(Late) October Favorites

Okay...I know it's almost halfway through November, but I just moved house and my wedding is in less than two weeks! But I wanted to post these anyway, because I have been obsessed with a few really awesome things last month (and I'm still obsessed).

Fresh Soy Cleanser: $15-$38 from Sephora or Fresh Wesbite/Stores. 

Fresh is one of my favorite brands that I have a love/hate relationship with. The first Fresh Store is on Newbury Street here in Boston which is basically the "Rodeo Drive" of Boston.

Photo credit: newbury-st.com

I used to love to browse there when I was in college and couldn't afford to actually shop there. They had all of these beautiful smelling body products in beautiful bottles. Everything in the store was just so gorgeous. They had this AMAZING line of products called Milk, which they sadly discontinued. They also had an amazing line of niche fragrances called Index, which they also discontinued (I believe a few original ones remain, but not my favorite which was Ylang Ylang Hibiscus). They also ventured into a cosmetic line, which is now also gone, save from all the Sugar Lip Products. I still have ONE unopened Supernova Mascara. It frustrates me that they have discontinued all of the product lines I loved, but I guess there's nothing I can do. The Sugar Line seems to do really well and their skincare tends seems to be where they have put their main focus. I digress...

I LOVE the Soy Face Cleanser. It doesn't lather much and it will NOT take off your eye makeup very well, but it's great for cleansing your face gently. It leaves my skin feeling clean...not tight, not stripped, just clean. It smells amazing and I love it. It's incredibly expensive, but oh well.

Palmetto Derma Collagen Booster & Restoration Serum: $48 at Palmetto Derma's Website

I got this in my Boxycharm in October and I love this. If I had not received this, I would have never tried this and this has made a HUGE difference for my skin. I have been using it pretty faithfully morning and evening before my moisturizer (just one pump). I feel like my skin is brighter, smoother and I haven't gotten a super bad breakout in a while. It could be that I'm being ore sanitary in my makeup application or this, but I can't stop, won't stop. This product is pretty expensive, but there is a discount code that you can use until the end of 2014 to get 20% off: BCPD2. I say, give it a try! It doesn't have a scent and it just feels like a water on your face and dries pretty quickly. I think this bottle will last me a long time considering I only use one pump per application. 

L'Oreal Voluminous Carbon Black Mascara $6-$10 at Drugstores

I've been using L'Oreal brand mascaras for a while, probably since high school. Their mascara formulas...they have that DOWN. Lash Out Mascara was my favorite forever (I think it's discontinued?) but I recently re-discovered this one. This is a GREAT mascara. It's super black, super volumizing and I also got an unexpected lengthening from this as well. It competes with the Better Than Sex Mascara that I love. It's just awesome and it's inexpensive. I actually love some other L'Oreal mascaras too, but right now, I'm reaching for this one every day. 

Too Faced Everything Nice Palette: $56 Sephora Exclusive

*sigh*, I think this is sold out again. I'm not sure if Sephora will re-stock this (I'm guessing so, since it's still on the website), but it's AWESOME! The main reason I love this is that the eyeshadow colors are AMAZING. I love my Too Faced Chocolate Bar Palette and I also LOVE this palette. I swatches "Girly" in the store and I knew this color alone had to be mine. All of the shadows are soft and buttery and well pigmented. The colors I didn't expect to love so much (especially Totally Fetch, the pink), I ADORE. The blushes and the highlighter (and the brushes)...meh. Oh...and it also comes with a cute pink glittery makeup bag and a travel-sized Better Than Sex Mascara. Win all over the place. If you can find this at your local Sephora store...GET IT...but mainly for the eyeshadows. The face products are nothing special and the brushes...meh.

Milani Bella Eyes Eyeshadow: $3-4 at Drugstores

These are awesome and they are only about $4. They have an interesting shape and look like they should yield when you touch them, but they don't. They just feel like a normal powder eyeshadow. They are so pretty and so good! You should use your finger to apply them, but I have been wearing a combination of Bella Gold and Bella Bronze and it's been working for me.

*My New Firmoo.com glasses $35-$40 from Firmoo Website (Promotional Sample)

I'm pretty obsessed with these frames. I have 9 pairs of glasses but I pretty much always wear these now. I get compliments every time I wear them and they are mother-fricking cool. I'm not being paid to say this, or anything...I just genuinely love these even though they were sent to me by Firmoo. If you want your own pair, I still have a coupon code that goes until 11/25! It's good for $15 off regular frames. STYLISHSOPRANOBLOGS4 

So that's it for my October favorites! 

*All items were purchased with my own money with the exception of items marked with an (*)asterisk and marked "promotional sample". All opinions are my own. 

August Boxycharm Review!

For those of you who don't know, Boxycharm is a beauty subscription service similar to Birchbox and Ipsy Bag. Once a month for $21, they send you (free shipping!) 4-5 full-sized beauty products. It's a mix of high-end and drugstore, but this is my 4th box and I've only gotten one drugstore item (it was a mascara, which is great.) Boxycharm is my one and only beauty box subscription right now. What initially attracted me to the service is that they are sending full-sized items every time instead of samples. Not that I hate samples, I just think Boxycharm is the best bang for your buck right now. I have been waiting for it with great anticipation this week and now I'll let you know what's in my box! Disclaimer: This post is NOT sponsored by Boxycharm and I do pay for this box and chose to review it on my own for the benefit of my readers only!

Here is the box in upon opening. It's the Beach Babe Box! This is very exciting because in exactly seven days, I will be on the beach! YES. ALL of the products in this box are full-sized.

The first thing I noticed was a Tarina Tarantino lip color in Floriculture which was a really pretty berry color. I was very thrilled to see this in this month's box because in my June box, I also received a product from this line (which was a highlighter). I loved the highlighter, so I was very excited about this lipstick. The packaging is exquisite. It feels very heavy, high quality and has these adorable little crystals on the side. The color is absolutely gorgeous and it felt really soft on my lips and the color was perfect for me. It was a cute berry shade that goes perfect with my complexion and is exactly the shade of lipcolor I usually like to buy.

Verdict: AWESOME. I am not a lipstick girl, but I will be using this! (Retail price: $22)

Next, I saw this Enter Pronoun Blowtorch Bronzer. Enter Pronoun? What the heck? Well, turns out this is a unisex makeup line. Ok, cool. I also noticed that they don't really have a lot going on in terms of amount of products on their website. It looks like right now they are offering some concealers, this bronzer and an eyeliner. It looks like they are a startup or maybe just being cool by only selling 3 products? Who knows. But this bronzer retails for $35. Imagine me doing a Z-snapping motion after I say THIRTY-FIVE DOLLARS. That is like a YSL or Chanel pricepoint, baby!

That being said, the packaging is STUNNING. It's as beautiful as the Tarina Taratino product is and the bronzer seems nice. That being said...I'm not really a user of bronzer. Honestly, I have never even considered using it, especially since I don't see that many women of color reaching for it. But, I'm sure it's great and I'm going to hold on to it and give it a shot.

Verdict: STAY TUNED. I might use this, I might give it to a friend. Who knows. (Retail price: Once again with feeling...$35)

Next was this ModelCo Cheek and Lip Tint in Rosy Red. I've never tried a ModelCo product before. Is it just for models? Is it made by models? In general, I'm a little suspicious of products that are supposed to be for my lips AND cheeks. My first impression is that when I swatched it on my hand, it wasn't just a tint, it was a STAIN. It had a pretty good staining quality and I couldn't wait to try it on my lips. When you rub it it has a strange brick red color and it felt VERY sticky on my lips. When it dried, it felt okay, but in the 10 minutes that it was wet, it was sticky, sticky, sticky! I didn't try it on my cheeks since I was already wearing Tarte cheek stain.

Verdict: NEUTRAL. It's okay. It's a VERY SUBTLE color payoff (which is what it's marketed to be) for a no-makeup, makeup look. I'll use it and see how it goes. (Retail price $22)

Then there was the Ofra Cosmetics Lip liner in Silk. I watched a few YouTubers open their boxes and I appear to be one of the unfortunate ones who got a lip liner instead of a black eyeliner from this company. I got a stupid lip liner in July's box too. This was extremely disappointing.

Verdict: MEH. Who wears lip liner? I'll probably never use this. If anyone wants this, I'd be HAPPY to send it to you. Disclaimer: I did swatch it on my hand once. (Retail price: $13)

Lastly, I got this powder brush from Morphe Brushes. Here it is...

VERDICT: AWESOME. This brush rules! It's as soft as a bunny, feels really high quality and is a nice large size. I'll be using this to try my new bronzer or whatever. I would buy more brushes from this line. (Retail price: $19.99)

Overall, I was extremely pleased with this box! I was rather disappointed by my July box (which also came late), but this box is far more impressive and an extra bonus for including a Tarina Tarantino product! I can't wait until September's box! If you want to subscribe to Boxycharm, please use this link! This is my referral link and if you sign up, I get boxy "charms" which are points to buy full-sized products.