february 2018 ipsy bag!

hey guys! my february IPSY BAG* (theme: unzipped) arrived a few days ago, and i'm here to give you my initial thoughts! ~Lin-chan ^.~

1. luxie beauty 249 shading and blending brush -- i really love their 205 blending brush, and the fluffy side seems to be the same! so excited since this will be a great 2 in 1 travel brush.
• repurchase: i don't see it on their site... 😕
2. biobelle perfecting primer facial mask -- sheet mask for priming the face? interesting... i've been super slacking on all the sheet masks for, you know, regular skincare purposes...i have soo many. anyway, i somehow acquired 4 which i think may have been in error.. most instagram photos only show two. but i had two two packs.. anyway, i'll try one out at some point and potentially pass along at least 1 of these.
• repurchase: dunno, but probably not
3. pacifica beach crystals -- this is actually a cute palette. the shades are really nice, and i can't wait to try them on the eyes!
• repurchase: can you..? but probably not.. too many eyeshadows.
4. trestique mini eye pencil in swiss chocolate -- this is a lot more pigmented than i was expecting. i'll give this a go, and i appreciate that they sent a dark brown, which will go with everything!
• repurchase: undecided
5. mellow cosmetics matte liquid lip paint in tehran -- originally, i wasn't really expecting much from this lipstick. but it's actually really nice. super comfortable and no problems! i forgot to do a transfer test..but i think it'll be fine since it felt like it dried down completely and wasn't sticky.
• repurchase: maybe!
6.  pink velvet and black lace ipsy bag -- this is very cute! definitely screams february / valentine's day!

beach crystals palette (mars, raw power, prism, spaced out, faceted) swatched dry; tehran, swiss chocolate

tehran

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my first erin condren, a year and a half later...

hi guys! so you know how i published a post around 30 minutes ago about my january (planner), and i mentioned this post would come in a few days. lol. yeah. i'm ready to post this now. lol. so. my thoughts on my first ever erin condren life planner. this is also partially a comparison post of my older hourly against the new vertical planner. enojoy! ~Lindsay ^.~

something you may begin to notice with my end of month planner posts, i've actually been liking planning in the vertical a lot more. i'm not sure if part of it was because most stores design their stickers for the vertical (and some horizontal), but even less so for the hourly? the hourly planner's boxes are a lot wider than the vertical, so i could still get away with using vertical and happy planner kits. another thing too, i'm not huge into the no white space planning, just because i don't think it's practical. that being said, it's nice buying weekly kits and being able to use them for up to two weeks! also, any other straggler stickers i may have, i've been building up my own random stickers kit for those weeks (which remain to be photographed as i pre-stuck a a few of these into my vertical).

as always, i tag my posts. so feel free to check the tags for my hourly life planner or the vertical life planner.

here's what we're lookin like after 1.5 years and stickers. as you can probably tell, and i may have mentioned it in my haul post for the vertical planner, this coil is not big enough for 1.5 years of sticker usage. and they use the same diameter coil regardless if you get one year or 1.5.

what i'm holding up is the first 6 months (June - Dec 2016), and about where that and a year looks like against the coil.

after seeing a video by Kayla, owner of Oh Hello Stationery Co, i got inspired to go ahead and uncoil the parts that didn't belong to 2017. this is a 2 pack of plastic cinch coils that i got at the local craft store for about $3. these coils were a bit wider than i needed, so i fed it through every other hole.

here are all the pages i ended up removing completely, which were sticker and notes pages and the back pocket. notice how many teeth this poor snap-in bookmark has! omg. we lost most of those around the 1 year mark, which isn't too bad.

here's what 1 year looks like in my used in the hourly (left) compared to my new vertical (right) which has maybe 1 month's worth of spreads in it at this point.

erin condren vertical life planner - my january

hi guys! it's already february and i wanted to share how i used my first month of my new vertical life planner! sometime in the next few days, i'm going to make a comparison post with my hourly planner, so you can see my thoughts on both formats and my transition into this one. i'm still getting used to using stamps, so they'll probably be pretty crooked or misaligned for a while until i get the hang of using them. ~Lindsay ^.~

monthly calendar spread: i didn't end up getting a kit for this month because i wasn't sure what i wanted to do with this planner yet or how i wanted to use it. so i just threw on a few extra stickers that kind of suited the color scheme.

week 1: are you guys seeing the transformation of my sticker/planner usage?? omg.

week 2: kit from boulderbon

week 3: kit from my newest addiction

week 4: kit from once more with love. as mentioned in some recent post (been playing catch up so i don't remember which..), i will be making a pbc haul post once i get all my orders in!

notes pages: i don't think i'll be photographing these much as i have a bunch of household chores that need to be done written on all of them (all the way through december!) and for now, i filled in some of the empty space with washi tape or stickers from the washi tape packaging.
(pre-january) trust the magic of new beginnings.
(pre-february) you are a diamond nothing can break you.

early february hauls!

bam! makin another haul post because this needs to get put up sooner than later! i've got some really good stuff here and i hope you will consider supporting a fellow blogger in her small business venture! ~Lindsay ^.~

Nail Muse by Lydia -- i can't remember how i came across lydia's nail blog years ago, but i have been following her ever since. i finally got around to buying some of her press on nails that she started selling (maybe a year or two now..?) because they're gorgeous. i ordered these in my custom sizes (3,5,6,7,9), shape (round) and length (short). i'll eventually post a picture on my hands and review of these, but these are so nice! they're a very pretty water marble with blue, purple, and pink, over what looks like a white base, then there's a coat of a very fine rainbow microglitter. b-e-a-utiful! this set was $15+shipping, and included an orange stick and mini filing block, as well as application instructions. nail adhesive sold separately.

a few different things here! had to get myself a sigmagic scrub because, buy all the things! then i also picked up another sephora solid brush cleanser and a beautyblender solid cleanser. and as seen in my empties post, i'm hitting pan on my paaarty blush. then i wanted to try the ordinary.'s glycolic acid toner, and i got an hourglass vanish highlight stick sample in champagne flash. at walmart, they had these new crushed foil metalics eyeshadows that i haven't seen anyone review yet. swatching it, i'm not super impressed but we'll have to see. then over at ulta, i ordered a buncha stuff. got some dr teals things, a few more tea tree oils, a clarifiying lotion, two new wet n wild color icon palettes, and two hask masks. i know, i know, i'm trying to go through hair samples and i more or less bought two hair samples.... but they're supposed to be good, and they're wine inspired! 😉

wet n wild nude awakening palette (over primer)

hourglass champagne flash, loreal diamond dust, wet n wild walking on eggshells palette (over primer)

walking on eggshells original trio vs new quad (over primer)

walking on eggshells original trio (left) vs new quad (right) (over primer)

december & january empties, hit pan, makeup graveyard

its empties time!! i'm getting through these posts! not too many more and i'll be caught up! 😲 ~Lindsay

1. simple cleansing wipes x3
2. sephora collection shea lip mask
3. benefit hoola lite
4. rimmel london stay matte powder in transluscent
5. loreal brow stylist gel in dark
6. urban decay perversion mascara
7. colourpop liquid lip in beeper
8. maybelline fit me matte+poreless foundation
9. maybelline baby skin primer
10. fenty beauty foundation in 140
11. sonia kashuk eye makeup remover
12. tree hut sugar scrub in honey almond
13. briogeo don't despair repair! mask
14. neutrogena clear shampoo
15. peter thomas roth acne dots
16. the body shop tea tree oil
17. the body shop shower gel in satsuma
18. clean and clear advantage acne control foaming wash
19. nugg charcoal skin detox mask -- i typically get two uses out of these little pods, just don't open the top fully, and be sure to store it in a sandwich bag. this was an ok mask. i dunno, if it really helped much or not, but my face did feel a bit refreshed afterward.
    repurchase? nah
20. tony moly tako pore mask -- you see that white shape on the octopus' face? that's the shape of this strip. the top part goes just above the unibrow and then the nose part has little wings. i really enjoyed this mask. it seemed to get a good bit of the gunk out.
    repurchase? yes
21. glamglow bubblesheet mask -- this was interesting. it didn't fully bubble up across the whole mask, even after leaving it for like 10 minutes (you're supposed to wait 3). i don't know if it really worked or not, but it was a nice experience to say the least.
    repurchase? nah
22. pier1 vanilla bourbon candle -- this came in one of the recent popsugar must have boxes. i liked that this scent was subtle, but i typically like having stronger scented candles burning. this is one that smells nice in the jar, but once you start burning it, the scent throw is pretty weak.
    repurchase? nah
23. aquiesse candle in pomegranate sage -- i got this YEARS and years ago as a prize on... club bing. yes, like microsoft bing search engine. they had a program where you could play various games which generated hits on their search engine and you could redeem the points for random things to cool things like an xbox! anyway, this is one of the prizes i redeemed for close to the program's demise, and i waited til now to burn it. this was a nice candle and lasted a while, but the scent was kinda weird. idk.
    repurchase? no
24. downy candle in shimmer -- i don't remember if downy themselves were the ones that were selling this candle.. but this is supposed to be scented like the unstopables that you add into the wash. the shimmer one is awesoommme! but this candle was way too strong and burned really weird. i ended up just melting it down and adding it to an 'emergency' leftover wax candle that i'm making.
    repurchase? no
25. marvis strong mint toothpaste -- i can't remember if i talked much about this on here, but what is this? i don't understand the hype. my mouth felt clean for maybe 10-15 minutes after brushing and that was it. i mean, i think it worked at actually cleaning the teeth, but ehhh. bottom line: expensive toothpaste.
    repurchase? no
26. biolage 3 butter control system shampoo & conditioner -- T and i got these when we were waiting for ulta to open the day that we got to meet the founder of IT cosmetics! anyway, this mini packaging was kind of awful for getting product out, but the product itself was nice. do i need it in my life, eh, but i did like it while i was using it.
    repurchase? nah
27. lush 93,000 miles shower jelly -- my favorite scent! just like their wiccy magic muscles!
    repurchase? yes
28. deva curl matcha butter conditioning mask -- while i liked that this mask worked and the scent was not very strong, i wasn't super wowed by it
    repurchase? nah
29. amika nourishing mask -- this mask smells sooo good. it felt really nice in the hair too, very moisturizing!
    repurchase? yes

hit pan - tarte paaarty!

makeup graveyard - various depotted eyeshadows (em cosmetics, sigma, thebalm), several potted shades from aromaleigh fatalis collection