The So Called ‘Deluxe’ Sample Size

So benefit had a little event at the Queen Victoria Building and at World Square in Sydney on the 21st of August. On instagram they had said you can pick up a free ‘deluxe’ sample of the porefessional and receive a voucher for a free make-upper(?). This supposed ‘deluxe’ sample however is 0.1 oz, although the general sample size they have in Christmas kits and things alike are 0.25 oz. That size is considered the norm size of the product’s sample size.

Normal sample size on the left, 'Deluxe' size on the right.

Now I’m not complaining, I mean it’s free makeup, its actually my most used primer so I’m pretty ecstatic when I don’t have to pay for it. I’m just wondering if it’s false advertising to say deluxe samples when it’s in fact smaller?

Let me know down in the comments if you agree or if you think I’m just nit-picking, which I probably am.

Laters,
Amber

Taking a break and updates

I’m ever so sorry that I haven’t been posting without an explanation, I feel like that’s very shitty of me and I wanted to apologise. Some stuff has been going on in my life yatta yatta, you’ve heard it all before. Anyway I have some very excited posts coming up for you guys that include pictures as well :) I am happy to say that I’ll be returning to my old schedule and posting at 12:30 EST on weekdays.

Lately some exciting things have been happening asides from the usual new releases in the makeup world (How freaking cool does JS’s new liquid lipstick look?!), last thursday I was able to go to the grand opening of the second ever Sephora here in Australia. And when I say grand, I mean grand. They went all out giving out huge goodie bags, $50 vouchers for their store, Krispy Kreme donuts and coconut water. Not to mention the balloons and Benefit gorilla handing out chocolates. The music was pumping, the crowd wasn’t too horrible, all in all a very fun and exciting time.

I woke up at 4:30, was out of the house at 5AM and got to Macquarie Centre at 6AM. I was about 6th in line so I didn’t have to count if I was in the first 200 which was nice. The two people behind me were Miss Billy and MessyDownUnder which you may know from the YouTube community. I was so excited to meet them and talk to them throughout the day. They even managed to convince me to get the Kat Von D shade and light eye palette. Also The Missing Piece cafe staff were nice enough to come down to the line and take orders for $2.

There was a rumour that the Macquarie sephora had more stock than the Sydney one including brands that aren’t in the first store and I can vouch that that is very much true. Even the new Kat Von D liquid lipsticks and single eyeshadows are there. They handed us so many freebies that I didn’t bother to go crazy on buying much though. I did get, obviously the Shade + Light eye palette, Re(Marc)able foundation, Kat Von D Lolita liquid lipstick and the Sephora Collection Chocolate body wash.

However the fun did not stop there. Every shop had its A game on today because of the sephora opening, MAC’s scented Fix + had come out (although I didn’t get any), Mecca had guys standing out front of the store handing out Mecca goodie bags as well; which included a Mecca labeled water bottle, a lollipop and a pamphlet that said if you spent $50+ at Mecca, you could choose any deluxe sample. (Samples included UD eyeshadows, a Nars lip pencil, a Clinique lip crayon, UD setting spray, Too Faced melted lipstick and some others that I can’t remember off the top of my head haha. So naturally I had to spend some money there. (At this point I should mention that my grandmother was with me for majority of the day as well.) Because I had decided to get the YSL Touche Eclat Blur Perfector, UD Shadowbox palette and the mini Hourglass Dim Light highlighter, which equals over $100. My grandmother and I went up separately as to get 2 samples, of which I got the Too Faced mini Melted Peony and the UD eyeshadow samples.

A couple other stores had their A Game on too like Pandora with sales and candy bars but I wasn’t too interested.

All in all, if you have the opportunity to go to a Sephora opening, I would highly recommend them. Go big or go home Sephora.

Laters,

Amber

New Palette from TheBalm

Last week I saw a photo on Facebook of something from the David Jones catalogue and it made me literally bounce with joy. Low and behold there was a special TheBalm palette which included a highlighter, blush and two eyeshadows. I was so excited and as I am graduating, my mum thought it would be a great present for me…

However you did have to spend $29 or more on TheBalm and you’d get it for free. I was a little worried because the last time I went to David Jones all TheBalm products were reduced and hidden away. There was barely any left as well. So I was worried that the city David Jones wouldn’t stock it. However there was a clear container with about 20 Mary-Lou’s in there. My eyes lit up like I had found the jackpot. The cult item of TheBalm and they had so many! It was $29.95 off memory so I thought it was perfect. I picked it up and took it to the counter. The woman scanned it and I asked if I was eligible for the palette, she said they had them but it was currently 30% off all TheBalm products. (Later I had found out that it was for the Vogue Fashion thingo mo bob) but I was like crap, I didn’t see anything else except the Mary-Lou, I didn’t really want to get two but the woman had led me over to a different spot.

OH MY GOD, the motherload was in front of me. I had never seen so many TheBalm products that I could hold myself. They had everything. I ended up picking up something from my wishlist, the Shwing black liquid eyeliner. I’ve posted pictures of all three products on my instagram but I will try and put up some swatches and blog pictures up tonight.

If you got anything from TheBalm let me know down below xx

My Hunt for Burgundy Eyeshadows

All I wanted was a eyeshadow to match my Nars Scarlet Empress lipstick but do you think I could find one? No of course not because in the beauty world you need to pay an arm and a leg for something so small. Then you may even have to sell your organs on the black market for postage.

So no, paying $12 USD for a ABH eyeshadow that when converted would probably cost me $24 AUD, not to mention paying for a forwarding service because ABH stopped shipping internationally.

I was also not going to waste my time sitting down and going through 140 MAC eyeshadows because believe it or not, I do have a life. Plus they don’t really have all of the eyeshadows in the Australian stores and if you want just the pan, not the compact, you’d have to go to a Pro store, of which I am not near. So ABH and MAC were out of the question.

But what’s this I see on my instagram feed from BeautyHaul411 - a coupon code for free international shipping for Makeup Geek. Oh thank you Lord Jesus Christ. I had been obsessed with the colour ‘Bitten’ ever since I saw it on their site but postage was always my buzzkill. HOWEVER that coupon saved my life. If you’re wondering what it is it’s FREESHIP2015ABZ although it does end today so better get in quick if you want it.

I will post pictures once I receive them, I should let you know I bought six (Cinderella, Rapunzel, Poolside, Bitten, Pop Culture and Peach Smoothie). So my days of keeping Bitten only in the cart and spending hours on Pinterest trying to find my perfect Burgundy are over :)

Colourpop - Your introduction

There’s been a lot of youtubers and beauty guru’s talking about the brand Colourpop, including me. I have done about 5 orders from Colourpop and I’ve had a feel for all their products. In case you’re a Colourpop newbie and you’re looking to pop your cherry, I’ve compiled a list of all the Colourpop collections/items you should get on your first go around.

There are a couple things you should know before buying Colourpop:

• The lippie stix are in long tube forms, they aren’t the typical MAC bullet.
• The eyeshadows/blushes/highlighters/bronzers all have a creamy feel to it but finish like a powder
• It’s cheap as hell for their products :D

The first thing you need to get is the Forget The Fruit Cake lippie stix collection.

It’s $30 USD and it comes with 6 lippie stixs. It gives you a great colour range from nude to pink to red to 3 darker plum shades. You really get a feel of their different finishes (matte and hyper-glossy).

Next I suggest the In Bloom collection for $39 USD.

This gives you a feel for their blushes, highlighters and lippie stixs. The blushes include a coral blush and a more pinky/plumy blush. Both of which have great pigmentation when applied with a stippling brush. There are 3 lippie stixs and the lip colours are a little more on the pinker side but now you have cream finishes in your collection. The highlighter may be a little dark on really pale people but it’s a great one to experiment with nonetheless, you could definitely use it for ‘strobing’.

This one is great if you love neutral eyeshadows and are a big fan of the Youtuber Shaaanxo. This is her collab with Colourpop and its own $20 USD for 4 eyeshadows. You get a champagne colour, mid-tone brown, khaki green and a more rusty brown. These are a mix of pearlised finishes and matte finishes. You can great so many different looks using these eyeshadows and you can follow her own tutorial using them on her channel.

A couple products I haven’t covered by the collections above I’ll list my favourites below:

• Bronzer - Carry on (recommended for medium to dark skin tones, however a light hand makes it perfect for pale people). Also a matte finish and is only $8 USD

• Lip pencil - Lumiere $5USD - No finish but it leans more on the matte side.

• Ultra Matte Lip - Midi, Lychee and LAX - All $5 USD each and are a matte liquid lipstick, I recommended 3 so you get to try a range of colours.

 MidiLychee

 LAX

*Gollum Voice* My Precious!

What is it with limited editions? I can’t get over them. Its almost like this urge to own as many limited edition items as possible, even ones that currently don’t really exist anymore sadly like the Too Faced Leopard Love palette, although that doesn’t stop my inevitable need to track it down like a bitch in heat. So my question to you is, what’s your perspective on LE’s? I know a friend of mine doesn’t like LE stuff purely because they mark up prices and it's just another consumerist scheme to dish more money out of our pockets but, to me, that’s the appeal. Its the fact that I could own a thing which is unique. We all know the typical MAC black lipstick bullet, but once it changes colour, shape or texture we all go nuts. Same with any other MAC LE and I think it’s for a good reason, we’re all consumerists stuck in our little mindsets of “I need to own this item before it is gone forever!”

I know some of you will disagree, simply because of the fact that you actually want and like the product, whether it happens to be limited edition or not. I mean I did not hunt down a cheap but authentic Nars Virtual Domination palette for a year and a half because I liked the packing, no I actually wanted the palette because it was versatile and beautiful as I’m sure many of you would agree.

A few of my favourite LE’s ever, you’ll notice quite a few MAC products but really nobody does LE’s like MAC do:

• The Nars Virtual Domination Palette: it’s handy to travel with, the colours and pigmentation alone are worth the money and it has every cheek product you could need.
• MAC Simpson’s blush in Sideshow You: Let’s be honest, who didn’t watch the Simpsons as a kid common, this one was a given. While the blush alone is a great product, the packaging nailed it for me. I was disappointed that they had brought out lipglasses instead of lipsticks for the collection but oh well, you win some you lose some
• MAC Cinderella Iridescent Pressed Powder in Coupe d’Chic: Boy this one was a tough call because the collection actually included lipsticks! However they were super sheen which barely shows up on my lips and I hate that. So I chose the thing I use the most out of the collection although I did buy a few things from this collection, I chose this powder because it was freaking beautiful, it really does give your skin a pearly glow to it.
• The RiRi Hearts Mac Brush in 187SE: I freaking love this brush with all my heart (haha get it?) but I don’t dare touch it because the packaging is too beautiful! It’s hard for me to use products that change the way it looks and the same goes for brushes.
• Dose of Colours Black Rose: Oh lord, for those of you who don’t know me well yet, I love matte liquid lipsticks. I have draws dedicated to just liquid lipsticks, not even just normal lipsticks, but specifically liquid to matte ones. So I think it’s pretty awesome when one of them makes it onto yet another one of my favourites list, but this special one deserves this because my mummy dearest got it for my birthday, it does happen to be a beautiful dark burgundy colour that is so rich and dark that it almost sounds like a cake. But sadly, it was only for a limited time.
• ColourPop Tie Dye Eyeshadow in Rip Tide: This was part of the Tie Dye collection that came out for 1 weekend. The collection consisted of 4 pieces but this one by far was my favourite. Am I the only one who thinks that Rip Tide and Flamingo should have swapped their names around?

Sunday’s MOTD

I shared this with you guys on instagram on Sunday but incase you were wondering how I got the look, I thought I’d write it all down for you guys, that is if you can’t wait for the video to be out, and that will be a while I can tell you that.

So first we’ll start off with the base, I used:

• Smashbox photo finish primer water
• Hourglass veil primer
• Laura Mercier tinted moisturiser in nude
• Mac select moisturecover concealer in NW15
• Crop concealer pencil
• BYS translucent loose powder in light

Then for the face, I used:

• Kat Von D shade + light palette
• Mac bronzer in golden
• TheBalm instain blush in lace
• Hourglass ambient lighting palette in radiant light
• Colourpop highlighter in double dip

For the eyes, I used:

• Limecrime brightening eyeshadow primer
• Mac eyeshadow quad in shop and drop
• ABH Artist palette
• Essence eyeshadow in Irisistable purr-ple
• Essence eyeshadow in Purple orchids

And lucky last, for the lips, I used:

• Chi chi lip liner in it girl
• Mac lipstick in velvet teddy
• Colourpop lippie stix in cookie

Then the UD all nighter setting spray all over.