Shopping the Sales: Part 4: Cosmetic Buys - Illamasqua and Stila

I figure as we're more than half way through January it's about time I finish showing off my purchases from the sales. It's not that I'm just being lazy here, I've barely had the time to go through them myself so it's about time I start to play with my new goodies.

I'll start with my Illamasqua purchases totalling £32.50. I've not taken photos of the products individually as the majority of my purchases were fairly boring/standard base make-up. I say they're boring but I'm still excited to try Illamasqua base make-up as I tend to buy the more exciting nail varnishes and lipsticks - or whatever the sales girl convinces me to buy when I'm at the Debenhams counter! Never foundation though and as I've just about run out of my usual it's a great time to try something new. I know choosing shades online isn't ideal but I've actually done okay. Both are slightly different but I don't think I could describe my own skin colour as pale, I think I could do with a proper consultation to find my perfect foundation.

So here is what I bought, in all its glory, most of the items have gone down in price even further so listed below are the, even more of a bargain, current prices.

Cream Foundation in 150 -£5.00 // Light Liquid Foundation in 140 - £5.00 // Concealer in 210 - £5.00 // Nail Varnish in Harsh - £5.00

I just can't decide whether to stock up, I suppose I really need to test everything out properly first and hope everything is still in stock and on sale! 

Next up Stila, another brand I keep meaning to try out more but never get round to it, here my purchases totalled £33.75. I'm a big fan of their lip glaze, beforehand I'd always avoided glossy lips but now nothing beats them in summer - I have quite a collection of these along with their travel palettes which are fantastic value and fabulous quality. I've got quite a few of these which I still heavily use.

Now this sale really pleased me, all sales please me but there were a couple of items I'd been desperate to try that went down in price (they've since gone up so I'll include current prices, if still available), so I can consider them to be proper bargains as they were actually items I wanted rather than something I picked up just from browsing.

So what did I get?

Seeing stars smudge stick waterproof eye liner set - £6.25 - set not available but individual liners retail at £13.00 each.

I was considering asking for this set at Christmas but in the end I was undecided so left it. At £6.25 I really couldn't resist, the liners work out at £1.25 each! Included in this set are stargazer - a glittery black; angelfish - packaging looks beige but the liner itself is more of a gold; tetra -a sparkly purple; moray - like a sparkly moss green; oscar fish - a sparkly brown.

After glow lip color - tangerine dream and rave red - £6.00 each, current price £12.00

 I was desperate to try the after glow lip colors, one of the items I've been tempted with for a while so I decided if I was trying them I had to pick up two different colours. I'll be discussing these in more detail in another post but for now I'll just say I bought rave red, a proper red-red and tangerine dream a rather orange red colour.

Stay all day 3D wet-to-set eyeshadow trio in desert sun £8.50 - currently sold out, others available usual price £17.00

Countless color pigments in groupie - £7.00 currently sold out others available, usual price £14.00

Now the last two were others I wanted to try in my go-to brown shades. I plan to get a lot of use out of these as and although brown is my usual daytime look as these are rather glamorous I'll be looking at using these as a way to update my daytime look to night time!

Now this is pretty much it for separate cosmetic orders I did get a couple of pieces from ASOS and Topshop, Time to get on top of those purchases!