Four days ago, I received an email from Sephora notifying me that they were offering VIB members 3x points on all purchases through September 17. So (obviously) it was the perfect time to buy myself some treats. My order shipped very quickly—it arrived yesterday!

So. Many. Goodies.
So many goodies hidden inside. Not pictured: Supergoop! Everyday Sunscreen Broad Spectrum SPF 50

The first thing I decided to buy was the Sephora Favorites Soko to Tokyo set, which I had not seen on the website prior to this browsing session (and I’m not ashamed to say that I browse Sephora.com fairly frequently). This is a 10-piece set with deluxe product samples from Korean and Japanese brands, many of which I would say fall along the mid-to-high end of the Sephora brand spectrum. You may remember that I very much enjoyed this past January’s K-beauty Birchbox, which piqued my interest in Korean beauty, so when I saw this $40 set—valued at $100—I got really excited and added it to my basket in approximately .25 seconds.

Sephora Favorites Soko to Tokyo
I’m going to love playing around with all of these samples!

The set includes:

The only product in this set that I’ve tried before is the Dr. Jart+ Night BB cream, which I received in my June 2015 Birchbox.* There’s so much fun stuff and I can’t wait to try it all out! My husband and I are going on vacation soon, so it will be a great opportunity for me to pack some of these goodies and treat myself while we’re away.

Check out this amazing swirly Charcoal Pore Pudding treatment by boscia! It’s almost too pretty to stick my fingers in (that’s what she said).

boscia Charcoal Pore Pudding Intensive Wash-Off Treatment
Totally not edible. And I totally want to eat it.

Also, pudding will always and forever remind me of one of Dean Winchester’s all-time best moments on Supernatural (and after 11 seasons, there are soooo many to choose from).

But back to the beauty products. This belif Aqua Bomb is 100% coming in my toiletry bag on our vacation. We’ll be hiking in the Grand Tetons and Rocky Mountains, and I know my skin will need some extra moisture in the mountains!

belif The True Cream Aqua Bomb
The way the product composed itself when I unscrewed the cap looks like a water drop springing up out of the tub.

It’s going to take me some time to try these samples out and get a sense of how I like them, but maybe I’ll drop back in here with some thoughts on my favorites after I’ve had time to absorb them (literally).

I recently dropped a Maybelline Master Glaze Matte blush stick in the bathroom trash can, where the five second rule most definitely does not apply. My dropping the blush was accidental but I’d been wanting to swap it for a more ingredient conscious option, so my butterfingers actually worked in my favor. I’ve been hearing a lot about Bite Beauty’s new Multisticks ($24) so I figured now would be a great time to get one for myself. I had really liked the color of the Maybelline blush (I believe it was Rosy Rush) on me, so I looked at a bunch of Bite Multistick swatches online and decided that Biscotti was the shade closest to my recently trashed product.

Bite Beauty Multistick in Biscotti
The color looks fairly dark and reddish here, but it blends out to a lovely rose.

I love that the multisticks are the same exact size as Bite’s lipsticks. I don’t use makeup enough to even begin to use up an entire stick of cream blush, which usually comes in a much larger format than lipstick.

You might be able to tell in the above photo that the bullet isn’t nice and smooth like creamy stick products usually are when you first open them (and there’s something SO wonderful about them when they’re untouched). That’s because when I removed the cap, there was no bullet of product—or so I thought. For a second I worried that I had been sent an empty product, but I quickly realized that the entire bullet had gotten stuck inside the cap, and all I needed was to gently insert the bullet back into the tube’s base where it belonged. Phew! But because the bullet got stuck up inside the cap, it got all scratched up and deprived me of that “smooth new lipstick” enjoyment.

Here are a couple swatches of the color on my wrist:

Bite Beauty Multistick Biscotti swatches
L: applied straight from the tube. R: blended using a finger.

This stuff is highly pigmented and a little goes a long way. It also has good staying power; I tried washing the swatches off my arm after having them on for a couple of minutes, and it took a lot of scrubbing to remove them (granted, I applied those much more heavily than I typically apply makeup).

I tapped a bit of the product onto the apples of my cheeks and blended it out, and I used my finger to dab a little onto my lips. The product goes on creamy but turns powdery once you begin to blend. Here’s a pic of me wearing no makeup other than the multistick on my cheeks and lips:

img_4242

I always use a light touch when applying makeup because I’m afraid of looking clownlike, so it might be hard to tell in the above photo that I even have any makeup on. My goal in applying this product was to make my cheeks and lips look ever-so-slightly rosy, and it worked perfectly.  🙂 Bite’s Multistick is genius and I’m going to get a lot of use out of it!

I also ordered another tube of Supergoop! Everyday Sunscreen Broad Spectrum SPF 50 because of our upcoming vacation. I wanted to make sure we have enough to cover both of us using sunscreen for two weeks—I do not want to run out and have to buy some crappy stuff from a drugstore that will make my skin angry.

When began to check out, I was offered a free VIB/VIB ROUGE Appreciation Sample Bag that included eight samples in a small makeup bag. Sure, why not?!

VIB/ VIB ROUGE Appreciation Sample Bag | Sephora
Even. More. Goodies.

The very cute bag included the following samples:

So, these free samples are pretty much all going with me on vacation except for the perfume, which 1) is the type of fragrance sample that doesn’t travel well because it has a spritz top rather than a cap you can close, and 2) I just don’t really like how it smells on me.

This order didn’t set me back too much—I spent a total of $90.37 after tax (shipping was free). I feel like I got a whole lot for my money, and the triple VIB points make this order even more valuable. Score!

Have you taken advantage of Sephora’s 3x points offer for VIB and VIB Rouge members yet? If not, make sure you do so by September 17!

*The Dr. Jart+ Night BB Cream idea still baffles me as much as it did when I first received a sample from Birchbox. I used up that whole sample, but I never used it at night because it is in fact tinted and I didn’t want it rubbing off all over my pillow! It does give my skin a nice, smooth appearance, though.

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