Somewhat of a Haul

It is somewhat a rite of passage for bloggers to do a Christmas haul, isn't it? I feel like I've broken the rules as I'm not actually sharing my Christmas presents, instead, more of my excessive online shopping habits. "Well, those Debenhams beauty card points aren't going to spend themselves, are they?!..." 

I have wanted to pick up Tom Ford's Shade and Illuminate palette for what seems like forever, but constantly put it off for fear of sparking an obsession with the excessively expensive Tom Ford beauty range the same way I did with Chanel. As of right now I'm enamoured by this palette (as you can probably see from the smeared finger marks, I got impatient waiting for daylight to get blog photos done) but I feel like any obsession is kept well under control. Or maybe that is just cause I'm projecting my obsessions elsewhere? Who knows? 

I also picked up Laura Mercier's Secret Camoflage concealer palette, probably a tad too dark considering I usually wear lighter than my skin-tone concealer, but the thickness and quality of this product is like no other. It lives up to it's camoflage name, it will absolutely make any dark circles or blemishes disappear.

So, I ran all of these photos through Photoshop to resize them, and have only just noticed myself making an appearance in this photo. I'm clearly easier to find than Wally.

I've done all the Naked Urban Decay palettes now, I was underwhelmed by Naked 2, but the third offering is incredible and gets used very often by me. Naturally, I had to explore a bit more into the palette that sparked the whole obsession with their Naked range, didn't I? Half Baked, Sin and Sidecar are my current go-to shades, but if anyone has any combinations they'd recommend, do send them my way!

The Bobbi Brown Smoky Nudes palette attracted my attention before Christmas, despite being another neutral palette, it's elegant charm came from the super cute pull out drawer and incredible tortoiseshell packaging design. The quality of these is incredible, and this palette is much more compact than most, whilst not suffering on the quality of the shadows themselves or colour selection.

If you ever wanted to buy an eyeshadow palette to just ogle, this would be it...

And it wouldn't be a haul of mine without Dior or Chanel, would it? I picked up two of the standout shades from the new Spring Kingdom of Colours Collection, Le Vernis in Lady and Rouge Dior Baume in Belle de Printemps. As with all the other reformulated Dior nail polishes, the lasting power is incredible, the shine is similar to that of a gel, and the colour Lady, is just that, an elegant ladylike mauve shade. The lip balm seems to get different shade descriptions just about everywhere it is described, in my opinion, its a beautiful pink/coral shade, not too dissimilar to my favourite balm; Clinique's Mighty Mimosa. Not sure whether this collection is widely available yet or not, I picked mine up from Selfridges online.

I also picked up two of the Nars Audacious lipsticks, which can fully be blamed on Tasha, as it's her penchant for Nars that had me lusting after these two shades, Julie and Anita, like nothing else. I haven't tried Anita yet, but the quality of them is incredible, and the magnetised bullet feature has me embarassingly excited. (No shame.)

Lookfantastic had some incredible offers on before Christmas, so I filled up my basket to the extent of it reaching nearly £300 before I realised that is outright ridiculous, and went about culling my basket down to things I need want. I picked up the Aveda Smooth Infusion in an attempt to calm down my corkscrew curls and frizz to something that might resemble a beach wave (wishful thinking) and the Kerastase mousse in an attempt to control the frizz I do get. Do you remember mousse? I can't believe it still exists. This one is so far from the stuff I used to slap all over my hair until it was crispy in my teens. I think the saying "you get what you pay for" applies...

And thanks to BeautyBay no longer stocking LDN Skins, I'm in the market for a new tinted light tanner that I can build up, and have last longer than the mediocre 5-7 days of a proper self tan. It's hard work being pasty pale, but hopefully the new St Tropez tanning oil and Cocoa Brown Gradual tan can help me out a bit. Fingers crossed.

So there you have some of my more exciting purchases recently. At least the ones that have arrived, I'm still waiting on a Free People and a Levi's order to show up. I'm impatient, and the waiting for parcels period is the worst. Can every company have next-day delivery, please?