Pacifica Travel Ready Facial Wipe Set

Disclaimer: I purchased these.

I've been eyeing the Pacifica facial wipes for a while and finally picked up the Travel Ready set ($14), which contains five different varieties in smaller packs of 10 each. I also got the Future Youth Enzymatic Resurfacing Mask and the Ginger Root 10-in-1 Hair Volumizer, although today I'm going to focus on the wipes. Spoiler alert: I really like these! Plus, look at the pretty packaging/colors.

The set contains:

• Purify Coconut Water Cleansing Wipes: Coconut water infused natural towelettes gently remove toxins, oils, pollutants and makeup-up from your skin without water. These also contain the natural exfoliant Papaya as well as aloe vera and soothing calendula.

• Essential Makeup Removing Wipes: Coconut milk infused natural towelettes gently remove makeup, daily pollutants, and everything you don't want to sleep in without the use of water. Other ingredients of note are chamomile, calendula, jojoba oil, and aloe vera. While I rarely use wipes to remove my makeup, I did stay up way to late one Friday and was too tired to do my usual cleansing routine so I tried these. It took 2 wipes to get everything off, but I thought they were pretty effective. I still had some mascara smudging going on, but the rest of my face was clean and soft.

• Moisturize Energize Serum Wipes: Add a blast of instant hydration and floral water to wilted, tired skin. Energize and leave neck firm and refreshed. Ingredients of note include glycerin, birch sap, aloe leaf extract, coconut milk, green tea extract, vitamin e, and calendula. While these are marketed for those with dry to normal skin, I did not find it too heavy/slick for my oily skin.  

• Peach and apricot infused natural wipes help remove dead skin and brighten the look of skin. These can be used after removing makeup as a final treatment prior to applying moisturizer. Ingredients of note include Willow Bark extract, aloe leaf, sage, rose, papaya, apricot and peach extracts, and vitamin e.  Natural grain alcohol is #3 on the ingredient list, although my oily skin is pretty hardy and I did not feel that these were particularly stripping or harsh. However, I use wipes sporadically and not every day, so there is that.

• Super Detox Deep Purification Wipes: Super green kale, cucumber and mangosteen infused natural wipes deeply cleanse and help decongest clogged pores. These can be used after removing makeup as a skin care step prior to moisturizing. Willow bark extract and natural grain alcohol are higher on the ingredient list, which makes them well suited for my oily skin, although they are supposed to work for all skin types.  

All of the towelettes contain fragrance, although they are noted as being natural in origin. I personally love the scents in each of them, so that's not a detractor for me. I keep these in my refrigerator and primarily use them on the weekend as a quick skin refresher and especially after working in the yard. While I've been pretty loyal to the Yes To makeup wipes, the Pacifica ones have risen to the top of my list now. They are more expensive and smaller in size, however, but considering I mainly use them for the reasons I listed, I'm okay with that.

Julep September Maven Box: Cheers to Five Years

Disclaimer: I purchased this.

This month marked Julep's five year birthday, and they had several sets we could chose from for our customized Maven boxes. I chose the mini pencil set, as I love Julep's gel pencil formula and I'm an eye pencil junkie.

I'm more than happy with my choice, as the colors are gorgeous and unique to my collection. Which is hard to believe, as I've got soooo many eye pencils.

The only color that was a little problematic is Ultraviolent, which could be due to purple pigment's somewhat difficult tendencies. You can see how it's a bit bunchy/patchy in the swatch above, and I'll be interested to see how it works on the eye. I'm seriously in love with Gilded Gold Shimmer, which applies like butter. Once I've worn all of these I'll post a review.

My other choice for September's box was the oxygen bonding base coat Stick It To Me.

I added Peggy using my points, which is described as a charcoal with rose shimmer. I'm currently wearing it on my toes and am not sure how I feel about it yet, although it's an interesting color. I was able to get away with one coat, although I'm guessing two will work better on my hands. However, I'm seeing a negative review on Julep from someone saying Peggy turned her nails blue, so perhaps it's good I tried it on my toes first. I rarely wear bare toes so if this does stain, I'll be able to cover it up.

I paid $19.99 for my box, as I was fortunate to be grandfathered in at a lower price, and continue to be a happy Julep subscriber!

My Last Ever Drugstore.com Haul

Disclaimer: I purchased these.

As you may or may not already be aware, drugstore.com and beauty.com are closing at the end of September. They are owned by Walgreens, who is apparently only going to focus on walgreens.com going forward. I've been shopping at drugstore.com for about 15 years now, so I'm sad to see it go :-(

Avene Thermal Spring Water at $1.76 each (regularly $9) 

About 4 weeks ago I was doing my Sunday wake up routine of drinking coffee and checking email when I clicked on a sale notice from drugstore.com. There were some insane deals going on that I jumped on, and the bargain hunter in me was more than a little stoked to see some items marked down 93%. That's crazy good, right? I got everything shown for about $28.

Herbacin Foot Care Starter Set at a $.05 each and still available (regularly $16.99)

I have no idea if this was a glitch in drugstore.com's system or what, but my order went through fine and I settled in to wait for my goodies. The order was split into 2 shipments and the first box with only 2 items arrived in a few days, but the bulk of the order languished in delivery purgatory with no signs of moving. I contacted drugstore.com, they emailed back "so sorry, these items are no longer available, we will refund you".

NIA24 Gentle Cleansing Cream at $2.58 each, regularly $33

About 4 days after receiving my refund, the box showed up on my front steps. I experienced a missing shipment with beauty.com recently as well, which leads me to believe that closing the sites down has messed with their normally reliable services. Or I guess it could be coincidence.

Reach toothbrush at $.86 each, regularly $4.29

Anyhow, receiving my missing box was like Christmas in August, and in fact I purchased multiples of some of the items in order to give as Christmas gifts.

Jadience Purifying Toner at $1.01, regularly $18

I also purchased some staples and a few other items to get my order to the $35 minimum for free shipping, including Palmer's Skin Therapy cleansing oil ($7.99) that Musings of a Muse gave a rave review to.

So long, drugstore.com and beauty.com. I shall miss you!

Culling My Collection: 2016 Palette Purge Part 3

Time for the final part of my palette purge, starting with Urban Decay! I've got more than a few, including some BYO's that will obviously be staying because I chose all the shadows in them:-) I've also got some discontinued and limited edition palettes, as well as Naked. So let's see what makes the cut. The tally from yesterday's Part 2 is 18 palettes kept and 18 palettes tossed and/or partially depotted, in case you are keeping count.

Yikes, my Naked 1 is growing mold:-( Mobile has high levels of humidity for a good portion of the year, which makes a great climate for mold and mildew to grow, unfortunately. I haven't reach for Naked that often, although I did use it for a month solid when I featured it in my first installment of "Loving Your Unloved" over a year ago. I depotted a few of the colors for my Z palette, but it's time to say goodbye to this one.

I almost never reach for the discontinued Mariposa palette, although every time I look at Money I swoon a bit. I find the tin container hard to open and the way I've been storing some palettes means out of sight, out of mind. So, I'm depotting the colors I like and putting them in a Z palette.

Same with the discontinued Skull palette. I'm pretty sure I picked up both Skull and Mariposa at deeply discounted prices in order to round out my UD shadow collection, so I don't feel bad about depotting colors I know I'll use and putting them in a Z palette and discarding the rest. I never really cared for the UD shadows that contained microglitter anyhow, which is more than a few of these.

 So, I'm tossing 3 Urban Decay palettes:

And keeping 8, which makes 26 palettes kept and 21 tossed.

Next are my bareMinerals READY palettes. I love the formula of the READY shadows and picked up most of my quads during an Ulta 50% off sale a few years back.

Sadly, one of the 8 pan palettes has been blighted with mold, so it's got to go. It's a cooler toned palette that I did not use very often, but it still makes me sad. The tally now stands at 32 palettes kept and 22 tossed.

The last category of shadows are from Le Metier de Beaute (LMdB). These are probably my favorites, and most of them were in eye kaleidoscopes I've collected. I love the look and concept of kaleidoscopes but they are not the most practical, so I decided to depot all of them and put them in palettes a little over a month ago. The LMdB singles I have proved resistant to depotting, however, although I gave it a valiant effort. There are some other shadows in the palettes as well, but the larger round shadows are all from LMdB. I find I'm using them much more often now and I love having them grouped more in color families.

I did need to purchase another Z palette to house the depotted shadows from my palette purge as well as my Makeup Geek blushes, which lost their home when I depotted my eye kaleidoscopes. I chose the Tiffany blue Z palette and am loving my new arrangement of blushes and shadows.

I ended up keeping 38 palettes:

And purging and/or partially depotting 22 palettes:

All of my palettes (except the 2 mammoth Estee Lauder ones) now fit into 2 drawers right next to my makeup table, which means all palettes are easy to see and within reach. I'm using shadows that were being ignored much more often and enjoying items that have languished unloved for far too long. I am happy with this outcome! I really need to quit buying any more eyeshadow palettes for like, years. Maybe ever. Ha.

Culling My Collection: 2016 Eyeshadow Palette Purge Part 2

Continuing with my palette purge (you can see Part 1 here), I've got 2 discontinued Stila palettes: In the Garden and Not So Nude.  I have not used In the Garden much at all, and in swatching the shadows again my impression was they were a bit dry and chunky.

I have used Not So Nude a bit and even took it with me on a trip, although I haven't used it since then.  The quality of the shadows is just so so, and the convertible color in Lily has gone bad. I'm going to toss both palettes, although I'm depotting Kitten to put in a Z palette. It's a classic for a reason, and surprisingly this is the only one I have. That gives me a tally of 4 palettes kept and 11 purged. Feeling good and freeing up space.

Now for 5 palettes, four of which I'm tossing and keeping one. The NYX Love in Florence has only one shadow that I use, the gray matte in the thin, long strip. Good gray mattes have been hard to come by and the one in my stila In the Know palette is crap, so this is my go to.

The Laura Geller trio is nice but neglected, and the color selection throws me off for some reason. I've got an odd sentimental attachment to the tokidoki palette and the shadows are pretty good. The It Cosmetics Naturally Pretty has seen some use but I feel neutral about it. The Lancome palette was a gift with purchase and for whatever reason I just never use it.

So what am I keeping?  Tokidoki and the gray shadow from Love in Florence. That makes 5 palettes kept and 15 purged.

Next are my Wet 'n Wild palettes. There is not a thing wrong with these but I just don't reach for them, so out they go. Tally is now 5 palettes kept and 18 tossed.

The four palettes below are all making the cut. I selected the shadows for the Rouge Bunny Rouge trio and know I like them. The Sephora Pantone palette has some duotone shadows that are unique to my collection and I like the quality of the shadows overall. The Laura Mercier palette has not seen as much use but I do like the shadows and want to get more familiar with them. The Julep duo is good quality and are colors I like, which makes it a keeper. That makes 9 palettes kept and 18 tossed.  The tide may be turning in the other direction.

Now for another 3 palettes I know I'm hanging on to.  The MAKE palette is phenomenal.  MAKE doesn't get much love in the blogging/YouTube sphere, but their eyeshadows in particular are pigmented, smooth, and just great quality overall.  That is every single one I've tried. My Chantecaille palettes hold a special place in my affection, as I love the presentation and they are very wearble palettes for me. The tally is now 13 palettes kept and 18 purged.

Sigh, another 3 palettes I know I'm keeping. Estee Lauder's shadows are about middle of the pack when it comes to formula quality, but I like them. I prefer buildable color as opposed to BAM color from the get go, so maybe that's why these work well for me. Plus, no way am I getting rid of the larger palettes with the blushes and bronzers. I'm keeping the smaller one for travel. Now I'm at 16 palettes kept and 18 purged.

My Keven Aucoin contour palette contains eyeshadows that I don't particularly care for, I'm keeping it for the contour and highlight powders, which are wonderful. I honestly never reach for my Lorac Pro palette, but I feel like I need to give it one more go before tossing it. I'm not sure why I don't reach for it, but if I don't in the next few months I may as well find it a new home.

I've got three more brands to cover, but since I own multiple palettes from them I'll save it for tomorrow. My final tally for Part 2's palette purge is 18 palettes kept and 18 purged, so it is neck and neck. Tomorrow I'll go through my bareMinerals READY and Urban Decay palettes and show you what I've done with my Le Metier de Beaute eye kaleidoscopes. I'm pretty happy with the outcome:-)