Hello my beauties and welcome back! Today I want to share with you the makeup that always makes me feel good when I put it on. I don’t have to wear it all at once to feel good, just one or two special things with a look and it helps me feel good and confident. I’m sure everybody has that one special lipstick, highlighter, blush, etc. that makes them feel invincible and I wanted to share my pieces with you.

Let’s start with primer. The primer that I love to use when I want to feel especially… special is the Becca Backlight Priming Filter. This gives my skin such a gorgeous glow and makes me look really healthy. It’s a great product to have in your arsenal. It gives you a beautiful glow without it making you look oily, which is a big bonus.

As for foundations, there are two that I love to use. I really love my Tarte Amazonian Clay Full Coverage Foundation in Fair Sand and the NYX Stay Matte but Not Flat powder foundation in Ivory. When I’m going to a big event I love to use the Tarte foundation because it truly is full coverage yet doesn’t look cakey on the face even with powder. It blends out beautifully with a damp sponge to give you a fresh, but full coveraged, look. The NYX powder foundation is something I use more on the everyday. I like to use it over a tinted moisturizer/BB Cream or when I just want to put concealer on. I will talk about my favorite concealer in a bit. This powder has the amazing powder of not looking powdery on my face once it’s buffed on. I wouldn’t use it over a true foundation, it would look really cakey but over something light like a BB Cream, it gives you a little bit of coverage. When used with just concealer it helps to make your skin look natural, a sort of your face but better kind of look.

My favorite concealer for those special days is the Revolution Conceal and Define concealer in C1 and C3. It has wonderful staying power and once set, it really doesn’t budge or crease throughout the day. It has great coverage, about medium to full, and it doesn’t look cakey when it’s set. I initially picked these concealers up on a whim and now I can’t live without them. I’ve gone through multiple tubes of each shade.

When I think about products that make me look and feel good, two powders come to mind. The Ciate Extraordinary Translucent powder and the Hourglass Ambient Lighting Powder in Ethereal Light. I really love to use the Ciate powder to set under my eyes. It doesn’t look powdery on me and it doesn’t bunch up as the day wears on. I always set my T-Zone, I get oily, and this does a good job at keeping my natural oils at bay. The Hourglass powder is a newer addition to my arsenal but I’ve fallen in love with it. I love to use it on the outer portion of my face to bring some life back to my face after setting everything with a translucent powder. It’s not too sparkly, it’s almost a lit from within kind of glow.

I love blush, it’s one of my favorite steps. I have so many blushes, and so many of them make me feel good when I wear them. They make me sit taller in my chair. I lined them all up and picked the two that stood out to me the most. I really love the Hourglass Ambient Strobe Lighting Blush in Iridescent Flash and the Becca Mineral Blush in Flowerchild. I really love mauvy purple blushes, especially in the winter time even though I wear them all year round. I don’t follow the rules for what colors to wear during what season. Anyway, this blush is absolutely stunning. It gives a nice hint of color to the cheeks with a beautiful glow. The glow is so nice that if I’m in a hurry I will skip highlighter because it really gives you a nice subtle glow. The other blush is from Becca. I’ve always loved their highlighters but this year I tried more of their products and this was the blush I picked and it’s so stunning. It has a beautiful sheen and it gives your cheeks a nice, healthy flush. I don’t get any harsh lines when I use this blush and it blends out nicely.

Highlighter is probably my favorite step when applying my face makeup, I LOVE highlighters but there are two that I reach for quite often and they are the Maybelline Master Chrome highlighter in shade 250 and the Fenty Beauty Killawatt Highlighter in Lightening Dust and Fire Crystal. Now, I know what you’re thinking, that Maybelline one looks barely used and that’s because it is. I just brought it out because I completely finished up my first one. This is available at the drugstore and Ulta and, back when it was a collab color with NikkieTutorials and limited edition, I bought quite a few thinking that it would go away and not come back but when I was at Ulta a couple of months ago, they had this color back not as a limited edition color. It’s the perfect shade for my fair skin, it’s not too frosty and doesn’t have a lot of pink in it. It’s a very light champagne nude color. The other highlighter I love is from Fenty Beauty. I love it because it has two options for highlighter, one subtle and one that is more of a BAM in your face kind of deal. I reach for this when I want something on the subtler side but sometimes I like to layer them too to get the double effect. The powder is soft but not so soft that there’s a ton of kick up. It kind of melts into the skin and looks seamless. I love it!

Bronzer is something that I just started doing within the past year. I used to hate bronzer, mainly because I didn’t know the best way to apply it. I’m still not great at it but I’m learning and I am starting to like how it makes my skin look. The two bronzers I can’t get enough of and that make me feel like a million bucks is the Wet n’ Wild Coloricon Bronzer in Palm Beach Ready and a Becca Sunlit Bronzer in Bali Sands. I picked up the latter because I wanted to try a higher end bronzer. Boy am I glad I did! This is the most perfect bronzer for me, it’s not orange and it’s not too dark. It blends in so nicely to my base products and doesn’t leave a tell tale line. The Wet n’ Wild one is the first bronzer I tried after my Butter Bronzer shattered. I was lucky, I bought it online and guessed on the color. It’s a bit darker than the Becca bronzer but not by much. There really isn’t any orange in it either and it has a nice sheen to it, which is a big bonus for me. I love a good sheen and shimmer!

I combined my brows and single shadows into one group. The brow product that makes me feel amazing is the Anastasia Beverly Hills Brow Powder Duo in Taupe. I love that there are two shades that way you can really make your brows look full and natural. As for the single shadows, I have quite a few. I love the Colourpop Super Shock Shadow in Ladybird, two Tarte Chrome Paint Pots in Frose and Top Yacht, a single pigment from Meech and Mia in White, and a liquid shadow that is a Ciate Eye Lustre Creme Eyeshadow in Cupid. I keep these shadows where I can reach them easily, especially when I’m getting ready for work. The Tarte shadows are beautiful and give a gorgeous sheen to the eye. I haven’t noticed a lot of fall out when I apply them even though they are a pressed pigment. The Colourpop shadow, well, you know how I feel about Colourpop, and this is one of my favorites. It’s kind of like a champagne light taupe color with shimmer. I use it alone and in the center of my eye with other shadows. The Meech and Mia pigment shadow is what I use most of the time for my inner corner highlight and browbone when the palette I’m using doesn’t have one that works. This shadow especially makes me feel really put together and pretty because it makes my eyes pop. Lastly is the Ciate Creme shadow. I received this in one of my Ipsy boxes and I haven’t been able to put it down. It is absolutely stunning and it’s quick and easy to apply when you’re running late.

I love eyeshadow palettes and my two favorites are the Huda Beauty New Nude palette and the Colourpop She’s Got Solstice palette. The ‘New Nude’ palette was my first foray into Huda Beauty and I’m in love. This palette is so stunning and it’s all the colors I love, soft and romantic. I love the shimmers and the mattes, they’re both so buttery and easy to blend. This palette makes me feel so beautiful and so powerful, it’s the best. The other palette that I love is the She’s Got Solstice palette by Colourpop. This was an Ulta exclusive and I am so glad I picked it up, it’s so gorgeous. Three shimmers, five mattes, and one Super Shock shadow. They blend like a dream and are nicely pigmented, with the darker colors I have to be light handed but even if I go overboard I can blend it out pretty easily. I love to travel with this palette, when we could travel, because it is such a nice compact size.

There are two mascaras that I cannot live without, Too Faced Better Than Sex and Lancome’s Monsieur Big (waterproof). The Too Faced mascara gives my lash a nice curl without having to use my eyelash curler, which is great when I’m running late. This is one I have loved for a few years now, this is a new tube of course. I get the normal formula for this and it doesn’t make my lashes super spidery which I hate. The Lancome mascara is a newer mascara to my lineup. At first I hated it but once I let it dry out a bit it became one of my favorites. It gives me these long, voluminous lashes and it holds a curl nicely because I get the waterproof version.

The eyeliners that make me feel so good are the Colourpop BFF Creme Gel liners. I love all of the colors I have, the ones above are only a few of the ones I own. I love love love using them on my waterline with or without eyeshadow. I love giving a pop of color to my eyes, especially when I’m wearing a more natural makeup look. These liners are creamy and nicely pigmented and they come in a large variety of colors, so you’re bound to find something that works for you.

Lastly we have lips and I LOVE lip products. Lipstick, lip gloss, liquid lipstick, stain, you name it. The lip products that make me feel amazing are: Essence Shine Shine Shine gloss in Behind the Scenes, NYX Soft Matte lip cream in Monte Carlo, NYX Butter Gloss in Tiramisu, Dose of Colors liquid lipstick in Stone, Tarte Tarteist Lip Paint in Rose, Colourpop Ultra Matte Lip in Soufflé, and Colourpop Disney Designer Collection lip gloss in Boo. Yes, I know that’s a lot, but I change lip colors every day and sometimes multiple times a day! The Essence lip gloss was on the Allure Best of Beauty list this year and then Allie Glines talked about it so I had to try it and I absolutely love it. It’s perfect alone or over top another lip product. I love NYX lip products, the Soft Matte lip creams are so pigmented and they last a long time on the lips and the Butter Glosses are perfect to keep in your purse for the every day. Dose of Color lip products are absolutely beautiful but Stone is my favorite shade in their liquid lipstick range. It’s a great nude with just a hint of pink in it. The Colourpop Ultra Matte lip color in Soufflé is my favorite ultra matte lip color. It’s a stunning purple berry but it isn’t too dark. I love wearing this in the fall and winter especially, it just goes with the season. Last but not least is the Colourpop gloss in Boo. Unfortunately I can’t find this on the site anymore but it is my favorite gloss. It is that perfect my lips but better color and it is super comfortable on the lips. It is a gloss so it doesn’t last but because it’s a nude pink color it’s easy to reapply without much fuss.

There we go, and yes I know it’s a lot. I would love to know, what are your favorite makeup products? Which ones make you feel good? I’m always looking to try new things, so let me know down below! Thank you so much for reading today, I hope you enjoyed today’s post and possibly found some new products to try. I hope you have a great rest of your week and, until next time, don’t forget to be bold, be beautiful, be YOU! XO Emma

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