My Pre-Holiday 2018 Beauty Haul

I mostly shop for cosmetics during sales. There are enough sales these days that it’s not hard to wait. Ulta had two 20% off sale opportunities, and Sephora had a 20% off coupon for VIB. Sephora also had a $20 off $75 close to Christmas that I passed on since I had bought enough during the previous sale event a couple of weeks earlier.

I replaced staple items and bought a couple of things I wanted to try that would also help me keep my Ulta Platinum and Sephora VIB status for another year.

Here are my purchases:

Hair

• EVA NYC Clean It Up Shampoo: I really love this shampoo that smells fabulous – vanilla lavender – and cleans my hair so well. Unfortunately, it has SLS in it. EVA NYC claims it doesn’t strip color. My colorist said go ahead and use it. But I am still concerned about it so I tend to use it closer to when I’m getting my hair recolored just in case. Plus it was on sale at Ulta for $5.99 ($3 off plus the 20% discount), so I bought it.

• JOICO K-PAK Color Therapy Luster Lock Instant Shine & Repair Treatment: This has been my go-to conditioner for about 3 years. It does the best job making my coarse hair look and feel its best. Along with the large size, I received a travel size free.

Nails

• Zoya Jubilee Collection, shade Allison: I already shared my Zoya Black Friday and Cyber Monday hauls last week. The shade, Allison, a cool-toned raspberry red cream, was a must-have because it’s my name and spelled “correctly” 😉 Because Zoya sent me Maxine by mistake, they corrected their error. Thank you, Zoya.

• Morgan Taylor Platinum Professional Nail Lacquer, shade Liquid Bling: You know I’m all about the bling. Also, I love the Morgan Taylor formula and wide brush. I’ll wear the silver holo Liquid Bling for New Year’s eve even though we don’t have big plans.

• Liquid Palisade, Easy Peel Polish Barrier: Liquid Palisade sent me two tubes of Liquid Palisade for review a couple of years ago. I liked it, but didn’t use it often enough and it dried out. I decided to buy a tube during the Sephora sale and make myself use it when I wear red or dark polish. We’ll see how I do at remembering.

Skincare

• belif Moisturizing Eye Bomb: This has become my go-to eye gel-cream. It is less expensive than either the PCA Skin or the Shiseido Eye Serum, and it works just as well. I’m almost finished with my current jar, so I needed this. But the funny thing is that I’ve been using belif skincare products for at least 2 years, and I always thought it was a Korean brand. I photographed the back of the Eye Bomb box by mistake, and I noticed in the photo that it is from Scotland! Wow, was I mistaken!

Makeup Brushes

• Ulta Liquid Brush Cleaner: I tried the tiniest size of Ulta’s liquid spray brush cleaner a couple of years ago, and I liked it for cleaning my brushes especially during swatching eye shadows. It’s a good value and it works well.

• Morphe M536 Undereye Concealer Brush: Super soft, densely packed, this dome shaped cruelty-free brush gets fantastic reviews as an undereye concealer brush. I’ve been using mostly my finger or occasionally a small flat concealer brush, and my results are far from perfect. I thought I’d give this brush a try because it was affordable and the reviews were stellar. I’ll let you know once I start using it.

• Real Techniques Blend+Blur Base Foundation Brush: I fell in love with applying my foundation with a small inexpensive Revele Velvet brush. I know I will never spend the big bucks to buy an Artis foundation brush especially since so many reviewers complained about the brush head snapping off the handle. So I decided to try this RT Artis-style brush for less than $20 instead. I haven’t tried it yet, but I’ll let you know about this brush too.

Eye Makeup 

• Urban Decay 24/7 Glide On Eye Liner Pencil, shade Mildew: I wanted a green pencil, and this is it.

• Urban Decay Heavy Metals Glitter Liner, shade Midnight Cowboy: I have two other Heavy Metals Glitter Liners: GlamRock, chunky silver glitter and PunkRock, tiny multicolor glitter, that I bought last year. I love GlamRock because it shows up, but PunkRock with its deeper colors and finer glitter really doesn’t. Midnight Cowboy is a burnished gold and has the same larger glitter that GlamRock does. I wore it to dinner at our friends’ home on Christmas Eve, and it did not disappoint. Love it.

• Huda Beauty Emerald Obsessions: Green is having a moment in eye makeup, and I didn’t want to miss it. Though I don’t wear green eyeshadow very often, I found it impossible to pass up this small palette. In addition to two green matte shades, there are some green and turquoise shimmer shadows as well as three more wearable gold shadows and a milk chocolate brown matte. I’ll review and swatch this separately soon.

• Natasha Denona Mini Star Palette: There’s been a lot of talk the past couple of years about Natasha Denona, well-known international makeup artist, and her relatively new makeup line. Not surprisingly, the eye shadow palettes have gotten the most attention. I figured this small, supremely portable 5 pan palette with three shimmer shadows and two mattes would be a good way to get my feet wet so to speak. Again, I’ll review and swatch this separately.

• Benefit Bad Gal Bang Mascara, travel size: This is my fourth tube of Bad Gal Bang Mascara. Obviously, I really like it. The wand with plastic teeth suits my lashes, and I like the formula that is definitely lengthening and volumizing enough without looking spidery. I decided the travel size is the way to go since we’re supposed to replace our mascara every 3 months.

• Make Up For Ever Aqua XL Color Paint, shade I-12: I got a sample of this cream shadow in my Ipsy bag a few months ago. The sample was a nice medium brown You know I love cream shadows so the shadow was a hit with me. I decided to pick up another shade, this time an iridescent steel grey, I-12. I’ll wear it New Year’s eye with the UD Heavy Metals silver glitter liner.

This seems like a lot, but the pre-holiday end of year time is when I do most of my cosmetics purchasing. Hope this will be it for a while with the exception of the Beautylish Lucky Bag that I wanted to try once more.

What about you? What did you pick up during the sales? Or what beauty gifts did you receive for the holidays?

Today's Author

Allison Cohen

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