The Best Dollar You'll Spend This Year

Alright guys, I know I'm way late to the party on these. Way late. I don't care, these are so awesome I have to talk about them. If you live near a Walgreens, drop everything and go now! Tucked away is a hidden treasure: Twinkle Twinkle 5 color eyeshadow palettes from Profusion for one dollar each. One dollar!

I know, I know, the price is impressive, but if they suck, it's still a dollar wasted. Guess what? They're awesome! There are four to choose from but I only picked up three, as the fourth one had colours I would never wear. The amount of product is really quite impressive. They all come with a double ended sponge applicator. Behind where that brush sits is a long skinny mirror. It's a little awkward but better than nothing! Anyway, let's talk about them!

None of these palettes have names, nor do the shades. They are numbered, though! The first, 01, is a lovely collection of smoky purples. Since the shades don't have names, I'll just talk about them from left to right. The first shade is a really pretty shimmery ivory. It's pearlescent and somewhat sheer, but does build up if you want it to. The second shade is a gorgeous steely lilac that has a pink duochrome finish to it. This shade alone is worth the dollar you'd pay for the whole palette! Third in is a deep shimmery plum. Fourth is a really beautiful shimmery indigo/blurple, and fifth is a wonderful shimmery black. All of these are super soft, really nicely pigmented, and blend really well!

Up next is 02, which is a collection of shimmery nudes. Again, we'll go left to right. First is a really pretty cream highlighter shade, which is quite next. Second is a beige champagne colour, which is really really sheer and doesn't build very well. Kind of disappointing but it could make a nice base. Third is a warm light brown, which is extremely powdery and crumbly. The shade and pigmentation are nice, though. Fourth is a medium brown, and fifth is a really pretty maroon/burgundy colour. This is also really powdery and not so well behaved, but the shade is so pretty it's worth the work! These shadows are all very soft and all nice and pigmented, aside from shade number two. You might have a million and one nude shades, but this palette is definitely worth your dollar!

Last up is 03, a collection of shimmery earthy tones. Shade one is a really pretty rose gold colour. Shade two is a deep olive green that almost looks brown! Shade three is a bright green with a beautiful golden micro glitter. Shade four is a hunter green, and shade five is a shimmery black! As usual, these are all very soft, nicely pigmented, and blend well!

So these are all really awesome! The colours and finishes are beautiful. Some of the shimmers are so shimmery that they're almost metallic! While these are great on their own, they do even better over primer! I have to say that 01 and 03 are my favourites. If you're looking for beauty on a budget for yourself or for a great stocking stuffer, you can't go wrong with these!

Which Twinkle Twinkle palette is your favourite?

xo

Unboxed: November ipsy!

Hey loves! It's ipsy time! ipsy is a monthly beauty subscription that costs $10/month. In it you get at least five products. Some are samples, some are deluxe samples, and some are full size! November's theme is Girl Meets Glitter and I found this month quite interesting, so let's dig in!

Let's start with the bag. I freaking love it, but I am quite the sparkly girl! It's just a wall of silver glitter with a pop of pink in the zipper! The glitter on the bag is covered by a glossy layer, so it is not rough and will not fall off and get everywhere. If you look inside at the label, you'll see that the bag is a collaboration with Forever 21 Cosmetics. I will definitely use this and it is going to be amazing for the holidays.

The first thing I saw in my bag was a Bye Bye Under Eye Full Coverage Anti-Aging Waterproof Concealer from it Cosmetics in the shade Neutral Medium. Whew! Supposedly this is your eight hours of a sleep in a bottle. This is a travel size (0.11 fl oz) but a little goes a long long way. This is really thick and creamy, and the coverage is so full that even a small dollop is enough to cover under both my eyes! I don't have a lot of under eye issues but this does do a great job of evening out my skin tone! A full size of this, which is just over twice the size of the travel size at 0.28 fl oz, costs $24 and will probably last you until the day you die. Love this!

Next in the bag was an eyeshadow base in Submissive from Be a Bombshell. This is a full sized product. The base is a creamy and shimmery bronze that isn't too sticky and blends out nicely. I also have to give props for the packaging. The pot is made of glass, which makes the product feel substantial and luxurious. This lovely product costs $14!

Third is a travel sized (53 mL) can of Oil of Morocco Argan Oil Volume Shine Hairspray. This is for all hair types. If you know me, you know I never really do my hair and never really use hairspray, so I can't really comment much on this. I do appreciate that this has argan oil in it, though! It smells nice and fruity too! A full size (300 mL) of this costs $8-9.

Next up is a sample size tube of SeaRx Micro-Dermabrasion Face & Body Scrub. I'm really excited to receive this! A few Birchboxes back, I received their daily moisturizer and I loved it so much that I made it my actual daily moisturizer! Anyway, this has that same lovely lemony scent and the crystals are definitely teeny tiny. I'm looking forward to using this when my face and neck need a good scrub! A full size jar of this costs $32!

The last thing in my bag was a little sample tube of a Starlooks Lip Gloss in Guilty Pleasure. This is that nice browned out rose pink that is so popular right now. It has a nice doe foot applicator and smells like vanilla frosting! The gloss itself is nicely pigmented and not too sticky, and leaves a nice glossy finish! A full size tube of this costs $13!

So that wraps up my ipsy bag this month! I like the products I received this month a lot! The only thing I'm not super excited about is the hairspray, but that's quite alright! One day I'm going to decide that a southern beehive updo is for me and will need all the help I can get.

If you'd like an ipsy subscription of your own, you can subscribe here!

What was your favourite thing in my bag? If you get ipsy, what was your favourite thing in yours?

xo

Unboxed: November Boxycharm!

Hello loves! It's that time again where I show you what I got in my Boxycharm! Boxycharm is a monthly beauty subscription box that costs $21/month. November's theme is Sparkle and Shine. Sounds excellent, right? As always, all products are full size! Let's take a look!

First up is a MicaBeauty Eye Primer. This tiny 0.3 oz pot costs $44.95, holy moly that's expensive! Fortunately, a little definitely goes a long way so hopefully this lasts a long time. This is creamy and very much like a concealer. It feels nice and not too heavy, uncomfortable, or sticky. It does have that costume makeup smell to it, though.

A pressed blush from OFRA Cosmetics in the shade Paradise Pink is next. This shade is, not surprisingly, a shimmery deep pink. This is really intimidating in the pan but is quite easy to sheer out and leaves you with a lovely flushed look like you have been out in cold windy air. This blush is enormous at 0.28 oz and costs $24.95. Love it!

Third is an Eyelicity Glitter Liner from Tarina Tarantino in the shade Black Diamond. Tarina's packaging is, as usual, stunning. That is as far as my admiration for this product goes, unfortunately. This is a black eyeliner packed with rainbow holographic glitter. I find the eyeliner itself to be streaky and not very pigmented. This could be the fault of the brush, though, which is so fat and bulky that it's impossible to get a nice fine line. The description on the card says the glitter in here is micro glitter, but it's actually huge. You would have a bad time if this fell in your eye. Thankfully, once this dries it is almost impossible to budge. I maybe might use this to layer over regular eyeliner but otherwise I am super unimpressed with this. It almost seems juvenile. A 0.17 oz tube of this is $16.

Next on my list is a gold Color.Bug from Kevin.Murphy. This is like hair chalk; you're supposed to put a styling product on your hair and then drag the colour pad over it to make it stick. This is okay, I guess, except my hair is pretty much exactly the same colour as the gold, so I don't see anything at all when I apply it aside from maybe some glitter. This costs a ridiculous $25 for 0.17 oz. I would never pay that much for something like this!

Last in the box is a bellápierre Shimmer Powder in Sensation. There is a sifter in the pot to stop the product from getting everywhere. This is a white shimmery loose powder. It looks like pearlescent sparkling snow and is very pretty! I love it! It's beautiful opaque as a shadow or sheered out as a brow bone highlighter or a glittery top coat, if you will. :) This pretty little thing will cost you $14.99.

I had really high hopes for this box. The Sparkle and Shine theme seemed so cool for the lead up to the holidays and had so much potential, but I have to say this isn't my favourite box. Everything in the box suited the theme for sure, but there are at least two products that I can't ever see myself using. Don't get me wrong, I still love Boxycharm! Not everything in every box is going to be a winner and I'm still incredibly impressed with the product size and value packed in this little box, it's just that I have loved my past boxes more. :)

My two favourite things in the box are the OFRA blush and the Mica primer for sure! What would you be happiest to receive in your box?

If you'd like a Boxycharm subscription of your very own, you can subscribe here!

xo

New Brand: Honeybee Gardens

Hello loves! I tried another new brand! I had decent luck trying out Prestige Cosmetics, and I'm kind of obsessed now with finding some gems hidden away in lesser known brands! I came across Honeybee Gardens, which is an all natural company. I'd never really dabbled in all natural makeup (at least not on purpose, anyway), so I thought I'd give this a go! I picked up four products to try: a lipstick, an eyeliner, a mascara, and an eyeshadow palette.

Let's talk about the brand itself. Honeybee Gardens prides itself in using all natural ingredients that you can actually pronounce and recyclable packaging. They don't test on animals, are PETA certified, and have lots and lots of other awesome environmentally friendly credentials to their name. For all that good stuff, their packaging is very cute and their items are reasonably priced! Now onto the products themselves!

We'll start with the Truly Natural Mascara, which I got it in the colour Black Magic. The packaging is a sleek plastic tube made to look like brushed metal with a big long window on it so you can see inside. The brush is your pretty standard width fibre brush; nothing particularly special about it. There is a little bit of scent to this product. It's not unpleasant or overpowering, but it is different than what I'm used to (probably because there's no chemicals in it). A tube of this stuff costs $11.99!

The formula itself is really nice. I'll be honest, though. If you're looking for a mascara that is going to give you insanely lengthened and volumized lashes, you won't find it here. The look you get from this mascara is a very natural one and that's what I love about it. I have extremely blonde eyelashes to the point where you can't really see them, and sometimes all I want to do for makeup is define them a little. Every other mascara I use is almost too much for this and my eyes end up looking weird and unnatural. One coat of this is perfect for a nice defined look. You can definitely build it up to be a little more bold, but it's not going to give you doll eyes.

The JobaColors Eyeliner shade I chose was Belgian Chocolate. It is, as you'd guess, a matte chocolate brown. I like the colour but I find the formula a little hard to work with. It's not super creamy which leads it to not be as opaque as I'd like in one swipe and to pull on my eye as I apply it. Heating it up a little might make it apply better, but I haven't tried that yet. I don't hate it, though! It smudges nicely and I know I'll get use out of it! This costs a very reasonable $8.99!

Next up is the Cosmopolitan Eyeshadow Palette. There are four eyeshadows in here. One is matte, one is very subtly shimmery, and two are shimmery. The packaging is cardboard with a cute businesswoman silhouetted against a cityscape. There is a magnetic closure so the cardboard lid stays shut, which I like. Included as well is a bamboo dual ended brush/sponge applicator. The only thing I miss in this is a mirror of some sort, but I understand that they want their packaging to be completely recyclable and that might be why they didn't include one. Not a problem.

L-R: Kashmir, Satin Sheets, PS Pink, Angelic

The first shade in the palette is a matte chocolate brown called Kashmir. It is nice and soft, nicely pigmented, and blends very well.

Next is Satin Sheets, which is a very shimmery golden champagne colour. This is incredibly pigmented and very well behaved for blending! It has a very interesting texture; it almost feels a little wet or sticky when I swatch it, but I consider this a plus as I find fallout from this minimal!

Third up is PS Pink, which is a cool toned medium pink with the tiniest hints of silver micro glitter. Again, it's nice and soft, nicely pigmented and blendable. The glitter in it is subtle enough that I think it would make a fabulous blush as well!

Last up is Angelic, a very shimmery cool pink. It's so cool toned that it's almost lavender! This is very similar to Satin Sheets. It's extremely pigmented and also quite blendable. Again, it has that interesting sticky/wet texture to it. It's really hard to describe, you'd have to feel it. It's super super pretty though!

Overall, I really like this palette! At $29.99 for a quad, I think the price is a just a tiny little bit steep. However, the shadows are really pretty shades and a nice quality so that makes it much easier to swallow!

The last thing I tried out from Honeybee Gardens was the Truly Natural Lipstick in their signature shade Queen Bee. The packaging, once again, has that brushed metal look to it. The cap has a little window to see inside on the side of it and the adorable company logo on the top!

Queen is a beautiful cool toned red with a matte finish. It is very nicely pigmented and doesn't bleed at all! I do find that on my naked lips this drags and takes a little effort to apply nicely. If I slick on a layer of lip balm underneath, though, there's no problem! Any extra required effort is so worth it though. This lipstick wears just beautifully! Once you apply it, it stays put until you decide you don't want it anymore. And, even after you wipe it off, it leaves a wonderful deep pink stain behind. At $12.99, this lipstick is a steal and I would gladly even pay double this price for it!

I'll just say it... this is my new holy grail red lipstick. Hands down.

So, all in all, I am very impressed with Honeybee Gardens and am absolutely interested in trying out more products! Their intentions and morals are lovely, their products are lovely, and their prices are reasonable! What more could you ask for in a brand?

xo

Rimmel Show Off Lip Lacquer in Nova

Hey loves! Let's talk about a great lip gloss from Rimmel: The Show Off Lip Lacquer in Nova! As far as I can tell, "Show Off" is the counterpart to the UK's "Apocalips," which is a collection I'd heard a lot about but never got around to trying. I was happy to find a few shades on clearance! I only picked up one, and now I'm sad I didn't get more! The shade I got is a cool toned medium pink called Nova and it's amazing!

The Show Off collection comes in 5.5 ml tubes. The packaging is sleek and there is a geometric shape reminiscent of a crystal on the end of the lid. I think it's a nice touch and sets the packaging apart from other brands! The applicator is a doe foot that has a little reservoir in the middle, allowing you to apply more product with just one swipe!

As nice as the packaging is, it's the formula that counts. This does not disappoint! It's extremely pigmented; you only need one pass to get it entirely opaque! Along with this, it's not at all thick or sticky. It doesn't go on patchy and is quite comfortable to wear. I hate when lip glosses are so sticky that you can feel them  It has a satin finish - not too glossy and not too matte! It also smells vaguely of citrus or fruit, which I quite like.

As with most glosses, this won't last forever. I found that although the finish faded after an hour or so, the colour itself did linger for a while after. I did find this ever so slightly slightly drying, though my lips do get dry fairly easily. I might try it with a lip balm underneath next time.

Honestly, these are amazing and I am super tempted to go buy every single shade. My only regret is that I hadn't tried these sooner! You can find them at pretty much any drugstore at a relatively inexpensive price: Ulta, Target, you name it.

Have you tried the Show Off collection?

xo