January Favourites

We're finished with January and now into February, which mean it's time for my first favourites of 2013. February is one of my favourite months of the year because in twelve days time it will be my birthday. YAY! I'm going to be 23 so I have nothing wild planned for this year, I'm going to take it easy and maybe go on a weekend away. Yes it you haven't noticed my birthday is also the day after Valentines Day, the most romantic day of the year! Just kidding! My boyfriend already has a good chunk of my present bought. I know what it is already, cause he had to make sure I'd like it before he forked out the money for it. Needless to say I'm over the moon with the gift, I can't have it until my actual birthday, that itself is making me looking forward to getting it even more. In the coming weeks I'll probably do a What I Got For my Birthday post like last year so stay tuned for that.

Back to my favourite products for this month, of which I have quite a few. Having a look over my list, all the products (par two) were new finds which is a bit of a change as the majority are usually rediscoveries for me. I'm going to start off with some of with my old favourites and continue on to my new favoured acquisitions.

First off is the Liz Earle's Eyebright Sooting Eye Lotion. This is my third bottle of this stuff and I can't get enough of it. In the mornings I soak two cotton pads with this stuff and sweep them over my eyes. They are usually tired and puffy, so the lotion itself wakes them up and leaves them refreshed. I really like the scent of this product too. It has a light herbal smell that I don't think would be offensive at all. The packaging is great on this product aswell, the lid is secure so I wouldn't worried about spillage if you had this in your bag. It also comes in a travel sized which I'm tempted to pick up for my holidays the next time I'm in Wilde & Green. Last month I featured the Naked Basics palette in my favourites and it's squeezed its way in this time too. I've always used shimmer eyeshadows on my eyes as I think they look so pretty. Since I bought this palette I've been using it a hell of a lot. It contains all the shades you'd need to create a natural eye look and they're so pigmented! I'm in the love with the packaging as it's nice and dainty, it literally fits into the palm of my hand. I do have the other two Naked palettes but this is something different for me. I don't have two many matte eyeshadows in my collection so it's nice to have them all in the one place. Being travel friendly is a major positive for this palette as I found that the Naked palettes were a bit too big. This however would fit into my everyday makeup bag nicely and I'd still have plently of room for all my other products. It's also much more affordable compared to the other Naked palettes so it's a good one to start off with.

Now onto my new discoveries from the month of January. You all know by now I'm a huge Soap & Glory fan, I love their products. When I was in Boots I noticed they released some new goodies into their range. I picked up a few which I'm sure will make it into my future favourites but one instant stand out for me was their Sugar Crush shower gel. I'm not blessed to have a bath in my house so I'm always on the look out for nice shower products and this definitely falls into that category. This stuff smells absolutely amazing, basically it smells like limes/sugar, lovely and sweet.  It's one of those scents that stays in your bathroom for a while after you shower. I've already used quite a bit already so I'll definitely be repurchasing it again. I just hope my family doesn't realise how nice it is or it may run out sooner than I think. If you like the  , you're bound to like this. They brought out a body butter in the same scent which I bought too but I've yet to try it. I'll let you know my thoughts when I do. Late last year I ran out of all my cleansing waters, instead of rushing out to buy more I decided to use up the cream cleanser I already had. I hate being wasteful so if I know I have some products in my collection for a while I like to finish them up. When I went through the few that I had lying around I popped into Boots; I had no particular micellar solution in mind as I wanted to try something different for a change. I finally went for La Roche Posay's  Effaclar Purifying Micellar Water for Oily Sensitive Skin. The name itself is a bit of a mouthful! I'm so glad I bought this stuff as it's such a lovely product. At present there's a lot of hype out about the Effaclar range among bloggers, I'm currently trying out their Effaclar Duo which I'm going to bring you a review on soon. This micellar solution is a product I haven't heard talked about that much which is odd as it's brilliant. This takes off all my makeup like a dream whilst not drying my skin out. I've used it to take off stubborn eye makeup and it hasn't irritated my eyes in the slightest. I can't say this about some other cleansing waters I've tried in the past. Price wise this comes in at €13.75 which I can't argue with as the majority of cleansing waters come in at the same price or even more for that matter. The size of the bottle is the only niggle I have with this product. I always fly through bottles of cleansing waters like there's no tomorrow and I've already used up a quarter of this in a week. I don't think the size of the bottle should take away from the quality of the product though so this is only a small issue. This month I finally caved and bought a eyelash curlers. I have a love/hate relationship with them and I haven't used one for a while now. I bought the Kevyn Aucoin eyelash curlers in Harvey Nichols, at €18 I can't say it was the cheapest. It was the right choice in the end to fork out on it though, this opens up my eyes completely. I can't believe I hadn't used curlers for so long. Even if I'm not in the mood to apply eyeshadow, I use this and lash on a few coats  f mascara.

I've only been using this lipstick for a bit over a week now but it definitely deserved its place in this months favourites. Rose Tweed is one of the many shades from the new Bourjois Rouge Edition Collection. I contemplated buying quite a few shades before I finally settled on this beauty. This is just the perfect lipstick for everyday, it's a gorgeous pinky nude which I can see myself wearing alot over the coming months. One key factor that also influenced my purchase was the gorgeous packaging. It's nice and sleek, I'll be happy taking this out of  my makeup bag that's for sure. It was the first lipstick I chose to use in my 28 Kisses tag post which you can see here. If I want a bit more of a wow factor I've been using MAC's Glamourdaze lipstick which comes in their Cremesheen formula. This particular lipstick is limited edition and was a part of their Christmas collection last year. As per usual when I bought this I was trying to save money but I couldn't help myself as it just looked so pretty in the bullet. It's a gorgeous wearable plummy red shade. If you know me you'll know that I don't wear reds at all so this is definitely more on the plum side of things. It's definitely different to shades that I'd usually go for but this works! This will be my second lipstick in my 28 Kisses tag so keep an eye out for that post later today.  Before applying these lipsticks I've been using my EOS Sweet Vanilla Nonsense lip balm. Chie sent this over to me from the States for Christmas and I love it. It's from the brands limited edition Alice in Wonderland trio set First off I love Alice in Wonderland so I love the product names, they're so cute. Alot of bloggers say the packaging reminds them as Kinder Surprises, now that I look at it again I certainly agree. After using this lip balm my lips are left feeling smooth and moisturised, perfect for applying my favourite lipsticks.

I've had this fragrance for a while but it's the first time I've featured it in one of my favourites posts. I love Taylor Swift, I've seen her in concert twice which you will hear a bit more about in my 50 Random Fact post. When I heard she was bringing a fragrance out I knew I had to have it.   This one was out in the States for ages before it was released over here in Ireland and it was definitely worth the wait. This smells amazing, it has a gorgeous fruity floral scent which I've been using everyday for the past while. I love the packaging, my favourite colour is purple so it's a complete given that I'd like this. The charms are so pretty too.

A random favourite for me this month is my Pretty Puzzles book. I got this in the January Sales and if I'm waiting for someone or something I'll whip this out. Look at the cover definitely a step up from the puzzle books you'd get in a newsagent, not that I would of paid the full €7 for this. I actually love puzzles and have done for year, I could just never get the hang of crosswords. Jeez not even 23 and spending my time doing wordsearches what's the world coming to. Saying that I got this at the start of January and I've only finished three puzzles, yes THREE!

Do you do monthly favourites? What made it into yours?

Laura<3