1/29/2022 0 Comments 2021 Best in Beauty: My Favorite Makeup, Skincare, and Nail Products from the Past Year
Hey, it's been a while, beauty people! Turns out I do indeed have a life outside of my small corner of the internet. Nonetheless, let's go on to my 2021 best in beauty: my makeup, skincare, and nail favorites from the last year!
Just as I did with last year's favorites, I won't be listing a product for every single category, and this won't be a "most used" list. Instead, I'll only be including the products that truly ~sparked joy~. As such, I'll be omitting many categories from this compilation, and some categories will have multiple products. For each product, I will be indicating what year I bought it and if it was a repeat favorite from 2020. I think this is always interesting to see when I read/watch other people's yearly favorites. The online beauty space -- consumers, brands, and our consumerist culture as a whole -- has a tendency to latch onto new releases and immediately discard older products: with what's considered "old" becoming younger and younger with each no release. I'm no minimalist by any stretch of the imagination, but I hope to combat that crow brain, "ooh new shiny thing" mentality just a little bit. Click here for my 2020 favorites All prices listed are in USD at the time of writing. They are not affiliate links, only for your own convenience, because I am but a common man.
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2/23/2021 0 Comments Morning & Nighttime Skincare Routine for Dry Skin 2021 (Mostly Cruelty-free & Affordable)I'm sure that many of you out there are deciding to get started with a skincare routine (or maybe just want some ~inspiration~ on new products to try). However, with the wealth of information (including pseudoscience misinformation!), it can be incredibly overwhelming to try to figure out what you do and don't "need" to include in your own skincare routine.
Ultimately, every single person's skin is different, so everybody's "perfect" skincare routine will be different. Plus, your skin's needs naturally vary with the changing weather, your surrounding environment, alterations to your lifestyle, etc., so even your "perfect" skincare routine won't always be "perfect" for you. Nonetheless, as someone with dry skin as my primary skin concern (and acne as my secondary concern), I hope to give you a place to start by sharing my personal skincare routine of mostly cruelty-free and drugstore products. I do these routines each morning and evening. EXTRA DISCLAIMER: A true basic skincare routine is cleanser, moisturizer, and sunscreen (in the mornings). I have a pretty extensive routine, but I've been on this ~skincare journey~ for several years now. So, I know my skin's needs, and I know my willingness to spend a lot of time on my routine every morning and night. This amount of product really isn't "necessary" for everybody. Ultimately, the best skincare routine is the one that you'll do every day! 1/12/2021 0 Comments 2020 Best in Beauty: My Favorite Makeup, Skincare, and Nail Products from the Year
Hello, everyone, and welcome to 2021!
As we enter this brand new year, I wanted to reflect on the previous one and all of the makeup, skincare, and nail Stuff that I used -- specifically my favorites of this Stuff. You may notice that several categories are missing, and some categories have multiple products. To choose these products, I didn't go category to category -- primer to foundation to concealer, etc. -- but rather chose the products from my collection that truly sparked joy for me in 2020. As such, I didn't select from categories where I didn't have a product that truly wowed me like the rest of the things on this list do, even for categories that I use almost every single day like brow gel. Consequently, this is a "beauty favorites of 2020" and not a "most used products of 2020." I also included what year I first got the product. A majority of these 2020 favorites weren't purchased in 2020; 2020 purchases make up 30% (7/23) of this list, 2019 makes up 43% (10/23), and 2018 -- the first year I got into makeup -- makes up 26% (6/23)*. One could argue that this means the 2020 additions to my collection were not wise investments, but I like to see it as my past purchases standing up to the test of time -- and not treating my beauty products as disposables, only fun while they're still shiny and new. Unless otherwise specified, all of these products are cruelty free! *These percentages are all rounded to the nearest whole number, which is why they don't add up to 100%, haha. Hi, everybody! Today, I'll be talking about possibly the most hyped quick dry top coat: the Seche Vite Dry Fast Top Coat. When I had my first nail polish phase back in 6th grade, I knew the Seche Vite top coat even back then as "that one top coat that everybody uses." Now, SV is the top coat that I've been using since September 2019, so for a year at this point. I've used about 3/4 to 4/5 of the bottle.
In general, the purpose of a top coat is to protect a manicure and make it last longer. A layer of top coat can also physically smooth out the texture of glitter, flakes, shimmer, streaking, etc. Top coats are also usually glossy, so just saying "top coat" implies glossy. A glossy finish can just look nice from an aesthetic standpoint, but the reflectiveness can also further visually "smooth out" any unevenness. A quick dry top coat, sometimes abbreviated to "QDTC," specifically is supposed to help your nail polish dry much more quickly than it would on its own or with a non-QDTC. I remember YouTuber Kelli Marissa once suggested making sure it actually has something like "quick dry" in the name or else it won't necessarily actually be a quick dry top coat. Hi! Today, I'll be talking about the indie nail polish Quixotic Polish Nightshade. Nightshade was part of their Flakie Bombs Collection released in spring 2020. Quixotic is an indie nail polish brand based out of California, and they describe their polishes as being vegan, cruelty-free, and 5-free (no dibutyl phthalate, formaldehyde, toluene, formaldehyde resin, or camphor).
8/22/2020 0 Comments range beauty true intentions hydrating foundation swatches & Review (villa, liquid sun, baked) + thoughts on "clean beauty"11/06/2020 update: today, I decided to use one of these for the first time in a while, and one of the shades had mold growth. This is the first time I have ever had a makeup product go bad, and I've had products for years and years: much longer than the couple of months that I've had these foundation samples. Range touts themselves as being paraben-free. As I explain in this post, the "clean beauty" movement has demonized parabens, an ingredient that has been proven to be safe and an effective preservative, but this is why scientific evidence-based -- and not pseudoscience trend-based -- cosmetic chemistry is so important.
Hi, everyone! I first heard about Range Beauty -- a relatively new indie makeup brand founded by Alicia Scott, a Black woman -- back in April when I got an ad for them on Instagram. Their tagline is "clean beauty for the forgotten shades" -- with their niche being catering to darker skin tones that are often overlooked by the beauty industry, particularly by "clean beauty" brands (more on my issues with "clean beauty" later in this review). The brand also describes itself as "100% cruelty-free, vegan, and never contains paraben, talc, sulfate, phthalates, or synthetic dyes and fragrances" in their product descriptions. Range's hero product is what I'll be focusing on today: the True Intentions Hydrating Foundation. I purchased samples of the foundation in the shades Villa, Liquid Sun, and Baked.
For reference: I have dry skin, and I would describe myself as somewhere around NC25-30 with strong warm, golden olive undertones. Historically, my favorite foundation is the Physician's Formula The Healthy Foundation in MW2.
Hi, everyone! Today, I'll be talking about the nail polish Garland from Quixotic Polish, which is currently still available. Garland was released as part of the Quixotic Cold Front Collection on Black Friday 2019 (I believe as a winter 2019 collection). Quixotic Polish is an indie polish brand based out of California, and the maker Mary Mouroulis describes the polish as being 5-free -- specifically no dibutyl phthalate, formaldehyde, toluene, formaldehyde resin, or camphor. Quixotic is also vegan and cruelty-free, meaning the finished nail polishes themselves nor the ingredients used are not tested on animals/don't contain any animal byproducts.
8/8/2020 0 Comments femme fatale devil's wheel swatch & review (polish pickup august 2019/july 2020)Hi, everyone! Today, I'll be talking about the nail polish Devil's Wheel by indie nail polish brand Femme Fatale. This polish was originally released for Polish Pickup -- a sort of "collective" where indie makers (mostly nail polish) release a product based on a community-voted theme that's exclusive to just PPU for that month. Devil's Wheel, inspired by a carnival spinning ride, was originally released for Polish Pickup in August 2019 for the theme "At the Carnival." Later, it was re-released for the July 2020 "Rewind" theme: an exception to PPU's typical monthly exclusivity where makers can bring back 2 polishes from past Polish Pickups. However, I actually bought it from a Facebook destash sale. I've been eyeing Femme Fatale polishes for a bit because they do a lot of really beautiful special finishes, so this seemed like a great opportunity to try out the brand.
Hi! Today, I'll be talking about the Colourpop No Filter Concealers in the shades Light 18 and Medium 26. Colourpop's official product description on their website is: "Our full coverage concealer was formulated with soft blurring pigments to give you a creaseproof, matte finish. No filter needed." Right now it comes in 30 shades, with 5 shades per 6 skin depths ("fair," "light," "medium," "medium dark," "dark," and "deep dark") in a mix of warm and cool undertones, including some "neutral warms" and "neutral cools" (which -- just FYI -- don't show up when you filter out "warm" or "cool" undertones in the product listing). I would definitely agree with the claim of full coverage, so you don't need to apply much product to get decent coverage.
Hi, welcome to my very first nail polish post! Today, I'll be talking about my latest mani: Glass Cabinet by the indie nail polish brand Pahlish. Glass Cabinet was part of Pahlish's Russian Ballet Collection, which launched on Black Friday 2019 on Pahlish's website. As it was released quite a while ago, it's not in stock anymore -- at least, "a while ago" for an indie nail polish brand since indies have a tendency to only do a few batches for each release. So, if you want to get this shade now, you'd have to buy it from a destash. Nonetheless, even though this is an "older" polish that isn't available anymore, I still wanted to get this out into the ether to help anyone in the future who is buying this polish from a destash; I myself have been looking up a bunch of swatches/reviews of old releases for the past couple of days as I've been browsing destash sales.
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about @glowyminoI have dry skin and very dry and textured lips. I also have a medium-light skintone (somewhere in the realm of NC25-30) with strong warm yellow/olive undertones. I have a tendency to prefer a glowy, lightweight base and color cosmetics in shades of a warm undertone. Read more about me in the about page! Archives
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