I took a little extra time to myself this holiday to catch up on me! I was lucky to get some extra days off work to really relax and ease myself into 2017 (BTW- HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!)
Something that I actually really, really enjoy doing to relax is clean! I like being organized so cleaning for me helps me relax. Now imagine how much I love cleaning makeup brushes!
An item that I had wanted for Christmas was the Sigma Spa Express Brush Cleaning Mat so I was excited to receive it. I immediately tested it out to see if it was any good. 
This product is pretty interesting. It sticks inside most sinks with suction cups to keep it steady. The mat is portioned off into eye and face with different textures to quick clean, deep clean (refine) and rinse the brushes. I found that each section did help with cleaning the brushes better for sure.
I only had my beauty blender solid cleanser to test this out with but what I did was wet my brushes and wipe them on the solid cleanser to pick up some soap.
I then used whatever appropriate side. In the case of the photos, I was cleaning a dense face brush so I used the face washing side to work the lather into the bristles.
Afterwards, I would rinse the brushes and use a towel to help remove any extra water on the barrel and bristles and hang them to dry. 
One trick for drying brushes is to hang them from your towel hanger (if you have one). I use a elastic hair bands to tie the brushes upside down on my towel hanger and leave them until they are dry. 
I really enjoyed using the Sigma Spa Express Brush Cleaning Mat. What I really liked about it is that I didn’t constantly have to keep my hands under running water to wash the brushes and I needed to use a lot less soap because the mat helped to work the soap into the bristles better than if I was to use my hand. It took half the time to clean my brushes and I’m not left with any extra soap residue. This worked really well for my fluffy brushes, the denser ones needed a bit more work in the refining texture, but I still got really clean brushes in the end. Overall, I’m really happy with this product and would recommend it.
Have you tried this product? What do you think of Sigma’s Cleaning Mat?
Lots of Luv,
Dal
The ergonomic design allows for easy handling and more stability when applying liquid liner. The top of the liner has a dip that I was able to rest my index finger on and extend my thumb to stabilize application closer to the felt tip.
One thing I’ll note is that I’m right-handed but this made applying eyeliner on my left eye much easier than most other liners. Also, I really love the deepness of this black, it dries matte and doesn’t smudge. I also love that the felt tip is long and has a precise point which makes creating thick or thin lines easy. 
I think with any new product you need to practice a bit to get the hang of it. I’m sure that someone new to eyeliner will find the learning curve with this shorter than a standard liner, but for me I think I’ll just stick to what I know.
My skin can feel itchy and appear flakey but the combination of this body wash and the lotion has improved the look and feel of my skin. It really feels like giving myself the spa treatment. I can see myself using these products for a long time and I hope that they create more scents and other body products – I’d love to see a hand cream in this line one day!! If you have dry skin, I really think these are great products to try. It’s super gentle, hydrating and I honestly have seen a huge difference in my skin.
I had a lot of fall-out when applying these eyeshadows. I assumed this would happen so I did apply the shadows before the rest of my makeup. I did have to use a makeup wipe to remove the fall-out though.
For my look first I used my Naked2 Basics palette to build a base on my eyes then I added some Too Faced Shadow Insurance on top and covered my whole lid with lithium. After, I mixed vega and galaxy and placed that on the center of my lid and finished it off with specter mixed with element on my lower lash line.
BONUS! Unilever Box ~ This was the most exciting thing in my topbox. I know Luxe Box subscribers received this and I was hoping that us Topbox subscribers would too. This is full of many great items that I cannot wait to dive in to. I received Dove, Nexxus, Vaseline, Degree, St. Ives, TRESemme & Simple! (total value of all the items are $30.62)
What’s in the Kit?
Price:
Stencils
My Thoughts
Application & Coverage:
What I like:
I received this before Birchbox stopped distributing in Canada and I only recently started using this. I did say that I would probably use this tint in the summer and I did! I’ve been wearing very minimal make-up in the summer (concealer, blush, mascara, lip gloss) so this goes really nicely with that look.
I wasn’t the biggest fan of this when I first received it but somehow I started using this in the summer. I ended up really liking this formula when prepping for the weddings I attended in August.I like that how this BB Cream Primer canceled out the the colour in my eyelids so that my eyeshadow stood out more. I also think I appreciated the SPF 20 in the summer more. My eyeshadow pretty long with this primer and even in the humidty. I’m definitely picking up the full size.