This was definitely one of those super quick month's that just whizzed by, and on a whole, it treated me pretty darn well! July turned out to be the month of the palettes and I found myself reaching for a particular three during the month of July. Of course, there are a couple of other beauty products that made the cut of Most Loved, as well as a few non-beauty loves too.

Background Image Credit | Kayla Newell The end of month only means one thing - let's talk empties! At the start of the month I always think I am going to have nothing to share but I actually end up with lots of empty things. This month was a mix of hair, skincare and makeup that is making it's way to the rubbish bin.

Over the past two weeks or so I have bought a handful of polishes, so I've lumped them together into one collective haul. I purchased them at various places and all for such cheap prices [always a bonus!]

New releases from brands are always so exciting and this particular one from MUA has been much anticipated by me! I have a lot of love for the recent Luxe line of products that they released late last year, and these Velvet Lip Lacquers are up there with some of my favourite lip products. I have the first drop of shades they made and a couple of months ago they announced four new shades that would be added to the line, and I was pretty darn excited!

I have gotta say this week was pretty great one, mostly down to the fact that my blog turned ONE years old on Tuesday and the response I am getting from my giveaway (shameless plug) is blowing me away! Although right now as I type this, I am surrounded by tissues and have a flaming red nose, that is not going to get me down and I shall solider on and round up the week that was!

Sunday's are always reserved for The Weekly Post Collective (which will be posted later) but I just couldn't wait to write this post! Yesterday I did an end of month review for the June box which was an all-round good one, but I think I can predict that this one is going to be pretty stand out! Violet Box is a monthly subscription service for NZ and Australia too, where you pay $25 a month, plus $4.50 postage.

Now first off I have to give a thanks to my sister Emily, who gave me this palette for my birthday in April - she definitely knows me well! I have the beautiful (but battered) In The Light palette [which you can see the review with swatches right here]; the shadows are incredible quality and I knew that this one would be no different.

For a very long time I was terrified of cream blushes, I didn't know what would be the best way to apply them so they would look natural and lumping a bunch of cream product onto my cheeks seemed like a daunting task, so I just stuck to good old powders. But after a bit of trial and area [and cheeks that were worthy of clown status] I feel much more confident when it comes to cream blushes and they have fast become my favourite way to blush - they provide a more natural appearance and last a bit longer than the powder counterparts.

So who would have thought that a whole year later my little blog would be one year old!? It is crazy to think that one year ago today I pushed publish on my first ever post and 315 posts later, here I am! I'm immensely proud (and so surprised!) how much my blog has grown and the reception it gets puts a big ol' smile on my face on the daily. I remember getting my first comment from Charley and being over the moon that someone all the way over in the UK had read my little blog. Even now I get excited by every single comment I get and aim to reply to all of them! Creativity wise, it's been an amazing outlet for me; the photography, the editing and the writing giving me a break from writing essays and doing university work. I've also just about doubled my makeup and nail polish collection, my bank account hates me and the local courier knows my house pretty darn well.

So as a HUGE thank you to all you wonderful people out there I wanted to put together a few items to give away to one of you!

By now you must know that I love shopping online, and more than that I love shopping online via. US sites. Now with having the services of YouShop, it makes it a lot easier to shop overseas and get a lot of different products to NZ that we would otherwise never be able to get here. I'd come across Drugstore.com and Beauty.com a while back but finally took the plunge to make an order after reading Laura's haul she did from the site.

Both sites are connected by one checkout cart, so you can shop across them both with Beauty.com having higher-end products (Smashbox, NARS, Urban Decay etc) and Drugstore.com with the cheaper 'drugstore' items (Maybelline, Wet N Wild, Revlon etc). They have got everything so I really had to restrain myself from not buying all the things and I whittled it down to some items I have had my eye on for a while.

Hello Sunday and hello Weekly Post Collective #012! There was a bit of nail polish action, some revelations into my new found appreciation for lip gloss and a couple of reviews in the mix.

If you're a reader of CM, you would have already seen this in my latest (and rather large) iHerb haul (here) where I promised a review with swatches of this e.l.f. Studio Beauty Book in Natural Look. I am a big fan of e.l.f. products and use many on a regular basis and considering how cheap they are, the quality is generally really good.

Pamplona Purple from OPI was actually one of the very first OPI nail polishes I bought and it definitely fueled an addiction to the brand soon after. I decided to give it a whirl on the nails again but had to add a bit of glitter just to spruce up the colour a bit.

Benefit have got to be the makeup brand that do the best mini products, in the cutest kits. I am a huge fan of these things, as it is a great way to try out decent sized samples of the products to see if you actually like them. This particular set, named Primping With The Stars, says that it is the All-Time Greatest 'Fake-Its' Kit and it comes with six deluxe sample products (including two of my faves - POREfessional and They're Real). I have included links to the US Benefit website with the US prices, as well as the NZ prices if you want to purchase the products at Smith & Caugheys.

As a nail polish-a-holic, my nails and surrounding nail beds get pretty dry and damaged, so I need a hand cream that is super nourishing and moisturising as soon as I rub it into my hands and I think I have found a new favourite in the Linden Leaves Herbalist Hand & Nail Treatment*.

You probably know by now I can't resist a cheap bargain, so when I saw The Warehouse had $6 Revlon polishes, you know I had to grab a few! I really like the Revlon polishes and they make up quite a large chunk of my nail polish collection, they have a great colour range and have pretty good formulas - generally on the thin side and usually need two coats for them to be opaque.

This week on CM was a rather exciting one; with the dropping of the 'blogspot' part in my URL to now just becoming a .com, a few tweaks to my layout and header and introducing the Disqus commenting system. It was an all-round fantastic week, but sadly it is the final day of uni holidays and it's back to the study tomorrow.

If you are in NZ and are a beauty lover, you need to sign up to be apart of Beauty Review*, it is a great online community where you can read and review products, chat to other like-minded people in the forums and also get the chance to get product to trial and then review. I've talked about it a bit more in depth on my past Rewards Vault haul here. BR opened up the Rewards Vault for the second time around in May where they had a whole bunch of various products you could get using the points you accumulate for participating on the site.

Max Factor is a brand that I have really not tried much of at all, and only recently did I discover that actually Max Factor and Covergirl are basically just the same thing, where Max Factor is UK based and Covergirl is America/Canada based - hands up who knew that! So actually I have technically tried a lot of Max Factor as I really like Covergirl products (especially their mascaras!)

We can get both brand here in NZ (how very spoilt of us), and when this foundation got released a few months ago Farmers had it on offer for $20, down from its original price of $30. I've been using it a lot, so much so that I only have about a quarter of it left, so it is about time I actually shared some thoughts and opinions on this foundation.

This is just a quick PSA to share with you a guest post I wrote for an amazing blog - Laura Laura. When Laura contacted me and asked me to do a What's In My Bag post I was over the moon and so excited to even be included on her blog, as it's pretty darn amazing. She is a fellow New Zealand…

Art Deco is a fairly new brand to me. Last month I blogged about their eyeshadows and (pretty amazing) magnetic beauty boxes and since then I have been browsing the Art Deco stand every time I am in Farmers. One particular thing that really caught my eye was this gorgeous Bronzing Glow Blusher and I won't lie, the packaging had me sold!

It is no secret, I love e.l.f. products and one place I love to shop from is iHerb, as they have great prices and cheap shipping worldwide. Their e.l.f. selection has just grown and you can get pretty much everything from the brand via. iHerb, so in this particular order I went a little crazy and brought quite a bit of stuff...

Woohoo, the Weekly Post Collective has hit double figures with round up number 10 coming at you today! I swear this week was over in one blink and as I am on holiday, I literally feel like I accomplished nothing - but that's what holidays are for right? There was a lot of beauty goodness on CM as I rounded out June with my Most Loved, Empties and Instagram round up and of course, had a few reviews in the mix as well.

So these Take A Peek posts are becoming a bit of a tradition on CM, with instalment numero four coming at you today. This was the makeup I packed when I traveled up to Auckland late in May (blogged about it here) and naturally it was hard to narrow the makeup choices down, so I ended up with a rather hefty makeup bag. I was away for five days, so surely it's justified right...?

First off, this nail polish just screams Autumn/Winter to me. I love these polishes that are so dark they look almost black and deep plums are so on point for the colder months.

So it seems like MAC have been churning out the limited editions collections over the past few months, and it is safe to say they have got me sucked right in. My MAC obsession is in full force right now and I find it hard to tear myself away from the website (and to not spend all of my money).  I am not a huge fan of the Osbournes, although I do love Kelly on Fashion Police, but when I saw what this collection looked like I knew I was going to need to buy at least one thing. I felt quite restrained when the collection was released in the US and only added three items to my cart and got them to me via. YouShop.

To finish up my monthly wrap up for June, here are all the products that I emptied out in June. The majority of it is skincare as I seem to churn through that stuff and only a couple makeup items, but seeing as I mostly talk makeup and nails on CM, it is nice to chat skincare for a change! Also note, most of these products have been used over a course of months, not just in June; that'd just be bonkers to get through all this in 30 days!

If you are new here, one thing you need to know about me is that I am obsessed with Instagram and love sharing a whole bunch of pics on the amazing app. June was packed with lots of snaps, so here is the round up!