november favourites

Now that November is drawing to a close and it's got to that point where there's around four hours of daylight per day, I'm finding it more and more difficult to keep up with everything. Between mountains of studying, revising for a piano exam - it's on the 4th of December, wish me luck - and my new-found love for Sherlock (I now track #sheetlock on Tumblr), not to mention I haven't even started buying Christmas presents, I've really got enough to be getting on with and yet all I want to do is curl into a ball and hibernate. It doesn't help that I've started buying Yankee Candles (they instantly put me to sleep); the one I'm currently burning is Cinnamon Stick and I've also got stocks of Christmas Memories and Vanilla Chai waiting to be put to use.

Moving on from candles to face cream (smooth transition there), and I've finally got myself a full size pot of moisturiser after spending about three months using up all the samples I had lying around. I went for the Elemental Herbology Cell Plumping Facial Hydrator since I had used up a few little tubes of it before and adored it, plus I had a load of Birchbox points saved up that softened the blow of the price tag somewhat. But it's worth it - I would have believed it if I was told that this moisturiser had been custom made for my skin, as it works so well at preventing excess oil and dry patches as well as creating a good base for makeup.

I'm not going to go too into depth about the Sleek Blush in Flushed or the Revlon Super Lustrous Lipstick in Black Cherry as I've posted full reviews of both the products this month. Simply put, they satisfy my need to wear BERRY EVERYTHING on my face and make me feel all wintery and festive. And seeing my lipstick mark on a mug of tea is one of the nicest things, don't try to argue with me on this because it is fact.

Coincidentally, I featured the Rimmel Wake Me Up foundation in last year's November Favourites post (you can view it here if you want to have a chuckle at my photography skills... check out that lip swatch) and here it is again, and for good reason. Wake Me Up is such a brilliant foundation for the price, and provides just enough coverage to disguise any redness whilst giving my skin a natural glow. I have the lightest shade, 100 Ivory, which is still half a shade too dark for me but works if I blend it in, so I wouldn't advise blind buying the foundation online if you've got very fair skin.

Another previous favourite of mine has been the L'Oreal Super Liner Perfect Slim*, but it deserves another mention seeing as I've fallen even more in love with it. The swatch of doesn't portray it in the best light, as I'd left it standing upright for too long and there was barely any ink near the nib - rest assured, the line it gives is rather more precise than it looks and I end up with flawless winged eyeliner every time. Also from the same Super Liner line is the Gelmatic*, a black eyeliner that doesn't end up halfway down your face at the end of the day. The automatic mechanism works well (I've tried a fair few automatic eyeliners where this isn't the case) and there's a sharpener on the other end of the pencil so that keeps me happy, plus it's one hell of an upgrade from my smudgy, grey-black Urban Decay 24/7 Glide-On Eye Pencil in Zero.
And yeah I should have put a review up of these eyeliners like five months ago but since they've not budged from their spot in my daily makeup routine I keep forgetting to take photos of them. I'll get round to it soon. Promise.