HandPicked Beauty Box January 2017

Welcome back, little birdies!

I hope you're all doing well on this fine day. One thing that gets me excited for a new month is the box I subscribed to at the end of November. HandPicked Beauty Box is a fairly new subscription box that consists of 5 FULL sized items! Isn't that amazing?! The only catch is this box is more expensive than the other boxes out on the market at the moment - which is totally understandable seeing as these are high end products. I'm certainly enjoying it and it's only my second box. I'll be showing you what I received for the month of January 2017.

The first thing I saw when I opened the box was a Tony Moly Lip Scrub in Kiss Kiss. My lips are almost always dry and I can't seem to make them nice, smooth and plump. So I was excited to see this in the box. I've heard great things about the brand but have never tried them out myself. I'm SO ready for beautiful luscious lips so I hope this does the job. :)

The next thing in the box was this SkinFood Lettuce & Cucumber Watery Toner. To be honest, the foodie in me thought it was a drink at first when I saw it just before reading that it's for my face - haha. I'm so intrigued by this. I do want to do a little more research on this though as my skin is pretty sensitive and when I tried to look at the instructions on the back of the bottle it was all in Korean - it did although have a sticker of ingredients on there in English so you know what's in it. I'd love to learn more about this brand and see how my skin takes to this new toner. I'm excited to try it out!

I then saw a beautiful package that said Urban Decay on it. This is only the second box I've received from this subscription and this is the second Urban Decay product I've gotten and that makes me so excited! It's one of my favorite brands and I love that this helps me to be able to try out different products from there I probably wouldn't have gotten before. I received this UD Revolution High Color LipGloss in the color Fail Bait. It's a lovely pink shade that's super glossy. I feel like this will be a staple in my collection over the summer.

Next I saw a little Becca box. I loved seeing this in here because I always hear great things about Becca cosmetics and I've never gotten anything from them before. I'm happy to finally have a product of theirs. It's a Shadow and Light Brow Contour Mousse. Now, I'm not great at doing my brows. Actually, I'm pretty horrible at it haha. So I'm glad to have a good high end product to practice with. I did try it out today and the formula is brilliant - very lovely. The only thing with this is that it's in the shade Cocoa and it's a bit light for me as my hair is quite dark. Regardless, I think this is a great product and it applied smoothly.

The last (and biggest) item in the box is this Fiona Stiles Eyes and Face Contouring Palette. I've never heard of this brand and had to look them up to see what it was all about but the palette looks absolutely high quality and I'm pretty excited to try out all the shades in here. I did use the contour shade in the palette and it is SO pigmented. It's matte so it has no shimmer in it. I feel like that's my favorite contour shade I've seen so fair. I can't wait to use the shadows, highlights and blushes!

Over all I was VERY intrigued with January's HandPicked Box. I feel like it was very focused on enhancing your natural beauty -  from eyes, brows, and face contours to skin / lip care to a natural gloss to your lips. This box has gotten me so excited for the summer time. I'm glad for all the things in the months box and I can't wait to fall in love with all the products like I've done with some already. If you're interested or looking into a subscription box and wouldn't mind spending a little extra I'd recommend giving this a little look. I've been enjoying it so far.

Mini Disclaimer: This is not a sponsored post. I purchased this box with my own money and have a monthly subscription with HandPicked that I pay for - monthly.

(Random behind the scenes haha)

Thanks for reading!

Until Next Time,

Jay

Without A Shadow Of A Doubt

Welcome Back!

One thing I've noticed about my make up is that I tend to stay with what I know. I've contemplated doing a post on all my lipsticks but honestly, they would all be pretty much the same color from different brands. Or the same kind of blush. Same is true for my eye shadows. I've always and still do favor neutral shades verses over the top colors. I'm not much of a bold make up wear-er.. I know me saying this will not stop me from purchasing more nude shadows in the future - I've just come to a knowledge of it. 

Here comes the long winded background story of how I decided to choose this beautiful palette. You might want to grab a coffee. I came across this YouTube video by Sonia where she did an absolutely beautiful purple look. That video itself led me to my endeavor of a higher end palette with a bit of color flowing through it. With some research I came to the conclusion that I wanted the Urban Decay Vice 3 Palette. It has some an array of lovely colors that I didn't already have in my collection. I would also like to add that once I get something stuck in my mind - like buying this palette - I get very impatient and have a need to go out right that very moment and buy it. So by no surprise I found myself at Ulta rummaging Urban Decay's  products looking for it. When I was trying to find this it was the beginning of January 2016, and this palette had came out last year. They had a display of it with a tester of the product but no actual palettes to sell. I stalked the store for about a week trying to see if they'd restock when finally an employee let me know that because it was last years palette, they might not be getting it back in stock. I was super bummed about that because I already had my heart set on that one. Before knowing that the new Urban Decay Vice 4 palette was coming out only a week or two after I decided to go for another palette. I was contemplating between the Electric Palette or this Shadow Box palette. I was really looking for a bit of color but I came to the conclusion that the Electric palette was TOO much color for me. I knew I wouldn't be using them all or even at all. So I went for the Shadow Box Palette.

The Urban Decay Shadow Box Palette is small but packs quite a punch. It comes with 12 shades; 11 of them shimmer, 1 matte. I know a few of the colors in this palette are in some of the Naked palettes such as Sin. They are all shimmer  shades except for Blackout. Blackout is the only matte shade in this palette (mind you the shimmer from the other shades do fall out onto Blackout which is why it looks a bit shimmer-y. I assure you, it's not.) It has a lovely array of neutral shades like Lost, Baked Cowboy, and Smog and if you'd like that pop of color you can add the beautiful purple, pink, green and blue shades. I feel like no matter how many neutral palettes you have, and in my case a whole bunch, this palette although small is a gem in the midst of your collection.

Overall I feel that if you're looking to dip your toes in the ocean of beautiful bold colors - this is the palette for you. It is a higher end product but well worth every penny. I say give it a try and see what amazing looks you can get out of the 12 colors in the palette.

If you have this palette, or if you have another bold color palette that you love, let me know!

Thanks for reading!

-Jay