Products I've Been Loving Recently

I can't be the only one that finds it difficult to do Monthly Favourites right? I chop and change my products every day and generally love almost everything that I own in my stash, so when I find products that work well for me or suit a specific purpose, I tend to stick to it for a while, either until I get bored or I find something new. They might be random products but they will become firm favourites for sure.

Here I have a selection of random-ish products and techniques that I've been using over and over again recently and I wanted to share them with you.

I'll start off with Base Products:

EX1 Foundation in F200 (full review here), I'm seriously loving this foundation at the moment, I adore the colour - it's proper my skin tone in a bottle, the natural finish, the excellent longevity and how light it feels on the skin, I wore it on Eid and boy did the compliments roll in! I felt flawless! I really want to pick up the full size but I've made a pact with myself to finish some of my foundations off before purchasing a new one! Discipline is absolutely necessary! 

A flawless base is incomplete if I don't have my Colour Correcting game going steady. My newest purchase: the MAC Prep+Prime in Peach Lustre hasn't exited my routine since I've started using it. My LA Color Pure Orange has been forgotten and is now at the back of my makeup draw. This is lightweight, a nice shade of peach/orange for my skin tone, pigmented enough, absorbs into skin fast and leaves a stain so there is less texture buildup on the skin. Working so well for me, love love love!

Soap & Glory Kick Ass Concealer in Light. The yellow shade in this cute gadgety compact makes for a really nice highlight shade, especially if my foundations oxidize a little too much for my liking. Creamy, pigmented and stays put, little goes a long way. I've been getting a lot of wear out of this, but the strange thing is the plastic compact has been breaking apart, it has broken into not 2 but 3 separate pieces! It's not like I've been rough with it, definitely can't travel with this now. The peach shade is a little ashy on my skintone for my liking so not sure how I'll use that up...?

Eyes

For my eyes I usually keep my routine simple, it's usually some eyeliner and some mascara, but recently I've changed it up a little. I start off with a matte base, to acquire this I've been using the Soap & Glory One Heck Of A Blot Powder (review here) (which has completely washed out in the top picture my bad) all over my eyelids, not only does this slightly even out my eyelids but it helps my old school creamy eye pencil last for much longer and helps any shadow I may put over blend evenly too. It's a little too matte to use on my face but it's perfect for mattefying oily eyelids!

The little brown eye pencil you can see is the NYC Chocolate Brown Eye Pencil that I've been using to death, look how small it's gotten! I have been using brown eye pencil for a good several months now, not only is the pencil formula easy to apply for an amateur eyeliner-ist but the brown shade looks oh so natural and does something rather special for my dark brown eyes, it makes them look a little bit smokey yet subtly defined! For someone who's always used black, brown is a nice change for me, I'll definitely be moving onto a much more modern long lasting formula once I'm done with this. But using this ontop of the Soap & Glory OHOAB powder and then powdering over the top too makes it last and I'm definitely using it up which makes me really really happy!

Before I apply my brown eye pencil I add a wash of Sleek Blusher in Suede over my eyelids and it looks so so pretty! It's a matte neutral/nude warm peach shade and it looks sooo lovely on the eyelids. It looks very natural and effortless but it still does something nice and makes it seem like I've made some effort with eye makeup. Doing this has got me looking at matte neutral shadows now and I'm keeping an eye out for eye shadow palettes that have a good selection of neutrals and nudes, I absolutely love how effortless matte eye shadow looks! 

Cheeks

Not only have I been using Sleek Suede on my eyelids but I've been using it on my cheeks too. Look at that hitpan! It has the right amount of warmth and colour for any look, such a safe and easy shade to throw on, I loooove it to bits, I'm definitely going to repurchase this when it's done since I can't seem to stop using it! 

Lips

It wouldn't be a favourites unless I had a myriad of lipsticks included and yes they're all nudes/naturals haha! 

I have been reaching out for my Korres Liquid Lipsticks a lot lately, they're not actual liquid lipsticks but in fact glosses, my lips have been awfully dry for the past few months and I've been dreading applying any product over them incase it dries them out more and makes them feel even more uncomfortable, since these are quite hydrating they have been easy to wear and are pigmented enough for my hyperpigmented lips and deliciously plumping too, I've been loving these two shades...

No.30 Nude Beige is the PERFECT nude lipgloss on me, though if I'm not in the mood for nude I dab on No.25 Natural (which is a reddish pink) over 30 Nude Beige just to the centre of my lips and blend it out, on its own 25 Natural is a bit reddish and bright but the combination of these two shades is heavenly! For someone who loves matte, it's a big deal for me to use so much gloss but I'm glad I'm getting so much use out of them.

I haven't totally let go of matte lip colours! I've been loving NYX Lingerie in Ruffle Trim. I didn't like it at first, it just looked too pale and dull and the formula wasn't pleasing me either, Exotic didn't look that bad though, this I felt like sunk in to all the lines and made my lips look shrunken and shrivelled. But I've been playing around with it and experimenting too and I've found a technique that works really well and I'm obsessed with the shade! 

First I make sure my lips aren't really dry, it doesn't look right on dry lips so I start off with soft lips, I then apply a face primer to my lips to smoothen out the surface and fill in lines (I think you can get lip primers that do similar things), I scrape off all the product off the lipsticks doe foot and use whatever's left on the brush. Using a thin layer is what makes this shade super wearable for me and it's beautiful, it's as if sheering it out brings out all the tones of the lipstick, it's strange but it works, it's a peachy pinky brown nude, there's also way too much product on the applicator, not a fan of the applicator obviously. Using the primer beforehand does help to make it apply and look smoother, but obviously it's not made for the lips so do test it out, though it works perfectly fine for me.

I've also been loving the Soft Matte Lip Cream in Abu Dhabi, I was so worried that I wouldn't be able to pull it off, but it's gorgeous, similar to Ruffle Trim but more on the sandy nude side and I love the formula too, makes my lips look all matte and pillowy. I've included swatches of everything in the picture above. 

Brushes

H&M BB Cream Brush, bareMinerals Blurring Buffer Brush, eBay Dupe for H&M BB Cream Brush

I've left the best to the last, I can't even begin to explain to you how obsessed I have been with these brushes lately especially the ones on either side, they've replaced my beauty blender sponges completely, I haven't picked up a beauty blender sponge in yonks! Yes you've read that right, yonks!

H&M BB Cream Brush

I first saw this brush on ItsLinaMar's YouTube channel a couple of years ago around the time H&M first launched their beauty line, there was something about this brush that I knew I would love, I've seen it in action many times in her videos and I just knew it was something I needed in my life and that it would just work well for me. I kept saying to myself that I'll pick it up, I'll pick it up soon, it's not like it'll be going anywhere...But OMG it did, they discontinued it! And you know me and discontinued products...I will search for it to the ends of the world if I want it bad enough and I wanted it bad enough! Luckily I found it floating on Depop so I made it mine.

Lord all mighty...it was everything I expected it to be and more!!! I adored how well it blended my foundation out and how seamless and natural it was. It gave me coverage whilst keeping it skin like, it pushes in the makeup really well and it glides effortlessly around the face.

For a Beauty Blender devotee this is a big deal as the Beauty Blender has been shunned! It's a very dense, slanted, flat top, synthetic haired brush ( I think it's synthetic....). I can't believe how technical I've become with brushes now haha but you might as well hear it... I love the density of this brush, it works really well to push and blend product in whilst also keeping it streak free. The bristles are really really really smooth and soft (note the 'really') so it just glides around the face. I love the slant as it has the right angle and pressure against the face to push the makeup in and the slant works well for the contours of the face too. The tip of the slant works incredibly well around the nooks and crannies of the face and because it's so dense you know it's blending it all in really well! I love the medium/small size of the brush head because it means I'm in control of where I want the brush to carry product, it's just more manageable and controllable and it fits my face nicely, I don't apply a ton of foundation on my face so a big brush head would be pointless, I personally just LOVE small sized brushes for some reason! I can get really good coverage with this brush and it doesn't eat up so much product like beauty blenders do, I find beauty blenders sheer it out too much and eat lots of product. I dot my foundation around my face and blend in downward/sideward strokes on my cheeks (sideways for forehead) and do patting motions too for coverage, all of this whilst still looking flawless and natural! I am so in love with this brush, I just can't... 

You may be asking yourself, why is she sharing this with us if it's discontinued? Well because I've actually found a very similar dupe! I knew owning just the one of those just wouldn't be enough for me and luckily I found a very similar brush on eBay, the design is incredibly similar if not the same as the H&M brush, it's just that the handle is a beech coloured wood where the H&M one is painted black. The brush head is also slightly smaller and it's ever so slightly less dense but it's just as smooth and soft and still gets the job done nicely, I still love it just as much! 

If you're interested in picking one of these up for yourself, just type in "angled flat top brush" on eBay. You can get it for 99p if you're willing to wait for it to arrive from Hong Kong or if you're impatient like me you can pay £1.99 and get it shipped from sellers within the country. 

The other brush that I've been loving is the bareMinerals Blurring Buffer Brush (pictured in the middle). Since I bough the full size bottle of Nars All Day Luminous  Weightless Foundation (review here) I knew I wanted a super dense small brush to properly push this 'kinda cake prone' fluid liquidy foundation into my 'cake prone skin' and yes it's working amazingly!!! It does exactly what I hoped it would do! I use only one pump of Nars ADLW and get medium to full coverage and an invisible tint like finish. Again because I don't use a lot of product small brushes manoeuvre small amounts really well. This brush is super super dense, like SUPER dense, it's small, tight and compact, slightly rounded, this means I can really buff the product into the curves and crevices of my face, and it doesn't eat too much product either. I saw this being used as a contour brush on AlbaMayos Instagram a few weeks ago and I instantly knew this would work for me. This is actually a concealer buffing brush used for mineral powder concealer so obviously we're all using it for completely different purposes! My brain has become quite savvy in spotting brushes and figuring out their possible uses in my routine. 

So there you have it guys, my recent favourites! Have you spotted anything from my sporadic selection that has sparked an interest with you? Let me know down below or share it with me on Insta! Thanks for reading. Toodles!