Another collective beauty haul...yet again

Somebody help me.  This is seriously getting out of control.  My name is Christina and I have a shopping addiction.  I think I like it too much and the satisfaction of getting a deal is going through my head.  I mean my TJX membership card can prove it since my membership is valid until frinkin 2016!! HAHA omg Yes I do have a problem.

Mac and I'occitane en provence haul

Back in the end of January, I saw a post on smartcanucks.com (a website where they post really good deals and freebies for Canadians) had a freebie for a free l'occitance hand cream and if they reached 60,000 likes on their facebook page, they would upgrade the 10 mL to a full size 30 mL tube.  Thats an awesome deal and this is the second time that I know of that they had this freebie.  You didn't have to buy anything but there was a 15% off coupon.

When I went, I didn't really want anything since I knew everything was quite expensive, although I did buy their night shea butter face cream last year with the 15% off coupon.  I did really like the face cream but spring and summer was just around the corner so I really didn't need something so hydrating and oily.

Everyone had a choice of three scents: Peony hand cream, shea butter hand cream or lavender hand cream.  I choose Peony since it is one of my favorite flowers since the first bouquet of flowers that I ever got was from my boyfriend and they were the stand out in the bouquet hehe. I find that this peony version compared to the original shea butter one is a lot more thin and not as hydrating but still does the job.  I have to wash my hands more then 20 times in the eight hours I am at work so I have stupidly dried up

 hands.

Forgotten Coastal scents haul

Okay okay.  I forgot about this haul.  Sue me. Actually don't please, LOL I'm a poor working class women :'(.  But yes I will admit that I forgot about this haul completely! I actually bought myself some stuff from coastal scents back in black Friday (yes I did make two hauls) but this one came in January since the Christmas mail time is really backed up.  That is completely understandable and the fact that I had to go back to work full time, so there is my reasoning. :). 

I absoultely love coastal scents but this time around, I really didn't feel like I needed anything.  But because during that time a few weeks back I was stupid enough to drop my 88 neutral palette and there was eyeshadow on the floor everywhere and many just fell out, I decided to just hand pick the few neutral colors I would wear so I just browsed through the hot pots hoping to find the perfect neutrals.

Project shoe dazzling inspired by the Christian Loubutin strassed daffodile

Back in December when i decided to really bite the bullet and make myself a pair of crystal shoes with none other then swarovski top notch crystals, I broke down and bought myself the pair of Steve madden babylonn since they are the exact same style as the christian loubutin daffodile ones. The only problem was that they didn't have the color I needed to match the crystals so I had to do myself a big DIY project. by the way, the color I choose for my shoes is called volcano which is mainly a amethyst purple shade but you can also see yellow, orange, light sea foam green and a light ocean blue.

ELF Studio Long-Lasting Lustrous Eyeshadow review and swatch

 Like always, these awesome eyeshadow was on the ELF cosmetics instagram sneak peek so when these came out back in November, I jumped on the horse and bought them on Cyber Monday.  The description of these eyeshadows just intrigued me since its suppose to be a whipped gel eyeshadows which i don't even think there is anything like it on the market right now.

ELF's description on this product: "Soft and fluffy, these vibrant, shimmering Long Lasting Lustrous Eyeshadow colors can be used as eyeshadow or a bold liner. The whipped gel texture is easy to blend and lightweight for lasting comfort and wear. Perfect for highlighting the brow bone and adding extra shimmer for a truly glam look."

Product Packaging: Let me just start off by saying that the cardboard packaging for this was so annoying! The eyeshadow was stuck in there! You have to actually rip the packaging to get it out but I had to try so hard to not rip it for picture purposes LOL.  

Another thing that is super annoying is that the names for the eyeshadow was the names are not on them.  You either have to write it with a sharpie yourself on the bottom or you would manually have to rip the little sliver sticker off the back of the box.  I really hope that they don't do that for all of them because that just makes me question if they were thinking when they made this product.

 These have super simple packaging with a black lid on top with "ELF long lasting lustrous eyeshadow" printed on them and a clear plastic bottom. In pictures before I got it, I thought the bottom would be glass like the Maybelline color tattoos.

I stuck that sticker on myself by the way.

Texture:

Unlike anything I've ever tried before, but these do remind me of their studio cream blushes which has the same "bouncy" texture. These are "bouncy" but they are more wet then the cream blush which turns slightly powder on the skin.  I wouldn't slide my finger around since they are really squishy and I would just create a huge crator so i would actually just dab my finger over it. On the skin, it still has a slight wetness to it but it does set well.  The wetness does also help attract powders to show their true color, exactly what a eyeshadow base is suppose to do.

Color Pigmentation/ Payoff:
Out of the 7 shades, i only bought three of them since most of them are very boring shades to me and the three shades I bought, I thought I could get the most use of. The seven shades they sell are Toast (yellow golden bronze color), Soiree (light pinky purple), Gala (browny raspberry purple shade), Festivity (dark purple amethyst), confetti (white with silver shimmer), celebration (sliver), and party (dark silvery blue color).

As you can tell from my description, gala, soiree and festivity all are different shades of purple and on the skin (from swatch pictures  I've seen, they all look very similar so that saved me some money there knowing that I didn't have to buy all of them.

All of the shades are shimmery which stopped me from getting them right when they first came out but when it came time to the cyber Monday sale, I went crazy and just picked some up. Now I'm not the type to like crazy shimmer on my eyes but these makes the skin look like there are Swarovski crystals on my eyes. They are stunningly gorgeous! It has this metallic element with tons of shimmers that does actually adhere to the skin nicely.

The colors are very buildable and it will be true to color after about three layers.  The good thing about these is that you can actually wear these by themselves and it wouldn't crease or you could use these as a color base which is quite effective as well.

Smell:

Good news for those that don't like frangances in their products.  These do not have any smell :).

Lasting power:

From the name, you could kind of tell but these do last quite a long time. I would put these on in the morning and when I go to take my make up off late at night, it is still there.  It fades a slight  bit but nothing dramatic.

Price:

 These go for $3 each in their studio line but you can easily get these for $1.50 a piece if you use a studio 50% off code which you just have to google for one. 

Overall I really do love these even though I am not a big sparkle girl but wow I'm in love with the shades.  I  wouldn't be going out to get all of the shades since I have too much stuff already  as it is but i just wanted to try something new.