2014 Beauty Discoveries

Happy new year everyone! I hope you all had a good night and weren’t suffering too badly yesterday! I went down to London and had an amazing time catching up with uni friends, most of whom I hadn’t seen since graduation. It was so nice to see them all again and actually do something for new year – I usually don’t.

I thought I’d kick off the new year by sharing some of my favourite beauty discoveries from the past year.

Skincare

My best skincare discovery has to be micellar water! I think I’ve gone on about it on the blog enough for you to all realise that I love it, but when you find a product that makes removing make up so easy and cleanses so well, it is worth raving about. Especially as its greatly reduced the number of breakouts I’ve had. I wrote a comparison post on three different brands of micellar water and the Garnier one was my favourite (more in depth review of that here). I am currently using a bottle of Bioderma micellar water, which my mum kindly picked up for me when she was in France. It’s really good and I’ll happily use it and the second bottle of it up, but considering the price difference, the Garnier will be my forever repurchase.

Make Up

I’ve photographed two items for this, as they go hand in hand for me – eyeshadow and eyeshadow primer. This time last year, I only wore eyeshadow on occasion and didn’t quite see the point of it. Then I picked up a No7 gift set in the sale which had 3 shadows and 2 brushes. I didn’t start wearing it properly for a while after that, but I did particularly like how a champagney brown made my eyes look. Then I got an eyeshadow primer in my first Glossybox which makes my shadow last crease free all day and I was hooked! I now wear shadow daily (if its a make up day) and recently bought this amazing Soap & Glory palette in the picture, which I did a first impressions post of. I’d like to quickly say that the shadows have lived up to and surpassed my expectations and I’ve been enjoying experimenting with the palette.

Beauty Boxes

I tried out a couple of beauty boxes this year, but my favourite has definitely been Glossybox, who I quickly resubscribed to after leaving them to try out others – I didn’t even miss a box! I’ve now had six months worth of boxes and although there are boxes that don’t quite live up to the standard of others, I think this is something unavoidable when you’re not picking out your own products. I have very much enjoyed getting products and brands I’ve never heard of through my door and getting chance to give them a go, all for a great price. A favourite box from the year would have to be September’s. I’m so excited for next month’s box, as they’re promised 5 full sized products!

If you want to get your own Glossybox, then I would be grateful if you used my referral link below. This does give me points towards their rewards scheme.

http://www.glossybox.co.uk/referal?CI=MTcwNjEx

Haircare

I forgot to add this into the main picture, as it currently lives in my shower and is very much a part of my weekly haircare routine! This has been a big year for my hair, it started off with me deciding to dye it purple last year (thinking it wouldn’t stick due to previous bleaching), then promptly dying it back red and damaging it quite a bit. Something like 10 inches of hair off later, my hair started growing quite significantly and partly to thank for that is this hair mask from Schwarzkopf! I also think that switching to sulphate free shampoo has made a huge impact, as my colour is lasting a lot better and I can go longer between washes. I think I have now found a really good sulphate free shampoo that works for me, but more on that later!

Beauty Brand

The last thing I wanted to talk about today, is my favourite beauty brand which I discovered in 2014. It is, of course, Lush! Yes I know, I was slow to get on the bandwagon with this one, but I have very much become obsessed with their bubble bars (you may have seen the hauls…) and have branched out a bit to try out some of their skincare samples and a lip scrub. One of my absolute favourites, was the limited edition pumpkin bubble bar for Halloween. I loved it so much, I went and bought a second, which I have so far refrained from using as I’ve been trying out a lot of their other products, but having got it out for this photo I really want to use it! It smells so heavenly!

So that’s the main things I fell in love with over this past year, beautywise! What were your favourite products? Anything you think I should try next?