surratt

Surratt Artistique Cheek Brush – Review and Comparison

~ stashy ~ 60 Comments

I mentioned in my Holy Grail Beauty Products post that I haven’t done many brush reviews so it’s time to remedy that. After quite a delayed gratification (I first spied this brush in May of 2016, when Polished and Inspired came to Toronto for a visit and we pawed at this at Sephora), I was thrilled to add this delightful brush to my collection. You’ve seen glamour shots of it already, but here’s more:

I started using this brush as soon as I bought it in late November – after washing it first – and I want to share my impressions of it here.

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Sephora VIB Sale Fall 2017 Haul

~ stashy ~ 73 Comments

Finally, I’m posting about my Sephora VIB sale haul! I had early access so I was able to start hauling on Nov 3rd. After the first window of shopping, this is what I ordered:

As mentioned in my shopping list post, I really did not need many things. The ONE item that I really wanted, the Surratt Beauty Artistique Cheek Brush, became out of stock right when the sale started on the Friday!!! I was so annoyed! 😡

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Sephora VIB Rouge Sale Shopping List Fall 2017 Edition

~ stashy ~ 107 Comments

Hey! I’m back. 🙂 Just in time for the Sephora sale. In a way, this is a bit of a cheat post since it was much easier to prepare than a review – ease my way back into blogging, right? 😉 If you follow me on Instagram, you’ll know that I was on vacation for a portion of my time away from the blog. Here are some more of what I did in the past month:

• Visited some cities in Alberta (Calgary, Banff / Canmore, Jasper and Edmonton) – the Canadian Rockies are truly incredible and I highly a recommend visit! ❤

• Attended my first “by invite only” L’Oreal warehouse sale – don’t get excited, since I was on a No-Buy I didn’t get makeup, but my friend went nuts for the $1 nail polishes. I got several bars of Kiehl’s Coriander exfoliating soaps which were limited edition from Christmas – yay! (Kiehl’s Coriander is one of my all time favourite scents)  The most interesting part of attending the sale was seeing all of the brands that L’Oreal owns (besides L’Oreal): Maybelline, Essie, NYX, Lancôme, Shu Uemura, Urban Decay, YSL, Givenchy…

• Went to Canada’s Wonderland (amusement park) to ride the roller coasters – our favourite rides were Leviathan and Behemoth. Fall is the perfect time to visit since it wasn’t too hot and the line-ups weren’t long.

• Donated blood – it’s been years since I last donated because I almost fainted the last time. This time, everything went smoothly, although I did develop a large bruise that’s the width of my arm afterward. :/

• Cleared out old mementos, photos, clothes – just stuff – from our storage locker – there were some hilarious gems… ah memories 😀  We’re doing some significant refurnishing soon so we need to make room – new couch, dining room table / chairs, shelves for the spare bedroom, etc.

• Finally finished the entire series of the Sopranos. It took us about 10 months to get through all 6 seasons (more like 7 seasons since season 6 was split into part 1 and 2). I’m not a fan of this show – I did not like the characters and the story line was only mildly interesting. I was so happy to be done with this show. Guess what? Now we can order Netflix! 😀 😀 😀

It feels great to be typing up a blog post again. At this point, I can’t promise that I’ll be posting as frequently as I was previously, but I’ll try my best! 🙂

Onward to the Sephora VIB Fall sale!

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Sephora VIB Sale Shopping List April 2017 Edition

~ stashy ~ 78 Comments

I feel a sense of fatigue in general in the beauty community lately. I’ve never seen so many anti-hauls and declutters as I have recently. In years past, the most popular topics were hauls and beauty collection posts, but I’m now seeing a trend of the “resistance”.  Maybe it’s just my personal perspective – have you noticed?

Having said that, it’s time for the annual Springtime Sephora VIB sale! I finally received the discount card in the mail on Thursday:

It’s starting tomorrow, April 18th and runs until the 24th. I’ve been making these shopping lists for the past few Sephora sales. They’re helpful for me to keep me focused when all the pretties are distracting me. 😉

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Megapost: Custom Palette Systems

~ stashy ~ 143 Comments

I’ve had this post brewing for months and finally dusted it off in light of the recent controversy with Z Palette. If you don’t know about it, read about it here, here, and here. Um yeah… total gong show. 😮  Z Palette is probably the most well-known of any major custom palette systems, so their social media misstep has certainly opened the door for other players to secure a larger share of the market. People are now looking for Z Palette alternatives – let’s have a look at what the options are:

I’ll be showing what I own and also list some that I know about but do not own.  All prices are shown in Canadian dollars unless otherwise noted.  Warning: long post and lots of photos! 😎

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Best of 2016 Discoveries

~ stashy ~ 124 Comments

And here it is – as you can imagine, trying to narrow down the best items was difficult! These items are new to me but may not be new launches in 2016.  Also, these items may not necessarily be my absolute “Holy Grail” of all time – they’re simply the best from the past year (I probably should do a “Holy Grail of All Time” post one of these days…)  Here’s what made it into my Best of 2016 Discoveries list:
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A departure from previous years, instead of doing Top 10 or “Top xx of 20xx” (ie. Top 16 of 2016), I’ll list top items within categories: makeup, skincare, nails, body care etc.  This post is long but rather than breaking into several posts, I decided to do it all in one – I just hate it when they break movies into 2 parts – I don’t want to do that to you! 😛

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Sephora VIB Sale Fall 2016 Haul

~ stashy ~ 110 Comments

And here’s the reckoning. Truth time: I placed 3 orders online and made 1 in-store purchase. 😀
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I requalified for VIB Rouge for next year again! But, not because of my own purchases, but my friends pooled their purchases with mine (I’d say the breakdown was 30% me, 70% them). At this rate, I’ll requalify for VIB Rouge every year! 😆 I’ll just showing the items I bought for myself, not ones for my friends.

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Sephora VIB Rouge Shopping List Fall 2016 Edition

~ stashy ~ 69 Comments

Here we go again. It’s almost time for everyone to lose their minds because it’s Sephora VIB sale! I managed to achieve VIB Rouge status last year on my No-Buy ( 😆 ) so I get early access and 20% off, starting November 4th until the 7th. Then the VIB level will have 20% off from Nov 11-14th.  It’s the highest discount level that Sephora offers in the whole year, so it’s the best time to stock up!

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I just got this in the mail – I think my SO tried to hide it from me at first… 😛

I made a stop at Sephora recently to refamiliarize myself with that store… I feel like I’m drifting away from Sephora lately!

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Favourites Lately: Early 2016

~ stashy ~ 84 Comments

I’m baaaack. 🙂  Thanks for all the well wishes last week!  I’m about 50% better simply because it’s unavoidable for me to not be on the computer at work. I’m looking into an ergonomic assessment for my desk, and possibly doing some physio. I’ll be scaling back on my posting slightly but it’s challenging because I have so many backlogged posts! Here’s a post that I meant to post last week:

I waffle back and forth about doing monthly favourites but I think a quarterly list works for me. Here are the items that have been standouts for me lately:
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All of these items would be rated 8 out of 10 or above in my Stash Worthiness! 🙂

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Surratt Beauty Review

~ stashy ~ 57 Comments

I’ve been wanting to try Surratt Beauty ever since I learned about the Relevée Lash Curler, way before the brand became available in Canada. I toyed with paying the hefty prices to purchase it online. I was then so annoyed that when the brand did become available at Sephora, and it was constantly sold out!  Finally I got a notification in January to advise that the curler was back in stock so I decided not to wait for the VIB sale in April to buy some Surratt items:
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These were purchased in my Sephora haul and I’ve been testing them for the past month – here are my thoughts.

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