Beauty Haul from Atlanta

Remember July's no-buy? Well, it was so that I can shop to my hearts' content when I travelled to Atlanta early August, and this was my damage / splurge on make up products. 

At CCO, I picked up MAC's Veronica's Blush. I swatched it at the store and really liked it but decided against buying it because I wanted to think it over. The next day I went back and purchased it.

On the day I purchased the MAC blush, I visited an Ulta store for the first time and ended up with some RT brushes that I had not seen in Tdot (or when I did, it was not at the the price I wanted to pay.) I was so glad that they had both blush and powder brushes. At checkout, I also picked up this cute Bare Mineral Ready touch up veil in translucent, I thought that it would be awesome for on the go and it came with a tiny brush and clear makeup bag.

My last stop was at Sephora. Even though I have an overwhelming amount of eyeshadow palettes, I decided I needed to have the Urban Decay Naked Basic after hearing quite a few YT gurus raving about it. Alas, I now have all three UD Naked palettes.. Suckered~ I hope I won't regret it, as I have yet to test it out. I have my doubts that it would be able to replace the Naked 1 palette.  

My next two products, were the only products on my to-buy list. The Hourglass Ambient Lighting powder in Diffused Light and its powder brush. I enjoyed Dim Light so much that I wanted to try the rest of the lighting powder, Diffused Light was the next on my to try list. I've tried it and to be honest, am not liking it as much as Dim Light. I will continue testing out with various foundations and see if I will come to like the result, will update!

Dim Light (barely made a dent and have been using it almost everyday for the past 2 months) and Diffused Light

I did surprisingly less damage than expected, but I think it is partly due to the fact that I did not encounter any Chanel counters, else the Les Beiges powder, the Tan de Soleil bronzer and the CC cream would put me way over... Perhaps I can continue lemming over them and keep the money in my pocket a little longer~

SDM Haul: 80,000 points redemption

I broke my no-buy pledge this month because of the awesome point redemption promo at Shoppers Drug Mart this weekend... for 40,000 points you can redeem up to $90 worth of stuff or, the next tier which is 80,000 points for $200... I had been saving my points for this so I had to go redeem them! And this was what I came home with (along with a few samples I got from Sephora...) Moose and I had a makeover, and we basically bought every product Davis (the Bourjois MUA) put on us... He was amazing :) Here's the haul for a little over $29 CAD ^_^

SDM rep also gave us a few samples, which was super sweet of her!

I picked up two Bourjois Color Boost Glossy Finish Lipstick in 04 Peach on the Beach and 03 Orange Punch. 4 colours were launched but I only saw 3 of them at SDM.

Davis applied this on my face and I was in love~~ Previously, I've tried the Bourjois Healthy Mix serum gel foundation and disliked how it looked on my skin, so imagine my surprise when this looked so awesome on me this time around. The Bourjois 10hr Sleep Effect foundation is a light /liquidy foundation that provides a medium coverage that is buildable. It looked and felt so lovely and light. I was shocked. I knew that I have been sleep deprived last week so the beautiful result made me have to own it, instantly.

This was applied on my crease and looked quite lovely, but as my husband pointed out, I looked like I was done up... perhaps a tad too much? It's not usually something I'd do, so I'm not sure if I will be keeping this. I also have way too many brown glittery eyeshadows...

This Bourjois Duochrome eye pencil in 59 violet rose added a lovely accent when applied just above my black eyeliner...

I can't justify why I had purchased both of these mascaras... I was curious... I loved the effect the Volumizer mascara had on Moose... The Volume Clubbing mascara is suppose to be sweat proof, so... yeah... that's why they were in my checkout bag... *shifty eyes* Let's test these babies out!!

The last product that I purchased, was one that I've lusted over for a while now... It is the Guerlain Météorites compact in 03 Teinte Doré. I'm still unsure about the shade that I got, but I have wanted to get this product for a long while now and finally I got my hands on them! buhahahha!! It blended easily and it took out some shine that my foundation did not. 

A bunch of freebies we got that day

After spending almost 3 hours at SDM, we decided to check out Sephora as well and that's when we spotted this Sephora CSR with flawless skin... We asked her what her secret to beautiful skin was and she pointed us to AmorePacific... We have never heard of this Korean brand before and was quite intrigued by their products. She was so kind and made us some samples to try out... Pricey brand though, will have to see if I love the results enough to buy it! Have any of you heard about this brand? Is it worth the hefty price tag?! Please let me know! :)

Face Powder

Review: Philosophy - the color of grace (shimmering face powder)

First thing you'll notice about this product is that it smells awesome but is not overwhelming. The scent just makes me smile =)

This powder gives a nice glow over my foundation and softens my face. I know that most people only use it to highlight their cheeks/eyes and wouldn't use it all over their face, but I didn't have this problem. I use my E.L.F. kabuki to gently go all over my face and I love the subtle shimmers. With that being said, I have used this as a high lighter and it is a quite nice accent.

Overall Rating **** / 5 (1 = worst 5 = best)  
Price */5 (1 = soooo cheap! 5 = pricey!) I got this on sale for $10USD at Sephora in one of my haul in the states, however I cannot find the regular price for it on their site. So I checked it at http://www.philosophy.com/ and it is $29.50USD there... my rating is based on sale price, however, for the beautiful finish that this product gives me, it will still get a 3 stars at regular price because even though I really like the feminine effect I'm not sure if I want to pay regular price for it.
Packaging Quality ****/5 (1 = worst 5 = best) Beautiful, but I would be worried about getting scratches on the cover of the compact.
Scent? Yep, this product is scented, but the smell is lovely and subtle.
Would you buy this product again? It is very pretty, but it doesn't seem to absorb oil as well as other powder. I might buy it for it's prettiness.