My Top Beauty Picks From 2018

Happy New Year!

Is everybody else still as shocked as I am that it is actually 2019 already!? Literally the quickest year of my life and I honestly feel like I blinked and missed 6 months of it.

However as it is the new year and everybody is starting the usual resolutions, new year new me and everything else in between of course I'm joining in!

I've set very small, achievable goals for myself this year for my blog and for myself and hopefully I'll actually stick to them this year as last years plans didn't exactly go to plan.

So I decided to start off 2019 with a look back at the beauty products I loved and enjoyed over the past twelve months. Surprisingly this year I found these quite easy to pick out whereas normally it takes me ages to try and narrow all the products I've loved down to a certain number. In 2018 I feel like there wasn't many beauty bandwagons I jumped on without reading reviews about them, and alot of the time surprisingly for me my attitude towards things was 'sure I've something like that already' which trust me is a very strange sense of mind for myself to have.

Anyways because I didn't go overboard as much as I usually do every other year it meant I was able to pick out 11 products quite quickly from my collection that I fell in love with throughout 2018.
So lets jump right in.

Starting with the Jo Malone French Lime Blossom fragrance. I got this back in October and while I only had it in my life for a short period of time compared to some of the other products included in this post I became obsessed with this scent. I absolutely adore Jo Malone fragrances for the reason being that they last on you for absolute hours before you have to even think about spraying yourself with perfume again. The scent is very different than the usual sweet like fragrances I usually opt for and I'm literally going to describe it as a very grown up scent. It is absolutely gorgeous and I 've literally went through half the bottle of it since October because I've been using it so much. I was carrying it around with me in my handbag everyday, which was weighing me down but I was so afraid of breaking it that I ended up getting myself a perfume pod (smartest little invention ever) and transferring it into that. Definitely my top new fragrance of the year for sure.

When I was tanned (which started back in May) my go to foundation was the L'oreal True Match in 4n. Although I also used this when I was pale (2R/2C) I just especially loved it when I wore fake tan as the shade matched me perfectly. This foundation is the best drugstore one in my opinion and I've tried my fair few. However I find this one amazing, it lasts on my skin all day long and I'm forever getting compliments on my skin when I wear this. For the small €15 price tag I honestly cannot recommend it anymore. When you open my foundation drawer (is it a bad thing I've a whole drawer of foundations or...thats normal right!?) its basically 80% true match because I love it so much and I'm forever stocking up when Boots are doing a 3 for 2 offer on it.

Something I was so excited about this year to add to my collection my very first Christian Louboutin Lipstick in 'Just Nothing'. The most gorgeous natural nude lip colour I've ever come across packaged in the most extra packaging I've ever seen in my life. The formula is a matte finish but when on the lips feels very silky and moisturising which I love because I absolutely cannot stand formulas that dry out your lips and make you feel like you haven't drank a glass of water in four years. Definitely can see myself having to buy a lil treat in the shape of the exact same lipstick in the iconic red shade. If you're thinking about splurging on one I definitely 100% recommend them.

2018 was the year I decided to give self tanning a try and boy was it an eventful time. From looking like an actual orange to even using one that ended up looking a little green I think it's safe to say I definitely mastered self tanning...well except for my hands, they're still a learning curve. However the tanning brand that made me fall in love with having a colour rather than looking like a milk bottle was the Tantastic Liquid Tan. The reason I fell in love with this brand was their formulas are basically fool proof and they don't come with that vile self tan smell instead its replaced with a quite appealing scent. Throughout the past year I've definitely gone through at least 8 bottles of the liquid, 6 of the lotion and 3 of the foam...trust me the colour pay off is GORGEOUS! Think Bahammas for two weeks kinda tan. They're also quite affordable and are almost constantly doing some sort of percentage off on their website.

Onto the Mario Badescu Facial Spritz. I literally fell head over heels with this and currently have four bottles of it as back up for when I run out. It's so refreshing and I absolutely adore it. I ended up writing all about it in a post last year which you can find here. They're so refreshing and are great for no makeup and makeup days for a quick freshen up. I use these religiously especially after removing my makeup because I feel like they just do really good things for my skin. After trying all three different scents/flavours (idk what you call them, basically there's 3 different ones) the Aloe one is definitely my favourite although I do love them all I seem to buy more of this one than the others. I won't go on too much more about it because I've already told you how much I adore it in a post of its very own!

Onto another fragrance that definitely won the year for me Woman by Ralph Lauren. This year saw me buy my first Ralph Lauren handbag...and then shortly after buy another...and for Christmas I got a Ralph Lauren purse (which is beautiful) so I feel like I had a little love affair with the brand for a hot minute. Anyways I'd never really been fond of any of the Ralph Lauren fragrances until this year when they launched Woman. With a mix of strong florals and rich woody scents the fragrance was one of my most sprayed scents in 2018. Although slightly different (again) than the sweet scents I go for I fell in love with this scent very quickly. Of course it started out with a rollerball but you know theres currently a 100ml bottle sat in my fragrance drawer. Also I want to quickly mention the bottle design as although it's quite simple the unusual way the lid opens rather than the normal pull off lid adds a little touch of glam and luxury to the bottle design. If you've yet to smell this I urge you off to your nearest fragrance stockist and give it a little sniff.

False lashes and I have a love/hate relationship. As in I will wear them religiously for a solid two weeks and then totally ignore their exsistence for two months. This year I was a little adventurous and stepped away from my usual eylure picks and ventured to Beauty Bay to find a more 'luxury' brand of lashes (but also I still didn't want to spend €30 on a pair bc I just don't see the worth) and there I discovered Doll Beauty who have their own little range of makeup but also a huge range of lashes and oh my! I fell in love with the first pair I got which was in the style 'Selena' and ever since then I've been buying my eyelashes from the brand, they even do multipacks which are great value. Lets quickly mention the packaging because it's so girly I absolutely adore it. The lashes come stored in a little acrylic box under the pink sleeve so you know they're well protected between wears. When removed carefully and cleaned (as in removing glue) you get quite a good few uses out of these before they start going a bit tattery.
Jeffree Star cosmetics was a brand I also ventured into in 2018 and I think it was mainly because of Shane Dawsons docu-series on Youtube ft. Jeffree. I got the mini nude set for my birthday back in August (I never got around to writing up my what I got post - true story it's still sitting in my drafts) and fell in love with the formula and one particular shade that I ended up wearing everyday and as I'm typing this post I have it on my lips! Celebrity Skin quickly became my everyday staple nude shade and as the formula is so long lasting I'd never have to worry about re-applying it (except after eating but thats kind of obvious). I ended up finishing the year with three tubes of the liquid lipstick version of this shade and one bullet lipstick of it. If you're on the market for a soft brown nude with a peachy undertone to it this one is your new BFF.

Something I was in two minds about mentioning but I truly enjoyed using it and can see myself purchasing another bottle when this runs out is the Huda Beauty Faux Filter Foundation. I used this in the shade Creme Brûlée for when I was too lazy to tan and was embracing my pale af skin tone. Although definitely a fuller coverage foundation than I'm used to wearing I really loved this. The coverage I found amazing and it wore quite well, I'm saying quite because sometimes if I was having a bad skin day I did find I'd have to patch it up a little. When I first tried it I really didn't get on with it for the simple reason of I'm used to wearing medium coverage foundations and the consistency of them are usually quite watery so I think I got over-whelmed over how thick this was and wasn't 100% sure how I was going to apply it (yup I freak out over these things). However after sticking with it I ended up turning around my attitude towards it and really enjoyed it. It's also fragranced which I found a little strange but as soon as its applied to the skin the scent goes and you're not bombarded with the perfume of it. I have sensitive skin and so normally have to be wary of perfumed products coming in contact with it but it never bothered my skin at all.

The third and final fragrance to get a mention is my all time beloved Gucci Bloom. When this was released last year it shot right to the top of my favourite fragrances and since then it honestly hasn't budged. They released two more scents in this range and I'm actually not a fan and the original is still my absolute favourite. If you love sweet floral scents you'll love Gucci Bloom. I've mentioned this fragrance here on Darling Jordan multiple of times including in my top 2017 beauty products which you can find here. Which means its been my top fave for two consecutive years running now. I've so many fragrances (its actually ridiculous) but I always end up going back to this one. Plus the simplicity of the bottle design just leaves me doing heart eyes because of the delicate girly packaging.

And last but certainly not least my other favourite self tanner that I fell head over heels for the Bondi Sands Self Tanning Foam in Dark. Now I'm going to be the first one to hold my hand up to say if you want a dark false tan...this isn't the one fam. Although called Dark you get more of a very natural healthy looking glow rather than a 'hey guess who's back from Abu Dhabi' When I first tried this I was going from Tantastic making me look like I was in the Bahamas to this and I literally remember thinking "is this a faulty batch or something!?" but strangely enough I kept using it and using it, then moved onto my second bottle and then my third and fourth (and so on) and I just couldn't get enough of how natural it looked. Surprisingly something I thought was such a failure ended up finishing as my favourite tanning brand of the year. It's also coconut scented so you're not left with that vile biscuit smelling tan (the most revolting smell in the world imo) which is so fab because you're actually able to breathe while letting it develop on your skin.

And there you have it, my top Beauty picks from 2018.
What products did you fall head over heels with last year?
xo.