Vive les soldes!

In France, the sales started June 28. The French Sephora is pretty famous for having REALLY good online deals, especially on their own label: Made in Sephora. 
So _naturally_ I was online the morning of June 28 to score some deals. 
Legally, the French sales weren't allowed to start before 8am. But in reality, when I went online somewhere between 7.15 and 7.30am that morning, they were already on, even though they weren't actually blatantly advertised on the site. 
That sadly meant a few things were out of stock, but I still managed to get a really good haul. 
I also got very little things I wouldn't have gotten at full price (less than €9 worth) and they are all things that will be put to very good use. So no actual impulse buying happened. 

Click to find out exactly what's in that box.

 

So what did I get? 
- Sephora, ginseng eye mask x 2 
- Sephora, Colorful eye shadow in Double Take 
- Sephora, eye shadow primer 
- Sephora, Rouge Shine in Latin Lover 
- Sephora, reusable make-up remover wipe 
- Sephora, nail polish remover with white peach extract x 2 
- Sephora, coconut shower gel x 2 
- Sephora, vanilla shower gel x 2 
- Sephora, shower puff 
 - TonyMoly, Panda's Dream set 
 - Too Faced, La Crème in Sugar Daddy 
- Too Faced, La Crème in Unicorn Tears 
- Urban Decay, travel sized primer potion

 

Prime them lids! 
I used to use the NYX eye shadow base in skin tone. I actually really LIKED the eye shadow base in skin tone. 
Right up to the point where it basically broke down on me and started to break up my eye shadows after a few hours. Its supposed to have a shelf life of 18 months, but after 9 mine went off. 
I barely used any of it because there's still TONS in the jar. 
So naturally, I decided I wasn't going back to this primer.

 

The Sephora primer was on sale (70% off), so I figured I'd give it a go. 
So far I've only swatch tested it, and so far so good (always swatch test on your wrist and inside of your elbow BEFORE you put something on your face, if you're unsure whether or not it'll give you a reaction). 
Click here for ingredients.

 

The Urban Decay one was not on sale, and whilst I know that travel sizes are comparably more expensive than full sizes, I wasn't willing to spend more on a full size. 
Because if I don't like it, I'll have spent €12,95 and not close to €23. 
I used to avoid Urban Decay like the plague because they used MIT (and didn't list it, which is extra shitty) but seeing MIT is now forbidden in the EU (thank you to the EU commission that voted that law!), I can actually give this a go now. 
IF I like it better than the Sephora one, I will definitely shell out for it. Mind you, I don't use make-up every day, so a travel size may actually be the right size for me full stop. Wait and see what works, hopefully at least one of these two! 

The plan is to test the Sephora one first, if I like it, I'll use it up and then try this one. If I don't like it, I'll give it to a friend and swatch test this one (and hopefully be able to use it too). 
You may wonder why I ordered it now if I potentially won't be opening it for a few months? Well, because ICPX doesn't carry travel sizes of this primer, and I'm in no mood to spend €8,90 shipping on it. It was just more practical and cheaper to order it now. 
Click here for the ingredients. 

EDIT (7.7.2017): Just a word of warning about this product. I had a BAD allergic reaction to the swatch test I did with this, the kind of reaction I only get from methylparaben and MIT. So I have the strong suspicion that there are unlisted parabens or paraben replacements in this that are far from innocent. I would strongly advise AGAINST using the Urban Decay primers, even if you're not allergic, because dodgy crap like that is never good nor healthy anyway.
I elaborated on this issue here.

No bad reactions at all from the Sephora one, in fact, I really enjoyed using it (and it's a damn sight cheaper than the UD one, too!).

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Dupe them shadows! 
From what I could tell online, Double Take is a dupe of M.A.C's Fresh Blade from the Tropic Cool palette (although it may be the other way around). That happens to be my favourite colour from that palette, and I've already made a pretty significant dent in it. So spending €2 (instead of €9,95) on this seemed like a good idea. 
In reality, it is more yellow than Fresh Blade from what I can see in the packaging, BUT not significantly different enough to claim it's not a dupe. It's not an exact dupe, but they're definitely in the same family of shades etc, I would say. 
I haven't swatched it yet, because I want to leave it packaged 'till I inevitably run out of Fresh Blade (sooner rather than later at this rate). 

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I just can NOT resist lipsticks 
I just can't, I really can't! 
Even though I seem to always pick the ones with the stupidest names first.

 

Latin Lover is a different orange than the orange I already own (that being the NYX butter one in Hot Tamale so the oranges with a stupid name trend does continue). 
And normally I probably wouldn't have bought this, but at €3,20 instead of €10,95 and with 31 days of Halloween getting closer, I figured, hey what the heck, might as well. 
Just a word of warning, that swatch looks so vibrant because orange is a complimentary colour of blue. In reality, it is an almost glossy, sheer orange. It can definitely be built up, but even without having worn it, I can tell you that it won't have any real durability. 
But it will be pretty, and that's good enough for me, because I don't mind having to reapply all that much. 
No ingredients link because, guess what, it didn't come with any (which is illegal, but my skin didn't burn nor blister from the swatch test so it clearly doesn't contain parabens or MIT). 

 

I also grabbed a spare Unicorn Tears, because firstly I LOVE Unicorn Tears and secondly, I seem to be going through Unicorn Tears really quickly so getting a spare whilst it was possible seemed like an ace plan. Especially considering they sell out like crazy every 5 minutes! 
Click here for ingredients. 

 

And because I love the formula of the La Crème lipsticks so much, I decided to pick a colour I can actually wear on a day to day basis, so I want with Sugar Daddy. It's a nude, it's not exciting, but it's nice. Sometimes a nice lipstick is all you need. Click here for ingredients. 

 

So no, I didn't manage to get a single lipstick that doesn't have a stupid name. I don't even know what these companies are thinking. 
Could be worse though. Looking at you Too Faced with your Granny Panties! 

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Skin care! 

 

I wanted to try the Sephora eye masks, so I figured I might as well start out with one that's actually on sale. That way I'll have only spent €1 per pack and not €3,95. I got one for me and one for Bert, because he also likes skin care. So it seemed very mean NOT to share. We have yet to use them though. 
Click here for ingredients.



 

This is a photo of my individually packaged spare, because I wanted to show how those look. 
As those that follow my monthly faves know I'm a pretty big fan of TonyMoly's cooling eye stick. So I could totally stand having another spare (considering that my current one is nearly used up, it'll just be a spare full stop).

 

I had been wanting to try the face cream for a while, but I never really wanted to splurge on it. When this came out, it was a really good deal at the original price of €25 (especially considering the cream is €22,50 and the stick €10,95 bought separately). I did think about getting it, but I didn't want to pay shipping on it. I'm glad I waited, because now it was €17,50 (30% off), meaning I saved even more on it. 
Click here for the eye stick ingredients and here for the skin cream ingredients.

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Getting clean again... 
I had seen these reusable make-up wipes pass by in all kinds of adverts and beauty magazines, but I never got round to buying one because I felt those of other brands were rather on the pricy side. The Sephora one is much cheaper, so I figured it was something to pick up on my next Sephora visit. Of course, when I saw it was on sale, I grabbed one, because I figured at at €1,70 it was well worth the go. 
Of course, now I've opened it I'm hella skeptic because it stinks (it really smells bad) and it feels very rubbery and I'm starting to think I would have been better off buying tiny towels at HEMA. 
I'm going to wash it tomorrow and see what happens. 
I stupidly forgot to photograph it, so I'll just link to it. It's the least exciting product in my haul, so no loss there :)!

 

Normally I buy my nail varnish remover from Yves Rocher if I get a 50% discount on it. In that case I pay €2,95 for 100ml. So I wouldn't have bought this at full price because then it'd be €2,95 for half that amount. However, now it was 80 cents per bottle, so I grabbed two. Because l will use it anyway, and I can't get 100ml for €1,60 at Yves Rocher. No harm in stocking up on some products you'll use up anyway. 

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And whilst we're on the subject of getting clean... 
The hot pink shower puff is for Bert. He actually likes pink, so he gets to have pink things :). They were only 50 cents off, but he needed a shower puff so I would have gotten this regardless of whether or not they were on sale. They're really good shower puffs. I bought one for myself in Nantes (an aquamarine one) and so I knew it was totally worth to get him a Sephora one. 

I also got him some shower gels to use with his puff. His favourite scents are vanilla and coconut, so I got those. We generally get vanilla bourbon and coconut at Yves Rocher, which are better value for money than these. But at 80 scents a tube I figured that we might as well get some different brands for once, because even YR can't beat that price. 
And also, because they are much smaller than our Yves Rocher ones, they make for good travel sizes. So we're keeping at least one vanilla shower gel to take along on holiday. 

And that was my ridiculous haul, I ended up saving close to €60 on this entire lot just because of the sales products. So yeah, sephora.fr 
Their in-store sales aren't nearly as good, but the website ones are ace.

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