Friday, 3 April 2015

March Beauty & Fashion Favourites 2015


Hello! I feel like my March favourites is a little bit late considering it's already a few days into April, but better late than never, right? This coming month I want to purchase some of my wishlist makeup & beauty items so that hopefully next month I have a few new things to add to my favourites!

With that, let's dive in to last month's faves.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- BEAUTY -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Valentino Uomo Fragrance
Flower Beauty Cream Eyeshadow in CE8 'Awesome Blossom'
L'Oréal True Match Lumi Foundation
Lancôme Waterproof Eyeshadow Primer in 03 Nude
Lancôme Bi Facil Double Action Eye Makeup Remover
Smashbox Photo Finish Hydrating Undereye Primer
Smashbox Photo Finish Face Primer

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- FASHION -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Forever 21 Ring Set
AliExpress Pearl Earrings in 'White'


1. Valentino Uomo Fragrance

*This fragrance is actually meant for men, but I think it's got a very unisex scent*
I actually picked this up as a sample along with a few other Valentino fragrances last year when I worked at the boutique, and it took me this long to try it and fall in love with it. I'm not typically huge on fragrances in the sense that I don't go out of my way to try new ones. I like to stick to what I know I already love, and I guess that's why it took me this long to try this one out. 

I actually didn't know it was a men's fragrance when I picked it up; the packaging on the sample doesn't look overly masculine, nor does the actual bottle. I only found out was intended as a men's fragrance when I looked up the notes for it.

If you're a fan of woody, cacao, sultry, spicy fragrances, this one is great! I'm a huge fan of wearing 'sexy' fragrances throughout the day and not just at night time.

2. Flower Beauty Cream Eyeshadow in CE8 'Awesome Blossom'

This one I have mentioned so many times before! If you know me at all, you know that the minute I picked this product up at Walmart out of sheer curiosity, I fell in love straight away. It's very creamy, very pigmented, and it applies beautifully. I have the shade 'Awesome Blossom' (which is super cute) and it's a very warm-toned copper brown colour. My favourite way to wear this lately is to put a warm, nude-pink toned matte shadow (Naked 3's 'Limit') all over the crease, pack Flower Beauty's shadow all over the lid, blend out the edges, and add a little dark shadow to the outer corner. The pink tone warms up the lid a lot and adds a very nice effect when it's paired with this cream shadow. 

I like this product because it makes my morning routines very easy. It looks and feels like such a luxurious product that I can't believe I only paid $8.98 for it. It stays on the lid all day, doesn't crease at all (which is a huge bonus) and looks like I put a lot more effort into my eye makeup than I did when I'm using this product on a lazy day. 

3. L'Oréal True Match Lumi Foundation

I actually ended up picking this up on Kathleen Lights' recommendation a while ago. She's a YouTuber that has a skin type similar to mine and her drugstore recommendations give me life. I have dry to normal skin (depending on the weather & season) and any foundations that aren't drying are perfect for me. The shade I picked up is a little dark for me at the moment, it's more of my shade when I'm tanned, but the way I've been wearing this lately is I've been mixing it with my tried-and-true Lancôme Ultra 24H Wear Matte foundation in 100 Ivory Neutral (which is a little pale for me right now) and it creates the perfect demi-matte finish that's not too dewey and not too drying. 




4. Lancôme Waterproof Eyeshadow Primer in 03 Nude

I picked up this primer when I worked as a cosmetician, and I justified the price of it because Lancôme was one of the main brands that I sold and I had a hefty discount on their products. I was actively looking for a tinted eyeshadow primer because my trusty Urban Decay primer potion was running low and I wanted to try something new. 

I'm actually quite impressed with this primer for a few reasons. Firstly, I love that it's nude in colour. I've got reddish eyelids that definitely need concealing and so I used to use Revlon's Eye Brightener beneath my UD primer potion, but now I only have to use one product. this primer is thick, waterproof, and a little bit goes a long way with it, which is nice because you get your money's worth of product out of it. I find that if you blend it out with a denser flat-top concealer brush of some sort, it works best and doesn't end up creasing. 

5. Lancôme Bi Facil Double Action Eye Makeup Remover

If you have stubborn waterproof mascara or anything that's usually a little rough to get off, splashing some of this onto a cotton pad and holding it onto your eye for a few seconds before wiping it off does the absolute trick. This stuff is my holy grail intense makeup remover. It's soft and sensitive on the skin, which is good for the eye area, and I never use a lot of it at once. Even just dipping a Q-tip into it and wiping off stubborn bits of eyeliner or lash glue works well. 

The one thing about this makeup remover is I do find that it's a little bit oily. I don't use this all over my face, and I don't use it on a regular basis. I use it when I have heavy eye makeup that I want to take off without irritating my eye area, ad it works like a charm.

6. Smashbox Photo Finish Hydrating Undereye Primer

I know I've talked about this product on my blog before, but I love it so I'm going to talk about it again! I bought this primer in a holiday package along with the Smashbox face primer (up next) and it was two for the price of one, essentially. The Smashbo face primers range in price from about $44-$52, and I got both of these primers for $44.00! I'm in love with this undereye primer because it feels so soothing to put on. I have dry skin, particularly around my nose and undereye region, so this primer helps that a lot. 

7. Smashbox Photo Finish Face Primer

This is the other primer I got in the gift set (mentioned above) and this one I've sort of recently re-discovered. I've been off of face primers for a large part of winter because I found that since my skin was so dry, they ended up making my foundation look quite bad after only a few hours on the skin. I started wearing my foundation solo for most of winter because I preferred it settle into my pores a little bit than have it sit on my face and look just god awful while my skin was too dry for it. 

BUT since the weather has been warming up, my skin has been following suit and has been a lot less dry! I've been going in small doses, just putting this primer on my nose and T-zone region, but I wore it like that to work for an 11-hour shift during the week, and it looked just fine!




8. Forever 21 Ring Set

I mentioned this ring set in my 'These Are a Few of My (New) Favourite Things' blog post a few weeks ago but I wanted to showcase this one ring in particular because I've been wearing it nonstop on my thumb for the past while. I love rings, and I think they jazz up any outfit, but when I go to work (because I bartend) I really can't stand having blinged out fingers or hands. I'm constantly washing my hands, opening bottles and mixing drinks, and having rings and such just annoy me. 

But I've been wearing this ring on my left-hand thumb for a while now and I really like it. It doesn't irritate me at work, I keep it on my non-dominant hand and I find having it on my thumb kind of 'pops' my look a little bit extra.

9. AliExpress Pearl Earrings in 'White'

Alright so it any of you don't know about AliExpress, go find out now. It's a great site for fashion, beauty, and anything really, for cheap prices. It's sort of like Etsy but it's run primarily in Asia (so shipping takes a while, but the prices are insane). 

If you don't mind waiting about a month-two months for your item(s) to make it to your front door, and if you don't mind having like 30 mini packages delivered at once (your landlord will think you've got an online shopping addiction; I speak from experience), then you'll love the website. Everything is cheap, cute, and I love the quality! I go through jewellery like nobody's business and I just can't justify spending big bucks on my collection. These pieces are only a few dollars and they're amazing.

The earrings I've been loving lately are these pearl earrings with little white fluffs on them. The backing of the earring is the fluff, and it is just so cute and unique. I love that you can wear them either way: with the pearl in the back or in the front, depending on which part of the earring you want to show off. 



----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- SHOP THESE ITEMS -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Valentino 'Uomo' Eau de Toilette
Nordstrom
$99.34 - $158.94
Flower Color Play Crème Eyeshadow
Walmart
$7.87 - $8.98
L'Oréal True Match Lumi Foundation
L'Oréal Paris
$19.99
LA BASE PAUPIÈRES PRO AQUATIQUE
Lancôme
$31.00
BI-FACIL Double-Action Eye Makeup Remover
Lancôme
$36.00
Photo Finish Hydrating Under Eye Primer
Sephora
$32.00
Iconic Photo Finish Foundation Primer
Sephora
$44.00
Rhinestone heart Ring set
Forever 21
$6.90
Pearl Fuzzy Earrings
AliExpress
$1.50


I hope you guys enjoyed my March favourites! What are some of your faves from last month? Share them with me!

Until next time, sunshine!

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