My Top Two Favorite Toners

In my small collection of skin care, I have a rather tiny number of facial toners.

Thanks to the recommendations of Caroline Hirons, two specific toners have become staples in my everyday skin care routine.

The two amazing toners are the Darphin Intral Toner and Clarins Gentle Renewing Brightening Peel. 

Toners are usually the second stage of one's routine. Either rubbed on directly after cleansing or once your eye cream has been applied. Toners may spray onto your face or need to be poured onto a cotton swab and gently rubbed over the skin. Both of these mentioned toners are put onto my skin using a cotton swab.

Darphin's toner is targeted for people who have rosacea or persistent redness in their skin. Sooo of course I had to try it! I am not quite half way done with the bottle, but I do notice a difference when I use this toner persistently twice a day. The toner does not irritate my extremely temperamental sensitive skin whatsoever and reduces the bright red tones in my skin. The smell is absolutely lovely and causes no redness. 

After using the Intral toner for some time I had very little redness remaining on my entire face. Overall, this toner works extremely well and will be repurchased by me for quite some time.

Secondly, is the Clarins Peel toner. Now, this toner serves a completely different purpose than the Darphin one. It aims to exfoliate the skin as well as even skin tone. It contains ingredients such as glycolic, salicylic, and tartaric acid which all actively exfoliate your skin. Chemical exfoliation is much better for people with sensitive skin than abrasive exfoliants that contain beads. I personally noticed a huge change in the texture of my skin whilst using this product. Before, I had rough patches on my cheeks, forehead, and nose but when I use this daily these areas are smoothed down and look much better in appearance.
My only concern or recommendation with this product is to not use it too often or twice daily if you have sensitive skin like me. I make sure to use it at most once a day or to skip this toner in my routine if I have been using it rather frequently. But, other than that I adore this Clarins peel/toner and would urge anyone looking to improve their skin's texture or tone to purchase this.

Darphin Toner comes in at at $42.00 for 6.7 FL Oz.

Clarins Toner slightly lower at $38.00, but you only get 4.2 FL Oz.

Victoria's Secret Angel Gold Perfume

A few months back, I was browsing my local Victoria's Secret store for a new perfume.
Preceding smelling every single perfume they had in stock about three times each, I made my decision.

My decision was the Victoria's Secret Gold Angel Eau de Parfum. And boy does it smell heavenly.
This is the most stereotypical "perfume-y" smelling perfume I own. Most of the time I go for vanilla, fruity, or sweet scents. This time was different. The fragrance of this perfume just smelt heavenly and so clean. But it actually had notes of sweet fruits which I love along with a very slight citrus hint. They also state that the middle notes include a variety of heavily scented flowers while the dry-down notes include vanilla woods, musk, and cedarwood. The notes all combine perfectly to make a not overly sweet & clean smelling perfume.


This luxurious perfume costs $45 for a 1 oz. bottle and $59 for a 2.5 oz. bottle. The lasting power of this fragrance is quite long and stays lingering on you throughout the day. One of my favorite aspects of Angel Gold is the stunning bottle. It is pure lavishness with the shiny gold cursive and beautiful fogged wings on the back of the bottle.

Victoria's Secret's perfumes can be hit and miss, but their Angel Gold is unquestionably an elegant sweet masterpiece and would please both your nose and eyes if you were to include in your own collection of perfumes.

Kate Somerville's Goat Milk Cream is Quite a Dream

Kate Somerville's line of skin care products has a ton of little treasures! One of my favorites so far, has been her Goat Milk Cream.

I first heard about this moisturizer from Elle Fowler, allthatglitters21, who is a famous YouTube beauty guru. She raved about how great the cream was for her skin and had me interested in buying it for myself. Then she mentioned that it possessed a strange smell which prevented me from purchasing right away. The next time I was at Sephora I remember to give it a smell & to my surprise it seemed odorless to me. Or at least didn't have an odor that outright bugged my nose.
Since I was in the market for a few other more important products, I refrained from purchasing the Goat Milk Cream. But I made sure to make a note of it.

A few weeks later after coming across Caroline Hirons' blog, I found a review that Caroline had done on this same moisturizer saying that it was a must-have. She explained how the different ingredients in the cream were beneficial to your skin & exclaimed how perfect t was for dry red skin! HELLO. That fits my skin to a T!


I knew I just had to buy it now. Finally, after having my eyes on this moisturizer for so so long, I decided to cash out the fifty-five dollars and buy it.

& wow. It has made such improvements in my skin. My dry patchy skin no long has flaky cheeks nor a flaky peely forehead. The cream has hydrated my face wonderfully and works well as a morning or evening moisturizer. This has become a staple in my ever-growing skin care routine and feels cooling upon application. I cannot honestly say it has reduced any redness in my skin since I began using other special treatments and toners around the same time as the goat milk & have noticed results since then. But my skin tone has certainly evened out & loss an immense amount of redness.



Whether your skin is dry, rosacea prone, or has persistent redness, I would give Kate Somerville's Goat Milk Cream a try. It is well worth the money and a wondrous smoothening moisturizer.



Oh, & um not to mention look how amazingly sanitary the container is?! Being in a tub is convenient & the little tub comes with a press down lid thing that pumps out the perfect amount of product for you face! So great!

Redness Reducing Primer?!

Struggling with facial redness can be a daily occurrence for numerous men and women alike. When someone has fair or light skin, they are more likely to exhibit undertones of pink and red or have blotchiness in their facial skin. I am unfortunately one of these people.


My sensitive and red prone skin has been a insecurity of mine for quite some time. It has caused embarrassing blushing and multiple beet red faces after exercising. Yet, after dealing with this issue for over five years, I have failed to find a permanent outstanding solution.
So for the time being, I resort to a green primer.

The Smashbox Photo Finish Foundation Primer in Color Correcting Adjust. Or ie., the green one.

Strange right? Rubbing a bright green substance on a light pale face? Seems counterproductive.
But it actually works! Whenever my skins irritated, sun burnt, or just looking like an angry tomato in certain spots (darn you cheeks & forehead) I whip this guy out. And voila! The redness is most definitely visibly reduced. Don't get me wrong, this isn't some magic worker that will banish any sign of redness, but it successfully lightens the red/pink areas and evens out your face's overall tone.

Wanna know why it works? If you take a glimpse at the color wheel, you may notice certain colors across from each other. These are known as contrasting colors. Oh, and guess what? Green just happens to be red's contrasting color. Interesting stuff.

This is one of the few products I need to have in my makeup collection at all times. I use it under foundations, but mostly I wear this on its own with a translucent powder over top. For me, this is completely fine as an everyday look worn with some blush. But if you are an everyday foundation wearer, Smashbox's primer goes well underneath foundations and helps them last longer throughout the day.



I truly do love this primer so so much. Please note though that it is a temporary solution and does not actually actively take any redness out of your skin, it merely hides it for the time being. For tips on skincare and products to effectively aid your sensitive/rosacea/red skin, stay tuned for more posts:)

Perfectly Pretty Pink & Purple Polishes

My whole life I have always been extremely feminine and a lover of all things girly. If a mundane object comes in pink or purple, you could bet that I'd want to get my hands on it.
This love and taste has stuck with me throughout my entire life. Down to the very nail polishes chosen to adorn my toe and finger nails.

Although large nail polish brands such as OPI and Essie carry a myriad of light pastel colored polishes, it can pretty frustrating to find the right opaque shade to fit one's preferences. My experiences have led me to Essie's two beautiful shades, Guchi Muchi Puchi and Lilacism. 

Guchi Muchi Puchi on the left & Lilacism on the right

Guchi Muchi Puchi is your typical light or baby pink color. After three coats the color is not completely opaque but is pretty dang close! Despite its not being completely opaque, this nail polish is a total winner for anyone who is looking for a gorg light pink polish. I have found it compliments my fair skin quite well and doesn't chip as quickly as other Essie polishes. 

Color is fairly opaque with a little bit of my white nail tip showing.

Polish on nails is pretty true to color in the bottle.

Secondly, is Lilacism. Can I just mention how much I adore this light purple nail polish? Oh my. Absolute most perfect lilac color around. It is pretty opaque after two coats on my little toe nails, but would look even better with three. The lilac has a more blue undertone, which contrasts more with the red toned light pink color. *apologies for not including any picture of my toes & the lilacism color on them.

Overall I just absolutely love these two polishes! Enough to make me go out and purchase them on my own (which I rarely ever do)! Like I said before, these two go together. I mean just look how beautiful they look next to each other, so cute!!