Not gonna lie, for the first time, I had quite a hard time selecting the products to be featured in this round of monthly favourites. Mostly because there has been a lot of old favourites *cough* NARS Tinted Moisturiser *cough* in rotation that I am sure you guys are sick of me mentioning it - I am sick of me mentioning them all the time. That said, I still came up with a handful of products that I've really been enjoying so I guess I did not have as hard a time as I thought I did. 

...and water and oils might not mix, but things have only gotten better after I added oils into my routine a couple years back. The harshest months might have already passed here in London and while some people are starting to put away, I still have a couple of old faithfuls in rotation. 

A new year, a new favorites and more than a couple of new products. Well, if I'm honest with you, I think all of these products were results of shopping trips from November onwards. Welp! My bank balance. But it's all done in the name of research, and these were the newbies that made the cut. 

I've been planning this post for quite a while, each time not knowing where to start. I've finally decided to categorize this into at least three parts: hair, skincare, and makeup. Most of these products won't be a stranger to those that have been following the blog for a while now, and I hate to sound repetitive. But they're just really my favorites, okay? Anyway. 

[Dove Dry Shampoo | Herbal Essence Fresh Balance Shampoo | Tangle Teezer | L'Oreal Elvive Extraordinary Oil | Bumble and bumble Brilliantine | Virgin Coconut Oil]

You know that tousled, I just rolled out of bed looking this fantastic look? Back in the old days, I was convinced that not brushing my hair in the morning would result in that look. Little did I know, I was closer to looking like a bird's nest than that chic undone 'do. My hair was always on the coarse side, I never thought that I could ever have ridiculously soft hair. but after chopping off near 20 cm a couple months back (read about it here) and getting my nubby fingers on my current hair loves (here), my hair has elevated to a whole new state that actually requires a styling product to have it hold. Trust me when I say this was never required before. So enter Bumble and Bumble Billiantine. 

I have to say, October was good to me. Blogwise, I've been managing to update a couple times a week. School-wise, I'm slightly falling behind on the piles of reading that's slowly piling up on the side of my desk. And lifewise, one word. Amazing. I've been having weekly The London Update posts that you can check out here if you want to have a nosey into my life.

I remember talking to the flatmates a couple weeks back. We were talking about how my friend splurged out a small fortune on shampoos from Aesop and the guys just looked at us girls like we had sprouted two heads and turned into a weird shade of purple. They asked us about the difference in shampoos and how much we each owned before shaking their heads and sighing, we'll always have Head and Shoulders. Oh, the silly boys. 

L'Oreal Elvive Extraordinary Oil | Organic Virgin Coconut Oil

This week flew by, but at the same time, it was like every second was five hours which I'll go into detail in my London Update post (which I'll work on as soon as I need another break from studying). But apologizing for the lack of updates the past couple weeks, I present to you the most used products of the past week. 

(yes, that is me taking a break from studying and too lazy to clean my desk...)

I've always had my hair long. Well, not always. I've had a few disastrous right-under-the-shoulder midlength cuts. But for the past seven years, I've always had my hair long. And while I loved it, there was that little part of me itching to cut it short(er). But alas, I have naturally wavy hair, and my stylist kept drilling "you can't have short hair unless you want to turn into a poofball" into me. Now, my stylist is a lovely person, and she's good. She's saved me from a half-dozen disasters resulting from impulse cuts suffered under the hands of rubbish stylers. But while she's good, she's not amazing.

May always flies by for me. 

My birthday is in May and exciting things always seem to call up a meeting and decide to show up in May all together instead of evenly spreading out across the year. 

I've been testing out a few products this month and have yet to finish the pile that I bought when I was in America. But that said, I've been keeping quite a simple routine with a few product swaps this month  so this month's favorites are things that I've been using quite religiously the past month.