Laura Mercier Artist's Palette for Eyes

When it comes to major beauty purchases (which in my book are typically anything costing more than $20) I'm usually not one to buy on impulse. Being the blogger type I often will read lots of reviews, watch videos, and make a very well educated decision on where I'm going to invest my money.

Once in a great while, though, I'll stumble upon a potential gem, and without any prior research splurge on a whim. Sometimes my rash decision is a poor one (and those are times when I'm very thankful for return policies), but sometimes it's unintentionally brilliant.

Prime example? My latest Sephora haul.

November 2013 Birchbox

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

I don't think I truly started appreciating the 4 day span of a long Thanksgiving weekend until the past few years. As a kid Thanksgiving is a holiday without presents. As an adult I see Thanksgiving as giving me the best gifts I could ask for - a few days off from work to spend doing things I enjoy, an opportunity to cook and eat delicious food, and most of all, the opportunity to see people who make me happy.

So, before I get to cooking and other preparations for dinner later today, I thought I would savor these moments of getting to lay around in bed and take some time to finally review my November Birchbox!

Miracle 10 Retinol Treatment 30 Review*

Acne. 

It's one of those great annoyances that many of us are plagued with at some point in our lives. Be it as an awkward teenager, or as an overly stressed young adult, or maybe as a first time mom, it's an equally frustrating experience to go through. For me the battle began at the ripe old age of 11. As my body started cranking out hormones, my face started cranking out more oil than it knew what to do with and also a proportionate number of pimples.

Fall 2013 Shopping Spree

So...I may have gone a bit crazy with beauty shopping in the past couple of weeks. Between the sales and coupons and gift cards I had, it would have been silly to resist. I'm planning on writing more detailed posts reviewing all of the products I got, so be sure to check back most likely over the weekend when I have a chance to finish that project up. In the meantime, I did a quick (okay, so maybe it's not so quick) overview of my Sephora and Kohls hauls and my first impressions of the products I've tried so far.

Benefit Gimme Brow Review & Giveaway!

There are some people out there in the world who have been blessed with beautifully full, perfectly arched eyebrows.

I am not one of those people.

Fortunately for me, I can fake amazing brows with the right product. There are a lot of options out there - from pencils, to powders, to gels - and each has their own unique pros and cons. Ultimately my ideal brow product will do three things: define the shape, hold them in place, and still manage look natural. Pencils and powders can be great for adding definition, but they aren't always so great for keeping unruly hairs in place. A clear brow gel will keep everything looking neat, but won't do much to fill in sparse areas. Usually this means I have to resort to using at least two different products to take my brows from lackluster to luscious.

And then I discovered Benefit's Gimme Brow.

Birchbox has a special list serve for it's blogger community (lovingly referred to as their Birchbloggers) and will frequently notify us special contests and giveaways we can enter. A few weeks back there was a giveaway where 10 Birchbloggers were chosen to receive Benefit's new Gimme Brow to try out and review. Somehow I miraculously made the list, and last week this beautiful little package arrived in my mailbox!

Boston Adventures & NYX the "It" List

There honestly aren't enough hours in the day.

I especially feel this way on the weekends, which always fly by faster than I can comprehend. This weekend especially was no exception. I spent the better part of Saturday and Sunday running around Boston with some of my best friends sightseeing, making mischief, and eating many, many delicious things. I felt a bit guilty whipping out my phone every two seconds to take pictures (I know, I was "that guy" #sorrynotsorry...), but sometimes you just want to capture the moment.

I love my friends to death, and ultimately the time spent with them, my family, or anyone else who makes my world a bit brighter could not be put to better use. I do, however, also love blogging, and it makes me a bit sad that I can't always fit in as much time for it as I'd like.

October 2013 Glambag

So...

We're going to say that I'm being fashionably late by writing this post in November.

In all reality things got a bit crazy for me toward the end of last month, and my Glambag arrived right before I left for California when I didn't get to pay it as much attention as I would have liked.

So here I am, writing my review a few weeks later than intended. Better late than never, right?

October's Glambag theme was The Art of Beauty. I don't know if I'd call the products I received this month particularly artful (maybe because I'm interpreting artful as colorful), but they are nevertheless pretty awesome. I also love that I got a bag with so much variety. From hair, to nails, to lips, to skin this bag has got me covered from head to toe.

Halloween 2013 - Fawn Makeup

I suppose it may be a little late for a Halloween themed post, now that November is steadily underway, but I was so happy with how my costume came out that I felt the need to share. When Halloween falls during the week (which it has for several years now) my friends tend to celebrate the Saturday after the holiday, opposed to the weekend before. 

LBB's Holiday 2013 Gift Picks

November is finally here, and the Holiday shopping season is officially underway. I know that I wrote a post a few weeks ago highlighting a few early shopping favs, but I've found so many other amazing gifts that I just couldn't help myself from posting again. I love the variety that Sephora has to offer, so I mainly used their site to link what I found, but I know that many of these items are also available elsewhere.