The December Edit

I said back in October when I wanted to get back into blogging that I wanted to do these kinds of monthly posts where I recap some standouts. December was a good month - I finally started feeling better after mourning Lilo for most of November, I got a chance to try out some new recipes, and I tried a whole lot of beauty products.

Feeling Like Myself Again

The most important thing of the month. Starting my new job at the end of October really kickstarted me feeling better and helped my mental health, and then my cat Lilo suddenly passed away at the beginning of November. It put me in a slump, and I was having a really hard time healing. Now two months out, I still miss her more than ever and will still sometimes tear up when I think about her or talk about her, but I really feel like I’ve done a lot of healing. I’m still grieving, but I’m starting to get back into a routine that feels normal. I’m back on track to feeling like myself, and the best version of myself.

New & Noteworthy Beauty Products

I’ve tried quite a few new beauty products lately - I’m happy with my everyday products, but I’m always tempted to try new things! The first thing, and I warned you I would talk about these over and over, are the Dior Lip Glow Oils. I really fell in love with this new launch. The original Lip Glow balms are some of my favorite lip products, so I’m really happy that the Oils are just as beautiful. They have a lovely formula - it’s quite thick but leaves the lips feeling pillowy, and it feels like a nourishing lip treatment. They subtly tint the lips like the originals do, so they’re perfect for an everyday, fresh look. Another lip product launch I recently fell for is the YSL Water Lip Stain - they feel so lightweight and watery going onto the lips, and they do leave a lasting stain. If you layer it up, you get a slightly glossy finish. I have the shade 613 Cascade Bordeaux, and it’s a beautiful wine/berry flush shade.

I’ve also been trying to keep my skin happy through the winter weather and indulgent food choices. I’ve been using the new Deviant Skincare Gentle Resurfacing Liquid a few nights a week, and I’m really happy with it so far. It really is quite gentle like the name says - I don’t experience any tingling or stinging, but it leaves my skin super smooth in the morning. I’ve noticed my pores have been appearing smaller and less blocked as well, so I’m excited to keep using this consistently. My skin has been pretty dehydrated and dry from the cold weather and from the heating inside, so I’ve been layering up lightweight hydrating products as well as heavier ones with oils. Two Paula’s Choice moisturizers have really been working for me - the Water-Infusing Electrolyte Moisturizer and the Omega+ Complex Moisturizer. The Electrolyte Moisturizer is more lightweight, has a whipped texture, and really feels like giving your skin a glass of water. The Omega+ Moisturizer is a little richer and feels really comforting on my skin. I’ve been doing the Electrolyte in the morning and the Omega+ at night mostly, or I’ve even mixed them together a few times when I felt my skin could benefit from both formulas at once.

Cooking

This was a very cookie-heavy month. I made cookies for two different Christmas parties and used four different recipes to much success. Of course I went with some showstoppers from Bon Appetit - for a small Christmas Eve party at my parents’ house I made the Obscenely Chocolately Chocolate Cookies, and for my bigger family Christmas party this past Sunday I made the Brown Butter Toffee Chocolate Chip Cookies. They were both hits, especially the toffee ones. I’ll definitely be making those again and again! I also made my dad’s signature cookies, which are an easy chocolate chip cookie recipe with butterscotch chips added in, and I also made some gluten-free chocolate chip cookies with coconut flour for a few family members who either have Celiac or are gluten-sensitive. They had more of a cake-y texture, but they were still pretty good!

Watching/Listening Etc

December was a busy month, but I still found time to watch a lot of movies and start some shows. Brett and I love the Witcher video games (we’ve played through Witcher 3: The Wild Hunt twice now), so we were super excited to watch the new Witcher Netflix series based on the same books. We still haven’t finished it (we’ve been on opposite work schedules this month), but it’s great so far. I also finally got the chance to watch JUDY, the movie starring Renee Zellweger about Judy Garland’s final London concerts. It was such a sad movie for me to watch - I grew up really loving Judy Garland movies, listening to her music, and reading everything about her I could. I knew she had a sad life, but it was hard to see it portrayed in JUDY. I think they did a great job, though - I liked how every time something happened that would maybe make her an unlikeable character, they would flash back to her childhood at MGM in the 1930s and show them treating her in some horrible way that led to how she was behaving at her London shows in the 1960s. The ending was particularly poignant. I think Renee Zellweger was great, too - I’ve watched a lot of footage of Judy Garland from the ‘60s, and she really nailed her mannerisms.

When I wasn’t listening to Christmas music in December, I was listening to Harry Styles’s new album Fine Line. I love it just as much as his first album and enjoy it all the way through. I think my favorite songs from it right now are Canyon Moon and Golden. My best friend also got me into MUNA and Shura, so I’ve been listening to them a lot, too. I got back into Shura because of her song princess leia - they tweeted it on the anniversary of Carrie Fisher’s death, and it reminded me how much I like the song and their album that came out last year.

The last thing for this section is a new video game Brett and I have been playing - we really love playing the Lego video games because they’re 2-player, not too hard for me so I don’t get frustrated, and they have some really fun puzzles to solve to get through each level. Brett found out they released the Harry Potter Lego games for the Nintendo Switch recently, so he got me both Years 1-4 and Years 5-7 for Christmas! We’ve been playing it nonstop and have just started the Order of the Phoenix levels.

December was a great month, and I’m hoping it’s a sign for how good 2020 will be, too. Happy New Year!

The December Edit sourced from: Blog - Beauty by Kelsey