May Favorites
How are we already making our way into June? I feel like March was just yesterday!! May was such a crazy month. I had so much going on from family events to wedding planning, I could barely keep up with everything. I’ve had some pretty busy months, but this was definitely one of the biggest! As much as I love relaxing, though, I also love having such a busy schedule. And with a busy schedule comes many days to get ready, which means I got a lot of play time with my makeup. So I have many things to share with you including many randoms items and one fail product.
My first and most favorite thing to share from this month is our engagement pictures! I shared a few in my recent Setting the Wedding post and I still cannot stop looking at them. I’m seriously so in love. Our photographer, Tim Sewell with Phocus Photography, did such an amazing job! It was so sunny on the beach that day, but the pictures came out beautiful. This is one of my favorites out of the bunch because it really portrays our relationship and personalities. I am always laughing at everything, can’t keep a straight face to save my life, and Jacob watches over and protects me. It’s absolutely perfect! ♥
Okay, this is a little silly. For our Easter egg hunt this year, we realized at the last minute we didn’t have any candy to put in the eggs. So we went to the store and picked up a bag of Sixlets, which is a candy we don’t buy very often. I think I literally ate the entire bag all by myself. I don’t know what it is or what got into me, but I so enjoyed eating one or two of these little packages after my meals or just as a quick sweet snack. And I’d totally be lying if I said it wasn’t on my mind to go buy another bag.
If you’ve been following my blog for a while, then this product might look a little familiar to you. I had this last Summer and it was one of my favorite products. I got the Oliology Keratin Oil 7-in-1 Treatment for around $7 at TJMaxx and it works great. As you’ll see in Friday’s post, I completely ruined my hair recently and this was one of the first products I knew I had to have to get my hair back to a healthy state. It’s still not there yet, but this cream is definitely helping.
The Mario Badescu Drying lotion has made it in a few recent blog posts lately and this month it’s making yet another appearance. I’m not sure if it’s because I was wearing more makeup than usual this month or what it is, but I had quite a few more breakouts than normal. I used this stuff every single night. It does make the blemish significantly smaller overnight, but this was one of those times where as soon as you get rid of one another one shows up. So annoying!
Another product I used to really love is the Elf Acne Fighting Foundation. Unfortunately, it ended up getting pushed to the back of my collection because I had so many new products that I was loving. But because of those annoying breakouts, I needed all the help I could get so I dug this back out and started using it again. It’s just as good as it’s always been and I’ve fallen in love with it all over again. It’s close to full coverage on me, stays in place all day without wearing down, and with my self tanner, the shade Buff is perfect for me. Without my self tanner, though, I’d need a different shade because it does oxidize a little bit.
In my May Boxycharm Unboxing post, I mentioned that I had been loving the Temptu bronzer. I’ve been loving it so much, that it’s the only bronzer I chose to include in this month’s favorites. Although it’s considered a shimmer bronzer, there’s not much shimmer that shows up on my skin after blending it out. I typically use my Real Techniques sponges to buff it into the skin and those work perfectly. The shade is beautiful and looks really natural on the skin and because it has such a liquidy consistency, it feels very lightweight.
This is technically considered a highlight and I do use it for that purpose sometimes, but I mainly like to use Ofra’s Rodeo Drive as an eyeshadow. I featured it in a recent tutorial pairing this with a bronzer for a super easy eye look, but I also like using it on it’s own or even with a more intense shadow. The formula is so smooth and I could just stare at this color all day, it’s perfect!
My two favorite brushes this month are both by the brand Crown Brush and they are both brushes that I’ve received in Boxycharms. I got the Round Contour Brush in this month’s box and have been loving it for foundation and concealer. The SS023 Jumbo Kabuki Fan brush came in my March box and it’s been perfect for applying powder bronzer. Both of these are great quality and could be used in multiple different ways. I don’t think there’s a brush from Crown Brush that I haven’t liked so far.
This might be getting a little repetitive, but Boxycharm has been on top of their game lately. I got The BrowGal Convertible Brow palette in this month’s box and I have been so impressed. I do like using them both wet and dry, although I think I prefer using them wet because it makes for faster application. But I seriously don’t think my brows have ever looked so good. I typically use the first two shades on the inner half of my brow and then the first and last shade on the outer half. I’ve never had a brow powder stay in place so well.
I’ve been going back and forth between brown and black eyeliners this month. I know I’ve mentioned both of these before, but I still haven’t found anything better. My favorite brown eyeliner is Pacifica’s Fringe and my favorite black eyeliner is Hikari’s Raven. The Pacifica one is a typical pencil that needs to be sharpened. I’m not the best at that, but this one doesn’t give me much trouble. The Hikari eyeliner is retractable and you really have to be careful with it because it’s super easy to apply too much since it’s so creamy. I only did one swipe of each in the swatch picture below and you can see just how pigmented they both are.
I have a few individual eyeshadows that I’ve been loving this month, as well as a few palettes that I’ve been going back and forth between. The eye primer I’ve used the most is the Maybelline Color Tattoo Eye Chrome in the shade Gilded Rose. I recently posted my full review of these talking all about why I love them so much. In case you missed that post, you can catch up on that here. The single eyeshadows that I just featured in Monday’s tutorial that I’ve been using on repeat lately is Mac’s Soft Brown and Makeup Geek’s Creme Brulee and Cocoa Bear. I’ve had most of these for a while, but never really reached for warm browns. Now I can’t get enough!
I’ve mentioned all three of these palettes many times before, but these three plus the singles above are really the only eyeshadows I’ve used lately. Both of the StudioMakeup On-The-Go palettes are amazing and Kat Von D’s Shade + Light Eyeshadow palette has every matte neutral shade I could ever ask for. The quality in all of these is perfect and I know the formula isn’t going to give me any issues.
In the Kat Von D palette, I usually tend to stick with the neutral toned “quad,” but have recently been playing more with the warm colors and really liking those too. And as silly as it sounds, I think I wear the neutrals more when I’m pale and the warms when I have self tanner on. I’m not sure why, but I do.
Thanks to Boxycharm, I have both of the StudioMakeup On-the Go palettes. The one with the brown shades is called Warm Up and the one with the purples is called Cool Down. I’ve been dipping into all of the purples, depending on what look I’m trying to achieve. In the Warm Up palette, I’ve mainly been using the shimmery shade in the top left corner. For not hearing much about this brand, they really offer some amazing quality shadows.
My two favorite lip products from this month are both lip butters and are almost identical in color. First is Revlon’s Lip Butter in the shade Berry Smoothie that I have loved for years. I’ve repurchased so many of these and always get compliments when I wear it. This is one of those that will probably always be in my collection forever. The second one is Ulta’s Lip Butter in the shade Enticing. It’s just a little bit more red in color, whereas Revlon’s has slightly more pink. On the lips, they look much more similar than they do in the swatch and they’re both super comfortable and lightweight. They provide just the right amount of shine without being too glossy.
I’ve been posting some Product Fails lately and have never included a bad product in a Favorites post before, but I don’t necessarily think this is a complete fail. I’m not sure what’s going on with this one. I used to love Maybelline’s Dream Velvet foundation and even included it in my Ride or Die tag. It’s never given me any issues before, but the last few times I wore it I noticed it really breaking down around my nose and mouth area. It honestly looked awful and I have no idea why. The only thing I could think of is that the product might have settled, but I made sure to shake the bottle and really mix up the product before applying it. I wish it didn’t do that because it’s still a pretty foundation before it breaks down, but now I’m a little more cautious about when I wear it.
I don’t think I’ve had this many favorites to mention in quite a few months and I have to say, I’m not really mad about it. I have been enjoying all of these items so much lately, there wasn’t anything that I could’ve left out. You need all of these in your life!!
If you have any other questions, please feel free to leave them for me in the comments below. Have you used any of these products? What did you use the most during May?
~Christina~
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