the Jouer Tint.

The Josie Maran Coconut Watercolor Cheek Gelée in Poppy Paradise has a formula unlike anything I've experienced before. It's a bright but sheer gel with a nearly balmy texture that feels cooling on the skin, a welcome sensation in this summer heat. Similarly, the Tarte Cheek Stain in Flush—which is a sample size, by the way—looks like an intense berry in the tube but sheers out to one of the lightest shades in my collection. It's not my favorite, but I like Tarte as a brand and was more than happy to exchange Sephora points to try another product of theirs.

Aside from the aforementioned long-lived Bobbi Brown option, the three other powder options that I use are the NARS blushes in Deep Throat and Mistinguette from this past Christmas's controversial One Night Stand palette and the Tarte Amazonian Clay 12-Hour Blush in the apparently now-discontinued shade Amused. Deep Throat is the only shimmery blush I use, and Mistinguette is the only shade I've used from its palette as I simply haven't yet tried the other shades and resisted swatching them as they hadn't yet graced my face. Amused, as you can see is by far the most pigmented blush I use, but when used with a light hand, it lasts very well on me.

So, there you have it: you've got me blushing in pinks of varying shades and undertones.