I seriously can’t believe we are already in November.

It feels like yesterday when the world stopped as we knew it and everything just slowed down.

Since the middle of March I’ve worn less makeup, used less heat on my hair and really watched as my body embraced these new positive changes.  My skin is doing great and my hair is feeling thick, healthy, and shiny.  Sure, the lack of going out sucks, but my body has been doing great because of it.

Anyways, I get to try out a lot of skincare here and love to see what’s new and exciting every month. Since skincare has blown up this past year (even more so than usual), I find that my usual beauty packages are turning more into skincare ones (when I get a makeup item now I get way more excited, even if I don’t really use it as much as I used to ).

Anyways, since we are on the last stretch of 2020 (thank goodness), and heading into a chillier season, its about time to start upping your skincare routine.  If you’re looking for something new and noteworthy, then keep reading.

Derma E Hydrating Night Cream and Ultra Hydrating Serum

Cold weather means dry skin, so it’s super important that you start switching out your moisturizers for something thicker and aimed to hydrate.

The Derma E Hydrating Night Cream (C$47.49) is a great moisturizer to try since you apply this at night to wake up to glowing and soft skin. This cream will help to hydrate and balance your complexion while you sleep thanks to the added hyaluronic acid in the formula.  We’ve chatted about hyaluronic acid before on here, but it’s an ingredient that lots of skincare brands use to replenish your skin’s moisture barrier.

This moisturizer will help to plump skin and reduce the appearance of lines and wrinkles, as well as minimize rough and dry patches.  They also offer it in a day cream as well.

Pair this moisturizer with their Hydrating Serum with Hyaluronic Acid (C$47.49), which is a vegan hyaluronic acid serum that will help to improve your skin’s appearance.  The formula helps to dim the appearance of lines and wrinkles, as well as give you more plump and firmer skin.

You can use this serum both morning and night and it will help with redness and dryness, as well as help skin have a more radiant complexion.

Kiehl’s Calendula Petal-Infused Calming Mask

Skin feeling irritated lately? Then you’ll love Kiehl’s Calendula Petal-Infused Calming Mask (C$59).

This mask is designed to hydrate and calm irritated skin, including dryness and redness.  It is ideal for normal, dry, combination, and oily skin and features a gel formula that is gentle and soothing on the skin.

Apply this mask for at least 15 minutes for the formula to go to work.  The aloe helps to hydrate and improve skin’s appearance, while the calendula extract helps to soothe and calm skin.

Once rinsed, you’ll notice your skin feels super soft and hydrated. This one is a great mask for the cold, dry winter weather.  Trust me, your skin will thank you.

L’Occitane Immortelle Précieuse Masque de Nuit

Hands up if you spend your entire day in front of a screen?

I feel like everything we do nowadays is in front of a screen, whether it’s your phone, computer, or TV. Because of that, our skin is constantly being damaged by the blue light that is transmitted from these devices. Skin looking dull and feeling dry? It might be the blue light from your screens.

I try to incorporate blue light protection into my daily life, whether it’s my blue light glasses (which I cannot recommend enough – totally life changing!) or my skincare.

L’Occitane’s Immortelle Précieuse Masque de Nuit (C$85) is a great nighttime moisturizer to help defend your skin against blue light. The cream is formulated with a light texture to help skin resist the effects of external aggressors, including blue light and pollution.

The mask includes a unique formula featuring their Immortelle Super Aqueous Extract, which is known to have antioxidant properties, as well as the Immortelle essential oil from Corsica, which is known to fight visible signs of aging.  It also includes everyone’s favourite skincare ingredient, hyaluronic acid, to hydrate skin. The combination of these ingredients will protect against blue light and will preserve skin’s radiance.

Skinceuticals Tripeptide-R Neck Repair

I’ve been using a neck cream for ages and it’s quickly become one of my must-use products every single night.  The one I usually gravitate to is from Neostrata, and having gone through multiple bottles of the stuff, it’s something that I can’t imagine ever not having in my skincare collection.

I love neck cream so much that when I saw that Skinceuticals came out with one this year, I was jumping for joy at the chance of trying it.

The Skinceuticals Tripeptide-R Neck Repair (C$160) is a daily retinol cream that is specially formulated for the neck. So why do you need a special cream for your neck? Won’t your moisturizer just do?  These creams are designed to target early-to-advanced signs of aging, which means lines, sagging, and wrinkles.  These things can happen to us early since we are constantly looking down at our phones (who knew!).

This cream includes 0.2 per cent slow-release retinol, 2.5 per cent tripeptide concentrate, and 5.0 per cent glaucine complex.  Together, these ingredients are targeted to reduce multiple signs of visible neck aging.

With regular use, your neck should appear less thin, wrinkles and lines should be reduced, it will feel more firm, and skin tone will be evened out.  If you have received neck procedures in the past then this would be great to use to accompany that.

Mary Kay Micellar Water and limited-edition facial cleansing pads

We all need a good makeup remover and usually the ones I reach for are a micellar solution.

New from Mary Kay, the Micellar Water (C$20) launches today (November 16) and is a gentle, yet effective way to remove makeup and cleanse skin. The formula is watery-based and will remove makeup in a flash, while cleansing skin and getting rid of dirt, oil, or impurities.

Pair the micellar water with their limited-edition facial cleansing pads (C$18), which come in a pack of 10 and are reusable (hence great for Mother Earth).  I’ve been using similar ones on and off, and truthfully they aren’t as great as the throw-away ones, but I do love how they are more eco-friendly and they do the job well.  These come in a handy little bag as well, so it makes it easier to wash.

Mary Kay TimeWise Replenishing Serum C+E, Satin Hands Shea Hand Sanitizer, and Illuminea Body Souffle

Just like your body needs its daily vitamins, so does your skin!

The TimeWise Replenishing Serum C+E (C$67) is the brand’s newest addition to their popular TimeWise skincare line.  This serum gives your skin its daily dose of Vitamins C and E, the latter of which is one of the most powerful antioxidants known to science. The pairing of the two vitamins together will boost skin’s defense against aging and with regular use, skin will look and feel more firm and glowing.

Now your face isn’t the only thing thing in need of moisture.  Marry Kay will be releasing a new fragrance later this month and to go with it they have introduced a new body souffle. The Illuminea Body Souffle (C$34) is a luxurious body cream that will melt into your skin and leave it smelling fresh and fragrant.  The Illuminea scent opens with spice, leading to fruity florals, and then finishing with a woodsy warm tone.

Finally, this last item is (sadly) the most exciting for me (aside from maybe the neck cream).  Mary Kay released a spray hand sanitizer as part of their Satin Hands line today!  The Satin Hands Shea Hand Sanitizer (C$11) is designed to be gentle enough to keep your hands nice and smooth without drying them out. It features a blend of soothing moisture to clean and sanitize hands, without leaving them dry.

If you are interested in any of these items I would also recommend looking to see if they are offered in any gift sets for the holidays.  I will be doing a skincare holiday round up as well, but a lot of times you can purchase the full-size product with a few minis thrown in for around the same price.

Let me know if you give any of these a try and I wish you all healthy and soft skin for the months ahead!

What’s on your skincare wish list for this month?

Please note, all products provided by PR. All opinions are my own.

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• Best face forward: The skincare you need to try for May 2020
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• Spring ahead! The skincare products you need to try in March

One of my favourite foundations ever? NARS Sheer Glow!

I’ve gone through bottles of the NARS iconic foundation since it’s a wonderful makeup product that gives you glowing, flawless skin.  No matter how many foundations are in my collection, I always love to have this one kicking around since it’s reliable and I know it’s going to deliver perfect coverage every time.

I’ve tried the brand’s Radiant Matte foundation as well and reach for it often, so if there is one thing that NARS knows how to do incredibly well (aside from blushes, obviously), it’s foundation.

Brand new to the brand as of September 2020 is the newest foundation in their line up, the Soft Matte Complete Foundation (C$53). This foundation is a full-coverage matte foundation that promises to deliver a natural look.  The real selling point for this one, and which makes it stand out from its counterparts, is the fact that it includes an anti-oxidating technology.  You know when you put on your foundation and it matches your skin perfectly one hour and then time goes by and all of the sudden your neck doesn’t match your face?  That’s oxidation.  The oil in your skin mixes with the product and hence colour changing can occur.

This foundation contains a Hydramatte Balancing Complex to balance excess sebum, while keeping skin hydrated thanks to a combination of micro-algae and bio hyaluronic acid. Because of that, what you see is what you get and the shade will stay true to your skin all day long. This complex also will protect skin from pollutants, free radicals, and bluelight damage, which is always a plus in my books. 

In addition to all this, this foundation also includes superior oil absorbing powders to give you a smooth and matte appearance.  

This foundation is available in 34 shades and the brand sent me three to find my perfect colour. I usually wear Vallarius in Sheer Glow, so I got that one, as well as two other colours.  I gravitated towards Mont Blanc since I’m now back to my normal pale self and found it matched up nicely.  

Now, I haven’t been wearing a ton of foundation, unless I’m actually going somewhere or want to take photos.  When wearing this foundation though, I did find that it gave my skin really nice coverage, but best of all, I found it was incredibly lightweight and it didn’t feel like I was wearing foundation.  I hate the feeling of putting a mask on over foundation but this one didn’t do that. That reason alone is enough to pick up a bottle.

As for wear, I did find it wore well throughout the day and stayed in place.  It gave my skin a nice matte finish and enough coverage that any redness was gone.

I paired the foundation with their new Soft Matte Complete Concealer (C$39).  This concealer, available in 30 shades, covers up any redness, blemishes, dark circles, spots… really any skin imperfection you may have. The formula contains supportive peptides, hyaluronic acid, and Vitamins A, C, and E to make skin look and feel softer and smoother over time. It also has a blurring effect, which will smooth out uneven texture. 

This concealer comes in a pot, which looks luxe, but can be messy since you have to use either your finger or a brush.  It has a high-coverage wear and it will stay put all day once applied. 

I usually prefer a doe-foot applicator to apply my foundation, but I don’t mind in the pot in this case, since I like how small and handy it is. You can just toss it in your bag and then use it for spot coverups when needed.

So my final thoughts on these products? The foundation is a definite must.  I love the coverage I get from it, and especially the wear. It’s so lightweight that it doesn’t feel like you’re wearing foundation. Best of all, it won’t transfer either, which during COVID times, is a huge plus!  

The concealer was also really nice and if you’re looking for something thick and full-coverage then I think you’ll really like this one.  

Have you tried out NARS new Soft Matte Complete Foundation and Concealer?

Please note, products provided by PR. All opinions are my own.

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My first luxury brand mascara? So glad you asked! It was YSL Beauty’s Faux Cils mascara.

Although it’s been years since I’ve had this mascara in my collection, it’s always held a special place in my heart since I loved the way it made my lashes look, and the fact that it was YSL and I always had to purchase it in bigger cities made it extra special.

YSL Beauty is much easier to get now that I have it locally here in my Sephora store, and it’s readily available online as well, so the fact that it’s readily available does take part of the magic away, but I’ll always have a special place in my heart for YSL regardless of how or where I purchase it.

Anyways, like I said, it’s been a while since I’ve used Faux Cils, so when I got in their new Volume Effet Faux Cils Radical I was basically ripping open the box to try it out.

The YSL Beauty Volume Effet Faux Cils Radical (C$41), which is their newest version of the iconic Faux Cils mascara. This edition features a new brush and formula which is designed to give you a false lash effect that can be buildable for out-of-this-world lashes.

The formula also contains ingredients to nourish and strengthen lashes, including Moroccan argan oil and pro-vitamin B5, which will make them look fuller over time.

As for the shade, YSL says this is their darkest black yet thanks to mineral pigments that are more intense than the traditional iron oxide black pigments. I also want to note that it has that YSL Beauty fragrant smell, which makes it pleasant to apply.

As for the brush, I would say it’s your typical mascara brush that isn’t too large or too small. It nicely curves to the shape of my lashes, allowing me to coat every lash with the formula. I wouldn’t say that there is anything unique about the brush. It does the job well.

I think this mascara works nicely, but I think there are better ones out there.  I did find the formula to be a little wet, so I would be interested to see how this performs once it dries out a bit. I think it will make my lashes have more oomph after about a month of so of wear.

I think that there are better mascaras out there that are more affordable than this YSL version. Truthfully, I’ve always loved the original Faux Cils, so as long as they still make it, I would say to just stick to the original.  This one does the trick, but I do like the original better.

Have you tried the new YSL Beauty Mascara Volume Effet Faux Cils Radical?

Please note, all products provided by PR. All opinions are my own.

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