Hair Care
No. 4th Smoothing Balm is one of my favorite hair care items I've used in recent months for Lizzie. It hidrates, it smooths, it worked well on her split ends (we recently had 1 inch cut off of her hair and 2 off of Liv's).
I blasted through Moroccanoil Treatment in about a day. I also managed to spill maybe 1/6th of the bottle on the carpet but that's another store for a different day. I prefer oils of this thickness to the Garnier Fructis Sleek and Shine Anti-Frizz Serum that I usually use on my kids hair just because I feel like the viscosity helps in coating their hair.
I've had this jar of Cantu Shea Butter Leave -in Conditioner for way too long. It worked wonders on my hair when I was rocking the TWA but it didn't do much for me with locs. It would leave a white cast in my hair and just look awful. I've converted to clear gels for myself. I also found that this formula is a bit too heavy for Lizzie's hair and while it works well for Liv, there are other products I enjoy more now that her hair is longer. Her hair just needs so much hold now, her ends were so split about a week ago, and this product just isn't as nourishing as I would like for it to be for her. I think I need to go on a product discovery mission on myself (when I get time) just to help Short Stuffins with her hair.
Bath and Body
Hempz lotion in Sweet Pineapple & Honey Melon damn near kept me in trouble at work. I could throw some lotion on my hands in the far corner of one side of the building and people could smell me across the building more than halfway down the length. I left a scent trail wherever I walked (and people loved it)! I was heartbroken the day I ran out. One of the guys even said he followed suit and had to buy a bottle for himself. I know what I'm doing next time I see this brand, specifically this scent, in stores.
The only benefit to the Nivea Foaming Silk Body Wash is teaching the girls how to wash their own tummies and arms and making bath time a little more fun, as if it needed any more of that. I found this body wash to be overly perfumed and utterly useless. I didn't feel clean whatsoever and I struggled to love it. Eventually I just started throwing it at the kids for fun bath time realizing I wasn't reaching for it nearly enough and I just wasn't enjoying it. Just foam them a bit after I'm done washing them and let them think they're accomplishing something over the course of about 5 to 10 minutes.
Cleansers
I have tried to love micellar waters but so far I feel like they're kind of all the same. I know, it's a broad generalization but I haven't seen anything grossly different between brands yet to think otherwise. The same can be said for Simple Micellar Water and A True Black Tea Cleansing Water were no different. They're both serviceable for an initial cleanse but I feel like Ponds Cold Cream is far superior. I understand the benefit for people with oily or sensitive, acne prone skin. I'm just not that person.
Clinique Take the Day Off worked as well as the Up & Up eye makeup remover. I wouldn't spend Clinique money on this when I can go to target for an eye makeup remover that is just as effective. I love the purple packaging though. Packaging is something Clinique excels at. I love the lilac color of this cleanser almost as much as I love the almost offensive mid-century green of their lipsticks and other skincare. It's a stupid reason to want to buy their products, especially since I have such a hard time finding things for my skin tone but the call of the wild is still there.
A friend gave me this Neogen Coconut Milk cleanser a couple of years ago and I finally got around to using it. It's a foaming gel-cream that is heavily perfumed but smells nothing like coconut. I found it quite drying as well, at least in the winter months. Its my favorite type of cleanser, but it's not my favorite cleanser of its type, if that makes any sense.
Makeup
I demolished my Arrow Revive Cooling Cheek Tint. This sample lasted forever considering how small it is. Part of that of course is due to me trying other blush formulas at the same time. I loved this little guy but I found myself leaning on the translucent gel formula less as the weather got drier. I really want to try the Glossier Cloud Paint formula because it's more of an opaque cream, not a translucent gel.
General Skincare
January was a bit of a K-Beauty month for me. I finally plowed through my Too Cool for School Egg Mellow Cream. I love this stuff so much. It's one of my top 5 beauty box discoveries ever. I love the smell, the light cake batter-like texture, how hydrating it is and how it doesn't leave me looking or feeling oily. The brand says this can be used as a serum, priming moisturizer, neck cream, eye cream, and sleeping mask but I found it works best for me as a moisturizer. This is definitely something to be repurchased down the line.
I also blasted through 3 Belif products: the True Cream Aqua Bomb, the Moisturizing Eye Bomb and the Hungarian Water Essence. The Aqua Bomb is great for my skin in the summer time. It's not quite something I love during the drier winter months but I was low enough that I decided to just kill this off to move on to the next product. It's a gel-cream moisturizer so it's light weight and works well for people with combination or oily skin. I enjoyed the Moisturizing Eye Bomb. I mean, there wasn't much to not enjoy about it. It's an eye cream that did not make my face explode or cause any irritation. This was a sample sized jar that I received in a Sephora box but it was large enough to last me at least 2 to 3 months. I'm a bit on the fence about the Belif Hungarian Water Essence. I love the airless pump packaging and the texture of the serum but I think I may have reacted to it. I was using multiple new skincare items around this time but I feel like my skin was more sensitive than usual whenever I used this serum. Maybe it's just me, maybe it was the other products I was using at the time. Incidentally, I'm still fighting acne flares (which is very uncommon for me outside of pregnancy and god please let it not be pregnancy) so clearly I have not found all of the culprits.
Miscellaneous
I first discovered Up and Up Premium Cotton Rounds in a Target Beauty Box some time ago. I tried to be cheap and get the basic rounds when I replaced these but that was a futile effort. I hate the waste these create but I love how soft they are. They have a quilted side and a textured side and they are amazingly sturdy. They don't fuzz up and rip in half when removing eye makeup.
Well that's January in a nutshell. I have a handful more things that I went through in February, some I purchased myself and many more that were subscription box items. I just think I should probably wait until the end of the month to dump February's garbage. I'm also not sure how long I will be able to keep up posting empties just because I feel like a slob carting all of this shit around with me in the apartment.
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