I really enjoy the concept of Monthly Favorites for a lot of different reasons. It's fun to think back over the last few weeks and think of the products that have found their way to front stage of my collection. Doing this also helps to really dive into determining what I like and don't like about certain products, and also gets me thinking about other products that would pair well with my favorites! Most importantly, I love the opportunity to share my favorites with you all because, let's be honest, it's an eternal black hole of makeup out there (#notcomplaining), and it's always fun to share favorites with one another to help draw attention to things we may not have given a second thought to. Also, more often than not in my case, favorites reviews help me make a decision on high-attention products that I'm not sure about!
My first favorite for April is not really an April Favorite. It's a life favorite. Seriously. This has been my all-time favorite, and signature scent for about 8-9 years. It's Light Blue by Dolce & Gabbana.
This perfume has everything I look for in a perfume: light, fresh, and long-wearing. While I can appreciate a floral or even muskier winter scent, "clean" scents are undoubtedly my favorite, and Light Blue is the best one I have ever encountered. What I like most about this perfume is that the scent stays true from morning until night. Some perfumes have a tendency to wear down as the day goes in, and in doing so, transform the scent. Not with Light Blue. I can put this on at 6:00 AM and still get compliments that night. Perhaps another reason I am forever in-love with Light Blue as it always marks the beginning of my Spring/Summer! I've made it a tradition to get a bottle as soon as the weather starts getting warm (April, in this case), and it's the only perfume I wear until the fall. I guess over the years, I've come to associate this scent with a lot of happy summer memories!
Next up, we have some Anastasia goodies that I can't seem to put down. Anastasia Beverly Hills has been K-I-L-L-I-N-G the makeup game lately; so much so that's it's hard to remember that it was an eyebrow product-only brand for quite a while! There are a few ABH products I have been loving this month. The first of these are two ABH eye shadows, Blazing and Peacock:
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| Top: Anastasia Beverly Hills Single Eyeshadow: "Blazing" Bottom: Anastasia Beverly Hills Single Eyeshadow: "Peacock" |
Peacock is a teal satin/shimmer mix that pulls green or blue depending on the lighting (much like a true peacock!). Blazing is quite possibly one of my top 10 (dare I say 5?!) favorite. shadows. ever. It's described as a brick red on the ABH website, but it is so, so much more. What I enjoy most about this shadow is that it's so versatile -- it completely transforms depending on the shadows you pair it with. Depending on the look you are going for, it can look orange, brown, pink, or peach! This is exactly why it has made its way somewhere into almost every eyeshadow look I've done since I got it. If you love a really multidimensional crease color, give Blazing a try ASAP.
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Top: ABH Peacock Bottom: ABH Blazing (Both swatched on bare skin without primer) |
As far as formula is concerned, Blazing definitely wins between these two. It's a "ultra-matte" matte shadow and usually, eye shadows that are this truly matte tend to be chalky, streaky, and very patchy on the eye. I am not sure what magic is thrown in this pan but it is buttery smooth, crazy pigmented, and blends like a DREAM. It's really easy to build it up or diffuse it out lightly to get the look you are going for. As for Peacock, the formula is metallic, and I have to say, it's not the best metallic formula I've used. It's a little temperamental, and can tend to be a bit patchy. The color payoff upon application is not what I was going for but, with a little patience (and in my case, Fix+by Mac), the color you get is a gorgeous teal leaning blue leaning green (that's a real color name, I swear).
Keeping on the theme of eyeshadow, my next April favorite is something I had heard about for years, and never thought to try it! I am kicking myself over all of the time lost where I could have been enjoying the most amazing eye primer I have used to date: Milani Eyeshadow Primer.
Over the years, I have tried a lot of different primers -- Urban Decay, Too Faced, Nars -- the list goes on. And this little $7 primer blows all of those out of the water. Similar to the UD Primer Potion or the Too Faced Shadow insurance, this primer has a tan, beige look out of the tube, and blends out completely on the eye. Not only does this primer keep my shadow on and un-creased all. day. long, but it also does something that the others were ever able to do -- keep my shadow from skidding! One of my biggest pet peeves is when shadow sticks to primer and "skids" on the eye, thereby making blending so much longer and so much more frustrating. This Milani primer has been the best-performing eyeshadow primer I have ever used, and I don't think I'll soon be using anything else!
My next favorites touch on a topic that has taken the makeup world by complete and utter storm in the recent past: highlighting! There's countless products on the market right now, and with the constant releases, well, I have enough highlighter to strobe through my 90th birthday. In the past month, my absolute favorite highlighters have been the Moonstone by Becca (pressed) and the Anastasia Beverly Hills Glow Kit in That Glow.
Keeping with the ABH theme, let's take a moment to fall into a loving trance as we admire the beauty that is the Glow Kit:
Honestly speaking, by the time these kits came out, I was already working through the relatively large (and 100% unnecessary) collection of highlighters I had accumulated, and saw zero need for another KIT dedicated to highlighters. And then....AND THEN I saw swatches (damn you, Instagram), and was sold. These highlighters are like any of the others I have tried -- even better than the other form by ABH, the pressed Illuminators. The formula in this Glow Kit is smooth and silky, and my favorite part, the shimmer is very undetectable on the skin. All you're left with is a beautiful glow that doesn't look so obviously manufactured by product.
I've heard some reviews say that the Glow Kits are only good for in-your-face highlighting, and not so much for a softer touch, and I disagree. While it's very easy to go from zero to JLo in .5 seconds with this kit, a softer hand can definitely be used to get a lighter, more subtle effect.
Becca's Moonstone (pressed) has been another favorite for me in April because of it's unique color. I feel like gold is the standard shade for so many highlighters out there, and Moonstone definitely has gold undertones, but on my skin tone, it's more of a white gold.
Becca "Moonstone" -- swatched on bare skin without primer
On the skin, it gives a gorgeous pearlescent sheen that reflect gold, but only as an undertone. I highly, highly recommend Moonstone for any medium skin tones out there who found Becca Pearl too light, and want a similar effect.
Well, that's it for my April Favorites! What were yours?? :-) Tell me in the comments below!
Hope you all are having a great May -- see you soon with June Favorites!
Follow me on on Instagram and Twitter!
Keeping on the theme of eyeshadow, my next April favorite is something I had heard about for years, and never thought to try it! I am kicking myself over all of the time lost where I could have been enjoying the most amazing eye primer I have used to date: Milani Eyeshadow Primer.
Over the years, I have tried a lot of different primers -- Urban Decay, Too Faced, Nars -- the list goes on. And this little $7 primer blows all of those out of the water. Similar to the UD Primer Potion or the Too Faced Shadow insurance, this primer has a tan, beige look out of the tube, and blends out completely on the eye. Not only does this primer keep my shadow on and un-creased all. day. long, but it also does something that the others were ever able to do -- keep my shadow from skidding! One of my biggest pet peeves is when shadow sticks to primer and "skids" on the eye, thereby making blending so much longer and so much more frustrating. This Milani primer has been the best-performing eyeshadow primer I have ever used, and I don't think I'll soon be using anything else!
My next favorites touch on a topic that has taken the makeup world by complete and utter storm in the recent past: highlighting! There's countless products on the market right now, and with the constant releases, well, I have enough highlighter to strobe through my 90th birthday. In the past month, my absolute favorite highlighters have been the Moonstone by Becca (pressed) and the Anastasia Beverly Hills Glow Kit in That Glow.
Keeping with the ABH theme, let's take a moment to fall into a loving trance as we admire the beauty that is the Glow Kit:
Honestly speaking, by the time these kits came out, I was already working through the relatively large (and 100% unnecessary) collection of highlighters I had accumulated, and saw zero need for another KIT dedicated to highlighters. And then....AND THEN I saw swatches (damn you, Instagram), and was sold. These highlighters are like any of the others I have tried -- even better than the other form by ABH, the pressed Illuminators. The formula in this Glow Kit is smooth and silky, and my favorite part, the shimmer is very undetectable on the skin. All you're left with is a beautiful glow that doesn't look so obviously manufactured by product.
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| Left to right: Sunburst, Golden Bronze, Bubble, Dripping in Gold) |
Becca's Moonstone (pressed) has been another favorite for me in April because of it's unique color. I feel like gold is the standard shade for so many highlighters out there, and Moonstone definitely has gold undertones, but on my skin tone, it's more of a white gold.
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| Becca Moonstone -- with flash |
Becca "Moonstone" -- swatched on bare skin without primer
On the skin, it gives a gorgeous pearlescent sheen that reflect gold, but only as an undertone. I highly, highly recommend Moonstone for any medium skin tones out there who found Becca Pearl too light, and want a similar effect.
Well, that's it for my April Favorites! What were yours?? :-) Tell me in the comments below!
Hope you all are having a great May -- see you soon with June Favorites!
Follow me on on Instagram and Twitter!
Follow @makeupismycatnp
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