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This will be the last of my Skincare Stash and Life Updates for 2025, firstly because I don’t plan to get a lot of new skincare and makeup in the days leading up to the holidays (my money is spend on delicious food and presents for the kids), and second because I have a few other formats planned that will be released end of 2025 and beginning of 2026 so there is no space to cram another one of these in as well.

 

 

But back to November and everything I added to my stash, which is mainly drugstore things I use on a daily basis: Skincare from Balea and Nivea, hair care from Batiste and some makeup from ebelin and Catrice. There is also one expensive thing, a restock of my favorite gel from ZIIP, but other than that it is very affordable.

 

 

 

New In skincare

For full transparency: I didn’t purchase the skincare products shown here to use them myself. I purchased them for my daughter who, as a preteen, has inherited my acne prone skin. I already set her up with an acid and a moisturizer a few months ago, relying on things I had in my stash, but now decided that she should be started on a routine that she could easily get herself at the drugstore. Her skin is dry, making it much different than mine was back when I was her age – I have been an oil slick for the majority of my days – so I figured the Balea Beauty Expert Liquid Peeling 2% BHA (125 ml for 6,45 €, full review here) would work well. The slip in texture makes it feel richer as other alternatives.

And because it is winter, I also got her the Nivea Rich Day cream 24 h Hydration with natural almond oil for dry skin (50 ml for 14 €, full review coming soon) to prevent dry patches. It contains the Nivea Triple Complex for 24 hour hydration – I have absolutely no clue what that is supposed to be – as well as some SPF that will obviously not be enough to protect the skin from the sun as you don’t use cream in quantities you would use sunscreen in (More info: Is the SPF in your makeup enough?) If I had to describe it, I’d call it „typical Nivea cream“ – it looks and smells like every other of their products I have tried.

After using both for two days, she had a reaction, with redness and itching all over her face. Now I know what you are going to ask: Why didn’t you introduce them one after the other? Didn’t you patch test first? I KNOW we should have done that. I know I tell you over and over again that this is the way to go. Yet when it comes to my own face, I often don’t follow my own advice, and that she doesn’t listen to me either shouldn’t come as a surprise for those of you with children at home.

What was the culprit? I don’t know yet. My first thought was of course the cream – perfume, plant extracts, but when patch testing she reacted to neither, but then a few days later again to the Balea one used individually. And that one has only five ingredients, all of which so far have been fine for her.

We will figure it out eventually.

 

 

New In from ZIIP

Moving on to the definitely not drugstore thing, my certainly pricey, but also lovely ZIIP Golden Gel (80 ml for 139,99 €, full review here). When ZIIP contacted me to ask if I needed a refill before the Black Friday craze began, I asked for a new bottle of this one. I use the ZIIP Halo around five times a week consistently in the mornings to depuff and shape my face, and while I have used other gels in the past with it, this is my favorite one. For full transparency: If I had to pay for it, I would probably use a cheaper alternative and maybe treat myself occasionally when it is on sale – you definitely don’t need it to see the benefits of microcurrent treatment.

But if you have the chance to try it, do give it a go.

 

 

New In makeup

Back to the drugstore, where the majority of my makeup comes from. The only thing I do go high end with eventually is foundation – the older I get, the trickier it is to get one that still looks good on my skin after a full day of work. But for my black winged liner, drugstore usually does the trick. This time I picked up the Catrice It’s easy Tattoo Liner Waterproof in 010 Black Lifeproof (1 ml for 3,45 €, full review coming soon), just to try something new, but while I need a little more time to fully makeup my mind, my first impression isn’t the best. The tip is very firm, which makes it harder for me to draw a thin line. That might be personal preference, but while it works very well to line the area right above my lashes, the wing is where I struggle. I like my wing to be fairly long (it gets longer with every passing year to lift the outside corner of my eye that keeps migrating south), but at the same time fairly thin to take away a little of the drama. With this one, the wing always turns out thicker than I want it to be, and even though I am not a makeup artist, I have been wearing liner in various forms for three decades now, so I’d consider myself experienced. Other complaints are that it won’t stay true black, but fade to a greyish black over the first few hours, and that is disappears where skin touches skin, something that inevitably happens when you are above 40 and smile.

The second thing I got is a replacement of my Beautyblender knock off that I had in rotation longer than I’d care to admit. Am I the only one that struggles with regularly replacing the things they use everyday? It is almost as if they become invisible because you see them so much. As always I went for the ebelin Makeup Sponge (1 for 2,45 €, full review coming soon) – ebelin is a drugstore brand here in Germany – and because this time around the only option were nude and black, I obviously picked the black one. Which, in hindsight, wasn’t the smartest choice. Yes, nude looks kind of dirty right from the start, but black looks dirty as soon as you used it the first time, and that is somehow worse? At least it doesn’t influence performance, which is in my opinion just as good as the original beauty blender for a fraction of the price.

 

 

New In haircare

There is one hair care product I can go for months without, and then suddenly I need it and I need it immediately – Dry Shampoo. I usually have my hair wash routine, worked out carefully considering working hours, workouts and whether or not I have the mental capacity to blow dry my hair. But ever so often that just doesn’t work and I find myself going through my hair care drawer looking for a bottle of dry shampoo to save the day. It is almost exclusively the regular one from Batiste – I have tried many of their different scents and didn’t like any of them – but when I had to stock up this time, the only one left was the Batiste Dry Shampoo for Sensitive Scalp (200 ml for 3,95 €, full review coming soon). I don’t have a sensitive scalp (or at least I no longer have one since I stopped the topical Minoxidil I was using for hair loss) and so far my hair washing routine has worked out perfectly, meaning I haven’t used it yet, but I am sure that day will come soon enough – then I will report back.

 

 

Things I have read

At first I thought I’d have nothing to show in this category: I didn’t finish a series, watch a movie or managed to read a lot last month. I am still stuck in the middle of the second part of the Fourth Wing saga, Flame Kissed – How dare you! I hear the BookTok community cry out. It is blasphemy to linger and not devour this one in late nights and stolen moments during the day!  – and I haven’t quite found the energy to continue with it. Right now I only get a few minutes to read before bed, no more than ten pages, and it really isn’t a book lending itself to this form of reading. I need at least five pages before I am up to speed again on what is happening, so I keep putting it off for „when I have more time“.

What I did read though were source books from the RPG „Das Schwarze Auge„, which is the German alternative to D&D, loosely speaking. It isn’t the same in world and species, but it is the same in what it is, and it is what I grew up with. I started playing it when I was 12 (yes, it has been around more than 35 years now) and then, quite recently, started mastering it for the kids. By now we have a group of eight people (myself included) gathering around our dining table on a monthly basis, exploring a fantasy world and battling evil. And the source books that help me fill the world with life are perfect for a quick read right before you drift off – you don’t need long to understand what they are about and they distract you perfectly from everything that is real – that really helps me sleep.

I understand that this is much more of a niche read than Fourth Wing, but it is where I am in my life right now.

 

 

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