fancy face

I stopped by Holt Renfrew to check out the new collection from Lancome designed by fashion icon Alber Elbaz (Lanvin) and ended up bringing a few goodies home with me.

I thought the packaging was really cute and I love the taupe-y shades of the eyeshadow palette. I can see it getting a lot of use during the fall months (I'm still into bronze and gold eyeshadows for the summer).

With the purchase, I got a little gift and it was a travel-size brush set! I thought that was really handy. It comes with a powder brush, foundation brush, eyeshadow brush and concealer brush. There's also room to fit in a lip brush or maybe a crease brush.

While at the Lancome counter, I did get a makeover done and decided to go out of my comfort zone and do a navy smokey eye, which I really liked. I don't know if I will be able to re-create the look at home but it's nice to know what I need and how it's done with this face chart.

splurge vs. steal

I woke up this morning with a plan in mind: grocery shopping, buy cleaning supplies and maybe buy a bathrobe. However, that didn't happen. I didn't even go near a grocery store. Instead, I ended up downtown, randomly ran into my sister on Robson Street and all of this happened:

Left to right: sweater + blouse from H&M, jeans + dress pants from the GAP

She had to go into H&M and I wasn't thinking about buying anything and BAM! I was holding 8 items in my arms and standing in line for the fitting room. Bad idea. Very bad idea. I ended up getting a sweater and a blouse.

But, let's take a moment and look at the coral and cream sweater that I got from H&M for $39.95:

It looks very similar to this sweater from See by Chloe that I saw on www.ssense.com. It's not exactly the same, but very similar in colours and design. The H&M sweater has a floral/wavy pattern versus the geometric design of the See by Chloe, but I actually prefer the floral design... and the price :)

See by Chloe red geometric patterned knit sweater, retails for $425 (but it's now on sale at ssense)

Studded and capped collared blouse in blush, also from H&M. I like to think of it as a cooler version of the cowboy shirt. 

Blood-orange dress pants from the GAP. 

Periwinkle skinny GAP jeans or, according to their website, "resolution blue." 

 Okay, now just take a LOOK at the price of the jeans and pants:

That's right; you don't need to check your eyesight, bring out the calculator or clean your computer screen. The jeans came to $9.09 and the dress pants was $6.98! The GAP is currently having a huge clearance sale and on top of that, an additional 30% off the sale price, which means I am SUPER happy with my items and so is my wallet :) So, the total amount, including taxes, for the two items... drum roll please...

 Oh yeah, EIGHTEEN dollars! YAAAAAAAAAY!

The shopping deals didn't stop there; I wandered into London Drugs to grab a bottle of water and noticed that N.Y.C makeup was 40% off so I bought myself a new mascara to try for under $5.00. The mascara wand looks very similar to the CoverGirl LashBlast volume blasting mascara that I love and if I can get a similar version for a lower price, I'm all over it. In my opinion, I don't think you need to spend a great deal of money on mascara and trust me, I've tried a few high-end/brand-name mascaras. So, if I can get a great quality mascara at the drugstore for a handful of change that is comparable to a high-end mascara, than that's the one that I want in my makeup bag.