Holiday Gifts and GWPs

The Holiday season has really taken over and now that Thanksgiving is over, Christmas trees and lights and music and shopping is everywhere! It is a very exciting time and I have spotted some cute gifts that deserve a mention.

As soon as I saw this holiday set by Essie, I knew I had to have my hands on it. Priced at only $15 this is a great gift idea for the nail varnish lover in your life. You get 5 mini Essie bottles of shades that are perfect for fall/winter. The colors are a tad darker than what they appear in the picture. This is sold out on Essie.com right now but you still might be able to snag one at your local Target or Macys.

Another great gift item is something from the Marc Jacobs Beauty line. He does have a holiday set out with an eyeshadow trio, lipgloss, mascara, perfume combo but I decided it would be better to spend that money on his Style Eye-Con Plush Shadow palette. I got the Starlet 204 one which has a shimmery range of browns and grays.

The formulation and opaqueness of the colors is really nice, you get exactly the shade as you see in the pan and they are super blendable, much like the Urban Decay eyeshadows. I hope I can get a lot of use out of this palette in the holidays. Oh and did I mention it comes in its own dust bag and is a piece of art in itself?:-)

On a non-beauty note, Trader Joe's has a really nice selection of holiday chocolates and cookies out. From Dark Chocolate Covered Shortbread cookies to Peppermint Marshmallows to Pfeffernuse German Spice cookies its all delicious!

One of my favorite parts of holiday shopping has been the Gift With Purchase that a lot of brands have been offering. Clinique have a really good one out - you can pick 5 of their mini products with every $35 purchase -  https://www.clinique.com/checkout/samples.tmpl?show_promo=1
The one I got however was Sephora's which was available to all their Beauty Insiders with a $25 purchase. The offer has already passed but it is worth talking about because all the deluxe samples I received in the Glowing Magic Radiance Sample Bag I chose are amazing and worth a purchase themselves.

The bag itself was alright, better than the Ipsy bag I got this month but not as luxe as it looked in the picture. The NARS eye primer has become my new favorite and I will be purchasing the full size when my UD primer potion runs out. I have also loved the Bamboo heat protectant hair spray and the Lancome Hypnose Star Mascara is seriously making me contemplate ditching my Maybelline one. I'm looking forward to trying out the Ole Henrickson truth serum. We need GWPs all year round!

Hope you have a lovely holiday season! x

November Ipsy Bag

After two months of waiting, my Ipsy beauty box subscription finally got approved. I was really excited especially because the holiday season meant some nice goodies would come my way.
I have never subscribed to a beauty box before and I have no clue as to what the size/quality of products usually is. I decided to go with Ipsy because it was quite inexpensive ($10/month) and was cancelable at any time. Also, Michelle Phan is one of the founders so I thought it couldn't be that bad.

My first Ipsy bag arrived mid-November and I had already perused the spoilers to see what I might expect. With Ipsy you get all your products (usually 5 a month) in a cute makeup bag which is an added freebie. However, I was quite disappointed with the quality of the gold snakeskin bag that this month's products arrived in. It looks really cheap and I cannot imagine using it for anything. Nonetheless, I was excited to explore the goodies that it came with. The first item was a Gem Pencil by Starlooks in the color Topaz. I have never heard of this brand before (as was the case with a few others products in the bag) so I'm not sure if its a quality product or not. It is an eyeliner pencil in a creamy silver, I was actually quite impressed with how smoothly it went on. It can even be used as an eyeshadow base for a smoky eye look.

I did recognize the brand of the next product - Em by Michelle Phan Waterliner in Sunshine Yellow. I was looking forward to trying out her new makeup line so I am happy this was included in this month's bag. When I read the description, I thought it would be a liquid liner in a canary yellow color which was really disappointing because that is not something I would get much use out of. However, it turned out to be a twist-up soft shimmer eyeliner pencil in a muted gold with a smudge sponge at one end. I haven't tried it out yet but from swatching it I was quite pleased with how nice it looked. I think it can have a better name though.

Next was something I was probably the most excited by - Pixi's Beauty Bronzer in Summertime. Now while the color is a tad dark for me in the winter I do feel this product alone made up for the $10 I spent.

The next product was a chubby stick-esque lip stick by Be a Bomshell in the color Hot Damn which is a shimmery orangy red. I already have a product similar to this that I got from Sephora but I haven't tried it on yet to compare.

Then out came probably my least favorite product of the bag, BH Cosmetics' Baked Eyeshadow in the color Neptune. I have never tried any BH Cosmetics' products and have never had an inclination to, either. Neptune is a shimmery, silver blue that came out pale when I swatched it. I haven't put it on with a primer or base but I just didn't love the overall packaging.

Lastly was a nail paint by Nailtini in the color Caviar Cocktail which is a metallic silver. I did try it on last week and while the application was smooth, I wish I had gotten a different color because I'm not sure if it looks the best on me.

Overall, I am happy to be trying a beauty box out and I am excited to see what next month's bag has in store. I have a feeling it will be a good one considering it is Christmas and New Years time. This month's bag had six items instead of the usual five which was a nice surprise. All the products are sample or sample-plus size which is decent enough to get good uses out of. You also get discount codes to use for full size purchases for each of the products featured.

If  you would like to sign up for your own Ipsy bag, feel free to use my referral link here!

XOXO!

New shampoo discovery

I have been LOVING using Organix's Ever Straight Brazillian Keratin Therapy Shampoo! I picked it up on a whim as I was looking for a new shampoo and this looked interesting because it is sulfate free. I've tried Loreal's sulfate free line but wasn't too impressed with it. This however, is a really nice, thick shampoo that leaves my hair straight and less frizzy.

I didn't get the matching conditioner because for that I had my eye on the Botanique by Himalaya Amla & Holy Basil conditioner. I haven't had a chance to try it out yet but initial research shows that its either a love it or hate it product. I'm hoping that since I have thicker hair, this will work well.

I first saw this at Central Market but didn't want to fork out $10 for it so I came home and found this website called PureFormulas.com that had it in stock for half that price. It also came with free shipping and I was really impressed with how fast the package arrived. I am excited to try this out next week!!