A Teeny Tiny Haul from CVS

Hi ladies,

Recently, I went to CVS out of boredom. It’s my habit to stop by a drugstore or mass-market shopping place to browse the makeup department even way before I started blogging here. Now, I do not visit drugstores that often anymore, although there are three or four drugstores, a Walmart, a K-Mart, and a Target up and down the street. I just do it whenever I’m bored. Somehow seeing and touching makeup without salespeople helicoptering around actually relaxes and inspires me. I know, weird!

After after what seemed like a decade circling around the L'Oreal HIP display, I finally got a metallic duo in Gilded as I am trying to build a better neutral collection. Also, I picked up a book in a clearance bin on the way to the cash register. I went to the cashier, gave her two items and a coupon. The total rang out around $4.50!

Now, this probably is one of the proudest moments of my life as I finally accomplished the unthinkable: the savings is a lot higher than the prices before the sales! The duo: $7.99 USD, the book: $9.99 USD, the coupon: $2 off. The total: less than $4.50 USD. Ridiculous!

The teeny tiny haul, so small that it should not deserve to be called a haul!
L'Oreal HIP Gilded eyeshadow duo and Women's Health Training Guide 2009

The book was on sale for a dollar, CVS has to dump their magazines to display new stuff. The book would still be in display until May 5th but for some reasons it made its way to the clearance bin. The eye shadow duo was on sale for 5 dollars, the coupon sweetened it up a whole lot more. Are you proud of me, my dear readers?

And the icing on my cake is: Gilded is actually a really good eye shadow duo! The pigmentation is off the chain and the texture is very MAC like that I almost uttered some colorful four-letter words after doing an impromptu swatch. Now, if you have not heard of L’Oreal HIP metallic eye shadows, they are a huge step up from the regular HIP eye shadows. The later one has one matte and one shimmery/metallic eye shadows. Often times, people only use the shimmery side and the matte one gets neglected. It’s like a rip-off to some of us as we only can use one side so L’Oreal being a good company decided to up their game a bit. As a result, the metallic eye shadow duos were born: you get two metallic colors while the texture as well as pigmentation are a lot better than the regular version. In my book, that’s called good makeup right there.

After playing with Gilded, I realized it is a good dupe of two LE pigments that I have, i.e. “expensive and basically not being produced anymore that I don’t dare to use” makeup. The lighter color is a darker and dirtier version of Bronzescape solar bits while the darker color resembles Black Ore solar bits from MAC Solar Fields LE last summer. It feels like a gazillion year ago but actually was only last summer! And did I mention the pigmentation? It is off the chain! I touched it lightly and my goodness, the pigmentation is very good! If I dare to compare these metallic eye shadows with the limited edition ones that MAC has churned out recently, I can confidently say MAC has lost its mojo. These are not sheer eye shadows at all, they are bold and bright and somewhat intimidating. The metallic eye shadows are not for the faint of hearts. They scream, “go bold or go home” and I definitely do not want to go home without them. Yeah, they are that good, with or without the sale.

Top: Gilded e/s duo, Bottom (L-R): Bronzescape and Black Ore

Skin swatch: (top) Gilded, (bottom) Bronzescape and Black Ore

For the book, I’ve been lovin’ it a lot. Since I am not a gym rat, I exercise at home and often times fall off the wagon. Fitness magazines, although very informative, can be confusing and sometimes not home exercising friendly. This training guide actually has workout plans that you can do without using any equipment. The workouts are simple and non-intimidating enough for me to follow. When Women’s Health came out, it was just a shadow of Men’s Health magazine, which is a bible to some of the guys out there. However, it has improved tremendously and I find the magazine’s approach to fitness compelling to me.

That's all for today, folks! Today the sun is up, finally, after so many days of bad weather. Basically, it rained so hard that I was stuck indoor for the majority of the weekend. At some point, I even ran out of food T_T So before the weather is misbehaving again, I need to do some grocery shopping to keep myself afloat.

Take care and have a wonderful week ahead!

Love,
Your Makeup Blogger

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