Happy Leap Day everyone! It is quite a novelty being able to post on a day that only comes around every 4 years! Today it's time to talk Empties - and boy, oh boy, do I have a whole load. And surprisingly quite a few makeup items, when usually it's mostly skincare.

As it's a Friday I thought I'd ease you all into the weekend with a simple NOTD post. Although I currently don't have this combo on my nails right now, I did have this Essie combination on a couple of weeks ago and love how they worked together. 

The first Lust Have It Women's Beauty Box* for 2016 has arrived! To be honest, this actually arrived last week, but I've only just gotten around to posting about it now. The January bag was literally jam packed with five products inside, including three skincare items (one full size, and two deluxe sample sizes) and two makeup items (both full size). Let's delve into the contents...

Despite seeing Hask Essentials products in stores, I've never tried the products at all. Luckily I was sent a couple items from their hair care lineup to try and now I am kicking myself for not using anything from the brand sooner. Not only are they affordable, they're easily available and the products work exactly as they promise.

New releases are coming out thick and fast in NZ, especially from the more affordable brands. Maybelline has got a whole load of new products coming out covering all your makeup needs from bases to brow palettes to lipsticks. 

After this particular post here, where I gave a quick overview of the new L'Oreal releases coming out this month, many of you were eager to read my thoughts on the new Matte FX* lip colours. I've been giving them a trial run over the past couple of weeks, so here's my thoughts on these unique new offerings.

2016 is shaping up to be an amazing year for new beauty releases, beauty brands are coming out with new products left, right and centre and we're not even through the second month of the year yet! Clinique's big launches for the start of this year is the Pep-Start Eye Cream* which I've been using for the past month or so, and their latest foundation offering coming out in March, the Chubby In The Nude Foundation Stick*.

Why yes, you did indeed read that title correctly - everything in this haul only cost USD $1 (about NZD $1.50). It's not often you can find things these days for this cheap but Shop Miss A have everything on their website for only $1 - I mean, it's slightly ridiculous! On the site is not only beauty things, but you can also get jewellery, hair bits and accessories too, and it's all crazily cheap. 

With Summer well and truly in full swing (this humidity in Auckland is crazy...), there have been a few products that have become staples in my skin and body care routine. I am constantly using and trying a lot of different products for my skin, but this little selection is some that have become essentials for these hotter months.

L'Oreal Paris are starting the year off with a huge bang with a hoard of new releases. I know I won't be the only one excited to see a few of these products finally hitting NZ and Aussie shores this Februay - there's gorgeous palettes, eye products, and some very intriguing matte lip products. I will, of course, be doing more in depth reviews with swatches of the products over the coming month, but for now I wanna give you all an overview of what is coming out and what you can expect from them.

It's time for another NOTD! I know that my last one was also a blue tone in the form of Essie Strut Your Stuff, but I absolutely love wearing blue on the nails especially for summer. I recently rejigged my nail polish (I finally got an IKEA Helmer to store them all in!), and discovered some shades I had totally forgotten about, these being two of them.

I love a good subscription style beauty box - you would have seen on CM my monthly Lust Have It unboxings, and if you're a long time reader you'll know I've tried a lot that they offer in NZ. Quite a few have shut down, which is disappointing, but there are new ones cropping up. I found out about My Monthly Beauty Box NZ from Instagram, as I think they had followed me and saw they were offering a subscription service, where you could do it as a one off for NZD $29.95 with free shipping. Naturally I wanted to try it and review it for the blog, but also out of my own curiosity, Unfortunately it has left me really disappointed and I've got a few issues with it...

If you read CM last Wednesday you would have already seen this New-Trals vs. Neutrals Palette* from Makeup Revolution crop up in my Most Loved; it's also been featured loads on my Instagram as I am such a fan of it! Makeup Revolution is a super affordable, drugstore brand started in the UK a couple of years back. I've done a haul from their website way back in September 2014 (see it here) and was impressed by the products I got, so it was super exciting when Beauty Bliss announced they would be stocking some of their range.