After a two year hiatus, I’ve decided to re-dedicate this blog to my travels and enthusiasm for photography, gastronomy, and beauty. Stay tuned!

After a two year hiatus, I’ve decided to re-dedicate this blog to my travels and enthusiasm for photography, gastronomy, and beauty. Stay tuned!
It’s the new year, and I’ve been reflecting on some of my favorite products from 2015. This post will be exclusive to makeup, while my upcoming post will be on skincare and fragrances. I tried to pick only 1 from each category but forgive me on the mascara since I couldn’t help but pick two for completely different reasons!
Have any of you tried these products? If so, what did you think about them? Also, let me know what some of your favorites from last year were as well! As always, thank you for reading!
This will be my last post in for 2015, as I’m getting ready to to ring in the new year! This month’s Birchbox design was absolutely stunning to me, being reminiscent of winter, but not so much in the sense of your typical holiday season colors (contrary to the Ipsy bag design this month, which I love for different reasons). Unlike last month when I jumped at the opportunity to select the curated box, I didn’t preselect anything for this month since I wanted it to be a total surprise. Unfortunately, I wasn’t too excited about the items I received, so the box was almost my favorite thing.
Overall, this month just wasn’t that great to me, especially compared to what I received in December’s Ipsy, which I posted about yesterday. Maybe I just simply don’t need 2 beauty subscriptions going on at the same time, but we all know that as soon as I cancel one, the other will inevitably start becoming a dud. One thing I’ve definitely noticed about Birchbox is the fragrance samples and random fragrance oils, which I have NEVER received from Ipsy.
I’ll go ahead and say that I’ve already selected the Korean beauty curated box from Birchbox for January to avoid any unpleasant surprises, so at least I know next month will definitely be better! I’m wishing everyone a great New Years Eve, and an amazing 2016!
Hi everyone! Totally know it’s been over a month since my last post, but I wanted to squeeze in something before the new year. Here are the products I received in Ipsy this month, and I’ve gotta say, I’m pretty pleased with everything, especially the bag that it all came in. Read on for more info!
I know I’m a little late to the December Ipsy party, but hopefully everyone enjoyed their bags. I’ve been subscribing since July, and this was probably one of the better months, as far as product quality quality goes, even though this bag didn’t have a terribly high value. Also, I like that there was no fragrance or oil in here, unlike in my Birchbox for this month. Let me know if you received any of the same products as me, and what your thoughts are.
Thank you for reading, and please remember to follow me in Instagram so I can follow back!
November will be the 3rd month that I’ve been subbing to Birchbox, and I’m happy to report that opting for the curated box from Glamlifeguru’s Tati Westbrook this month was a great decision. As soon as I saw the spoilers, I knew this box was going to be worth it because of the high-end skincare products it contained, and also the fact that I was guaranteed to not receive another perfume sample 😉 Usually I don’t have much time to try and review the products before I make a post, but the box came almost a week ago so I’ve been able to use all of these by now. Read on for my thoughts!
Hands down, this was the best BB I’ve received to-date. I was extremely impressed with the curated items, even though part of what I love about sub boxes is never truly knowing what you’re going to get. In this case, all of these items were worth trying for me and all but the dry shampoo worked out very well. I can’t wait for December’s box!
Let me know if you opted for the curated box this month, or what products you liked if you went with the regular box 🙂 As always, thank you for reading!
I used to be willing to shell out $30+ for a good foundation brush because I believed so strongly in its role for achieving a smooth and even application. Sephora’s Pro Airbrush #55 has consistently been my go-to, but I’ve been in the market for a replacement brush and didn’t want to shell out so much money again.
Last week, I saw this e.l.f. Blending Brush on a fellow blogger’s page, and was really excited that e.l.f. decided to make it because it’s shaped very similarly to Sephora’s Pro Full Coverage Airbrush #53 that costs $38. This e.l.f. brush on the other hand, you guessed it, is only $6!
The brush arrived yesterday, and I used it to apply liquid foundation, per the video that Sephora had for its #53 brush, which involved putting 1 pump of foundation on the back of my hand (I’ve used Smashbox for as long as I can remember), dabbing the bristles in, and then sweeping the brush across my cheeks, down to my chin, and then across my forehead and down the middle of my face again. The coverage that I ended up with was very natural-looking, and the greatest part was that I could tell there was barely any trace of foundation left on the brush after application. As you can tell, the bristles on this brush are much shorter than the bristles on the #55 that I currently use, and combined with the density of the fibers, this basically keeps product from getting trapped and unused. I also used this to apply powder shortly after, and it continued to glide across my face smoothly.
I purchased this brush last week when they had a promo for free shipping with any order, but now it appears the brush is excluded from site-wide promos, probably because so many people have raved about this and e.l.f. has realized they can capitalize on this awesome product. Some of you who have followed my blog from the beginning probably remember my comparison of e.l.f.’s contour brush with Marc Jacob’s similar brush, and at that time, it was quite clear the e.l.f. brush was a less luxurious-feeling, but still effective, dupe. However, in this case, e.l.f. has really upped its game, and my $6 contouring brush back then now feels inferior to this blending brush. Not only does this brush have a most substantial weight to it, but the bristles also feel like they’re much higher quality.
I’m so pleased with this brush, and hope you all are able to get your hands on this to experience how well it multi-tasks! I probably won’t be ordering from e.l.f.’s website again anytime soon, but I would love to get a bunch of these for people as holiday gifts. Let me know if you’ve tried this brush yet, and as always, thank you for reading!
During my last Sephora splurge (which you can read about here), I purchased this perfume sampler which contains more “boutique” brands and scents that you wouldn’t commonly find. I guess I mainly wanted a break from the Marc Jacobs, D&G, CK, and whatever other scents they tend to always give perfume samples for. In the last couple of years, my fragrance preference has changed drastically from previously liking only fruity fragrances, to now liking floral scents and being much more open to earthy scents as well.
This set is still available on Sephora’s website, and retails for $34, which is a little less than $7 per perfume. I find the containers to be very cute for displaying, but only the NEST one has a roller ball applicator. The rest of them are all, which can be a pain in the ass. I’ll definitely say that if they were all spray perfumes, I’d probably be more tempted to use them.
So…for $34 is it worth it? I liked being able to sample these fragrances in these cute containers, but it probably wasn’t my best purchase. I would probably consider repurchasing this as a gift, but only for fragrance lovers who want to try something a little more “outside the box”. This might be a good item to pick up in November when Sephora has their annual store-wide sale for Beauty Insiders, though.
Have you guys worn any of these fragrances before? I’d love to hear your thoughts! Thanks so much for reading 🙂