AUGUST FAVOURITES!

Another month has come and gone, so it's time for another monthly favourites!

Beauty

This month I have re-discovered an old favourite of mine which is the Nars Audacious lipstick in the shade Julie.
I've had this lipstick since the start of the year and I used it for about a month or two none stop, but then I swapped to more brown toned lipsticks and completey forgot about it. But this month I picked it back up again since the weather was getting a lot better I wanted a brighter colour on my lips! The staying power of this lipstick is average, it lasts for about 4 hours without needing to touch up but because it's not too dark it's really not a problem to touch up when out and about and it's not drying in the slightest!

With most lipsticks I do pair them with a lipliner and this one is an old favourite, The rimmel 1000 kisses lipliner in tiramisu.

This lipliner is quite drying if i'm honest on it's own but for the price of £2.99 you can't really go wrong, although since the lipstick is quite moisturising, dryness is never a problem for me, but exfoliating your lips with a lip scrub will always be necessary. This combination has been my go to this month, the muted coral colour really suits my pale skin and blue eyes. I do highly recommend checking out the audacious lipsticks from Nars, however they are rather expensive (£24 each) so it would make the perfect luxury gift. 

This month I have explored a little more with soap & glory's makeup range. Their supercat eyeliner is my holy grail eyeliner, but I had never tried anything else. I will admit that their range is somewhat expensive compared to collection or sleek. I would say the price range is on par with revlon, and I will confidently say I prefer soap & glory's products!

This month I picked up the one heck of a blot powder, in the past I have been using no7 loose powder which works for most of my face but is incapable of setting underneath my eyes and on my nose, yet the one heck of a blot powder can do that perfectly! 

This powder gives a lovely matte finish, not cachey in slightest. As far as I'm aware I bought it for £12 but don't quote me on that! Also I think the powder only comes in one colour, so this would not be suitable for tanned/dark skin tones. Although the other powders from the brand are available in different colours but I haven't had first hand experience trying these out yet. 

The second thing I bought was the archery brow tint and shaping pen. 

I only started filling in my brows recently and as cliche as it sounds they definitely do frame your face. But I only used an eyeshadow and a clear gel, so I wanted to try something different, that is build able. So I bought archery in the shade brownie points (cutest name award!). At one end is a very light brown wax which adds more colour with more pressure, and at the other end is a very flexible and fine felt tip with a little more colour pay off, great for mimicking hair like strokes. After using this product I would trust it enough to stay in place all day but I still use a clear brow gel over the top to show texture. This product is very lightweight and smooth which is great for me because if there is too much product in my brows I start to get headaches which is why I've stopped using the loreal brow plumper since it is so coarse and stiff once dry. 

I will be experimenting more with soap & glory makeup soon I'm sure of it!

Hair

I have one hair favourite this month and it is my straighteners. My mum bought me these a few months back since I used to use a pair of stylers to make my hair straight and it just didn't last. I have avoided styling my hair at all for a couple of years because my hair admittedly is in awful condition, but since I went to the hairdressers last I've had more confidence to style my hair again. My hair is insanely thick and curly naturally, so straightening used to take for ever! But that's all changed. These straighteners are by John Freida and unfortunately I couldn't tell you the name because I've gotten rid of the box, but this is what they look like.

They are brilliant for my hair and not totally over expensive. I think they were £40 from boots. 

The cool thing about these straighteners is that they heat up to 220 degrees and have a "care" setting allowing the heat to be distributed evenly throughout the tongs and glide smoothly through the hair, decreasing the amount of split ends!

This next favourite is hair related but is a scrunchie. As I said before my hair is so thick that it always gets caught up in traditional bobbles, so I resorted to scrunchies. I had 3 from American apparel which are brilliant, but they are all dark colours. So I walked into new look and found this beautiful minty blue chiffon type scrunchie and I haven't had it out of my hair since. And for £2.99 you can't go wrong!

Music & Film

Now this month I've seen some awesome releases, and I haven't been short of anything to listen to! My spotify has drastically enlarged over the course of August!

Two albums have had me hooked this month.

First is Don Brocos second album - Automatic.

 I don't know anyone out there in the industry using musical abilities in such a funky way. Rob's vocals are like no other but combined with matt's high pitched backing vocals they are a match made in heaven. Catchy riffs and deep powerful bass lines are the perfect combination for such a feel good album like automatic. 

Songs I recommend:

- Automatic

- Superlove

- Nerve 

The second album release is by British Pop Punk stars Neck Deep. 

There second album titled Life's Not Out To Get You is a masterpiece. 

Pop punk really is the genre of the summer to get you pumped and upbeat for the rest of year. And neck deep certainly bring this to the party. Of course catchy choruses are in order, found in their lead single. The deluxe comes with a couple of beautiful raw acoustic versions of some of the songs, and they definitely didn't disappoint either!

Songs I recommend:

- Can't kick up the roots

- Gold Steps

- Lime St. 

My film favourite this month is: Bad education: the movie!

I am a massive Jack Whitehall fan I think he's a fantastic stand up comedian. When it comes to his TV shows though Fresh Meat and Bad Education never appealed to me. But I thought I'd give the movie a go, and it was exactly what I expected very cringe-worthy! But I still loved it. A lot of cringe attacks happened during the film but I was constantly laughing and smiling and that's all I could really ask from it. The character of Alfie wickers is brilliant and comedic and so naive but as frustrating as his character is he always leaves you with a smile on your face! 

I have one extra favourite this month and it is Costa Hot chocolate!

Now that summer has come to an end and the weather has turned miserable I've found myself switching from the fruit coolers to the original hot chocolate. I love the winter months wearing cosy jumpers and fluffy socks, it's my favourite and hot chocolate makes everything even better!

So that's it, that wraps up another monthly favourites! I hope you guys enjoyed reading!

I am back in college next week so I can't promise a lot of posts going up but I will try my best!