​So we've seen these types of lists everywhere now that we're nearing the end of the year. I personally love hearing people's favorite products. As skincare is probably the majority of my content I'm going to start with it first. Then I'm going to narrow down my makeup faves in another post to make it easier. 

I've had a lot of favorites, but I took this list down to the ride or dies. The re-purchases. The recommendations. The stand alone Holy Grail products for myself in 2017. So let's get into it. 

​I hope you all had a wonderful holiday, I certainly did. It was such a blessing to be with my family and feel well enough to really enjoy the company. It really was a blast. I've not even taken a second look at my presents unless they were food, lol. There was just so much love.

So today I wanted to give you my thoughts on a contour/bronzer palette I've been using for over a month I guess. It's the Tarte Princes Ave. Chisel Palette. This has 4 bronzer/contour shades and two highlight shades. Two bronzers have a satin finish and two are matte they all have different undertones as well. The highlight shades are different in undertone as well one is more yellow and one is more pink. 

​Alright guys, I've been testing out the Tria Hair Removal Laser 4X for a month. "The only FDA-cleared hair removal laser technology available for home use." Tria was kind enough to send this to me to try and I couldn't be more excited to tell you how it went.

​"Its the holiday season (the holiday season) so whoop dee doo and"......ok I'm obviously in the Christmas spirit! I thought it would be fun to do a quick round up of my fave red lip colors and formula that suits the Holiday season. I'm really in love with red lips right now so I think I'm gonna keep it going into 2018. Red is my new neutral. Ok maybe not, but I do love it right now.

Lets get into it. I'm going to include liquid lips, lip glosses, lip toppers and lipsticks. So hopefully there will be something for everyone. 

​I thought it might be neat, and maybe helpful, to show you some of my skincare line ups. To see what order they go in, for me. I love to layer products. So my simplified steps are still quite a few steps. My extensive, more in depth routines include weekly or bi weekly routines. It gets very confusing on my Instagram (@lovemascara) and I get a lot of questions about when I use this or that, where do I use this or that in the routine, and what's my AM routine is like. 

So I thought it'd be easier if I didn't over explain in depth about the products them self and what situation exactly I would use a certain product is. I'm simply going to add in some routines of products that you've seen often, briefly explain what they are and where they go in my routine.  I also think I'll break this up into AM, PM, Extensive Treatments, Multi Masking/Pamper/Selfcare Sunday. With a new category named "routines" on the blog which will be different from the category "go to routines" which target a specific concern I'm having with the skin.

​I have NEVER done this before but I thought it would be fun to do a few predictions of what I think will be popular in the skincare and makeup world for 2018. Not just popular things but also a few things I think will decline in popularity as well. I could be totally wrong, I've not talked to any brands I'm just having a bit of fun, and taking a guess with what I'm seeing lately.

​Lets run down some of recent skincare faves real quick. There's been a lot of great products that I've gotten to try. These are the ones who stood out for me. 

Take it from the top:

**Picture above is from @thegranolagoat on Instagram**

​For a while, I've been trying different balms from all over, big and small companies. I have a bit of an obsession that started with May Lindstrom Blue Cocoon which is a cult favorite. So through the last year I've found some really awesome ones. However, I have found one that has taken place of Blue Cocoon for me personally.