December 2013 Favorites

December 2013 Favorites

December 2013 Favorites

1. Walgreens Dry-Touch Sunscreen Sheer, SPF 55, $10 / 2. Ponds Original Fresh Wet Cleansing Towelettes, $5 /
3.
EOS Sphere Balm, Strawberry Sorbet, $3 / 4. bdellium tools 760, $8 / 5. Daisy by Marc Jacobs rollerball, $20

I am hopping on the, “Monthly Favorites,” bandwagon, and will try to post a handful of them each month. My December 2013 Favorites are listed after the jump.

1. Events in later 2013 caused me to wise up and actually make an effort to protect my skin. After reading countless reviews from drugstore, prestige, and generic brands I settled on this one, readily available at Walgreens and on drugstore.com. Intended to be a generic version of a similar offering from Neutrogena, this product had better reviews regarding performance, application, and scent-wise. I’m happy with it, the the price is nice.

2. I can take one of these and remove all ilk and makeup (inc. waterproof eyeliner & mascara, though it takes a little longer). I’ve even cut them in half to get them to stretch a little farther (I don’t wear a full face daily, way too much work) and even find that to be plenty. It isn’t a substitute for washing your face, but will do if you can’t.

3. Confession: I am a lip balm hoarder. I have two in my desk at work, one in my purse, and who knows how many around the house. I have been a fan of EOS since they first came out with their Smooth Spheres only tried the Strawberry Sorbet flavor until this autumn. It applies smoothly and moisturizes for a while (as long as overnight) in addition to having a pleasant taste (looking at you, Carmex). It is pretty reliable and is much harder to lose than, say, a tube of Chap-Stick (unless you have cats like mine, that is – if you have thief-cats, be sure not to leave it out on desks or table-tops).

4. Aside from an awkward stint when I was around 14-15 (I think? Anyway, thank you really cute brightly colored pencils from *cough* Hot Topic. Listen, we all have skeletons in our closet. Mine just happened to wear poorly-applied red eyeliner. No, I was not a goth-wannabe.), I had never worn eyeliner until this past June. I chose a gel based on a recommendation beauty vlogger Jaclyn Hill made in one of her videos. Like most drugstore products, the applicator that accompanied it was awful. I bought an ELF one and achieved OK results, but eventually purchased this one. The shape and length make it easy to use and get a good result.

5. I made my first purchase from Ulta over five years ago. Included with my order was an ever-so-tiny sample of Daisy. I have loved it ever since, but I cannot bring myself to spend the money on a full sized bottle; it is just too damn rich for my blood. A while ago, I was in Sephora and saw that they had rollerballs. $20 was a little more than I wanted to spend on one little rollerball, but they had a coffret with same-size rollerballs of Daisy, Daisy Eau So Fresh, and Dot for $39. I treated myself and found that a single rollerball should last a year, minimum, with reasonable use.
 — Bonus — If you bought one, wore it daily, and it lasted only a year, your cost-per-use would be less than $0.06. If you bought a trio at $39 and they lasted one year each, cost-per-use would be under $0.04.

Disclosure: None of the items listed in my December 2013 Favorites post were sponsored,I purchased them on my own. That said, some of the links in this post are affiliate links – this means I may get a very small percentage of the sale if you decide to buy something. I will only call something out as awesome if I have personally verified that much and believe it to be true.