Collective Haul

This is a quick haul of the things I bought since my last haul (March). I haven't had much time to shop so there isn't THAT much. Enjoy!

BabyLiss Pro - Hot Rollers

Bought on flatironexperts.com. My mom bought them so we could share them together.They provide amazing volume and you can create different styles with different roller sizes.

Came with 30 clips. Normally it comes with 15 but flatironexperts.com added 15 extra ones!

The different size rollers

They also had a promotion going on that if you bought over a certain amount you got a free mini KQC straightener, a thermal shine spray and a straightener envelope (my mom kept that). I wasn't even aware of this promotion so I was surprised by in when I received the package.

Bath & Body Works - Candles

I also got 2 candles, which I actually received as a gift from a friend because I brought her to a hockey game. I got the fresh picked cherries and the peach bellini! They both smell amazing and are true to their names!

Benefit - Highbeam, Posietint, Benetint

I always wanted to try the Benefit Highbeam and their lip/cheek tints. Sephora had an exclusive set of a mini Highbeam, Posietint and Benetint, so I thought it would be a perfect occasion to try them all out. I love all the products, but I especially love Highbeam and I use it every day!

China Glaze - Crushed Candy (crackle)

China Glaze is practically impossible to find where I live ( I had to do some extreme research to find retailers) but they happened to sell China Glaze crackles on sale at Winners (the TJ Maxx of Canada). They had every colour but I decided on this one because I always wanted to try For Audrey and it is similar.

Essie - Tart Deco, Turquoise & Caicos, Borrowed & Blue, Van D'Go

I went a little bit Essie crazy recently. I have been appreciating the brand so much lately. I've done a Nail of the Day for each of these colours I think.

Forever 21 - Love & Beauty - White

I've been wanting to get a white for a long, and I wanted something inexpensive. I guess I paid for what I got because this is pretty sheer. I will be looking for a opaque white because it is a very trendy colour A.T.M.

Garnier - Skin Renew - Undereye Concealer 

The picture makes it look smaller than what it really is. I love this, the colour is lighter than my skin tone and really brightens my under-eye area. It isn't the most opaque concealer but it is build-able. It also noticeably helps in reducing the circles and discolouration.

Hard Candy - Concealer Palette

I thought the concept of this was pretty cool. I just find the formula doesn't really stay on. I guess I just have to try and play with it.

L'Oreal - Voluminous Curved Mascara

I truly worship this mascara, especially the one with the curved brush. It is the most voluminous mascara I have ever tried. The name described it perfectly. I buy it in black.

Rimmel London - Lipstick - Pink Blush

I've really been into lipsticks lately. This is a colour beyond my border, a baby pink! I regretted that I never bought the Viva Glam Gaga 1 lipstick, and I heard this was a very close dupe so I decided to try it. I actually had trouble finding this, either the stores didn't sell this specific colour or if they did, it would be sold out.

Skin79 - BB cream

I always wanted to try a BB cream, and I finally found a store in my city that sells them. I picked up this one because I heard such great things about it. I love it, and I found it really helped in evening out my skin tone. One thing is that there is only one colour and it is light. It blends with my skin, but I noticed that in the sunlight it tends to make me look very pale. Since were heading into summer I don't want to create that effect so I'm taking a little break, but I will be going back to it in the fall.

Urban Decay - 24/7 Eyeshadow Pencil - Sin

I have fallen in love with the colour Sin in the Urban Decay Naked palette so I was excited to try this out. If you have tried NYX jumbo eye pencils and they creased on you, this product could be a better alternative to them (though they are much more pricey.) A lot of people use these as a base, but I found it dries really fast, so I use it as quick eyeshadow.

Urban Decay - Primer Potion - Sin

Clearly I am obsessed with Sin. I bought this because my regular primer potion is practically finished and seeing as I always wear neutrals, I found this would be great for me. It gives a shimmery gold-ish base to your shadows. Beautiful!

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Marble Nails: China Glaze's Bahamian Escape & First Mate

 

WOW, I am very impressed by the results of these nails! I've tried marbling twice in the past, which both ended in extreme failures. Finally I have succeeded!

I really wanted to have blue nails, so I used a sky blue and a dark creme blue. In water marbling I've noticed that the best brand to use is China Glaze, it speeds into the water perfectly. I'd suggest to test out the colours you want to use before the process because sometimes polishes just don't want to work. 

If you don't know what water marbling is, I'd strongly suggest you check out a tutorial on Youtube, there are hundreds. I find actually seeing the entire process is so much more educative than looking at pictures. 

No, I wasn't able to create perfect marbling. Sometimes I would tape over a nail or create a dent, but nothing compared to the fails I've had in the past! I tried to retouch my nails to make them look normal. 

Now that I am actually able to do water marbling, I am looking forward to trying to use more than two colours in the nails.

 China Glaze - Bahamian Escape
From the Blues collection

 

 China Glaze - First Mate
From the Anchors Away Collection

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Nails of the Day: Zoya's Phoebe

POP goes the Zoya cherry! It is the first time I ever bought/used a Zoya polish. This is the colour "Phoebe" from their Mod Matte collection. 

I personally love matte nails and lips but I know a lot of people don't. If your love matte polishes like I do, you should definitely try out this colour. It's an extremely bright sky blue, which is a colour I've never really seen as a matte, but it is beautiful & unique.

I also love how they mattified the bottles for this collection of polishes, I really really like the finish of them. This is seriously going to be my matte colour of the summer

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Day 30 >> 30 Day Challenge

30 Day Challenge

Day 30 - Your favourite nail design

WOW! I can't believe this will be my last post for the 30 day challenge!

This one is pretty simple. The nail design I love creating the most is zebra prints. I find they are so simple to create if you own a nail art polish, and they are super duper cute.

Whenever I do zebra prints on my nails many people ask me how I do it. They think it must take so much effort. What they don't know is how simple it really is ( I'll keep that my little secret ;) ).

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Day 29 >> 30 Day Challenge

30 Day Challenge

Day 29 - Lip product you can't live without

eos lipbalms 

I love lipbalms so very much & I would consider them my favourite kind of lip product. Now, if I had to pick my favourite lipblam it would be the eos lipbalms. I think the concept & packaging is pretty awesome, but the actual product does great things for my lips aswell. It really moisturizes and smells amazing. I couldn't pick a favourite in all their scents so I picked 3. Summer Fruit, Honeysuckle Honeydew and Sweet Mint.

I first noticed this product at Shoppers Drugmart when I was waiting for medicine and was strolling down the aisles. Obviously I had to stop at the lipbalms, and as soon as a noticed the EOS they looked so unique and fun I had to buy one. I fell in love and went back the next week for more. There weren't anymore and I never saw any again at Shoppers Drugmart.. I went to maybe 10 different ones and I never found another one.

One day I was in my local mall and went into a random clothing store I'd never been to before. I noticed they had eos and my heart almost stopped. Now I own 5 different ones and love them all to pieces!

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Nails of the Day: China Glaze's Crushed Candy (crackle) & Joe's Oyster

I finally tried my China Glaze crackle polish for the first time today! I absolutely love the colour, and I heard it was very close to For Audrey (which I have been dieing to find/buy). 

A couple of days ago I applied Joe's Oyster polish which I am pretty sure is from their summer collection. It's a foil silver colour that reflects cooper tones. I also found that if you looked really closely in the sun (like in the last picture) there were some pink, green and blue reflections in the polish. 

I got tired of it today but I didn't really have time to change it completely so I simply applied the China Glaze Crackle. I find the colours really compliment each other nicely.

 

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Day 28 >> 30 Day Challenge

30 Day Challenge

Day 28 - Brand you wish you could purchase where you live

There are 2 brands I would love to be able to purchase where I live.

 

 Sonia Kashuk is sold at Target. In general I wish there were Targets where I live (Target will be entering the Canadian market in 2014, WOOT WOOT). I always hear such great things about the Sonia Kashuk products that I want to buy everything from the brand.

 

 

 Barry M is a British brand and I've heard a lot of good things about it. Especially their nail lacquers, and seeing as I am obsessed with nail polish I'd love trying it out!

 

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Day 27 >> 30 Day Challenge

 30 Day Challenge

Day 27 - Your favourite skincare line

I couldn't post this yesterday. I basically woke up, showered, left my house and just got home now. I guess it's still yesterday in other parts of the world! Anyways, for this challenge I will talk to you about my favourite skincare line.

Well, let me start by saying that I don't have a favourite skincare line. I'll be honest and say that skincare is not my strength. I cleanse and moisturize and that's it that's all. I don't spend much money on the skincare products I use. I've always been fortunate with good skin on my face whether I wash it or not (but I obviously do for hygienic reasons!) So instead I'll just show you the products I use to cleanse & moisturize.

CLEANSER

I use the Cetaphil Gentle Skin Cleanser. I heard many great things about the brand and happened to need a new bottle cleanser of cleanser. I was at Costco one day and I saw a huge bottle of this for $19.99, so I was like, why not?

It's great for me, but I wouldn't be able to give a huge review on it cause I really don't have problematic skin. No product has ever broken me out (except in high school when I got a vaccine and I was allergic to something in it, so I was broken out for a year because the vaccine was effective for a year..).

When I finish this bottle (in like 5 years cause its so big) I am definitely going back to it because my skin is as soft as a baby's bum after I use it.

Moisturizer

 I'm pretty sure most of you have seen Nivea Creme before. I've read that it was the creme with the highest sales in the world. I like it and have been using it for a long time but sometimes I find it too thick for my face. I think this is the perfect creme to put on your entire body but not your face. If your legs feel dry, this will do wonders to them.

I'm actually thinking of trying a new moisturizer specifically for my face. The brand Yes to Carrots (& Cucumbers & Blueberries..) has recently started being sold in my region so I'm thinking of buying their facial moisturizer. Do you recommended it?

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Nails of the Day: Butter London's No More Waity, Katie

O-M-G. I cannot believe I own this nail polish. I had been dying for it. The few places that sell Butter London near me never had it. I finally ordered it on the company's online website (they have an American, a Canadian and an UK website). I can say that I was the happiest girl in Canada today when I tried it on for the first time.

Lets start off by saying that I was completely obsessed with the Royal Wedding. Once it happened, it hit me, I NEEDED this nail polish. That is when my real hunt started

Also, how unique is this colour? It's not like anything I've ever seen before. It is a beautiful grayish purple. I find that in the sunlight (like in the picture above), the purple is much more vibrant than it is indoors. Indoors it looks like a very gray purple (right now I am in my basement and it literally looks like a dark gray, no purple). I really love colours that change depending on the lighting, you don't get tired of them as fast because they look different depending on where you are. 

Now lets speak about the glitter in the polish. the glitter inside is silver, but with the polish on top of it, it looks like a purple toned silver. the glitter isn't big, but it is big enough to be considered glitter and not shimmer. It is not chunky either, when you touch your nail, there are not any bumps because of the glitter. I find it gives an effect that is not achievable by putting a coat of glitter on top of a polish, the fact that it is mixed inside just makes it so unique.

Last but not least, the opacity of the polish. I felt like the first coat was very sheer. After applying it I thought I would need 7 more coats to make it opaque. After the second, I was pleasantly surprised to see that it was almost opaque. All I needed was third coat to top it off. I think the logic of the sheerness of this polish is so you can see the glitter underneath. If it wasn't so sheer, it wouldn't be the same.

I also wanted to mention that this polish dried extremely fast, which is great because I wanted to go to bed right after. I'm truly happy about this polish and the brand (it was my first Butter London polish ever!!) I am definitely going to buy more Butter London polishes because clearly this brand knows how to be original!

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Day 26 >> 30 Day Challenge

 30 Day Challenge

Day 26 - Item on your wishlist

I've got a pretty long wishlist, and you'll be surprised to find out that the item I want the most is a simple $6 nail polish: China Glaze's For Audrey. The day I own this nail polish will be a very memorable moment in my life.

Why do I want it so much? I love Tiffany's & Co, I love the Tiffany blue, so guess what! I want the Tiffany blue polish! China Glaze is not widely sold where I live. I know a couple retailers of the brand but they sadly don't sell this specific colour.

I know, you're thinking; why not just order it? I seriously would, but all the websites I find that sell China Glaze are sort of weird and I don't know if I want to be giving them my credit card number. The legit ones overprice on shipping (especially in Canada, once it was $30 for one polish, like COME ON!) so I rather not get ripped off for getting something shipped 1 hour over the American boarder. 

I will keep searching for this polish. If you know of a good website that sells this polish and doesn't overcharge for Canadian shipping, then I beg you to tell me what it is!

 

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