Today’s Project Focus 10’s review product is Clinique Pop Lip Colour in #02 Bare Pop:
I redeemed Optimum Points for this lipstick – normally it retails for $22 for 3.9g of product.
Project Focus 10: Clinique Pop Lip Colour in Bare Pop
clinique
Project Focus 10: Kiehl’s Ultra Facial Cream
Another Monday, another Project Focus 10 review! It’s actually a holiday here today. It’s Family Day, which is a fairly new holiday for us (it started in 2008). Family Day activities include: going skating, playing hockey, skiing… oh who am I kidding? We just sleep in, watch tv, eat junk food and waste the day away – and then tomorrow we complain about how the long weekend wasn’t long enough. 😛
Today I’ll be looking at Kiehl’s Ultra Facial Cream:
I bought the 50ml jar for CAD $34, but it is also available in a 125ml jar for CAD $58, which is a better value per ml ($0.68 vs $0.46).
Trash Stash: January 2016
Lots of hair and skincare empties to kick off the year:
I should mention here that I have to wash my hair every day or else it gets really limp. I have started to skip one day a week – typically Sundays when it doesn’t matter if I just tie my hair back – I honestly don’t think my hair / scalp is any better for skipping the one day of washing. Anyway, onto the empties.
Sephora Order: Clinique, Surratt, Sephora Collection, etc
It was only a matter of time before I placed a Sephora order! Initially I was lured onto Sephora for the final day of the Double Points offer on skincare – I wanted to get the Clinique Moisture Surge Face Spray. But then a few other nagging bits from my Lemmings list urged me to get other things…
I just couldn’t wait until April for the VIB sale to get the Surratt Beauty – I had every intention to wait, but my resolve has been weakened by Hauluary. 😛
One thing I will say is, holy, there’s so much packaging with these items, this is what the above items look like removed from their cartons:
Even the eyeliner came in its own box – ridiculous!
Collab: Project Focus 10
New year, new collaboration! This is another brainchild of miss Ingrid (aka Curly.Spring.Blossom) who approached me with a 10 week long blog series called Project Focus 10. The idea of this series is to focus on beauty products to try to either use them up, or give them more attention:
• 10 weeks
• 10 beauty products we have never reviewed, that we want to focus on or hit pan
• 10 different product categories
There are 4 of us doing this collab so that means we’ll be showcasing 40 products! How awesome is that? 🙂
Today is the introduction to the 10 products! Mine are:
Blogmas Day 3: Gift Ideas
This isn’t just any ol’ gift ideas post – I’ll focus on gift ideas for the beauty addict – because that’s what I know best! 😛 There are 2 schools of thought on gift giving for beauty items: buy practical things that you know the person uses up and would want a replenishment. Or, buy things which perhaps are a little frivolous and the person might not buy for herself. I don’t see any issues with either of those strategies, you can even give a mix from each categories – so here are my gift ideas divided into: Sensible and Sensational. 😉
I’m not a fan of pre-packaged gift sets – I think it’s more thoughtful to pick items and package them together yourself. I’m going to keep the gift ideas capped to below $100 so it’s realistic!
Sensible
Shiseido Facial Cotton x6 ($11 each = $66)
I’d be pleased as punch if I received enough Shisedo cotton for an entire year!
Optimum Points Redemption Extravaganza!
Since everyone is posting their Black Friday loot, I thought I’d post my Optimum Points Spend Your Points loot! I did go into Shoppers Drug Mart (SDM) armed with a shopping list, let’s see how well I did sticking to the plan:
Firstly, I ended up redeeming for $300 worth of products instead of $200. I had accumulated more points since hitting the top tier a little while back. And since I’ve been positively deprived of new beauty products all year long (too dramatic?) that I went all out and depleted my Optimum Points balance. It was worth it! 😀
Sephora VIB sale for friends
I guess I’m that friend with benefits. 😉 This is the 2nd time I’ve offered up my Sephora VIB 20% off discount for my non-VIB friends! The last time was back in April, and I was able to re-qualify for VIB status solely on my friends’ purchases. 😛
This time surprisingly, the list was not as long! Here’s what I bought on behalf of my friends:
Friend #1: Maison Martin Margiela “Replica” Jazz Club perfume $120
I’ve tried this perfume on before and it is a unique smoky fragrance with tobacco, leather and rum and notes.
TBT: Wayback Machine
I’ve been wanting to start some Throwback Thursday (TBT) posts for a while now, and I figured I’d start with a fun one: Internet Archive Wayback Machine
If you’re not familiar, Internet Archive Wayback Machine started in 1996 to archive the World Wide Web, page by page. You just type in a url into the Wayback Machine and it will display a timeline with every instance that a snapshot has been made of the site:
What’s great about the Wayback Machine is that it retains a fully functioning website with links and images (where available) as if time stood still. I’m fond of nostalgia, so I could honestly spend hours looking up old versions of websites. For fun, I dug up some old makeup sites!
Where was it made?
On this Labour Day holiday, I thought I would examine where in the world our cosmetics are made. It’s something that I always take note whenever I buy a product – I like to turn over the compact or box to find that fine print: made in xx / fabriqué au xx. For me personally, of the typical cosmetics producing countries, here’s how I rank them in terms of quality, from high to low: Disclaimer: this post in no way is a reflection of all qualities of products made in each country. I understand that there are high and low quality products made in every country. This is a generalized overview, and as such, there will be exceptions.
France – most notable for perfumes and skincare. Certain brands exclusively produce in France, staying true to their origin, such as Guerlain, Chanel, and Bourjois. I feel that these brands focus on controlling both the heritage and integrity of their products. There are also excellent pharmacy skincare brands like Nuxe, Avene and Bioderma – luckily in Canada we have easy access to these brands!
Interestingly, I noticed that my Benefit Boxed Powder Blush changed from “Made in USA” (in the shade Dallas) to “Made in France” (Hervana) and 4g less product!
stash matters 