September & October No-Buy

Today’s post is a combined September and October no-buy. Both months were no-buy months, and while I was quite successful in avoiding any purchases in September, you can tell from the featured image that October was a completely different story. Sephora has been doing their Week of Wow sales where a different selection of products are discounted at ~50% every week, and let’s just say that I have had a really, really difficult time resisting them.

Anastasia Beverly Hills Liquid Lipsticks in Kathryn and Dusty Rose – $16 each

I have said before that I am not a liquid lipstick girl, but since I had a pretty good experience with the Tarte Lip Paints, I wanted to try a few more liquid lipstick formulas out. ABH’s liquid lipsticks were part of the Week of Wow sales at the beginning of the month, so I took the discounted price (originally $26 each) as an opportunity to test out a few from the brand. The Sephora near my work doesn’t carry these, and while I almost always buy lipsticks in stores so that I can swatch them on my hand and see the colour in person, I took a chance and bought these online. Luckily, both colours look pretty flattering on me, although Kathryn is more red-toned than I had anticipated. Despite the name, Dusty Rose is pretty bright – I see it more as a summer colour than a fall shade. I’ve only worn these a few times so I can’t give a definitive answer just yet, but I’m not entirely sure I’m convinced that I can ever be a liquid lipstick girl.

Tarte Tarteist PRO Glow Highlight and Contour Palette – $29

A contour kit is definitely not necessary in my makeup collection, but the Week of Wow sale sucked me in. The Tarteist Pro Glow palettes have piqued my interest a bit since they came out, but because I already own so many highlighters and have more than are higher on my wish list, I don’t think I ever would have bought this, or I would have gone for the Pro Glow to Go palette, which has two highlights and a contour shade for $30 regular price. However, they were selling this Pro Glow palette for the same price as the Pro Glow to Go, when it normally retails for $59! I did recently hit pan on my contour powder (!!!), so maybe this purchase is justified? At least, that’s what I’m telling myself. The bottom left contour shade is a cream product, and I hate palettes that mix powders with creams…so we’ll see how that works out.

BECCA Shimmering Skin Perfector Poured Highlighter in Moonstone – $23

To be honest, I didn’t even know Becca had these cream highlighters until I saw them as part of the Week of Wow sales. The Poured range offers the same shades as their Pressed highlighters and the Liquid highlighters, just in cream form. I I looked at the website the morning the Week of Wow sale went up, and all the shades were already sold out. Do people stalk the Sephora website night and day?? At lunchtime, I went to check the Sephora near my work, and they still had all of the shades except Champagne Pop and Prosecco Pop. I was most interested in Champagne Pop, but since it wasn’t available, I purchased Moonstone instead. This is probably not a product I ever would have bought under normal circumstances, but these sell for $46 and were on sale for $23, and this girl can’t resist a discounted highlighter. PS – the compact looks like this because it came with a protective film on top of the cream highlighter, and some of the highlighter came off when I peeled the film off – boo!

 

Laura Mercier Little Indulgences Hand & Body Creme – $45

Out of all of the products in my haul, this was the only one that I actually needed and wasn’t on sale. I ran out of hand cream months ago and have just been walking around with dry hands since. I wanted to try something new, and I decided on these Laura Mercier hand creams even though they’re quite pricey. Each tube costs $11.25, and they’re only 30 mL each – that’s to be expected from a brand like Laura Mercier. They’re very luxurious, and the size is quite perfect for handbags or my desk at work. I’ve only used the Creme Brulee and Almond Coconut Milk scents so far, but they smell so yummy without being too sweet and cloying.

SAMPLES:

As always, my Sephora orders came with a bunch of samples – I’ve discovered so many good products through samples, so hopefully some of these will be good!

Tarte Maracuja C-Brighter Eye Treatment

I’m almost done with my current eye cream, so I’m looking for a new one to replace it. I’ve been kind of curious about Tarte skincare, so I’m interested to see how this is going to perform.

Caudalie Vine(activ) Energizing and Smoothing Eye Cream

I picked this as a sample because my husband wanted it, haha! He’s using it right now which is why it’s not in the picture!

Briogeo Don’t Despair, Repair! Deep Conditioning Mask

I’ve never really been into hair products – besides using shampoo, conditioner, and leave-in conditioner, I typically let my hair do its own thing. However, I’m all for having smooth, conditioned hair, so I’m looking forward to trying this out.

Glam Glow Supermud Clearing Treatment

I’ve owned a full size of this mask and it was a pretty good charcoal mask, so I’m excited to get to use this again.

Jo Malone English Oak & Hazelnut Cologne

Look how fancy this SAMPLE is – it even came in a Jo Malone bag with black tissue paper inside. I really wanted to like this perfume because it’s Jo Malone…but I really don’t. It reminds me of Chanel No. 5, aka grandma perfume. My mom had a small bottle of it when I was growing up; it was a gift from someone and even she never wore it. Maybe we’re just not sophisticated enough, haha.

So, how did I do on my no-buy? In total, I spent $129 this month on beauty products, $84 of which was on makeup. That is a LOT more than I had expected – so much for doing a no-buy! If I had carried over the unused amounts of my low-buy from previous months, I think I would have been covered, but I decided to challenge myself instead and didn’t allow myself any wiggle room on my no-buy months. For most of 2017, I’ve been really uninterested in makeup, and suddenly my love for it feels like it has come back tenfold, making it really hard to resist buying anything!

I allocated $250 for November beauty purchases; taking $84 away from this, I have $166 left to spend next month. I can already tell that I will fail miserably at it, considering I have an ever-growing list of things I want to buy…but who knows, maybe I will surprise myself!

 

 

Makeup I Packed on My Long Weekend Trip

Back in January, a girlfriend of mine (also my MOH) surprised me with a trip to Vegas that she had booked for us over the Easter long weekend, complete with an itinerary that she had already thoroughly planned – is she not the absolute sweetest?? The main objective of the trip? To see the Backstreet Boys in concert! I finally got to fulfill my childhood dream of seeing them, and it was even more epic than I could have imagined.

Anyways, now that I’m back, I wanted to share what makeup and skincare I brought with me on our short trip. As far as travelling goes, I tend to bring products I know I can rely on. I hate the idea of having to deal with faulty products or products that give me an adverse reaction while I’m on vacation.

Best of the Best: 2016 Favourites

Although we’re already into the middle of January, today’s post is on my favourite products of 2016. This post focuses on my favourites in each makeup category, although there are a few categories that I did not include because I either did not try anything new in that category, or I didn’t find anything I loved during the year. A few of these products you will have also seen in my two bi-annual favourites posts.

FACE PRODUCTS

Foundation Primer: Shiseido Glow Enhancing Primer

I discovered this primer in early 2016, and although I’ve only used up sample after sample of this primer, I’ve fallen in love with it. It goes onto the skin feeling like a moisturizer, and applies smoothly without giving that typical silicone feeling that a lot of primers do. It feels very hydrating on my dry skin, and I’m really glad I still have a few tubes of samples left of this before I need to start purchasing it!

Late 2016 Favourites

Today’s post is on the products I loved in the last half of 2016. Although most of these were not new releases in 2016, they were all products that came into my collection during the last half of the year. In case you’re interested, I did a 2016 mid-year favourites post here.

Urban Decay Naked 2 Palette

I received this palette in a giveaway from dear Robyn of Lipstick on the Lake in August, and I have been absolutely loving it since. It’s a very versatile palette, and is in constant rotation in my makeup routine. My review of the palette can be found here.

December Low-Buy and Final 2016 Results

First of all, I apologize for my disappearance! I have no excuse this time, as I have a consecutive 10 days off work before the new year. I have had plenty of time to write blog posts; however, we’ve been doing renos at home, so our house has been too messy/hectic to able to take blog photos. Anyways, I hope everyone had a very wonderful and relaxing Christmas!

The last post of the year is on the items I purchased in December, as well as how I did overall in my 2016 low-buy. I thought about not buying anything in December since I was already in the red going into December, but who am I kidding! There was no way that I could’ve redeemed myself during the month, so I resigned to the fact that I was digging myself into a deeper hole. However, I’m happy to say I didn’t go too crazy this month. My December purchases largely revolved around face products, most of which I’ve been wanting for a while now.

Makeup in My Gym Bag

For the past month and a half, I’ve been going to the gym before work with a coworker. We have a pretty good collection of gym equipment in our basement, so I’ve always worked out at home (errr…on and off), but my coworker has been trying to get me to go to the gym with her since last year, and she finally succeeded. Girl deserves a round of applause – I’ve had friends try to convince me for years!

Even though I try to do a 25-30 minute workout in the mornings, I only get up 10 minutes earlier than the days I don’t go to the gym…it’s already a struggle knowing I have to get up and haul my lazy butt to the gym, I’m sure as heck not waking up at 5:30am to go! This means I have to cut into my getting-ready time instead. Today I thought I’d share with you the beauty products I take with me to give me a quick work-ready look.

My goal for getting ready after the gym is to make myself look awake and polished enough for work. In terms of makeup, there are five basic things I do: Brows, lashes, concealing, blush, and setting powder. 90% of the time, I do have a few extra minutes to apply eye shadow as well, although I’ve run out of time to do that a couple of mornings. My post-workout beauty routine may seem excessive compared to most girls, but it’s just what I’m used to – I’ve noticed most girls in the changing room spend 75% of their time on their hair and 25% of their time on their face, whereas I’m the other way around!

April Low-Buy

Today’s post is a haul/check-in of my 2016 low-buy. Originally, I had intended to post my Sephora haul last week, which did not end up happening. Since it’s now the end of the month, so I thought I might as well just lump my Sephora haul with the rest of my purchases and do my monthly low buy check-in post. I’ve gotten the chance to test out most of these products, so this post does include a brief first impressions of each product.

My Makeup Wish List

With the Sephora sale coming up this week, I thought I would share my wish list. Surprisingly, there aren’t a lot of things I want this time. Although I won’t be getting every single item in this list, I will definitely be picking from it!