Christmas Haul.

Καλή χρονιά σε όλους! Ελπίζω να περάσατε τέλεια στις γιορτές, να φάγατε να γλεντήσατε και να λάβατε τέλεια δωράκια, αλλά και αυτό να μην έγινε ελπίζω να πήρατε τέλεια δωράκια για τους εαυτούς σας, όπως έκανα και εγώ. Αυτή είναι και η αφορμή μου για το σημερινό post, θα σας δείξω όλα αυτά τα beauty πραγματάκια που αγόρασα μέσα στην περίοδο των εορτών, και ένα το οποίο έλαβα ως δώρο και δεν μπορούσα να μην το συμπεριλάβω μιας και είναι τέλειο! 

January Favorites.

It's been such a long time since I've done a monthly favorites post, and that's because I wasn't trying any new products so I didn't have anything new to show you. But the past few months I've tried lots of new beauty products, and some of them are already HGs of mine! Not all the products are new though, some of them are staple HG products that I use all the time, and some are rediscoveries! I promise you there will be more monthly favorites posts this year!

Summer 2014 Favorites.

 Long time no see my lovelies, I hope you all had an amazing summer! In August I took a long break from blogging mostly because half of the month I was away on vacation, at the beautiful Naxos island, which is amazingly beautiful and dreamy. But it was time to get back into blogging again, and since summer is not completely over yet in Greece, I thought it was a great opportunity to show you all the beauty products I used the most in the summertime.

 Sunsilk Sensational Curls Leave-In Cream

In my opinion this is the best curl cream out there, hands down! I have naturally wavy/curly thin hair, I've tried many curling creams in my life, from salon and drugstore brands but this one is the best I've found for my hairtype. It defines them so well without feeling sticky or weight down my hair, and you cannot beat the price, it costs only 2.5 euros.

Garnier Fructis Surf Hair Paste
I've always had a love-hate relantionship with styling products, I've tried so many, from mousses to hair gels and sea salt sprays to try and make my curls look more defined and last for more than a few hours, and none of them could do what this God sent product can do! It creates the most beautiful and texturized curls I've ever seen, especially if I use it with the Sunsilk leave-in cream! I only use a small amount of this paste on really wet hair, if I use a lot my hair's sticky as hell. If you have thin/frizzy curly hair and sea salt sprays do not work on your hair you should definitely try this one, trust me.

Clinique Take The Day Off Cleansing Balm
OK I should be honest with you, but when I first bought this cleansing balm I hated it, I was trying to use it as a one step cleanser whenever my skin was feeling more dry but that didn't work. I decided to give it a second chance now that my skin is oily again and I completely love it, but I always use a seperate cleansing gel afterwards. It saved my skin from all the sunscreen that I was using this summer, I've never felt my skin more clean than when I started using this balm, it does an amazing job at removing heavy make up and waterproof sunscreens.

Sephora "Sol De Rio" Bronzing Powder
Bronzer of my choice for this summer was this amazing limited edition one from Sephora, it's very subtle nothing too much,completely matte and perfect for everyday use. You can see a swatch here.

Revlon Nearly Naked Powder
I was very much into powders this summer, sometimes I was just using some concealer and a powder on my face. In my stash I found this one from Revlon which I purchased last year when I visited London, it's a tone darken than my skintone but now that I'm a bit tanned it matches me perfectly. And as you can see I've used a lot of it because I hit pan only after two months of using it. 

Mac Peaches Blush
This is the only blush that I've seen using for two months now, it's the perfect true matte peach blush for the summer. If you have warm skintone you have to try it!

Mac Prep and Prime Highlighter in Bright Forecast
I love use highlighting pens as undereye concealer when the weather is hot, even though they doesn't cover as well as a regular concealer. This one has a peach shade that neutralizes my dark brown undereye circles, it makes me look more awake and fresh, and that's more than enought for me.

Essence Get Big Lashes Waterproof Mascara
I was blown away by this mascara, I never thought that such a cheap mascara would give to my lashes so much curl and length. You can see my full review on it here.

NYX Butter Gloss in Apple Strudel
I love using peachy glosses at summer, and this one was just perfect because it's super glossy and doesn't have any shimmers in it. It looks amazing over any peachy and coral lipstick but I loved using it on it's own for a fresh everyday look.

Mac Flamingo Lipstick
I have so many peachy lipsticks, but this summer Flamingo was my number one choice. It's more of a neon coral pink, and it looked amazing even when I wasn't wearing anything else on my face. You can see a swatch here.

L'oreal Color Riche "Lemon Meringue" Nail Polish
I never thought I'd say that a pastel nail polish was my top shade for the summer but it's true! I always go for reds and corals but this one changed my mind! It's not the traditional opaque white nail polish, it has a light yellow-lemonish tint into it that makes it special. Also it looks amazing on toes when you're tanned.



So these were all the beauty products that I loved the most this summer. Have you tried any of those?
What were your favourite products for the summer? Let me know!

February Favorites.

Finally a monthly favorites post! I haven't done one in a while because to be honest I didn't have any favorite products to show you. I haven't been wearing make up that often and since I got some new products within the past month I wanted to start using them for a while and decide which ones I like the most and include them in my February favorites.

 Benefit It's Potent! Eye Cream
If there's only one skincare item that I've been loving a lot these past few months it's definitely the It's Potent eye cream from Benefit! It's hard for me to find the best eye cream, it has to be moisturizing but not too greasy because my concealer will crease like crazy, and I don't like thinner eye creams because they do not moisturize my undereye area at all. This one has just the right texture, not too thin and not too thick, it moisturizes really well without being heavy and the concealer just sticks on top really well.

Maybelline Dream Pure BB Cream
I don't know why but I was never into BB creams, lately I'm just sick of using foundation as a base whenever I want to do my make up, it's just too much for an everyday look to go and run some errands or just go for shopping, and that's why I got this BB cream in the first place. It's not the perfect one for sure because I do get oily really quick but I just love how fresh my face looks with this on, and I don't mind if I need to blot my face a few more times throught the day.

Bourjois Happy Light Luminous Serum Primer
A primer is also a product that I rarely use, because the majority of the ones that I've tried in the past had that silicone texture which after a few hours made me look even more oily. This one has a totally different texture, it's like a moisturizer that dries up on my face really quick. It gives a fresh luminous look that you notice only after you put your make up on, and the best part is that it doesn't make me oily, even though it says that it's for dry and normal skintypes, it's definitely better than Benefit's Porefessional when it comes to oil control.

Benefit Dallas
I rediscovered Dallas in my make up stash recently and I wanted to start using it as a bronzer again. It's not the typical brown or peachy shade of bronzer, it has rose undertones, and because of that I skip blush sometimes and I only wear this. The quality of this powder is just perfect, it's so finely milled and highly pigmented and that's the main reason why I wanna try Hoola sometime in the future.

Maybelline Babylips Peach Kiss
Recently I went to a Maybelline event for the launch of their new products here in Greece, including the very famous Babylips and I was very happy that they gave us all six of them to try out. The one that I instantly fell in love with is the Peach Kiss one, as I do with every single peachy lipstick or lipgloss or balm! It's not the most moisturizing lip balm I've ever tried, they're not creamy and waxy they're more glossy, for sure they cannot beat my beloved Liposan (Nivea at other countries) but the peachy taste and the light beige glossy shade it gives on my lips are the two things that I love with this one.

NYX Butter Gloss in Creme Brulee
I haven't really been wearing the NYX Butter Glosses at all since I got them, mainly because the Mega Shine lipgloss in Beige stole my heart, it's the only lipgloss that I've been wearing for months. But I wanted to start using the Butter Glosses too so I saved the Apple Strudel which is a summerish color for the spring and summer and now I use the Creme Brulee. It's a beautiful kind of nudish beige-pink shade, if that shade decription makes any sense to you, it has mauve undertones but it's not cool toned, it's a neutral shade that goes with every make up look. Also it makes my lips look really plump and full with no shimmers in, my kind of perfect lip gloss!



Non Beauty Favorites

Sleepy Hollow is a new tv series, I watched the whole Season 1 in just a few days, well it's only 13 episodes, but anyway it's actually really good! At first I refused to watch it, I thought it would be a silly "Sleepy Hollow" knock off (you know the 1999 movie with Johnny Depp) but it has nothing to do with that one, it has its own unique plot which gets better and better in every single episode! If you like supernatural tv series you should definitely watch it!

Lately I've been obsessed with Drop Dead Diva, I watched all 5 seasons within a month and I wonder why I never watched this show before! It's so cute and funny, very well written and Jane is such a goddess! I read that the upcoming 6th season will be the last one and if that's true then I will be really sad, because I think that it's the perfect summer tv show, I hope that it's not true.

And for my music favorite, it's of course Beyonce's new self-titled album! It was such an amazing surprise when she released her album in December out of nowhere, with no promo, and each song comes with a video. The songs that I love the most are Partition, Drunk In Love, XO and Flawless. Out of all her five albums I think this one is my second favourite after her first one, which will always will be my top one. And if you haven't heard this album yet, what are you doing with your life? Just go and do it!



So these were all my favorites from the previous months. Have you tried any of the products that I mentioned? Did you like them? I wanna know!

Top 13 Favourites of 2013.

 It's the last day of the year 2013, and what a better post to write than my top 13 favourite products of the year that is about to end in a few hours! You've may seen already these products many times in previous posts but that's the whole point of this post anyway, to write about the products that I've used and loved the most this year. So let's start!

 The highlight of the beauty products that I've tried this year has to be the skincare ones, because I experimented more with my skincare routine this year and I found some really good products that I love using this period. I changed the cleanser that I was using for many many years non stop, to the Apivita Creamy Face & Eye Foam Cleanser with Olive and Lavender. My skin now is not how it used be a few years ago, the continuous use of harsh cleansers dehydrated my skin a lot, so I had to change it. This one from Apivita is the best for those who have oily but dehydrated skin, you should definetely check it out! A moisturizer that I really love and purchased twice within a few months is the Frezyderm Moisturizing 24H Hydrating Cream, this one also helped a lot with the dehydration of my skin, it's not very  lightweight but it also doesn't leave a heavy feeling on my face. One more thing  is that it never broke me out and I have a bad history with break outs from various moisturizers, so this one is definitely one of the best moisturizers that I've tried so far. One more moisturizer that I really love, this time a little heavier and more appropriate for the nightime, is the Burt's Bees Sensitive Night Cream. It can be a little heavy underneath foundation, but it doesn't leave my skin feeling oily, so it's comfortable enough for the nightime, also it never broke me out and it's really good for those who are sensitive to perfumes.

My top foundation of the year hasn't really changed at all since last year, it's still the Mac Pro Longwear! I just love this foundation, it's long lasting and the coverage it provides it's really good. I like trying new foundations every once in a while but this one will always be my top one, you can read a full review about it here. My top beauty discovery of the year has to be this blush from Seventeen, the Cafe Au Lait Silky Matte Blusher. I've completely stopped using any of the bronzers that I own and I've been using only this one since last summer. I don't think I've ever used a better shade of bronzer before, it's a warm brown shade without any red undertones, it's also very longlasting and the texture is very velvety, I just couldn't find a better bronzer for sure!

 The Stila In The Know eyeshadow palette is also one of my best beauty discoveries of the year, an eyeshadow palette with only matte neutral eyeshadows. They have amazing quality and pigmentation, I wouldn't expect anything less from Stila, they know how to make amazing eyehadows! I've already done a full review about it here, check it out!

Even though  I included 2 blushes in my top 13 favourites, I'm gonna cheat and count them as one product. Essence's Silky Touch Blushes completely changed my mind about cheap blushes, I even think that they're better than my Mac ones, they have amazing texture and pigmentation. The ones that I love the most are the Secret it-Girl, a true peach shade, and Sweetheart, a light neutral pink. This year also I decided to try some of the Real Techniques face brushes, and they're definitely the best brushes that I've tried so far, especially the Blush Brush which I love using it to apply my bronzer and blushes, I'll definitely need a second one, really soon.

The lipgloss that completely blew my mind this year is the NYX Mega Shine Lip Gloss in Beige! I'm not a lipgloss person, and even though I own many I rarely wear them, but this one from NYX is my weakness, I keep reaching for it and it's always in my make up bag whenever I go out. It's a medium pink that goes with every single look that I do, and the texture is very silky without being sticky but in the same time it's not watery, it has just the perfect texture for a lipgloss. A lipstick that I used a lot last spring and summer is the Dior Addict lipstick in Delice, it's a medium sheer coral-peachy shade, it's so easy to use it like a lipbalm, and that's the main reason why I love the Dior Addict lipsticks.

When it comes to nails, the Sally Hansen Insta-Dri top Coat is definitely my baby and I just can't live without it! It dries my nail varnishes within a few minutes and it's way better than the famous Seche Vite which is very thick and hard to work with. The Insta-Dri does the exact same job as the Seche Vite but it's very lightweight and not sticky at all.  The perfume that I literally wore the whole year is the Vera Wang Princess, it has a light everyday scent that I love wearing all the time. If you like light scented perfumes, you should check this one for sure.

And I left the last favourite of the year for the haircare, the Sunsilk Nourishing Oil Spray for dry hair, which is propably the best product I've used on my hair this year. It's the perfect detangler, it makes my hair super soft super soft without weighting it down, I've tried many leave in conditioners but they never worked as good as this one.

So those were my top 13 products for the year that is about to end. Have you tried any of them? Let me know what were your favourite beauty products of 2013. I hope you'll have an amazing New Year's Eve, I'll see you next year my lovelies!

October Favorites

I still can't believe this, but November it's already here, but the weather has been so good all this time that it feels like it's September! Anyway it's time for my monthly favorites, and as you will see I didn't have lots of new favorites last month, but this time I will show you some of my non beauty favorites too, because the past few months I hadn't show you any. So let's start.

Apivita Creamy Face & Eye Foam Cleanser with Olive and Lavender

I've already mention this cleanser a lot the past few months, it should be in my previous monthly favorites but I completely forgot about it, but anyway I'm adding it now. This cleanser is incredible, so good that it actually helped my oily but dehydrated skin so much and now I no longer have dry patches all over my face. If you have the same skintype as me, or even just normal or combination skin, you should give it a try, I'm pretty sure you that will love it!

Burt's Bees Sensitive Night Cream

I used this moisturizer mostly at the beginning of October when my skin was a little bit more dry, and it helped a lot! It's a basic unscented moisturizer, with a very light texture like a mousse, but it hydrates really well. I wear this only at nightime because it can be a little too heavy under make up for my oily skin, but if you have normal skintype I think you will love it as a day time moisturizer too. It never broke me out, and as it says it's perfect for sensitive skins, because I've tried other moisturizers that are targeted for sensitive skins but they irritated my skin which for the record it's not super sensitive, so this one is a winner for me!

 Maybelline Fit Me Concealer in 20

As for my makeup favorites, last month I enjoyed a lot this Maybelline concealer. It's my latest addition to my concealer collection, well actually no it's not, I recently got another one but I will show it to you in a future haul post. I have to admit that I have a concealer addiction, I always buy new ones, I use them for a while and then I move on to another, it's like I'm never fully satisfied, I have this problem with foundations too but with the concealers it's worst. So anyway back to the Fit Me concealer, I have to say that it really surprised me, in a good way, it's very hydrating, perfect for under the eyes. I don't know about you, but for me it's always hard to find a hydrating concealer even in the high end ones, so this one was such a good buy for the wintertime! My only problem is the shade, I wish that it wasn't that yellow, I prefer more peachy and beige ones, but nevertheless it's a great cheap concealer, and I think you should all try it.

NYX Mega Shine Lipgloss in Beige

Literally this is the only lip product that I've been using in October and I still do. I never thought that I would love a lipgloss that much, and I'm not even a lipgloss person, I believe that says a lot! Everything about it it's perfect, the texture, the color, everything. It's not sticky but also it's not watery, it has no shimmers which I love, and the shade is the perfect neutral pink that goes well with every single eye makeup look, what more can I ask? If you haven't tried it yet, please do! 

Essence Sweetheart Blush

This is one of Essence's newest shades, it's a very beautiful light pink shade, definitely not a cool toned one, it's more of a neutral pink with some beige undertones. It's the most lovely pink I've ever seen in a blush, and even though it's very light colored, as you can see from the swatch on my hand, it manages to really show up on my face and that's really surprising because I tend to have a problem with blushes in general, they all go sheer on my face. It's the perfect everyday blush in my opinion and the shade goes with every look, cool or warm toned. And the best part, it costs only 2.5 euros. 

Non Beauty Favorites

 

I think it was about time to start showing you some of my non beauty favorites again, and this time I have something that I absolutely loved watching for the whole month. I've always been hearing great things about Scandal but for some reason I was never interested in watching this tv show,  I think it must have been the fact that the show is written by Shonda Rimes who also wrote Grey's Anatomy, and I've never been a huge fan of Grey's Anatomy, I think it was way too boring and meh. But I kept seeing all these GIFs at Tumblr and it looked kind of intresting so I gave it a chance and I'm telling you, it only took one episode and I was hooked! Within a month I watched both seasons and now I'm watching the third. This show somehow manages to always keep your interest, it has never being boring and the plot it's getting better with every single episode. I also have a huge admiration for every single one of Olivia Pope's coats, my only wish is to own one of them in the future! So yes this was a HG discovery for the month of October!

And last but not least, it was impossible not to include the second part of Justin Timberlake's The 20/20 Experience album in my favorites this month! I loved the first one, it's still one of my most played albums in my playlist and the second part I think it's even better! My HG songs from this one are Electric Lady, Gimme What I Don't Know (I want) and Take Back The Night. It keeps the same mature sound as the first one but I think it has more of a beat, the tracks are definitely more rhythmic. Justin Timberlake is like a good old wine, he gets better with age. If you liked the first one you will love the second one too!

So these were all of my beauty and non beauty favorites for the month of October. What were your October favorites? Let me know!

My First NYX Haul.

A few weeks ago, Cherryculture had a really good offer, you could purchase any product with 40% off, and it was a great opportunity for me to try out for the first time some of NYX's products. One thing that I have to say is that Cherryculture's international shipping rates are ridiculously expensive, I think I paid 14 US$ for these few items, so if you want to order from them in the future you should definitely wait for an offer like this one, so you could save some money. Also with my order I was lucky to receive one of their lip balms of my choice as a freebie, so I chose the Raspberry one, and it's delicious! So let's see what I got!

I'll start of with the products that I wanted to purchase the most from NYX, and these are some of their lipglosses. Generally I'm not a lipgloss person, I rarely use them and I rarely buy them, but I've heard so many good reviews about their lipglosses so I was really curious to try some of them. I knew I wanted to purchase some of their Butter Glosses, so I chose 2 shades that I knew I would wear the most, I went for the Apple Strudel and the Creme Brulee. Apple Strudel is a light coral peachy-pink shade, which I absolutely adore, I think it will be perfect for spring and summer time, and Creme Brulee is a light muted pink, perfect for an everyday look. I have to say that I didn't expect their texture to be that sticky, they're almost as sticky as Mac's lipglasses, but they apply really well on the lips, they don't create any milky lines which I hate. They don't have any shimmers and they give that glossy- "J.Lo" wet lips, I really like that look because it makes my lips look more plumpy, I only wish they weren't that sticky.

One more lipgloss that I really wanted to try because people on youtube and blogs keep raving about it, was the Mega Shine Lipgloss in Beige. This lipgloss surprised me so much, I didn't expect liking it at all, but seriously is the only lip product I've been using on my lips since I got it, I think that says something! First I'll talk about the formula, which is amazing, it doesn't contain any shimmers and it's not as sticky as the Butter Glosses, but also it's not watery, it has the perfect "in between" texture, and it's also very pigmented. The shade is not beige at all, I don't know why they called it like that but anyway, it's a medium pink with purple undertones. I'm telling you that if I had to choose one lipcolor to use for my entire life I think it would be this one, I'm definitely going to try more of these Mega Shine lipglosses because I really love their formula.

 Here's a picture with all the swatches, from left to right are, Mega Shine lipgloss in Beige, Butter Gloss in Apple Strudel and Butter Gloss in Creme Brulee.

Besides the lipglosses, a NYX blush has been forever in my wishlist, but when the moment came to choose only one between all of their shades it was really hard, so I chose a shade that would be better for the fall, so I went for the Espresso Blush, and I think I did pretty well. Espresso is the perfect neutral shade for the fall, it's something between rose, brown, beige and little bit of peach, I know my description is not helpful at all but it's a cross between all of these shades. The texture is very good, it melts onto my skin, it's not powdery at all. I want to try more of NYX's blushes in the future for sure.

Lastly I picked up 2 lip pencils, NYX has an amazing huge variety of lip pencils, and it's very hard for me to find here light pink shades, it seems that I only find light beige or light brown ones, but never light pink. I chose the shades Pale Pink and Nude Pink. both are light pink shades, Pale Pink is a mauvish light pink and Nude Pink is a little more pigmented warm pink. I love them both, and I'm really happy that Pale Pink is the exact dupe of my beloved but discontinued Essence Soft Rose . I only have to say is that they're not soft pencils like the Essence ones are, they're more on the hard side. 

Overall I'm very happy with all the things that I got, I know it was a small haul, but these were the only stuff that I wanted to try from NYX right now, but in the future I definitely want to try more, especially the Mega Shine lipglosses and the blushes.

Let me know if you've tried any of these products, and I'm very curious to know what are your opinions about them. Also if you have any other NYX recommendations, please feel free to tell me any of your HG NYX products!