US Haul! Sephora, MAC and TheBalm

2 weeks ago, I went a little crazy whilst online shopping and I ended up with DHL delivering 5 boxes to me today... Whilst I've done a lot of damage to my wallet, I'm over the moon and absolutely love everything :) I don't think I'll be doing this type of haul again in the near future as I've utterly exhausted my makeup budget...

I have to apologise in advance for the photos (as usual). It took me about an hour to get through all the packages and I was really exhausted at the end. I know they're of terrible quality BUT this isn't a review on anything so it doesn't really matter that much. (hopefully!).

DHL delivered 5 boxes to me :)

Box 1: TheBalm

TheBalm held a sale on April 1st to launch their new website. Everything was 50% off and I managed to place an order at 4am in the morning (the site was obviously really slow). They couldn't keep up with the online traffic so the "official 50% off sale" didn't actually go ahead until the next week but luckily for me, TheBalm honoured all orders that made it through before they closed the website to fix it.

TheBalm order

I picked up 8 things in total but 4 of them are for other people/swaps. I got myself the new Instain blush in Swiss Dot which is a peach colour, Frat Boy blush, Nude 'tude eyeshadow palette and a lipstick in Ima Goodkisser which is a coral colour. This would have cost me US$96 but I paid US$48. I don't believe Instain has been release in Australia yet but the other 3 items together would have cost AUS$97.85 from David Jones.

Box 2: MAC

Yep.. I know it's a terrible photo!

I sold the majority of my MAC makeup a few months ago as I found that I never used it but I decided to give it another go as I've fallen in love with the brow pencil in Lingering (bottom of the picture). I wanted a backup of the brow pencil as you can't tell how much is left in it (it winds up but not down) so I made a small order.

I also picked up the brow gel in clear, blot powder in Medium and 3 lipsticks (Lustering, Please Me and   Chatterbox). This cost me US$101. It would have cost me AUS$202 to get it from David Jones or Myer.

Box 3: Sephora

Sephora pack 1

I got 2 things in this order that I really wanted for awhile but never picked them up due to their prices. However, I couldn't resist when Sephora had a 15% off everything sale so I got the Laura Mercier Silk Creme Foundation (US$43) and the Stila Convertible Colour in Petunia (US$25). The makeup bag was on sale for $3 (reduced from $12) so I picked it up to use as a makeup brush bag. However, it's actually pretty small so I'll have to find another use for it.

The Laura Mercier Silk Creme Foundation is actually also a little too light for me. I read a lot of reviews that said that Bamboo Beige was the best match for NC30 but I think it might actually be closer to NC25. I'll have to save this for winter :)

Box 4: Sephora

Make Up For Ever Concealers

I made this order as I was helping Sarah from More Than Adored get the Lorac Pro Palette and I needed to bump the order up with a few items to get the free US shipping.

I absolutely love my Make Up For Ever Full Cover Concealer in shade 8 but it's starting to get a little too dark for me so I picked it up in number 7. I also got the Make Up For Ever Lift Concealer in Neutral Beige 3 as my under eye concealer. They were both bought during 15% off sale too.

Box 5: Sephora

Sephora Box 3

Unfortunately I purchased these about a week before the 15% off sale. I picked up the Make Up For Ever Full Cover Concealer in shade 8 (I love this stuff!), Dior BB cream and an Urban Decay Primer that I love. I also qualified for the VIB program so I got the welcome kit :)

I definitely won't be shopping like this again for a really long time. Let me know if you want any reviews on any of this stuff :)

Haul from Macy's and Sephora!

Mishelle from Mishelle's Sleepy Time reminded me today that I'd forgotten to do my haul post! I posted a sneak peek of it recently and she was dying to see what was in it :P (probably a bit like how I'm always dying to see new posts from her! She's an amazing blogger!)

Anyway, here's the photos of what I got in November. I always tell myself that I'm on a shopping ban but I can never resist Sephora... I actually have a shopping cart full of stuff right now but I've had to buy a few birthday presents recently and.... my wallet is going to go find itself a new owner if I don't stop shopping!

There aren't too many photo's as I wasn't sure if I was going to keep it all so I didn't want to open all the packaging. I'll post links to the products though. I'm also starting to sell some of my stuff. Check out my blog sale :)

Package 1

Package 2

Both my packages arrived on the same day at my boyfriends house. That's his green cutting mat in the background that he uses for his architecture classes at uni. It's pretty ugly but it's going to be in all my photos. I didn't realise until the end... sorry about that!

First up is the box containing my Macy's haul. I picked up a few MAC things and something from Philosophy.

Philosophy and MAC haul

1. Philosophy clear days ahead trial kit $38- This kit has $67 of value and is a 30 day trial kit. I have pimples ALL THE TIME. It never goes away and it's so frustrating when I've tried so many things but nothing works! I mainly get them on my forehead but sometimes one or two will pop up on my cheeks or in that spot right under the middle of my bottom lip so that I look like I have a piercing or that spot between my upper lip and nose.... it's SO ANNOYING. I used this the other night and I'll post a thorough review soon but I'm not a fan of 3 of the 4 things in this kit. I think I only like the cleanser.

2. MAC Prep + Prime Transparent Finishing Powder (pressed) $24 - I've actually decided to keep this. It's basically what the name says it is... a pressed finishing powder. I haven't started using this yet. The box it came in was so pretty! It was a sparkly purple box :)

Sparkly packaging

3. MAC lipsticks. I didn't open these as I wasn't sure which one I was going to keep. I picked up Creme cup, Bare Again, Fanfare and See Sheer. I may be giving one away in a Christmas giveaway... When I have more time, I'll post up swatches of my MAC lipsticks. I've picked up 8 over the last 2 months... They're so cheap in the US compared to here in Aus! ($15 vs $36).

I try to avoid ordering from Macy's as much as possible as I think of them as a "budget department store" for some reason. I'm sure that they aren't but whenever I get packages from them, it never seems like they've packaged it very well and the products tend to look a bit beaten up.

But I was too tempted by their gift with purchase which was a huge bag of samples!

Macy's sample bag

There were more than 25 perfume, skincare and makeup samples!

Sephora Haul

The second package contained only 2 things. It's so rare for me to only order 2 things from one store but I couldn't really find anything else that I wanted at the time.

1. Beautyblender Duo Set $39.95: I picked up a 2 pack of the beautyblenders. They're basically pink egg shaped makeup applicators. I thought that they were a bit of a gimmick at first but I'd been watching youtube tutorials and lots of people seemed to love their beautyblenders. It came with a cleanser for them as well.

2. Urban Decay Super-Saturated High Gloss Lip Colour pencil in lovechild $19: I bought this to push me over the $50 limit for free shipping. The pencil is super creamy and pigmented and a dream to apply. I'd love this more if my lips weren't so pigmented as it doesn't come up on my lips as pale pink. I've been dying to get the perfect baby pink lipstick/pencil.

And that's it! I have a David Jones haul to post as well but I probably won't do that until Christmas is over as it features some stuff that I got for Kris Kringles/Secret Santa's.

What do you want for Christmas this year? I'm dying to get an acrylic makeup box. I wish the people at the makeupboxshop.com could hear me! :P

Image Source: Link

Harvest Box Review and haul sneak peek

I received my first Harvest Box yesterday and I promised you a review! I love the idea behind the harvest boxes and I'm really sad that I finished mine already. It was so good!

Harvest Box

The box is really thin. I wish I'd gotten a picture of it but I guessed that it was thin enough to be sent as a large letter via Australia Post rather than as a parcel which means that it was probably only about 2cm tall?

Dried fruit and nut mixes!

They sent me 4 different mixes that were about 1 serving each. I shared mine with a friend and we easily ate these all in one go.

Sail Away was a mix of chocolate, coconut flakes and dried banana. We didn't like the banana in this one as it wasn't the crunchy dried type. It was soft and chewy.

Thai lime & Chilli was cashews coated in thai lime chilli seasoning, sugar, salt, spices and natural kaffir lime flavours. We really liked this and it reminded me of the sweet chill & lime soy crisps.

Hola Hola was absolutely amazing! I really wish I could find this and just buy bucket loads of it! It was made up of lime & chilli roasted cashews, BBQ corn and spicy peas. It was really crunchy and soooo good!

Samba was a mix of dried mango, dried banana, coconut flakes and cashews. Again, the dried banana was soft and chewy (not crunchy) and the mango wasn't your normal dried over processed and sugar laden dried mango. This was like a mango that had been sliced and dried out in an oven.

I'm continuing my subscription as I really enjoyed it! I think it'll be so handy to throw a packet into my bag for uni or work. I've been told that buying dried fruit and nuts at The Nutshack would be cheaper than this subscription but I'm not sure if they sell mixes like the Harvest Box.

If you'd like a free box, I have a code that you can use at the Harvest Box website and sign up for a free box. It's a subscription but you can easily cancel at any time by going to the cancellations section in the members area.

The code is 72226DYBJEW. I bought the Harvest Box with my own money and am not endorsed by them. The free box code is part of a promotion that they're doing at the moment with all their members.

On another note, I'm still doing uni exams at the moment so I haven't done many posts recently. I just wanted to let you know that I haven't chosen a winner for my last giveaway. The reason is that it'll take me time to go through all the entries and make sure that the spam and duplicate entries are removed from the rafflecopter form for a fair draw. I promise that the winner will be chosen soon! You can enter my current giveaway here.

And here's a sneak peek of one of my next posts. It'll be a haul post!

Note that there's 2 boxes! :D

October Empties

It's October empties time!

This month, I finished off a few items that I've had for a little while. I love doing these empties posts as it really encourages me to finish off my products :) I know that technically, we're only halfway through October, but I really wanted to do the post now rather than wait until the end of the month and have 'rubbish' lying around.

Swisspers cotton pads, Clinique take the day off makeup remover,
Sephora lip balm, Sasy n Savy hand cream