Spooky Basket: My Weekend Beauty Haul

This weekend I spent the last 3 days down in Phoenix to help a friend move, and to just generally get out.

My plan was to hit up the fetish night at the Rogue Bar in Scottsdale on Friday, but plans changed and we spent the evening out dinning at P.F. Chang's and late night of bowling where I made a personal high score of 120 while sporting a hobble skirt, haha!

Who says you can't bowl in a tight skirt?

Anyway, the day before that I made it a priority to buy some of the products I've been wanting to make a switch to or try out, and here is the bulk of that illustrious haul (I'll be reviewing the Fructis along with the items that aren't shown, at a later time):

 I made an expensive and small purchase at Sephora; the benefit products and foundation brush. The rest was drugstore bought.
The High Beam complexion enhancer is just a repurchase-- I use it quite often as it is profoundly useful and awesome.

I've been wanting to make a switch from sponges to a brush, since I had it told that the brush distributes the foundation cremes evenly and is less wasteful of it than the sponge. I really wanted to invest in a good brush, and I hope that I ended up making a decent choice; I went with a Sephora foundation brush, and it was rather pricey but not as pricey as the other ones. It had average ratings, but from what I read of the complaints were that it didn't handle thick coverage very well.
I do not like heavy applications of foundations because I tend to have very mild/weak complexion inconsistencies... so light application sounded like more of a positive to me than a negative.

Along with my foundation brush, I really wanted a face primer; while at Sephora I was able to try Urban Decay's-- one that received many raves from all forums where I frequent.

 Sadly, I was extremely unhappy with test. It was far too thick for me, and I could not imagine having that on my face all day. I was given benefits face primer POREfessional to try, and I instantly fell in love with how it felt! So smooth, creamy and light.

It has a very distinct perfumed scent, and color. That could possibly be a negative for someone.

 I was afraid that the color might conflict with the color of my original foundation, as it is medium-- but it blended super easy.

It isn't that much more expensive than Urban Decay's face primer; I think it was only $2 more at $28 for a 0.75 oz bottle. It might even be the same price-- I forget. I didn't want to spend that money on just the primer not knowing if it'll work out for me in the long run, so I bought the How To Look The Best At Everything medium foundation kit, which is a little sampler of their foundation products for the same price.

I love the idea of this. I wish more companies would do this. A neat little thing that I failed to photograph, is that behind the fold out tips and tricks of this box, is that the box also has a mirror-- a large one!
Benefit also has different kits, for lips and eyes. Real cute kits that let you try out their products without spending all that money on the single products. I've haven't been privy to trying their foundation products in the past, and now that I was given that chance it's hard to imagine going to the same 'ol stuff I used before.

The products I bought at the drugstore are these:

Wet & Wild 99 cent red lipstick
Maybelline Great Lash in Blackest Black
Almay Intense i-color liquid liner in Black Pearl.

To be honest, I didn't expect a whole lot from the 99 cent lip color; but I've been hearing word also that Wet & Wild aren't what they used to be in the past. Wet & Wild was a brand I used to buy as a child, like many other skeptics out there. I was happily surprised by the vibrancy of the color I chose to buy-- and this was their cheapest lip color line; not the $3 one everyone has been reviewing. It's hard to tell if it's just my lips that are dry or it is the lipstick... the only time (today) I tried it my lips were already very crumbly and awkwardly dry even with chapstick.

I've been on the prowl for a replacement liquid liner that was on par with Annabelle for a little bit now. I really wanted Almay to be it, because the bottle and brush are identical to that of Annabelle-- however Black Pearl has far too much silver in it for me to love it. It's nice and all, but I won't be buying this color again, and if it wasn't always sold out where I went, perhaps their plain black might be what I am looking for.  I went and tried Rimmel's liquid liner, too, but the brush turned me off almost immediately. I am just using it till it runs out along with this Almay liner.

For a while I've been such a fan of Sexy Curves by Rimmel, but nearly everyone I have spoken to has told me that Great Lashes by Maybelline is the best product they have ever tried.  I really wanted to love this product, also, but felt that it was just below Sexy Curves. Great price comparison, though. I'll probably be buying it over Sexy Curves for that reason, albeit sub par results.

I wore these products minus the lipstick when I went out, even using the tips and tricks fold out. I was very happy with the results by the end of the evening-- nothing had smudged melted or faded. I didn't take pictures of that night or even the weekend, but for blog sake I took pictures doing the whole thing all over again, and including the lipstick.

Added good buy!

At a store called Alco in my town they started stocking some Halloween stuff. Most of it was pretty tacky, and generally cheap and awful... but then I saw these... they came in green, purple, orange and black!
They had other styles of refillable cups with just images; which I hope to buy before too long. But these 3D skull cups are too awesome for words! It's BPA free, but unfortunately not dishwasher or microwave safe.

I might have to buy another one to make it part of my Halloween giveaway
Just suggest which color you'd like to see the one being given should be, and depending on how many responses I get will determine if it will become so.  *wink wink*