August 2017 Favorites
1. Real Techniques Deluxe Crease Brush (part of a set), $9 / 2. Urban Decay Naked2 Basics, $29 / 3. Silkn ReVit, $80 / 4. Haier 1.0 Cu Ft Washer, $199
Details on my August 2017 Favorites after the jump. One is preeeetty mundane, but is a huge quality-of-life enhancement for me…so I’m excited!
I (shockingly) like Big Brushes and I Cannot Lie
I never thought I’d want a BIG blending/crease brush. After ages of neglect, I’m finding that the monstrous one from the original Real Techniques Your Eyes: Enhanced Starter set is fantastic for my every day makeup. The angled-bristle brush from that set, however, is hot garbage and Real Techniques should be ashamed that they ever sold that to anyone. Too long! Too wide! Useless. If I could buy like five of this hilariously large blending brush in a set though, I’d be down.
Workhorse
I’ve sang the praises of Naked2 Basics in the past, but it has been my eye makeup, “uniform,” for the last month. I actually want to give it a break for fear of using up all of Stark (which, remarkably, seems to be a perfect match for my skin). I adore this palette though; I’d buy it again and again and again.
Short Term Microderm
The Silkn ReVit has been keeping my skin looking fantastic with once-a-week use. It takes like five minutes after my nighttime cleanse. I sit down, throw something on YouTube on (sometimes beauty, more often baking/cake decorating because man that shit is interesting), slough off the first layer or two of my face, then go re-cleanse. I love to do it on Sundays to help prepare me for the inevitably grueling week ahead.
Crystal Clear
Less of a beauty product and more of a hygiene one here. Since getting Invisalign I have become (necessarily) oral hygiene neurotic. Sometimes, in-between brushing, while my trays are still in, I want to give my mouth a swish. I never really understood the point of adding dye to mouthwash, but I’m not supposed to have colored liquids in my mouth with my trays in. I picked up Listerine Naturals to solve that; it feels just as violently bacteria-obliterating as the conventional stuff and is minty as all hell. It’s more than I love to spend on mouthwash, so I use Kirkland Signature’s mouthwash for post-brushing, and limit the more-costly Listerine Naturals for tray-in usage.
I Don’t Only Hate Washing Brushes
Also not a beauty product, but it has been central to my August joy. I’d be completely remiss not to include it, off-topic though it may be.
This Haier 1.0 Cubic Foot Pulsator Washer is everything my apartment-dwelling laundry-hating dreams are made of. I hate laundromats. Regrettably, my apartment lacks in-unit and on-site facilities. We, therefore, are forced to schlepp our washables to a dumb coin laundry (read: not fucking cheap) every so often. For efficiency’s sake, this means going about 6 weeks between trips (yes, we have that much clothing, bedding, etc to support this lunacy). After all – at a laundromat it takes the same amount of time to wash and dry four hampers as it does one. Unfortunately, the same is not the case for putting away all of that damn laundry. It makes me not so great company – to say the least. I pined for a solution that would let me keep up with it rather than be confined by it – and this little guy was it.
Supported by my No Buy, the promise of future savings, and a desire to pare down my unnecessarily large wardrobe (all of which does not Spark Joy), I took the plunge. It attaches seamlessly to my kitchen faucet and drains into my kitchen sink. It features a spin cycle that is powerful yet quiet; we have a neighbor below who had no idea until I told her (yes!). I hang our clothing to dry on a collapsible drying rack and turn on a fan to help it dry. At most, we need to do 1-3 loads in it per week. It’s no big deal to fold or hang that little, but four gigantic hampers might as well be Purgatory for me.