Mini Ulta Haul: A Birthday Gift, Couponing+ A Gift Card
I ended up returning a couple things from my birthday week Ulta haulĀ that I wasn’t happy with: the Lime Crime lip gloss and the Wet n Wild Liquid Catsuit Liquid Eyeshadow. I didn’t want to pay for return shipping so I returned the items at my local Ulta. Unfortunately my store is closing this month but because it’s closing, Ulta emailed me a coupon for $5 off a $15 purchase. So I picked up a bunch of additional goodies while I was there! Take a gander at my mini Ulta haul:
Color Cosmetics
I picked up three fun products to play with: an eyeshadow palette, a highlighter, and the Ulta birthday giftāa mini NARS Orgasm blush.
The Eye Palette
I had been eyeing theĀ Flower Beauty Shimmer & Shade Eyeshadow Palette in Cool Natural for awhile, so I decided to take advantage of the coupon and buy it at a lower price (full price, $16.99).
YouTube reviews of this palette are mixed. Some reviewers think the quality is good for the price, some think there’s a lot of fallout. After swatching and testing the shadows out a couple times, I agree that this palette is not the best.
The dark shades are pretty in the pan, but they look fairly similar when swatched:
There’s more variety in the lighter shades, but the two matte colors swatched a little strangely. I’m not even sure how to describe it. It’s almost like the tiny bit of sweat on my fingers made the swatches drag and go on chunky; see the top and the second from bottom swatches below:
The brush that came with the palette is not bad, but the shadows do have a fair amount of fallout. This is a palette that requires doing your eyes first and then cleaning up the fallout before painting the rest of your face. The shadows blend okay, but I feel like the colors got muddled somewhat on my lids. I do want to play around with the palette more before writing it off entirely. The little sponge applicators that I bought might make it easier to apply the dark shades with more precision, so I’ll try one of those next time.
The Fairy Highlight
Ulta had a section of 75% off items that were already on sale, so I browsed and picked out something I wouldn’t normally have looked at twice: Maybelline Master Fairy Highlight in the shade Ulta Exclusive Purple. Retail price for this is $9.99 but because of the deep discount, it cost me $1.86. Seriously! I know I won’t use this much as a highlighter, but I want to try it as eyeshadow.
I actually really like the lightest shade, which has a pretty, opalescent shimmer. These powders are a little frosty for my taste, but at such a low price the compact was certainly worth trying. Below are swatches of each shade on my arm. The bottom swatch shows how all four shades look mixed together.
I didn’t photograph or swatch the NARS Orgasm mini blush because I’ve used it in the past so I already know I like it. I was in need of another powder blush, so I’m happy that Ulta is offering it as their birthday gift this year.
The Beauty Accoutrements
Beauty fans rave about Real Techniques and I like the blush brush that I got in my last Ulta haul. So I decided to get theĀ Miracle Complexion Sponge + Travel Sponge Case, which retails for $5.99. My Beauty Blender is still good so I haven’t tried Real Techniques’ version yet, but maybe I’ll take it with me to Comic-Con. Especially since it comes with a case…gotta keep these things clean!
I always need a good eye makeup remover for travel so I bought a miniĀ GarnierĀ SkinActive Micellar Cleansing Water All-in-1 Cleanser & Makeup Remover (retail $3.99). I use this product regularly and it does a good job of removing eye makeup.
The Mon Image eyeshadow sponge set came home with me for two reasons: 1) it was hard to resist the rainbow colors and 2) the 12-pack was 75% off sale price, so it literally cost me $0.12. TWELVE. CENTS. That’s a penny per sponge. I didn’t know you could buy anything for under a dollar anymore.Ā š
This haul of six products cost me $4.54. I KNOW. I felt like a total couponing queen! The total was so low because I used the store credit from my returns toward my purchase. So it was money I had already spent, but at least I didn’t spend much more on top of that. Plus, I used the $5 off coupon, got the mini blush for free, and bought two items at a deep discount.
A Secondary, Mini Mini Ulta Haul
Not pictured in my main haul pic above are two lip products I ordered more recently. Last month Ulta emailed me a 20% off coupon code that I sat on for awhile but ultimately ended up giving in to. Revlon launched a new brand in June called Flesh and the products looked pretty enticing so I wanted to try one. I decided on the Fleshy Lips Lipstick in the shade Hungry (retail $18), described as a sheer reddish pink.
I really like this lipstick! It’s sheer, a tad shiny, and very moisturizing. Plus, I unintentionally selected a shade that looks like my lips but better. And MLBB is the ultimate lip dream we’re all chasing, right? The 70’s inspired packaging and lusty, porn-y product names are pretty fun, too. Some of them border on “is Hannibal Lecter part of the product development team?” but I’m not opposed to that. š Because I’m down with this lipstick I’m now curious to try more Flesh.
The second lip product I ordered is one I’ve been wanting to buy for months: Winxy Lux Flower Balm in Purple (retail $14). This is one of those balms that goes on clear and the color adjusts based on your skin’s pH. And each balm has a real chrysanthemum embedded inside. IT’S JUST SO DAMN CUTE!
The balm turns a pretty, sheer pink shade on my lips. It’s very wearable and I’ll get a lot of use out of it, though I always hate to ruin such a beautiful lipstick!
Here are swatches of my two new lip products:
My couponing skills came in handy for this order as well. In addition to the 20% off coupon code, I applied $17.50 in Ulta rewards points and a $10 gift card to my order. So all I actually paid for these two lip products was $4.86!
All in all I spent less than $10 on eight products from Ulta. I mean…if that’s not a deal, I literally don’t know what is.
What’s the best deal you’ve ever gotten via couponing at Ulta? Have you tried any Flesh products yet?
