April Favorites

Welcome to the first edition of my monthly favorites! I am super excited to start a regular favorites post. I love watching monthly fave videos (especially Estee!). Since I'm not brave enough to tackle YouTube (yet!!), this is This first post covers all of my favorites from this past April, even though I started a little late.

Beauty & Body
Anyone who knows me knows that I am a strict Essie addict when it comes to polish. I have a few other brands that I've sort of accumulated over time, but I always end up using the same few Essie polishes. My current favorite for summer is the polish Plumberry from Essie. For fall and winter, reds are always my go to colors. As it started to warm up, I knew I couldn't keep wearing the same burgundy polish. I love it, but it's not really very beachy. I needed a color that wasn't gaudy or tacky, but was still bright enough to be a little eye catching. I found the plumberry color in the bottom of my sister's makeup drawer, and decided to, ah, borrow it indefinitely. I tried it out, and immediately loved the color. It's just the right amount of, well, plum and berry! It's red enough to stay true to my wardrobe palatte and pink enough to fit the spring/summer polish season! Photographed is Plumberry with a clear topcoat, but I'm interested to see how it will look if I try it with a matte topcoat.. Follow my Instagram for updates on that!
I could not stand the shampoo and conditioner I was using while I was at school. My hair was generally a knotty, unruly, puffball and I was constantly two steps away from pulling a Britney and just shaving it all off. Now that I'm back home, I'm trying out a new product, Dove's shampoo and conditioner for Coarse and Curly Hair. My "curls" fall anywhere from nearly perfect ringlets to barely wavy. It all depends on the products, the weather, and some other factor that I can't figure out. I've been home for a week and used the Dove combination 5 times since I've been back

Online
A semi-new blog has definitely been on my radar the past few weeks too. I mentioned them a while ago with my Rule of Prep post, but I really want to mention them again. The Navy Blazer is a blog that grew out of the preppy-centered subreddit. It's based on reader submissions, and it's just everything prep-related. I love them because they're classic preppy. They appreciate the high quality and high craftsmanship of clothing, not buying things for the brand. Just as the name says they are a navy blazer as opposed to a gaudy dress, which is right up my style alley. The blog is stylish and snappy, and I can't wait to submit a post or two of my own!

Music
Generally, I'm about three years behind when it comes to finding new music. I don't really discover things until they're on the radio, which apparently makes things much less cool, according to my sister. But this time, this time I am ahead of the curve! So go me! A few weeks ago, one of my friends from high school shared a link to her brother's YouTube channel. Going by Brad Wilson, one of my classmates had just released his first official music video to his song, The Nanana Song. I knew he was in a band when we were in high school, but I had no idea that he sang too! When I first started the video, I wasn't sure what to expect ad the beginning was a little rocky, coming it never having heard him sing before. After the first verse though, I was totally hooked! I didn't know what to expect from Brad's voice, and I was kind of blown away by it! He's music falls into a more alternative genre, and he has one of those really niche-sounding voices that really succeeds in alternative music. I loved his cover of Rocket Man, because Elton John is an actual god. I'd like to hear him cover a song from Alt-J, it would be super interesting to hear with his voice. I definitely recommend that you check out Brad's music!

Movies
So, I for one am not a big X-Men fan. I've only seen one, X-Men The Last Stand, and I kind of hated it. It was just so annoyingly cheesy in the end. Since then, I really have avoided the X-Men franchise. The new X-Man Apocalypse movie though, actually seems pretty decent, in comparison to the rest. The cast looks really great, and I love Sophie Turner in Game of Thrones, so I have to gove her a chance in X-Men. I was sort of neutral in opinion about the movie, and then I saw this video from The Nerdist. She was super into the whole announcement and actually got me pretty excited for the new surprise castings including potentially Taylor Swift as Dazzler. Maybe it was the excitement that she's probably paid to have or the thought of an 80's centric T Swizzle record, but I might actually see the film when it comes out.

People
I heard about Iskra Lawrence from one of Phil DeFranco's daily shows. In short, Iskra is a gorgeous model who, again and again, shuts down haters calling her fat. She is all about loving yourself and your body. She's technically a plus sized model, but let's be honest, that's stupid since that starts at size 8. She is amazingly fit and gorgeous, and her Instagram is full of some serious goal photos. I'm loving her confidence. Iskra is really attentive and active with her followers too, which gets her a ton of brownie points in my book!


April was a busy month for favorites! I am really looking forward to what May is going to bring. Until next time,

Writing to you from M, Personally