Early Cyber Deals at Ulta

Start your holiday shopping early this weekend.  Ulta has over 100+ items in its CyberFundays Sale.  CyberFunday features 20-50% off of prestige and other cosmetics.  A great option for white elephant gifts.  CyberFunday is for 11/18/-11/19/2016  only.  These are my favorites:

1.  Urban Decay Cosmetics' Electric Pressed Pigments Palette ($24.00; $49.00).  This is a fun and great way to celebrate the wild child within all of us.  This super pigmented palette features bold and electric colors in Revolt (metallic silver shimmer), Gonzo (bright turquoise), Slowburn (bright-red orange), Savage (bright hot pink), Fringe (bright metallic teal), Chaos (bright cobalt blue), Jilted (bright fuchsia with blue shift), Urban (bright metallic purple), Freak (bright green with gold shift), and Thrash (bright lime green).  This palette also has a dual ended soft eye brush.  You will need to use a good eye makeup remover, like Mary Kay's Oil-free Eye makeup Remover ($15.00), to take off the eyeshadow.

2.  Lipstick Queen's Seven Deadly Sins Lip Gloss ($12.00; $24.00).  Pick your choice of this creamy, high impact gloss in Lust (a dark red), Anger (fire-coral red), Decadence (fuchsia), Vanity
(dark wine), Avarice (nude peach), Indolence (nude pink), and Envy (purple).


3.  Bare Minerals Thank You, You're So Sweet 8 PC Set ($18.00; $36.00).  A super cure Eye Palette with 8 eyeshadows named after decadent sweets.  This is a great white elephant gift that is sure to please whoever is lucky enough to select it.

Sale on Stila Magnificent Metals Eye Liner!

The holidays are just around the corner and we all want to look our best for Thanksgiving dinner.  Stila Cosmetics is having a great steal of a deal on their Magnificent Metals Eye Liner ($12.00; orig. $25.00).  This is a great chance to amp your eye look.  I like the Magnificent Metals Eye Liner in Metallic Black Gold (shown in photo).  Other colors are metallic black tanzanite (a black gold purple), metallic navy (a black cobalt shimmer), and metallic gunmetal (deep charcoal shimmer).  These are all great colors to have.  You can also pick one up as a gift for a friend or co-worker.  When in doubt, stick with metallic gunmetal, which is perfect for Christmas and New Year's.  Free shipping is included when you purchase $30 or more in product!

Urban Decay Brush Sale

Urban Decay is known for its bright and vivid colors as well as gorgeous neutrals (found in the naked palettes).  But Urban Decay also has some of the softest cosmetic brushes available.  If you go to the sale section on Urban Decay's site, you will find several cosmetic brushes on sale!  These brushes range from foundation brushes, eye brushes, and lip brushes.  My favorites are The Good Karma Optical Blurring Brush ($13; orig. $26) and the Shading Brush ($13, orig. $26).  These are great prices to try out high end brushes.

A Sweet Sweepstakes: Get a Nerdy Nummies Goody Box

Nerdy Nummies and Rosario Pansino are celebrating their year launch of the Nerdy Nummies Cookbook by giving away 20 Nerdy Nummies Goody Boxes.  Click HERE for your chance to win!

Spend $25 get a FREE Pride + Prejudice + Zombies Eye and Cheek Palette.

Did you love our Pride + Prejudice + Zombies Eye and Cheek Palette makeup looks, like The Elizabeth, The Jane, The Mary, and The Kitty?  Now you can get read to show off these elegant eye looks for Halloween with this special deal by BH Cosmetics!!!  If you spend $25 or more, you can get Free shipping and a Free Pride + Prejudice + Zombies Eye and Cheek Palette.  This palette alone ordinarily costs $12.50.  This is a great deal and the free palette supplies won't last long.  Be sure to get yours today, by clicking HERE.

Try Again or Toss: e.l.f. Cosmetics Baked Highlighter

I love a beauty bargain!  Especially when the bargain comes from a company, like e.l.f. Cosmetics, that produces inexpensive products without compromising product quality.  I love the e.l.f. Cosmetics eyeliners and blushes.  So when I found out that e.l.f. Cosmetics has baked highlighters, I jumped right on board.  These highlighters sell out pretty fast so they must be really good, right?

My first impression of the highlighter I bought, which was Blush Gems ($3.00) was well...meh.  The payoff wasn't fantastic and to be honest looked like I did not have any highlighter on.  I found it difficult to get enough product on my cosmetic brush and it required too much effort to continuously swirl the brush in the product, then apply onto the high points of my cheeks, and repeat the same process over the areas I thought I just covered.

I hate discarding cosmetics, even if it just cost me $3.00.  So I gave it the old college try and worked at the highlighter again.  Check out this easy step out to decide if the e.l.f. baked highlighter is worth another try or a toss:

1.  Use your finger rather than a brush.  I know it sounds strange.  But your fingers have a lot of ridges, grooves, and oil that pick up pigment better than a brush can.

2.  Wet your finger and then press into the highlighter.  This is a baked highlighter, which means it can be applied on wet and wet actually increases the intensity.  Once you have picked up enough product with your wet finger apply to the high-points on your face.

So Toss or Try Again?  My verdict: try again.  It actually works out much better using a damp finger application.  Let me know what your verdict is!

Medusa's Makeup October 2016 Unboxing

This is my review on the Medusa's Makeup October 2016 subscription.  I started my subscription this month after running across a Facebook Ad that listed a subscription service for all vegan, cruelty-free cosmetics.  Medusa's Makeup monthly box subscription costs $15.95 per month and ships 3 days after your credit card has been charged.  Each box comes with 3-5 products that are valued at $40.  I also viewed some of the reviews on youtube and was really interested after seeing what products came in the August and September unboxing this year.

I received my October subscription at the time Medusa's said I would.  It came in a metallic purple bubble wrap package and a small postcard describing the product theme.  The postcard featured some really cool artwork.

The first item I took out was a pair of false eyelashes and eyelash glue.  The eyelashes were secured in a heart shape container.  The cost of this item is $8.00.

The second and third items I pulled out were packaged together.  They were Red Square lipstick ($12.00) and eye glitter in abracadabra (black; $7.00).  The Red Square lipstick is a cherry red that I don't typically wear.  However, the lipstick is creamy and glides on easy.  The eye glitter is fairly black and doesn't really shine until you place it directly under a light.

The last item The Fix glitter adhesive ($8.00).  The Fix is a bit waxy (I think it is made of bees wax) but it will hold the glitter in place.

The product value came to $35, $5 missing from the promised $40.  My overall take on this October unboxing is....meh.  I'm not sure if it is because I wouldn't have selected these products for myself or that my expectations were so high after watching the August and September unboxing youtube videos.  I will try out the products and see if I like them, even though they are things I don't typically use.  I will also give the subscription 2 more months before I determine if I should cancel it or not.  Here's hoping that the next unboxing will have the Sugar Daddy lipstick!