Winter Beauty + Lifestyle Favourites 2019

Today's post is my long overdue winter favourites post featuring all of the beauty products and beauty related topics that I've loved over the past three months! I have been very lucky to receive so many amazing products throughout the year, some of which will have made it into my 2019 beauty favourites post which is coming soon.

*Melissa Timperley Salon & Cut 

First up, I wanted to rave about my experience at the Melissa Timperley salon in Manchester again - I have a full review on my blog already. I was very kindly invited to the salon for a free cut back in October and usually my anxiety gets in the way of me accepting lovely opportunities but I'm so glad that I ignored it this time because I haven't had a nicer or a more stress-free salon experience. I'm not one of those people who enjoys going to a salon or spa as I find it to be very awkward and anxiety inducing but the salon and staff were so welcoming and I will be booking another appointment very soon (with my own money, not for a review) for a trim and *maybe* balayage.

Makeup, Haircare & Skincare

Let's start off my makeup favourites with the lipsticks I've been loving over the past three or so months. My most expensive is the Lisa Eldridge lipstick in Velvet Muse which is the most perfect everyday shade, the packaging is beautiful and the texture is silky smooth even on incredibly dry lips. Another everyday shade (and the one I forgot to include in the collage above) is *Berry Nude by Green People which is the easiest dark berry shade that lasts well and is the ideal winter shade. The final two lipsticks are both reds and the *Laura Mercier Velour Extreme Matte in Dominate has to be the quickest red lip to apply ever and the *Toledo by Nars is another easy, wintery red.

I do have more makeup favourites such as the Barry M Brow Wand, Holika Holika Moisturising BB Cream, *SportFX Game Changing Mascara and more but those will be included in my overall 2019 favourites posts which will be live next week. Moving onto haircare and the first is a little unusual but it's the Loreal Magic Retouch which is a coloured spray that camouflages greys. I need it for the grey coverage (I'm practically an old lady at the age of 27) but also for the areas around my hairline that are thinner and more sparse - it's a fantastic product but a little messy.

A less embarrassing haircare favourite is the Soak and Float Shampoo Bar from Lush which has to be their nicest smelling shampoo bar! I have been using it along with the cork holder for past couple of months and I've been loving using it and thankfully I have a couple of other bars to try from Lush now thanks to lovely Christmas presents. My final haircare favourite for the winter months is my *GHD Platinum+ Styler which I use almost every time I style my hair as it creates the perfect waves and curls!

Moving onto skincare and fragrance favourites, the first is the *Gaia Moisturiser which I included within one of my previous christmas gift guides. It's a lovely natural moisturiser that is ideal for my skin during the colder months. I've also been loving the *Paulas Choice Electrolyte Infused Moisturiser that I was kindly sent by LookFantastic and the *First Aid Beauty Ultra Repair Cream, from the LookFantastic Discovery Kit (the Clinique one seems to still be available). To end my raving about LookFantastic, I've been using the products from the *Pai Skincare x LookFantastic box too and now I want to try even more from the brand.

I have two fragrance favourites, one of which is the *Celeste Soleil Perfume that I was kindly sent back in September and haven't stopped using since - I cannot recommend all three fragrances enough! The second fragrance favourite was a christmas present and it is Pansy from Lush which smells like the Olive branch shower gel so I adore it.

Accessories, Camera, Tattoos + Miscellaneous 

This last category is a little mixed but I'll start with one of the most expensive favourites and it's my new camera. I've wanted a new camera for most of the year, although I do still love my Canon 750D, I wanted an upgrade. I finally decided on the Sony A7iii after watching and reading a tonne of reviews from professional and full time photographers and I'm so glad I did. I still have a long way to go before I'm fully used to the camera and gimbal (that's one of my 2020 goals) but I'm glad I made the investment.

Another, slightly expensive favourite, are my tattoos! I added four more to my collection in 2019, two by Zu at Flesh Tattoo and two by Rachel Hauer, who works at East River Tattoo in New York - she came over for a guest spot at a private studio in Manchester and she was incredibly sweet and lovely. If she comes back to Manchester then I will definitely be getting tattooed by her again!

October 2019 featured a couple of blogging firsts including reviewing a hotel in Glasgow which was not only amazing because I could treat one of my friends to a free hotel stay but also because I was able to visit quite a few sites in Scotland that I haven't been to before such as Glasgow, Stirling Castle, Trossachs National park and more. I cannot recommend the Hallmark Hotel in Glasgow enough, check out my review for more information.

A few blogger mail favourites from the past few months of 2019 were my new sunglasses from Messy Weekend, Daisy London x Estee Lalonde necklaces, Top Furniture oak table and all of the fantastic limited edition boxes I've been lucky enough to receive from LookFantastic and Latest In Beauty.

Have you tried any of the products I've mentioned? What were your beauty and lifestyle favourite from the past couple of months? 

*Gifted