BOO! it's october favorites time! beauty, books, barbie, etc.

Hello lovelies! Happy Halloween to you all. :) Sorry for my absence the last two weeks or so.  To be honest, work's been very stressful and when I'm home, I just want to sleep! I have sooo many photos ready for posts I have yet to do, it's overwhelming! I have a Lush haul, new lipsticks post, makeup storage post, what's in my bag post, updated skincare routine, etc. If there's one you'd particularly like to see first, please let me know!

Anyways, as it's the very last day of October and all, I thought I'd go ahead and post my October Favorites - some of which I haven't gotten around to posting about until now, ack! 

• Love & Beauty Cream Cheek Color in Pink & Coral (Forever21)
• MAC Ice Cream Cake nail polish
• OPI Rainbow Connection nail polish
• Bare Escentuals Round the Clock waterproof eyeliner in 5 PM
• MAC Let's Skate paint pot
• Lush Day of the Dead fragrance
• Benefit Watt's Up
• YSL Volupte Sheer Candy in #9 Cool Guava and #10 Tangy Mandarina
• Crabtree & Evelyn Pomegranate body lotion (I use this as a hand cream)
• Revlon Colorburst Lip Butter in Creamsicle
• MAC lipstick in Patisserie
• Smith's Strawberry lip balm (HG material!)

the lipsticks: Patisserie, Creamsicle, Cool Guava, & Tangy Mandarina

swatched in the same order (top to bottom)

MAC Patisserie

Revlon Creamsicle

You can see me wearing YSL Volupte Sheer Candy in Cool Guava and Tangy Mandarina here.

Benefit Watt's Up, Love & Beauty Pink, Love & Beauty Coral

Benefit Watts Up, Love & Beauty Pink, Love & Beauty Coral (blended)

I meant to take lip swatches with the Love & Beauty cream blushes, too, as they actually work REALLY well on lips, too! However, I forgot. If you'd like to see lip swatches, please let me know, and I'll add them into this post later.

• Chanel Beige Lame
• NARS Lola Lola
• Chanel Tweed Brun Rose blush

swatched in the same order

MAC Let's Skate paint pot on its own (top)

Chanel Beige Lame over Let's Skate paint pot

• Tokidoki x Barbie tote 

I do have a Barbie collection, and I was thinking of asking for the Tokidoki Barbie doll for Christmas (should've bought it then, but I wasn't expecting it to sell out so quickly!), but when I saw that there were other products in the collection, I was like a giddy schoolgirl! I *had* to have this tote. I bought it from Tokidoki.it (Tokidoki's official website) and it came with a bunch of Tokidoki stickers and two massive Tokidoki catalogs, too, which I loved looking through. Not sure if I'll actually ever *use* this tote (I don't want to ruin the lining!), but I love looking at it displayed in my room!

the lining is what really sold me -- LOVE. IT!

As for what I've read this month...

Let's just say it wasn't the most uplifting reading month.  I know some of you may already know about Jaycee Dugard from the news or what-have-you, but the news can't begin to cover her story as she tells it in her memoir. I read A Stolen Life in one sitting (I was up until 8 AM reading it!). It just completely destroyed me - the fact that this is nonfiction, that all these things really happened to her. I couldn't handle it. It's not the type of book that you can just read a chapter of and then go off and do something else. The more I read, the more I thought, "Okay, I have to get to the end.  I have to see things get better for her."  And, I'm not kidding, I had a nightmare after reading it, and continue to think about it every day. 

I know you might be thinking, "Well, there's something I'm NOT going to read," but even though this really shook me up emotionally (I cringed, squirmed, cried, etc.), it was absolutely worth the read. It opened my eyes to things in the world that maybe I didn't want to acknowledge, but now I feel stronger because of it.  If you still don't want to read it, but you're interested in her story (as told by others instead of by her), you can always Google "Jaycee Dugard" -- but be warned, what comes up may upset you just as much.

I've had Room on my bookshelf since it first was released, but I hadn't been up to reading it.  However, I thought, "if I can get through A Stolen Life, I can get through Room." Room is another story of abduction, albeit a very different one. It's fiction, and it's told by Jack, the five-year-old son of "Ma," who was kidnapped at age 19. Both live in a shed in the backyard of her abductor. Having it told in the boy's perspective is what made it so interesting to me.  I'll say this, though, the middle of the book was the best part, and the last hundred pages kind of dragged on in comparison.  

Room was a good read, and I'd definitely recommend it, but if you're choosing between Room and A Stolen Life, I'd go for the latter, without question.

What I'm loving on TV right now:

• The Vampire Diaries
• Once Upon a Time
• Ringer
• Modern Family
• Happy Endings

my Halloween NOTD, using Sally Hansen Nail Polish Strips :)

Of course I can't leave you without some kitty photos!

All aboard the kitty train!

Look at how I found them sleeping the other night!!

Surprise!

You can't read your Sephora holiday catalog until you give me treats!

As always, thanks so much for reading (seriously, as I type this I'm at 399 followers - I'm FLOORED! Thank you guys!).

Hope you all have a safe and unhealthy (duh!) Halloween! See you soon! :)

xoxo,

<3 Jess & her silly kitties