FALL FAVORITES!!!!!!!

It's December so you know what that means? It is Fall Favorites time! Yes the glorious season of autumn is coming to an end and I have a trailer load of faves coming your way!! Right in time for Holiday Shawpin'. That's right kids, I'm going there!

First up, my lovely candle from the Tyler company in Paris. This isn't really a "fall" scent per se, but I think it is a perfect candle for year round use. It has notes of berries, bergamot and rose and not the kind of rose that makes you want to saw your nose off, but a clean, freshly cut rose. I associate this fragrance with a tea house and reading old books, or in my case, drinking tea on my la-z-boy and watching youtube. Either or.

I got the big candle because it was on sale at Hirons and I am so glad I did. My Bath and Body Works candles each died after a week of burning and this is still going strong. I don't have to burn too long for it to fragrance my house and instead of blowing it out and making my house smell like a childs birthday party, just slip the lid on and it goes out on its own, trapping the smoke. You're welcome.

My skin gets totally dry as the weather gets colder, so I've been test driving facial oil's to find the best one for me. I got this one in my IPSY bag and fell in love! I put this on before my moisturizer and lemme tell you, my skin looks radiant aI am not kidding! So far this is the queen of face oils and I have tried a bunch. This is the winner for Fall 2012!

This is another product I got to test drive through a BirchBox box. This was a very generous sample I received, about half the size of the one in the photo. I have been using it everyday for the last month and love it! My skin is a lot clearer and feels clean, not dry, after each use. I started noticing the discolorations fading and my skin tone evening out after a week.  My skin has evened out to the point where I can get away with no foundation and minimal concealer. This cleanser smells faintly of black licorice, but in a good way. I like fragrance in my products as long as they don't overwhelm me. This smells clean and is kind of relaxing. A little goes a long way with it too, just the size of a pea is enough to cleanse the face and neck.

I am loving these two polishes and have been repeatedly using them this fall. Malice from Chanel is what I bought with my birthday gift card and it is gorgeous. It's like a holiday version of Vamp, with lovely shimmer and pigment. Loving it!

The second polish barely made the list since I've only had it for 2 weeks, but lemme tell ya, this is all I've been wearing on my nails in the last 2 weeks!! China Glazes' Swing Baby is like a platinum-gold shade that is packed with shimmer, not glitter. It is so beautiful and makes a great accent nail color but is smashing for an all over polish!

As you all know, I love my Fango mud mask from Borghese. I nearly shrieked when I saw one of their newer versions, the moisture restoring mud mask. I bought it in September and have been treating myself to it at night when the house is quiet. My skin gets substantially drier as the seasons change from Summer to Winter, so I usually begin easing into my winter routine around October. I love this mud mask. It is a treat for the senses and really makes the skin look plump and really hydrated. A lot of people mistake a glow or a dewy look with oil, this mask gives you a healthy hydrated look while absorbing any junk that might be sitting on the skin. If you have dry skin and have never tried this mud mask, please get up on it!

Fall is also the time when sitting with a mug of hot green tea is just what my soul needs to shine. That sounds hokey, but the power of tea is no joke. 10 million Brits can't be wrong!!! (Rough estimate silly!). I got a sampl of Mighty Leaf in a BirchBox and really loved the green tea, loose, in a sweet little cloth bag. The flavor is amazing and it really perks you up and makes your attitude just better, for lack of a creative word. I think this flavor would be great as an iced tea sweetened with lemonaid in the summer. I like it with honey when i'm under the weather.

A few products for the face that I have been loving are featured in the swatches above. From top to bottom they are : Hard Candy So Baked Bronzer in Tiki (an exact dupe to The Balms Mary Lou-Manizer), ELF's Candid Coral blush, Wet n' Wild's Pearlescent Pink blush (a dupe for Tarte's Peaceful) and Wet n Wilds Color Icon bronzer in Ticket to Brazil.

These are such beautiful colors that really perk the skin up. I've been fighting illness all Fall and the key for looking better than you feel is a good highlighter and a warm coral blush. I like to use Tiki as a highlight since is such a soft gold color. I love the pearl effect it gives rather than BAM! Highlight in your face! Yanno what I'm saying? Tiki is respectable highlight, not hooker highlight.

Candid Coral is a peachy pearly blush that you can use as a highlight and blush in one because it has a really pretty golden base that gives you a very subtle glow. It doesn't get orange or yellow, it stays in its perfectly peach zone and I love it.

Wet n' Wild, as I have said time and again, has come the furthest in the makeup game. I have found more high end dupes in Wet n' Wild than any other brand and I'm here to tell you, it's legit! Yeah the packaging isn't pretty and the compacts down sound like a Mercedes door closing, but who cares? I'm broke baby, but I still want to look fabulous. 

Pearlescent Pink is similar to Candid Coral in terms of the golden undertone, but instead of a peachy color it is a vibrant pink. It isn't loud or Barbie pink, but just think of how you look after going for a walk in the cold air. Its the healthy flushed look that I adore and this delivers.

Wet n Wild's bronzer in Ticket to Brazil is very similar to a Prescriptives duo I had back in the day when I worked there. In fact, Wet n' Wild has a lighter bronzer call Reserve Your Cabana that is an exact, dead on dupe for Lorac's Spotlight and the lighter portion of Prescriptives Bronzer. So if either of those are your favorites, you might want to hit up Wet n Wild. Aside from being cost effective, the amount of product you get it mind blowing!

Lip lovers unite! I've been making a conscious effort to put the kibosh on nude glossy lips and go there with the colorful painted lip, specifically the pinks and reds!

Starting at the top swatch, L.A. Colors Pink-a-boo reminds me of MAC's "Angel" but more of a neutral pink. I randomly picked this color up while waiting on a prescription at a drugstore. Best fever purchase ever!

The mid swatch is Berry Smoothie from Revlon. I bought this in a September haul and never would have imagined that this would be a key lip product for me. It is the color of my lips but a bit rosier. It is so gorgeous, I am at a loss of words describing it. I think the factors of moisturizer and a slight gloss really are the stars of the show. The color by itself would be fantastic, but the extra bells and whistles make it such a wearable lip color. I reach for this when I'm bare faced but want a little somethin somethin to give my face life! It is so universal and works wonders to compliment khakis, bronzes and even a deep navy.

The third swatch is a lip color that has been sitting in la-la on my iPhone notes. When I am reading magazines or watching something celebrity related, I jot down style items that I like and want to try. In the Fall of 2010, I happened to see Jezebel, from Hard Candy's Visibly Wet jumbo pencil series, featured in a Lucky magazine. I love that it is a true metallic magenta! The shimmer is fine and the pigment is rich. This lip color has plumping ingredients, so you may feel tingly business. This doesn't have a slick finish, nor is it a true gloss. The visibly wet refers to the combo of the cream formula and the shimmer that make the lip look full and kissable.

As we come to eyeshadows, I'm pretty stoked that like everything else in this favorites, save for the Chanel polish, everything is drugstore find!

The top swatch belongs to L.A. Girl's "Cherry Blossom". I'm really digging these jumbo eye pencils! This one is a warm pink shimmer that looks great alone on the lids or paired with a deep brown cat eye or matte brown contrast.

The middle swatch is from Wet n Wild and "nutty" is probably the best taupe shadow I have seen in ages. There used to be a color from Chanel that was nearly exact in color, but I believe the WnW pigment to actually be better. Right? Who knew?

The last swatch is from nyx and is called "Morocco". When I ordered this shadow, it was sight unseen. I had never swatched it nor had I even seen it in person. What I was on hunt for was a rich navy, which this is, however as happy accidents go, I discovered a beautiful purple royal blue all packed in one shadow. It is very close to the deep purple in the Vanities palette from Chanel but that touch of royal blue gives it some magic!

Since I turned 30 I have been down with hand cream and lip balm. And by "down" I mean OBSESSED! L'occitane is the best brand when it comes to hand creams and this specific one, Rose 4 Reines, is possibly the best out of their iconic product line. 

I featured this is a mini haul, but to refresh your memory, this cream is a tribute to the count Forcalquier's daughters: Marguerite, Eléonore, Sancie and Béatrix, who married princes and became 4 queens! Each queen is represented by a different rose: Grasse rose, Bulgarian rose, Moroccan rose and Turkish rose. This blend is so fragrant and really is a true rose fragrance as opposed to a sleazy, plastic-ky, faux rose.

Along with a great fragrance, this cream is super emollient and gives your hands instant hydration without being greasy or disappearing seconds after application. This also works well for a face cream if you are stuck without one or if you just need a boost when the chilly weather makes you dry as a bone.

So a couple months ago I featured a battle royale between all the lip balms that I've loved. In that post, Tokyo Milk's "Let Them Eat Cake" was the winner. Since that posting, I find that while I still enjoy my Tokyo Milk balm, the Fresh Sugar lip balms I own, the original and the rose, I find myself reaching for the Fresh ones more often throughout the day. 

For me it really isn't a preference of flavor, as they all have a great flavor, it is more of a convenience factor. The Fresh balms come in a lipstick like tube that you actually can close, therefore losing the cap in your purse and collecting all kinds of treasures on the balm, is a thing of the past.

I also enjoy the sheer tint that the Fresh Rose gives. It kinda reminds me of Cherry Chapstick's more sophisticated and worldly cousin. Ekaterina Gordieva once said that Cherry Chapstick is her daily lip product of choice, even over a colorful lipstick or gloss because of the sheer color that it gives. Zang!!!

I love the Fresh Sugar Rose for the same reason. I have a natural rosy color to my lips and this just brings it out. I can wear it with a clean, makeup free face or with a painted face and I know it will enhance, rather than trump.

The Tokyo Milk balm is still used a lot and I do feel like the moisturizing benefits are greater than the Fresh. I like to use this as a night treatment as well as my balm of choice when I'm applying my makeup.

Bottom line, I love both of these balms!

Okay...is that it? That's it right? Oh well, It is for now. Stay tuned for MyGlam/IPSY "Meh"-ness. ep its gonna be a rant....

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