Monthly Favorites|| June

Now I know I said a few posts back that I wouldn't be doing my monthly favorites that often but I went shopping quite a bit this month since it is finally summer so I thought I would share with you some of my favorite items this month.

Makeup/Beauty Favorites:

1. NYX proof it! Waterproof eye shadow primer- I have extremely oily eyelids and I used to have a huge problem with keeping eye shadow on all day. I also rub my eyes a lot and I found that this eye shadow primer stayed even after I rubbed my eyes. It is super smudge proof and it just stays all day long. For $6 it is a perfect primer and it is totally worth it
2. Maybelline Color Tattoo Metal 24 hr. eye shadow- I know I am really late to this trend but recently I have just been absolutely obsessed with the color tattoo eye shadow. I have the shade 55 "Inked in Pink" and it is a gorgeous metallic, rose, pink and I love it so much. It has the perfect amount of shimmer and it is super build able and it even works well as a base. I think the next time I go shopping I will have to pick up more shades of this eye shadow. If you haven't tried it, GO TRY IT, it is amazing.
3. Clinique chubby stick intense moisturizing lip colour balm- This balm is so moisturizing and creamy and the color goes on really well. The shade that I have is 07 "Broadest berry" and for me I think it is too dark but I just love the formula of the stick. Again I am going to have to pick up more shades, I love it so much.

Fashion Favorites:

1.  I bought this gorgeous dress from Target last week and I think it is just amazing. It is so comfortable and flowing and I just love it. The pattern is gorgeous as well as the crochet detailing
2.  I bought this dress from Target as well and I am in love with the sleeves and the fit. I find that skater skirts are the most flattering and this one is beautiful with the royal blue lattice detailing on the sleeves. It also has pockets which makes it an all around win for me
3.   I got these cute sandals from, you guessed it, Target. These are really comfortable and can be worn dressy or casual which as I'm sure you know I am all about. 
4. These type of flowing printed shorts are my favorite things to wear this year. I have 2 pairs from Target, this blue pair and another purple floral pair which I will show you next. These shorts are perfect to just throw on any day- going to the beach, wear them as a cover-up for the pool, going to a barbaque- anything and they are so comfortable. These shorts of course can be worn dressy and are just the perfect summer staple item. 
5. 
   

These are the other pair of comfortable shorts. I freaking love them

And there you have it! My short little post on my favorite things in June. Let me know what you think about any of my favorites if you have the same ones and tell me what your June favorites are, I would love to know. Anyway I'm going to wrap it up and I'll see you soon!

Love you lots <3

My Wishlists|| Makeup wishlist

This month, makeup wise, I have compiled a list of products that I want to try that range from high-end to budget items and I hope you enjoy!

1. Urban Decay Naked 2 palette- I am really late to this trend but recently I decided that I should just save up my money and test it out, see if it really is worth all the hype 
2. Hourglass Ambient lighting palette- I don't really wear foundation or bronzer or any of that but this palette is just so gorgeous and I am thinking that maybe I will start wearing a little bit of bronzer in the summer
3. Benefit POREfessional- I have heard lots of good reviews and I am hoping to test it out, if onyl it weren't so expensive
4. Benefit Puff Off- I have a real problem with under eye darkness and puffiness. Hopefully this will do this trick 
5. Nars Eyeshadow base- I have another problem with keeping my eyeshadow on all day, my eyeshadow always creases and ends up looking oily by the end of the day
6. Two Faced Chocolate bar eyeshadow palette- I wear a lot of neutral eyeshadows and browns so thsi palette seems like the perfect mix of neutrals and subtle colors
7. Tanya Burr Lipgloss- I honestly love all of the shades, they are perfect and look so gorgeous. I just want to buy them all so badly but since I don't live in England it is difficult for me to get a hold of
8. Zoella beauty- I don't have any of Zoella's beauty range products and I really want to try all of them especially since her new range is coming out soon. I think the makeup bags would be the perfect size for me so I will have to try it out
9. Sephora favorites Spray of sunshine perfume sampler- I don't really have any perfume, I mostly have Bath and Bodyworks which just doesn't last all day, so I figured this is a cheaper way to get more into perfume and find out the scents I like and the styles. It just seems really nice becasue you choose your favorite scent and then you get a full-size rollerball of that scent and for $25 I don't think I will regret it
10. Real Techniques brush set- I don't have any brushes so after researching this set I think that it will be a good way to get a nice set of brushes that isn't too expensive

And there you have it! Those are a few makeup products that I want to try! Let me know if you have tried any of these products and tell me what you think. Hopefully I will be going shopping soon so I can have a haul for you guys soon. Maybe I'll post a video to my Youtube channel.... We'll see!

Love you lots <3

My Obsessions|| Hozier

Now I know I am probably not the first person to say this but at the moment I am obsessed with Hozier. I really love his music and it all started with his song Take Me to Church. This song is different from pretty much all of the music I normally listen to, it is pretty dark. Now saying that it is hard to answer the dreaded, "what kind of music do you like" question because in all honesty I do not listen to the same type of music all the time. Some days, all I want to listen to is extremely pop-y music and dance around my house like I couldn't give a shit about anything. Other days, I want to sing and listen to disney songs and high school musical songs. Some days, I am feeling like listening to throwback music and enjoying some of that 90's rock that we all love deep down. I really cannot pinpoint my music to just one genre and type, I like a variety of things. But out of all these things, typically I never listened to dark music, it just wasn't me. I am a happy person and most of the time you can find me smiling so dark music just wasn't really up my street. But then I heard Take me  to Church and I was just utterly obsessed. Something about the whole deep bass of the song just made me fall in love and Hozier's voice to me is just so soothing and gorgeous. Although a lot of people wouldn't consider this song very dark, it is darker than the songs I typically listen to and it just opened up a new world of Hozier's music. And I couldn't stop listening. I listen to all of his songs non-stop and it is so difficult for me to pick favorites but here are 6 of my favorites. (I couldn't narrow it down to 5 and even 6 was difficult)
1. Take me to Church
2. From Eden
3. Cherry Wine
4. Work Song
5. Like Real People Do
6. Jackie and Wilson
I love all of his songs and I just could listen to them for hours which I have pretty much been doing for the past few weeks. His music has depth and it isn't all just electronic and dubstep (which don't get me wrong, can be great sometimes but not always). So I want to know what you think! Which artist are you obsessed with at the moment? Do you also love Hozier, if so what is your favorite one of his songs? Let me know either in the comments below or on my twitter.

Love you lots<3

My Wishlists|| An overview

Yet another new concept I would like to bring to my blog is a post full of products or things that I would like to buy and why I want to buy them. This kind of list would maybe start a chain of comments on product reviews and get you involved in my blog because this blog is not only for my entertainment but it is to entertain you as well. This is not a very complicated concept so I am just going to leave this here. Do you think this is a good idea, would you like to read these posts? Let me know, I'm always open for suggestions!

Love you lots <3

My Obsessions|| An overview

Since I am redesigning my blog and relaunching "my brand", I wanted to install a new series of posts that are my obsessions. Instead of making a monthly list of favorites, I decided that I would like to take one of my favorite things and make an entire post on it because for some of my previous favorites posts, I felt that I would ramble on and on about one product and then have to cut it down to fit what I had written for other products. Some products or concepts or things I felt I just couldn't just write a sentence about, I wouldn't be able to properly say just why that thing was my favorite or why I loved it so much. Now with this new concept of my obsessions, I feel that I will be able to properly explain to you guys why you should check out this product or why you should study this concept. Now I know that many of you wouldn't want to read an entire blog post just on one bottle of nail polish, and I understand that. I don't think I would be able to write an entire blogpost on a bottle of nail polish and if I did, it certainly wouldn't be worth reading. What I mean for these obsessions is to maybe take one specific item and build off of that. For example, I have a new bottle of nail polish that is a perfect sky blue that I just love so much. So my obsessions post on that nail polish could be me talking about that specific bottle of nail polish along with other things that I love that are that same color of blue. Or I might take that bottle of nail polish and dedicate my obsessions post on other colors of blue that I love and maybe other nail polishes that I want to buy that are similar. I can form categories out of this one product and just discuss it with you and give you my thoughts. Now I know that right now this just sounds like a whole jumble of ideas and it really is just one big jumble of ideas. But I am hoping that once I start making a few of these obsessions posts, all my ideas will formulate into a perfect concept that you will all enjoy reading. Hopefully I won't have to end up back at the drawing board with this idea but you never know until you try!

Lots of love <3

What is my blog?

As you may have noticed, my blog doesn't really have a theme. I've been experimenting through-out the past few months and I just wanted to fill you guys in on what is going on inside my head. I started this out as a beauty blog (hence the name grace-n-beauty) yet I feel that I am not really fulfilling the beauty blogger criteria. I love makeup and beauty in general yet I am not like one of the popular beauty bloggers and I don't have lots of makeup or really any skill. I can't afford to buy that much makeup since I am still in school and don't have a job, so my monthly makeup favorites typically consist of the same 5 products, just in a different order and maybe with 1 more seasonal item thrown in there. I love the concept of being a beauty blogger and posting makeup tutorials and all that jazz yet I just am not qualified enough nor do I have enough resources to be good at that. I also thought of this being a fashion blog, which I guess could fall under the beauty category also, and there I fall into the same problem. I love shopping and I love fashion and clothes yet I don't go shopping because I can't afford to buy new clothes every week. To be quite honest with you, I have maybe 10 different outfits that I rotate throughout the week. So what I have decided to do is instead of this being just a beauty blog or just a fashion blog, I am going to make this blog into a lifestyle blog which basically means, I am going to post whatever I want. I will write posts about food, or nails, or music, or photography, or tech, or makeup, all the things that I love because I realized that my blog should be just as complex as I am. I don't specialize in just one thing, I love lots of things and I want my blog to be a reflection of myself because that to me really is the point of a blog. Now that I have decided the purpose of my blog and I am happy with it, I will start posting more regularly! *APPLAUSE* So I will get cracking tonight and make many many posts that I can have queued up to share with you so that i can just just share with you bits and pieces that I enjoy. Prepare yourself for many more posts and I will see you soon.

Love you lots <3

Spring songs

Recently I have been listening to more acoustic music and songs that I would consider "spring-like". All of these songs make me feel more bubbly and happy. I like to consider myself a bright and bubbly person and I feel that these songs help me feel more like myself and forget about all the bad things in life. I can be influenced greatly by something simple like a song and recently I have been catching myself being very stressed and negative and so these songs just bring me back to my normal self and help me release the stress.

Human- The Killers
I can't describe to you how happy I felt when I was sitting at my desk trying to finish my homework late at night and this song came on. Give it a listen, it is a great song.

From Eden- Hozier 
I just love this song and I love Hozier's voice, it is so relaxing to me. This song is just fantastic and its one of those slow, feel-good songs for me.

Bloom- The Paper Kites
I've raved about this song on my blog before, it is just another feel-good song and I love it. It reminds me of those summer nights when the sun is setting and it is cool out and after this freezing winter, that is what I want more than anything.

Riptide- Vance Joy
Another feel-good song (notice a theme here?) that is very relaxing and a good "chill" song.

Home/Dirty Paws- The Gardiner Sisters
I found this mash-up on Spotify and it is very well done. I like both of these songs and this acoustic mash-up is really good. I had never heard of the Gardiner Sisters before but I think I well browse through more of their music.

Reflections- Misterwives
This song is a little more upbeat compared to the other songs I listed but for me it still has that bubbly feel to it that I love.

On top of the World- Imagine Dragons
The beginning of this song is just so up-beat and poppy that it just makes me feel happy like I am on top of the world and I can't be stopped.

Laura Palmer RAC mix- Bastille
I absolutely love Bastille and this RAC mix makes Laura Palmer a less dark sounding song and makes it more happy sounding

Plant Life- Owl City
I just love how this song sounds dark and bright at the same time

Beyond the Sea- Bobby Darin
This song is pretty old but it just reminds me of summer and the ocean.

Australia- The Shins
Another upbeat song, not much else I can say, just makes me happy

Junk of the heart (happy)- The Kooks
To me this song is just so cute and it is just adorable. I just love it

Stolen Dance- Milky Chance
I love this song because it just has a bubbly moving base line that makes me want to dance

Shut up and dance- Walk the Moon
This song just makes me extremely happy and it is just so cute to me. The lyrics are adorable and I listen to this song on repeat and just dance my heart out.

There you have it! My "springy" songs that I can't stop listening to at the moment. I hope you like them and they make you just as happy as they make me!

Love you lots <3