sephora

Blogmas Day 1: Red & Green

~ stashy ~ 42 Comments

Today I’m excited to announce the launch of my first ever BLOGMAS!  Ingrid of Curly.Spring.Blossom came up with this idea and asked if I’d be interested! So, Ingrid, Kaily of Hello Kaily, Sharon of Sharon Beauty Prime and myself (we’re calling ourselves the Babes in Blogland) will be posting 25 consecutive days for the holiday season.  Our Blogmas will be primarily focused beauty topics with a Christmas spin.  Every Tuesday, Thursday and Friday all 4 of us will be posting about the same topic, so be sure to check out each of our take on the topic du jour! 😀

Our topic today is RED & GREEN stuff (or Red & Green sh!t as the classy Kaily called it). I’m interpreting this topic as a showcase of red and green makeup items from my stash.
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It would have been a bit of a cop-out to just feature nail polishes so I did make an effort to include actual makeup stuff. 😛

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Black Friday 2015: No-Buy edition

~ stashy ~ 30 Comments

Happy Thanksgiving to my American friends! I hope you get stuffed full of turkey and pumpkin pie! 😀  Then rest up for Black Friday tomorrow! 😉

So it seems like everyone but me will be going out Black Friday shopping this year. *pout*  Alas, Black Friday in Canada is less of an event compared to the US anyway.  Our Thanksgiving was 6 weeks ago, but we participate in this American Thanksgiving tradition, whereby we have a random day of special sales on a Friday at the end of November.  It’s a regular work day for us; our stores don’t open as early, and our sales aren’t as insane as in the US.
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But, I have seen a bigger push from retailers to promote Black Friday here in the past few years. The last 3 years I made an effort and went looking for deals on Black Friday.   In 2013, I actually took the day off and went shopping!  Since I’m not participating in Black Friday (cosmetics-wise) this year, it got me thinking, did I even like the stuff I bought on Black Fridays past?  It’s not a good deal if I don’t even use the stuff.  Let’s have a look.

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Sephora VIB sale for friends

~ stashy ~ 37 Comments

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
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I’ve tried this perfume on before and it is a unique smoky fragrance with tobacco, leather and rum and notes.

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Trash Stash: October 2015

~ stashy ~ 59 Comments

October’s trash stash features an exciting bunch of MAKEUP products – woohoo!  Every month I put my empties in a Sephora tote and this month, it was overflowing:
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But I did manage to get a group shot:
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Last month I seemed to have finished all my face skincare, but this month I seemed to have finished all my base makeup!

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TBT: Sephora + Pantone 2012 Colour of the Year – Tangerine Tango

~ stashy ~ 21 Comments

This Throw Back Thursday doesn’t go back too far, but it features the colour  orange which is appropriate for Halloween coming up.  Just 3 years ago, Sephora partnered with Pantone (the universal colour authority) to promote the colour of the year.  In 2012, the colour was Tangerine Tango:

It’s a deep reddish orange that translates well into a variety of cosmetics products including blush, eye shadows, lipsticks and nail polish. Not being able to pass up anything limited edition, I bought this quad:
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Sephora + Pantone Universe Color of the Year – Eyeshadow Quad

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TBT: Wayback Machine

~ stashy ~ 28 Comments

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
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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:
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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!

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Foundation mixology

~ stashy ~ 74 Comments

Since I’m guilty of buying new foundations instead of using up my current open bottle(s), typically I have at least 12 different ones on the go.  Some of them are better suited for the summer, while others are only used during the winter months.  My skin tone often straddle between light and medium shades, so I typically mix 2 different shades to get a suitable colour match.   In addition, mixing different foundation formulas helps to get a finish that works better for my combination skin type.
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Typically, I like to mix foundations to both colour match and improve on the formulations to my liking.

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MAC Prim & Proper and dupes

~ stashy ~ 29 Comments

Ahh, this blush. THIS BLUSH. I love it, and I hate it.  Well, I mainly hate the fact that I didn’t buy a back-up of it.  It’s not the blush’s fault. But the love I have for it… yes, I want to marry it.
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It was part of MAC Give Me Liberty of London collection from 2010.  MAC’s official shade description is “neutral nude” which really downplays how nuanced the colour is.
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It’s a shimmering bronze nudey shade, yet it’s got a plummy-ness to it as well.  It registers as both warm and cool tone on the skin, depending on the rest of my makeup look.

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Foundation, Powder, Concealer Stash

~ stashy ~ 66 Comments

Most people have maybe 1 or 2 foundations (perhaps a winter shade and one for summer), a couple of concealers (under eye dark circles vs covering blemishes), and a face powder.  That’s normal.  Why I have amassed this many foundations / powders / concealers (or as I call them, base products), I have no excuse for.  I couldn’t even fit everything I own into one frame so here’s a portion of what I’ll be showing today:
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I figure I would just lump all my base products including highlighters and bronzers into one post instead of them separating out.

Remember, this is a no judgement zone. 😉

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Review: hakuho-do + SEPHORA PRO Kusabi Brush

~ stashy ~ 16 Comments

I thought I’d review this brush sooner rather than later since it is a limited edition item, and on Sephora’s site, it shows a couple of the styles (including this one) as “only a few left”.  So if anyone was interested in buying one of these, now is the time!

As you may recall, I purchased mine on complete impulse upon seeing the display at the front of the store in Sephora’s “Hot Now” section.  There are 5 brushes in this collection (ranging in price between $38 – $68) which are described in detail on Sephora’s site so I won’t rehash it here.
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I’m focusing on the Wedge Sloping Powder (Kusabi) Brush which is described on Sephora as: A large angled powder brush with a brand-new shape developed by the Sephora Pro team for the self-application of powder, bronzer, or for neck shading.
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The first thing you’ll notice about the brush is the packaging, each individual brush is housed it a distinctive red textured cardboard box, very reminiscent of how Asian calligraphy brushes are stored.
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Since this is a collaboration between famed Japanese brush brand Hakuhodo (side note: not sure why Sephora hyphenated “Hakuho-do”? Hakuhodo themselves don’t hyphenate) and Sephora, the styling pays homage to the source.

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