Sephora Birthday Haul

I've been working 6 days a week and balancing school so I haven't had to energy to blog, but recently my dad handed me down his old iPhone 4. (When the 5 came out to be exact, I've just been sluggish on unlocking it, sorry!)

Since I have a new phone now and my camera focuses pretty nicely, I can start blogging from my phone again :)! Hopefully this will keep me on track better than I've been. I've also signed a lease to my first apartment and I don't want to buy new furniture until I get a house so possibly some DIY posts on revamping what you have.

Moving on... It's my birthday tomorrow and I'm turning 22! It hasn't quite sunk in that I'm getting older but I'm sure it will soon. I swung by Sephora with the boyfriend and picked up my present and caved and finally bought the Urban Decay Naked Basics Palette! My boyfriend actually got it for me as a birthday present so hooray for that!

(I'm at work blogging as I type and there's a client looking at me like I'm crazy taking photos of my makeup purchase. She probably thinks I'm being obsessive!)

I don't splurge as crazy as I used to when I was living with my parents but here are my goodies:

Sephora Birthday Gift & Urban Decay Naked Basics Palette

The birthday gift this year consisted of samples from Benefit. I absolutely LOVE Benefit and I've been looking forward to my birthday since January! It came with Watt's Up! and They're Real mascara. I've gone through a few tubes of the mascara and I absolutely adore how they make my lashes look. I do plan on doing a review on that still, just haven't had daylight whenever my daily routine is finished.

Close up of the wand. I'm sure if you're a reader of my blog, you've seen a close up of this wand a few times already but extra photos never hurt, haha.

It's a pretty tiny sample, and it doesn't include the squishy sponge blender end that the full version has but nothing my fingers can't fix.

I feel like it's a generous sample because let's get real, how much highlighter do you need to apply on your cheekbones in one sitting? I've been lemming the Watt's Up! since it launched but I could never spend $30 on a highlighter I'll rarely use. (Not until I'm out of school anyway)

The office isn't getting good sunlight today but I tried to get swatches anyway. Excuse my dry hands. I seem to compulsively wash my hands when I'm at work and the lotion in my desk is not the best. I'm going to be one of those old ladies with vein-y hands because my veins shows through so much! :(

It blends quite nicely! (Left half unbleaded, right half blended.)

My actual purchase. I told myself I don't need this palette and when I got to Sephora they were out of the Too Faced blush, yenno the heart shaped one, and I didn't want to have driven all the way to the mall 10 minutes before closing to leave empty handed. I ended up getting it but I love neutrals these days and it won't hurt to have some matte neutrals to help further my blending :)

Close up of the back of the box.

Close up of the palette. I love it! No swatches of this just because I know it won't photograph well because of this cloudy day. (Go figure, the one day in Texas I want the sun to shine.)

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Feedback:Are the photos in this post clear enough? (I've noticed when I view on different computer monitors it varies but that's probably just the retina display which helps images be more pristine.) It'll definitely save me time for quick haul posts such as this one rather than uploaded, resizing, etc.

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Another year older, another year wiser. I can't wait until I get a house, get married, and have my life figured out! One step at a time though ;)

Take care everyone! See you in the next post...

♥ L