Best of 2015 Beauty: My Makeup Picks

Happy New Year! It's hard to believe, but 2016 is already here. It's amazing how quickly 12 months can fly by and all of a sudden its January again. While 2015 was a relatively low key year for me in my personal life, I feel like it was pretty exciting for me blog-wise. I started out my first affiliate partnerships, revamped my YouTube channel, worked with some great brands, and tried SO. MANY. PRODUCTS. I wrote 171 posts (that's more than the two previous years combined!), totally revamped my site design, and have finally started to figure out this whole social media thing. In the end, blogging is definitely a labor of love, but I couldn't be happier about investing my time and energy into creating this space that I can share with all of you. I've got so many plans and goals for the coming year, and hope that you'll all be up for joining me on that journey.

But, before we get to ahead of ourselves, I want to give 2015 a proper send off. I've spent the last few weeks rifling through my cabinets, digging through my drawers, and perusing my old blog posts to come up with an epic list of my most favorite beauty products from the past year. For a moment I considered making one short list encompassing my best-of-the-best products, only to quickly realize that it's kind of impossible to just pick one favorite makeup or skincare item from the hundreds that I've tried. So instead, I offer you this. Over the next few days I'll be sharing my best beauty discoveries of 2015, with each post focusing on a particular group of products. So let's start things right by talking about everyone's favorite beauty addiction - makeup.

5 Minute Makeup Tutorial

Happy Sunday, all! I am cozied up at home with my cup of coffee, starting my day off being a little bit productive. It's been a cold, rainy, generally gross week, but finally the sun is shining again and I am ready to actually enjoy a little bit of fall. I'd love to go out and get a couple of pumpkins for my front stoop, maybe even bust out the Halloween decorations. It's October people, time to embrace all things festive!

On a day like today when I'm either going to be out and about running errands or relaxing at home, I like to take a break from full-face makeup. All I want is to look polished and put together without having to expend a whole lot of time and energy getting ready. In the spirit of having a little bit of fun, I thought I'd put my skills to the test and see if I could come up with a makeup look to share with you guys that you can do in five minutes or less.

September 2015 Favorites

Holy crow...how is it the end of September already?! I feel like I say this every time I'm writing up my monthly favorites post, but man, it seriously feels like August was yesterday. It's been a busy month for me both blog and life wise, which is probably why time just seems to evaporate. In addition to trying a whole bunch of new amazing products, I've also been working hard to get my YouTube channel off the ground. As much as I really enjoy writing and photographing posts to share with you guys, I think videos lend themselves really well to things like tutorials. It's so much easier to actually demonstrate how to contour or blend out an eyeshadow than to try to describe it in writing. If you haven't seen it yet, I posted a fall inspired makeup tutorial last week that you might want to check out as well as an unboxing video of a YSL VoxBox that I just received.

Anyway, on to the real reason you're here! There are so many good products to share this month it's hard to know where to begin. Trying to pick and choose what to show you out of what I've been using was no easy feat, although I think I managed all right. Let's dive on in, shall we?

Limited Edition Fresh Start Birchbox Review

As February winds down and we move farther and farther away from that day of new resolutions, the hustle and bustle of everyday life may be starting to drag you back into old habits. If you need a little motivation to stay motivated, you may want to consider gifting yourself the latest Limited Edition box from Birchbox. The Fresh Start box has a ton of good-for-you beauty products and gym bag essentials that may re-inspire you to throw on your workout clothes and get back to it!