January 2011 Favorites

Hope everyone had a great Christmas and New Year, I was home over the holidays and didn't really have much time to my blog. I'm back at univeristy again, and lots and lots of work since I'm a finalist! It's so crazy, can't believe I'm going to graduate in about 6 months!!!

Anyway, I thought I'll do my January Favorites. Back to uni for most of January, and lots of 9am lectures meaning I don't have much time at all in the morning for makeup. So most of the items are pretty easy to work with, and very safe colours. I've been using these pretty much every day since I got back, and really been liking them a lot.

Okay, here's a picture of all the products:

Face products:
umm... i actually forgot to take pictures of these. Mainly been using the Nars primer with spf, but I'm not quite sure how I feel about that product yet, since haven't really been using it that long, so I'll post an indepth review once I feel I have used it enough. My favorite concealer has been the Benefit's Booing concealer in #1 and #2. I have these in the Confessions of a Concealerholic set. I found these are great for concealing redness and blemishs, but too dry to use for undereye areas. I still haven't found anything I love for dark circles, I tried erase paste, but that's too dry for me as well. Any recommendations?

I don't really wear foundation a lot, so I just use Nars Nico blush as a setting powder, use that all over my face. Nico is a favorite too, it's like my all time favorite, so I forgot to take a picture of it, but it works great as a setting powder and also makes my blushes go on easier.

Blush and Bronzers:


From top left, clockwise: Nars Orgasm Multiple, Nars Albatross, Nars Penny Lane, Benefit Hoola bronzer, Nars Orgasm blush



I've been loving Penny Lane and the Orgasm multiple, they're just so easy to use when you're in a rush, very creamy and easy to blend, almost impossible to mess up/use too much! I also really enjoyed using the Nars Orgasm blush, it's a colour I always reach for when I'm in a rush, don't really want to think too much about which blush I want to use. Albatross, absolutely favorite highligher, full stop. Hoola, my only bronzer, so I can't really compare it to anything else, but I really like it, it's a basic matt bronzer and I use it mainly for contouring.

Here are swatches:

From top: Nars Orgasm multiple, Orgasm blush, Albatross, Penny Lane, Hoola

The Nars Orgasm multiple and Orgasm blush does look almost identical, so I do prefer the multiple form, since it's a lot easy to apply.

Eye products:



Chanel Mystic Eyes Quad, MAC Bare Study Paintpot, Urban Decay 24/7 liner in Zero, Clinique cream shaper for eyes in Chocolate luster (105)

I pretty much used these products every single day since I got back to uni. I got my Chanel quad a while ago, used it once and thought it was very nice, but never really used it again. I just have way too many eyeshadow palletes and quads and duos and singles, you get the idea. I just have too much that most of them don't really get used at all. I didn't have much time in the mornings, so I just used this everyday and applied them with my fingers, I love the silvery colour for the inner corners, looks really nice!

I really want to mention the Clinique eyeliner, it's so gorgeous, it's a brown with silver shimmer, it's so wearable for day and looks so great on the lower lashline, very natural looking.

Swatches: 

From top: Clinique eyeliner, Urban decay zero liner, Bare Study paintpot, Chanel Mystic Eyes quad.

Lip products:

I have been loving my Nars Best of Lips palette, I think you can get this on the Nars website, I'm not sure if they still sell these in stores. You can probably tell which colour I like the most. I love Dolce Vita lipstick (top right) and Eros lip lacquer (bottom middle). Dolce Vita for me is the MLBB colour and Eros on top gives a nice berry winter lip colour!

 

 Also another combo I've been wearing a lot is MAC Costa Chic lipstick, with this Clinique sample lipgloss. The swatches shows up a bit too orange than it actually is, it's the perfect pinky peachy colour. I know it's like a spring/summer colour, but I just really like it and I've been wearing it a lot in January.

It's a super long post, I apologise, hope you all had a nice/fun/productive January!!