A little beauty haul

had to go to Sephora yesterday to pick up my holy grail liquid eyeliner- the Sephora brand Long-Lasting 12HR Wear Eye Liner. I've talked about it here in a previous post. Of course, it never ends up being a quick grab and dash whenever I go to the mall. I picked up a few more beauty items. Nothing too crazy, but I'm really loving everything I picked up. I also picked up a few clothing items which I will talk about in my next post.

I've been curious about these hair ties when I saw Kendall Jenner wearing them on her
wrist on Keeping Up With the Kardashians. I always have 1 or 2 hair ties on my wrist
at all times. I always end up giving 1 to my sister or friends when they need it. Also,
since I have long hair, hair ties are a must. Especially with 2 little ones to care for.

Here's what one looks like on my wrist. It's super cute. I've also tried using them to
tie a pony tail and it holds up pretty well. It was $10CAD for a pack of 8. They also
had a different colour set with more neutral colours, but I thought these were more me.

Although I have a ton of nail polishes I realized I didn't have any glitter polishes that are

gold or rose-gold toned. I do have a very fine gold glitter polish, but I wanted a polish

with chunky glitters. I've been obsessed with Amelia's nails on her blog and she loves using

glitter polish as a top coat so I immediately wanted to get this polish at Sephora. It's

the Sephora by OPI top coat called Traffic Stopper Copper. It's a rose-gold glitter top coat
with multi-sized glitters on a clear base. I was also eyeing the gold version called
Only Gold For Me and a purple one called Mauve-ie Star In The Making.

This was $12CAD. I wanted to try 1 before getting the others. I might have to pick up
the others now because I love it.

Here's what it looks on my nails. I did use a nude colour as a base. It's Going Nude, Eh?
from Sephora by OPI. It's no longer available, but a ton of other companies make similar
nudes.

Another view.

So this is what I went in for. It's my go-to liner. I'm sad that they raised the price.
I remember it being $12CAD, but now it is $15CAD. It's still cheaper than other high-end
liquid eyeliners so I'm fine with the price increase. I get the 01 Black. For those of you
who are interested this liner it also comes with a brush tip. It has something like 'High Precision
Brush' on the side of the tube. I don't like that one. Make sure you get the one that doesn't
have that on the tube. The brush on that one is very flimsy. This one has a felt-tip so
you have more control.

I didn't get this on my trip to the mall. I ordered this off of eBay. I normally get the Dolly
Wink liquid eyeliner at an Asian mall where I live, but it is quite expensive. I think it
comes out to almost $28CAD with tax.
I decided to check out eBay to see if it would be a bit cheaper… and it was. I paid $17.48USD
with free shipping. Here is the seller if you are interested- terry_yuen72.

They changed the packaging from when I last bought it. I don't like it as much.
Apparently the formula is better now? I'll have to test it out.

And here is the felt tip. It's very fine and well-made. The felt tip is much sharper than
the Sephora brand one. 

Here is the old packaging. Much cuter, I think.

Here's what it looks like on my hand. The top line is with a thicker stroke and the bottom
line is a thinner stroke. I like using this liner to make the flick on my cat eye because you
can make a very sharp and precise flick because of how fine the felt tip is. BUT,
I don't like using this to make a general line on my eyes because I don't find the black
is as intense and pigmented as the Sephora brand liner.

Here is the Sephora brand liner below the Dolly Wink liner. You can see how intense
the black is. I made a thicker line and a thinner line. The Sephora brand liner is not
that great making a wing because the tip of the felt tip is not that fine. I like my wing
on my cat eye to be very precise.

Stay tuned for my clothing haul. Hope you guys are enjoying your week!

Beauty haul (photo heavy)

ust a few random beauty things I picked up over the past few weeks.

Some were things I got from work and others were stuff I picked up for myself because I had heard lots of good things about them.

Chanel Rouge Coco Shine in #61 Bonheur. This is my first Chanel lipstick. My co-worker gave this to me to try out. The colour isn't photographing true to colour, but it's a sheer, but buildable reddish berry colour with some gold shimmer. It's actually quite pretty. This formulation is super hydrating and leaves my dry lips very moisturized. I'm quite impressed with this product so I would love to try out more.

MAC's Love Nectar Lustreglass. I first heard about this in Sandra's YouTube video on her favourite MAC lip products. It's a beautiful neutral gloss with gold shimmer. It goes on a little sheer, but when I wear it alone on my lips my lips literally look so plump and delicious! I can't explain it. I love how it looks on my lips. I've been wearing it religiously on my lips for a few weeks now.

I picked up another product from MAC's Surf Baby! Collection today- Strange Potion Lipglass. It's a repromote from the 2010 Venomous Villains Collection- the Evil Queen. It's a pretty coral colour. It's very pigmented and almost goes on like liquid lipstick. I definitely can wear it alone, but I bought it to wear over my next lip product.

I dropped by MAC today to actually pick this lipstick up. It's called Costa Chic and it's part of their permanent line. I heard about this from a few beauty blogs and I knew I had to get it. Lately I've been obsessed with bright colours- especially corals. Unfortunately it's not photographing true to colour, but it's a bright coral in a frost finish. I absolutely love it!

Here are all the lip products swatched on my hand. From left to right: Chanel's Bonheur Lipstick, MAC's Love Nectar Lustreglass, MAC's Strange Potion Lipglass, and MAC's Costa Chic Lipstick.

Shu Uemura eyelash curler. I was using my Shiseido eyelash curler for the longest time, but I decided I needed a new one. It's very comparable to the Shiseido one. I'm not sure which one is better because they both work equally well on my eyes.

Revlon's Blue Mosaic nail polish. I got this today from work and I can't wait to try it! It reminds me a lot of Deborah Lippmann's nail colours.

Revlon's Starry Pink nail polish. I was most intrigued about this one because I've never seen a grayish purple nail colour with glitter like this. It's much more beautiful in person.

OPI's Mermaid's Tears from the Pirates of the Caribbean On Stranger Tides Collection. I also got this from work today and I can't wait to try it. It reminds me of a darker version of China Glaze's For Audrey.

If you guys have dry lips like me you MUST pick up Jack Black's Intense Therapy Lip Balm. I got mine at Sephora (not sure where else you can get it) and it's AMAZING. I heard a lot of good things about it already and I can see why. It was about $8 and it's in the men's beauty (is that the right word?) section. It comes in Natural Mint (which is what I got) and other flavours. My store only carried the mint one and Lemon & Chamomile, but online I see many more flavours. I really like mint and how it makes my lip tingle so that's why I got this one. The tingling sensation may be a little too much for those who don't like that, but I love it. There used to be a lip treatment that I used to use when I was in my teens, but they discontinued it. I forgot who it was by, but this one reminds me a lot of that one. It is a gel-like texture and it feels almost oily, but once it starts working it really make my lips feel so soft and hydrated.

I picked up Maybelline's Mineral Power concealer in ivory 2-3. The shade is a little too light for me now since I've been out in the sun every weekend, but I really like it. I'm no concealer connoisseur, but I think this is a great concealer that is great for spot treatment and has light reflecting properties. I think it would also be great for under the eyes. It has a doe-foot applicator and it blends really well. I was using MAC's concealer (the one that comes in the pot), but I find it too thick in texture and it doesn't look great near the end of the day.

I saw Hard Candy's Fox In a Box at Walmart and I was interested in trying them out. It reminded me of Benefit's blushes, but for a fraction of the price. I think I got mine for just under $6 each. The first one I got was in Spicy & Sweet. It's a mosaic blush with a bronzer. You can see the individual swatch above with a final swatch (at the bottom) with it all swirled together. It's actually quite pigmented so I have to be careful not to grab too much with my blush brush. It comes with a brush that is on the inside lid of the packaging, but it's really cheap and useless. It's better to use your own brush. I use a combination of my Tokidoki blush brush and my MAC 109 brush.

Next I got Truth Or Dare. I got this one because I wanted to compare it with the Benefit blush I already own.

The one I have from Benefit is Thrrrob and I love it. The packaging is very similar too.

The left is Thrrrob from Benefit and the right is Truth Or Dare from Hard Candy. The Hard Candy has a bronzer on the left. The Benefit one is a little more blue-based and a bit lighter.

Here's the swatch of the Hard Candy blush. It's really hard to tell in this photo because the colours are so light. The left is the Hard Cnady bronzer, the middle the Hard Candy blush, and the right is Benefit's Thrrrob.

I've been trying out MAC's MSF in Give Me Sun! I use it as a bronzer because it doesn't have any shimmer. I have oily skin so I hate anything with shimmer. It's a little ruddy looking for my skin tone, so I've been using it very light-handed on my cheeks.

This is my favourite liquid eyeliner of ALL TIME. It's from the Sephora line and it's amazing. The SA was telling me that Sephora reformulated this eyeliner so I should try it. I had used the previous one in the past and I hated it. This one dries almost instantly and the black is so intense and long-wearing. It doesn't flake like some other liquid eyeliners (i.e., the Lancome Art Liner) and it looks matte, not shiny (i.e., L'Oréal Lineur Intense). The brush is not that flimsy so you can draw a thin line or press down harder to draw a thicker line. The only con is that because the black is so intense you really do need a steady hand.

I just love this eyeliner that I bought a back-up. I'm surprised I don't hear much about this eyeliner because it's sooooo good. It's also very affordable at $12CAD. I want to buy the brown one too.

I want to show you guys how black the Sephora eyeliner is so I compared it to my Dolly Wink eyeliner that I picked up a couple of months ago. The Dolly Wink eyeliner got a lot of raves, but I think the Sephora one is better. The 2 bottom lines were drawn with the Dolly Wink eyeliner and the top 2 is the Sephora one. You can see that the Sephora one is a lot more intense. I still like the Dolly Wink and I mainly use it to finish off the flick when I draw a cat eye. I find that the felt tip of the Dolly Wink is much easier for control than the Sephora one.