Birthday Haul
Each year as I get older it becomes harder and harder to figure out what I want to do on my birthday. I know what I love, but when it actually comes time to plan for it I draw a blank. Am I the only one that happens to?? I woke up that morning with no agenda in mind. After I finished my coffee, I realized that when you’re obsessed with beauty there’s only one thing to do--shopping!! And that’s exactly what I did. If you want to read more about my day and other thoughts as I begin this new year, you can catch up on it here. I showed a quick picture in that post of the things I picked up and thought it’d be fun to go in more detail today. Over the weekend I only got to try some of these items once, so I don’t have a strong enough review but I’m looking forward to putting them to the test and will keep you posted!
We’ll start off with the free birthday samples at Ulta and Sephora. This year Ulta’s gift is a mini Benefit Roller Lash mascara, which I was super excited about. I love trying new mascaras and I’ve heard such good things about this one! At Sephora, according to my email, they give you a choice of either a skincare or makeup gift. The makeup option was supposed to be a Marc Jacobs eyeliner and lipstick combo, but at the store they gave me last year’s Nars Lip Pencil duo. Don’t get me wrong, I love those pencils and use them often but I still have the ones from last year and was looking forward to trying the Marc Jacob’s combo. In the lip duo, you get the colors Rikugien (satin light pink) and Cruella (matte red).
Ulta nail polishes are pretty good quality, so I picked up the shade Life’s A Peach to add to my collection. I don’t have a bright pastel orange like this one and thought it would look cute for something simple and chic. It’s not thin in consistency like most neon/pastels, which means it won’t chip as quickly. In the picture with the nail wheel, it’s the one at the bottom.
I went in looking for the NYX Tinted Brow Mascara, but they were all sold out so I chose the Ulta Brow Tint in Medium instead. My first thought was that they could use some improvement on their shade range since they only offer three colors. However, I do appreciate how small the wand is.
I wanted a couple “barely-there” shades that I can easily throw in the crease for a super soft and natural look, but also something different that I don’t already have. I think we know by my Ulta Eyeshadow Review post that I love their formula, so I chose the shade Sable (matte camel tan) and Innocence (matte baby pink). You can barely see the pink in the picture and it makes just the slightest difference when applied to the eye.
You’ll also see in the picture above that I picked up Ulta’s Rose Gold Eye Shadow Palette. I wanted to try one of these palettes ever since they were released a long time ago, but couldn’t make up my mind on which one. After looking at them forever, I figured I’d get more use out of this one compared to the others. I plan to do separate reviews on these individual products, so for now I just swatched some random colors.
I’ve had my eye on the NYX Prismatic Shadows, but with how inconsistent they are with their pigmentation I was debating on giving it a try. I finally gave in and got the color Girl Talk. It’s a shimmery champagne pink shade and I was surprised to notice some duochrome effects when I swatched it.
I know so many people love the Maybelline Color Tattoos. I can’t remember which shade I tried before, but I wasn’t impressed and returned it. This was sometime last summer, so I figured I must be missing something since they’re so popular and decided to try some other colors. I picked up Barely Branded (a shimmery champagne gold) from their Metals collection and Creamy Beige (a matte taupe) from their Leather collection.
The last item, which wasn’t featured in the first picture is the Regal Wardrobe palette from bareMinerals. I got this separately over the weekend and it looks like the perfect travel palette. I’m really excited to play with this one! In the pictures you'll see I swatched all of the face colors and just a few random eye shadows.
I love all of my new goodies and can’t wait to play so I can start creating some serious reviews for you. Let me know your thoughts if you’ve tried any of these products and I’d love to hear your recommendations on what you’d like to see reviewed first!
~Mani Monday~
This week I’m wearing Sally Hansen’s Gel Polish in Camo Queen. I’m not the biggest fan of Sally Hansen polishes, especially the gel formula but I found it on clearance in Walgreens last week at a pretty steep discount and just couldn’t help myself. I’ve had an issue with these chipping on me pretty quickly in the past and don’t usually recommend them. I was a little skeptical of the color at first, but don’t have anything else like it. We’ll just say it’s growing on me..
What's on your nails this week?
