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!