August Favourites

YAY – spring has finally arrived beauty bees! Sometimes it’s the little things in life that remind you that there’s so many happy moments around, we just have to look and find them!  That’s going to be my motto for this month, especially since everything’s coming to life already! Shiny and colourful beauty products also help, especially for those beauty bees living in the northern hemisphere (since summer is coming to an end for you) 😉

This is my second monthly favourites post. I won’t usually have truck loads of products to show you as my staple makeup and skin care products stay roughly the same over time. So if I show you something in this type of monthly post, I can confirm that I really, really love it!

So what is in my goodie bag this month?

The surprise favourite of the month are the Simple Kind to Skin Cleansing Facial Wipes. I looooved the Olay cleansing wipes (they came in a light blue rectangle shaped pack) and they came in versions for oily skin and normal skin. I loved them because they were super cheap (I think they were like 6 or 7 dollars), you got about 25 wipes if I remember correctly and mostly importantly for me, they were really moist and felt wonderful on the skin. I hate it when face wipes feel dry and rough – I think that’s awful (they can feel like sandpaper). As it turns out, I think they don’t make them anymore, so I was at a loss as to what face wipes to try from the supermarket. I grabbed the Simple branded ones because the pack looked reasonably sized and I only paid about 5 to 6 dollars for them (so even cheaper than the Olay ones!). They are surprisingly lovely to use! I use face wipes after a long day out, when I get home to get grime and makeup off my face quickly (then later on in the evening I’ll cleanse properly). These help to refresh my skin, are nice and moist and remove makeup well! Apparently my pack contain new improved facial wipes which are even softer than previous Simple wipes. Yay for me!

Next up we have my Urban Decay Naked Basics eyeshadow palette. This palette contains 6 eyeshadows which are perfect for creating everyday eye makeup look. I use this palette constantly, which is rare for me when it comes to eyeshadows. I probably use W.O.S the most as an overall eyelid colour/base (though these days I’ve started mixing W.O.S with Foxy, just to brighten the eye area a bit more and get some more use out of Foxy. Foxy on it’s own is a little to yellow for me) and then Naked 2 as a crease colour. I looove that Naked 2 is a cool toned taupey-brown. Cool toned browns look most natural on me because I’m so fair (even though my skin is neutral toned), so I will probably run out of this colour the quickest. Venus is the only non-matte eyeshadow in the palette and makes a lovely highlight shade (without chunks of glitter – I think that over highlighting the eye area looks awful). Faint is also a cool toned brown, but I would call it a medium to dark brown, and Crave is a classic matte black shadow. It’s just perfection! <3

My palette looks a little manky, only because I have used it soooo much! If you live in Aus, where Urban Decay is not available, you can find it on Look Fantastic (a UK based website) which provides free world wide shipping on all orders (and you can pay in Aus dollars) 🙂

My next favourite is my Avon Anew Clinical CC Cream (which I reviewed previously here). It’s a little bit exxy for an Avon product because it does cost $30 clams, but boy is it worth it. It’s the first CC/BB cream that I have tried which actually provides some coverage without being weirdly yellow or orange tinted! I would say it has a very neutral colour base. It does only come in one shade which is a little downer, however if you can get away with it, definitely give it a go! This CC cream will cover redness and blotchiness and just even out your skin tone beautifully (providing a satin finish). It contains an SPF of 25 which is also great! The only other possible problem I see with this CC cream (besides it’s lack of shade selection) is it’s availability. While everyone can get their hands on Avon these days, it hasn’t been featured in the last couple of brochures and I’m not sure why. They did just release a new CC cream (Skin Goodness CC Cream) which is half the price (so $15), however if it’s a permanent product, I’m not sure why it wouldn’t be in the catalogue somewhere. The good news is that it hasn’t been shown in the sale catalogue which usually let’s you know what products will be discontinued. As soon as it shows itself again, I will be snapping up a few of these!

I did buy the cheaper CC cream to see how it faired next to the Anew version, and while the new CC cream comes in a variety number of shades and has an spf factor of 30+, the coverage is really, really minimal. I bought the CC cream in the shade nude, which is a little light for me, however this doesn’t matter much because it’s barely visible on the skin (and hence it doesn’t cover redness or blotchiness). I’d give the cheaper CC cream a pass. I compared the two CC creams beside each other just as a shade reference for you!

Above: Avon’s Anew CC cream is on the left and the Avon Skin Goodness CC cream in Nude is on the right. 

While the CC cream is great for mornings where I am in a rush and so tired that I’ve slept in a little longer than I should have – on mornings where I have more time and want my makeup to be a little more polished, I can’t go past my number one foundation (and only foundation really) – YSL’s Le Teint Touche Eclat in BD40.

This foundation is gorgeous – it feels light on the skin and has a luminous dewey finish. I would say this foundation provides medium coverage, however you can build it up. I like a very natural finish, so even though this foundation gives your skin a lovely glow, I still always add in a few drops of hydrating serum into my foundation. This not only makes my foundation bottle last me forever – it gives me the perfect finish I am after and my foundation base protects my skin. Hydrated skin is the most youthful in my opinion, so if you can get away with doing this, I totally recommend it. A light layer of finishing powder keeps everything in place 🙂 My current choice of hydrating serum is Dior’s Hydra Life Youth Essential Concentrated Sorbet Essence. I don’t wear foundation everyday, so my products really do last me months and months!

This Dior hydrating serum almost feels like a very light gel. It isn’t oily and has a very light, fresh floral scent. This 30ml pump bottle will last you forever! I am not kidding. I’ve had mine for a good year now – and I’ve just almost used up half of my bottle. I should also add, that I always use this serum combined with my foundation – and I probably use about 2-3 drops (light pumps). Fancy, but oh so economical!

That’s it for this month my beauties! Happy September and I have a feeling we are going to have a great month 🙂 I can’t wait to see/hear about your monthly favourites – let me know if you have tried any of the products mentioned above and if you liked them!

Catch ya next time,

Beauty Bee~

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