Let's be honest here. I love trying new things. I'd love to be that person who has found all her holy grail products and has a strict beauty regiment to adhere to every day, but I'm never going to be that person; and honestly, it would be boring if I was. I love testing and trying new things. The "What's New" page is the first place I go whenever I decide to browse the Ulta or Sephora websites. If it's new, I have to have it. It's kind of a problem but it keeps life interesting right?

So I'd like to try something new. Between the first to middle of the month I'm going to post all the things that I'm going to try this month with my initial first impressions of the products. I'll do favorites at the end of the month, but if you don't see these products it doesn't mean they aren't up to snuff; I may just want more time to try them out and update you again in a couple months with what worked and what didn't. I'm hoping that if it's in print, I'll stick to what I'm supposed to be trying and maybe I won't get bored and buy new things. We'll see...

These are all things that I've either already thrown into my rotation or I've picked up and I'm committing to give them a fair shot. It should be a good variety of items, I think. So without further ado:

1. Schmidt's Natural Deodorant in Lavender & Sage. This one is kind of a weird one for me. This whole idea of a potted cream deodorant that you rub into your pits with your fingers kind of weirds me out, I'm not going to lie. But when Ingrid Nilson, a.k.a Missglamorazz on You Tube, posted a couple videos recently talking about her new obsession with a cream deodorant I was kind of intrigued. Then my January Allure box arrived with this one in it about the same time that I realized I was down to the plastic on my stick deodorant. So, I'm committed; I'm going to try it out. This is not the one that Ingrid mentioned, but if I wind up liking it, I may end up ordering that one (Meow Meow Tweet Deodorant Cream). I'm also going to note that my underarms tend to be sensitive and I've had a hard time with some deodorants breaking me out. And let me tell you, that's a horrible place to get a rash. The natural deodorant maybe a good thing or I might not be able to stick with it. We will see but so far so good.


2. Tarte Tartelette Tease palette. Look. How. Gorgeous. And, it's so travel friendly. This little beauty has 6 complimentary shades in matte and luster finishes. These are all new shades and not duplicates of shades from the full-sized palettes. I saw sneak peeks on Instagram and read that it was were spotted at JC Penney Sephora stores. I was lucky enough to to find one in the evil bins of travel sized beauty by the register when I ran in one day (for a product they said they had but didn't >.<). It made it worth the trip! I have been obsessively been using my Urban Decay Gwen Stefani palette since I got it a month ago so it's going to be hard for me to pull myself out of it, but these colors are so gorgeous, it will happen.


3. Makeup Forever Step 1 Skin Equalizer Primer.  This whole line of primers is kind of a cool concept. There are 10 primers that you can use on their own or mix together to customize to your needs. They have all there own purposes: hydrating, smoothing, mattifying, and the five radiance primers for different skin tones. This green-tinted primer neutralizes redness before you apply your makeup base. My face is being so dumb currently. It might be the colder temperatures but my face is just red all the time. Luckily I did notice a difference with the first use of this. This is GREEN; Not like a hint of green. It's like St. Patrick's Day in a bottle. But once it's on all you see is your face just less red. It does feel really nice also. I am still using another primer on top usually, but today I am not, and we'll see if it helps with wear time all on it's own.


4. Clinique Acne Solutions BB Cream. I picked this up with my Rouge coupon from Sephora in December and it's still sitting on my night stand unused. Makeup By Tiffany D on YouTube raves about this stuff. It's for oily to combination oily skin, which I fall into. I'm about out of my holy grail It Cosmetics CC+ Cream so I want to give this a good go. Let's hope for the best.


5. Kat Von D Tattoo Liner in Trooper. Eyeliner. The bane of my makeup existence. My hand just does not have the coordination and I need practice. I hate practicing. Currently I skip eyeliner most days because I'm in a hurry and I don't have the time or patience to correct all my mistakes. I hear great things about how easy this is to use, so I am hoping for those great things that will make me love using eyeliner on the daily. (Yes, I have the limited edition packaging but the formula is supposed to be the same).


6. Murad Rapid Age Spot and Pigment Lightening Serum. I've gotten a couple deluxe samples of this lately. I had a smaller sample a while ago and used it over night on a dark spot on my nose. I was in awe how much that one spot faded in just one night but I never stuck with it. I've had a lot of scarring and discoloration appear on my face recently, so I'm trying to use it all over nightly before applying my Estée Lauder Advanced Night Repair serum. I really think this is going to help.


7. Redkin One United. I ran out of both my Healthy Sexy Hair Soy Tri-Wheat Leave-in Conditioner (what a mouthful) and my Bumble and Bumble Hairdresser's Invisible Oil Primer at about the same time. This is a fairly new product (in the past 6 months or so) that gets sprayed onto your clean, wet hair like a leave in conditioner, but claims to have 25 benefits beyond just a leave in conditioner. I go to a Redken salon for my cut and color so naturally they were allnusing this and the bottle is pretty so I decided to try it. What kind of sealed the deal for me was that it drys fast enough so you can use it to recondition dry hair on the in between without ruining your blowout. I've used it for about a week so far and I'm pretty happy with how soft my hair has been. I picked up the 13.5 oz bottle so I'm definitely going to get some use out of this.

8. Real Techniques Gel Brush Cleaner. During my last Ulta trip I convinced myself that I needed a new brush cleaner (I did not). At least it gave me the incentive I needed for a brush cleaning session. I've heard mixed reviews about this gel. So far I've had one session with it. I am super happy with how clean it got my Beauty Blender. I felt it worked better with my Beauty Blender than my Beauty Blender cleanser did. It was so easy to use and this got it super clean. I wasn't so happy with how it worked on my foundation- caked Sigma F80 though. It seemed clean. There's no residue. But the center bristles didn't return to the beautiful white color; it's like it's stained. The rest of my brushes are squeaky clean though. Maybe it was user error. I get pretty tired of washing brushes and this one takes the most effort regardless of what cleanser I use. So, I'm going to give it at least one more try and scrub a little longer and harder. Even if I go back to using something else for my brushes though, (spoiler alert) I'll keep this gel on hand for my Beauty Blender.

9. Nest Indigo. I'm not really one for fragrance reviews. I never can pinpoint fragrance notes. But that's all well and good. I decided last week that I wanted to try Scentbird. It's a subscription service that sends you a 30-day supply of perfume every month. It's $14.95 a month and I got 25% off the first month. I never want to try out random perfumes but they will make suggestions for you. I am starting to get a sense of what I like. I'm not "trying" out Scentbird for January because they won't ship my first one until the end of the month - I probably won't see it until February. (I am going to get to the relevance of this to Indigo, I swear!) I filled my queue up through August already! One of my suggestions was Nest Indigo. It's actually their perfume of the month for January. But I remembered that I have a deluxe sample size rollerball from a Sephora point perk. So this is going to be my go to scent this month. I'm kind of a fan. It's really unique. It's really warm but it has a some fruity and citrus notes underneath. I do feel that maybe it wears off so if I like to refresh it at night if I've worn it all day.



So do you think there are any holy grail products in the bunch? I'm excited for this month regardless. Let me know if you've tried some of these products and what you thought about them!

Other tidbits:

• I had to go on a search for Too Faced Born This Way foundation in the shade "Nude." Did anyone else notice that? It was out of stock online at Sephora, Ulta, and Too Faced. Stock showed it being in stock at one Sephora and one Ulta in my area and they were out of stock when I got there. Pretty frustrating. It came back in stock on the Sephora website so I just ordered it. I wonder why there seemed to be a shortage.
• Allure sent an email saying I was getting a gift from them separate from their regular monthly box. I'm excited and think that's incredibly cool. I also got both my Allure and Birchbox super early this month.
• I used up some gift cards from Christmas and went a little wallet and purse crazy. I ordered three purses, three wallets, and two purse organizers. Anyone want a  haul/review when they arrive?
• Is anyone else super excited for Urban Decay Gwen Stefani collection? I'm going to get the blush palette, the Ex-girlfriend lipstick and lip liner. I'm waiting for it to be on Ulta.com so I can use points. That's fair right?