The No Buy is Over Haul!

Welcome to my happy little blog where I use a lot of love and plenty of beauty products to overcome a chronic neurological condition. I was a very good girl during the month of November and did not purchase cosmetics even with all the great Black Friday sales. I am now happy to report that the no buy is now over and I was able to purchase a few cosmetics. I used some restraint and did not go wild when I went shopping. 

The first thing I bought was at Walgreens from the Wet N Wild Holiday 2013 collection which is called In The Spotlight. It's a trio of cream glitter shadows for $2.99 called I'm Not a Blonde Glitz. It's a beautiful trio of Holographic glitter in a translucent base, copper microglitter and gold micoglitter which swatches almost a bronze color. 

I am not certain how these will wear but they are absolutely beautiful when swatched. I am less than impressed with the holographic glitter but I expected that to be the case. I purchased this for the gold and copper shades more than the holographic shade. You can see from the swatches the holographic glitter is lackluster at best.

Next up is the No Neutral Ground palette for $4.99. The top row is super shimmery with glitter that seems like it would fallout all over the place but it's hard to tell from swatching without a primer. The middle row is shimmery but without glitter and the bottom two are satin. 

The dusty pink, champagne and gold top row are super pigmented with chunky glitter. The middle row of dusty purple, light brown and forest green are deeply pigmented as well. The chocolate brown and evergreen are in between a satin and a matte. I chose this palette as it has the most neutral colors of all the palettes. 

Next, up is the Physician's Formula Gel Creamliner trio was on clearance at $5.49 at Ulta. This brown eyes trio is a gorgeous set which includes a rich chocolate brown, a deep purple and a jet black. I haven't tried these yet but I remember reading good reviews on these liners. 

Next up is the Maybelline quad in Amethyst Smokes which was on clearance for $2.99. It looked like an interesting take on the traditional smoky eye. I am looking forward to playing with this palette. 

Granted these were swatched without a primer but they are moderately pigmented but are nicely buildable which is perfect for a smoky eye. It makes it a bit easier to work with them and blend them when they aren't super pigmented. The purple shade in the top right corner has a blue duo chromatic effect which is just stunning. The bottom charcoal grey color has some glitter but it's not too much. 

These next few items were inspired by my friend Shannel from A Little Over Thirty. She does these wonderful hauls from Watsons and she buys the most delightful Essence products. Well, I was in luck today as Ulta was having a several Essence goodies on clearance. The first of which is this lovely Long Lasting eye pencil in Coolest Chic. I don't normally wear pencil liner but I figured for $1.19 I couldn't go wrong.  

I am anxious to give this the Essence Stays No Matter What waterproof eyeliner pen. I am quite curious to put it to the test to see if it does really stay no matter what. This little guy was on clearance for only $1.49. 

The Essence Quattro Eyeshadow was the one essence product for which I actually paid full price. Yep, a whopping $1.99 which is amazing when you see the pigmentation. They only have a few of these quads they are well worth trying! 

For a value priced shadow one would expect these to fall flat but nothing could be farther from the truth. These shadows have amazing pigmentation and are super creamy. The champagne and the olive/taupe shade are full out shimmery and the deep purple and bright magenta are satin in texture. I am truly blown away just after swatching these guys. 

Next up is the Essence 3D Eyeshadow. All of these have full on shimmer and are so silky and creamy. I am completely flabbergasted by the quality of these shadows. These are a bargain at the usual price of $3.49 each but this was an absolute steal at $1.69. 

 

This duo, Irresistible Caramel Cream, is a perfect pair for daily wear. It is so easily blendable and swatches like a dream. I can only imagine how much better they will get when applied over a primer. Simply a-mazing!  I now feel like one of the cool kids because I have great Essence products like Shannel. I need to extend a huge thank you to Shannel because I probably would have overlooked this brand if it hadn't been for her. 

The last item on my haul is an early gift from my darling Boyet. My critter (son) bought himself a new Samsung Galaxy S4 phone and qualified for a $99.00 tablet. Once we discovered that the Samsung Galaxy Note 8.0 was available for only $99.00 my wonderful husband immediately purchased it for me. My current phone is the Samsung Galaxy S2 Skyrocket and it isn't eligible for an upgrade for quite a while. So he bought me the tablet to hold me over until my upgrade. My husband is too good to me and I'm not sure I deserve him. Although, I am most definitely grateful for him and I am very thankful for my new tablet.

I hope you enjoyed my immediate haul on the day after No Buy November but I think you can see that I didn't go crazy with beauty purchases spending less than $20.00. I did score a $5.00 off of a $15.00 item coupon valid 12/2 - 12/8, so I might have to make another trip within the next few days. 

• We enjoyed house sitting and dog sitting for friends over the Thanksgiving weekend.

• Boyet had the pleasure of cooking Thanksgiving dinner for the Golden State Warriors.

• I am in love with the A Note HD app and am quite sad that it only exists on the Samsung Galaxy Note, iPhone and iPad. I wish I existed for my phone as well.