Sephora PlayBox is it worth it???

Hey there makeup junkies! For my first post in an extremely long time, I decided to talk about Sephora play box. I was on their waiting list for several months - as I'm sure some of you were/are as well. (I do mean several months). I finally received the email that they had openings. I excitedly joined, and waited for my first box. I want you all to keep in mind these are all my own opinions from my own experiences. If that's the case that is great, because it means you are getting your money's worth. 

For those of you that might not have had a chance to try one of these monthly subscriptions, there are several different type of subscriptions out there. They have different price ranges from $9.99 to $50.00 (or more). You sign up and every month you receive a box with different samples, based on the questions you answered when you signed up. 

I have subscribed to both Birchbox and Ipsy and was extremely satisfied with their service and boxes that they sent. I'm no longer subscribed to Birchbox, only because I decided I had to many monthly subscriptions and needed to cut down. I did prefer Ipsy over Birchbox, which is why I kept them. 

My first box was meh at best. It was the May play box, the samples are just really small. I know what you are thinking...they are suppose to be sample size. But Ipsy sometimes sends full size samples. Not in every box, but you know in some of them. The June play box, had the Becca Backlight Primer (which I had received as a gift with purchase), the Tarteguard sunscreen (again already had with a previous purchase), the Benefits They're real mascara (already have 5 of these), the Bareminerals liquid bronzer. The perfume in every box might be nice for some. But for me personally not so much, as certain scents give me terrible headaches. Most of them are sitting in my little vanity waiting to be given away. At least they will get used by someone else. 

Another factor was the mailing time, my box arrives almost at the end of the month. That just drives me nuts..maybe it's only me. 

My last box the August playbox, was a terrible mess. Not only did it get here really late in the month, it was missing 3 products. So I call Sephora the rep informed me that the products were sold out. They were very nice to refund me my $10.61, since I did not get the complete box I paid for. But then when i said I wanted to cancel my subscription, they did not ask why, if there was a reason I was unhappy. No survey to ask how they can make it better. 

I've called plenty of places to cancel subscriptions, and they ask..why, what can we do to keep you, how can we make it better. Sephora really dropped the ball on that one. 

In any event, for me the $10.61 price was not really worth the samples I was receiving. This is for me personally, I'm sure this works for some people that they might not have the opportunity to shop every month and receive 5 samples of mascara (hides face in shame).

Thanks so much for stopping by! I was on vacation this week, which is why I was able to post something. Now that I look at it, it is very long. So if you managed to read all my ramblings THANK YOU!!!! 

I'm back with a little haul and a tiny giveaway!

Makeup Haul

So much for trying to post weekly!!! I truly do not know how bloggers do this frequently, it's a lot of work - so hats of to them.!!!!! Mostly it's just me being lazy when I get home from work, and then doing other errands and things on the weekend. 

In any event, I did two months of NO SHOPPING! Believe it or not it was nice not buying makeup that I truly do not need, and seeing that extra bit of money in my account has been nice as well. So I decided to do some shopping in May  - nothing crazy but just for a few things. 

I wanted to try the Cover Girl luminous foundation - i bought a color to light for my skin tone.  (duh) But I decided to keep it anyways because I figured I have the COVER FX drops I can make it darker.....

One of things that I noticed was that the foundation was clinging to my dry patches, not something I would expect from a Luminous foundation. It did look great from far away but when I looked closely I didn't care for what i was seeing. I'm going to try to use it without the COVER FX drops and see if that makes a difference. 

Well here is a pic of all the goodies I picked up these past two - three weeks. Hautelook had a sale on the Balm products. Not pictured is The Balm eye makeup remover it was $10.00 (normally $19.99) I picked up a couple of blushes and their double ended brush. From Ulta I picked up some Urban Decay concealer (not sure how I feel about it yet only used it once) I also picked up the Rapture blush and the Raputre sheer lipstick (I have the regular Rapture lipstick). The blush I must say is very pretty, it gave my cheeks a nice "glow". I picked Loracs alter ego lip gloss in CEO. I have the lipstick and figured it would be nice to pair them up. Haven't tried the Bare Minerals mineral foundation yet, but I've heard good things.  

Now for the GIVEAWAY! 

I have a few things - that I have collected from my Ipsy bags or from samples received. I haven't used any of the items. I have already given some away to family and friends so I figured what better way than to have a giveaway to someone who wants to try new things. 

it's not that big but it's a little something:

To be entered you need to leave a comment telling me what type of makeup junkie you are. I'm a blush junkie! No matter how many I have I just want more! 

If you want to be entered twice all you need to do is subscribe and leave a comment and I will enter your name twice!! 

Make sure you leave a way to contact you. I will announce the winner on Friday May 29th, 2015.

 

Thanks so much for stopping by!!! 

Makeup Haul, Walmart, Kmart, Walgreens

Happy Hump Day!!!!! Kudos to me for posting twice in one week!!!!

Well this past weekend I did some shopping, I’m grateful that I have a fulltime job that allows me to shop. What I do to try and control the amount I spend, is give myself a shopping allowance every paycheck. Once I exhaust those funds I’m done. From this allowance I buy things that are NOT necessities (makeup, my craft supplies, purses, books, you get the idea). This helps me stay on budge with the household expenses and bills that I’m responsible for. I also feel less guilty about spending when I know everything else is taken care of. 

Well enough about that --- let’s get to the good stuff. These items were purchased either at Walmart, Kmart, or Walgreens. I use coupons whenever possible, every bit helps my funds.

At Kmart I was able to get this L.A. COLORS Chunky Lip pencil set. For $4.99 you get 6 lippies, not a bad deal it averages out $0.84 cents a lippie (not including tax). I did swatch them – they felt creamy on my arm but when I applied to my bare lips –sort of dry. I’m thinking it’s because they are suppose to be matte colors?? For me won’t be too much of an issue since I usually put on lip balm when I start my makeup routine. Sadly not all of the colors work well with my skin tone – (I did not swatch all of them on my lips only on my arm) I want to give the ones that I know don’t work well with my skin tone (well at least for my liking- some people can rock this) away. Of course I will be cleaning and sterilizing the lippies that I swatched on my arm. Do I have any takers?

I also picked up some Jordana lipsticks – I don’t think these are new – but I can tell you my favorite of the lot is called Grape. Then I picked up some NYC lip lacquers – very pigmented and inexpensive. They have a sticker that says “new” and I haven’t seen them anywhere else. So I’m gonna go out on a limb and say they are new.

At Walmart I was able to find a new Real Technique brush – sculpting brush. I believe Ipsy had a special for like $13.00 you got the set that includes this sculpting brush and a concealer brush. I missed out on that one – so I was happy to find it at Walmart – the price was $9.49 or something like that.

I bought two different foundations – the Cover Girl CC cream from the Queen collection – I’m going to see how this works for me. I’m hoping it doesn’t turn orange on me. I must say it does smell really nice. The fragrance is like flowery perfume, don’t know how that will wear on the face but I will let you know.

Alright, that about sums it up. AS you can see I bought a ton of lipsticks, would anyone want to see swatches on those? I’m sure plenty of others have already done the swatches but just in case your interested.

Remember let me know if you are all interested in a little giveaway for the L.A. COLORS Lip pencils (not all of the colors just maybe two or three).  

Ipsy bag - January 2015

Hello lovelies, Happy Monday! I’m working on keeping to my goal of posting once a week. This week I’ll actually have two post – the next one will be on Wednesday.

So for today – I wanted to share what I received in my January Ipsy bag. I use to have Birchbox as well, but decided to take a little break from that subscription.

Here is what I received:

I’m excited to try out the brush they sent, and the Pacifica eye shadow. I’ve already tried the lip balm they sent – not bad but I don’t enjoy the taste it leaves behind. Overall it was a pretty good bag. I have so many of those bags now – I have no idea what to use them for. Any suggestions out there? I’m thinking of maybe doing little giveaways, fill the bag up with little goodies…what do you all think?

Thanks for stopping by. 

Urban Decay Oz Great Powerful Pallet

Hello beauties, Happy Friday!!! 

So one of  my goals for this year is to use my eye shadow pallets more often. I have a day time job and although I wear makeup daily – I don’t take the time to do my eyes. Really in the morning I’m trying everything possible to get a few more minutes of shut eye. Being that I’m “investing” in these eye shadow pallets” I need to start using them more often and not just when I have a special occasion or going out… Honestly I don't go out that often, I'm more of a home body, therefore I don't get much use out of my eye shadows. 

So this week I’ve been using the Urban Decay Oz Great Powerful pallet - The Theodora Palette (I have both the pallets that came out) the colors are so pretty. Of course because I’m using it for work I am mostly using the colors that are neutral. I've been alternating between Beware and Bewitch, both our netural brown colors. 

The shadows have good color payoff, I used these colors on my crease, and then on my lid I used the Too Faced Shadow insurance in Champagne. It works very well for me, keeps it simple and not too - glittery/shimmery. 

I know the Oz Great and Powerful pallets were limited edition, I'm sorry for talking about them when you can't get them. But this is what i'm using this week, so just wanted to share.

First up is Beware

Here we have Bewitch

These are swatches:

AND....I thought I would torture you all with my mug shot! Not a very good shot of the shadow...but I have on Bewitch

Well that's all for now, tomorrow I will have a post up on my Ipsy bag. 

Thank you for stopping by! 

New Year - new goals

Hello Beauties!! Happy New Year! As we start the new year, I’ve made some blogging goals. Clearly I haven’t been very consistent on this blog, one of my goals this year is to post at least three times a month. I’ll work my way to maybe one post per week, but to keep it realistic and reachable I’m making my goal doable for me.

I’m not by any means a professional makeup anything. I just love makeup, I love watching tutorials, hauls, organization anything to do with makeup.

I might have little giveaways here and there…so keep checking back for that.

Now on to makeup talk, this might be late in the making but…I took advantage of the Sephora VIB sale, (I’m embarrassed to say I’m a rouge VIB). For the first time I went to the VIB ROUGE event, it was very nice they had drinks, sweets out. They also had little stations setup throughout the store for they were giving tips and tricks. It was a very nice event, I took one of my friends we had a good time. You would think I would have taken lots and lots of PIC…yeah totally forgot (the embarrassing part is I’m a scrapbooker) I took a total of…wait for it……two pictures at the event!

So this a some of the goddies they had out…

This is what I picked up at the event, I did go back after but didn’t get a whole lot more. Although truly I didn't need to pick up anything either times I went. I have yet to try the BECCA Highlight creme..but it's on my list of things to try. Let me know your thoughts on it. 

Well that's all for now. I'm brainstorming what my next post should be about....any thoughts??? 

Thank you for stopping by! 

Amazonian clay full coverage airbrush foundation

Hello beauties! It's been too long since I've posted something. Sorry about that, but work and man it takes time to upload and edit pictures. In any event, I just wanted to share my thoughts on Tarte's Amazonian clay full coverage airbrush foundation. (what a mouth full) I have sensitive skin, so it's hard for me to try new things on a whim. But I was lucky enough this did not give me a rash or break me out. I must say it has pretty good coverage, although you do have to build it. If you have good skin that does not need a lot of coverage, then this would be good for you. I tend to use it on days i'm not in a hurry to get to work. The lasting power is meh...not bad but not great, then again it is a powder foundation. I do love the kabuki brush, it's dense and great to buff on the powder. I'm in the color medium-tan sand (for medium to tan skin with yellow undertones). I do want to grab the blush pallet that came out for this holiday season. I missed it last year and have regretted ever since. I'll be back with more later this week.