My 15 Favorite Products & Discoveries of 2015

2015 was such a full year for me! I struggled a lot with my job at school. I graduated with my Bachelor’s degree. I spent the summer traveling all across the United States, including visiting 8 states for the first time (Alaska, Washington, South Dakota, Minnesota, Iowa, Indiana, Kentucky,  and Tennessee). I attended the first funerals I’ve been to since I was 9, and unfortunately that was funerals in the plural. This means I’ve been so, so incredibly lucky not to have lost anyone close to me since then, but it made this particular year really rough. I started graduate school and managed a 3.82 GPA last semester.

It was so hard to develop my “best of” list for this past year. In 2014 I discovered a lot about the basics of beauty, but while I did learn a lot in 2015, this year was more about delving in and figuring out what I liked most. I still don’t have any true holy grails (I haven’t tried quite enough products for that!), but I’m getting there. After all, isn’t that what this whole process is about?

1. Serums & Oils

This year was the year I discovered the wide world of serums and oils. My interest in serum-type products started back in the summer of 2014 when I purchased the Nutriganics Drops of Youth Concentrate, but this year I expanded the number of serums I own by a huge amount through sampling and started using serums regularly in my routine. Now I have too many serums, and am struggling to get through them at a fast enough pace. Oops!

In March I received an oil from Paula’s Choice in my Birchbox and liked it so much I ordered a full size. Then I tried out a rosehip oil and a serum-in-oil, as well as transitioning to using a body oil and starting to test out hair oils. I even started using a cleansing oil!

Empties #3

I don’t go through products very quickly. I am always amazed when I see other bloggers posting monthly empties posts with huge volumes of empty containers, because it would probably take me more than 8 months to go through that many products. Here are my empties for pretty much the entire fall semester (August-November).

Empties #2: Skin + Hair Edition

Welcome to my second empties post! In case you’re new to the beauty blogging world, an empties post is where I gather up all of the products I’ve used up (“emptied”) in the past several months and write my final thoughts about them. This post is entirely skincare or haircare products, because that’s what I use the most of. These are the products that I finished off in the last few weeks of school. And so…

A Relaxed Thursday Makeup Look

I didn’t have anything to do until late in the day today, so I decided to take my time getting ready. Still, I wanted to keep my look simple. Here’s the skincare and makeup I chose this morning as an alternative to my usually rushed routine.

First, a photo of the finished look…

 

And now, how to do it!

March Favorites

March has been a pretty good month for me, for the most part! Here are the 6 products that I’ve relied on the most for the past 31 days, everything from skincare to makeup to a gorgeous nail polish.

Five Little Wonderful Things…

…that have been making my life better this week.

• Smoky Poppy Body Butter! I apologize for my excitement, but this product has been improving my life this past week. Since winning this adorable pot in an Intagram giveaway from @budgetbeautyblog, I’ve been using it as a hand cream every time I wash my hands. It’s worked wonders — no more dry skin on my hands!

 

• I wore NYC Nolita’s Lavender on my fingernails for much of this week, but I feel like it’s a little too dark for me. Now, I’m lusting after a pale lavender polish, like Revlon Charming or Mint Lavender Macaron.

The Body Shop Haul ~ Cyber Monday

As I may have mentioned in the past, I love The Body Shop. I especially love it when they have sales, because it means that I can buy more amazing things for the same amount of money. In fact, I love their sales so much that I only ever buy from TBS during their sales 😉

In any case, they were having a 40% off sale at the end of November, and I jumped on it, buying 6 products. “But Abigail, there are 7 products in your picture!” you might say. That’s because TBS added a free gift if you spent over $50. The best part is, you were able to select your gift from several options! I chose the Shea Body Butter, which normally costs $20.

Empties #1

Welcome to my first empties post! In case you’re new to the beauty blogging world, an empties post is where I gather up all of the products I’ve used up (“emptied”) in the past several months and write my final thoughts about them. I’ve thought quite a bit about how to organize this, but since this is my first one it’s still going to be a work in progress! This post is entirely skincare products, because that’s what I use the most of. And so…

My 14 Favorite Products and Discoveries of 2014

2014 was the year that I got really into “beauty”: developing a skincare routine, exploring new brands and types of products, wearing makeup much more often, and starting this blog. I put beauty in quotes, because as we all know beauty is so much more than skin-deep. Part of the inspiration for this was spending the spring in Paris — surrounded by people caring about skincare, fashion, and otherwise looking good.

Since I just recently entered the beauty blogging world, I have made so many discoveries this year — new types of products, new brands, and new ways to apply makeup. Every month on this blog I’ve also been doing a “monthly favorites” list, and I’ve been trying hard not to repeat any products. Now, here come the repeats in this compilation of what I loved most about beauty in 2014.

 

December Favorites

I’ve spent most of December at home on break from school, and so all of my December favorites are products that I either had at home already or brought home for break, since being at school feels so long ago right now.