Monthly favorites (April 2014)

How was your month of April? Mine was a pretty good one. If you care to know what I was up to this past month, please check out this post. As of right now, I will be showing you my favorite products of this past month. I am always stumped about a week before this post is due and I think: but I don’t have anything new to write about?! And then in the last few days of the month it miraculously comes together somehow. This time there’s a bit of beauty, a bit of food (well drinks actually) and some fashion that I have been loving.

I found this mug at Xenos. They also sold these with ‘coffee’ and ‘chocolate’. I loved this one most though and if you don’t know me yet, you will find out later in this post why this mug is so appropriate. I loved how it is tea related. There are tons of mug with some quote about coffee, but since coffee is really not my thing, I just never buy them.

I finally got my hands on these: the Urban Decay Naked 3 and Naked Basics eyeshadow palettes! And I have been loving both of them. I will be writing full posts, including swatches on both of these soon, but I can already tell you that these two palettes are high on my list. I didn’t expect to love the Naked 3 palette as much as I do. Rosey tones to eyeshadows can be tricky, but every single shade in this palette is stunning and I feel this is the most versatile of all the Naked palettes yet.

These leopard print shoes are from H&M and I’ve been wearing them tons this past month. They are super comfy for the price I paid for them. The only downside is that when I tried them on in store they fit perfectly and now they feel a little loose on my feet. But hey, you can’t not love a pair of leopard print sneakers now can you? If you want to see these on, you can see me wearing them in my Week in Outfits post from last Friday  as well as my Week in Pictures post which I posted earlier this month.

The Body Shop skincare line is being updated all the time and lately I’ve been trying some of their serums. I bought the Nutriganics Smoothing Serum first and it’s a bit too rich to be using every day, which is why I bought the Vitamin E Overnight Serum-in-oil. Again, these products are to be reviewed in the near future.

I found a new drink at my local supermarket! Dutch juice brand Appelsientje has come out with ‘true Dutch’ apple and pear juice. I’ve only tried the pear juice so far, but it is simply divine. And may I add that for a non-organic juice this is really not doing a bad job. The ingredient list only consists of pear juice and vitamin C. That’s it! No water, no ‘juice from concentrate’, no additional sweeteners, no additional acids. The downside? It won’t last long once you’ve opened the bottle, but I can guarantee that this juice won’t last long anyway. Once you’ve had a sip of this stuff you’ll instantly want more.

Almost one month ago, I showed you a collective shopping haul in which I included this red & black cardigan by Urban Outfitters brand Staring at Stars. This goes with almost everything. It can spice up any all black outfit and it’s so comfy that I lived in this thing for nearly a week straight before finally relenting and throwing it in the wash.

Excuse the Urban Decay overload, but when I bought the eyeshadows I also bought 2 lipsticks to try out. These are the Urban Decay Revolution lipsticks in 69 (left) and Venom (right). As for the other beauty related products in this post: a full review is coming your way. If you care to take a sneak peek as to what these look like on, just scroll back up to the top, as I’m wearing Venom in my current profile picture.

Yes, another pair of shoes have made my favorite’s list. I am, after all, a shoe junky. I’m still working on that shoe collection video, so you’ll see what I mean when I post that. I spotted these Nike Roshe Run shoes first at a shoeshop in Amsterdam, but as I had been walking around doing a bit of shopping for quite some time already, I didn’t want to go and also try on shoes. So I leave them be. Until I walked around in Leiden and spotted them again and knew I had to try them on. And O-M-G: these shoes are so comfortable. They are super lightweight, have a very well-cushioned insole and of course they fit right in with the sport’s fashion trend. This must also be the first pair of proper sneakers I’ve bought in years.

My all time favorite drink? A cup of hot tea. No matter the weather, I’ll have tea. Just recently I opened three new packs and I’ve been enjoying all of them. The first is an organic Green Mint tea by Clipper. It is my favorite morning tea as the mint wakes you up instantly and just makes a great start of the day. The Lime & Ginger sensation tea by Twinings is my current favorite afternoon tea. The lime gives this tea a sweet and slightly tart taste and the ginger adds a bit of spice. Very soothing and great accompanied by some cookies. Lastly, I’m having Chamomile tea by the English Tea Shop. I wasn’t sure I’d like sure I’d like straight up chamomile, as I’ve only ever had it with other flavors added to it. I love the soothing effect it has: great bed time tea!

Finally my two new Dior products: the Diorskin Nude Shimmer in Rose and Nude Tan from the Transat summer 2014 collection. I already wrote a full review with multiple pictures two weeks ago and you can find that post here.

What products did you discover in April?