Sephora – Sip of Starrshine

Sometimes I shy away from talking about skincare here because I try to keep things gender-neutral for my readers. (Shout-out to my 3 male readers!)
But then I remember that literally everyone has skin, it’s not a gendered organ, whatever.

On Black Friday, I got myself a few early gifts in the form of skincare value sets because I am a complete sucker for value sets. (You get such a variety of products! And they’re small so you can test them while you travel! And you don’t feel as much pressure to use a lot if you don’t like it! Yes, lemme at ’em!) I also received some products as gifts from loved ones, so here’s a quick rundown of what I am excited to try out in 2017 when I return from my holiday:

Tatcha: Beauty Essentials Discovery Set

I have been interested in Tatcha as a brand for a little while. (The branding works on me: I want to unlock geisha beauty secrets!) Every time they offer a value set at Sephora, I have a look, but I usually can’t justify the purchase for such little samples of product. I found this set at TJ Maxx, actually, so I am looking forward to trying out the entire set.

It includes:

Can’t wait to unleash geisha beauty unto my face!

Sephora Favorites: Scouted by Sephora

So… I am a huge sucker for any value set, but I am especially weak for the Sephora Favorites value sets. (One of the single biggest purchases I ever made at Sephora was their Super Stars set a few Black Fridays ago.) There have been a lot of great ones in the past few months, and I chose this one because it’s a dedicated skincare set that covers a wide variety of functions. (Some of the sets are masks only, moisturizers only, etc. I also haven’t been as excited about the makeup sets because I’m usually most interested in the concealer/tinted moisturizer but the only shade offered in the set is too dark for me.) I originally purchased this set a gift, and then circled around the store and grabbed another one for myself. Sometimes you just have to treat yo face.

Included in this particular Sephora Favorites box is:

Cane + Austin Miracle Pad+
Drunk Elephant C-Firma Day Serum
Estée Edit by Estée Lauder Pink Peony Overnight Water Pack
Herbivore Botanicals Coco Rose Coconut Oil Lip Conditioner
Jurlique Rosewater Balancing Mist
Lancer The Method: Polish
Lashfood Phyto-Medic Eyelash Enhancer
Tata Harper Purifying Mask

There are a lot of different types of products in here, including some will be very new to me like glycolic acid pads and the eyelash enhancer, so I’m excited to try this set out!

I also have my free Sephora birthday gift to try out. This year, they had the option of a makeup gift from Marc Jacobs, but I chose the skincare gift from Fresh, which included a small soy cleanser and a rose face mask.

Korean Products from a Friend

Christine, being the darling gem that she is, sent me a package on my birthday! (And it arrived on the day of my birthday, great timing!) In it, she included a card that made me cry alongside 3 of her favorite beauty products.

I’ve actually been waiting to try out the Skinfood mask after I finish up the last of the black sugar mask I have now, and I am really excited to try out these Misscha products because I have actually never used an essence or an ampoule in my skincare routine before! As much as I read about skincare, I am actually not a strict adherent to the many steps of the Korean skin regimen and often get very lazy.

I will be traveling over the holidays, so I’m sure my skin will really appreciate some extra love and care when I get back. These products will be great for kicking off the new year by treating my body’s largest organ a little extra nice!

Happy holidays, however you are celebrating! I am very excited that Chankuah begins on Christmas Eve (great for the Christmukkah celebrants!) and ends on New Year’s Eve this year; it makes the holiday season extra special.

Do you have any skincare recommendations for me? My absolute minimum recommendations to everyone is to use a moisturizer every evening and a light SPF every morning. I may have nagged a male coworker of mine the other day, but I think he knows I push sunscreen on everyone out of care!

(In the debate between “Grey Thursday” and “Brown Thursday”, I like brown because that’s the color of most of the Thanksgiving foods, I guess? XD)

(I’ll update this with photos and video when I feel like getting around to taking and editing them. XD)

I did most of my shopping with my family on Thursday after everyone was food coma’d. I don’t really like the idea of shopping on Thanksgiving, a sacred day for eating and being with family. I also hate the idea of salespeople having to leave their families to work on Thanksgiving. 😦
However, we spent all of Black Friday showing someone around New York, and people ditched us after dinner anyway, so around 8 PM we headed out to Best Buy, figuring that it wouldn’t be too hectic after 2 hours of being open.

I did wait in line outside of Best Buy a few years ago, so I was extremely glad that I didn’t have to do that this year. My cousin (well, actually his dad is my dad’s cousin, but he shall henceforth be referred to as “my cousin” and not “my second cousin” or whatever) had one objective: The Big Bang Theory season 6 DVD box. He is upset that the design scheme for the DVDs changed after season 3 and now they’re inconsistent with each other on the shelf. (Serious stuff, people! Open your eyes to the ugly truth.) As for myself, I wanted to get:

An external hard drive – I was extremely panicked when my computer died, so I want to make sure I can back up my files
SD card – When I lost my camera, I lost my 8 GB SD card for my camera, and now I only have my 2 GB one. I like having more on hand, preferably in a larger file size.

I ended up getting:

A 2 TB portable external hard drive – I didn’t plan on getting such a large size and I didn’t think that portability was so important, but my dad convinced me since it’s more convenient to be able to carry it around AND if I keep up at the rate that I’m currently going with my photos and videos, then I’ll need the large storage capacity.
A 16 GB SD card adaptable to micro-SD – Not sure why I needed micro-ness, but maybe if I want to carry the files on my phone? Iono. I declined the 32 GB one because I worry about having TOO many files on one card in the unfortunate event that I lose it or something. Also, I would never upload if I had so much storage space on one. XD
A wireless mouse – I gave my old one to my brother and then he broke it. So. I don’t use them much but if I need one, I’ll have one.
Headphones & earbuds – For my listening needs, since my old ones are on their last legs now. I got the warranty for the headphones but I’m tired of getting them for these Skullcandy earbuds… sigh.

Because of that external hard drive, I ended up spending the most money at Best Buy this weekend.

POOR WALLET GETS NO BREAK. (Sorry, wallet.)

My brother made me take him out to the mall around midnight because he wanted to get some clothes. I had some things in mind to get, too. PLUS we were in New Jersey visiting my “cousin”, so you know what that means:

No sales tax on clothing holla at me!

Even though I was pretty annoyed about being out so late when I wanted to be asleep, and a little grumpy with my brother, I had a productive late night trip. I got:

2 Disney graphic tees – I stopped buying graphic tees for a while, but I bought quite a few this past fall. I’ve been especially into getting graphic tees that harken back to my childhood, i.e. Disney, Super Mario Bros, TMNT. I got these at Macy’s, where they were on a clearance rack for half off, I think. PLUS the cashier put in some promo code (I’m guessing for Black Friday?) so both T-shirts together only cost me a little bit over $10. (And remember, no tax, holla.)
Black button-down blouse, aubergine button-up cardgian, & red lace-trimmed tank – Just picking up some basics from Old Navy; no real rhyme or reason here but I’m sure I’ll wear these plenty.
RED PANTS & cream sweater with lace sleeves – I have been searching for red pants for no less than a year and a half. And I finally finally found them, YES. This thrills me. I’ve been struggling because every time I would see red pants, they’d be super duper skinny and cause me pain. Also, the sweater is cute, but I’m mostly excited about this red pants thing. I’m still excited about them today. (Also, shoutout to the super helpful sales associate at Delia’s!)

And then, I did a bad thing. I splurged on something on Saturday. I’ve been eyeing this for a while and I know I don’t need it. I know this. But here we are:

The Sephora Favorites Super Stars Beauty Essentials gift set (no longer available on their website). I saw this at Sephora a few weeks ago and haven’t been able to stop thinking about it. It’s $75, which is more than I like spending on anything, let alone on beauty supplies since I, uh… don’t really wear makeup. Ever. ^^;; I have a bit more knowledge than would appear, since I watch a lot of Youtube beauty gurus and read a lot of magazines.

But dudes, the value is so incredible. There are full-sized products in here, and these are all consistently listed as holy grail products. (That famous eyeliner, that infamous blush/bronzer duo, the argan oil, oh my.) I basically do not need to buy any other makeup/beauty product again. (If you like beauty products, you definitely should buy this. The value is through the roof, and it’s way more economical than buying more than 2 or 3 of these individually. The value of all the items separately is over $280. I only wish it came with a nice bag also, like some of the other gift sets. (Case in point, the Sephora Glitz& Glam set, which I almost bought had I not seen this Super Stars set. That is also a super great deal, if you’re looking for something for yourself or to give as a gift.) (I wish Sephora was paying me to say this, but these gift sets are such a good deal and so dangerous for your wallet.)

In fact, I will be adding to my resolutions that I will not be purchasing any other makeup/beauty products unless something goes empty that I need (e.g. my moisturizer, etc.). Because honestly, I won’t need anything ever again. Ever. Never for never.

I also got my Beauty Insider birthday gift! That was a surprise, since my birthday is in December, but I guess they have us all ready, so I got Benefit’s They’re Real! mascara & Watt’s Up highlighter earlier than I thought I would, so yay.

Sephora Beauty Insider Birthday Gift 2013 — Photo courtesy of HelloJaa.com

That is my little haul from the weekend! My Thanksgiving in and of itself wasn’t terribly eventful. We ate dinner with my family and some of their friends and spent time freezing in New York (I may go into that day in a later post).

How was your Thanksgiving weekend?
Did you buy anything over the weekend?