Hey ladies,
It's time for another makeup haul! I know it might seem like I spend a ton of money on makeup, but I hold back elsewhere. I'm not really into shoes and handbags. If I see a handbag or a pair of shoes that I really like, then I'll buy it after thinking about it for a while. I've had my eye on those Guess bags that look like rip offs of the Hermes Birkin for a while. The Aldo ones are cute too, but I'd rather get a better quality bag from Guess. I've been quite frugal with my spending this summer. I haven't bought any makeup or skincare items since my birthday, which was in April. My collection is quite extensive, though not as big as some of yours! So I decided to go ahead and post what I actually bought after months of no new makeup products.
I had to pick up some old favourites that I ran out of and I also got some new products that I was dying to try. My mom also gave me a couple things and I tried to cut back on certain items that I had a million of. Like mascara. I have a kazillion samples of different brands but my favourite is Too Faced's Lashgasm, which I was completely out of. So my mom gave me hers because she doesn't like it. She says it bugs her eyes (she wears hard contact lenses). I'm trying to get through all the samples before picking up a full-size.
The Haul!
Boscia Pore Purifying Black Strips - 35$CAD
I love these nose strips. They actually work and they pull out all your blackheads and it totally clears your nose out. I use them once a week after I shower. I use warm/hot water because it opens your pores. You leave your skin wet and you apply the strip with dry hands. I leave it on until it dries out and hardens. And then I rip it off and it feels oh-so-satisfying when all the blackheads leave your body.
Boscia No Pores No Shine T-Zone Treatment - 45$CAD
This stuff is my holy grail pore product. I ran out of it a little while back and oh em gee I wanted to crawl into my bed and hide there until I got more of this stuff. It makes a huge difference on your pores. I noticed that mine got smaller and I broke out a lot less. It makes my skin look so good. I apply this every night before bed.
Boscia Clear Complexion Tonic - 30$CAD
This is my first time using their toner. Their clear complexion line looks really good and I'd love to try more products form it. I've used the toner maybe 5 times so far. I find that I never really notice toners working. So it's hard to say.
Benefit PosieBalm - 22$CAD
This is a new product by Benefit. They've made a tinted lip balm to go with their popular cheek tints. Posie is my colour, it's a yellow based pink. It's a very sheer balm, so some people might be disappointed with that. I thought it was quite nice. I did have to put on quite a few layers to get some colour out of it, but it's moisturizing and feels good on my lips. It smells nice and it isn't overbearing. If you're looking for a lipgloss then this isn't for you. If you want a sheer, hydrating balm, then this is for you. I think it's important to hydrate your lips all year round and this is a fun way to do it. If you want more colour try putting PosieTint first and then applying PosieBalm afterwards.
Fresh Sugar Lip Service Kit - 40$CAD
This lovely kit by Fresh comes with four minis. You get one mini lip scrub and three mini lip treatments. I already have a full-size of their lip scrub and I love it. I always use it before applying lip stick. It gets rid of all the dead skin and it leaves your lips feeling so smooth. When you apply your lipstick after, it glides right on and doesn't get stuck between the cracks of your lips. It goes on smoothly. I'm happy to have a mini to put in my purse for on-the-go lipstick application. The three mini lip treatments include the advanced therapy one, Rose, and the new Tulip. I have their original lip treatment (the one in the brown case) and I love it. It's the most hydrating lip treatment I've ever had that it's actually worth the steep price. I wonder if the advanced therapy one is supposed to do anything more than the others. Hmm I guess we'll see. I haven't tried Rose or Tulip yet. I'm a sucker for keeping things in pretty packaging. I do find that they have more of a colour payoff than Benefit's PosieBalm. So while Fresh's products are expensive, I can definitely recommend their lip products, they are truly amazing!
Too Faced Tinted BB in Snow Glow - 42$CAD
I'm a sucker for anything Too Faced. I'm almost done my first tube of their BB cream so I picked up another one. Snow Glow is supposed to be for fair, pink-toned ladies but there is more yellow in there than there should be. So while it isn't a perfect match for me, it's not too far off. I like wearing it on lazy summer days where I don't want to wear a full face of makeup. Especially on hot days. It's light but it still has decent coverage for a BB. I have a few blemishes and it does an okay job of covering them up. I could use concealer if I wanted them completely covered. With a bit of powder and blush, I'm ready to go!
Hourglass Ambient Lighting Palette - 67$CAD
I just picked this up not too long ago. I've been hearing sooo many good things about this palette and of Hourglass in general. I've tried it once and honestly didn't really see what all the fuss was about! I used it over my setting powder to bronze and highlight. I think the next time I use it I'll try it as my actual setting powder. I can't really say anything else, I don't think it's fair to give it a review when I haven't played around with it much yet.
Anastasia Beverly Hills Contour Kit - approx. 50$CAD
I can definitely see why this kit sells out like crazy everywhere. I waited too long to pick it up and almost missed it myself. I had to call all the Sephoras in my area to see who still had one! Luckily I was able to pick one up in Anjou. So I used this for the first time yesterday, which you can see in last night's post. I also used it today and wow I got compliments on my makeup all night. I LOVE IT! It's the perfect contour kit! Really! With three highlight shades and three contour shades it's definitely the best value contour kit on the market right now. And the colours are pretty versatile so it accommodates everyone. I have to say I was impressed with it right off the bat. The shades were very pigmented and the powder was easy to get onto my brush and then onto my face. Also, the shades were just so perfect, I think. And if you are into contouring, then I think you need this palette.
MAC Pro Longwear Concealer in NW15 - 23$CAD
I used to use NW20 in this concealer but found that it dried dark. So I would recommend to everyone that you go a shade lighter in this concealer. I love this concealer. It's perfect for covering your under eye area. It's also full coverage and it covers everything. I love it. I wish there was a lighter shade than this that I could use for highlighting but there isn't. This is what happens when you're a pale white girl. If you're looking for a full coverage concealer, this is the one for you.
MAC Studio Finish Concealer in NW20 - 22$CAD
Ah, my other favourite concealer! I use this one to cover up any blemishes that weren't covered by foundation. I mostly use it to cover up pimples on my forehead and around the nose area. It's pigmented so you only need a little bit. When you apply powder, make sure you dab it gently and don't make any kind of swiping motions or you'll rub it all off.
And that was my haul. Hope you enjoyed seeing what kind of products I'm into. I've got a few new favourites now like the Anastasia Contour Kit. I also try to branch out as much as possible and try new things. I admit, I do tend to stick to my favourites and I feature them a lot. I'm dying to try the new Too Faced Cat Eye palette but part of me says I should hold back and do more spending when all the amazing Christmas gifting sets come out. They're a better value. But another part of me wants to do another haul, just because I can. Oh, it's difficult to be a girl, isn't it?
What products have you tried from my haul? Which did you like and not like? What have you hauled recently? Have you found any new favourites?
My next post will be my Top 10 Summer Makeup Products with possibly a tutorial using the products listed.
Steph xo.
Hey girls!!
So I know it's been a while since I last posted. I went from being on winter vacation to working 30+ hours a week and being back in school full-time. When my part-time job ended, I spent the next few weeks catching up on schoolwork. Which brings us to the first round of tests this semester. Sorry I disappeared, I'll try to get back to posting 1-2 times a week. Also part of why I haven't been posting much is my workload this semester. I'm taking 4th semester courses (last semester), which are basically university level courses. Let me put it this way, every time I print out that lecture's slides, I can't even staple the papers together because it's so thick. There's just so much stuff that I'm supposed to learn in 15 weeks and I don't know how normal people can handle this amount of work, it's insane. Organic Chemistry and General Biology 2 are seriously no joke. I've never had courses like these before where the amount of content is just beyond any class I've ever taken before. And I'm also taking Calculus 2 this semester!!
So what else have I been up to? I've decided to try to budget myself a bit this year. We all know I love makeup and my collection has grown a lot in the last year. I've been working towards building a professional makeup portfolio, but had to put that on hold with everything that's going on.
You won't be getting any Valentine's Day posts from me, just cuz I think it's the lamest holiday EVER. I'm always single on V-Day and the only gifts I usually get are chocolates from my mom. It's annoying seeing every girl that walks by with a man on one arm and flowers in the other. Seriously. Go have fun at your fancy dinner while I sit at home watching a shitty romantic comedy and eating straight out of the Ben and Jerry's tub of ice cream. By the way, Chunky Monkey is my favourite flavour.
I've been thinking about doing some posts on Zombies, since I'm a big time zombie freak. Since I've never tried Special FX Makeup, I thought I'd spare us all the pain and just do a few posts on my favourite zombie movies, books, etc.
I also have a TON of empties that I'm getting ready to go over and review for you! My drawer is literally full of empty product containers and my mom thinks I'm nuts for keeping them all. She just doesn't understand how important this is for the blog :P So that'll be coming soon and I'll try to squeeze in a makeup tutorial!
New Products I've Purchased this Month
I have to say, I didn't think I bought a lot of stuff these last two months, but now that I'm actually cataloging it, I'm disappointed. But I am impressed with the amount of stuff that I bought that was on clearance. I usually never shop clearance or bother to go to clearance-type stores. So when you're viewing this long list, please be aware that this is over at least two months and some stuff was given to me.
Sephora
I stocked up on Too Faced's Primed and Poreless face primer, which is my go-to face primer, though it's facing some competition. I tried a sample of Smashbox's Photo Finish face primer (I believe it's called) and it's the original one (I forget the specific name of it). I loved it. I almost bought that instead of Primed and Poreless, but the price stopped me. It's 44$ and my Primed and Poreless is 38$. I guess you could say it's not that much of a difference, but 6$ more a tube adds up. I also tried a sample of Benefit's Porefessional, which did a good job too, but I wasn't a fan of the smell. It wasn't because I didn't like the smell, I just prefer it to not have a scent.
Another product I stocked up on was the Fresh Sugar Lip Treatment in Clear. I had originally gotten a mini sample of it with a purchase at Sephora and I fell in love. It's the most moisturizing lip treatment I've ever tried and it leaves my lips feeling so soft, it's unreal. I finally made the splurge and bought myself a full-size at 26$. I admit, it's a lot of money for a lip treatment, but I assure you it is well worth the splurge!!
A new product for me this month was Makeup Forever's HD Pressed Powder. I already use MUFE's HD Foundation and Loose Powder, so I knew I had to have the Pressed Powder. Before it came out, I kept thinking about getting a Pressed Powder to put in my makeup bag, but I couldn't decide on which one to try. When MUFE came out with their HD Pressed Powder, I knew I had to have it. It would complement my HD Foundation and Loose Powder perfectly. The Pressed Powder is a pressed version of their Loose Powder. I use the Pressed Powder to touch up my makeup during the day, and for that, it's great. I haven't used it to set my makeup yet, but I will try that soon. I really like using a Loose Powder to set it and then using a compact Pressed Powder during the day for touch ups. The price on it was a little iffy for me. For the Pressed Powder, it's 41$ for 0.21oz of product, whereas the Loose Powder is 39$ for 0.3oz. So not only is the Pressed Powder more expensive, but you get less product!! Plus the Pressed Powder doesn't even come with a puff!!
Another new product for me was Urban Decay's new Naked Ultra Nourishing Lipgloss in Lovechild. Lovechild is a cool medium pink colour. The formula felt nice on my lips and it gave a good amount of colour. It wasn't sticky at all and felt nourishing. It has the same mint smell and taste that their Lip Junkie glosses have, which I am not a fan of. In all, I liked the product and felt it was worth the 24$.
I also got another couple of Urban Decay products. I bought their 24/7 Glide-On Lip Pencil in Native and Revolution Lipstick in Native. I bought them to go together as a pair. In the tube, the Revolution Lipstick doesn't look like the pale pink it's described as, but on my lips, it definitely fit the description, and I was very pleased. The lip pencil was the perfect complementary colour to the lipstick and I was pleasantly surprised with how good it looked on. The lip pencil was 24$ and the lipstick was 26$.
MAC
I got a few things at MAC, so let's start with the permanent collection.
I bought my first Mineralize Skinfinish in Lightscapade. Remember how excited I was when I bought that Physician's Formula Mineral Glow Pearls in Translucent and thought it was like the best highlighter ever? Well this is even better than that!!! I've been using this every single day since I bought it and it's trumped all my other highlighters. I'm not really sure how to describe the colour, when you swirl it together it looks like a very pale pinky beige with a ton of light-reflecting particles. For pale white girls like me, you NEED this. It's 35$ and you get a whopping 10g of product.
I got their Lip Liner in Naked and another in Subculture. I got them to complement my nude lipsticks. Naked is a very light nude colour. It goes perfect with MAC Creme D'Nude and is the same colour as Creme D'Nude. Subculture is a darker nude with a bit of pink in it. It goes perfect with my Too Faced La Creme in Naked Dolly (the colors are similar) and it also goes with MAC Creme D'Nude if you want a lip liner that's darker than the lipstick. I'm happy I got both liners because I see them as the perfect complementing liners for nude lips. They cost 18$ each.
The one Lipstick I got is so obviously Creme D'Nude. I hear about this shade all the time and thought it was time I try it. It's a very pale nude colour with pink tones. Only pale girls like me would be able to pull off wearing this lip stick because it's that pale. And don't wear dark bronzers, I learned the hard way that it clashes horribly. The colour itself is great though. It's perfect if you're doing a smokey eye and you don't want a pale pink lip. It goes great with the liners I mentioned above, Naked and Subculture. This lipstick costs 18$, but I got it free because I Back to Mac-ed. :)
I bought a few lip glosses from MAC, which is something I haven't bought from them in ages. The first one is a Lipglass is Underage. It's almost a nude colour or a very light pale pink. It goes very well with both pinks and nudes. I can see this being layered over nude or pink lipsticks, so it's pretty versatile. It was 18$CAD.
The second lipgloss I got is a Pro Longwear Lipglass in Long Love Love. This was the first time I tried their Pro Longwear Lipglass formula, and I was impressed. The colour is much more pigmented than their regular Lipglass formula, it's almost like applying a lipstick. The formula is sticky, in typical MAC fashion, and it lasted much of the day. The colour is a medium pale pink. It will set you back 23$.
The last lipgloss I got is the Cremesheen Glass in Pagoda. It is currently being repromoted in their Fantasy of Flowers Collection (pink). The Cremesheen formula has always been a bit lacking in pigment, so I like to use it to layer over my lipsticks without altering the colour too much. On it's own, however, it looks like a very light pink sheen with sparkle. It is 23$.
And lastly, I got a few of the limited edition items from the Fantasy of Flowers Collection. From the pink side of the collection, I got the Mineralize Eyeshadow in Great Beyond. Out of all the eyeshadows, I saw myself using this one the most, and I liked the colours in it. All the mineralize eyeshadows in this collection come with 4 eyeshadow colours in the compact. I was hoping I would love this, but I thought the quality fell a bit short. It wasn't as pigmented as it could have been, especially the grey shade. I was expecting more from it. I found the purple tones just kind of melted together when applied and didn't really stand out on their own. This is a product that I wouldn't repurchase, unfortunately.
My last item from the Fantasy of Flowers Collection is from the green side. I got the Fluidline in Sassy Moss, which is a bright emerald green. When I first swatched it, I was worried that the colour wouldn't be build able, as it looked a little on translucent side. Applied, however, I was glad to see that it could be layered to build about 80% opacity. I also just loved the green colour and knew I had to have it. I have this obsession with the colour green. I wore it alone as a winged eyeliner and it looked amazing. I was super happy with this purchase and it's only 19$.
Illamasqua
I'm not sure if I mentioned this before, so I'll mentioned it here. I went to Illamasqua to pick up some of their pigments!! I got their Pure Pigments in Beguile and Android. I don't know why they call them pigments, because to me, they are glitters. Beguile is a multicolour glitter with a white base and Android is a shimmering silver/grey glitter with a grey/black base. I tried Android out over MAC eyeshadows (I did a smokey eye) and I used Too Faced Glitter Glue as my adhesive. I gotta tell ya, Glitter Glue is THE best glitter adhesive EVER!! I tried applied the glitter using Urban Decay's All Nighter Spray and it was horrible. The glitter clumped up and creased horribly in a matter of an hour. But with the Glitter Glue, it held all day long, didn't budge or crease at all. The adhesive you choose plays a big role. I was really impressed with Android, it was super sparkly and everyone was impressed and asked me what I was wearing. I'll do a tutorial soon doing that look and I'll explain it detail how I applied the pigment. I bought the pigments from the Illamasqua Boutique that is in The Bay. The pigments cost 25$ there compared to 31$ at Sephora.
I also got a ton of their Nail Polishes. I got Nomad, Viridian, Creator, and Facet. So far I've tried Nomad and Creator and I am MORE THAN IMPRESSED with the quality of these nail polishes. Seriously, the formula is just AMAZING. With one coat, the polish is already opaque and with two, you're done. You don't need three coats. Nomad is a beautiful glossy light jade green. Creator is a glossy black with silver sparkles. Usually nail polishes with sparkles are a pain to get off, but surprisingly, it wasn't that bad to get Creator off. It wasn't a massive pain like some other polishes. Viridian is a metallic medium/dark green/teal. It looks amazing in the bottle, I'm just hoping it looks amazing on my fingers. Facet is from their latest collection (says my mom who bought it) and it is such a strange and unique colour I don't even know how to describe it so I'll list the description from Illamasqua website: "grey crystal". That description is nowhere near close to explaining what it actually looks like. They cost 17$ at The Bay and 22$ at Sephora.
Nicole by OPI
I've never tried a Nicole by OPI polish before so I decided to buy some colours from the Modern Family Collection that was on clearance at Target. I bought Candid Cameron, which is a weird green/blue metallic colour that looks like there might also be some yellow in it. I also got What's The Mitch-uation? which is a beautiful dark metallic blue based purple colour. I don't watch Modern Family, I got these nail polishes because I was curious to try out the Nicole by OPI formula.
Essie
You all know how much I love my Essie polishes. I picked up Chinchilly, which I had been mad eyeballin' for a while now. It's a pretty greige colour, more on the grey side than beige. Ugh I just tried to open it to look at the colour and I cannot get it open. Crap. I hope someone in my house can or I'm going to be pissed. Here's a story about the next polish I got. It came out in the Fall 2013 collection and I went to at least 5 stores and that shade was sold out EVERYWHERE. It was insane. A couple of weeks ago, I'm strolling through Pharmaprix and what do I see on the rack? I SEE IT!!!! And I got so excited. Turns out, Essie just made the most popular limited edition shades permanent!!! And it turns out mine was among them!! The shade I'm talking about is For The Twill Of It. Yep, that beautiful green/purple duochrome metallic shade!! The one I'm currently wearing :) I'm going to do a tutorial on it so you can see the amazement that is For The Twill Of It. They cost 10$ each.
Chanel
More nail polishes galore. My mom bought me a ton of Chanel nail polishes. The newest ones are 563 Vertigo, 603 Charivari and 219 Black Satin. Vertigo is a dark grey with a very slight red sparkle to it. Charivari is a dark purple. Vertigo and Charivari are both limited edition shades in the Notes de Printemps 2014 collection. Black Satin is your typical black nail polish and is part of the permanent collection. Unfortunately, I haven't had a chance to try them out yet, but I will soon.
NYX
I finally got my hands on the famed Jumbo Eye Pencil in 604 Milk. My Target has been out of them for AGES since they first opened (which was months ago) and every single store I've been to has been sold out of Milk. I was perusing the empty NYX section when I found one very beat up Jumbo Eye Pencil in Milk and I thought to myself, holy crap it's here just for me! Unfortunately, the asshole at the cash wouldn't give me any type of discount even though I was buying a damaged product. I mean, come on, it's kind of ridiculous that they made me pay full price for a damaged product. I know NYX is cheap to begin with, but 5-10% off would have been nice. I was kind of disappointed. I mean, the lid is cracked to shit and the pencil has been lightly used. This means I had to disinfect the hell out of it when I got home. Not impressed Target!!!
Winners
So for those of you that don't live in Canada, Winners is owned by the same people who own TJ Maxx in the USA, so it's very similar to TJ Maxx. Now, I NEVER shop at Winners. I only went in because I had a 40 minute lunch break and I was tired of perusing the same goddamn stores. I have to say, I was shocked. They had NARS. They had Deborah Lippman. They had OPI. They had Seche fucking Vite! (which, by the way, NO STORE CARRIES IN CANADA). They had China Glaze! (which also no store carries in Canada). I was in makeup and nail polish heaven. The only downside that because it was all on clearance, it meant that it was severely picked over. I wasn't willing to buy 6 bottles of varying red Seche nail polishes just to get the Seche Vite it came with. But I did score some great stuff from NARS. My mom threw out my receipt, but I have a general idea of how much each item cost and/or how much I saved.
Blush in Desire (paid 25$, retail is 33$)
And it wasn't even used!! I have this blush in my Adult Content cheek palette and I love it, so I figured I might as well get a full-size for super cheap!
Illuminator in Copacabana (paid 25$, retail 36$)
Unfortunately, there was a huge chunk missing out of the tube, but saving 11$ kind of made it up to me. I mean honestly, even though it's missing a bit, it's still going to take me 5 years to finish the tube.
Nail Polish in Night Breed (probably paid 15-16$, retail 21$)
Again, there was a bit missing (you can tell because of the way the sparkles stick together on the side of the bottle), but the brush and nail polish itself were in good condition, so I got that too.
Big Sexy Hair Volumizing Treatment (paid 17$, retail 27$)
Everytime I see a new Big Sexy Hair product, I get excited. There is nowhere in Montreal that has the full line of products, so I have to buy bits and pieces from different stores. Which is why I get excited when I find a new store that has their stuff, especially when it's a new product. I haven't used it yet (unfortunately I washed my hair the night before I bought it, which was this weekend), but you're supposed to use it after you shampoo in the shower, leave it in for a few minutes, and then wash it out. It's supposed to give you more volume.
So that's it for my New Products this Month!! I know it might seem like a lot, but bear in mind that this was collected over two months and that this wasn't one huge shopping trip. I can't wait to use my new products in tutorials for you guys!! I'm so excited about showing you MAC Mineralize Skinfinish in Lightscapade! It's a beautiful highlighter!! And I'm excited about showing you the Illamasqua nail polishes!! The quality is just amazing and I think everyone needs to try it.
So that's it for now, I'll try to post a review/tutorial of Essie's For The Twill Of It soon as well as another Empties and Extras post, since I really need to empty out my drawer. I hope you enjoy this post in the meantime! I'll also be back to posting makeup tutorials in no time.
Steph xo.
