July/August Favorites 2015

Hello, lovelies!

I skipped doing a favorites post for July, just because I felt like I didn't have many new favorites, but I did manage to accumulate some during the month of August. And since it's now September *cries because the year is going too fast*, I've decided it's time for another favorites post. So if you want to see what I've been loving these past couple months, just keep reading!

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1.) Music

This might seem a little odd, but my first favorite thing for music is the "Sleep Station" on Pandora. Pandora if you don't know, is an internet radio. You can go to their website, and they have an app version. I love Pandora, because you can choose an artist/genre of music and it will play songs that are that artist/genre, or similar to it. It's fantastic for finding new songs and not having the same old playlist all the time. What I love about the Sleep Station is that it's all suuuuuper relaxing music, and it helps me wind down at the end of the day. Some of my new favorite songs I discovered because of that station.

And now for a decently long list of some songs that I've been listening to a lot these past couple months.

"Shine" by Years and Years

"Drag Me Down" by One Direction

"Beautiful Life" by Nick Fradiani

"I'll Be" by Edwin McCain

"Collide" by Howie Day

"Come Home" by One Republic

"I Dare You" by Bea Miller

"Words" by Jacob Whitesides

"Falling In Love At A Coffee Shop" by Landon Pigg

2.) Books

These two books were featured in my From the Bookshelf #14 post, and they were amazing. Lost was a really interesting historical fiction book that focused on the time period around the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire. I loved the characters, and the fact that one character was based on a real missing person and her story merged with one that actually happened.

Saint Anything is a really amazing story that has a huge focus on family bonds, but also on struggles that people don't see right away. I loved the characters in this one as well, and the love story between Sydney and Mac was adorable and wonderful and all things warm and fuzzy.

(Want to see what else I've been reading? Click here to read my latest bookish post.)

3.) Miscellaneous

Just after I did my "What's In My Makeup Bag?" post, I went out and bought this palette. It was about $15 at my local Ulta store. It's the Makup Revolution "Affirmation" 32 shadow palette. And while it's in my favorites post, I have a very love-hate thing with this palette. I adore the matte shades. They're pretty pigmented for the price, and I love all of the neutral soft brown colors. However, the shimmer colors in this palette are awful. There's so much fallout when applying the shadow, and once it's actually where you want it, you just don't get that pigmented of a color. It's mostly sparkle with just a hint of color, which bummed me out. If you swatch the colors on your finger, they look super beautiful and opaque, but that color just doesn't transfer as nicely on my eyelids.

But it did make it into my favorites because I've been obsessed with a couple of the matte colors for a very natural daily eye makeup. The far left column has been amazing for a subtle wash of color, and I love the darker warm brown in the fourth column from the left, second one down. I also love the color that's 5th column from the left, and three down. It's more of a cooler brown than the last one, and that's the one I've been using a ton when my eyebrows are being patchy and weird to even out the shape and fullness. I really wish the shimmers were more pigmented. I will admit that putting them on with my finger is better than using a brush, but they pretty much blend away into nothing as the day goes on, which is very sad, but I do love that this palette has 32 colors for only $15.

This is the Maybelline Color Sensational Creamy Matte lipstick in the shade "Touch of Spice" and the Nyx lip gloss in "Natural". These were featured in this post, that I made a while ago. Since then, I have continued to love these products. The Nyx gloss is just beautiful for a little bit of shine without a ton of color, but the lipstick is what I've been most obsessed with for school. It's definitely darker than my natural lip color, but it stays put amazingly throughout the whole day, and who wants to be touching up their lipstick during school?

(If you were wondering, that's a lil' tea bag floating in my cup.)

My next favorite surprises even me. It's . . . tea! I'm normally not a huge fan of tea. It always tasted funky to me, and I only really liked it for when I had a sore throat. But lately I've been really into it. I've always been curious about why British people put milk in their tea, so I tried doing half milk and half hot water in my tea, and I'm hooked. The milk just mellows out the tea so nicely, and it takes away that bitterness I associate with tea. I usually put a little bit of a sweetener in my tea, just because I'm a sweet tooth when it comes to my tea.

I've also been expanding my mug collection, and I have some mugs that look like really big teacups (like the one pictured above), and they're my favorite for tea. Otherwise, I use my mugs for coffee, since that's my all-time favorite drink to relax with.

My final favorite in this post is this little journal I got to write down all my school assignments in. It doesn't have dates in it like an actual planner, but I write down the days as I go. I just adore the words on the front that are in a really pretty gold font, and the fact that the stripes are navy makes me happy since I've been having a huge obsession with navy lately.

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Those are the things I've been loving this month! What have you been loving recently? Also, I've been on the hunt for some new songs, so feel free to comment down below your favorite song. (:

That is all.

Cheers,

Sea