Brand or Bargain

Which one are you?

I'm a bargain type of person. It feels way better to get as much (or in most cases more) for a cheaper price. I don't know about you guys but for as long as I can remember, I'd always feel guilty for splurging on department store makeup and i still do today. When I first started liking makeup I thought high end was the only was to go, in fact i spent $90 on 3 things at Dior once... (that still haunts me today). What really bugs me about that is I don't even use the 2 eyeshadows i got... Pretty much everything that I've spent a lot of money on, I end up hating. Is anyone else like that??

Don't get me wrong, I'd love to own a Nars blush, or Urban Decays Primer Potion, but i feel like I'd just end up returning them since i can get a good enough (to me at least) dupe at elf or somewhere haha. I'm so cheap, but its so much more rewarding for me to find a cheaper, just as good product to replace those cult classics everyone loves. Not to mention, i get to share my finds with you and we all save money. :)

I thought this would be a good chance to share with everyone some cheap alternatives of some favorite products. (alternatives, not dupes)

Please note:

Not all of these products will necessarily work for you as they do for others, same goes for the higher end products. Everyone is different.

First row: MUFE HD powder - Coastal Scents silica powder spheres
Second row: UDPP - Elf eyelid primer
Third row: Nars blush deep throat - Elf Studio Blush Candid Coral
Forth row: M.A.C. MSF soft and gentle - Hard Candy Honeymoon

Warning!

I was on Stumble Upon looking at different beauty things and i saw this site

www.mac-cosmeticswholesale.com/.
Hmm sounds interesting?
Well after looking at the stuff on their site (which by the way claims that everything is real) i saw so many fakes. I can't tell you everything on there is for sure fake, but either way its not worth it. After looking at this site for a while i'd say that everything is indeed fake.

Seriously look at this stuff. Its terrible.

And the sad thing is so many people are buying from them and have no idea that they bought a fake.
I'm upset that these people are buying these products and they have no clue theyre being ripped off. So please spread the word!

Favorite

Kinda random, but i tag anyone who reads this to do the same! If you do happen to do this please give me a link in the comments. :)

Food

Drink

Snack

Animal

Color

Past time

Season

All pictures from weheartit.com

Coastal Scents

I'm sure a lot of people know about the 88 palettes but i don't think a lot of people look closely at the other things they have to offer! I've been so happy with this company so far and I've had no problems with them at all.Whenever i'm bored i'll go to the site and put together a shopping cart with the things i want to buy and kinda plan out the next time i get something. Right now i have a shopping cart going with 10 items in it, and it only costs $18.70 plus $2.27.

No one has asked me to write this stuff by the way, I just really want to share with you guys all the really inexpencive overlooked items in this store.

First up is the most awesome product that I don't think anyone really knows of, Silica Powder Spheres. If you ever look at the famous MUFE HD powder ingredient list you'll only see the word Silica. So basically you get the same product for a much cheaper price. (1oz = $4.75) You can find this under the Fillers & Additives section.

Second is their samples. You can get so many kinds of samples from them if you just look. I think all of their powders (face,fillers,blush,eyeshadow) come in sample sizes, along with their HD liquid foundation and all samples range from 49 cents to $3.00. You get a good amount of a sample too, enough to fill a 5 gram jar if i remember correctly. All samples come in a baggie.

Lastly I'd have to say their mica/pigments are very over looked too. You get a lot of eyeshadow for their sample size for $1.00. Or you can get a huge jar (it says 1oz) of a color for around 4 to 6 dollars and i mean you get maybe 3/4 times as much as a mac pigment. I personally wouldn't recommend buying the 1oz if its just for eyeshadows because i don't think one person could use that much eyeshadow.. Just a quick tip though, when buying the mica/pigments I recommend buying a filler sample too like Magnesium Myristate so the eyeshadows have longer wear time plus you'll get more out of them too. Just remember when buying these that you should read the product description and see if the color you want is approved for eye area, I also recommed always researching the color and to find swatch pictures since coastal scents pictures aren't always accurate.


Pictures taken from coastal scents

Spring

I can't wait until spring comes. It's kinda a love/hate season for me, love because everything starts to bloom (of course), but hate because it causes floods and its so messy with the dirty slushy snow. I guess i actually like late spring then, since most of the snow is gone plus its when everything starts to bloom and then summer sneaks up overnight. Does anyone else feel that way? You just wake up one day and everything's green and summery.

Anyways, I'm just getting tired of winner and the cold.

Pictures from weheartit

It's here!

My Coastal Scents package has arrived and I must say i'm very impressed with the packing! It came in a box with tons of paper and giant bubble wrap. (yay!) I was afraid that it was going to be in an envelope all smashed up. haha
Anyways I got 3 brushes, and the 88 warm palette. :) I love everything, and i'm so ordering more brushes from them next time. The palette is so cute and tiny, its the perfect size, I thought it might be too bulky. Oh and it came with a eyeshadow sample, called key lime which is a pastel lime green with sliver shimmer.
Here's some pictures!
(can you tell i'm excited?)


The eyeliner brush is the best thing ever! Makes lining my eyes so easy.




Just a few swatches to show you how beautiful the colors are. :)

Darn you Modcloth

I LOVE this skirt so much, I probably wear it so much that it would be so wrecked afterward..
I think of so many ways to wear it, only problem is that its from modcloth and as much as i love them, I will never buy something from them.
Why won't I buy from them you ask?
Probably because no person in their right mind would pay $39.99 + $42.91 s&h for a skirt!
That's $82.90 for a freaking skirt.
So unnecessary...
I know lots of people who would pay over $100 on clothes, which doesn't even bother me, i would too if i could. Its the fact I have to pay more money for s&h then the actual skirt. I'm from Canada, I'm not even overseas and i'm not even that far from the U.S. border.
Oh I'd also be paying $42.91 for s&h even if i bought a tiny little $5 idea too..
I don't get it...
I payed like $7 for s&h from coastal scents and they did an amazing job packing everything.
*sigh*
Maybe there's a good reason, anyone know why? Or maybe i'm doing something wrong?

Anyways, don't get me wrong, I love modcloth and if I could I'd spend thousands of dollars there. Its just this shipping thing annoys me, they're not even that small of a company now, i'm sure they could afford low shipping costs. (maybe)
On the bright side, it saves me money!! :) ha
Sorry for the rant, this post is slightly pointless but if you do have low shipping costs (I'm guessing you have to live in the U.S.) and never seen Modcloths website before, I highly recommend you looking.

www.modcloth.com

Wet n Wild ; Coloricon palette in Greed

Out of all of my makeup purchases this month, this might be the one I could of lived without. Not to say I hate it, but I could of gotten something better or just saved my money with this one... Oh well!
Wet n Wild palette in Greed is probably the worst out of the bunch, and its not even that bad. There's only 2 duds in it and they aren't completely terrible either, only reason I say its the worst is because the other palettes are amazing with no bad shadows.
Alright, here are the colors. They don't have names so I'll try to describe them.

Left row: matte cream, matte coral, matte black Right row: purple with golden/greenish shimmer, coral with golden shimmer

(lighting change, trying to show you guys the sparkles.)

In all I'm not saying it think you shouldn't buy this palette, but if you only like the shimmery purple and shimmery coral I'd say pass since they don't show up at all. Otherwise this palette does have some beautiful colors and they are VERY pigmented.

Hard Candy : Sheer Envy Primer

I have seriously found my new primer, and it was only about $8! I've tried so many primers, high end, drugstore, you name it but this is by far the best one and the cheapest. I have tried the Smashbox primer and it's alright... but the price is just way too much for me. So I found this amazing one instead. First off it might not be the greatest for oily or breakout prone skin... since I've heard of this breaking people out before but you do have to know how to use this stuff and maybe that's why. You only need a pea sized amount, maybe even less if your skins oily, people use way too much of this stuff and maybe that's why its not working for them.

Currently I've been using the L'Oreal 'Magic Perfecting Base'. Ugh. It's okay... but it doesn't even say it will make your makeup last long on the package, and you have to use a lot of product to even get close to the same feeling of the hard candy one. Not to mention the pot is really small too. I compared the difference of the two and saw the Hard Candy primer did make my makeup go on a LOT smoother and even then the L'Oreal one. I also saw that when using the L'Oreal base my makeup settled into my pores and made it hard to blend it to look natural. With the Hard Candy primer my makeup had a really nice finish and looked, dare I say, airbrushed. :P To be honest I don't even think theL'Oreal base does anything for my skin... I hope they don't discontinue this anytime soon!!

Wet n Wild : Coloricon single shadows

I'm so excited about these little guys! I always over looked Wet n Wild until i started seeing so many good reviews about them, so i thought I'd give it a try too. I bought Brulee, Nutty and Kitten. I pretty much only bought Kitten because of the name ha ha. I'm in love with Nutty and Brulee, I'll probably have to repurchase some backups. :) Apparently Nutty is a dupe for M.A.C. Satin Taupe and Brulee is a dupe for M.A.C Brule although i couldn't honestly tell you since I don't have either of those. These eyeshadows are the best $2 you can spend on eyeshadows, I'm going back to get Envy too. Only thing i don't like about these is that they only come in i think 5 colors, and its kinda hard to open them.

M.A.C. Hue

After wanting to buy this for so long, I finally gave in.
I'm not much of a lipstick person in the first place so paying about $20 for one tube is crazy, and unnecessary. I won't lie to you these tubes usually don't last very long either.
(If you use them all the time that is.)
So why would anyone buy these you ask? Well for me, I find the color options, formulation, and scent amazing. They smell like vanilla, and they wear so beautifully, its really hard to buy a bad M.A.C. lipstick.
So in all, this was a good investment for me and i'm really happy I bought this because i LOVE the color!

Room

I can't wait to decorate a room for myself with this stuff someday.

picture 1 & 2; www.urbanoutfitters.com/picture 3; here/picture 4;unknown

Wonder Woman

M.A.C spring collection 2011
I'm so pre-ordering this stuff for sure! So excited about this!!!

Picture from http://www.temptalia.com/

Hmmm

I want these so bad! Has anyone ever tried forever 21 shoes? I'd have to order them online since I don't have one near me. Are the true to size, and are they even worth it? Also I wouldn't know which color to get... I always go with black since I can match it with everything i have, but it would be nice to have a change.

Clothes haul

I finally found some good lighting for this, it took me forever to get a clear picture for some reason...

Anyways, here what I got, some are thrifted and the others are from Sirens and Winners.

Element Sweater -thirfted for $10
(sorry about the extra pictures, I just love the little details on it.)

Tutu Skirt - Sierens $10

Bow skirt - sirens $10

Black long sleeve shirt - Sirens $5

Green long sleeve shirt - Sierns $5

Gap royal blue cardigan - thrifted (unsure of amount)

Givenchy lace tights - Winners $3

I will try to remember to make outfit posts!!! I always forget. :(
Also I found out you can get the Givenchy lace tights for $3 at Marshalls which I just found out thanks to this blog right here.