Fulfilling February Hauls 2022

[SportyGirly125]

💕Let's all share the love and hauls this month. Please show us your purchases whether it be for yourself, a loved one or a Galentine. 💕

This month we get to celebrate declaring love and affection to the people who make up our support system-Galentine's Day on February 13th.  You can catch all the Galentine's Day unboxing on this thread ~♥Galentine's Day Exchange 2022♥~ 

Also, Happy Birthday month to all the February babies and Happy Lunar New Year! (February 1st). 

 

[lmaster]

Those are beautiful @heartsmyface 

[missjeanie]

@heartsmyface Gorgeous.  I ordered Mildred Rosewood and LOVE.  I bet Goldie Red looks amazing on you too!

[tsavorite]

@heartsmyface ,

I could easily love those Gucci lipstick shades.  Thank you for the lovely swatches!  ❤️

[curlychiquita]

The lipsticks look beautiful, @heartsmyface, both the cases and the colors. I hope you like the new Dior foundation.

[Ispend2much6]

Yes, very pretty!  Pretty has a purpose @heartsmyface . 😍

[danielledanielle]

@heartsmyface , I feel you on the purposeful purchasing.  Yes, for delayed gratification, but is it helping?  Maybe?  Meh, I don't know, but what you got sure is pretty ✨✨

[WinglessOne]

Sale orders direct from e.l.f. and Londontown: 

One old fave and a bunch of new-to-mes.

Details & swatches: 

Spoiler

Londontown Lakur - The brand had a few shades on sale for $7 USD each. Behold my quick nail swatches: 

2 coats for each shade. Used my large beauty mirror for lighting and forgot how bright it is. 😄 Also, it's time to shorten that pinky nail again. (I prefer my nails short.)

Each shade went on easily. Well, except Vibe which was patchy on coat one, but a second coat fixed that. Black Thorn has a narrow brush that didn't give me as much trouble as I expected. I considered stopping at one coat for that shade, but I’m glad I deepened it with a second coat. 

Thanks again to @RGbrown for the heads-up about the Londontown sale! Any chance to get cream polishes this good for 50+% off is always welcome. I see the brand has a 25% off sitewide sale right now, for anyone who's interested. 

e.l.f. 

Their skincare sale (buy 3+ skincare products, get 20% off them) was a good time to restock a fave and try some new items. 

Nourishing Facial Oil - A restock. I use it on my face and hands/nails. Since neither Target nor Ulta carry it anymore, I have to order it direct from the brand. Hopefully e.l.f. won't discontinue it: for $10 USD, it’s a fantastic blend of beneficial oils with no essential oils snuck into the mix. 

All the Feels Facial Oil - In case NFO gets canned, why not try one of e.l.f.’s newer facial oils? This one’s missing NFO's sweet almond and avocado oils but adds hemp seed oil, squalane, carrot root extract, and aloe vera. Unfortunately it also contains carrot seed essential oil, so I’ll have to patch test for skin reaction. 

Pure Skin Toner - Some of you might know how much I loved the Hydrating Water Essence, and how sad I was when e.l.f. discontinued it. I can’t call this new toner a replacement until I’ve tested it for a month. It’s definitely not a one-for-one dupe: it’s missing some of HWE’s hydrating ingredients, but does include a few of them along with niacinamide. Also contains some things HWE lacks, namely ceramides and soothing oats but also glycolic acid—and I might do a pH test to see if this product qualifies as an exfoliant. Hopefully the AHA’s present for hydration or product pH adjustment instead of exfoliation. I’m iffy on the witch hazel in this toner, but we’ll see how astringent it actually is on my skin. (I usually avoid witch hazel.) Bonus points for no added fragrance. Thanks to RGBrown for thinking of me when she saw this toner! 

Tagging @lmaster who also loved the Hydrating Water Essence and might be interested in this toner. I'll start testing it after my current Good Molecules Hyaluronic Acid Essence test. (I think you got that essence in your Beautylish Lucky Bag too, right? Lemme know what you think of it once you've used it enough.) 

SRSLY Satin Lipstick, shade Cider - The first of these lipsticks I’ve ever tried. Marketed as a silky cream satin formula, but feels much more like a demi-matte—and closer to matte than most demis feel—on my lips. It's not drying, just not what I'd call a cream formula. Cider's a red-leaning terracotta on me. 

Heh, this shade brings out the surface redness around my nose. 😄

GWP DS: Happy Hydration Cream and Holy Hydration Daily Cleanser. I don’t think I’ve ever tried either of these products, so I’ll have to check the INCI lists and decide if I’ll keep or donate/gift them. 

Happy Lunar New Year! And happy birthday to all the February babies! 

[makeitup305]

@WinglessOne I think the lippie is actually lovely on you!

[lmaster]

Ohhhhh @WinglessOne this is exciting!!! I will have to try the Elf toner 🤞🤞🤞 I did get the GM from the lucky bag, it'll go into rotation at some point, still have a couple to use up first

[danielledanielle]

@WinglessOne , sorry about the toner.  (That's how I felt about Beauty Shield powder, it was so good). Hope the  new one works out 🤞🏼🤞🏼

[WinglessOne]

Thanks @danielledanielle ! I never tried the Beauty Shield Powder, but a friend of mine LOVED it and was very unhappy when it was discontinued. I remember her trying to find a worthy replacement and wishing more brands offered mini or DS powders for testing. 

[heartsmyface]

@WinglessOne Those nail polishes are really pretty.  I especially love Fig Jam! 
Aw that’s too bad about the HWE.  I wish we got some warning when brands were discontinuing something.  
carrot essential oil?  And down a rabbit hole I go! 🥕🐇 

edit- ahhh it’s beta carotene and linoleic acid are it’s superstars and it’s used as a retinol alternative cause of its effect on cell turnover.  
 I’m a little hesitant that it is bright orange but maybe it’s not so bad in a carrier oil…

[WinglessOne]

@heartsmyface  Hmm, the retinol alternative is probably carrot root extract/oil instead of carrot seed essential oil. They’re not the same thing. (And I just noticed I left the word “seed” out of my original note about the All The Feels Oil, oops.) Carrot seed essential oil is mostly antibacterial and anti fungal, and it unfortunately contains fragrance components that can irritate EO-sensitive skin. Carrot root oil, on the other hand, does contain beta carotene. Both ingredients are in All The Feels. 

And yes, I also wish brands would warn us before they discontinue products! How hard would it be to put a bold “discontinuing on [date]” note beside or below the product name, on their own product page? (Answer: not hard at all.) That way, they could avoid emailing customers with heads-up notices—though they could also do that for anyone on their mailing lists who agreed to marketing communications. If a brand can email me cookie-based “we saw you [looked at or bought] [product], now it’s on sale” notices, surely they can also email me when a product I’m interested in is getting canned. 

[heartsmyface]

@WinglessOne Ha, i did a quick skim about carrot seed oil as well but focused on the root oil.  I wasn’t familiar with either before today.  Hopefully it works out and doesn’t cause you irritation cause your skin is looking so good. 

  It would be nice if they’d tell us with more than just a sale, but I imagine they’ve deduced it’s better for their public reputations to have some people vocalize discontent to them than to regularly be the bearers of bad news to everyone.
 

[Ispend2much6]

@WinglessOne  I love every one of those nail polishes, and your skin looks great!!

[WinglessOne]

Aw, thank you @Ispend2much6 ! 

[RGbrown]

@WinglessOne 

I accidentally ordered the elf toner too (no really lol). It showed up at Ulta over the weekend, and I stuck in my cart so I could put it on my save for later list. Wound up building a cart for purchase and did not pay attention to the fact that I forgot to save it for later and it was still in my cart 😶 Oops! Not that I'm terribly upset, I'll enjoy trying it at some point, but I still have 1.75 or so bottles of the original HWE and wasn't planning to grab this one quite yet 😂 Hopefully it's just as nice as the original!

[WinglessOne]

@RGbrown  Ha, gotta love accidental buys! I have about 1.5 bottles of HWE that I've been rationing for morning-only use. Between this new toner and the Good Molecules essence, I'm much more optimistic about finding an equally inexpensive and worthy HWE substitute. 

[ather]

@WinglessOne  Great haul! I love vibe and dragon fruit. But they are all beautiful colours. 

[WinglessOne]

@ather  Dragon Fruit is my favorite of these 5 shades, and I'm thrilled by how easily it applied. I forgot to mention how glossy all 5 of these are on their own. I'm wearing a top coat in my swatch photo, but I should've also taken a pre-topcoat photo of my nails for comparison. I see more Londontown creams in my future. 

[ather]

@WinglessOne  Im sold. I will definitely be on the lookout for these!!!