Not really a haul since I only got 2 items but two were closer to the more expensive side of things so I did limit myself and also I have a lot of stuff and didn't feel like I really needed anything, and honestly I didn't really need these but have been curious to try them so i figured this was a good opportunity to do so.
Bourjois 123 Perfect CC Cream (Beige Rose)
I was inspired to pick this up after seeing on Lisa Eldridge's Youtube channel as a very natural looking coverage with amazing lasting power. Supposedly it contains three color correcting pigments (anti-fatigue apricot, anti-redness Vert (green) and anti-darkness Blanc (white). If this turns out to be one I like I will go back and probably try the matching eye cream. I've also not tried a CC cream before so I'm curious to see if there is any noticeable difference between this an my many BB creams and foundation.
L'Oreal Nude Magique Eay De Teint (Pure Ivory)
This one has been on my radar for a little while now but i'm not sure where I first saw it, and admittedly a big draw was the super cute little matte glass bottle. It looks luxe. It's a sheer but build-able foundation that claims to be lighter then water and various youtube videos show this to be the honest truth. I picked up shade 120 which is apparently lighter then 110 but 100 and 110 were not available in my Priceline, but it seems to work just as good. It has spf 18 and from the small play around I had when i got home it's super light and very liquid.
Australis Make-up Finishing Spray
Finishing sprays have not cough on here in Australia but seem to be a standard on most American and UK bloggers and youtubers and I admit I was curious, but I wasn't going to fork out $15 for something that as far I knew might just be the same as water or be completely pointless. I tried it when i got home and so far it smells nice we will see if it does anything more then that.
The last 2 days Priceline has been having a 40% off all cosmetics sale at which I couldn't quite help picking up a few things I've been wanting for a little while now but have thus far resisted. Well so much for that. Here are the products I piked up:
Physician's Formula Powder Palette Mineral Glow Pearls (Translucent Pearls)
This a highlighter type powder, it looks quite frosty. As you can see the product looks super cute and ever since these were released I've always had an eye for this and the Happy Blusher but could never quite bring myself to pay the money for them.
Physician's Formula Happy Booster Glow & Mood Boosting Pearls (Natural)
Another super cute product, I've heard a lot of love and praise for these "happy" blushes but since I had my 2 NARS and 2 Illamasqua blushes i didn't feel right spending the money on a drugstore blush when i could get another one of those for an extra $15.
Rimmel Stay Matte Liquid Mousse Foundation (081 Fair Ivory)
I would have picked this up much earlier if I had not been detracted my the NYX Stay Matte but Not Flat liquid foundation which turned out to be a bit disappointing but I've managed to make it work a little better. The texture on this is amazing and it literally just disappears on my skin and looks like skin! I'm so happy to have this now and plan to use it everyday.
Revlon Nearly Naked Mineral Powder Foundation (010 Fair)
I've been interested in trying a powder foundation for a little while and this one seemed like a nice one to try, what with the SPF 15. I usually only use powders which are translucent as setting powders. i'm interested in seeing if this will work for me.
Essence Studio Nails Ultra Strong Nail Hardener
I would have picked this up regardless of sale, lately I haven't been able to wear much in the way of nail polish because after several months extended every day wear my nails were completely wrecked; peeling, breaking, cracking. It was nasty, these last two - three months or so I haven't worn anything but my nail polish collection has been calling my name and I can't hold out much longer but I also don't want my nails to go through the same terror. So hopefully this will do the job.
A few days ago i was sitting at home (playing Skyrim if you must know) when my partner calls me from Uni to tell me that there is a stall there selling a huge load of MAC stuff that had been seized at auction. I was pretty skeptical but at the prices they were offering, even if it is fake it was still cheaper then buying similar products at Priceline or Chemist Warehouse so i decided to had down and pick up some stuff. When i got there and questioned the sellers it seemed to pretty legit from what i could glean and from what i can tell it seems authentic enough - sized are correct, labels match other MAC products i already had, everything seems to be of an exceptionally high quality including the brushes which are the only items that i would question the authenticity of. Either way though i got some stuff and I'm really happy with everything i got. But i bet you want to know just exactly what it is that i got? Well I'll show you.
MAC Eyeshadow Refills : Sable, Shroom, Passion and Carbon
MAC Mineralize Skinfinish Natural in B01 Light
MAC Brushes in 187, 194 and 266
(If these are fake, which the handle on the 187 makes me think they are, they are still freakin' amazing and so incredibly soft and delicate that whoever made them should just make their own brush company because these were a complete steal)
Very Fake, MAC Eye/Lip Liner Pencil with Aloe Vera & Vitamin E
I was pretty sure this one was a fake right of the bat, mostly because i don't think MAC eyeliners have silver lids and there was no name of the color, I also wasn't able to find any reference to this lip/pencil when i got home. It still work pretty well though an i quite like the colors.
MAC Lipmax Lip Pigment
Not much to say about this, i was hoping it would be similar to a lip tar but it's mostly just clear with a slight pink tint to it. I should have just gotten more eyeshadows instead of this. The only real disappointment.
After this spree which amounted to about $40 i also needed to get my monthly dose of Fresh Farmacy from Lush and whilst there i also picked up some Sexy Peel Soap for the boyfriend as he doesn't like Shower Gels.
Overall I'm very happy with the things i got, especially the brushes and eyeshadows as they both seem great quality products so even if they are fake (which most likely they are) they were still a amazing deal. I don't really have too many feelings about fake makeup products, it can be annoying and disappointing if you go in thinking it was the real deal but that wasn't the case here as i was pretty sure it was all fake going on it. Keeping that in mind i was able to purchase a few things that were good quality and seemed like good products to try. What do you think about buying fake makeup products? Is it inevitable in Australia where prices are so incredibly steep?
So my birthday is coming in about a week and i decided to treat myself to a little gift, last year i brave the Mecca store for the first time and this year i went to the MAC counter and did my hardest to not think about the price inflation and just enjoy so birthday makeup.
After much umm-ing and ahhh-ing over which eyeshadow i wanted, i narrowed it down to Shroom, Satin
Taupe, and Wedge. However since i have been in the mood for matte eye shadows lately I decided to go with Wedge to use as a base brown and a crease or transition color.
The other thing i got has been on my radar for a while, since i started getting into makeup three years ago now i also started watching makeup gurus on youtube, most of which are American and it would make fairly regular appearances and i always thought the color was absolutely beautiful but could not really justify the purchase, but now...well birthday justification. The product is of course the MAC Paint Pot in Rubenesque, the precursor to the Maybelline eye tattoos though the texture seems smoother.
Speaking of the Maybelline eye tattoos, well you may or may not have heard that a few new colors were recently released, since i already had picked up Barley Branded and Iced in Pink on the web-a-nets the other two colors that seemed much more interesting in person then on-line was electric blue and silver strike so i picked those up too. (BTW has anyone seen the maybelline pigments on line? they look awesome).
I then headed to Target to find that Target in Joondalup is doing a lot of clean up in their beauty section and there was about 6 bargain bins full of makeup stuffs including Burjois, Australis, Revlon, Set, CHI CHI, and L'Oreal amongst others. After digging around some i found L'Oreal infallible eye shadows in 036 Naughty Strawberry and 021 Sahara Treasure. I was really surprised to see Naughty Strawberry in the pile because there was a display right next to it with the same color but those were marked as being $14.95 while i got these two for $4.80 each. This is pretty amazing as these regularly fluctuate between $21.95 down to around $12.95 so they were a total steel and i love both shades. The only downside is that now that i have finally tried these i might need to get more...
The other shadow i picked out was a Revlon satin eyeshadow in Polished bronze for $2.40, I'm not sure why it was even there as it's quite pigmented and very smooth, at least what i was able to tell from when i swatched it at home.
I also came to the realization that i do like loose powders, I've been using a Ben Nye loose powder to set my makeup but it just gets everywhere and is so hard to use that despite the quality of the actual makeup i really don't like using it, so i picked up the Rimmel Stay Matte powder as my All about Matte from essence shattered completely when i dropped it a little while back and this one seems very well loved.
Last but not least, i along with every other blogger out there got the Olay Regenerist Advanced Cleansing System which i really like, and since it was the day my Priceline voucher came i, it only ended up costing me $8. I will keep using it and it really works great but in addition to that my boyfriend totally fell in love with it and is considering finding a stronger one to use.
So that's my pre-birthday haul and i hope you enjoyed it. Let me know what you want for your birthday ?
So shortly after i posted my wish list earlier this month i decided to try pick up one of the items that was on there, this was before my boyfriend surprised me with my oh-so-loved MAC Star Violet. Initially i was only going to pick up one item but because I'm a terrible human being with no self control i picked up another; as the photo above shows i got the Revlon Photready Cream Blush in Pinched and i ordered Illamasqua's Cream Blush in Rude. Can't help it, cream blushers have been on my mind lately and i thought a comparison of them might make an interesting post. So below is the list of stuff i got;
1. Garnier Oil Free BB Cream (previously reviewed) on sale at Priceline for $6.99. At such an amazing price I couldn't let this pass me up. This is my go to foundation/bb cream and although i keep trying others i know this is where my heart is. I'm not sure if i would quite say HG product but very much in the ballpark.
2. Limited Edition LYNX deodorant for women in Anarchy. I actually really like this, i hope they decide to keep it or bring out some more ladies products because i would totally switch to using this. It smells nice, maybe a tiny bit flower-y? I think this was around $5 at Priceline
3. Revlon Photoready Cream Blush in Pinched. (review coming soon) Such a nice peachy color, it's not super strong but i didn't want it to be. Build-able and super soft. Also makes a great base for powder blush. I was originally wanting to get the coral but somehow i had missed that this color even existed. $13 at Chemist Warehouse.
4. Clairol Foaming Hair Dye in #2 Black. I like the foam hair dyes, i always make a mess but i kind of miss my pink hair every time i do it. Worked really well and i will totally repurchase this as it was really easy to use and didn't take longer then 25 minutes. $7 at Chemist Warehouse
5. Dove facial cleanser in Citrus. My first time trying this, the consistency is very slippery and similar to other Dove cleansers but this one smells very nice, a fresh and not overwhelming citrus scent. It foams like crazy though, it's actually a bit insane how much this foams.
6. Face of Australia Budge Proof. I reviewed this the other day, the purple is a really nice shade and had the same awesome formula as the black, the color is slightly less pigmented but it makes a nice change from black.
(This pircture is the wrong color, i stole it from the Myer website)
7. I caved and bought the Illamasqua Cream Blush in Rude, it hasn't arrived yet but i couldn't it as part of the haul as it was all purchased on the same day. Hopefully it will arrive soon (coming from Sydney). I can't wait for it to arrive! $28 at Myer online
8. I got am email that same day from Strawberry Net with massive sales and wanted to try this, it's the Korres lightweight ginger and vitamin foundation in LF2. Seems quite nice and i like korres, plus i was willing to go on a limb for $12.95 but stopped myself getting anything else. This also has not arrived yet and the picture is cutesy of korres.com. Let you know how it goes.
So that's my May haul, it was nice to blow of a little steam and get a pile of stuff. i'm usually way to poor for hauls, but it IS a lot of fun. Hope you are all having a great day.
My Whipped Soaps arrived today, this makes me incredibly happy. Since i started my tryst with Haus of Gloi these have been unavailable due to the hot weather in Oregon so when i heard they were coming back in stock i stayed up playing video games till 5 am and ordered it when they went live. Good thing too since the next morning one of the soaps was already sold out. (It's okay they have since restocked and seem to be a little more readily available). For my earlier review of the first half of my Autumn Haus of Gloi look here.
So the purchases this time around were;
Whipped Soap in Ghost Puffs (popcorn and marshmallows yum) (sold out at time of post)
Whipped Soap in Red Roan (strawberries, maple syrup, porridge and white cognac)
Whipped Soap in Spider Silk (mint, grey musk, amber, oakmoss, torchwood, copaiba resin, and violet leaf)
Perfume in Ghost Puffs (I'm in love) (again sold out at time of post)
Lip Balm in Banana Bread (like it says)
Lip Balm in White Rose and Red Currant (more rose then red currant)
Handmade Soap in Satyr (blood orange and vanilla) + sample perfume in Saft Ernte (Peach ,spices ,pumpkin, hazelnut cream and orange blossom water)
So far I'm in love with the whipped soaps and will try to do a proper review, I'm starting of with Spider Silk and from my first use i can say it's very soft and kind of like a slightly hardened cream that melts as soon as it it gets a bit warm or wet.
However, after using it twice at this point i have to say I'm amazingly surprised by the Handmade soap, and will 100% be purchasing more of these. I usually use Lush soaps and basically never use regular supermarket soaps anymore. I've been spoiled really, i thought lush soap was the best that soap in a block could get.
I was wrong, lush soap was a gateway soap, because soap from Haus of Gloi is actually where it's all at. My issue with Lush soaps has always been that about 50% of them don't lather all that great. The Satyr soap i got is magic, when you put it on it's smooth and basically glides on with little effort and leaves behind what i would best refer to as a soap oil layer; not greasy or yucky but just like a watery layer of the soap almost a gel. You then lather this stuff and the rest of the soap goes back to the shower caddy. Then it lathers, like crazy and feels and smells wonderful.
My boyfriend says i've spoiled him with this, no longer are we as a haus-hold satisfied with regular soap but must important our decadent soaps from America. Damn you Haus of Gloi you win this round.
I feel like today i have leveled up as a blogger; i now own my very first, NARS blush. Also my first high end product i have purchased just for me.
Today the car went in for a service thus giving me and my boyfriend a chance to wonder aimlessly around the city for some three hours hoping the car was not going to cost an arm and leg. Thus after a nice lunch, and some time snooping at geeky Dungeons and Dragons books at Tactics in London Court we made our way over to some "shiny shops" as i like to call them. That is shops that stock things like makeup, jewelery, skincare or in general things i find to be pretty and interesting to pretty much only to me.
(Not all of these were purchased at the same time, just came into my possession within a day of each other)
Firstly exploring Myer today i found a Essie polish on sale; LUXEDO a deep plum polish (but nowhere near as dark as Linkin Park After Dark) and as i was not totally thrilled with my jelly mani earlier i decided to grab a glitter fest nailpolish from Chi Chi aptly named "Glitterati". (Attempting my second jelly mani as i type).
Next stop was Target (which btw now stocks MAC eye shadows, but i find the MAC stuff way too intimidating at the moment to venture there). At Target i located the last of the last 24 Hour eye tattoo in "Too Cool". (Still undecided about the taupe) Others of these were reviewed here.
It was literally the last one on the shelf, everything else was gone except a single orange eye tattoo which by the time i circled back around again was also gone. Not to mention that I've been checking out Priceline andTargets every time i walk past them in the last week or so in hope of finding it, the entire range seems to be sold out across town.
Then my luxury purchase; (prepare for photo fest)
Love the packaging, and the girls at Mecca were super friendly.
I walked into Mecca cosmetics, thinking I'll take a look at the oh-so-lusted-for NARS Orgasm blush (giggle) and then when i had a try of it i was not really that impressed, i mean it's pretty but it's such a glitter-bomb, crazy shimmer. Not a blush for me, as someone who had to deal with oily skin in my teens I'm not a fan of anything that makes my face shiny.
But as you can see i clearly didn't leave empty handed, well Orgasm and Super-Orgasm (double giggle) were not my cup of tea, but their sister Deep Throat (giggle) caught my eye and then my heart.
Though i would never normally buy this for the inflated price, the prices aren't hugely different this time ($45) and i wanted a birthday treat. So since my birthday is approaching i got this as a birthday treat for me.
It's so pretty, I'm a little afraid to touch it.
Oh, almost forgot the other two things i got were from Mum's visit to Hong Kong; a legit bb cream (very eager to try) and a set of scented nail polishes from the Anna Sui range (don't know it, but it's cute). The nail polishes feature Russian dolls on the brush handle and from my little research it seems to be part of a set, i found some more info at this blog here .
So far i tried the purple polish and the grape scent stayed on all night and kept me up; not entirely unpleasant but a little sickening after a while. Not sure if I'm going to venture into these anytime soon. But cute nonetheless.
I'll do some swatches and let you know how the products go after some testing.
Firstly i need to start with a thank you to my dear boyfriend who was a complete champion about driving almost two hours to Cannigton as until next week they seemed to have the only Priceline carrying the two new (to Australia) Essence collections; Season of Extremes and 50's Girls Reloaded and i couldn't wait that long. But as you can see i only got one of the lipsticks so i might need to keep an eye out next week. So Thank You!!!!
So as far as i can tell the collection came out Tue/Wed , and i went in on Thursday an already almost half the stock was gone, and it's a trend edition so they won't usually be getting any more in. Blah!
Back to the fun stuff;
Probably the most exciting part of this for me the 50's Girl's Reloaded stuff!
The colors maybe aren't that exciting but i was sold by the awesome retro design and just the fact i have seen nothing like this...ever. The pretties i got are;
"03 come on board captain" eyeshadow (almost perfect match to the two nail polishes) a brave step for me, my eyeshadow preferences have (since getting into this whole makeup-pretty-thing) has leaned towards safe neutral colors - brows, creams, coppers, and the occasional gray.
So a bright navy blue is a big step for me. Also not completely sure how to do these colors together but im sure the result will be good...or hilarious. It's pretty nice and sturdy, plastic case with a nice big mirror in the compact but no brush so not really sure how good that is, i guess you can just open it at dinner and admire yourself if the conversation gets dull?
The lipstick is and the red nailpolish are "01/02 Back to the 50’s"
These are basically the 50's bombshell colors; they are pretty stunning vivid bright and just scream at you to put them on. I did kind of want the other lipstick more so I'm a little afraid of the brightness on this thing; scared of clownface-ness. But they look so pretty it might just help me overcome my fear.
The red nail polish is pretty sexy, it's in the realm of your basic standard every woman red but it's certainly got a lot more pop to stand out, so although red nails are a little traditional I'm quite looking forward to trying this out. (For the record i have only ever worn red/red nail polish once before in my life).
The other two nail polishes are "03 I’m a marine girl", and "04 love me tender". Marine girl is a very deep blue with a hint of shimmer but nothing that's going to blind passersby. It goes on very smoothly, the brush is a little long for my liking but it worked okay. It was a thick one coater for me and seems to be holding on pretty tight, no chipping yet. (Btw the purple-y stuff on my ring finger is from the extremes collection down the bottom of this post)
"04 love me tender" is an interesting color; judging by the bottle it is somewhere between silver and gold, a kind of champaign kind of color which i can't wait to try, maybe once i finish writing this I'll swap them over. I'll post back later with a pic, hopefully it doesn't lean too far silver.
Tha's it so far for the 50's collection, till i can get that other lipstick and do some swatches, maybe?
I didn't go quite as crazy with the Extremes collection, mostly because i had very similar colors already and was already spending way too much money there. The whole collection was separated into pastels and brights and judging from what i got i was leaning more towards brights that day.
These ones are in photo order; "02 Brightsmates", "03 We are all bright" and "04 just the nude of us" and at $5.50 these were individually more expensive then anything from the other collection and this is actually a little pricey for Essence.
Looking forward to trying the taupe/nude color as i have nothing even vaguely similar. My other issue however is something i realized when i got home; i don't quite know how to store these? They don;t fit in my nail polish box and fall over if i put them in the fridge with my higher end polishes??? Help?
This was a .... not greatly thoguht out purchase but it was cheap ($2.95) and the color was visible halfway across the store it calls itself "Tickled Pink" but if it was up to me it would be renamed "Fuck off Pink". I have a couple of neons i've picked up recently but it's been too dark and cold and rainy for them, so this one might have to wait for warmer weather but right now it blinds me every time i look in the nail polish box. Never tried this brand so don't really have a lot of thoughts about it yet, might do some research and see what other people think.
Last but certainly not least this time is my pretty new Blush Brush (and friends)
Although i was originally tempted by the angled blush brush i saw this and had to have it, it was only $5 more then th angled brush i was holding in my hand at the time and i was staring at them both going ummm and ohh when my boyfriend pointed out that a) the ecotools were a much better deal and b) the brushes were much much softer. So ecotools won.
Now here is somehting that never occured to me when reading blogs, until i was actually writing one (now); i wanted to take out the brushes and play with them as soon as i got home; but it was already dark and i wanted to take a nice unopened picture to post here. So i had to wait till this morning as i don;t have a lightbox or any space for one. That was a weird experience but something to keep in mind.
I'm quite excited about this brush; as it's replacing a fairly awful brush from a brand called "Miss Makeup" that i bought when i was 16 and my google-ing now tells me either no longer exists or never existed and the brushes i have from the brand traveled to me via wormhole from the universe of terrible brushes.
I look forward to a much less painful makeup routine in the morning, now that i think about it this terrible brush might have been responsible for some of my breakouts in years past as it is very prickly and irritating on the face. Oh what a fool i was to put up with it for so many years!
So now off to play....or rather make raster images for my dads company :(
OH! almost forgot, this may of no interest to anyone but me but on the off chance theres a history/geek girl out there who wants a shiny new game to play i have recently come across "Crusader King;s 2" from face value a standard rts like game about ruling Europe (and who doesn't enjoy that) in the early middle ages, the fun lies in the fact that most of the game is played through interacting with your court and family;
I played for a few hours last night and my firstborn daughter and heir turned out to have the traits "homosexual", "ambitious" and "arbitrary" and then proceeded to try usurp my crown. Now why is this interesting you might ask? Because there's a Game of Thrones mod. As in you can play one of the houses; Starks, Lannisters etc
Plus the game has absolutely hilarious ads;
(There are eight of these ads, one for each sin plus an extra one about piracy)
