My Holy Grail Products from 2014

We all have those go-to products we always use despite the occasional change in routine. Despite experimentation with other products I always come back to these, without fail these products work the best for me, and none other will compare. Every other product I try falls short in one way or another, and I always come crawling back to my tried and true favorites. Here's a list of the products I swear by:

Perfume: Outspoken by Fergie, sold by Avon

Lotion:
Face: Garnier Moisture Rescue Refreshing Gel-cream
Hands: Vitabath Spring Green.
Body: Outspoken By Fergie, sold by Avon
Feet: FootWorks Healthy Intensive Deep Moisture Cream, sold by Avon

Primer:

Eyelid: NYX Eye Primer in Nude (for neutral looks) and White (for bright looks and bold colors)
Under Eye: Revlon Photoready Eye Primer and Brightener
Lip: NYX Lip Primer in Nude
Face: ELF Face Primer in Clear

Lip Exfoliator: ELF Lip Exfoliator

BB cream: Garnier Miracle Skin Perfector BB cream in Light/Medium

Foundation:
Full Coverage: CoverFx Cream Foundation and Pressed Mineral Foundation, both in N10, sold by Sephora
Medium Coverage: CoverGirl Clean Pressed Powder for normal skin in Buff Beige (summer) and Classic Ivory (winter)

Concealer: Kat Von D Tattoo Concealer in Sand

Blush: CoverGirl Shape N' Blush in Perfect Rose (Now a "Vintage" item, which is kind of scary)

Contour/Bronzer: Maybelline Blush/Brush II in Cinnabar/Copper Penny Frost (Also, scarily a "Vintage" item)

Brows:
Pencil: Avon Glimmerslicks Brow Definer in Dark Brown

Gel: CoverGirl Professional Natural Lash in Clear

Eyeshadow:

MAC eyeshadow single in Beauty Mark

ELF Studio Ultimate Eyeshadow Palette (144 shadow palette: The Rainbow One)
ELF Essentials Brightening Eye Color in Drama

EyeLiner:
Cream: ELF Cream Liner in Black and Brown
Liquid: NYC Liquid Eyeliner in Black
Pencil: WarPaint Beauty Wing Tip Liner Pencil in Black or Milani Eye Pencil in True Black and Dark Brown

Mascara: CoverGirl Lash Blast Fusion Mascara in Black and Brown

False Lashes: Ardell Fashion Lashes #110
Lash Glue: Duo Lash Glue in Dark

Lips:
Lipbalm: Burt's Bees Original Lip Balm
Lipliner: Avon Glimmerslicks Lipliner in Clear
Lipstick: Nyx Matte Lipstick in Nude
Lip gloss: Liplicious Flavored Lipgloss in Mulberry

Cleansers:
Face: St. Ives Naturally Clear Green Tea Scrub (light abrasion), St. Ives Fresh Skin Apricot Scrub in Invigorating (heavy abrasion)
Body: Bath and Body Works 2 in 1 Superfruit Body Scrub and Wash in Pure Passion (back, chest, shoulders and arms), Summer's Eve Cleansing Wash in Simply Sensitive

Makeup Remover: 

Wipes: Garnier The Refreshing Remover Cleansing Towlettes

Liquid: Wet N' Wild Eye Makeup Remover

Longwear spray: (I haven't made it through my first bottle yet and it's been years but I'll give you it's name anyway) Icing by Claire's 

Brush Cleaner: Sephora Daily Brush Cleaner

Brush Set:

Crazycity Professional Cosmetic Makeup Brush Set with Bag, Sold by Amazon (Imported from China)

Hope you guys enjoyed seeing what products I repurchase every time I run out of them. Stay tuned for reviews of these products, and more!

Stay Beautiful.
BNB

This Year's Upcoming Posts

Okay, Ladies! It's 2015. I'm working on a post currently that should go up tomorrow which will list all my Holy Grail beauty products I swear by and will always reach for when I purchase. After this post goes up I'm going to work my way through the list and review the items one by one in posts throughout the year. I may insert a post here and there that is not on the list simply because you guys know I'm always buying more stuff and trying new things, despite having my tried and true products around. I'm doing my best to get every type of beauty product I use onto the list, complete with names and color or number codes whichever the brand has. Some things I listed a category for, but I haven't got a particular product I reach for, because I'm always experimenting. And some things, like lip liners, I just started purchasing about 3 months ago, and since I have only tried one brand I didn't deem it fair to label it my Holy Grail product because I have no idea if I truly find it to be better than any other products out there.
I'm going to try and do a small segment on men's products as well closer to the end of the year. (I have to try and rope my lovely man into trying products for me and giving me his thoughts though, because I'm not sure me trying the products will yield the desired reviews. Men think differently than I do.) Post comments or email me your thoughts and any products you might be curious about for your men, if this is something you guys would be interested in me trying to get working.

Stay tuned for my Holy Grail list, and more product reviews!

Stay Warm and Beautiful
BNB

Winter Skin Repair

One of the samples I requested in my Package from Ulta a while back has become a nightly staple for me during the cold days of winter this year. I have absolutely fallen in love with Vitabath hand cream. It makes my dry hands feel absolutely silky soft, moisturized and rejuvenated after a long day out in the cold. The cream is nice and thick, quick drying, but doesn't leave behind a greasy film behind after application. The scent is salty but in a pleasant way. The scent is called Spring Green. It reminds me of the ocean, which is a wonderful thing to think about in the winter because it reminds me that the warmer days of summer are coming soon.

I use this lotion every night as part of my bed time routine. It helps to remove they dryness from being out in the cold all day.

I Take it Back!

Ok NYX, you remember how I bashed your matte lipstick in Nude a while back?

Well I was wrong...

Though the first time I used it it was kind of chalky looking and an unpleasant tan color, I recently tried it again assuming I would confirm my suspicion that this was not the lipstick I'd been hoping for. AND I LOVED IT! I don't know why the color was so tan on my first try, or why it was too chalky (ok, this one I have my suspicions) but it was a beautiful color maybe one shade darker than my skintone (And I'm a pale little girl, so Kudos to you guys) and there was no sign of chalky or graininess anywhere to be found. I am so excited to wear this out with a gorgeous bold eye look. I was so excited in fact that I threw away the concealer I had been using as a nude lipstick.

That's right... The concealer I've used for YEARS as a nude lipstick has LEFT THE BUILDING!

Now as for my suspicions about the chalky texture... I started obsessively using my moisturizing lip balm again a few weeks ago, which may have contributed to removing the weird texture because I have heard a lot of other gurus say that using matte lipstick on dry lips shows all the cracks and dry loose skin very easily and can look chalky and weird if you are not careful to exfoliate or moisturize well. Hopefully the texture stays as gorgeous as it is now, I love it so much and I can't wait to start wearing it out all the time. This may be a holy grail product for me. Let me know if you're interested in the posting of my list of holy grail beauty products.

I'm planning on picking up two more shades from this line as soon as Ulta has them in stock. If you want to know what my next shade purchases are leave comments below or send me an email.

I may also be posting a list of the products I would kill to own if that is of interest to anyone. Let me know what you guys want to see posted next!

Stay warm and cozy, kids!

And as always, Stay Beautiful.
BNB

Beauty Product Wants

As Christmas is coming and I'm making a list for my family of things that I would want for our family gift-giving I'm noticing it's mostly makeup products. I'm not expecting most of my family to be buying them for me, but it's become a hobby of mine to find products to play up my edgy style, while playing with color.

1. I'm in love with bold, bright colors, so finding the Sleek makeup palette in V1 was awesome, they're all matte finishes (if you've read most of my posts you know this excites me because I dislike glitter with a passion), and the bold neons are a must have for me.
2. I saw the Intense Pro Palette in Earth from Mehron, and I instantly fell in love with it. The swatches of the colors looked gorgeous. This palette is a must have for my coming independent photoshoot (which I will be sure to post some photos if I can get my hands on a good one) where I'll be doing a Native American war paint inspired makeup. This palette is more mattes, which are something I'm always looking to get more of, because it's often hard to find only mattes.
3. I found a single person selling MAC's Ombre Blush in Vintage Grape, which I've wanted since the day I saw it launch, but I've never had the kind of money necessary to spend on it until recently. I'm so happy to see it still exist, This could be the perfect edgy, unexpected blush color for my skin. But, since it was limited edition, I only have one shot at it on the internet for way higher of a price than I think it originally costed, buuuuut... I think I'm pretty hooked and willing to splurge.

These are the things I want the most. A lot of the new palettes coming out these days don't excite me because I have the colors already, but this stuff caught my eye!

Stay beautiful!

BNB

I'm an Influenster!

I joined Influenster.com today after hearing about it from one of the beauty bloggers I follow on YouTube. It is an amazing way to put my opinion out there about all of the products I use in my daily life, outside of just beauty products. I've had so much fun already, and I've only been on the site for two hours. You can comment on stores, brands, specific flavors/colors. It's a great way for opinionated consumers to get their opinions heard. It's free to join, and you don't need an invitation. You can earn rewards, in a sense, simply for you honest opinions on products you purchase all the time.
Every month or so, the company chooses a group of site users, and sends them a gift box of items that they can review. You don't get chosen every time, but you can get good stuff from it for your hard work. This site is by no means something you sign up to do if you don't enjoy giving your opinion on products, because you don't get paid to do it, but you do get rewards like promo codes to get money off of items you shop for and other small things like that, but this is not a check in the mail every month site.

Super Cool News

I've been slowly working on prying all of my eye shadow pans out of their singles and small palettes. I pulled a few face powders out a couple days ago that have really big pans, 2.5 inches roughly compared to the 1 inch Zpalette pans that you can purchase online. And when I searched for larger pans they didn't exist, so I decided that I would shoot customer service at Zpalette an email. It went along the lines of this:

I noticed today while shopping on your site that you guys only make eye shadow pans for putting in your palettes. As someone who has a lot of loose face powders I'm looking to pot and put in palettes I thought I might bring this up with you guys and offer the suggestion that making foundation and blush sized pans would be a cool thing. I would love to get a bunch of them, however it seems they are not being made by anyone yet. I love having the ability to change out my colors and customize my palettes, but I currently have no way of putting these loose powders into pans so I can add them to the palette. I know you guys probably get suggestions from your customers all the time, and it's hard to keep up with all of them and make everybody happy. I love your products, and look forward to maybe hearing back from you guys at some point!

And they actually responded within about 48 hours. They thanked me for my suggestion and told me they would take the idea into consideration in the future. Which is pretty freaking awesome if you ask me. I don't often have ideas that haven't been done before, so it was pretty cool to feel like I came up with something useful. And just the fact that they even responded at all made me feel quite amazing.

Along with this email they also said they would be releasing a product in the near future to allow Zpalette users to put loose pigments in their palettes. Which is also pretty awesome because I was deciding if potting all my pigments was a task I'm willing to undertake, and I might just wait until this product is released instead.

Thanks for listening Zpalette. You get an A+ for customer service and all around politeness from me!

Stay beautiful everybody. BNB