Melissa Michelle Palette by Ulta Beauty

Disclaimer: I purchased this.

Today I have an inexpensive palette to show you that I've quite fallen in love with - the Melissa Michelle xoxo palette from Ulta Beauty ($20). Melissa Michelle is a YouTube Beauty vlogger, although I was not familiar with her prior to seeing some reviews for her palette. What drew me in were the colors, which just scream "fall" to me.  

The palette is a sturdy cardboard and you do get a nice sized mirror, which came in handy when I took the palette with me to New Orleans recently for a short work trip. I can get multiple looks from this palette and think the shade selection is fantastic for those who love warm/neutral colors.  My coloring is nothing like Melissa Michelle's but there is not a single color in the palette that does not work for me.

You get four shimmer eyeshadows and five matte shades, and all of them perform really well. The mattes are smooth and easy to blend, and the range of shades make this a complete palette for me - hence why I took it with me to New Orleans.

The first eyeshadow Teresita is a chunkier metallic shimmer, but I had no problems with shimmer migration when I used my finger to pat it on my lids. The rust colored Bing Bing has fantastic pigmentation, and I'm loving the clay colored Rosemary and the soft tan Tobo as a crease shades. All swatches are over primer, as that is how I wear them :-)

From top to bottom: Teresita, Kades, Alana, Lola

Bing Bing, Harley, Weezy, Rosemary, Tobo

The highlighter Hollerrr has three different sections and each of them can work as eyeshadows as well.  The sections are large enough that you could just use a single shade as a highlighter with a smaller brush, although I'm sure most will swirl the colors together. The blush swatched a bit patchy on my arm but it looks great on my face, and is a lovely everyday kind of color that works well with a variety of looks. I really like it!

I was assuming I would not like the formula of the matte liquid lipstick Scandy, as it has a tack to it and does not completely dry down. I was wrong, as I love the color and find it comfortable to wear, and my lips did not feel dry the next day.

Scandy

I have no idea how long Ulta will be carrying this palette, but if the colors speak to you I think it's well worth checking out. The quality is there (4.6 rating on Ulta's site) and the price is uber reasonable for everything you are getting. Plus, Ulta always has sales or GWP's that further sweeten the deal.

Teresita over Alana with Rosemary and Tobo in the crease

Wearing Mahal blush and Scandy matte liquid lipstick

I stayed at a really cool boutique hotel in New Orleans called the Q&C HotelBar New Orleans, Autograph Collection®.  Weird name, but I loved the look and feel of the place and thought my room was lovely.

My room was smaller than I'm used to with chain hotels and reminded me size wise of a hotel I stayed in in Paris, plus it was pet friendly! Or at least I saw a couple leaving with their dogs, so I assume it was. Having cement floors probably contributes to pet friendliness.

The check-in area is small, just two stations, and there is a bar and small eating area right there, hence the HotelBar name, I guess. Anyhow, I'd stay there again so thought I would give it a mini-review as well.  I'm always curious to see what toiletries are carried  by different hotels, and Moulton Brown was the choice here :-)

Bronzed 'n' Sculpted by Benefit and an Ulta 21 Days of Beauty Pick

Disclaimer: I purchased this.

I recently finished a mini of the Hoola Quickie Contour Stick and liked it so much that I was wavering between buying the full sized or getting another mini, as the full size is a bit pricey at $28. Then I saw this Bronze 'n' Sculpted kit ($17) and since I've never tried the powder version of Hoola, my decision was made.

The set contains mini's of the Hoola Quickie Contour Stick, the Hoola powder bronzer, and the highlight Watt's Up!.  I had a mini of Watt's Up! in the past and did not remember being overly impressed with it, but now I think it must have been dried out, as I really like this one! I'm finding it super creamy and easy to use and it does not disturb my foundation when blending it out.

You get more of Watt's Up! (.08 oz.) than you do the Hoola Quickie Contour Stick (.05 oz), and I can see the highlighter lasting me quite a while. I do burn through the Hoola Quickie Contour Stick pretty quickly, however, which made Ulta's sale during the 21 Days of Beauty appealing. But more on that later.

The powder Hoola is a good color match for my fair skin, and I do like layering the stick Hoola with the powder Hoola. The box size is just big enough (.14 oz.) for me to get my Julep bronzer brush in it, plus you do get a cute brush with the box, although I find it scratchy and will not use it.

The powder Hoola is the first swatch and the stick Hoola is the last swatch.  I like using the stick Hoola to contour with and find it remarkably easy to blend out with my Beauty Blender sponge. Just to be careful to not over blend, as you can blend it completely away. The downside of the stick is that I use it up quickly - probably about 3 weeks of daily use for the mini sized.

Ulta is offering the full size of the Hoola Quickie Contour Stick as a hot buy ($21) during the 21 Days of Beauty sale, so I decided to pick one up. If you are a Platinum member you get free shipping on all hot buys and beauty steals, which is a nice perk.

You do get 6 times the amount (.3 oz) in the full sized Hoola Quickie stick, so hopefully it will last me a while. The bullet did come loose during shipping and it flew out when I opened the container, but fortunately I caught it so did not have any damage. Pressing it gently back into the container fixed the problem, but just be aware that it can come loose.

I can't imagine this would work for those with medium to dark complexions, but it's definitely a good match for my fair complexion. It's warm but does not go orange on me and I think looks very natural on the skin.

Haulin' Haulin' Haulin': What I Purchased During Ulta's Platinum 20% Off Sale

If you are a Platinum member at Ulta they periodically offer 20% off of most items, including the higher end brands.  The discount combined with 2X points motivated me to spend enough to qualify for platinum next year.  I do enjoy Ulta's loyalty rewards!

After using my samples of bareMineral's Barely Nude 5 in 1 BB Advanced Performance eye cream for the past few months, I decided I needed a full sized one.  Love this stuff for smooth, natural looking color that makes my eyes look refreshed and just, well, better.

I've had my eye on Becca's Radiant Glow collection (an Ulta exclusive) for a while, as it contains several products I was interested in trying out.  A more in depth review will be forthcoming.

Mally's 5 Pc Shadow Stick Extra Collection features 5 new shades not currently available in the regular Evercolor shadow stick collection.  It's a great way to try these shadow sticks at a greatly discounted price, considering the individual ones cost $25 each.

Pur Cosmetics new Eye Polishes with their interesting formula/packaging drew me in, and I decided on the rich bronze/brown Suede to stick my toe in the waters of these liquid cream shadows.

Too Faced's Melted Kisses Sweet Cheeks set seemed like a great way to try the new blush formula as well as acquire two more of the Melted liquid lipsticks.  It's a sweet set :-)

The Bliss Brilliant Butters set will be a Christmas present for my mother, although I may snag the Blood Orange and White Pepper one for myself.  I've always been curious what that one smells like.

Both Bliss and Pur Cosmetics had GWP offers that netted the Big Look mascara and the Triple Oxygen Instant Energizing Cleansing Foam.

I think I've shopped myself out and need to practice self restraint now.

Ulta Gel Eyeliners in Clay and Olive Oil

Disclaimer:  I purchases these.

I've got a bit of an addiction to pencil eyeliners, as evidenced by the fact that I've got the Urban Decay Eyeliner Vault yet still feel the need to purchase more.  On the plus side, this urge to collect is helping me to discover some viable and less expensive eye liners outside of the Urban Decay range.  Okay, rationalizations aside, how do the gel eyeliners from Ulta stack up?

Pretty nice, actually!  I've already reviewed the off white Halo, but apparently it was part of the previous incarnation Kohl eyeliner range, which has now morphed into the Gel eyeliners (review here).  A bit misleading, as a kohl and gel formula would be quite different, I'd think.  Regardless, I was impressed with Halo, so I recently picked up Clay and Olive Oil to also try out.

Clay is a graphite gray shimmer, which begs the question why the name Clay?  Olive Oil is a mossy green shimmer.  Both are darker than they looked on Ulta's site, which is one reason why I always look for swatches prior to purchasing.  They are creamy, easy to apply, and once set they do not smudge.  A quick scan of the ingredient list showed they contain vitamin E, cottonseed and jojoba oils, which is nice to see. 

Clay gel liner

There are currently 23 different colors, and at $8 each I think the Gel liners are a good buy!  Ulta usually offers some sort of deal with their house named cosmetics, and these are currently buy two get two free, making them $4 each.

Olive Oil gel liner (over Sephora by Pantone's Navajo)

Haulin', v. 3

Ulta sent me an email last week telling me I had 100 pts that were expiring on the 8th, plus they were sending me an extra 100 pts to spend in store only (100 pts =$3.00).  So, I trudged over to Ulta an hour before closing time on Saturday to spend my $6.00.  They couldn't find a record of it in my online Ulta profile, but it turns out I have two profiles - one established in store and one from online.  Didn't know that was possible, but they said to definitely use the online profile going forward.

Sprung vs. Warm & Fozzie

I don't know how I passed up these two OPI polishes when they first came out, as I'm sure I saw swatches online.  Maybe I just needed to see them in person to appreciate their beauty, because I'm a bit mesmerized now.  Sprung is from the Mariah Carey collection, which I didn't really give a second look at as I wasn't interested in the textured polishes.  Mariah also irritates me a bit, so perhaps that had something to do with it.  But Sprung reminds me of one of my all time favorite polishes - Warm & Fozzie from the OPI Muppets collection.  There is a difference in tone, with Sprung leaning more red to Warm & Fozzie's brown.

The Living Daylights is just sheer gorgeousness in a bottle.  Those colors!  I could just sit and twirl the bottle endlessly, hypnotizing myself....oh, and OPI polishes are currently 2 for $15 at Ulta.

My last pick was Rimmel's Gossip Green scandalEYES shadow pencil, which I've been circling for a while now.  All told, worth the trip over and I'm glad I now know I've got two separate Ulta accounts!

Disclaimer:  I purchased these.