Recent Hauls (aka Stuff I Instagrammed)

If you follow me on Twitter, or follow me on Instagram, you would have seen a lot of hauling over the past couple of weeks! This is because I was in the USA during that period of time, and of course I had to hit up the local Walgreens and CVS to get my drugstore makeup fix!

Being a budget kinda shopper, I really just targeted things that were on sale. In addition to Walgreens and CVS, I also looked at the Marshalls, Nordstrom Rack, and Ross stores around the area. Sometimes the makeup is really banged up in those stores, but you do get some good buys. Seriously. You gotta dig to get to the gold, I guess.

Anyway, here are my Instagrammed shots of my hauls. This is the first haul. Basically it was just stuff that was on sale - which happened to be Covergirl (I finally got that Covergirl Tapestry Taupe eyeshadow, which is one of those cult products, although lesser known since it's not a fancy brand), and Essence of Beauty (those red-and-black things are the EOB Crease Brushes, which I've reviewed before on my blog. I think they re-packaged it or something.) and a bunch of other stuff. I shop makeup like I shop clothes - I just make a beeline for the stuff that's on sale, and work from there. Yeah, I'm cheap like that.

Oh oh, and I'm so happy that I got some of the Sally Hansen Gem Crush nail polishes. I don't know what's wrong with Sally Hansen, but outside of the US, their product range is really, really, really dull. Here in Asia, all they have is a bunch of pinks, sheers, nail treatment products, base coats and top coats and stuff like that. Even the more "wild" colours we get in Asia aren't that exciting, e.g. shimmery forest green. All the exciting launches in the past few years (e.g. the HD nail polishes) never make it out of the USA. I had to go to extreme lengths to get my botles of Opulent Cloud, Mystic Lilac, and my HD DVD and HD Spectrum. I mean, come on Sally, not all of us here in Asia like to wear pinks and sheers, you know. I'm dying for more colour over here! Bring in the holos! The duochromes! The good stuff! But I digress. I was happy to get these, because I'm pretty sure I'll never see them here in Asia.

And here is the second haul. I finally, FINALLY, managed to get my hands on one of those legendary Wet n' Wild #666 lipliner pencils. When I was living in Chicago, my local WAGS was always out of stock of these babies for all 3 whole years that I was there. Seriously, it must have been a conspiracy or something. I never got my hands on these in Chicago, but for some reason the #666 pencils are a lot more plentiful in California. Sheesh. You West coast guys get all the good stuff. Come to think of it, even the Marshalls and Nordstrom Racks had better make up here in the Bay area than in Chicago. In Chicago the downtown Nordies Rack mostly had really dug into Stila and Smashbox (on occasion you would get Trish McEvoy and Shu Uemura in tiny quantities). You guys get Urban Decay. Wrapped up in plastic so noone can dig their grimy fingers into them. Life's not fair, really.

Also, I got some more Sally Hansen Gem Crush nail polishes. I felt like getting more of them, but some of them looked kinda similar to colours I already have, or were just colours I wouldn't wear, or looked less exciting (e.g. pale pink glitter - yawn). Anyway, I got a couple more colours, so yay me.

Also, while I was at a Tanger Outlet mall, I got this baby! Lancome Le 54 nail polish - yes the name is Le 54 (no idea what it means - French for "The 54", maybe? Who knows what these fancy French names mean) and it was a polish from Lancome's Spring 2011 collection. It's a sheer light purple sheer (photo makes it look darker than it is IRL) with exciting dark blue glitter. Fantastic. I would wear this alone or layered, and I'm thinking maybe a jelly or glitter sandwich may be perfect with this shade, non? It would be tres chic!

Annd this! I know, you guys in the USA have had it for ages. But I finally got a hold of Revlon Scandalous! This is a dupe for Deborah Lippmann's Bad Romance, so I'm excited to get my paws on this, since Lippmanns are usually beyond my budget. I like dupes! I was trying to find Revlon Whimsical too, but I checked in every single Walgreens and CVS, and they didn't have it.

Anyway, this was what I instagrammed. I actually bought more than that (I got an elf eyeshadow palette, and a couple of Essie polishes, also from 2011 Spring, but at the awesome price of US$3+ per polish, as well as some clothes and shoes - but this isn't a clothes/shoes blog, is it?), but I haven't gotten around to instagramming any of them yet, because I had to do other less important non-makeup related things, like sightseeing, traveling, and actually spending time with my family (I know, I know, how dare I have a life outside of this blog). But here's the whole shebang, all the beauty-related stuff (makeup, skincare, nail polish) that my mum and I hauled over the past 2 weeks. No clothes, shoes, or bags. I got most of the makeup and nail polish, my mum got most of the skincare. Good times!

And apologies for the craptastic picture quality, these were really taken with my iPhone on the fly. And on my tiny iPhone screen, these sure looked a lot better. Shucks. Anyway, you'll be seeing some of the new stuff around the blog, with better photos and actual reviews soon, and I hope you'll like it - I can't wait to share them with you!