Haul + Review: Sephora Sol de Rio Bronzing Powder

This has been a week of cleaning and shopping for me. I'm doing a major spring cleaning of my room which includes moving all my makeup over to my desk and ordering a stand up mirror (which should arrive tomorrow) so that I have an actual makeup station. No one knows how excited I am.

Plus! Ebates (a cash back site that I swear by, just got my check the other day for the previous three months) is having a Ebates birthday celebration where a bunch of online stores are at 15% cash back. That is amazing. Included in this is Sephora, Ulta, Lancome, Drugstore.com, and a whole bunch of other awesome online stores. 

If you have not signed up for Ebates, you should because who can say no to free money for shopping. If you want to sign up, please click this link. Yes, it is my referral link. If you don't like referral links, you can head over to ebates.com, sign up, and shop!

With that said! Here is what I ordered at Sephora:

Smashbox Full Exposure Palette sample, Make Up Forever HD Pressed Powder sample, Make Up Forever HD Primer sample, and Sephora Sol de Rio Bronzing Powder full sized

Ulta 20% Off Haul!

Yes, I am still on a no buy, but every time I start a no buy, I'm still waiting on orders! After this, I'm just waiting on a NYX order from Hautelook, but they take forever to ship. So, we'll see when I get that.

Anyway! Here's what I got with my 20% off coupon at Ulta:

benefit's B. Right Radiant Skincare 6pc Intro Kit. Urban Decay's Naked Skin Weightless Ultra Definition Liquid Makeup.

Both came out to $54.75 (including tax) after the 20% off coupon. Plus I got their 3 piece sampler and a free set of perfume samples with a $25 purchase.

 benefit's B. Right Radiant Skincare 6 pc Intro Kit, $24.

From left to right: Total Moisture Facial Cream (.1oz),  Moisture Prep Toning Lotion (.3 fl oz), Foamingly Clean Facial Wash (.3oz), Refined Finish Facial Polish (.3oz), Triple Performing Facial Emulsion (.3 US fl oz), and It's Potent! Eye Cream (.1oz)

Now, I got this partly because I needed another $24 added to my cart to get free shipping. I hate paying for shipping. But does anyone else notice how cute these freaking bottles are! They are literally just a mini version of their full sized. The full sized bottles are nice, but these just make me go "aww" for some reason. I just love their packaging. Actually, I go on a packaging love affair with this haul.

For the past couple days, I've used the facial cream and the eye cream. I love the facial cream. Feels moisturizing, but not heavy. The eye cream, I haven't noticed a difference in my under eye area, but here's hoping.

Funny thing about the eye cream. I open everything and smell it (because who wants to put something that smells like poop on their face?). When I opened the eye cream, my first thought was "this smells like beer". And that first thought has not changed. Every time I open it, I just want to go out for wings while drinking the It's Potent! Eye Cream.

 Urban Decay's Naked Skin, $39

My love for Urban Decay continues. First, the packaging. Very sturdy and sleek. And a pump! Foundations need to all come with a pump, in my opinion.

I have trouble matching myself to foundations. I'm extremely pale with a cool undertone. Majority of the foundations I've tried, have warm undertones and make me look yellow. Guys, I don't want to look yellow.

So, I've wanted to try this since I found out that they specifically have cool and warm shades and actually differentiate between them. If you look at the numbers, the warm shades all end in 0 while the cool shades end in 5.

I waffled between the shades .5 and 3.5, but ended up getting the .5. Nothing like standing in Ulta, making my boyfriend look at the swatches on each wrist to help me choose. He's such a good sport.

 I said I was pale. Left is a swatch, right is blended in.

I wouldn't say this is a full coverage foundation right off the bat. But! I do believe you can build it up. So far I've only tried one layer on my face, but I'm loving it. It's a very lightweight foundation. No one wants to leave the house feeling like they're wearing a weight on their face.

 Free samples! (Free with $25 purchase) The site actually said 8pcs, but I guess they weren't counting the two "For Men" samples.

Guys, I'm no perfume expert. I like scents, but if you ask me to describe them, you're in a world of trouble. I smelled all of these and none of them made me want to throw up (or throw them out). I gave the two "For Men" ones to my mom's boyfriend. The rest went into my shot glasses with my other makeup (perfect perfume sample storage!).

More free samples! These are the samples I got when I chose Ulta's "variety sampler" pack. Guess they had some Matrix left over cause I got those same samples last time I ordered. Eh, it's shampoo and conditioner. I have straight hair, so I'm probably going to give the DevaCurl to my mother who has really curly hair.

All in all, I'm excited to try everything including the perfume samples.  I'm hoping that at some point I can start doing an "Empties!" post of things that I loved and ran out of. Pretty sure a lot of this will be in that post as well.

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.

:)

Target Clearance Haul

So, I am currently on a "no buy" meaning that I am not allowing myself to purchase any more makeup products. My time limit on myself is just until NYX goes on sale somewhere (a good sale!). But that doesn't mean I can't accept presents. ;) 

My boyfriend was promoted at his job a couple weeks ago and just got his first promotion paycheck. While in Target, he offered to buy me a few things, so I searched Target's clearance and here we are.

 Top Row: elf Kohl Eyeliner, 5 Maybelline Color Show nail polishes, a Covergirl Outlast nail polish, Pixi Endless Silky Eye Pen

Bottom Row: L'Oreal Infallible Eyeshadow, Pixi Beauty Blush, L'Oreal Infallible Eyeshadow

L'Oreal Infallible Eyeshadow in Bottomless Java - $3.48

L'Oreal Infallible Eyeshadow in Infinite Sky - $3.48

These were utterly creamy. I'd say a cross between a regular eyeshadow and a cream eyeshadow. These are the type of shadow where I'd do my eyes first before my face routine as there might be more fallout than normal. They're both pretty shimmery. But we'll see.

elf Kohl Eyeliner in Black - $2.55

Pixi endless silky eye pen in Iridescent Iris - $4.50

RE: Pixi - Holy creamy eyeliner like whoa. So that was my first impression. It looks pretty black when I first put it on, but once I tilted my hand towards my window, it turned extremely purple. Can't wait to try this one out.

The elf liner was a little tougher to get a thick black line from. I'm hoping that if I warm it up on my hand or something that it'll be a little easier to work with. This one did come with a smudging sponge at the end of it, so that's always a plus.

Pixi Beauty Blush in Rosy Rouge - $4.80

 I cannot wait to use this. I only have two other blushes (I think) in my collection. This one applied really easily, so I can't wait to see how it goes with a brush.

I did not swatch the nail polishes. The Maybelline polishes were $1.48 each and the Covergirl polish was $2.48. I'm probably going to start doing a Nail Polish of the Week on the weekends so that I can get some use out of more of my polishes. Be tuned in tomorrow for the first one. Now I just have to decide what color to use...