I've been lazy...

I've been a little lazy re: this blog the past week. But I'm back. The boyfriend and I are watching the Phantom of the Opera 25th Anniversary on Netflix, so I figured why not post while I listen. It's his favorite musical and I've only ever seen the movie (which, honestly, compared to this show, the movie was just bad).

Hand model: Nikki

My friends and I made a mall trip last Friday. A lot of time was spent in Ulta and Sephora. Above, we were swatching basically every red lipstick Sephora carried, attempting to find one that Nikki liked. Failed. But I'm sure we'll find one soon.

From Sephora, Ulta, and Walmart

From Sephora, I picked up Urban Decay's travel liner set. It comes with three of their 24/7 Glide On Eye Pencils. One each of Perversion, Smoke, and Sabbath.

Sabbath (far left) is a navy blue. Smoke is grey. Perversion is pure black. I've wanted to try their liners for a while now. I tend to have trouble with pencil liners since they tend to be too hard and drag my eyelids. These are insanely creamy. I'm not too excited about Sabbath since my green eyes don't tend to look good with blue liners, but I'll definitely try this out a bit.

At Ulta, I picked up a few NYX items.

NYX Butter Lipstick in Sweet Tart, which is a lovely pink. NYX Butter Lipstick in Mary Janes, an almost pure red. I feel like there's a tint of pink in it when I tend to look at it. And a NYX Hi Definition Photo Concealer Wand in Green.

For those that don't know, green concealer is used to neutralize redness. I don't tend to have much redness in my face, but get the occasional breakout. A little bit of green concealer underneath my foundation and bye bye red spot. This is probably my favorite green concealer I've used. It's very smooth and blends out extremely easily.

As far as the lipsticks, I already had one of NYX's Butter Lipsticks and loved it. They're much more moisturizing than any lipstick I've owned, but I do find myself re-applying more often.

First group of items picked up at Walmart are a few of Maybelline's Eye Studio Color Tattoo Eyeshadows.

From left to right: Pomegranate Pink, a shimmery pink. Painted Purple, not really shimmery but a very bright purple. I'm not entirely sure the name of the last one. Pretty sure it's Pure Gold.

Next was Revlon's Age Defying CC Cream in Light.

 
I've mostly been using either my Covergirl Tru Blend foundation or my Maybelline BB cream, but I wanted a little more coverage than the BB cream and a little less heaviness than the foundation. So here came the CC cream. Perfect. I've been wearing this basically every day for the last week. Very light on the face, but enough coverage that with a little concealer, my under eye circles are gone.

Next purchase was Lush's Bubblegum Lip Scrub. My cousin's girlfriend, who now works with me, also works at Lush, so she picked this up for me the other day.

I seriously want to just eat this out of the jar. Which, while it won't kill you, would give you a stomach ache. It's sugar. I know I could just make this on my own, it's all ingredients you can grab at the supermarket, but I'm lazy. This tastes great and works just as well.

And my last, but not least, purchase was actually made before everything else. But it's my favorite!

Olay Fresh Effects Everything Off! makeup removal wet cloths. I had to pick up some makeup remover wipes prior to last weekend since I didn't have any at the boyfriend's house. Only grabbed these because they were on sale at CVS. I've used Burt's Bees and elf's makeup remover wipes and was afraid that I'd never find a wipe that didn't kill my eyes no matter how "gentle" the package said they were.

These? These are my holy grail right now. My face and eyes feel perfectly fine after using these. Nothing stings, my eyes don't water, and they are so soft.

I love them. That's all.

So yeah, I picked up a handful of things over the last week or so. My no buy ended, NYX went on sale. I'm still going to keep myself on a low-buy at the very least.

Shannon out.

Ulta Haul!

I ordered this stuff a little over a week ago, got one box last week, and finally got the second box!

 

 This entire group was $55.05 which includes samples and two free bonus bags.

Ahava Mineral Body Lotion, Purifying Mud Mask, and All in One Toning Cleanser

 Free bonus bag number one! (Oddly enough, all my free stuff came in the first box I got.) I have never heard of Ahava before this, but thought "hey, it's free, why not?". The cleanser I'll get some use out of, but I'm giving away the lotion and the mud mask. I tried out the mud mask yesterday and it smelled like my cat's litter box. No joke. I'm pretty sensitive to smells, so it might be just me. But that's going to friends.

Benefit's Fake Up in Medium. Lorac's POREfection Mattifying Face Primer. Anastasia's clear brow gel. Butter London Polish in Snog. Pur Minerals Big Blink Extreme Mascara.

Free bonus bag number 2! I was so beyond excited for this. I love love love trying new things, especially for free!

 

Benefit's Fake Up in Medium.

This is *so* going to a friend. I am not "medium" in any sense of the word. I am pale, fair, white, ghost... whatever other word you can think of.

 

Butter London polish in Snog.

Love the name! This is the pinkest polish I now own. (This was originally going to be next Sunday's "Nails of the Week" polish, but I'm expecting my Ipsy bag any day now and want to use the one I'm getting in there.)

Ulta Shampoos and Conditions - Smooth & Protect and Volume & Strength.

 I'm trying to get more into haircare and it seems like the first stop is getting rid of sulfates. Now, I have no idea what that does for hair really. But I figured, let's try it!

 

Ulta cotton swabs, Batiste Dry Shampoo in Original, Capelli New York headbands, Red Carpet Manicure's Purify, NYX Butter Lipstick in Hunk, and Sally Hansen Big Matte Top Coat.

Miscellaneous! Guys, the cotton swabs I have right now are so freaking flimsy it's insane, that's the entire reason I ordered these. How in the world can I clean up my lipstick if the swab is bending every which way?!

 

NYX Butter Lipstick in Hunk

I'm in love. This formula is amazing. I have a major dryness issue when it comes to lipsticks. I constantly apply lip balms and lick my lips (a habit I'm trying to stop), but my lips feel dry all the time. This lipstick felt like butter (haha, it's in the name). They feel moisturizing like a balm, but have the pigmentation of a lipstick. I need more. THIS is why my no buy is until NYX goes on sale.

Sally Hansen Big Matte Top Coat

This surprised even me, but this is my favorite thing of bunch right now and all I did was test it on the Butter London polish I just got above. I knew matte polishes existed, but when I saw the top coat, I had to have it. At first, it looked like it did nothing, but then as it dried, the polish lost it's shine entirely. I love the look just because it's something different, every polish and top coat I have is shiny.

But my friend, Nikki (over at Defined by Nikki), explained it better after I sent her a picture of my nails: "That is awesome as a night time look I think. I love bright colors but at an evening dinner, it just doesn't mesh well. When you dumb the shine down I think it's more suitable!"

Benefit's Laugh With Me Lee Lee car perfume hanger, Matrix shampoo and conditioner, Yes to Carrots body butter

Free samples! I'm excited to try these. The car perfume hanger will probably end up in someone else's car at some point (again, sensitive to smells) but I'm willing to try it out.

 

Well, my loves, that's all for today. You can now picture me typing this out, laptop on my lap, and surrounded by all the products you see here, along with the Ulta box and all the plastic that everything (seriously, they wrapped pretty much everything separately!) was wrapped in.

:)