February Beauty Favorites!

Can you believe that February is already over? I feel like this month has been a whirlwind for me with finishing up school, staying on top of my blogging and some personal issues. I'm happy to finally be on the other side of all of that though and now new struggles await me like starting up my Freelance Makeup Artistry Buisness and trying to find a real job. But for today, I'm going to sit at my computer and not think about any of the adult life decisions ahead of me and instead I'm going to share with you the products that made it into my favorites for the month of February. I can't remember when the last time it was that I actually did a favorites post so I'm pretty excited to do one and hopefully continuing doing them in the future.

I also wanted to share with you a new sort of unveiling here on Embrace & Ignite and that is the presentation of my blog post images! As many of you know, I've been sticking to landscape horizontal style images and I found those to be a bit underwhelming considering all of my other posts have portrait vertical images in them. I decided to test my photography skills and play around with the angles and directions that I take my blog photography. I'm happy to say that I'm loving taking my images in a portrait vertical style and I'm really excited to continue this style from here on out, on Embrace & Ignite.

So without further rambling, let's get into my favorites:

Essence Make Me Brow in Blonde
Over my journey in the Beauty Community I've always struggled with my brows the most, as I'm sure many other ladies do. About a month back, I finally decided to take the plung and get my brows shaped and waxed. In doing that, I wanted to purchase a product that would continue to keep my brows looking natural but also clean and styled correctly. I'm happy to say that the Essence Make me Brow does exactly what I want it to do. This product gives my brows slight color to them making them appear fuller and it holds the hairs in place. Since this is a brow gel type of product, I also want to mention that this doesn't leave my brows feeling crunchy or doesn't flake off through the day.

Essence Sheer & Shine Lipstick
In the winter time one of the biggest beauty challenges for me is having to deal with dry, cracked and uncomfortable lips. During this time of the year, I enjoy using a more lipbalm type of formula when I'm using lip products. In previous years, I've used the Maybelline Color Whispers but this year I feel like I found something just as good for about half of the price. The Essence Sheer and Shine Lipsticks give the perfect amount of light flush to the lips and leave the lips feeling moisturized for a few hours. The other great thing about these is they smell absolutely delicious, along the lines of cake and vanilla so some individuals might not enjoy this type of scent.

L'OReal Hydra Total-5 Ultra Soothing Skincare Routine
view entire review post here!
Changing up my skincare in the Winter time is always really important for me because of the change within my skin at this time. We all know that things get dry and start to feel uncomfortable. I'm happy that the L'OReal Hydra Total-5 Skincare came into my life at the time that it did. I've done an entire post dedicated to this skincare routine so I don't want to talk to in-depth about it, but I do have to say that if you are suffering from sensitive and dry skin that the Ultra Soothing Routine from L'OReal is absolutely something you should pick up. Along with its effectiveness, it also smells really great and with this super simplified routine it takes about 5 - 10 minutes at night to complete your routine before heading off to bed.

L'OReal True Match Lumi Cushion Foundation
For the last year, I've stuck to the same foundation time and time again but with the booming market of products from the drugstore I took the dive off the deep end and purchased the new L'OReal True Match Lumi Cushion foundation and let me tell you, I've never been this in love. Out of all the products I've ever tried from L'OReal this is by far my #1 favorite product. Without going into too much detail because I do plan to do a full blog post on this product, I want to say that this product is lightweight, has light to medium coverage but can be slightly buildable and lasts 12+ hours on the skin. Since I have dry skin this time of year, it also provides a beautiful sheen to the skin that helps me look healthy, glowly and free of these nasty dry patches I get. All in all this has been a perfect foundation for me this past month!

Maybelline Master Contour Palette in Deep
Another new product from the drugstore (PS, do you see a trend in this favorites post?) is from one of my favorite brands, Maybelline. I'm a huge fan of bronzing up my skin and contouring to make my round face not appear so round. But I also believe in contouring in a way that isn't over the top like we all are used to seeing on Instagram. This product works great for the purpose of creating a natural contouring effect. I decided to choose the Deep shade because of the darker contour and more coral blush shade, sadly the highligher is too dark for me but works great as an eyeshadow. These products do kick up some powder but they blend out effortlessly and beautifully. And while all powders will fade on your skin after a long day, these I find stay put on the face much better than other powder I've used.

MAC Prep and Prime Fix+
Last but certainly not least, I'm finally so excited that I had the time and dedication ot fully test out the MAC Fix+. Besides lipsticks this is my first officialy MAC purchase and I decided to get this for the versitility of uses from setting and intensifying eyeshadows to using it as a primer spray and setting spray. I'm happy to say that this does a really great job at all of those uses. The mist from the bottle is light and immediately refreshes my face and sets my makeup to a beautiful finish. I also love how this works on the eyes. Sometimes I just want a more intense glitter look from my metallic shadows and adding a little bit of Fix+ gives me the perfect finish I'm looking for and leaves the shadow looking metallic and beautiful all day long.

February was obviously a really great month for me as far as beauty products are concerned. And if you didn't notice the trend in this post, most of the products are brand new items in the drugstore. I'm really excited about the positive changes that are being made at the drugstore by bringing in new and unique products for consumers. There are so many choices now, and while it can be really hard I think most of the new products from the drugstore are going to be a good choice. Make sure you stay tuned as I do some more in-depth reviews on many of these products and also including them in some upcoming makeup looks.

I also want to let you know that I'll be doing a No-Money March Challenge. I've done previous no-buy's before and in the past I've succeded at many. Over the next month, I will be relaly concentrating on using the products I have included the products that I'm currentlying wanting to use up, as well as just focusing on saving money for other expenses. As I get ready ot launch my Freeance Makeup Artistr Business, I think it's important for me to spend more money and time focusing on that aspect of my life then on my makeup and makeup collection. I will be keeping track of my spending progress and hopefully will update you in next month's favorites!

What were your favorites in February?
Link me to your Monthly Favorites posts below !


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