Remember last month when it was my birthday? How I turned 40 and had to console myself with makeup? Yes, it was touch and go there for awhile. Luckily, I pulled through. Here’s why:

Pretttttttay! I’m not even kidding when I say you need this Tarte Rainforest After Dark palette, especially cuz it’s limited edition and could disappear for all eternity at any time. I’m not being dramatic. It could be happening right now as we speak for all I know.

This palette covers all your face needs. We have six beautiful purple and gold eyeshadows, a lovely champagne highlighter, their Park Avenue Princess bronzer, and a gorgeous dusty rose blush. I love everything about this palette. I will be packing it for my trip to Vegas next month since it’s a 4-in-1 and that’ll save me room in my suitcase. Cuz I have no plans to visit the Inglot store while on vacation and buy hoards and hoards of eyeshadow. That’s pretty specific, but yeah, no plans whatsoever …

The day of my actual birthday my husband and I were going out of town. Quick stop for him to get a haircut gave me about 15 minutes to run across the street to Sephora. Look how much I can accomplish in 15 minutes:

Well the Wet N Wild Comfort Zone palette wasn’t from Sephora but we stopped on the way out of town for that too. I had a dream about this palette and knew immediately I had to get it RIGHT NOW. I mean, when you start dreaming of specific eyeshadow palettes, that’s like the voice of God talking or something.

If you love earth tones, you will love this palette. They are gorgeous. I don’t know how I overlooked this before on my million other trips to Walgreens. So pretty. The only issue some may have is the shadows are all shimmery. No mattes. That doesn’t bode well for my old lady eyes, but I created a look with it that didn’t turn out bad at all. In fact, it looked quite stunning. It blended seamlessly, which is rather important. I highly recommend if you’re asking. For $5, I’m not even sure there’s a question.

But back to what I managed to toss in my Sephora basket in the span of 15 minutes. Make Up For Ever had a new display of these Artist Shadows and I was immediately drawn to it. There was this gorgeous orange right on top, and I couldn’t drag myself away. It looked almost like foil it was so shimmery and intense. I daydreamed a bit about what kind of eye look I could create with it, then picked up the box to toss it in my basket. And noticed –

It’s a blush. My most perfect tangerine eyeshadow is actually a blush. Heart = broken.

Well, drat. I still wanted it though and the clock was ticking. Who says you can’t use blush on your eyelids? My YouTube beauty gurus do it all the time. And I am nothing if not a beauty guru.

Ended up creating a 3-pan palette with the orange (ME734), a black purple (ME930) and a copper red (ME728). I wore all three shadows on my lids during our weekend getaway, proudly displaying my circus eyes while sipping a latte in a cafe on Sunday morning. My husband thought it was a little much for a coffee date, but what does he know? (Nothing.) Checked in the mirror to see what he was referring to and quickly declared his eyes as broken. I looked fab, end of story.

The other thing I picked up was the Too Faced Melted Lipstick in the shade Melted Fig. This is a beautifully saturated purple color. But it’s wearable too. Because it’s purple but not purple.

These lipsticks go on very smooth. They’re pigmented beyond comparison. A little glossy at first, but that fades away to an almost matte finish. Can feel a little dry on the lips after awhile, but the color does last and last and last. I don’t think I’ll buy any more of the colors, but I’m happy with what I got.

The last bit for today is this thing right here:

Stila has came out with four new Eyes Are The Window palettes. I went back and forth for awhile trying to decide which one I wanted. Finally settled on the Mind one which has all matte shadows. Not sure of my reasoning other than in the picture, the vibrant earthy colors spoke to me the loudest.

In person, these are some pretty shadows. They just look so perfect in the pan. But when applied, I felt like the blendability was slightly lacking. I could create a look with them yes, but was never fully satisfied with the final result unless I’d properly blended for 15 years. It literally takes that long. Or felt that way at least.

And so now I have a bad attitude about it and probably won’t pick it up very often. But the packaging is adorbs so if you can salvage anything, by all means spend $50 so you can display this beauty in the wicker basket on the back of your toilet. I mean, that’s what I’m doing with mine.

This is just part 1 of the birthday haul. There is much much more to come. You should probably go ahead and get excited. It’s coming people. And also, I am the boss of you.

Toodles!