Today we are discussing the higher-end makeup discoveries of 2018 that I truly fell in love with this year. Now, keep in mind, I didn’t wear or care about makeup before 2018 so some of these items may have been around for quite a while, I don’t know, but I just discovered and loved them this year. I’ll also add that I did not pick out any eyeshadow despite the fact that I have definitely loved eyeshadow this year. I chose not to because I think I am going to do a palette ranking post in the upcoming days.

I am starting off with skincare/haircare type things. First of all, skincare was a big deal for me this year. Beginning a skin care routine after years of fun in the sun and wind with exactly zero care for my face was absolutely important. Getting a skincare routine in place completely changed how I believed my skin was (dry) and also completely changed how makeup performed on my skin. After a couple of months of good skincare, I realized that my skin wasn’t dry, it’s pretty normal to oily in the t-zone. It was just massively dehydrated.

All that being said, I tried some higher-end skin care and ended up really settling on the Belif moisturizing eye bomb and the aqua bomb. The aqua bomb is a moisturizer with a gel texture that keeps me from feeling too oily and the eye bomb was the one thing this year that I feel consistently made my eye area look significantly improved. I tried many other items, so I am going to mention my runner-ups too. First Aid Beauty was a great runner-up and I am still working my way through some of that. The other one I liked a lot was Farmacy Honey Drop lightweight moisturizer. But, since I have the Belif, I don’t need to purchase.

For my hair, the real amazing stand out product is the Moroccan Oil dry texture spray. I love this! Now that my hair is long I don’t bother to wash it daily. So after a bit, it tends to fall flat. A little bit of this texture spray lifts the roots right back up and makes it look quite good. I’ve experimented with lots of texturizing or beach spray products and nothing has performed as well as this one.

The Laneige lip sleeping mask and the Bite Beauty lip sleeping masks have been amazing. In fact, the other night I was thinking “I don’t think these work as well as they used to.” and then realized that the reason I felt that way was that I wasn’t having any trouble at all with dry or chapped lips. Like, it doesn’t ever happen anymore. It’s the middle of the winter! But I have zero chapped lips troubles and these products are the reason that’s the case.

And finally, I am really digging the Becca primers. The back light priming filter and the first light priming filter. I think what I am loving the most is that they seem like they sink into the skin so nicely. I’ve got a lot of primers I’ve tried and want to get through but these are ones I’ve tried and will purchase full sizes of when I have gotten through everything else.

Now for some makeup. First up, the Hourglass Illusion skin tint. Now, you can see that container is rather used. I am almost finished with this. And, technically I am not going to repurchase it. But that’s only because I don’t need it right now. When I purchased this, my dehydrated skin wasn’t looking good with any foundation I tried. This changed everything. Now that I have a good routine down, I need it less. But I do still love it completely.

3 lip items I have enjoyed. These are all small sample sizes, I haven’t purchased full sizes of any of these. All these have something in common. They are highly pigmented lip products that are also extremely highly moisturizing cream products. I am learning that this is my favorite type of lip product and I am going to try to stay away from liquid lipsticks in the future. The first is Hourglass Girl Lip Stylo, the second is Bite Beauty amuse bouche lipstick, and the third is Bobbi Brown Crushed lip color.

I have tried many samples of higher end mascara this year and the one that is standing out to me is Lancome Monsieur Big mascara. I really like how this looks on my eyes and I am thrilled that I just received another sample size as a birthday gift from ulta. That’s another few months of not purchasing mascara!

I received the Chella eyebrow cream in a subscription box. I looked it up and found out that it’s quite pricey! So, I am including it in this high-end loves list. I hate the delivery system and gave up completely on the attached brush. I just go in with my own little eyebrow brush and grab product. This’ll likely last me for a good long time yet. And I might consider purchasing it in the future. But probably there are other good products to try first that are lower end.

The Milk makeup gel eyeliner in nude. I am so glad I got this! I use it in my waterline and it goes on so creamy and smooth! I can’t get over this product, and it’s likely to be a mainstay in my collection. I may explore some of the colored ones as well, but not right now.

The Pretty Vulgar powder was a big surprise to me this season. I got this in a subscription box. It is NOT a mattifying powder and in fact, when I use it to set my makeup I do get a bit oily by the end of the day, even in the winter. But it’s just really finely milled and pretty and looks so natural on the face! I can’t get over it. I will use it this winter and probably put it away for a while when the weather warms again and I really need something more mattifying in my life.

Then there’s the Laura Geller baked blush. Another product I received in a subscription box, this blush has such a nice sheen when used on the skin. I adore it! I have plenty of blushes in my collection but was eyeing all of the other colors when I was in the store the other day. I decided not to go for it because I want to get use out of what I already own but I am sooooo happy to have this blush in my collection to use.

Below that is the mac shiny pretty things highlighter I got this season. We use this as an eyeshadow more than a highlighter as it’s quite sparkly. This item is an indulgence. It feels like an indulgence. But I do also use it as a highlighter sometimes just because it’s fun to do and I am so glad I jumped on this and purchased it as we really use it a ton.

And finally the mac paint pot. I really love using this as an eyeshadow primer. I think it works beautifully and I love how it lasts forever. I also love how it cancels out any discoloration on the eyelids so easily.

I’ve got one more stand out product to discuss. It’s the Too Faced natural face palette. Now, at the beginning of the summer, Ulta was having a sale on too faced palettes. They were basically half price. I picked up chocolate gold for Miss Butterfly’s birthday, picked up sweet peach for me, and then the natural face palette was a total impulse buy. I mean, never mind that I’d swatched it and drooled over it in the store every time I went in, I still hadn’t been intending to purchase it. But I did. And I love it.

The packaging is soooooo beautiful. I can wear every single item in this collection. All of it looks good on my face. Except for this, it looks good in the summer. Hah! Or should I say, it looks more natural when I have a bit more color? So, I used this over the summer but was busy panning other things and didn’t use it as much as I’d like. This summer? I am going to use this exclusively. I am going to wear the heck out of this. I mean, if I have such a lovely thing, I should use such a lovely thing.

Yes, I realize that the number of higher-end items I tried this year is much larger than the number of low-end items. I have probably tried more high-end items this year. In the upcoming year I’ll still be trying more items because I have some subscriptions still, but I also intend to cancel them once they are up. I canceled one awhile back, I’ll cancel another this spring, and the final two in the summer. (Probably. There’s one that might stick around, we’ll see once I get to that point.) My intention with the upcoming year is to get more use out of the lovely collection I currently have and to do more project panning.

Anyhow, that’s about it from me. What products have you discovered this year, high or low end, that you’d recommend I give a chance?

Since I only got interested in makeup this year, basically everything I try feels pretty new. I wanted to do a wrap up 2018 post on the items I fell in love with this year. Today’s post is the low-end products.

Let’s start with non makeup related items:

I don’t remember who I was watching on youtube who mentioned the makeup wipes that could be found at big lots. $2 for 60 wipes. We decided to give them a try. I bought two packages, one for Miss Butterfly and one for me. We think they are fantastic. They work great and don’t break the bank. Plus they have the plastic snap closure that works nicely to keep the wipes fresh. I hate purchasing wipes that just have the sticky cover, it always stops sticking before I am done with the wipes and infuriates me. I actually don’t use makeup remover wipes that often anymore, I got concerned with how much waste they were creating and decided to limit their use in my home. So, this package has lasted me at least 6 months, likely even more.

The Almay eye makeup remover pads for removing waterproof makeup have also been a staple in my collection this year. I used to use two pads, one for each eye, then go in with a makeup remover wipe afterward. Now I am using cleansing balms or just plain coconut oil. If that doesn’t finish removing my eye makeup, I’ll take one of these pads and finish the job. So, the back-ups I purchased of this product are sitting unused in my collection. Reminder-Don’t Buy Back-ups!

Also pictured is the elf lip exfoliator. I have mine in sweet cherry. This is $3, and it works fantastically. I don’t use it every night anymore, as I’ve discovered lip sleeping masks and my lips are in much better condition than they were when I started messing around with makeup, but I do use it regularly. Miss Butterfly purchased Brown Sugar, and a quick word of warning, that went bad on her pretty quickly. But mine I purchased at the same time is just fine. I think I got this back in April and there’s quite a lot of product left to use.

And finally, the Pixi Glow Tonic. I really enjoyed this toner with glycolic acid. I think it went a long way to helping fix some of the damage years of no skincare whatsoever did to my face. I am currently trying a Mario Badescu glycolic acid toner, but I’ll be going right back to this Pixi one as soon as I am through with it. I think I am learning that if I find something that really works it’s fine to just stick with it for heaven’s sake.

Now on to makeup:

First of all, let’s talk extremely inexpensive products, and that goes to AOA studio items! For $1 I can get a number of great products to keep my makeup costs low. Featured here are the AOA Studio BB cream, the perfect setting powder, and the AOA go brow mascara (taupe). Not pictured is the paw paw makeup sponge which is amazing as well. I am really impressed with these items. The bb cream is light coverage and the first time I used it I felt it might be too light. But, once I got my powders and so on applied it looked great on the skin. It’s also fantastic that Miss Butterfly likes it, a teen can afford this product and my teen doesn’t need full coverage. The powder isn’t overly mattifying so if that’s what you need, this might not be the one for you. But, it works well to set makeup and that’s really what I am looking for in the winter. And the brow mascara I’ll be moving toward using exclusively after I finish up the other products in my collection.

Now let’s talk Flower Beauty. I am eager to try more items from this collection, but at the moment I’ve tried the blush and the lipstick. I’ve tried both a cream lipstick and a matte lipstick, I prefer the matte formula. Both of these products perform beautifully and I am so glad to have them in my collection. I plan to try the foundation someday, and I want to try one of the illuminating primers. And of course more blushes! I love blush way too much!

And the other things. First of all, there’s the Wet n Wild photofocus foundation. I suspect this will be a staple in my collection. It’s so inexpensive, looks great on my skin, and it’s super easy to apply. It works quickly and it works well and it sticks around on my skin very nicely. I am almost done with the container I have and I will repurchase. Maybe not immediately, but I will.

Then there’s the maybelline age rewind concealer. This is another one of those things that has a great reputation in general and works very nicely. It’s lighter coverage than I’d prefer but I think that’s part of what makes it look so nice under the eyes.

I’ve added the Physicians Formula butter bronzer as one does. Meaning, this product has so much earned hype on the internet. I’ll tell you what, I HATE the smell of it. When I purchased it I thought I wouldn’t even be able to use it. It stunk up my entire makeup room. I did leave it cracked open a couple of days, and after a while, the smell did begin to dissipate. I barely smell it at all now, and I’ve hit pan! I’ve used other bronzers this year but this one I’ve used most of all. So has Miss Butterfly. So, that’s two people using it very regularly and we’ve got tons of product left to go through. It’s not just a good product but a pretty good investment. (If you can get over the initial smell.)

And finally, L’oreal silkissimee eyeliners. I’ve got 3 but I only put my two favorites in the photo. The black and the teal are just lovely. These stay on the eye so well. Inevitably it’s when I use these liners that I have to go back and use the Almay makeup rounds to finish removing my eye makeup. Ok, I went to check the price on these and realized they’ve been discontinued. Ah well, I still discovered and loved them this year, so this still holds up! I’ll have to give the L’Oreal infallible pro-last waterproof pencil liner a try to see if it works as nicely.

And that’s about it. I’ve had a nice opportunity to try quite a few products this year and these are the low-end items I believe truly stood out to me. I’ll have to look through my collection and find what higher end items I also tried and enjoyed.

I wanted to do a quick wrap up post on my experience with the NYX advent calendar. First of all, I really enjoyed it and I’d absolutely do it again next year. In fact, I look forward to it! Secondly, I found that forcing myself to wear colors I wouldn’t typically choose ended up being a great way to think out of my comfort zone. It was good for creativity. Sometimes what I created fell flat for me, but other times I really liked the look and was surprised at how well it came together. I enjoyed the blue and black lipstick days quite a lot even though they weren’t things I’d have ever chosen to wear.

I am going to choose a few of my favorite looks to revisit:

I chose the blue lipstick look even though I wouldn’t ever wear it simply because I did wear it. I wore it out and I wasn’t even nervous, embarrassed, or ashamed of it. Like, once I was out of the house, I owned it and didn’t really find myself caring what anyone thought about it.

Also during this challenge, Mr. Ink ended up really liking the black lipstick. Not even necessarily black lipstick itself, but that’s a point where he decided that dark lipstick suits me and he enjoyed seeing me in it. That’s kinda funny coming from a guy who has repeatedly said he would prefer if I never wore lipstick of any kind!

Now, I just want to highlight the products themselves. Naturally, we received 24 products. 14 of them were lip items. 6 were eyeshadows, 3 were highlighters, and there was one blush. There were 5 lip items that I doubt I’ll wear again:

But, the three on the right I am saving even though I doubt I’ll wear them. Sort of a just in case situation. The nyx slip tease Miss Butterfly wants. So, the only item out of all 24 that is actually leaving my collection is the barbie pink matte lipstick. Miss Butterfly is going to try to see if a friend wants it.

That leaves me with 19 items I will actually actively work into my collection. So, all in all, a pretty good success I think! Though honestly I would have found this to be worth it just for the fun of doing it. The experience. That would have been worth the money I paid. The 19 products that’ll work into my collection is just a nice little bonus.

Now, I suspect an advent calendar like this is designed to get you to try a bunch of items and hopefully find something you like enough to go out and purchase. For me there was only one item in the collection that I’ll be exploring in the full size, and that’s the intense butter gloss. I love the purple one I received, I’ve worn it numerous times since, and I plan to wear it again today. While I go out and look at stores for more intense butter gloss. That item was a huge win. The lip oils are nice too. While I am personally unlikely to purchase them, Miss Butterfly truly loves them and it’s fun to have received two so I can just hand one over to her.

All in all, a great success! Be on the lookout for one or two of those lip items to end up in a project pan next year. And that’s it from me today, it’s time for Miss Butterfly and I to head out shopping together!

This is one very late posting, but it’s been a busy day. I hope to do a little better tomorrow, but no promises! Today’s calendar item was a dark brown liquid lipstick. Again, not my most favorite color but I think I made it work. To be honest, I could see using this again. I paired it with my Alamar volume 1 palette (Aside-has anyone seen a review on volume 2 yet? If so-point me in the right direction! I think it’s fair to imagine that most haven’t even gotten it yet and have most of their holiday content already scheduled.)

Anyhow, the photos.

If you think I look a little pale, I do. Good catch. I mentioned it was a bit hectic today? I totally failed to put on blush or highlighter.

And the reason for the hectic? It was day 1 of watching our neighbor’s 13 year old english foxhound. (To be honest, I think he might have some husky in him, he’s an awfully fluffy old guy!)

He’s a lovely dog, but integrating him into our household is going the way it does with Lizzie who can be jerky mcjerkface to other dogs. Thankfully, Jasper has let her know very clearly that he won’t be bullied. To be honest, she still makes him nervous but he’s found peace with the situation by hanging out with Mr. Ink in his den. Now Mr. Ink has a doggo to cuddle too for the week.

On the upside, they all walk very nicely together. You may be surprised, but it’s easiest to walk Jasper and Lizzie together and keep Rose separate. Even though they struggle to get along in our home, they are perfectly lovely out on a walk together.

And because of this, I never got around to taking a photo of my 3 color brioche scarf. Sorry about that, I’ll try for tomorrow. We did manage to take Jasper home to give him a breather and took our dogs to the dog park. It was a muddy mess, and Rose needed a bath when we got home. But it was still worth every moment of getting Rose out for a good run. I doubt we’ll do it again until the weather freezes over the mud. With the rain/snow in the forecast and warm weather, I don’t see that happening until the end of the week.

Anyhow, the beginning of my time off for the holidays has gone well so far, but nothing that amounts to productivity has been done. I guess that is acceptable for day 1. It’s not my style, but it makes sense. PLUS! Mr. Ink is only off for the first 4 days of my break so maybe having a hectic day of nothing that productive but a lot of togetherness is exactly the thing. I hope the holidays are treating you well too!

We are closing in on the final days of this challenge I created for myself this year. I really had fun doing this, and I do hope to do it again next year.

Today’s item was a shimmery eyeshadow with sort of a spice color to it. I ended up pairing this with eyeshadows that have a similar color in the palette already, the Ace Beaute grandiose palette.

It’s a slightly dramatic look, but I paired it with a true nude (on me) lipstick and I think it’s ok.

I believe that tomorrow’s item is another eyeshadow, so it’ll be interesting to see what that one is. Perhaps with the last eyeshadow, I should create something that uses all of them.

That’s about it from here! I’ve been dealing with a sick teen this week, which has been stressful with the end of the semester drawing near. Hopefully she’ll be over her fever tomorrow, but it’s hard to tell! I hope you all are having a great week.

Today we received a nyx liquid suede lipstick in color peanut brittle. It’s an orangey toned lipstick which is so entirely my jam that I know I’ll finish this before any other lipstick we’ve received in this calendar. I could wear this look daily for a long time before becoming bored with it. I love orange-toned makeup on my skin and I love this look together. I paired this with my nyx eyeshadow palette which has a ton of similar orange tones in it.

So, big win for day 18 and that leaves only 1 lipstick shaped door appearing on a workday. I think that’s at the end of the week.

No knitting related content today, but I did take a photo of a dog nose. Rose has found a routine she loves. After she eats dinner, and then we eat dinner, she hopes that we’ll sit together on the couch. Since we moved the couch to a new position, it means that both Mr. Ink and I sit on it together when we watch a show after dinner. Rose has decided that it’s her perfect cuddle time. She moves off the end of the couch and comes around to curl up directly on my lap. Once I am ready to go to bed she’s so fast asleep she becomes quite the relaxed lump and it’s really hard to get her to move. It’s hard to even get her to open her eyes. She’s such a sweetheart!

I had just gotten her to at least open her eyes, as we’d indicated it was time to go out for one last time. But she wasn’t moving. Isn’t that the prettiest dog nose you ever did see?

Rose says: Oh Hai!

Miss Butterfly and Lizzie taught Rose how to play hide and seek last evening, their favorite winter game. Rose loved it! This is right after she found Miss Butterfly behind the couch.

It’s advent calendar day 9 and today we received a blush. Miss Butterfly doesn’t like it, but I do! I am wearing 3 advent calendar items here, today’s blush as well as a highlighter and the intense butter gloss.

We are rolling through December rather quickly, aren’t we? Almost doesn’t seem possible, and I am still not prepared for Christmas. I need to get a few tiny sock ornaments done tonight for gifts. I am actually looking forward to that, and maybe I can even have them count as a project completed this year! Maybe that’s my incentive.

I spent over an hour at the neighbor’s house chatting after getting to know her dog’s routine. We’ll be looking after him for a week, and we are all so excited! We’ve got express permission to basically involve him in all our usual activities. He can go for car rides, go to the dog park, go for walks, and we can bring our dogs over to use her fenced in backyard for some fun off-leash playtime. I think it’s going to be a fantastic week for all the dogs! And us!

I suppose that’s it for today. I still haven’t gotten a photo of the current project since I haven’t been at home during the light of day. I’ll try again tonight! Happy midweek!

Yesterday I got home and immediately took the dogs for a walk. Didn’t even bother to get a snack or change out of my work clothing. I love that it has been cold enough that our 9 inches of snow stuck around, but at this point it’s getting irritating. There’s a freeze and thaw cycle going on right now and all sidewalks are just an icy mess. All my walks with the dogs are extremely slow moving because none of us want to slip and fall. Even the dogs. I took them on their walk immediately because I had a suspicion that Mr. Ink was coming down with a nasty cold. He rarely complains but had been consuming cough drops very fast on Sunday. I was right, he got home and was miserable. I didn’t want him to think I needed help with the dogs while he was so sick.

We ordered in as well since I was projecting. I always crave chinese food when I am sick. So, it felt like ordering chinese was going to be the right thing to do rather than have Mr. Ink cook. He seemed extremely appreciative.

I got a call from our neighbor last evening, she asked if we still would watch her dog over the holidays. She wants to go out of town. We are very happy to do so, he’s a 13 year old english foxhound, and he’s a really fun dog! We love him. Rose is going to be SOOOOO excited about this development. We will have him for about a week, and I am headed to her house tonight to get all the details on his care.

Anyhow, that brings us up to date and we can now look at what we got in the advent calendar for day 11. Quite frankly, my makeup game was not 100% today. I blame exhaustion, with Mr. Ink sick and miserable I am not sure anyone got a ton of good sleep last night. Including the dogs. But, anyhow, the item is a butter gloss, and it’s really nice!

The color is Glaze-y days. It’s very pretty and I will consider it another win from the calendar. So far only 2 products I’d consider getting rid of, and this isn’t one of them.

Have a great day, that’s all from here!

Today’s product was a nyx sliptease in colorway poppin’. It’s a peach color and a bit too light for my taste. Not because I don’t like the color, it’s a color I would totally wear on any day. But, because it doesn’t actually cover the color of my lips underneath which makes it look a little odd. Thankfully that isn’t really coming across on camera, so I can at least pretend it’s perfect.

Bonus photo, my family bought me the Urban Decay Born to Run palette, and I am SO THRILLED! I’ve wanted that palette since it came out, but with my subscription boxes coming in, I had decided I couldn’t justify purchasing it. Seriously, I am going to wean myself off the subscription boxes because I want to spend that money instead on things that I like when they come out and still love 6 months later. That is, of course, what I am wearing on my eyes. Since I really didn’t do an eye look yesterday either, I was able to use it the moment I got it, trying a quick look before going out to dinner. My first impressions of this palette are very good, with both uses the colors blended so easily it made the eyeshadow look come together very quickly.

Naturally, I went straight for the blues this morning. I haven’t used a wet brush with the shimmers yet as their color payoff is perfectly lovely as is. I will give that a try in the future, but for now, I am just enjoying using it dry.

I believe that my pan that palette challenge is going to take a bit of a hiatus for a while so that I can enjoy this beauty!

Other things from Sunday.

Mis Butterfly came home from a weekend trip to KCMO with her dad and stepmom, prompting my favorite photos of Rose. I call the series “Sissy’s Home!” Rose gets super excited and wants to be where ever Miss Butterfly is, and it’s the cutest.

And a photo from dinner last evening, Miss Butterfly set aside her fried ice cream in order to indulge me in trying a fork full of beans and rice. She’s an extremely picky eater, so this was major. I took photos to send to her dad and stepmom. Naturally, she did NOT like that fork full of food.

In an ongoing effort to mitigate some of Rose’s anxiety about being home without us there we totally rearranged our home, putting both kennels in one room. I was hoping that Lizzie’s presence would help. Last evening’s dinner was a test run. I don’t quite know how it went, Rose seemed ok but drooly, while Lizzie seems to have been rather irritable about it, she managed to shove her kennel tray halfway out of the kennel. We’ll see what happens today, but we are doing multiple things to hopefully help Rose out. It’s tough, she is so relaxed when we are at home now. She doesn’t get into anything she shouldn’t, she plays with her toys, plays with Lizzie, naps nearby, etc. So to see her so distressed while we are gone is really tough, even though the length of time she spends in her kennel is 3.5 hours tops! On the other hand, we’ve got the majority of her food issues worked out now, so hopefully, we can also find ways to mitigate her separation anxiety as well. The food issues were really hard work while we were going through them, but now that they are over it feels like it was easy. Hopefully, this is just another passing phase we can work on, mitigate, and then it’ll feel like it was easy looking back on it.

And that’s it from me today! I really have to get another photo of the cowl, it’s getting really long! Have a great week friends!

Today’s makeup offering from the calendar was simply a lightly tinted pink lip oil. Really, that’s a perfect item for a slow Sunday. I am thrilled.

So, I did easy makeup. Laura Mercier caviar eyeshadow stick on my lids, bare minerals powder foundation on my face, a little bit of blush/bronzer/highlight, a taming of the brows, and some mascara. It’s nice for a day I may not otherwise have even bothered with makeup.

This lip oil is an item I would wear very regularly. I predict it’ll be the first thing from this collection to get used up. The “flavor” is cranberry mint and it’s as light as the pink tint. Best item in this calendar yet.

I gave the dogs their dehydrated sweet potato treats yesterday once they were done, the dogs were thrilled! So far so good with them agreeing with Rose’s stomach. No issues yet. It was a nice gentle day yesterday, just how I like it. We did get the dogs to the dog park and we stayed until I got quite cold. Rose loved it, and Lizzie wasn’t upset to be there either! I hope we can get out there again today.

I also want to get to the pet stores as I’ve got some coupons expiring today. But I won’t get too bent out of shape if I don’t.

Here’s a picture of Lizzie and Rose after the dog park. Lizzie is enjoying time on the floor while Rose is sleeping on my feet keeping them nice and warm.

That’s it from here! I am still plugging away on my cowl and enjoying it, but there’s only so many in progress photos I can show off in one weekend!

I thought I was afraid of blue lipstick. As it turns out, I am terrified of barbie pink lipstick, and wouldn’t you know it, that is exactly what we got today. I tried desperately to get this to cover the darker natural color of my lips, but 17 layers later I had to give up. You can actually see that there’s a bit of a bluish tone to the lipstick on my lips compared to the swatch on my hand because I can’t get it to fully cover my natural lip color.

But here we are. The challenge is still fun! However, out of 4 lipsticks, I’ve only gotten two I would actually continue to wear on the regular. I might keep the light pink metallic around for fun, but if Miss Butterfly doesn’t want this one, it’s gotta go.

I am trying an experiment with my hair at the moment, where I go a really long time without properly washing it. It does seem to have a lot more height and body at the moment, though this also has to do with the multiple texturizing products I’ve added over the past few days. It doesn’t seem to feel or look greasy yet, though I have been adding dry shampoo as well. I washed it on Monday, so we’ll see if I cave tomorrow as it feels like a very long time for an every other day hair washer like me.

One more photo for today:

This silly little Lizzie dog who sometimes looks a lot like a teddy bear got an all clear on her eye yesterday. I am so thankful we don’t have to bother her with drops and worry about her eye anymore. I really hope we don’t have to go through that again. These two are such angels when we are at home with them, I really hope that Rose the Buzz Saw doesn’t shred through anything today while I am at work! We’ll see. (We actually gave her a cheap moving blanket to shred so she’d do that instead of shredding Mr. Ink’s clothing if she felt the need to shred during the day.)

That’s it from here, hoping for a lovely day today so that I can get a photo of my latest knitting finish after work! So glad we are almost through the week as well, I am exhausted, I don’t know about you!

Clearly, my December posts are just going to be selfies and dogs. Well, to be fair, I did finish a knitted item last evening but it is soaking and needs a true blocking. The kind where I have to pull out blocking boards and pins and so on. That takes ENERGY, energy which I do not currently have.

Day 4 of my NYX advent calendar is another highlighter. This one is called Cinnamon Spice. It’s on a beige base with a bit of gold shimmer, and I think there’s a bit of a green lean too. I went ham with it in order to be able to see it. Quite frankly, I woke up at 4:30 am, so I had plenty of time to enjoy some makeup play time. It probably shows. In any case, I wanted to also indicate my lip color. It is flower beauty petal pout in warm sand and it is my absolute favorite lipstick ever so far. Oh, and the eye look is the one from the tarte be a mermaid palette that I’ve been panning. The one specific look that I’ve been wearing repeatedly.

Next news, the dogs. Yesterday was an odd day. I had to leave the house at 6:30 am as I had an early morning doctor’s appointment before work. So, the dogs did not get their breakfast and morning care routine from me. Instead, Mr. Ink had to take over. Then Mr. Ink decided to drive Miss Butterfly to school since we had gotten like 9 inches of snow and it’s hard to walk in that. So, they got geared up to leave together and the dogs thought this meant it was time to go for a walk. They got super excited, they got taken out for the last time, and then put in their kennels. They were displeased.

Apparently, SO displeased that Rose destroyed her kennel pad. This kennel pad came highly recommended from her foster family as a pad that would withstand her….as Mr. Ink calls it…Miss Buzz Saw ways.

That’s what he came home to. The pad had a guarantee, but that guarantee was for the first 30 days. She did this in the first 60 days. I am going to contact the pad maker anyhow, as foster family has mentioned that he’s a really nice guy. Because I haven’t seen any other option out there that might work well for us.

As the other side of this, I took a photo of what the floor near our sliding glass door looks like.

What is the point of this you might ask? This is a whole bunch of shoes and boots that haven’t been picked up because Rose has not chewed or even showed any interest in shoes in ages. They are all safe now. So, despite the kennel pad incident, we are still seeing major progress with her, and she’s not even a year old yet.

The dogs clearly were just feeling off their routine all evening. Miss Butterfly had a friend over, a friend the dogs know, and when she walked in the door, Rose took to barking at her like a crazy dog. It was so weird because Rose rarely barks at all. She acted scared of the friend, but then would also wag her tail and go right up to her. All the incessant barking made Lizzie a little nutty so Lizzie would keep trying to tone Rose down. By barking at her. And then correcting her. Which REALLY wasn’t helping.

Once we settled all that down, I noticed that Lizzie, a bit too big for her britches, kept stealing Rose’s antler. In fact, she was stealing it right out of Rose’s mouth. And, well, no matter what I said, Lizzie wouldn’t knock it off. I could see Rose get increasingly grumpy, but after a while, I decided to just let this play out. I told my family repeatedly “By the end of this night, Lizzie is going to get a major smackdown from Rose.”

Throughout the evening I’d notice Rose snarling behind Lizzie’s back, but not reacting to Lizzie directly. I watched and watched and waited. And sure enough, right before bed, in front of the entire family, Rose gave Lizzie a smackdown. She was immediately sorry, and Lizzie was quite chastised. It is absolutely what needed to happen. I decided at that point that everyone, including me, needed to go to bed. Lizzie quite uncharacteristically took Rose’s spot on the bed, looking for comfort from me as Rose had made her nervous. We’ve seen the smackdown before, and we know it needs to happen because Lizzie will absolutely take advantage if given an inch. But she definitely gets upset when it happens.

You know, some days you just feel off, even if you are a dog. Some days you cannot be your patient self. Somedays you decide you aren’t going to tolerate certain behaviors anymore. And Rose had that day yesterday. (Rightfully so!) And that’s the update in the life of Lizzie and Rose, I leave you with one last picture of Lizzie and Miss Butterfly.

They really are the best of pals.

It’s a win for me! This morning we pulled out a nice bold colored liquid suede lipstick. That’s right up my alley!

I totally forgot to photograph my makeup choices in general, as I had to be at work before 7 am, but I can run through them even so.

-Wet n wild photofocus foundation
-Clinique powder
-Maybelline age rewind concealer
-Chella brow pomade
-Tarte be a mermaid and make waves eyeshadow
-Style Sepia eyeliner in brown
-Sephora brand mascara
-A combo of Hula bronzer and PF butter bronzer
-Tarte amazonian clay blush in paaarty
-NYX highlighter from advent calendar day 1

My big breakthrough of the day was finally figuring out how to use a wet brush for shimmery eyeshadows. Apparently, I’d just not been wetting the brush enough, and since I wasn’t able to get the shimmer payoff I wanted, I would then give up and use my finger for application. This morning I tried again and it worked beautifully, and that also means I needed to spend less time trying to clean up the edges of my eyeshadow. I am most pleased about this development! One of the major reasons I am pleased is that those tiny scale shaped pans in my current pan that palette challenge will not accommodate using my fingers for application for much longer.

I am not sure how many inches of snow we ended up getting over the weekend, but we’ve got a really nice amount out in the yard. We took Rose to the dog park despite the fact that the weather was terrible. She was thrilled! She ran and ran and ran. There were only 4 other dogs there and none that could keep up with her. After a time, Mr. Ink and I just spread far apart and started calling her. She’d run to one of us and then the other would call and she’d run back. Once she got the hang of this, she just ran one huge oval around us. Once she got too cold she quickly let us know that it was time for us to take her home. (There was also 2 big and not particularly well-behaved mastiffs there and she wasn’t a fan of them.)

We got home, decorated the tree, and then Miss Butterfly and I took the dogs out in the yard for more play time. They bounded through the snow, sometimes playing together, sometimes not. Lizzie spent a lot of time shoving her face into the snow piles then doing a nice good snow roll. Rose spent a lot of time picking up pieces of snow to eat.

Once inside and changed out of wet clothing, we decided we were cold so we wanted to crawl in my bed to watch youtube videos and warm up. The dogs were on board.

They were a little on the sleepy side! Lizzie’s eye seems to be getting better, we are hoping for an all clear on Wednesday.

Then this wasn’t warm enough, so Rose crawled under the blankets with Miss Butterfly for a cuddle.

Once 7 rolled around, Lizzie made sure we all knew it was time to eat by perching herself on Rose and demanding we do her bidding.

And that’s how we did Sunday. It was a fantastic weekend!

A 2 part post. First up, the NYX advent calendar day 2. The surprise was a baby pink metallic matte liquid lip cream. Something I am just about 0% interested in. I don’t love metallic lipsticks. Plus, baby pink is hard to pull off as my lips are much darker than that. I counteracted this by fully lining and filling in my lips with a lip liner before adding the lip cream. A swatch and my selfie below.

I didn’t bother with photographing what I used on my face in general because it’s a repeat of yesterday except for switching out the lip color.

First a life update, we are in the midst of a heavy winter storm. Overnight we got 4 inches of snow after more than 24 hours of pouring rain. So, it’s all thick and awful and slushy. It’s snowing again with another 2-4 inches expected. We woke up to a winter wonderland, and it’s about as lovely and holiday looking as it possibly could be!

Now for the November empties.

Pretty good month for me overall, and honestly if I’d postponed this post 2 more days I’d have 2 more empties to add. But, I’ll save them for the end of this month.

Left to right as usual:

Deva Curl low-poo. I think there are far better sulfate free shampoos on the market. Deva Curl shines when it comes to the no-poo method, but I am not sure this particular line is very good. At least, it isn’t good for me.

Next is Urban Decay All Nighter foundation. I thought this was empty last month, but it ended up pathetically squirting out about another week’s worth of product, much to my chagrin. I hated this product and used it up despite that. I am thrilled to completely eliminate this from my collection. I think one thing to be learned from this is that it takes a good amount of time to use up a foundation so you’d better be absolutely positive you enjoy a high-end one before purchasing. Especially if you are one who insists on getting full use out of what you buy.

Next to that is a mary kay hand cream that was part of a satin hands kit. I loved this hand cream but saved it for the satin hands kit. Unfortunately, it finished before the rest of the kit. The unscented nature of this one makes it great in my mind. The thing is, I find the whole getting in touch with a rep in order to place an order and then being home at the time they are going to drop off the product so irritating that unless it’s a special item I need, I am not doing it anymore.

Next, let’s go top to bottom. I had a glam-glow bubbling cleansing sheet mask to use up from a subscription box. It’s nice but nothing to write home about. It is indeed very cleansing, it deposits far more product on the face than I’d ever use otherwise.

Wet n wild contour palette, I think it was a pretty solid 7 or 8 months of use on that, so a real bang for your buck there. I’d repurchase this in the future providing I’d used up everything else I have floating around. What I’d really like is to just purchase the darker powder, I have little need for the light powder in my life.

Below that is two high-end mascaras, Lancome’s monsieur big and marc jacob’s velvet noir. I loved both of these so hard! I will never pay the money for a high end mascara but am perfectly thrilled when they arrive in my collection via sample or subscription box! Both of these eventually dried out and got a little flaky but they were extremely well appreciated while I was using them.

First Aid Beauty ultra repair cream-I really am enjoying First Aid Beauty’s line of very low fragranced products. These are really gentle on the skin. While I think this product was meant for use all over the body, I used it as a nice heavy night cream on my face and really appreciated it for that.

Below that is a sample of cover FX custom enhancer drops and these I used up by adding them to my UD all nighter foundation to give the thing less of a matte look on my face. I am not sure it worked, but I wasn’t going to use the product another way anyhow.

There’s a sample of Kiehl’s midnight recovery serum and that’s another product I really loved. It felt great on the face, very hydrating. I’d definitely pick up another sample if I had the opportunity.

I finished a NYX eyebrow pencil, the color was too warm for me. I am glad it’s gone, and I didn’t love the pencil anyhow. I think I am more of a powder or pomade appreciator and I don’t think I am going to continue picking up brow pencils in the future. I have pretty well-shaped eyebrows that are appropriately thick, so I have decided just filling them in and then using something to make them stick where I want them is the best way to deal with them.

And finally there’s a Peter Thomas Roth anti-aging cleanser. I liked this just fine, I had two and I put them both in my trader joe’s cleanser pump since I’d used up the trader joe’s cleanser. There’s a bit left, about a month of use. I don’t think I’ll pick this up again, mostly because I think cleanser is something that stays on your face for so short a time that it doesn’t really help anti-age anything. Save on cleanser, spend on serums and moisturizers I think.

And that’s it! Another month, another batch of products tried and completed. Now I’d best get around to doing a bunch of house cleaning so I feel less guilty about leaving the outdoor heavy snow work to Mr. Ink!

Last year a facebook friend of mine purchased the NYX advent calendar on black friday. I think in a slight moment of buyer’s remorse, she told herself she now had to post one selfie a day wearing the lip product contained in the advent calendar for the duration of the calendar. At the time I never even wore makeup, but it was my favorite thing on the internet in December 2017. When she decided to do it again this year, I decided I’d join in.

This year’s calendar contains more than lip products, there are highlighters, eyeshadow, and at least one blush as well. And, I am going to do the selfie a day on the blog and on facebook. Here we go!

Day 1 is a highlighter:

It has a bit of a lavender shift to it. It has absolutely no pink at all. It’s very light. I think it’ll actually look better on Miss Butterfly than it will on me. But, I am going to wear it. In fact, this will be my highlighter until the point I open the next one. For the record, I did not spoil this for me, so I really will not have a clue what I am getting each day.

And now for the selfie. I kept it pretty low key on makeup today because basically, I am still in pajamas. It’s nasty outside, it’s been pouring all night and then we got a nice wintery mix overtop of that. I have no intentions of going anywhere today, except for walking the dogs in the neighborhood providing the weather clears.

I have a distinct feeling it’ll be difficult to see my highlighter. I did my best. I did get a photo of the rest of the makeup I am wearing today:

Not sure I’ll get a daily makeup photo in the future, but today and tomorrow seem likely. Anyhow, I am wearing bare minerals concealer and powder foundation, laura mercier caviar stick in rose gold on my eyelids, a combo of butter bronzer and hoola bronzer paired with tarte paaarty blush, my chella brow pomade and anastasia brow gel on my brows, IT superhero mascara on my lashes, bite beauty (can’t remember the color) on my lips, and l’oreal infallible setting spray to top the whole thing off.

This was fun, and I can see why she decided to continue it this year despite suffering through some pretty challenging lip colors. And there’s certainly some enjoyment over not quite knowing what is coming next.

This won’t be the only thing I am posting about through the month, but I will split things into two, so some days there will be more than one post from me through Christmas day.