1. The nail polish beauty – Nails Inc Baker Street 2. The obligatory selfie 3. The new cleansing oil love 4. Last week’s March Favourites post 5. Organizational inspiration, courtesy of Tamira. 6. The drugstore eyeshadow discovery, courtesy of L’Oreal

 This week — now last week thanks to my weekend of no productivity — was one of those calm before the storm kind of weeks, with classes wrapping up with only exams and final papers to follow. But I know I’m letting myself be lulled into this false blanket of security, as there aren’t any deadlines looming over me at the moment but I have to admit that the next few weeks will be all sorts of exhausting. I’m fortunate for this slowing pace, though, because I am suffering through quite a cold at the moment but it seems to be on the way out now. Being someone who rarely gets sick enough to interfere with my everyday life, I didn’t realize what the sudden fatigue was about but as soon as the runny nose, sore throat and cough came, it sort of dawned on me. I know I am not someone who is pleasant in any way to deal with when they aren’t feeling so great, so some time to breathe and sleep was kind of a necessity.

I’m hesitant to declare my love for any sort of product, but this is especially true for those of the skincare variety, shortly after picking it up as I feel my thoughts could take a nosedive once the novelty subsides but I feel confident about speaking of my newfound devotion to the Garnier Clean + Nourishing Cleansing Oil. At the beginning of the week, I finally spotted the affordable $9-10 CDN cleansing oil and being dangerously low in my Boots Cleansing Balm, so it was completely justified that I picked it up. Contrary to what the marketing of the product would suggest, however, the main ingredient in the formula is mineral oil, that controversial ingredient that I luckily do not react to that is one of the gentlest makeup removers out there. This is my first cleansing oil and I haven’t yet braved trying to use it to remove my eye makeup- using anything other than Bioderma for this tends to be a recipe for catastrophe – but I can say that it removes everything when massaged into dry skin and then emulsifies with water to rinse clean. There isn’t a residue in the strictest sense left behind but it does leave my skin soothed and hydrated afterwards. It has my seal of approval.

In the same shopping trip, I went for the L’Oreal Colour Riche Eye Shadow in Sultry Seductress and I’m pleased to report that it can be filed under the successes. I’ll spare you the ramble but feel free to click on over here to hear the details; essentially it’s a plummy-hued quad with impressive quality shadows offering a variety of finishes rather than the usual uniform glittery-frosty mess. The pearly shade is very shimmery but that’s not necessarily a bad thing…

Oh, and I told myself that I wasn’t going to include this often-raved-about polish, the cobalt Baker Street from Nails Inc. because I only picked it up on Thursday with a few other bits and bobs from Sephora but I was in the mood to paint my nails that night and it was instant awe. The formula is undoubtedly the most opaque I’ve come across and forgiving simultaneously to boot – I was lacking the energy to bother with a second coat but the polish does not even need it. There’s something about this shade that can’t be put into words.

It’s times like these with such craziness ahead that I tend to turn to yet another attempt at organization — which is near impossible for me to achieve — and along with this, I returned to planning in an agenda. I’ve been putting in more effort-based goals and this has helped to not get disillusioned by the failure of actually doing what you set out to do in a particular day. I wanted to figure out an efficient layout for my plain old blogging notebook and I remembered the inspirational Tamira, of Lipstick With Some Sunshine’s post a few months back and I’ve been giving her layout a go and so far it’s working.

How was your week last week? I hope it was exponentially more productive than mine…

Maggie, x.