Winter beauty favorites!

Well, you've seen the products I wasn't impressed with, so here are the awesome ones! Enjoy!

Oh this stuff. I love this stuff so much. It really smooths my lips. The best part is you get to rub this on your lips and lick off the excess. It's amazing :) 

There is definitely a lot of praise deserved for these wipes. Unlike the Burt's bees in the previous post, these did not burn. They were hydrating and removed makeup so gently. 

This is the Olay version of the Clairisonic. I love it! It is a tenth of the cost, and works great. It cleans deeply and you can feel that clean feeling as soon as you're done. I really love it. 

This cleanser is so great for dry skin! It is extremely hydrating but doesn't leave any sort of film, and makes you feel very clean. I love this wash!

This oil just breaks everything down and gets makeup off without having to rub and scrub. I use this every night to remove my makeup and love this stuff. 

I am always on the hunt for a great exfoliator. This stuff totally rocks. A bit pricy, but it doesn't take much and lasts forever! 

This deodorant smells like perfume. I can't even explain it. It's a definite must try!

Oh man....this moisturizer is seriously something amazing. It's $20 a tube, but it really really works wonders. I've searched for years for a great moisturizer and have finally found a favorite.

These blush sticks are pigmented, creamy, and so blendable.

I have two of these and I love them. I'm typically a high end blush snob, but these are my favorite drugstore powder blushes ever!

These are so smooth and have a great color payoff. They're so hydrating and feel so comfortable on the lips. 

I love a good matte lipstick, and these are the best around. Rimmel by Kate Moss takes the cake, and they're extremely affordable!

I love the original voluminous mascara, so I decided to give this a try. It is even better than the original! Lots of volume and length, as well as a great saturated black color. 

I love these products and hope you do too!

Winter beauty let downs!

Ok, so since I don't buy a ton of makeup EVERY month, I am going to start doing them with the seasons. Since spring is here, I am giving you my hits and misses of my winter makeup and beauty items!

First, the things with a big thumbs down 👎

This cocoa better facial scrub sounded like a great idea for my dry flaky skin. It did not work for me, however. It seemed that the grit was too fine to create a good exfoliator, and in the end, my face still felt dry and tight. 

MAC mineralize blush in "Azalea in the afternoon" came out with the Fantasy of Flowers collection. It looks like a beautiful color in the pan, but it is extremely light. It was even too light for me, and I'm pretty fair skinned. The formulation of this blush is still great, though. The color was just misleading which is a huge miss for me. 

These towelettes burned the mess out of my eyes and skin. They did a great job at removing makeup, but it was NOT worth the awful burning. It felt like alcohol in an open wound. 

I don't even know where to begin with this mess of a mascara. It's not very black at all, so it doesn't make the eyelashes "voluminous" whatsoever. The diamond claim is just micro glitter, which gets EVERYWHERE. Even when you wash your face, you're still covered in silver micro glitter. It did absolutely nothing for my lashes at all. No length, no volume.

MAC MSF in Stereo Rose was repromoted in the aforementioned Fantasy of Flowers collection. This is a very popular color, so I was super excited to finally get my hands on this retired color before it was sold out. I was sooo unhappy. It doesn't look a thing like the original stereo rose. Not even similar. It's far more brassy and bronzy, and has barely any "rosiness" at all. Such a disappointing repromote!

This foundation was just a tragedy. It's thick and smells like paint. It doesn't really blend into the skin either. It just sits on top of it, making it look like a greasy mess. I just really hated this. I couldn't even finish the tube. Back to the old trusty Revlon Colorstay for me.

These shadows seemed so cool when I saw the big display at my local CVS. They claimed to be a soft shadow. Not cream or mousse. I found this texture extremely strange. I could have gotten past the texture if the color payoff had been better. There was no pigmentation to these at all. I could rub my finger in there for 10 seconds and when I put it on my lid, no color would show up at all. Here is a picture of the weird mushy texture:

                                       
                                                                               Yuck! 👎

                                      
                      These blushes were so cute! I loved the master glaze sticks, but this blush was powdery                                                                                
                                                            and just not pigmented at all


                                     
These lipsticks come in a variety of colors and they're super cheap. Unfortunately, these stunk. They weren't very velvety or smooth and they didn't have a long lasting color payoff. The pigmentation was decent, but that isn't worth much when the color doesn't stick around.

I was hoping these did great for my dry sensitive skin, but both of those items really made my skin super tight and added to the flakiness. They are just a big fat no.

I love most of these nail polishes, but this color in particular was so translucent. It took (literally) five coats to finally show up opaque. 

This mascara is the biggest busy if all the items I tried this winter. It took too long to put on because you need multiple coats of each side. I felt like I could achieve the same results from many other mascaras on the market. Another negative is this mascara is SO HARD to take off. Even with my cleansing oil, I couldn't get this off without rubbing like crazy, which is terrible for your eyes. This mascara gets a big fat zero!

This powder is just awful. I used a clean brush each time, but the top still got covered in an awful oil film that had to be scraped off each time I used it. That is the biggest turnoff for a product ever!

Now, check out my next blog for my winter favorites!