Did you know Ulta has a gift with purchase section on their website? It occurred to me today that people are likely not using this as much as they should! What is it? It’s basically a page that’s dedicated to all the freebies and gifts you can get with your purchase. From teddy bears to full-size products, the page is filled with items you can select for free with certain purchases! I always forget to get my freebies when I check out! I’m notoriously bad about the “add gift to cart” deal that Ulta has going on sometimes with their free gifts. This doesn’t always happen! As most times they do automatically add the gifts but sometimes you have to actually add the item to your cart after you hit the free gift purchase mark and in that case I tend to forget to grab my freebie! To remind myself I bookmarked the “Gift With Purchase” page and I visit it to see what free offers are available and if any coincide with my purchase that day. It’s also just nice to see what might be free and if I might be interested in the freebie enough to make a purchase!

Granted, sometimes Ulta tosses the free gift in automatically but sometimes they don’t and you don’t even realize there’s a gift unless you’re looking for it. For example, did you know you can get

The page is def worth a look at before you do any of your online purchases.

I hope this little hack is useful to you when shopping at Ulta!

Enjoy!

Where to buy

Ulta

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I said it before, and I’ll say it again! I love these! And they are back on sale starting tomorrow at nordstrom.com! All of Lancome will be 25% off with Free shipping but if you only buy one thing please make it be the Lancome Idôle Tint Long Wear Liquid Eyeshadow & Eyeliner! I haven’t had time to review these. I purchased them when they weren’t on sale (and I actually don’t even regret that). And you probably don’t need more eyeshadow but in your life but the Lancome Idôle Tint Long Wear Liquid Eyeshadow & Eyeliner formula is that girl and a bag of chips. I love them. You’re going to have to pry them out of my cold dead hands one day! Lancome doesn’t really capture my eyes the way it did many, many moons ago but they did a fine job with these. They come in both matte and metallic shades! The mattes are my fav but the metallic are brilliant too! The sale starts August 1st around 9-10AM tomorrow EST on Nordy’s website!

Where to buy

Nordstrom

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I’ve expressed my love for Kayali in the past but as you know I’m not terribly impressed with some of their newer scents. There’s so much incredible marketing that goes into their releases but the actual fragrance isn’t as good as the marketing which results in a fair bit of heartbreak for me. Granted, I’m in the minority with my opinion as people really love the brand and enjoy what’s been released lately. I’ve personally been burned by the last few releases to a point Kayali is now off my blindbuy list. Recently, they introduced the Kayali Vacation in a Bottle Mini Perfume Set that includes four limited-edition 0.33 oz perfumes called Marrakesh in a Bottle, Capri in a Bottle, Maui in a Bottle, and Maldives in a Bottle. These are sold as a set for $100. I did get excited about this set but was a little disappointed that they were so small and available as LE fragrances. What if I adored them Kayali never released them again!??! I know that isn’t possibly in today’s beauty world as limited-edition truly has no value the way it once did but the though still the idea raced through my head they’d be gone for good one day.

Kayali’s smaller 0.33 oz bottles are normally $32 each so you were saving $28 by snagging this set! Yay for savings! I did have this little tickle in the back of my head thinking, “Oh I bet they do a larger bottle release later or perhaps next year!” and I was almost right….! These are back in a way but now as an individual purchase. Each scent is available in a 0.33 oz bottle as an individual purchase for $32. It’s such an odd cash grab in my opinion because so many people didn’t really want the entire set of four to begin with. I personally did want them all but some people just wanted Capri (It’s a lemon sugar scent so, of course the gourmand lovers were gagging for it!) or some people just wanted two out of the four scents because they didn’t like certain notes in the other scents. But, unfortunately, if you wanted them, it was either buy the set or not try them at all. To re-release each scent as an individual purchase does somewhat suck for the people who purchased the set. Not to mention you’d be spending more per bottle with individual purchases as all four is $128 versus the set at $100. Needless to say, I’m sure bigger bottles are coming! Be it this year or next year, I’m sure we’ll see them at some point. I just wish the cash grab wasn’t so obvious and so soon.

Personally, I didn’t really like any of them. They smelled a bit meh to me a lot of Kayali fans really went crazy for them. I just didn’t understand the hype having tried them all myself. Even Capri, the one I was most excited about, didn’t really smell all that great…! I wish beauty brands would respect our money a little more and stop doing dumb releases like this or at the very least wait a while before springing it on us so soon.

This is, of course, my opinion as Kayali is a beloved brand by many so my saltiness about their releases doesn’t account for much. But I do think those of us that do feel let down deserve a place to rant about it. Thoughts?

Do share ’em!

Where to buy

Sephora

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Another day, another celeb beauty collection or in this case a new hair care one! Blake Lively has a new haircare collection coming to Target called Blake Brown Beauty and hey, Blake’s hair is one of her best features so why wouldn’t we want to buy haircare from her? Wondering about the name? It’s a nod to and tribute to her dad who’s last name was Brown until he married her mom and took her last name! Interesting right?

Apparently Black spent seven years developing Black Brown Beauty and tried hundreds of formulas on her own hair to create. Black Brown will includes a line up of eight products some of which which include:

• Sandalwood Vanille Fundamental Strengthening
• Wild Nectar Santal Fundamental Nourishing
• Milky Sandalwood Rich Reset Pre-Shampoo Mask
• Bergamot Woods All-In Wonder Leave-In Potion
• Amber Vanille Dry Shampoo
• Blackcurrant Vanille Glam Mousse

I’m not going to lie and say the first thing I look for in a haircare line is how it’ll treat my hair because honestly, I’m all about fragrance. If it smells good it’s going in my hair and some of these sound like they sell beautiful! Sign me up! And guess what? Blake loves fragrance too so she partnered with a fragrance house to develop these scents. Apparently, they may seem familiar since they inspired by Diptyque Candles, TokyoMilk and Burberry Perfumes. They also come in interesting “hive”-like bottles in copper and bronze geometric shapes that apparently stack.

The brand will be around the mid-range price mark at around $18.99 to $24.99 and they’ll be available starting August 4th at target.com. Are you curious about the Blake Brown Beauty Hair Collection?

Where to buy

Target

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Olay is taking on a Japanese trend with a new meltable facial cleansing sheet. The new Olay Face Cleansing Melts come in three formulas and act to not only cleanse skin but treat it as well by brightening, hydrating, and even smoothing fine lines and wrinkles. This tiny little water-activated cleansing pads dissolve when you add water to create a creamy lather that cleanses your face. The sheet instantly melts down making it easy way to travel with your cleanser.

How do you use these new Olay Face Cleansing Melts? Easy! Take a single sheet and gently add water, allow it to dissolve in your hand, massage your hands together, and apply the lather to your face, rinse, and done! Pretty cool right? These aren’t a new thing by any means as they are quite popular in Japan and Korea but they are new to the US market. We haven’t had something like this available.

As I said above these are available in three formulations. We have the Olay Face Cleansing Melts with Hyaluronic Acid which smooth, hydrate, and help skin to retain moisture. There’s also the Olay Face Cleansing Melts with Retinol n but the brand doesn’t go into great detail what exactly the retinol will do which I thought was interesting. Let’s assume it treats fine lines and wrinkles but I am NOT a big believer in active ingredients in cleansers since you are rinsing them all off so seems pointless to have them in a cleanser. And the final formula is the Olay Face Cleansing Melts with Vitamin C which promises to brighten which again, I do feel a little pointless.

That being said this is a rather fun way to wash your face if not an expensive one. You get 32 melts for $12 which means they’ll last you a month (and a few days) but I do think a typical 8oz to 12 oz cleanser with daily use lasts me around 2-3 months. I really need to test that theory but I don’t often replace my facial cleansers and they do last a while before I need to buy a new one which makes a box of 32 melts for $12 bucks seem a lot? But also, we also need to factor in how much you’re spending on your facial cleanser as well as if you use a $30+ cleanser maybe these melts aren’t too bad a deal. There be claim to fame with these is the fact the melts only have seven to eight ingredients in this formula which is listed below as well as the active (IE retinol).

Ingredients in Olay Face Cleansing Melts:
DISODIUM COCOYL GLUTAMATE, POLYVINYL ALCOHOL, WATER, SODIUM COCOYL ALANINATE, TRIETHYL CITRATE, RETINOL*, CITRIC ACID, BLACK 2

What do you think of these? Worth checking out?

Olay Face Cleansing Melts are available now!

Where to buy

Target

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