fivezero's beautyBOUTIQUE Haulage (March 2017)

Haulage! beautyBOUTIQUE by Shoppers Drug Mart (March–April 2017)

2017-05-122017-05-12 fivezero3 Comments

I never did get around to posting my beautyBOUTIQUE hauls (gotta love those Shoppers Drug Mart coupons and Optimum Points events!), so I’m combining five of them into one post.

Perhaps these will provide some inspiration for Mother’s Day gifts? Speaking of which, today was a special day for me because I received my first ever Mother’s Day gift from our little peanut!

Behold (the peanut clip art is covering his name):

I am totally wearing that necklace on Sunday.

Anyway, here’s my fairly reasonable damage! All prices are in CA$.

Orders 1–2

First up, I received two $10 off coupons for beautyBOUTIQUE.ca when I was buying stuff at Shoppers Drug Mart. Cool. Of course, I had to use them on two orders:

Sale Alert! eBates Canada Spring Sale (15% Cash Back at Selected Stores)

2017-05-102017-05-10 fivezero2 Comments

‘Cause we need more sales, right?!

eBates Canada (referral link) is running a spring sale in which a whole lotta stores get a whopping 15% cash back. This deal is for today (May 10, 2017) only.

The beauty-related sites are:

Ahava
Aveda
Barneys New York
Biotherm
The Body Shop
Carol’s Daughter
Clarisonic
Forever 21
Kiehl’s
Lancôme
Macy’s
Murad
philosophy
Shopbop
Urban Decay
Yves Rocher
Yves Saint Laurent Beauté

Other fun sites:

Alex and Ani
Baublebar
Club Monaco
Cole Haan
Columbia Sportswear
eBags
Figleaves
Joe Fresh (they don’t have their makeup online, AFAIK)
La Senza
Links of London
Matt & Nat
Merrell
Michael Kors
Modcloth
Rebecca Taylor
7 for All Mankind
Sorel
Stuart Weitzman
Teavana

See the full list here.

Happy shopping!

Shoppers Drug Mart Spend Your Points Event (April 29-30, 2017)

Sale Alert: Shoppers Drug Mart’s Spend Your Points Event (April 29–30, 2017)

2017-04-292017-04-30 fivezero2 Comments

This weekend (April 29–30, 2017), Canada’s Shoppers Drug Mart is offering a Spend Your Points Event!

Spend the following Optimum Points and receive:

50,000 points for $100 off (extra $15)
95,000 points for $200 off (extra $30)

This offer is also available online at SDM’s beautyBOUTIQUE. Don’t forget ebates.ca (referral link)!

Search for your closest Shoppers Drug Mart beautyBOUTIQUE by brand here.

Here are links to some of my past Optimum Points hauls:

I have a lot of points accumulated, and decided I don’t want to hang on to too many at once (should Loblaw decide to change the Optimum Points system). I redeemed twice for $200! Whee! Optimum Points get racked up a lot faster if you load the personalized coupons every week.

Here’s my haul. I was good and didn’t get any lipstick! But I did get nail polish (of course), eyeshadow, lipgloss (doesn’t count!), and foundation. I only had to pay the excess beyond $200 ($1 on the first order, $2 on the second!) and 13% HST (sales tax) on the full amounts—and of course I redeemed 2 x 95k Optimum Points. I also received a bonus 10k points for spending $100 on Clinique skincare. I think it’s nice that they let you get the bonuses even when you’re just redeeming points and not “really” spending money.

Throwback Thursday! Urban Decay — Sin (Nail Enamel) Swatch & Review

2017-04-202017-05-22 fivezero3 Comments

Brand: Urban Decay

Finally this week, after posting about my Ipsy bag, doing a rare Award/Tag, and sharing my Sephora sale haul, I’ve got a nail polish for you all!

For Throwback Thursday today, I have quite an oldie! Urban Decay got their start with unusual shades of eyeshadow, lipstick, and nail polish. This particular polish is from their second revamp (c. early 2000s, maybe?) of their nail polish line, and it was simply called Nail Enamel, like the original.

The bottle was pretty similar to the first style, except the cap was changed to look a little less industrial and a little more luxe.

Urban Decay nail polish history: Curfew, Sin, Gash

I was glad for the change, even though the new polishes contained 50% less product, because the original bottle caps were plain awful. They were awkwardly small to hold while polishing, and they never screwed on tightly enough so all of my original polishes dried out long ago (as you can see with my bottle of Curfew, above).

(Note how the bottles look progressively bigger, but the volume actually decreases! Ah, marketing.)

The new bottle was discontinued some time ago, though Urban Decay have occasionally reintroduced nail polish here and there as special editions. More recently, they’ve introduced more polish in nude (“Naked”) shades to go with their immensely popular Naked eyeshadow palettes, and they reissued some of their original colors, too. Despite the stupidly high Canadian price (C$18, the hell?!) I had to pick up Gash when UD ran a sale, since it’s one of my favorite red shimmers from back in the day! My original bottle, of course, dried out.

Sin is a pretty nude beige with a lot of silvery shimmer. Definitely one of the more conservative Urban Decay shades! It’s also one of UD’s most popular, as it still exists in eyeshadow form.

Urban Decay Nail Enamel in Sin

Nails Inc. Superfood Nail Fuel Collection

Haulage! Sephora Fall Sale (November 2016)

2016-11-232016-11-23 fivezero6 Comments

Time for annual Sephora haulage! It’s hard to pass up 20% off, even when I haven’t been shopping much at Sephora all year.

Ugh, you know it’s winter when everyone starts getting sick! My husband started feeling a little under the weather yesterday, and this morning poor Peanut started feeling badly, too. A couple of barf-ups later, he’s much better—I have a sinking feeling it’s a norovirus-kind of bug. We all got hit with it around December last year, and I hate it. I remember hugging the toilet half the night, yet not actually barfing. I hope I don’t come down with it again (if I do, it’ll probably be tonight! Joy!) and especially that our little infant Olive doesn’t get affected.

Anyway, on to the fun stuff. (Cleaning up barf? Not fun.) I posted my first order here; also, just before the sale ended, I snuck in one extra order! Here are all the goodies from both orders:

Deborah Lippmann Her Majesty Gel Lab Pro Set (8 color polishes + Hard Rock base & top coat)
Kat Von D Lock-It Setting Powder in Translucent
Kevyn Aucoin The Expert Lip Color in Bloodroses Noir
Make Up For Ever Artist Rouge Lipstick in C406
Marc Jacobs Enamored Hi-Shine Lacquer in Sally
Nails Inc. Superfood Nail Fuel Collection (4 color polishes + NailKale Superfood Base Coat)
NARS Audacious Lipstick in Audrey
Too Faced Semi Sweet Chocolate Bar Eyeshadow Palette
Urban Decay Pro Essential Brush Stash

Freebies:

Fresh Soy Face Cleanser & Rose Face Mask (Sephora Birthday 2016 deluxe samples)
Atelier Cologne Bergamote Soleil Cologne Absolue EDP (sample)
Atelier Cologne Mandarine Glaciale Cologne Absolue EDP (sample)
Maison Margiela Replica: Lipstick On EDT (sample)
Marc Jacobs Decadence EDP (sample)
Versace Bright Crystal EDT (sample) — they didn’t send this! 😦
Versace Eros Pour Femme EDP (sample)

And with this haul, I am VIB for 2017, as well.

Haulage Photos

Deborah Lippmann Her Majesty Gel Lab Pro Set — **Deborah Lippmann** Her Majesty Gel Lab Pro Set:
Emperor’s New Clothes, Ever After, King of the Road, Blue Blood, Crown Velvet,
If I Ruled the World, Hard Rock Nail Strengthening Base & Top Coat,
Reign of Love, Queen of the Night (all Deluxe Sizes).

I actually still have a couple Deborah Lippmann sets to go through from previous years (yes, not one but two). I promise to go through them SOON! Aaaack. Also, super excited to try the new Gel Lab Pro line in this set.

Sephora Fall Sale: My Haulage!

2016-11-112017-04-04 fivezero6 Comments

As I’m VIB at Sephora this year, I finally got to place my order with the 20% off 20VIB code today!

I haven’t spent much at Sephora this year, and it was a bit of a struggle to try to get VIB for next year. Part of me wonders if I should have bothered, but Sephora’s semi-annual sale coincides with my birthday month and it gets so tempting to splurge!

Here’s what I ordered (with 4% ebates cashback, as well):

My final shopping cart. (Prices not yet reflecting 20% VIB discount.)

I chose the Fresh skincare birthday gift instead of the Marc Jacobs makeup gift, since I already have the eyeliner in the Marc Jacobs set. The lipstick would have been nice to have, but it’s just a red, and I have enough of those!Read More »

Urban Decay Naked Nail Color winter collection 2016

New Release: Urban Decay — Naked (Plus XX Vintage)

2016-11-032017-06-30 fivezero2 Comments

[Images: urbandecay.com]

Collections: Urban Decay 2016 Fall, XX Vintage & 2016 Winter, Naked

Last month, Urban Decay released a vintage collection of some of their classic, long-discontinued nail polish shades. I totally forgot to post about it, so now that they’ve released a new collection of Naked nail shades, I’ll combine them here into one post.

Urban Decay’s current nail color product is just called Nail Color:

Each full-size bottle of Naked Nail Colour features our custom-designed cap topped with a skull (complete with roses for the eyes). There’s 10 ml of polish in each bottle—plenty of Colour to last all season long. And wait until you try the high-performance, 400-strand brush. The fine strands in this dense brush pick up more product than other brushes, grabbing on to Colour to give you a clean, even and controlled laydown of polish. Incredibly precise, this brush even makes painting the outer corners of your nails easy.

Long-wearing and chip-resistant, our formula has a high-gloss finish that’s tough and durable, yet flexible. And each shade is 3-free—formulated without toluene, formaldehyde or DBP.

Naked (Winter 2016)

Naked consists of 8 limited edition shades.

From Urban Decay:

Now there’s a whole new way to strip down: Naked Nail Colour. Get Naked all the way down to your toes with the cult-favorite shades that make you want to go commando again and again.

Like the shades in the must-have palettes they’re inspired by, these aren’t your average neutrals. Ultra sophisticated and extremely limited-edition, these gorgeous, decadent (and very UD) Colours feature complex shade work, super-rich pigments and dynamic micro-sparkle. But get them quick, because once they’re gone, they’re gone for good!

In 2011, we released our limited-edition Naked Nail Kit, a travel-size set of six neutral polishes based on fan-favorite shades from our original Naked palette. This time around, we’re delving into new Naked territory with shades based on cult-favorite shadows from Naked2, Naked Basics and even the just-launched Naked Ultimate Basics.