JULY FAVES | Beauty, Books, & Lifestyle!

Hey guys, welcome back to my channel. Today I'm doing my July favorites. We have beauty books, lifestyle, you name it, we cover everything in this month's favorites. I'm surprised how much makeup I do have this month considering it's probably only the last half of July. I was really testing stuff out because I was away. I read a lot, I have some fashion, games, I have so many good things this month. So let's jump in and start with makeup. Also fragrance, hair, I basically have everything. One of my top makeup favorites, if not my number one this past month, I did a whole dedicated video on this. It's the new Benefit The Porefessional Foundation. I was shocked at how much I actually like this. Benefit has come out with some complexion products in the past which were mediocre but this blew me away. I haven't tried a foundation I felt that made my skin look this flawless in quite a while and this is a very makeup-y foundation. Not that it's heavy or anything like that but it's very perfecting on the skin so I feel like my skin just naturally doesn't look this perfect but it really gives me that flawless finish. So if you're looking for a pore perfecting, smoothing foundation, medium buildable coverage, this is going to be your best friend. It's best for those with normal to oily skin I feel but if you have mildly dry skin, some skin prep would be fine but if you're very dry I don't think you're gonna probably like this just because it doesn't claim to be but it self-sets on me. I don't even need to use powder with my skin type and I'm normal to slightly dehydrated skin. I'm wearing it today but I actually mixed it with a little bit of my Armani Luminous Silk just to have it be less matte on my skin and I love that combination. I think it's really beautiful. This is another amazing find that I cannot rave about enough. This is the new Danessa Myricks Beauty Color Fix Stix and I used this in my previous trying new makeup. These are incredible. The metallics are pigmented, the foils are next level in terms of pigment. These are so beautiful on the eyes. I want them all but they are on the pricier side. They're weighted, they're luxe. The formula, I've never used anything like it because it's almost cooling. The pigmentation is truly incredible and if you want to see this on my eye, definitely check out my last trying new makeup but I want all of them. So I'm trying to decide which ones I want to pick up next but these I highly, highly recommend. I also fell in love with the Charlotte Tilbury Healthy Glow Blush Stix. I have the shade Rosy Glow. I wasn't expecting to like this as much. I was actually going to pass on the launch, not even pick one up but I decided, you know what, let's try one out for trying new makeup and I fell in love with this. This is kind of what I want my house labs to be because those can be borderline too dewy at times. This has the perfect in-between for me so it's not quite as dewy. It has a really nice pigmentation that's even. The house labs, because it's so dewy, can kind of pick up a little bit if you're not careful. This one's very user-friendly I feel and the wear is incredible on this so it gives the perfect amount of glow, pigment, wear. For this specific color, I think it's so flattering. I'm wearing it today with my highlight which I'm going to mention. Basically everything I tried in my last try new makeup was a true favorite for me. This was another product that I was going to write off as not even going to try. I was just going to pass it along but I'm like, you know what, I have it here. Let's test it out and it's the Prada highlighter which looking at formula like this, I just think it's not going to be good. I don't know, there's something about it. I'm so used to the baked gelée formulas and that's typically what I like for my skin. This is so subtle and soft. It doesn't accentuate any kind of pores or texture. It just sits so well on my skin that I fell in love with this formula. I had someone comment on a video saying that it actually reminded them of the essence baked highlighter formula which if that's the case, which I need to purchase a new one because my essence one is so old, I want to compare the two because obviously I would recommend essence over Prada just based on price. I love how this looks like on my skin. It's very soft and subtle. It's very much so a your skin but better sort of formula which I personally really love especially paired with the blush. It just kind of works with it. These I'm still testing out. I've worn them I want to say five times now. I haven't had any of them dry out on me and these are the lip stains from Huda Beauty and Covergirl. So I would recommend the Covergirl ones just because of price point. The only reason I'd recommend Huda is if you want more brown tone lip stain which I am wearing the brown one today. It's in Toasty Brown. After trying out Rosewood in my trying to makeup, I went back for one of the brown shades. So I have Toasty Brown on my lips today. They last so well on me and I love that I don't have to fiddle around with my lip liner and just apply my lip color throughout the day. I think these are really good for summer or if you're lazy for reapplication like I can be. I love that it just stays on because often for me for my makeup however it is at the beginning of the day is however it's going to be at the end because I'm not going to touch it up. I've heard these dry out after only a few uses. There's very little product in the Huda Beauty ones. It says only one milliliter and the Covergirl ones is 1.7. So based on how much you get, the price, go Covergirl unless you really really want a brown tone then do the Huda Beauty. I love the concept of these. They last really nicely. Another thing that took me by surprise were these launches from Morphe. I got this all in a PR package. They had brow products and then contour sticks and I love all of them. They're all good. I'm very picky about my brows especially but I love the brow gel and the formula is really nice. It's not stiff. It keeps my brows in place but it's not a super strong hold if that's what you want but it's strong enough at least for my brows. If you have really unruly brows I'd probably stick to the benefit but what I love about this brow product especially is the brush on it. It's so small so that's really good at grabbing all the hairs and laying them in place. So I really love the whole design of this one and then they came out with nano pencils very similar to the Covergirl pencil. They are a nano pencil. This is almost exactly the same in my opinion and they don't break off so it has enough stiffness to it where you can create those hair like strokes but not too much where you're gonna break off the pencil when you apply this and that's often a problem with nano pencils but this is tiny but it doesn't break. I was wanting to purchase one of the Victoria Beckham contour pencils and then these came out. Now I don't feel like I need one from there because these are so creamy and blendable and I love the precision of them because they're a smaller contour. So I do have three shades here. I've been actually using the darker one the most. It's in the shade Sculpted. I do really like Enhanced and Refined. So Enhanced is the lighter shade that's more fair light, light medium, medium skin tone for the one I've been using. These are really great if you want more precision for your contour which is something I'm looking for because when I'm doing more of a gray tone I don't want it like I do my bronzer. I want it very specific placement right at the back of my cheekbones, the sides of my nose, just very precise placement. You can use these around your lips if you contour your mouth which I don't but I love how precise and creamy and blendable these are. These are two products that I really like. I don't think they're essentials just based on what I have in my collection but the House Lubs concealer brush. I have other concealer brushes but this was really good and then the Dior Lip Glow Butter which I love the packaging. It's so cute with the charm on it. The color of this is really really pretty. It is this light pink with sparkle in it. The sparkle is what sets this apart for me. It's just a really nice topper. I have a matte lip today but it would look beautiful over what I'm wearing today as well. Super glossy, makes the lips look nice and full and I think it's just the packaging that sells me on this because there's other formulas out there that I like and Dior is pricey. It's a nice to have option but I don't think the formula is out of this world. You need to pick it up based on that. It's just kind of a nice to have option. The last makeup-y product that I have is super random. My friend put these on me when we went out to Niagara Falls. She had an extra pair and these are called LED Lashes. I believe she got these from Amazon or Shein or Timu or one of those places. They're really cool if you're going to a concert or want some extra fun lights on your face I guess. They have different strobing that they can do, different settings and you clip this basically behind your hair so it's hidden. You can wear these as LED lashes I guess. I wouldn't do that just because of the lights. We used them as eyeliner and it was just really cool to have this light up and everyone was stopping me in Niagara asking me what these were, where I got them. If you're going to a concert, dance, whatever, out and about like I was for a friend's birthday, these are so so cool. If you want that extra bit of fun for your look, these are just so fun. BK Beauty came out with a solid brush soap. It's a cleansing bar and scrub pad. I love the packaging of this and it's a really nice formula as well. So you have the scrub pad here and then the soap in here which is nice that it's in a container. I washed all my brushes yesterday using this and I was worried I'd use up the whole thing in one wash because I had so many brushes that I had to wash. It took me over an hour to wash everything but I still have a good portion left. It suds up really nicely, it cleanses my sponges, my foundation brushes really good. This is going to be my new brush cleanser. That's how much I liked it. So I wanted to mention it in this video if you're looking for a brush cleanser. And then we have one fragrance that is new. This launches in August I believe but I got it early in PR. It's the Ellis Brooklyn Queen's Caramel and I was talking about this in my Try New Makeup on how light of a gourmand this is which I personally like because it's not heavy headache inducing or making me sick because sometimes if things are too rich in how photorealistic they smell like food I can often feel nauseous from smelling them but I love the lightness to this caramel. So I really love this for going into fall. Not quite ready to wear this every day yet just because I'm living for the summer but for fall this is what I'm going to be reaching for. The next three hair products are because of Abby Young on YouTube. I followed some of her hair care recommendations and I swear it's already made a difference in my hair. So on hair wash days I've been doing oil on the ends and lengths of my hair prior to shampooing my hair at night and I bought this OGX Coconut Miracle Oil and I love this for the ends of my hair. My hair feels so soft so I've been doing that on wash days also I had this on hand but she recommended this as a leave-in. It's the Pureology 21 Essential Benefits Color Fanatic. I've pretty much almost done this but this is what I packed with me when I was going to the cottage and using this as a leave-in for my hair because often the water there really dries out my hair and this really helps keep my hair nice and hydrated. So I love this as a leave-in and then also this has helped with the softness of my hair. She recommended the Dove Bond Strength line so I have the hair mask but I really love the shampoo. So this is a new shampoo for me it's their Bond Strength Damage Therapy Shampoo. I've been using this with my detox shampoos as well just kind of alternating and I really love this for my hair. I need bond repair, hydration so I kind of switch between those. I just kind of look at what my hair needs that day but this has been a really nice add-in to my shampooing routine. In terms of clothes I have been living in these. They're washed for this video but I want to put them on because they are so comfortable. The material, I don't have to wear a bra with them. It basically has been freeing me for summer and they're so so comfy. I'll link the brand down below but I believe it's CRZ Yoga that make these and you can get them on Amazon. I got all these in a medium and they fit perfectly. So these are little crop top tank tops that have a built-in shelf bra in them, lightly padded as well and the padding doesn't move around which is nice. It's always in place after washes which I find extremely annoying. I always pull out the pads but these I've kept in just because they actually stay in place so you don't have to wear a bra with this. They're adjustable at the back if you need them a little bit higher and the material is so incredibly soft. So I've just been wearing these as tank tops because I don't have to wear a bra and they're so comfy. So I have it in black, white, and red and I want them in all the colors because they're that good. I have been living in these tops. These might actually be my favorite thing for the month. Now we have games and books. I have three games, three books. It was a good month for games. You probably will guess these because I mentioned these in my Amazon haul but I do have another one that I'm going to talk about that I played at the cottage and that's Farkle. You need six dice and you can look up the instructions on how to play online. You just need to get some dice for this game. It's a game of kind of pressing your luck. There are certain things that you can get like three of a kind, four of a kind, a straight. It's kind of like Yahtzee but not because it doesn't have the same mechanics or rules. So definitely look up the rules before you play. If you are familiar with Yahtzee you'll have to kind of unlearn those before you play this but it's really fun. The winner is the first person to ten thousand points and definitely check it out. If you like dice games you'll love this one. My kids were always wanting to play this at the cottage too. It has lots of elements of chance but pressing your luck. It's kind of fun to see how my kids play and how much risk they're willing to take because you could lose all your points if you decide to keep going but it's really fun to play. These two games I mentioned because I picked up during Amazon Prime in my Prime video and they are two player board games. We have Jaipur and Splendor Duel. Splendor Duel is by far my favorite game. One of my top games I've played. This is so fun and so playable because there's three different ways you can play this and win with this game. You're collecting jewels. You can either win by points or crowns and there's two different kinds of ways you can win by points but it's really fun with two people. This also ticks me off though because you could play this real dirty and mess people up or you could play nicely so it really depends on who you're playing with how this game can go. If you steal something you know I'm going for I'm gonna be ticked off. I'm gonna flip a table. I actually haven't flipped a table yet but I wanted to when I played this with my husband the last time so I kind of took a break from that because it was making me a little bit angry. It is a good game but I'm just so competitive and then Jaipur is less stressful than that one for me. You're collecting camels and also different goods. I haven't played it as much this month because I was obsessed with Splendor Duel and also reading so Jaipur is also a great one. They're both by the same game maker and really good two-player games if you're looking for some fun two-player games. Most of the games I talk about are always group games so it's nice to kind of have those if you just have one other person you're playing with and then moving on to books. I have three here and then I'm going to show you my book I'm going to read next. I got into Elsie Silverbooks. She's a Canadian author. I picked up the whole set. I've only read the first two this month, Flawless and Heartless and they're both really good. I would say they're about four star reads for me not five out of five but still a good time to read a nice palette cleanser in between my fantasy books I've been reading. So I've been really into fluffy light romances for the summer and these are cowboy kind of romances which I think are fun and then this one I love even more and I'm not even done it. So this is by Abby Jimenez. It's Say You'll Remember Me and I loved just for the summer. That's what I read last year. This is my kind of romance in this. This is the perfect book to read during the summer. I just love romances like this set in that kind of time. It just makes summer for me. I love a good romance book and last summer I loved her book. This summer I think it's just as good. I'm not quite done it but I'll probably finish it tonight. Probably be done it by the time this video goes up and then the next book I'm gonna read is by Carly Fortune. I've never read anything from her before and it's Every Summer After. I had one golden summer that I was gonna actually read next but people kept telling me that I should read this first so I'm reading this first because I think one of the characters are in the next book or something like that. They said it would be better if I read this first so I'm reading this next and then that will be all my summer reads that I'm trying to read before getting back into my fantasy which I have a whole tbr that I want to read. My husband just built me a bookshelf and I've been filling it with all the books that I want to read so I'm so excited. I'm back in a reading kick. If you want to follow me on goodreads I had to redo my account because my old one I couldn't log into so follow me on this account that I'm going to show you. My display picture is different but there's like so many of my names now because I forget my passwords for some reason. Those are all my favorites for July. I hope you guys enjoyed this video. I'd love to know your beauty books, lifestyle, any kind of favorites like that. Let me know in the comments section below. I would love to know your recommendations because you guys give me the best ones and I will see you guys in my next video!