Unboxing: ELF Cosmetics Haul!

Before Christmas ELF was having a 50% off their studio line sale. I have never tried ELF products before and figured this would be a good, cheap introduction. They also had free shipping (or part off the shipping outside the US) if you spent over $35! Shipping to Canada over the holidays actually took less time than I thought it would. It made it here before New Years!

That's everything I received! I won't go through everything in this post, since that would take forever, but expect a few reviews in the future! Some of the things I am most excited to try are the Makeup Lock & Seal, the Hydrating Face Primer, the brushes I got and the lip products.

Their customer service is alright. They never gave me a tracking number at first. I had to separate emails from them that were supposed to have a tracking number and instead were just blank. When I contacted them about it though, they got back to me within the hour and gave me my tracking number. I also am missing one item that I purchased, a geometric eyeshadow palette. The invoice that came with my order even has that item circled on it, like they also noticed it wasn't there before they shipped it, or something. I have sent another email to them about that and am waiting for a reply. I expect it to take a bit longer since I am writing this New Years day. I will give you an update when they do reply.

Well, that's it for today. Sorry for the bad picture quality, but these were taken on a camera at my parents house instead of here with my camera. I had to go pick it up there and was just too excited to wait!

Have you ever tried ELF products before? What are your favourites?

Haul: Drugstore Makeup

This is the lovely view from my kitchen window this morning.... UGH! It has been snowing for a few days straight now, and that only added a layer to what was already underneath.... It seems to have finally stopped though. I am not looking forward to getting to work today.

Anyways, on to makeup stuff. I went shopping the yesterday with my mom and got to do a little mini drugstore haul. I picked up a couple of necessary things, and a couple extras.

My main reason for needing to go to the drugstore was actually because I am almost out of foundation again. That's right, just a month after getting my Maybelline Fit Me Shine Free Foundation Stick it is almost completely gone!!! This is really disappointing since I loved the formula. I just have a hard time paying for something like that knowing it will only last that long. Has anyone else tried this and found the same thing happen? Am I just using too much? Anyways, I decided to go back to my old favourite, the Annabelle Skin True foundation. This stuff is amazing, and if you haven't tried it yet, a great affordable foundation. I will have a full review of it up soon. I got the lightest shade which is natural ivory. This also came with a trial bottle of their CC cream. I'm pretty excited to see how this performs compared to the foundation. I will also do a review of that once I try it.

The next thing I needed was some under eye concealer since my Rimmel concealer is running out. I decided to try the Maybelline Dream Lumi Touch Highlighting Concealer. I have heard some good things about this one. I got the shade Ivory. I will give you my thoughts once I try it!

Next I got some Duo Lash glue. I still haven't tried any of those eyelashes I got from Amazon and now I can! I decided on the one that dries black so I won't have to go over any eyeliner once I apply it.

Finally, I decided to get a Revlon Super Lustrous Lipstick since they were all on sale for 50% off. I decided on the shade Violet Frenzy because another blogger, Aaliyah from Shadow Liner Girl, had done such a great review on it and it looked gorgeous. This is a really pretty semi sheer berry shade. I love it! You can put a light layer on, or build it up for a super purple lip. It has a nice sheen to it without being shimmery and feels moisturizing on the lips. I don't own enough berry shades and this is a perfect addition to my lipstick collection.

Well, that's it for my little drugstore haul! It wasn't very big, but so far I'm pleased with everything I got. I also did an H&M haul that I am planning on posting soon, so look forward to that, along with some reviews on the products here!

Impulse Cosmetics Haul/Review!

My Impulse Cosmetics package finally came the other day and I am so excited to show you the new lipstick colours I got!!! It is about -20C here and when they came in the mail they were completely frozen! I should have expected that but the labels were all peeling off because the glue had even frozen! I was so anxious to swatch my frozen lipsticks that I sat on them like a bird with her eggs until I could finally twist them up.

I placed this order just a couple of days before boxing day. I was planning on waiting, but I started worrying that the shades I wanted would sell out while I was at work (I worked Black Friday). I decided to just say screw it and order them then and there, since I wanted them to arrive before Christmas. I'm really glad I did, it looks like almost everything I wanted would have been sold out when I got there. This is my third order from impulse cosmetics. To read about my first two purchases you can go here or here.

So, without further ado, here is what I got:

I didn't get any pigments this time. There were too many lipstick colours that I needed to try. Also, in case you were wondering, those are dots of lipstick on each package that I put there myself so I could tell what each one looked like without opening it up. The labels are papery so you can do that, which I actually like.

From left to right the lipsticks are Agent X, an awesome almost black teal, Lobotomy, a lighter teal, Permafrost, a bright blue and Texas tea, a metallic copper.

Now I won't have any lip swatches today, since I have a cold and my lips are drier than usual, but here is an arm swatch. I promise to have a look up using each one of these as soon as possible. The swatch is shown first with flash, then without:

The colour I was most excited for was Agent X, the blackened teal. It is like a greener version of Smoking Gun, a navy blue that has become my staple statement lipcolour. It, like Smoking Gun, is a bit drier than the rest of the lipsticks, but also seems to have a longer wear time. This works great as long as you thoroughly moisturize your lips first.

The next colour is Lobotomy, a lighter teal. Agent X is actually supposed to be a darker version of this, or so I was told by the owner. I am assuming both of them are meant to be a darker version of Circus, which is a light teal that I already own. This ended up being a little bit more blue than I expected, but it still looks great and is very creamy.

The next colour is Permafrost, a bright, mid toned blue. This seems to be their medium blue shade. They have a lighter and a darker. While the dark navy blue is still my favourite I think I like this one a lot better than the light blue, called Clinch. This one pops way more and I think looks better on my skin tone. It is also incredibly creamy, possibly most of all.

The final colour I got was Texas Tea, a metallic copper shade. This one is honestly my least favourite of the bunch, but only because I don't think it works well with my skin tone. It is still creamy and pigmented and the metallic finish in it is amazing, but I just don't like the colour on me. I might need to get used to it or something. They have a green metallic lipstick that I really want now! This one has a slightly shorter wear time than the rest of them too.

All of these colours are smooth and extremely pigmented. Most Impulse Cosmetics lipsticks go on fully opaque in just one swipe! Once again, I am very happy with my purchase from them. Processing and shipping did take a bit longer this time, but I will go ahead and blame the holidays. Nothing came when it was supposed to. If you would like to order anything from Impulse Cosmetics you can check out their Etsy store.

Which is your favourite? Which would you like to see me use in a look first?

Whine And You Shall Recieve (Sort of Haul)

So yesterday in my post I whined like a little kid over the fact that none of my packages had arrived yet. I knew about the one left at my parents house already, so after work yesterday I headed over there to get it. To my surprise there were 2 other packages there for me as well! I guess I typed my parents address in to Amazon without thinking!

So, here is my very quick haul of some things I purchased at sales leading up to Black Friday. I didn't actually buy anything on Black Friday, but a lot of these were still on sale. This won't be a huge haul and very little is makeup related. I still have a few more things on their way (all makeup), but I'll start with this. First the most boring probably.... My book came!!!

This is really not at all makeup related, but I think I'm more excited to get this than anything else. This is the second book in the Hythrun Chronicles by Jennifer Fallon. I bought the first one last year at a charity book rummage sale for my old elementary school (I love finding great books for about a dollar!). It just sat around on a book shelf until I decided to read it a little while ago and it was so good that I had to order the next one before I was finished. I ordered this from Motor City Books on Amazon. Sadly I still finished the first one before this arrived. Oh well... It is in way better condition than I expected a used book to be. If you are a big fantasy fan, I suggest reading this series. The first book is called Medalon. Here is the next thing I got:

Modcloth was having a huge Black Friday sale and it even started a few days before Black Friday! Tons of new items were 50% off. I snagged this awesome 50s inspired dress for just $24.99!!! It is a much brighter blue in real life, the flash made it hard to tell though. I ended up buying one size too big by accident. I thought 1X and XL were the same and I normally need a large/extra large. I decided to go a size up since I was ordering online so I took the 1X. 1X is apparently the same as the 2XL I am normally used to seeing, which is enormous on me. Fortunately this dress fits small and also doesn't really look bad slightly oversized. It has a white tie belt that I can tie a bit tighter too and it looks fine. If I ever lose any weight (hahahahaha) I might take it in a bit, and I'm already thinking I might hem it. It goes slightly past the knees which isn't a good length on me. It isn't really appropriate for this season but it was so cute I couldn't help it. I'm trying to figure out how to style this for winter, but likely it will just hide away until it is warm out again (sigh..... forever from now).

And finally we have a makeup related package!!!

I decided a little while ago that I need to start wearing false eyelashes more often. I almost never wear them because I suck at the application. The mess just never seemed worth it to me before, plus I once ruined an expensive pair of MUFE lashes trying to put them on. The second time I ever tried putting some on I even glued one of my eyes shut! To fix this I went on amazon and bought the cheapest packages of eyelashes I could find. I figured I needed a bulk amount for practice and I wouldn't mind ruining the cheap ones. I got one a big box with 10 identical pairs in it:

These ones honestly look quite cheap. They were, so I can't really fault them for that. They will be perfect for practicing though. The next package of them had 4 different types, each with 4 pairs in it. These ones actually look significantly nicer than the big box. This is my favourite of the bunch:

I'm really excited to try these ones out! Altogether this order of eyelashes from Amazon came to $2.98!!! They did of course ship from China, but I was expecting that. If any of these end up being particularly good quality I will let you know, because you can't beat that price! I still have to go get some lash glue to apply these with. If anyone has a favourite ash glue brand they think I should try, let me know in the comments!

So that was it for my haul. I will post the rest once I get it. Did you do any Black Friday shopping? What did you get?