Monthly Favorites: September 2025 Edition!

[KhyleyBT]

Happy fall—officially—BIC, I hope September has treated you well! I’m in my annual cliché fall girl cycle, hyped about the leaves changing 🍂, pumpkin everything, candles, comfort show rewatch 😉, and MORE. 🤩

Of course, I also have some new goodies to yap about, fresh from the annual Sephora HQ Gratis box haul… drumroll please! 🥁 I’m stepping into the changing season with this decadent shower oil from L'Occitane and dreamy body & hair mist from Touchland. 😍 I mix the oil with my body wash when I’m needing some extra indulgence and encourage you to do the same. This Vanilla Velvet scent is cozy but lasting, even though it’s a mist, and is the perfect fall transition scent.

Lastly, I finally got my grimy mitts on the viral Kulfi lip oil stains when they got restocked and they happily joined my lip hall of fame! 💋 They are everything they promise and more, long-lasting, hydrating and GORGEOUS shades. I enjoy that you can keep it glossy 🌟 or wipe off the gloss for a more natural stained look too! If you haven’t tried, hop to it immediately BIC, you won’t regret it. 💞

Here's my full list of faves this month:

• Kulfi Lassi Lips Staining Long-Lasting Moisturizing Lip Oil
• L'Occitane Cleansing And Softening Refillable Shower Oil With Almond Oil 8.4 oz/ 250 mL
• Paula's Choice Pro-Collagen Peptide Plumping Gel-Cream Moisturizer 1.7 oz / 50 mL
• Touchland Vanilla Velvet Power Essence Body & Hair Fragrance Mist Vanilla Velvet

Show me what you got BIC! What products are your must haves and what are you most excited for this fall? Let’s catch up! 🤝  Do your best to tag your faves with the “#” so we can sparkle ✨ in our Sephora-holic light together. 😍

P.S. We are still investigating the product tag search issue and appreciate your patience here! Please still share your faves, we don’t want to miss out on hearing all about them!

[WinglessOne]

@lmaster  Me looking at your photos:

• 1st photo: Is that… a mini Baskin-Robbins spoon?
• 2nd photo: It IS a mini spoon! 😍

I’m not usually a fan of little product spatulas, but that one’s ridiculously cute. What a fun collab!

[lmaster]

@WinglessOne it is ridiculously cute!! Such a perfect compliment to the collab

[itsfi]

Most of my September favorites are long-standing staples in my collection but there are a few product pairings that were newly discovered this month. 

The Ceremonia Guava line has been generally good for my hair and the Ceremonia Guava Hydrating Leave-In Conditioner makes another appearance on my monthly faves list (first for 2025 though). A  good detangler and thermal protectant, leaves my hair soft, smooth, shiny (not greasy), hydrated and manageable. @jaaayp Came in handy with the topsy-turvy weather we had / are having this month. A different line but another shout out for Ceremonia @danielledanielle @Ispend2much6.

Tower 28 Beauty SunnyDays SPF 30 Tinted Sunscreen Foundation is a HG, GOAT product for me and a continued repeated repurchase. I enjoyed many of the new skin tints released this summer and they'll continue to be part of my collection but SunnyDays has been the one I reach for the most.

I really appreciated how the finely milled LYS Beauty Triple Fix Setting Powder smoothed and set my makeup, giving me a natural matte blurred finish and absorbing excess sebum where I'm oilier without drying out the drier leaning parts of my face.

The plummy brown of Saie Lip Liner 101: Creamy & Nourishing Lip Pencil Tease is actually a nice MLBB shade for my naturally more pigmented lips when lined and diffused with a light hand and has been a go-to summer-to-fall pairing when topped with the muted rosy taupe hue of Peptide Lip Tint Nourishing Glaze - rhode | Sephora - Toast.

Another dynamic duo for me was the perfume pairing of PHLUR Vanilla Skin Eau de Parfum Travel Spray 0.32 oz / 9.5 ml eau de parfum spray and Ellis Brooklyn APPLE LOVE Eau de Parfum Travel Spray 0.34 oz / 10 mL Eau de Parfum. I played mixologist with these two scents this month @KhyleyBT, making modifications to match my mood and the temperature outside. The soft, creamy, woodiness of Vanilla Skin married well with the crispness of Apple Love and tempered the fruity floral notes to keep them from being overly sweet. 

[PrettyPaint]

@itsfi That combination of the Vanilla Phlur and Ellis Brooklyn apple sounds incredible. Perfect for Fall, too! 

[itsfi]

It really is a lovely pairing for fall @PrettyPaint. I find that with the exception of Myth, Miami Nectar and RRose, that I prefer to layer the Ellis Brooklyn fragrances I have with other perfumes. The other 3 would be great with other scents as well, I'm sure, but I like them very much on their own too. 

[Shosh85]

@itsfi  What a pretty bunch of favorites! Your mixologist experiment sounds nice! I really love Apple Love by itself, but I do love the sweet scents more than the average person. I can definitely see how a vanilla scent would go well with it! 😉

[itsfi]

Thank you @Shosh85. Layering fragrances gets me more use out of what I have in my stash, too, and that's not a bad thing! 😄 I'm sure there was a time when I leaned towards heavily sweet scents but these days I prefer a more moderate intensity for most scent families. Yeah, vanilla is one of the fragrance profiles that I fall back on when I need to temper something that's a little more intense than I prefer. 

[KhyleyBT]

Love playing mixologist @itsfi, thank you again for indulging me here and in our other reply convo haha! 💙 We got the travel size of the Ellis Brooklyn Apple Love a couple years ago, and I was pleasantly surprised by how much I liked that scent - I'm not usually not a fruity scent girly, but I thought it smelled great and really fresh. I like the idea of mixing with a vanilla scented fragrance too, so decadent! 🥰

[itsfi]

Completely with you @KhyleyBT! 👊 With fruity scents, I tend to gravitate towards the citrusy ones, because they have a freshness to them that I enjoy. If a perfume is really fruit forward or sweet, it can be too much for me so I like to add another scent to it to add some complexity and sophistication to its profile and overall appeal - the additional scent is usually a fresh vanilla type of note but I've also found that the right floral can work as well with fruitier perfumes, or sometimes even woody or smokier fragrances will add an intriguing nuance to an otherwise fruit heavy fragrance. Try playing around with your EB Apple Love and the vanilla based perfumes in your collection and see if there's a combo that captures your interest (and do tell if you come across something you like!)

[KhyleyBT]

Totally agree @itsfi! Unfortunately I have the travel size of the EB and think I used it all around thanksgiving/xmas the year I got it, so can't play with that one, but pocketing the reco for fruity scents moving forward, thank you so much! 🤩💖

[CorgiMommy]

Loving the SEPHORA COLLECTION 12 Hour Colorful Contour Pencil Eyeliner , Great colors that last all day regardless of what i am up to. NATASHA DENONA Mini Eye Sculpt Eyeshadow Palette Neutral has been my go to this month for a natural look.  These shades really complement my eyes.  ALPYN Clarifying Retinol Facial Oil For Pores & Brightening 1 oz / 30 ml is a new to me product that was a blind purchase.   I am loving how soft my skin is after using this.

[PrettyPaint]

@CorgiMommy The mini sculpt palette is great. The tones work so well for me too. 

[WinglessOne]

@KhyleyBT  L'Occitane‘s almond shower oil used to be a staple of my bodycare routine. It’s good stuff. Glad it’s working well for you! And YES to the Kulfi Lassi Lips! Definitely worth the hype and then some.

I missed the last couple months of faves, but I’ll keep this post strictly to things I used most in September:

Ami Colé On Point Precision Brow Pencil shade Dark Brown - the texture (not very soft/mushy-creamy) is kinda similar to my longtime fave (Kimiko Superfine Eyebrow Pencil, which is drier). Most dark brown pencils are a very obvious mismatch for my lightly salted black brows, but this one reads soft black on me. Really wish I’d bought more of these when they were still available. Also wish Ami Colé wasn’t closing. 🖤

SEPHORA COLLECTION Waterproof 12HR Retractable Eyeliner Pencil 27-Matte Forest Green - other shades too, but I’m especially loving this deep spruce green on the outer corners to define and open up my eyes. This creamy formula stays put once it sets: neither sweat nor watery eyes has made it smudge or run when I’ve worn it.

LH Cosmetics Blotting Powder - one of the two Upsalite products I use on my overly sweaty forehead, and I prefer this one a bit more than Danessa Myricks’s. I usually apply it after sunscreen (before any makeup), but it also works well when applied after makeup.

Fwee Blurry Pudding Pot shades Slayyy and Greedy - I can wear either of these blushes solo, but I also love to layer them—usually Slayyy topped with Greedy. Slayyy’s smokey mauve bridges the gap between my hyperpigmented cheeks and plummy Greedy, making Greedy meld more naturally with my skin tones. Also, fwee’s blush formula is very easy to work with. I almost always apply and blend these with my fingers.

Dior Rouge Dior On Stage Lipstick shade Redwood Star - if this was even glassier/shinier than it already is, it’d be exactly like my beloved discontinued Lancôme L’Absolu Lacquer gloss formula (aka best opaque glosses ever), but in solid stick form: full opacity, even coverage (no patches or streaks), glossy finish, not sticky, fairly low transfer, and loooong-wearing. I’ve gone hours without needing to reapply this lipstick, no matter how much coffee or water I drink throughout the day. I’m so impressed, I’m petitioning Dior to expand the shade range: I demand a fuchsia, purple, or at least a purply plum. Dior should release their old (discontinued) navy blue velvet lipstick shade in this On Stage formula.

The Inkey List Hydrating Cream-to-Milk Cleanser - a non-lathering cream cleanser that doesn’t sting my sensitive eyes or dry out my fussy skin. It’s been very nice as a gentle morning cleanser when needed. But now I’m also using it at night, just on and around my eyes as a second cleanse. (I use other cleansers on the rest of my face.) It’s very kind to that easily irritated skin.

Swatchin’ September faves. As always, click/tap the photo to see the full sized not-blurry image.

[Ispend2much6]

@WinglessOne  Thank you for those two fwee swatches- those are shades I'm considering!

[WinglessOne]

No problem, @Ispend2much6! Greedy’s very potent. I mean many fwee pots are, but it’s easy to go overboard on cheeks with Greedy. 😅

In that photo, Slayyy looks warmer than it really is—partly because of the lighting (despite my attempt to correct temperature in editing), but also because my skin tones sometimes skew certain colors. So here’s the swatch photo I initially posted in theSensational September 2025 Hauls thread; the right side of this photo is more color accurate: 

Ugh, my bathroom’s too-warm lighting strikes again: the left side of my hand is bathed in that yellowish glow.

And for the heck of it, here’s my original swatch photo of Greedy from the June hauls thread (though my faves swatch isn’t too far off for this shade): 

Hope you love whichever shade(s) you choose!

[PrettyPaint]

@WinglessOne Beautiful swatches. Mule is one of my favorites (I'm wearing it right now). 

[Ispend2much6]

@WinglessOne Gorgeous photos!  Thank you!!  Greedy may be too much for me, pretty as it is.  Bit Slayy would work.

[KhyleyBT]

Fab faves, thanks for sharing @WinglessOne! I LOVE a dior lip and how bougie they make me feel, LOL, so very glad you're enjoying that lipstick too. I also love that Inkey List Cleanser in the winter and for makeup removal when I don't want to use my cleansing balm! 🤝

[WinglessOne]

@KhyleyBT  Heh, I sometimes call Dior a luxury gateway: their beauty line strikes a balance between fairly accessible (for folks wanting to dip into “higher end” stuff) and prestigious. Plus, you kinda can’t go wrong with some of their lipsticks, especially the DIOR Dior Addict Shine Lipstick line and now these amazing On Stage lipsticks. So you know, bougie but actually worth it. 😅

[KhyleyBT]

PERIOD @WinglessOne, couldn't have said it better! 💁‍♀️😂 We have to remember to treat ourselves sometimes!

[PrettyPaint]

@WinglessOne I love the Fwee pudding pots; how is it that I only now just realized they are also blushes (in addition to lip products)? I've only used them on my lips!