MAY BEAUTY FAVOURITES

May felt like a blink and you missed it month for me. It was my birthday so I packed in a fair few more nights out and birthday celebrations, which always makes time fly, and now it’s monthly favourites time again! Here are the items I’ve been using and loving this month.

MAC X Caitlyn Jenner Finally Free Lipstick, £15.50 › available here
I reviewed this at the start of the month so, for anyone who read that review, it’s probably no surprise that this made my monthly favourites list. I love the colour and MAC lipsticks are always a winning formula in my book. You can read my full review here.

Sephora Cream Lip Stain in 01 Always Red, $14 (approx £10) › available here
I love the Sephora lip stains; they’re a long lasting, highly pigmented cream that sets to a lightweight lip stain and, as they have avocado oil in them, a great option for a matte look that doesn’t dry out the lips. Always Red is a classic, bold true red in a perfect matte finish. Once it’s dried it doesn’t budge, so you don’t end up with red lipstick smeared all over your teeth, and looks amazing. I keep buying these as gifts for friends because everytime someone sees me wearing this they ask to borrow it and then declare that they can’t live without this in their life. It’s THAT good.

Becca X Jaclyn Hill Shimmering Skin Perfector in Champagne Pop, £32 › available here
This has been reviewed by so many people that really is there anything I can about this that hasn’t already been said? Probably not. It’s gorgeous and if you don’t have it, you NEED it. It’s just the prettiest highlighter ever and so perfect now we’re heading into sunnier weather.

Crabtree & Evelyn La Source Hand Cream, £6 for 25g / £10 for 50g / £16 for 100g › available here
I helped some friends move house this month and my hands were left feeling horribly dry afterwards (I blame a pretty intensive scrubbing out of the kitchen cupboards for this!) so I’ve been reaching for this hand cream a few times a day ever since and now I don’t have sandpaper hands anymore! I don’t get on with most hand creams as I can’t bear feeling like there is product on my hands and I really don’t like having scent on my hands. This is the only hand cream I’ve ever been able to get on board with – it absorbs quickly and leaves hands softer without feeling like there is any residue or greasiness on the skin. It’s hard to describe the scent but this just smells clean to me so I don’t find it cloying or sickly like so many hand creams. I buy the little 25g ones because a little goes a long way, so they last me ages, and are handy for tossing into my bag.

Beauty UK Ultimate Contour Palette £5.29 › available here
After running out of my beloved NYX Wonder Stick, which I talked about in my January Favourites, I decided to pick up this contour palette and give it a try. It contains three shallow, circular pans of contour, bronzer and highlighter creams inside a black cardboard box with a magnetic lid. The packaging isn’t amazing, but for something that costs £5 that’s fine and the magnetic lid is handy, especially for travelling. As you can probably see from the above picture, I’ve only used the contour shade so far but I do plan on taking this on holiday with me as I think the bronzer shade would suit me more with a tan. The contour is a great shade, it’s not at all warm or orange toned so it’s perfect for creating the appearance of a natural shadow. I’ve found that you need to work at the product and apply quite a lot of pressure to get it out of the pan but this doesn’t translate to it’s application on the face, it’s as if the effort in getting it onto your brush from the pan warms the product up and then it blends smoothly and with ease. Overall, this palette is pretty impressive, for £5 I feel like this must be one of the cheapest offerings out there. I’d buy this again just for the contour shade alone.

MAC Eyeshadow (Pro Palette Refill Pan) in Twinks, £10 › available here
I’ve been reaching for this eyeshadow so much this month. I love MAC eyeshadows and this shade is beautiful. Twinks is from the Veluxe Pearl range and is a warm shimmery golden brown with hints of plum which is easy to wear and flattering. The wear time was fantastic on this as well – I always find MAC eyeshadows wear well but this looked as good on me at the end of the day as it did at the start.

What have you been loving this month?