The month of January has come to its enviable end, and with that, I rounded up all the products I have been loving over the past 31 days. It is a mix of some new products and some older ones which have been getting a bit of love recently. I've also included a few extra favourites at the end.

You know it's that time again for my January Instagram round up. This month really flew by but I seemed to have taken a fair amount of photos! If you want you can follow me @cassandramyee.

This post will be the final ever for my Sample Bar unboxing as unfortunately the company is closing down! Big sad faces around here as I really enjoyed getting this little Glam Pack each month and discovering a load of new products. Compared to last months jam packed December box, the January is feeling a little light, but still has the 5 products and 4 of which are full sized - pretty impressive!

[Apologies for the late upload also, I got delayed with getting up my December Glam Pack review, so just disregard the fact that it is almost February.]

During the summer months, I feel like that is when you can get away with loud neon and bright colours on the nails. Even if it is raining outside, neon on the nails can make anyone feel better! I have chosen my Top 10 nail colours for Summer (you can see my Top 10 for Spring here) and they are all rather bright and bold but they scream tans, beaches and sipping on cocktails.

Technically this is not a current nail of the day post, as I sported this polish last week, but have just had so many other posts I wanted to get up that this one took a back seat, but here it is now.

Apologies that this is about a week later then when I should have uploaded it, but the time is just flying by and I can hardly keep up! The Sample Bar Glam Pack for December was packed and very generous. I received 11 items all crammed into the little box; 7 products, plus 4 bonus products/items. For my initial thoughts and unboxing for the December pack, you can see it here with more photos and a run down of the items.

As promised from my MUA Luxe haul (take a look here), here is the rest of the goodies I picked up with that order. Most of this was on sale and at such great prices which are all still available on the website.

It's about time I did an updated Travel Makeup bag seeing as my last one was from August! This particular assortments of products was for a weekend trip, when I was going out both Friday and Saturday night so I needed makeup that was going to last and be able to created more night out looks [hence why I brought 2 palettes, I needed the eye shadow choice!] Many of the products are staples in my everyday makeup as well and I just couldn't travel slash live without them! My makeup bag was was one from Kathmandu that came with 2 other smaller ones, it is nothing glamorous but I wanted something that was clear so I could see easily what I had brought with me.

You can't not get excited when MUA [Makeup Academy] announce they are bringing out new products, let alone a whole new range, so when I heard about the release of the LUXE range, it's safe to say I was pretty pumped. The first release had some new lip, eye and brow products, with nail wraps added fairly recently and many new products to come according to the site. MUA products are brilliant and I have items from them that I use on the daily; they are affordable and great quality and they ship all the way from the UK to little ol' NZ.

A couple days after New Years, an email popped into my inbox saying they were offering free international shipping on orders over £20 (approx. NZD $40) so naturally I jumped on and ordered a few things from the LUXE range as well as a few other items which will be featured in a separate post.

I am possibly a little late on the band wagon seeing as Christmas has been and gone but I recently brought this OPI Mariah Carey Holiday Mini collection from My Beauty Store for only $12.45 and I love the colours so had to share them with you all.


There are 4 mini bottles from her larger 2013 Holiday collection, appropriately dubbed 'Holidays Hits'.

Last week ilovebeauty were having quite a good sale and had Essie nail polishes for only $8 each, which is an amazing price (they are usually $14.99 on the site). I have brought a couple of things from ilovebeauty before and it's a good place in NZ to find cheaper prices for beauty, hair and nail items. And a big plus is that shipping is super fast (approx. 3-4 days).

I resisted the urge to buy all the Essie and went with 2, in Tour De Finance and Butler Please. I am a big fan of Essie polishes, as they have large flat brushes that glide on easily, 2 coats is always enough and they have a really good wear time.

Lately I have added a few new gemstones to my collection with some really interesting finds. There is something about gemstones and minerals that I find really fascinating and I love collecting them; you can see #001 and #002 with other new additions of gemstones + minerals.

When I heard that this set was going to be released from Real Techniques, I think my heart skipped a beat. Well perhaps not completely, but it did send my makeup senses into overdrive and I just knew it had to be mine. I have the Core Collection, the Blush Brush and the Duo-Fibre collection and they are some of my favourite brushes. Samantha Chapman (or Pixiwoo) just has it all figured out with these brushes, they are affordable, super high quality and make makeup application so much easier. The Sam's Picks Exclusive Brush set includes 6 brushes, 5 of which are already available either individually or in a set, plus 1 set exclusive brush.

Maybelline really hit the nail on the head when they brought out the 24hr Color Tattoos. One of the first shades I got was Bad To The Bronze and I absolutely love it. This shade in Barely Branded is no exception.

StrawberryNet is a site I have often browsed on but have never actually brought anything off it, although I know many people who have. It is a great site to find high end and lower end brands for very affordable prices. All products are authentic and they also offer free worldwide shipping, just an added bonus. When I was contacted to review this Fusion Beauty Ultraflesh Shinebox I was beyond excited as it looked like a very cool makeup kit, and I wasn't wrong!

Nude By Nature is a brand I have only recently tried in the past 6 months or so, I had always seen it at Farmers but never thought much of it. On NZ Sale in the middle of last year, they had this big kit which included some of their skincare products as well as some makeup, this Mineral Eye Shadow Trio being one of them. These are a little hit and miss for me, which I will get into more details below, but I think as a brand they are great; they have no animal testing and their ingredients are 100% naturally derived.

If you are an avid reader of my blog [not sure how many of you out there...] but you should know by now that I quite like Revlon nail polishes. Partly due to the fact that I can usually find them for super cheap online, via. NZ Sale (you can usually get them for $4!), or at one of my favourite places for budget beauty finds, Postie and also that they are pretty good as polishes go.

Last week Postie were having a 20% off all beauty sale so I nabbed a couple of new shades for only $6.40 each, when they usually are $8 (pretty good price even without the sale!).

[Excuse the battered outside... more info about it all below]

This post is a few days late but this is the polish I rocked on New Years Eve. I thought something shiny and metallic was the perfect polish colour to ring in the new year, and Revlon Top Speed in Metallic fit the bill.

Coming at you is Part 2 of my 3 part Cherry Culture haul [yes, it was a rather large order]. The last past featured a bunch of Jordana products, which you can see swatches and more info about here. This will be a slightly shorter one as I only brought 3 items from the brand L.A. Colors, all of which are nail polishes (no surprises there right?)

So it has come to the end of 2013 and it is time for the last Most Loved for the year! I've been reaching for a lot of different things this month and trying out some neglected makeup but there are a few things that I just keep coming back too.

HAPPY NEW YEAR! Twenty-Fourteen has begun, so I thought I would do a little round-up of my nails photos from Instagram. Not all of them make it to Instagram, as they now end up on my NOTD posts here, but before I started my blog in July Instagram was my outlet for all things nails and makeup.