I refuse to accept the fact that July is over. Like really, August, why such a rush? I can't believe we're creeping into the last month of summer but that's all okay because that just means it's time for July Favorites!
Hmm, nope, still not okay with it being August but the show must go on.
Beauty
July was the month of brand new beauty favorites which is probably a lot more exciting for me than you but I've got some great stuff to review so let's get to it.
My first favorite is something that I knew would be a favorite before I even bought it.
I discovered this perfume when I got a sample of it from Sephora. As I dabbed the little sample on both my wrist I was floored. "Oh my gosh, this is what I want my signature fragrance to be!" was my first thought, no joke. I made my friend L try it and he said the cutest thing, "Mmm, that's what I smell when I think of you. You must have worn that for years."
First of all, that's precious. Second, I've never even heard of this perfume before now. Third, I must buy it immediately.
So that's exactly what I did and I must say that Clean Skin is officially my new favorite perfume ever.
It smells amazing and I love that the .5oz is perfect to throw in my bag and go. Sephora's site describes it as a "This fragrance captures the delicate scent of bare skin. Hints of dewy flower petals wrap around notes of pure creaminess and warm musk to evoke the simple scent of touchable skin. Enticing, fresh, pure: clean skin at its best." And I completely agree.
If you've read my Sephora, Lush, & More Haul then you know that I recently picked up the Mask of Magnaminty from Lush.
I love this mask.
It smells beyond amazing and is really invigorating.
It's marketed as a cleanser but it's also a really great exfoliator because of the ground aduki beans in it (which sounds a lot fancier than it actually is).
Overall, I think this is a really great mask if you have problems with breakouts and stuff or just really like the smell of peppermint like I do.
This next product is a holy grail item of so many beauty gurus on YouTube that I just had to get my hands on it. It's the Anastasia Beverly Hills Brow Wiz. I've always had problems with my brows and to be perfectly honest I've just taken the road of ignoring them and hoping they get better, until recently. I say that because I recently discovered that I am a self-proclaimed pro at eye brow waxing. How did I discover this? Well, my roommate decided to purchase an at-home brow waxing kit. She was so afraid to try it herself that I said I would do it with her since my brows are crazy already. I was pretty proud with the results and she was even so impressed that she had me do her's too.
So now that I've been doing my brows my self and keeping up with them pretty good I've been looking into products that are made specifically for brows and that's how I came across the Brow Wiz.
Now, I have black brows...like no joke, I have naturally medium blonde hair and coarse black brows. It's awful. So in order to lighten them up a bit I use the Brow Wiz in Medium Brown mostly because that's the lightest shade above blonde that doesn't have reddish/auburn shades in it.
The super thin pencil makes your brows look so natural and the spooly on the other end is so handy and really great at setting your brows in place. Definitely a holy grail item for me too.
While shopping on Sephora's site I was like $15 away from free shipping so I decided to go ahead and treat myself with a fun new product (even though shipping is way less than $15 and I actually ended up spending more money but hey, it was a treat). I decided to grab the Josie Maran Argan Infinity Lip and Cheek Creamy Oil in Endless Guava because it looked like a great product for summer. I had a really difficult time trying to decide between Endless Guava and Limitless Pink which is a medium pink that is more in my comfort zone but I am so glad that I chose "vibrant poppy pink" shade. I really thought I would use this as a lip color more but it has been my go-to blush shade this month and I definitely see myself using it well into the fall. I love how creamy and blendable it is too.
Music
For all my music favorites for this month check out my What My Ears Are Loving post because there was just too many faves to mention.
TV
If you've been paying attention to this blog at all this month then you would have realized that I have been even more of a television junkie than usual. Aside from Finding Carter and Project Runway, I have been binge watching my way through 2 seasons of The Mindy Project and caught up on Witches of East End before the second season premiered.
I am counting down the days until September 16th when Season 3 of The Mindy Project premiers because I cannot wait to see what happens between Mindy and Danny. There's just so much I can say about this show that I don't even know where to begin. Mindy Kaling as Dr. Mindy Lahiri is absolutely hilarious! I love that she showcases that you can indeed be an intelligent, successful working-girl type but also harbor a love for all things pop culture and maintain a killer fashion sense without losing any of that intelligence (as so many may think is the case). I could go on and on but I'll just suggest that you go ahead and watch it because it's amazing and laugh-out-loud funny.
I have had an obsession with witches (entertainment purposes only) since the Sabrina the Teenage Witch movie...and yes, it was a movie before it was a show, it even stars a curly haired Ryan Reynolds (for more fits and giggles you should really see Sabrina Goes to Rome and Sabrina, Down Under). That obsession carried through to my adult life making it impossible for me to ignore various incarnations of witches in pop culture, don't even get me started on how much I loved AHS: Coven. That brings me to Witches of East End. I loved the first season of this show and even rewatched it on Hulu this month. I just love the idea that the show centers around 2 young witches that have been cursed to be reborn after they die leaving their mother immortal and their aunt being able to turn into a cat and deal with the nine lives that comes with that fate. I just love the whole premise and the cute boys don't hurt.
You can join me in watching The Witches of East End every Sunday at 10 pm on Lifetime.
Book
I fell into such a reading slump between June and July (I blame Chelsea, Chelsea. Bang, Bang. Which I have been trying to read since Spring Break '13 and just recently finished) but one night, after watching tons of The Mindy Project, my friend suggested that I check out Mindy Kaling's Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?
I downloaded the book to my Kindle app on my iPad and headed out to the pool. It got to the point that I was getting my neighbors to peek over the hedges to see what I was laughing about all by myself, it's that funny. I loved how relateable everything was and especially enjoyed the walk down her own childhood/teenage/twenty-something memory lane struggles...because we all have them, we might as well laugh about them. Throughout the book you start to see lines that parallel The Mindy Project and I really liked that because it made the show more realistic for me knowing that she pulled stuff from her own life.
I ended the book thinking, "Wow, she's worked so hard to get where she is I hope she only keeps going and gets even more successful." Uh, that's the definition of girl power and women supporting each other if you ask me. I highly recommend this book as a feel-good, laugh out loud read.
Randoms
Just a heads up, all of my randoms for this month are totally food related...but that's okay.
I am a huge snacker. I love to just snack around but this month I've really made more of an effort to eat healthier (more on that later, though) so I've been loving finding healthier snacks to help me through my snacking moments.
I discovered these Bare Crunchy Coconut Chips while out shopping one day because I'm a sucker for anything coconut. I picked up a bag of the Show Me The Honey kind and devoured them in like a week and decided to go back and pick up one of each different type.
The Honey flavored ones are my favorite but the Simply Toasted ones are great and the Sweet 'n Heat kind tastes like a southern bbq chip so y'all know I love those too. Like I said, I love anything coconut and these are simply that...all natural coconut slices with various flavorings. What's not to love?
I grabbed the Cookies & Cream Special K Pastry Crisps while I was a the grocery store earlier this month and as you can probably tell by the picture shown here I went back and grabbed some Chocolately Caramel flavored ones too.
I was really missing sweets and cookies after of couple of days of my healthier eating routine but these things really came through.
Only 100 calories for 2 candy bar sized "crisps" seemed like a pretty good way to curb my cookie cravings. I really enjoyed these two flavors for two reasons, 1. they taste good! Seriously they definitely don't taste like diet anything and they're as close to a cookie as I'll let myself get right now. 2. They seriously helped me feel like I was having an indulgent snack without being too indulgent.
If you know me at all then you probably know that I am a HUGE tea drinker. Sweet tea, fruit tea, green tea, herbal tea...you name it, I love it. So when I picked up a box of Lipton Earl Grey Black Tea (the same day I got my Coconut Chips actually) nothing was out of the ordinary that is until I made my first tea from the package. Holy smokes this stuff is amazing!
I've drank Earl Grey before, in fact it's what my friends and I used to order from the coffee shop on campus whenever we'd meet up before heading to the library, but I've never had Earl Grey like this before. Not only does it come in those really fun pyramid shaped tea bags but it is jam packed with amazing ingredients.
Confession: I went through 2 boxes of this stuff in July alone. If that's not proof that it was a favorite then I don't know what is.
Now for my...
Not So Favorite
We'll just call this section The Southern Girl and the Never Ending Cold Front vs. The British Heat Wave.
Is it just me or was Snow Miser and Heat Miser fighting for Christmas in July?
It's like July forgot what season it was in and started to spazz out. I mean I spent the majority of my time in sweatshirts and long sleeve tees this month while listening to all my favorites Brits on Twitter and YouTube talk about the boiling heatwave they were experiencing. What?!
You took our weather, Britain! Let's hope you give it back before summer officially ends.
I hope you've enjoyed this look into my favorites for the month of July.
Leave a comment below letting me know your favorites or not so favorite for this month.
until next time.
xo
Merisa
PS: I'm not entirely sure why but this took me like a week to write, throwing everything else off schedule so I'm so sorry but I hope you've enjoyed it nonetheless.
Beauty
July was the month of brand new beauty favorites which is probably a lot more exciting for me than you but I've got some great stuff to review so let's get to it.
I discovered this perfume when I got a sample of it from Sephora. As I dabbed the little sample on both my wrist I was floored. "Oh my gosh, this is what I want my signature fragrance to be!" was my first thought, no joke. I made my friend L try it and he said the cutest thing, "Mmm, that's what I smell when I think of you. You must have worn that for years."
First of all, that's precious. Second, I've never even heard of this perfume before now. Third, I must buy it immediately.
So that's exactly what I did and I must say that Clean Skin is officially my new favorite perfume ever.
It smells amazing and I love that the .5oz is perfect to throw in my bag and go. Sephora's site describes it as a "This fragrance captures the delicate scent of bare skin. Hints of dewy flower petals wrap around notes of pure creaminess and warm musk to evoke the simple scent of touchable skin. Enticing, fresh, pure: clean skin at its best." And I completely agree.
If you've read my Sephora, Lush, & More Haul then you know that I recently picked up the Mask of Magnaminty from Lush.
I love this mask.
It smells beyond amazing and is really invigorating.
It's marketed as a cleanser but it's also a really great exfoliator because of the ground aduki beans in it (which sounds a lot fancier than it actually is).
Overall, I think this is a really great mask if you have problems with breakouts and stuff or just really like the smell of peppermint like I do.
This next product is a holy grail item of so many beauty gurus on YouTube that I just had to get my hands on it. It's the Anastasia Beverly Hills Brow Wiz. I've always had problems with my brows and to be perfectly honest I've just taken the road of ignoring them and hoping they get better, until recently. I say that because I recently discovered that I am a self-proclaimed pro at eye brow waxing. How did I discover this? Well, my roommate decided to purchase an at-home brow waxing kit. She was so afraid to try it herself that I said I would do it with her since my brows are crazy already. I was pretty proud with the results and she was even so impressed that she had me do her's too.
Now, I have black brows...like no joke, I have naturally medium blonde hair and coarse black brows. It's awful. So in order to lighten them up a bit I use the Brow Wiz in Medium Brown mostly because that's the lightest shade above blonde that doesn't have reddish/auburn shades in it.
The super thin pencil makes your brows look so natural and the spooly on the other end is so handy and really great at setting your brows in place. Definitely a holy grail item for me too.
While shopping on Sephora's site I was like $15 away from free shipping so I decided to go ahead and treat myself with a fun new product (even though shipping is way less than $15 and I actually ended up spending more money but hey, it was a treat). I decided to grab the Josie Maran Argan Infinity Lip and Cheek Creamy Oil in Endless Guava because it looked like a great product for summer. I had a really difficult time trying to decide between Endless Guava and Limitless Pink which is a medium pink that is more in my comfort zone but I am so glad that I chose "vibrant poppy pink" shade. I really thought I would use this as a lip color more but it has been my go-to blush shade this month and I definitely see myself using it well into the fall. I love how creamy and blendable it is too.
Music
For all my music favorites for this month check out my What My Ears Are Loving post because there was just too many faves to mention.
TV
If you've been paying attention to this blog at all this month then you would have realized that I have been even more of a television junkie than usual. Aside from Finding Carter and Project Runway, I have been binge watching my way through 2 seasons of The Mindy Project and caught up on Witches of East End before the second season premiered.
I am counting down the days until September 16th when Season 3 of The Mindy Project premiers because I cannot wait to see what happens between Mindy and Danny. There's just so much I can say about this show that I don't even know where to begin. Mindy Kaling as Dr. Mindy Lahiri is absolutely hilarious! I love that she showcases that you can indeed be an intelligent, successful working-girl type but also harbor a love for all things pop culture and maintain a killer fashion sense without losing any of that intelligence (as so many may think is the case). I could go on and on but I'll just suggest that you go ahead and watch it because it's amazing and laugh-out-loud funny.You can join me in watching The Witches of East End every Sunday at 10 pm on Lifetime.
BookI fell into such a reading slump between June and July (I blame Chelsea, Chelsea. Bang, Bang. Which I have been trying to read since Spring Break '13 and just recently finished) but one night, after watching tons of The Mindy Project, my friend suggested that I check out Mindy Kaling's Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?
I downloaded the book to my Kindle app on my iPad and headed out to the pool. It got to the point that I was getting my neighbors to peek over the hedges to see what I was laughing about all by myself, it's that funny. I loved how relateable everything was and especially enjoyed the walk down her own childhood/teenage/twenty-something memory lane struggles...because we all have them, we might as well laugh about them. Throughout the book you start to see lines that parallel The Mindy Project and I really liked that because it made the show more realistic for me knowing that she pulled stuff from her own life.
I ended the book thinking, "Wow, she's worked so hard to get where she is I hope she only keeps going and gets even more successful." Uh, that's the definition of girl power and women supporting each other if you ask me. I highly recommend this book as a feel-good, laugh out loud read.
Randoms
Just a heads up, all of my randoms for this month are totally food related...but that's okay.
I am a huge snacker. I love to just snack around but this month I've really made more of an effort to eat healthier (more on that later, though) so I've been loving finding healthier snacks to help me through my snacking moments.
I discovered these Bare Crunchy Coconut Chips while out shopping one day because I'm a sucker for anything coconut. I picked up a bag of the Show Me The Honey kind and devoured them in like a week and decided to go back and pick up one of each different type.
The Honey flavored ones are my favorite but the Simply Toasted ones are great and the Sweet 'n Heat kind tastes like a southern bbq chip so y'all know I love those too. Like I said, I love anything coconut and these are simply that...all natural coconut slices with various flavorings. What's not to love?
I grabbed the Cookies & Cream Special K Pastry Crisps while I was a the grocery store earlier this month and as you can probably tell by the picture shown here I went back and grabbed some Chocolately Caramel flavored ones too.
I was really missing sweets and cookies after of couple of days of my healthier eating routine but these things really came through.
Only 100 calories for 2 candy bar sized "crisps" seemed like a pretty good way to curb my cookie cravings. I really enjoyed these two flavors for two reasons, 1. they taste good! Seriously they definitely don't taste like diet anything and they're as close to a cookie as I'll let myself get right now. 2. They seriously helped me feel like I was having an indulgent snack without being too indulgent.
I've drank Earl Grey before, in fact it's what my friends and I used to order from the coffee shop on campus whenever we'd meet up before heading to the library, but I've never had Earl Grey like this before. Not only does it come in those really fun pyramid shaped tea bags but it is jam packed with amazing ingredients.
Confession: I went through 2 boxes of this stuff in July alone. If that's not proof that it was a favorite then I don't know what is.
Now for my...
Not So Favorite
We'll just call this section The Southern Girl and the Never Ending Cold Front vs. The British Heat Wave.
Is it just me or was Snow Miser and Heat Miser fighting for Christmas in July?
You took our weather, Britain! Let's hope you give it back before summer officially ends.
I hope you've enjoyed this look into my favorites for the month of July.
Leave a comment below letting me know your favorites or not so favorite for this month.
until next time.
xo
Merisa
PS: I'm not entirely sure why but this took me like a week to write, throwing everything else off schedule so I'm so sorry but I hope you've enjoyed it nonetheless.
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