Hi guys! Feels like forever since I got to do an actual favorites post in the sunshine. My favorite time of year for outdoor photography is October to April. I get the best shadows and light that time of year. The sun is too blinding during the summer and I'm forced to go indoors. I've been playing with the Pestle & Mortar RENEW Gel Cleanser for a while and I'm in love. This feels like more of a gel balm cleanser and it contains oils. Gel balm cleansers are my favorite type of cleanser. This cleanser contains jojoba, meadowfoam & bergamot fruit oils, papaya and mango fruit extracts (gentle exfoliation), superoxide dismutase (powerful antioxidant) and vitamin E top it off. If you like gel balm cleansers this one is quite good and worth checking out. More to come.
ILIA launched a new Sheer Vivid Tinted Moisturizer and I grabbed Ramla Bay for medium skin tones. I was kind of thinking this would be like the Laura Mercier tinted moisturizer but with natural ingredients. I was wrong. This is so much more hydrating. It's got a thin gel liquid texture but it's very hydrating. More than I expected. I normally use a tinted moisturizer over lotion, but this one was too much for that method. I had to swap this for moisturizer in order to get it to work for me. It's very light coverage with a glossy, dewy finish. I do love that the medium tone wasn't too yellow. It was more beige. I just prefer their True Skin Serum Foundation.
I've been subscribing to Beauty Pie for three months. I'm going to subscribe until I get through all of the skincare and makeup items I want to test. It's a $10 a month subscription and you get access to $100 "worth" of product. The product is then discounted for members and I usually can get 2-3 items per month depending how expensive. I grabbed my first makeup item the Futurelipstick Luxe Shine in Nothing Nude. With membership this was $5.10 plus the membership fee for the month (obviously I got other stuff too). This is a glossy pink nude lipstick that was better than I expected it to be. The case is nice, slim and metal. More to come on the whole Beauty Pie thing.
I have been using the OKOKO L’ÉLIXIR DE CLARTÉ which is a 5% AHA brightening serum. I love the brands packaging and aesthetics. This uses a variety of beneficial ingredients like aloe, glycerin, lactobacillus, licorice, green tea and seaweed. The 5% AHA comes from natural sources not straight glycolic acid. It's gentle yet soothing and hydrating. It smells almost like vanilla with a hint of citrus. It's quite good. More to come.
Purearth is an Indian brand routed in Ayurvedic principles. The Wild Seaberry Supercritical Oil* is such a simple & divine colored oil. This oil is 100% Himalayan seabuckthorn berry oil. Nothing fancy in there. It's bright red orange in color so you can see it's intensity of nutrients. It's very nourishing and I'll be going over it soon. I just wanted to showcase that beautiful color. I've been playing with a bunch of natural deodorants as of late and the most recent is by Dr. Lily Ros. I have the Bamboo & Japanese Cherry Blossom* scent. It's got this nice sweet cherry scent & I quite like it as I hate the powdery perfume scents. I find it to be effective as well. It doesn't stain my clothes and it works. I don't even miss regular aluminum deodorant anymore.
Lilah B. has been a recent obsession as I adore the little pebble compacts. I grabbed two new items this month. The new matte foundation and a shimmering lip & cheek color. The Divine Lip & Cheek in b. dazzling turns out to be the perfect highlight shade for me. Described as a champagne shimmer yet it's really more of a rose gold shimmer. It works really well for my skin tone. I actually like it leaps & bounds better than the Lilah B. traditional highlighter shade. This one just fits me so well. It is too light to use on my lips but it's great on brow & cheek bones. I would love to see this shade in the large pan size of the traditional highlight they make as the lip & cheek color compacts are tiny.
Lilah B. just launched their new Marvelous Matte Creme Foundation and I grabbed shade b. classic described as a medium with neutral undertones. The matte name in this foundation scares me (as I hate full coverage matte foundation) but it actually surprised me. It's full coverage yet not matte at all. More of a traditional cream stick foundation texture that has a satin finish. It's definitely medium to full coverage with a hydrating feel from the rosehip & avocado seed oil. I found I needed a powder to set my t-zone as it was hydrating enough and not really matte. I like the finish and texture but don't expect matte out of it. This is really more of a full coverage cream foundation. Like a stick. More to come.
Top to bottom-ILIA, Lilah B., Lilah B., Beauty Pie, Pestle & Mortar, Purearth:
* gifted by brand but all thoughts are my own
