I mentioned in my belated birthday gifts post that I bought the Charlotte Tilbury lipstick in Bitch Perfect with my Holt Renfrew gift card:
I’ve now had a chance to wear it for a couple of weeks so I can report back on how I like it.
I’ve collected 6 MAC items to return to MAC! They’re not all empties – most of them are expired products or items that just didn’t work for me.
For those of you may not be familiar with the program, this is what MAC’s site states:
Because we share your commitment to the environment, M·A·C accepts returns of its primary packaging through the Back To M·A·C Program. By returning six (6) M·A·C primary packaging containers to a M·A·C counter or M·A·C Cosmetics Online, you will receive a free M·A·C lipstick of your choice as a thank you.
Since 100% of the selling price of VIVA GLAM Lipsticks and Lipglass is provided to organizations that help people living with HIV/AIDS, these are excluded from this program.
I thought I’d show you what I’m returning to MAC and then you can help me decide what to select as my free lipstick!
This will be kind of an empties / purge post too.
I thought I’d post these belated birthday presents since they’re all beauty related! Since I was away for my actual birthday in July, I received some of my presents later (not the givers’ fault!) Here’s what I received (or purchased with the gift card that I received):
Yeeeeeaaaaah nail polish nail polish nail polish!
There’s literally a day for everything. Last week it was Hot Dog Day, and today apparently it is International Lipstick Day! 😀
So in honour of today, here are a few posts on the topic of lipsticks (and lipglosses and lip balms – can’t leave those out!) that I’ve made:
Lip Stash
How are you commemorating International Lipstick Day? Link me to some of your favourite posts on lip products! 🙂
Weird title for a post, huh.
Firstly: yay, it’s Day 150 of my No-Buy! Only 186 more days to go… (for those of you who don’t know, I’m on a yearlong No-Buy, but I had to restart it in Jan because I broke my No-Buy with a Target haul. My No-Buy ends on Dec 31st.)
Now, what does YDSMBSM mean? It stands for:
You Don’t Save Money By Spending Money.
It’s something my frugal bf says to me in response to when I try to justify my latest purchase, “I got such a good deal on it, it was 50% off!” To which he’d say, “You Don’t Save Money By Spending Money. You still spent money to save that 50%. If you didn’t buy it at all, then you would have saved 100%.” Party pooper. But he did have a point. 😛
Here’s a bunch of crap deals that I bought last year because I found them in the clearance section:
What did I need an orange eye shadow for? And a hot pink lipstick? I’ve NEVER EVER even worn that lipstick!
Like a lot of you, I’m a sucker for cute packaging and I think Asian brands do them especially well. But, these products are not just a pretty face. Even though some of the packaging look like they could be cheap makeup for children, they’re actually quite good quality.
Here’s a sampling of some cute Asian beauty items I have – all of these items are either Japanese or Korean brands.
After being burned one too many times with discontinued or limited edition items that I LOVE, I decided to take matters into my own hands and purchased back-ups of certain products for insurance purposes. Here are some items I have unopened in my stash:
Anna Sui Dolly Girl Lipstick in Natasha 003 – $25
I’ve already used up an entire tube of this – this is my second tube, plus I have another unopened one in my stash. It’s a gorgeous sheer coral shade with tiny shimmers that’s very hydrating. I use this as a tinted lip balm and it goes with any makeup I’m wearing. The pretty packaging and bullet design are just added bonus! This was a limited edition item from 2011.
I was tagged by Sandy of Lippie Obsession to do this and it’s right in my wheelhouse! Since I pulled out all my lipsticks yesterday for the lip stash post, I figured I’d do this tag today. For the Makeup Muggles out there, MLBB stands for “My Lips But Better” which means these lip products enhance the natural lip colour – usually a close match or slightly darker / brighter / lighter / shinier – whatever is “better” to you.
I do not wear lipstick regularly, but when I do, I typically choose a MLBB shade. My lips are quite pigmented, so some of these colours may seem deeper than what you might consider a MLBB lippie. I chose these lipsticks not only for the colours, but also for how much I like the formulas:
From left to right:
• Illamasqua Glamore Nude Lipstick in Minx
• Elizabeth Arden Exceptional Lipstick in Breathless #17 (of COURSE I have to include this! See my post comparing the old vs new)
• Guerlain Rouge G de Guerlain Lip Color in Garance 06
• Shiseido Perfect Rouge in Dreamscape RD351
• Bite Beauty Luminous Crème Lipstick in Fig
• Shiseido Lacquer Rouge in Portrait RD203
(That Guerlain tube was a PITA to photograph!)
As I’m laying out all my lip stuff in preparation for photography in today’s post, The Boy asks me, “What’s the purpose of all these pictures?”
“They’re to show my whole collection on the blog.” I reply.
“So it’s like… makeup porn?” he asks.
“YUP! You got it!” 😆
My lip stash is probably the least exciting of all of my stashes – the majority of my lip products can fit into one frame:
I’m just not that into lipsticks. I feel bold colours don’t suit my face. I’m also not into matte textures or shimmer, or overly glossy finishes – so it leaves me with a fairly narrow band of comfort zone, as you’ll see in my stash. And I only own 5 MAC lipsticks! (of which 3 are retired) It’s relatively small by comparison to my eye shadow stash (600+) or nail polish stash (400+) That said, I have amassed a lot of lip balms and butter butters.
I had mentioned in The Lipstick Tag that my favourite lipstick is the Elizabeth Arden (EA) Exceptional Lipstick in Breathless (#17), which was sadly discontinued. In the comments of that post, the fantabulous fivezero informed me that EA still had the shade Breathless in their repertoire, but in a new formula called Beautiful Color Moisturizing Lipstick (renumbered as #31). I was SUPER excited! I mentioned this to my co-worker and it turned out she had received an EA gwp which included Breathless that she didn’t want. She was planning on giving it to her mother, but instead she gave it to ME (sorry, mama). So I decided to do a comparison of the 2 Breathlesses… (what’s the proper plural for that?)
The original Breathless is a slightly warm toned MLBB shade in a hydrating cream formula. It’s very comfortable on the lips yet manages to last a remarkable amount of time on my lips (~4 hours). I wear this shade whenever I want to look polished and put together.
stash matters 