Beauty Favorite || Coconut Oil

One of my recent favorite beauty products is also one of the cheapest beauty products I've ever purchased. Readily available for around $7 at most grocery stores, coconut oil has been my savior for the past few months for anything from skincare to haircare. 

Instead of listing the benefits and possible uses for coconut oil here, I suggest you look around online because there are so many! My two favorite uses for coconut oil are: 

1) Nighttime eye treatment - I use coconut oil instead of an eye cream at night and the next morning the skin around my eyes looks sooo plump and hydrated. The oil takes a while to sink into the skin, so it's best as a heavy night treatment, not for under makeup. 

2) Hair mask - I slather a ton of this stuff into the ends of my hair and after I wash it out, my hair feels unbelievably silky. Again, I prefer to use this as a night treatment. After I've slicked my strands with the coconut oil I throw my hair up into a bun to keep it off my face, sleep in it, and wash it out in the morning. I prefer to use a more clarifying shampoo to wash this out because if I don't make sure my hair is nice and clean the ends can feel a bit greasy even after I've washed them...because coconut oil is just that hydrating. 

I should also note that once I finish this jar, I'm planning on buying a jar of virgin coconut oil, which contains all of the proteins and lauric acid that the refining process strips out, and is therefore even better for your skin. The jar of coconut oil that I have is technically only meant to be used for cooking, but I've still had great results. 

P.S. Sorry for the crappy photo. The lighting's not that good because I took the picture at night - I suppose I just had a sudden need to rave about coconut oil...

Disappointing Products

I love it when bloggers and YouTubers make blog posts and/or videos about the products that disappointed them. I don't like spending my money on crappy products and I'm sure you don't either. The thing is, I've probably spent tons of money in the course of my life on various products that didn't live up to their claims...so consider this blog post a cautionary tale.

CVS Eye Makeup Remover Wipes

I probably wear some form of eye makeup every day. Once the day turns to night, though, I need to take off my makeup so I can hit the pillow au naturel. This means that eye makeup removers are an essential part of my makeup and skincare regimen. I don't have the money (or the desire, to be honest) to test out high-end makeup wipes or cleansing balms, so I typically scour the drugstore for different makeup removal wipes so I can figure out which kind I like best. 

The CVS Eye Makeup Remover Wipes definitely do not win the title of "Best Drugstore Makeup Remover." These CVS wipes are supposed to be a knockoff of these Neutrogena wipes, and are packaged similarly. I've never tried the Neutrogena version, but if they're anything like the CVS version I don't want to. There are two main problems with these wipes.

First, they're not "ultra-soft pads." The container is lying to you. The first time I used these my eyes hurt and felt like something had been rubbing them much more abrasively than the eye area should be rubbed. In the photo above, you can see that one side of the pad has little cotton nubbins that are great for exfoliating your face and removing your foundation...but I would not recommend using that side for your eyes. Note: I used the opposite, nubbin-less side to remove my eye makeup, but it still felt very rough. The second problem with this product is that all of the makeup removing liquid is pooled at the bottom. This means that the first couple of wipes were extremely dry to the point of being useless. On the other hand, the last couple of wipes were dripping with more remover than two eyes would ever need. 

Seche Vite Top Coat

I've repurchased the Seche Vite Top Coat multiple times. I love that it dries quickly and makes your nails super glossy...but I'm not afraid to say it. For all the hype Seche Vite gets on beauty blogs and YouTube channels, it's just not the best top coat out there. In some ways, it's actually pretty terrible. Many people avoid the Seche Vite Top Coat because it contains toluene, which can cause birth defects. In my opinion, the fact that you're only exposed to the toluene for the short amount of time that you're using the polish, and the fact that it evaporates once the polish has dried probably means that Seche Vite is safe to use. But people definitely have different opinions and I would advise a quick Google search on the subject for those who are curious about the different sides of the "Is Seche Vite safe to use?" debate. 

Anyway, my beef with this top coat lies elsewhere. As you can see I'm only about 1/2 to 2/3 of the way done with this particular bottle, and already the polish has become super thick and gloopy. As any nail polish fanatic knows, gloopy top coats do not make for pretty manicures. It's hard to apply, and you have to layer it on a lot if you want it to look smooth. It also causes my nail polish to peel off in one piece only a day or two after I've applied it. This annoys me. I do not have time to constantly repaint my nails because of Seche Vite's BS peeling issue. I don't think I will finish this bottle, and I've already picked up a bottle of the Essie Good To Go Top Coat, which I really like so far.