June Favorites

June has been a pretty eventful month for me, and a great few weeks to kick off this summer. I've returned home from Italy, done a ton of reading, and have attended some awesome events and done lots of work for more exciting things to come via this amazingly virtual journalistic world I'm apart of. June has gone pretty quick in all honesty, but I'm ready for more beaches, summer nights, and mischief (with Miss Lindz, of course..). So let's get into my favorite beauty, fashion, and miscellaneous items for this past month, shall we?!

Makeup

01. Too Faced Chocolate Bar Palette: Salted Caramel + Marzipan- When I first purchased this baby, I was head over heels by the packaging, smell (yes, it smells like chocolate, no joke), and shades. This past month, I've been using two of my favorite shades in this palette everyday, Salted Caramel (a really pleasant brown, a dupe for Mac's Soft Brown) and Marzipan (a gorgeous pinky champagne, a dupe for Stila's Kitten mixed with Mac's Naked Lunch). I love using Marzipan on my lids with a flat shader and smoking up the eye a bit with Salted Caramel in my crease with a dome brush. This creates a beautiful neutral but still glamorous eye shadow combination, and is super easy and light for these hot summer days we've been having in New York. 

02. Mac's Melon Pigment- This pigment is a powder version of Mac's Rubenesque Paint Pot, and is perfect to swipe over your eyes with a little liner on any kind of summer day. I've been loving a little tinge of this on my lids to brighten and add some golden sparkle to my makeup. Also extremely versatile, Melon can be swiped on your cheekbones to create a rosy-gold highlight, or a fun summer nail polish color (all you have to do is take some of the pigment out and add it with clear nail polish, SUPER easy!).

03. Kelly Osbourne 'Jolly Good' Beauty Powder by Mac- I picked this up from Mac at the beginning of the month on a whim, but ended up really enjoying it! This can be used as a blush, bronzer, or overall mattifying beauty powder. The swatches of each shade are absolutely beautiful and the powder itself adds a really nice glow to your contour. A little of this beauty powder would also do a really nice job of enhancing a tan, so I think it's great for summer months. 

04. Mac's Dainty- (phew, lots of Mac products this month!) Dainty is one of my all time favorite blushes in my collection, but I've found myself constantly reaching for it ever since I got home from Italy. This lovely bright pink (with a bit of a purply red undertone) absolutely lifts your cheekbones up and gives such a fantastic summery glow to your entire face. I would absolutely recommend this as a summer blush, and I would also recommend this as a blush for a Mac starter kit if you're just building your collection. It's seriously a product you do not want to miss out on!

05. Mac's Pure Heroine- This brand new Lorde lipstick just came out and since I'm absolutely in LUST with every bright Mac lipstick they have, I knew I wanted to get my hands on it. This beautiful deep purple is an ode to Lorde's typical grungy look, and is really fun to wear on a trip to the city or in one of my outfit shoots for KQ (seen in my latest post BLOODY GOOD OMBRÉ). The purple of the lipstick itself is a lot darker than its swatch (see photo above), but since Pure Heroine has a an amplified finish, you can build up the color as much as you'd like. It also has a nice gloss to it, so you don't have add any gloss to make it shine, and it does a really nice job of acting as a moisturizer for your lips too!

06. Mac 263 Angled Brush- (yeaaaa seriously so many Mac products, I promise this was totally unintentional) Finally, my last makeup favorite is a brand new brush I purchased from Mac with Ms. Joanna (she got one too!). I've been meaning to get an angled brush from Mac for a while, and I've always had my eye on the 266, because I've heard so many wonderful things about it, and it's apparently perfect for gel liner (nearly my heart and soul..). When we popped into the cute Mac store in Soho, however, the woman totally convinced me otherwise, and said that the 263 would be better suited for what I wanted. I took her advice, and figured that she may know better than me, and I am so incredibly happy I did. This is by far the best angled brush I've ever used, the line comes out extremely thin, the brush picks up just the right amount of gel, it literally is more perfect than perfect (if that's possible). I'm obsessed and if anyone is looking for a good angled brush, GET THIS ONE. In all seriousness, you won't regret it. 

Beauty 

07. Benefit's Total Moisture Facial Cream- Just a fancy name for the best moisturizer ever. I've been using this for a few months now and I just repurchased it so I figured I would throw it into my favorites. This moisturizer is my favorite to use every morning (I'm now on a strict skincare schedule via my dermatologist, so I can't moisturize at night, sad sad). This is a light and clean product that really makes your skin feel refreshed and ready for whatever the day brings (beach, work, or shopping, in my case usually). It is expensive, but one jar can last you about 2-3 months if you use it correctly, so you won't be having to dish out a lot for it too often. 

08. Foam Call! Soap and Glory Body Wash- Ok, so I know, I know. I said I was going to be hopping off that plane and running into CVS to get the St. Ives Oatmeal and Shea Butter one in my May Favorites, but as it turns out, I couldn't find it when I went looking, and also realized that I had this full bottle waiting for me at home. I've decided to finish up this first, and then go hunt for my St. Ives, but until then, I really have been liking this! I've used a ton of Soap+ Glory products before, (Scrub of your Life, Flake Away, Clean on Me) but I have to say, this one probably has my favorite scent. It smells like cologne in the best possible way a body gel can (if that makes sense) and it's just scrumptious and makes me look forward to the scent every morning when I shower. The only complaint I would have is that it's not really clear on the bottle that this is in fact a body gel, so there are no soap and suds sadly (which I assumed when I read Foam Call!). It's still a great wash though and I really dig it for summer!

Miscellaneous 

09. Gillian Flynn Books- So, in the past month of June, I've read all three of these books. Yeah, no joke. I started with Gone Girl (read the whole thing on my 9 hour flight back from Rome) and I liked it so much that as soon as I landed I popped into a bookstore to pick up her other two notorious books, Sharp Objects and Dark Places. I can't really say that I have a favorite so I'll just give a short summary of how each book affected me (yes, AFFECTED)....

Gone Girl- absolutely broke my heart 

Sharp Objects- left me disturbed and wanting more of the protagonist

Dark Places- left me in a nearly existential crisis (in the best possible way)..

So, if you like murder mysteries or thrillers, seriously read all of these cause they were insanely perfect and totally disturbing (the best kind of outcome when reading in this genre).

Fashion

10. Dip Dye!- My favorite clothing item this month goes to this fun lace shirt that Miss Lindsey dip-dyed herself! I think it came out super cute and only about 15 dollars were spent to create something that looks like it came out of a Free People Catalogue.

And finally, my June Lookbook and clips from this month!

annnddd that's all folks, for now.

Happy JULYYY!

"Tis the eye of childhood that fears a painted devil"

[Macbeth 2.3]

Cheers, x