I've been hauling again

It's a bit funny and maybe I should also feel a bit embarassed to show you my huge haul right after having published my post where I rave about minimalism and admit that I'm hooked on minimalism. But I am not embarassed at all. Life is as it is and you gotta make exceptions! ;-)

So, this week was an exception of my general path towards minimalism and sacrifice. (I'm just kidding ;-) - of course this is no sacrifice.) Here are my hauls of the first December days:

1. As I was running out of hair dye I purchased hair dye by Khadi and a thermometer for mixing and applying it properly. The other things were just presents by the online shop I ordered with. (Thank you very much and huge compliments: the order arrived within 2 days.)
2. I also had to try a batiste dry shampoo that everyone is raving about and while ordering two of them I also ended up buying another blush by NYX with Douglas (but hey, I just decluttered 5 of them and this colour is really great ;-)). Besides I also purchased an eyebrow liner by NYX and a newly released Lavera shower gel. 
3. In my favourite DM I stumbled upon the newly released Alverde Perfect Basics Limited edition and had to purchase an eyeliner brush, a really impressive matte bronzer and a highlighter as well as 2 mascaras (black and dark blue), 2 amazing lip sticks and an eyeliner. 
4. As I am constantly raving about the Sephora angled IT brush for eyeliners, I had to order a second one and - of course as I don't order that often with Sephora - I had to buy a couple of additional things. Amongst others I bought 2 other great brushes by Sephora and a couple of other really great Sephora products like a set of 3 bags, a micellar water and cotton pads. The other items were samples that I didn't order.
5. In my favourite local book store, I bought a couple of Yankee candle samplers and a chai tea powder which I adore. This yields the best chai ever. 
6. Also, as here in Germany the new MAC 15 palettes have been released - finally, everyone else seems to have them already -, I had to order one. And of course I also ordered 2 eye shadow refills: Copperplate and Charcoal Brown. Love them. And I also love the new 15-Palettes by MAC. They look sophisticated and beautiful. I'll dedicate a post to them soon. 

Love my new items. The remaining days of December will be ruled by minimalism and sacrifice. I swear. ;-)

New Alverde Limited Edition Sets

Today I have been in the city center and discovered two new limited edition sets by Alverde. Each set consist of a shower gel and a body lotion. As I have made only good experiences with such kinds of Alverde limited edition sets, I wasn't able to hold myself back and bought them both. The sets don't cost that much. Each was available for only 4 Euro.

Here is a picture of my DM haul. I also bought winter chocolate by Alnatura which currently is my favourite choclate. Actually, this is exactly why I went to DM in the first place. :-)

(The magazine was available for free ;-))

Lavera Haul

This month was very expensive. I have bought a lot of beauty items and as if I didn't have enough body lotions, I also bought two more of them (actually, I could really roll myself from one side to the other in my body lotions - this is how many of them I already have at home).

I have done a small Lavera haul (see also their uk web site). Lavera is a german brand selling organic beauty products. I like the company a lot and have tried different products already. I don't remember any product by Lavera that I didn't like at all. E.g. I adore the wild rose face cream (see also my review of it in my May empties where I was raving about it) and I also liked the Apricot Summer body lotion (see my review of it in my July empties - it seems to not be sold anymore; maybe the scent was disturbing others as well; however, despite the scent this body lotion was great!).

Ok, let's have a look at my new Lavera products:

Sephora France Online Shop Review

Do you know a German beauty addict that does not dream of Sephora? It seems to be typical human to dream of things that are really hard to get or completely unavailable. Unfortunately, we Germans don't have a Sephora store here in Germany. However, Sephora is a really cool brand (I love e.g. the Sephora #45 brush I bought in May via eBay) and I've been lurking around the US online shop a lot. Ordering from the US is very expensive though. This is why I haven't bought many products from Sephora up to now. I have rather kept a wishlist which grew with time. From time to time, however, when blog posts pop up on German blogs where holiday shopping at Sephora stores is shown, I catch myself making up some holiday plans just in order to get near to a Sephora shop. Do recognize yourself in this behaviour as well?

Well, in August I stumbled upon the Sephora France online shop and found out that they ship to Germany. What a great discovery! Although I had a couple of years of french classes at school, my french is not that good anymore. I should really practice it more often as it seems to be of high value in the beauty world obviously. I had to scramble up all my little left knowledge of french but, fortunately, this was enough to place a proper order. I even found a 15% coupon for the french online shop which I was able to use.

The shipping costs are pretty high with 13.90 Euro, but Sephora France ships with UPS and the shipping was really fast. Although it is written on their page that shipping takes 5 to 7 days, my order arrived on the 4th day after submitting it (including the day on which I ordered). And with the 15% coupon I was able to shrink the shipping costs a bit. As I did not order that much I was not able to cover the shipping costs completely with the coupon. This order was a test purchase. As I don't have any experiences with the products I ordered, I ordered only few products and mainly small sizes. In case I like the products, I might repurchase them in bigger versions, however.

This is how my order looked upon arrival (the black box is the present box of Sephora which I took because it was free and I wanted to see how it looks like :-)):

Nonique Haul (Ihr Platz closes)

I've just been at the train main station to buy the tickets for my vacation and took the chance to go into an "Ihr Platz". This is a german drug store that you can find in nearly each main station in Germany. It is related with the "Schlecker" drug store which recently went bankrupt. While the staff at the "Ihr Platz" told me a couple of weeks ago that the "Ihr Platz" will survive, it obviously will be closed as well. Today everything was available for the half price and the shelves were nearly empty.

At "Ihr Platz" the brand Nonique is available. Nonique is a southern-german brand offering organic skin care products. As the half prices were very tempting and I like Nonique a lot, I just had to buy a couple of Nonique products. Up to now I haven't been able to find Nonique anywhere else in Germany than at "Schlecker" and at "Ihr Platz". According to their webpage they indeed seem to not have any other trading partners in Germany. Hence, it really is a pitty that both drug store companies have disappeared or will disappear soon. Fortunately, Nonique has opened an online shop for their products, recently, and therefore, ordering their products online is now an option. I really hope that this company will survive although they soon won't have any trading partners in Germany anymore. However, they apparently still have a trading partner in Austria and I really hope that they will soon find other retailers in Germany as well. It would be a pitty if the Nonique products would disappear from the market. 

Presents and new stuff

Last weekend I've been visiting my parents and my mom gave me two beauty items as a present. One is an eye cream by Louis Widmer which she likes and the other one is a body lotion by Olivenöl which she does not like. I am curious whether I will like them and I am looking very much forward to trying them! :-)

 

Drugstore haul August

Recently, I was Drugstore shopping again. It was only a small haul, however. Look at the products I bought:

New in: Caudalie Samples and Avène Face Water

Recently I've been pharmacy shopping again and bought the samples shown below. Actually, it's not that recently but even a couple of weeks ago. I simply forgot to show you the pictures. I also already tried two of the products and will tell you my first impressions below.

The following products have been bought by me:

• Avène Eau Thermale face water that can be sprayed on the face
• A set of samples of Caudalie products

New in: Essence Blushes & L'Oreal Caresse Lipsticks

At Rossmann, there currently is a sales promotion of 20% for L'Oreal makeup products (until the 13th of July, so hurry up if you want to buy any L'Oreal makeup products!). Additionally, Essence has released a very interesting new limited edition called Ready for Boarding. Hence, I had to have a look and then also bought these 4 products:

The products are:

• Essence Lip and Cheek Creme in 01 sending you kisses (above in the picture, it is the pink blush on the right) and 02 beauty on tour (above in the picture it is the peachy blush on the left). These blushes are the only ones coming with the Ready for Boarding LE of Essence and at first, I only bought the peachy shade 02 - you might have read that I try to keep myself from buying blushes and especially LEs. However, these blushes have not been expensive (2,50 Euro each) and I have read great reviews on other blogs about them, e.g. this recommendation here. After having fallen in love with the peachy blush 02, I had to buy the other one as well and I really like them and have used them each day since I bought them. Nevertheless, I really do own a ton of blushes now - but the blush 02 beauty on tour is the first peachy cream blush I own. So, it was worth it.

02 beauty on tour is on the left and 01 sending you kisses is on the right

• L'Oreal Caresse lipstick in Rebel Red. I love this new lipstick line from L'Oreal. L'Oreal is also a company, I don't like that much and try to avoid, but this lipstick line is so great. The lipsticks are not drying and the more colourful ones like Rebel Red do look so great on the lips since they are not too opaque and they also do stain the lips a bit and hence stay much longer than other nurturing lipsticks. However, I still have to use a lip balm underneath because my lips are very dry. Rebel Red is a really lovely red that suits me and just looks great. 

• L'Oreal Caresse lipstick in Impulsive Fuchsia. This is a lovely fuchsia that again is not too opaque and looks stunning on the lips. Actually, it has even become my favourite lipstick at the moment.

June Beauty Haul 2 (DM)

Here is a new June beauty haul by me. I have purchased even more drugstore items in June (see here my blogpost about what I bought in the first half of the month). Here are the newly bought products alltogether (all bought in a DM):

I bought a couple of hair products:

The products are:

• Alverde Feuchtigkeitshaarkur: This a conditioner I already bought and also emptied this month (see here my first june haul post and see my june empties post). I like it a lot and since its cheap I wanted to repurchase it although I also have a couple of other conditioners in my bathroom waiting to be used.
• Sante Glanzspülung: This is a conditioner by Sante which is a german organic cosmetics company.
• Sante Glanz Shampoo: This is a shampoo by Sante.
• Balea Jeden Tag Shampoo Himbeere: A very cheap shampoo by Balea with a great scent like berries. I am curious how it will perform.  

I also purchased a couple of body lotions and shower gels:

The products are:

• Alverde Mamaglück: A body butter by Alverde for moms. It's mallow scented and I wanted to try this for some time now.
• Dove Blütenzauber: A body lotion by Dove - a limited edition again, although I didn't want to buy any limited editions anymore. Usually, I also don't buy body lotions by Dove but I found the scent interesting and wanted to try it.
• Alverde Cremeöl-Dusche Amaranth: This is a shower gel by Alverde. I emptied a bottle of it in May (see my may empties) and while I didn't like it at first, I fell in love with it while using it. It actually has been a christmas limited edition by Alverde, hence I was very surprised to find it at the DM in June and had to to take it with me urgently. It's very nurturing and I am looking forward to be using it again soon. :-)  
• Hipp Baby Sanft Waschgel Haut & Haar: This a shower gel for hair and body for babies and children by Hipp. It fits to the body lotion by Hipp, I showed you in my first June haul. In case it smells as divine as the body lotion, I'll enjoy using it a lot.

The makeup products I bought are these here:

I bought a nail polish by Catrice (Karl says très chic), have a look at a swatch here. I don't like it that much, I have to admit. But at least it was not expensive and I'll give it a second try soon. Then, I bought an eye shadow by Alverde in "Magic Sand" which I like a lot. Furthermore, I also bought a lipstick from the Nude & Flash LE from Alverde (in my first june beauty haul post I showed you the blush pearls). It's in nude pink, see the swatch below:

The last item I bought is actually not a makeup item. It's a manicure set. Here are more pictures: 

Isn't it cute? :-)

Next month I want to be more frugal concerning beauty buys again. In June I bought far too many products and although I am using up a lot of them, it's not fast enough if I continue to buy beauty products in the pace I bought them in June. I have tons of products and I want to shrink them gradually in order to gain more space in the bathroom. I also plan to go through my makeup items in July and see whether there are some items I don't like that much anymore and can give away or throw away. Let's see what July brings concerning beauty.

New in: Illamasqua Naked Strangers

Recently, I stumbled over the new Illamasqua Naked Strangers Limited Edition while browsing through the newest posts mentioning this limited edition at InnenundAussen and Nudeaddict. Actually, I try to keep away from limited editions (because I want to support the standard products since they can be repurchased without any limits concerning amount or time) and also from blushes (because I have far too many blushes - somehow I tend to collect them) but the swatches of the two blushes of this limited edition have made all my good intentions evaporate. The two blushes that come with this limited edition are a cream blush called "Zygomatic" and a powder blush called "Naked Rose". Both are very subtle nude rosy colours and as you might already have read between the lines of my blog: I am a sucker for nudish make up looks. Hence, I needed to order these two blushes.
They arrived today and after the first swatches and experiments with them I am really happy that I threw my good intentions overboard and didn't keep myself to my prohibition to buy LEs or blushes. These two blushes have the potential to become my favourite blushes of all times. They are just lovely and look great on me.

This is how they looked upon arrival:

Here is a swatch of the cream blush in "Zygomatic". It's a very subtle soft brownish rose colour. The colour is really difficult to capture in a picture and always turns out to be more brownish in pictures than it really is. It's a wonderful and lovely mix of pink and brown and it can create the most subtle flush of colour on the cheeks I've ever seen. Too bad that it does not belong to the regular product line of Illamasqua and is just available for a limited amount of time within a limited edition. As said, these blushes have the potential to become my favourite blushes of all times and I won't be able to repurchase them. This is *exactly* why I don't want to buy any LE products anymore. ;-)

This is a swatch of the powder blush in "Naked Rose". Naked Rose is also a great colour and a bit more pinkish than Zygomatic. It's still a very subtle nude pink blush. Really lovely. I also like how both blushes look combined.   

Here is more information from the back of the products and from the back of the packaging, including ingredients (in both pictures Naked Rose is on the left and Zygomatic is on the right):

June Beauty Haul

In June, I have been shopping some drugstore items at Rossmann and at DM. It has not been one huge haul but several small ones. Furthermore, I have also orderd my first Clinique Chubby Stick (in mega melon) already last month via Ebay from a US seller. It's the travelling size since this is big enough for trying it. It arrived in early June, so I am including it in this June haul post.

Here is a picture of everything I shopped in June so far:

The make up items of the haul are 3 nail polishes, 3 lip sticks and 2 blushes:

The lip sticks are: the Clinique Chubby Stick in mega melon (it's a perfect my lips but better colour for me!) and two L'Oreal Caresse lip sticks in Lovely Rose and Dating Coral. Here are the swatches (mega melon on the left, lovely rose in the middle and dating coral on the right):

The blushes are the Alverde Blush Pearls from the Nude & Flash LE (see here an overview picture of the LE and a swatch of this blush in german) and the blush in 31 (starlet pink) from the Dita Von Teese limited edition of Artdeo. This blush is great. It's my favourite colour since it is neither too dark nor too bright and it is pink but has a bit of an yellow/orangy undertone. It's some kind of perfect mixture between pink and orange but pink is prevalent. I am always on the lookout for such a colour. It's the kind of blush colour that suits my skin tone best!

The 3 nail polishes are: 25 Femme Fatale (dark red, in the picture on the left) from the Dita Von Teese LE of Artdeco, "92 better late than never" by Essence (orange red, in the picture in the middle - I bought it because in August it won't be available anymore) and the effect top coat "08 night in las vegas" (in the picture on the right). My nails look terrible and I haven't applied the redish nail polishes properly (I have been too impatient and applied them to quickly and also haven't waited until they were dry). Sorry! I am an awful beauty blogger. ;-) 

I am also not sure whether I like my nail polish purchases. Red is not my usual Go-To colour and the effect top coat by Essence is sparkling too much for my taste - I have to admit, I bought it only to pimp my boring MAC Endless Nights nail polish, similarly to Coral an Mauve.

Now let's continue with the skin care products: I have bought a huge amount of cleaning and makeup removing products. Eye makeup remover pads once by CadeaVera (CV) and two times by Rival de Loop. Furthermore, I have also bought a liquid makeup remover and 2in 1 face cleanser by Rival de Loop for face and eyes. 

For hair I bought 2 hair conditioners, one of them being a hair mask. Both by Alverde from their moisturizing Aloe Vera Hibiskus hair series.

A body milk (Baby Sanft by Hipp) and a shower gel (Funky Jungle by Balea) have also been bought be me. And I have also been lucky since I got some cough sweets (by Krügerol) as a present while shopping at DM:

Last but not least, I also bought 3 spray deodorant samples. Up to now I have used only cream deodorants. Currently, I like to experiment with sprays and my 3 new samples are: Nivea invisible for black & white, CD Wasserlilie and Rexona clear aqua:

Pharmacy haul

Inspired by Lisa Eldridge and Essiebutton (who has been inspired by Lisa Eldridge as well ;-)), I have done my very own pharmacy haul end of May and ordered a couple of things from a pharmacy. Since I unfortunately do not speak any french, I had to order from a german pharmacy. 3 of the products, however, are french pharmacy products recommended by Lisa Eldridge and I really hope that one day I'll be able to browse through french pharmacies in Paris myself like Lisa Eldridge does. :-) 

Here are the things I ordered: 

The products are:

• Shampoo and conditioner by Lavera (Rose Milk Repair Shampoo and Rose Milk Repairing Hair Conditioner)
• Logona daily care Body lotion
• Bioderma Hydrabio Riche face cream
• Bioderma H2O micelle solution (makeup remover for sensitive skin)
• Caudalie Eau de Beauté (also known as Caudalie beauty elixir)

As far as I know, Lavera and Logona are german companies. They are offering organic skin care and makeup and I usually like their products. Bioderma and Caudalie, however, are french.

Except of the Caudalie Eau de Beauté which I really love (I have taken it with me on my last short trip), I haven't tried the products yet. I am curious how I'll like them. If you'd like me to write a review of any of the products, just drop me a comment or a mail.  

Highlights of my last week

Last week, I have been travelling. It was a business trip and it was a lot of work, but also fun. :-) Have a look at the pictures.

During the flight:

Food during my trip:

Airport Shopping:

I am looking very much forward to testing the Hydraquench Cream by Clarins. I have bought the normal one for normal & dry skin and the rich one for very dry skin or cold climates.