Review: Shiseido Aura Dew Highlighter

Hello, everyone! Today, I’m sharing with you a review of the Shiseido Aura Dew, which I bought on a whim last year. I was making an order on The Bay for some Shiseido products for my mom’s birthday last year, and I needed to spend a little more to get free shopping. The Aura Dew highlighters caught my eye, and after doing some research on the product, I decided to give it a try.

 

THE BASICS

This multidimensional highlighter suspends ultrafine rose, silver, and gold Japanese pearls in a cushiony, transparent base that melds seamlessly with every skin tone. Its revolutionary texture ensures that this highlighter stays put for up to 12 hours without caking and can be easily layered over eye, lip, or cheek products without compromising color or adding weight. It’s available in three radiant shades inspired by Tokyo’s gleaming lights, so customizing your glow is easier than ever.

The Aura Dew highlighter is a multipurpose cream product for the face, eyes, and lips. It comes in three shades – Cosmic (Rose Gold), Solar (Gold). and Lunar (Silver). This is made in Italy, and retails for $38 CAD for 4.8 g. It can be purchased at Sephora, Shoppers Drug Mart, and various department brands such as The Bay and Nordstrom.

What’s in My Gym Makeup Bag

Hello, my friends! Today, I’m sharing with you all the products I keep in my gym makeup bag. I meant to put this up in December, but ended up running out of time to finish the post. I think it worked out well though, considering the gym is always a trending topic in January with everyone making “I want to get in shape” new years resolutions!

I tend to work out in the middle of the work day around 2:30pm when the gym in our office building is empty. While I’ll rinse my body in the shower quickly afterwards to get rid of the sweat, it’s not reasonable to wash my hair and face as well. I’d have to blowdry my hair and redo my makeup all over again. I’d be gone from my office for at least 2 hours, one to work out and one to get ready!

However, when I take an intense class at lunchtime (like HIIT), I sweat enough that I have to wash my face, because I’m worried I’ll break out from the sweat. I usually avoid my eye area so that I don’t have to redo that all over again, but I’ll wash around it (my forehead, cheeks, nose, and chin). The eyes take the most time, and because I don’t have to redo them, it only takes an 5 minutes to redo my face makeup, which is something I can spare. However, this means that I do have to keep some makeup in my gym bag. In today’s post, I’m sharing with you all of the hair and face products that I keep in there!

I keep some of my top-notch products in my makeup bag, particularly ones that are super easy and quick to use. I keep this makeup bag at work because I don’t see the point of bringing it home every night just to bring it back to work the next day. Even though these are some of my favourite products in my collection, I have so much makeup at home that I have plenty to use without missing these TOO much.

June – December 2019 Beauty Empties

Hello, my friends! Today, I’m sharing with you my product empties from the past six months. I’m posting this super late at three week into the new year, but there were other blog posts I wanted to get out first. I was supposed to get an empties post up every three months last year, but I skipped September’s because I was too busy to get an empties post up at the time, which means today’s is September and December’s posts combined. To be honest, I didn’t really finish much the last six months…but they were a pretty good mix of makeup, skincare, and haircare!

Review: ColourPop Flutter By Palette (Plus Swatches & 3 Looks)

Hi everyone! Today, I’m sharing a review of ColourPop’s Flutter By palette. I feel like for most of 2019, I wasn’t into any of ColourPop’s palette releases. They released a ton of their monochromatic 9-pan palettes which weren’t up my alley because they were too colourful for me. In November, they released the Going Coconuts palette, and I felt like that’s when the floodgates opened for my ColourPop purchases. A week after the Going Coconuts palette, ColourPop announced the release of the Flutter By palette a week later, and I immediately wanted that one, too. After not hauling from them for most of the year, I suddenly made two hauls in two weeks!

I left this palette untouched for the longest time, because it arrived right before I left for vacation. When I came home, I didn’t have time to take photos of it, so I left it sitting for weeks! I only started using it after the holidays passed, and I’ve finally tested it long enough to give it a proper review. Read on if you have been curious about this palette!

Project Pan: Pan 20 in 2020

Hello, friends! I’ve mentioned in my 2020 blogging goals post that I planned to challenge myself to a Project Pan this year, and today I’m sharing the products that I’ve chosen for my project! I’ve been feeling overwhelmed with how much makeup I have, and I’m looking forward to using up what I already own this year instead of constantly contributing to mass consumerism and buying what I don’t need.

In 2018, I did two Project Pans lasting half a year each, where I switched out the products midway through the year because I knew I would get sick of them. This year, I decided that I’m only going to do one Project Pan with 20 products in it (since it’s 2020), and it will last all year. I am making this a rolling project, which means if I finish a product, I will take it out of my project and replace it with another item, so that I always have 20 products in my Project Pan. Theoretically, that means I could finish more than 20 products…but realistically, I’m going to be finishing very few products!

For this year’s Project Pan, I did not include products that I finish regularly (like mascara), but I did include products with varying degrees of difficulty to pan. For example, a few products are almost used up and will only take 1-3 months to finish, while most will take the majority of the year to complete. From previous projects, I’ve realized that it can sometimes feel defeating when you never see pan on a product after using it all year, so I wanted to include a small selection of products that are easier to finish in order to encourage myself. As a note, for all of the items that come in pans (powder and cream shadows, blushes, and highlighters), my goal is to see baby pan, not pan the entire thing – at least for now!

Without further ado, here are the items I am including in my Pan 20 in 2020 Project Pan!

Review: Laneige Lip Glowy Balm & 3ce Mood Recipe Blush Review from Stylevana

Hi, friends! Today I’m doing a review of two products that Stylevana generously gifted me before the holidays. They contacted me at the end of November to see if I would be interested in trying two products from them. After browsing their website and realizing that Styelvana is an Asian (particularly Korean and Japanese) beauty retailer, I decided this was a brand I was in working with. I’ve been wanting to get into K-beauty more, and there are a decent number of online retailers that ship Asian brands to Canada, but I was happy to find out that Stylevana is now also shipping to Canada. It’s nice to have more choices and price comparisons! Of course, a big thank you goes to Stylevana for sending me these products for review. Even though I received these for free, all of my thoughts and opinions remain honest, as always.

In terms of more information about Stylevana, the website now also has a rewards system called the VANA Rewards. You can earn points from purchases, which you can redeem for products.

If you do make an order from the website, you can use code POLISHEDNINSPIRED20 to get 20% off your purchase. As a disclaimer, if you use my code, I will be receiving a small commission from your purchase.

I decided I was interested in trying the Laneige Lip Glowy Balm and a 3ce Mood Recipe blush. Read on if you’re interested in hearing about either of these products!

Best of Beauty 2019

Hi friends! Today I’m sharing a type of post that I personally enjoy reading the most: yearly beauty favourites! I love seeing what other people discovered and enjoyed using during the year, because you find some really good recommendations. I, ahem, purchased a lot of stuff in 2019, and as a result have added some really standout products to my collection. Just as a note, these are not necessarily products that were new on the market in 2019, but they are all products that I discovered during the year. If I didn’t find a new favourite in a certain category during the year, I did not include it in this post (notice that I’m missing a favourite mascara, concealer, etc.) Without further ado, let’s get to it!

2020 Blogging Goals

Hello, my friends! Happy New Year, and wishing you all a wonderful 2020! Today, I’m talking all about my blogging goals for the upcoming year. I know a lot of people say they don’t make new year’s resolutions because they end up dropping them after a few weeks. Not tooting my own horn or anything, but I feel like I’m generally pretty good at it because I make my “resolutions” SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-based) goals instead of generic, so they’re not as intimidating to tackle. With that being said, I’m pretty sure that I didn’t address any of my 2019 blogging goals (great example of how good I am at achieving my goals, right??) 2019 was an off-year for me in terms of blogging. I took lots of breaks, and when I wasn’t taking a break, I felt like my heart wasn’t into the posts I was putting out. With that being said, I feel like I’m going into the new decade with a renewed sense of enthusiasm for blogging, and I would really like to do a better job at achieving my goals this year.