Haul: A Trip to Toronto!

It seems that whenever I go on vacation, it's to spend a couple of days in Toronto. Truth be told, that's all I can afford at the moment- but you can bet that I'm gonna shop while I'm there! Sometime at the end of July, a good friend of mine from uni asked if I wanted to spend two days in The Big Smoke and check out some stuff he had free passes for (museums and the like- he works for Tourism Ontario in the Niagara region). We ended up doing a bunch of things I'd never been to before- mainly the ROM, the Bata Shoe Museum, the St. Lawrence Market, and a couple of bars in the Church-Wellesley neighbourhood.

 And of course, I dragged him into every makeup store we passed.

Once my mom, sister and I drove down, we decided to park at Yorkdale and take the subway downtown from there (I was carrying everything for the trip in my backpack and large purse. I did my best not to look suspicious, believe me!) We split up so my mom could go to the archives (she's a genealogist) and my sister and I commenced our shopping. We started at, where else? Sephora.

I went in with the intention of buying a full-size of the Too Faced HangoveRX primer and a couple of Anastasia eyeshadows and walked out with totally different stuff.



They didn't have the shadows I wanted available for swatching (Macaroon, mainly) and I saw that I could get a sample of the primer as an 100 point perk, so that I did. I also knew I wanted a few foundation samples, and the cast member recommended the Josie Maran Argan Vibrancy and Too Faced Born This Way foundations. I got samples of those, as well as the Origins Original Skin Retexturizing face mask.

While I was looking around the checkout line, I noticed they had a mini of the new MUFE Excessive Lash mascara that my favourite youtuber (Kayla Hagey) had been raving about. I needed a new mascara and while I'd been planning on picking up another mini of my favourite MUFE Smokey Extravagant, I went out on a limb and picked this one up (spoiler alert: I love it even more!)

An Anastasia lip gloss also caught my eye- the shade Sunset Strip, which is described as a sparkly coral. It reminded me so much of an Elizabeth Arden lip gloss that was LE for this summer. I wanted it desperately, but the price tag meant it wasn't happening. This gloss was an impulse purchase, but I don't feel as bad as I should for buying it.

We made our way downtown to shop for some clothes for my sister at the Eaton Centre. I picked her up a couple of cute shirts at H&M, but I also knew I wanted to check out the makeup. Sadly, they didn't have my favourite double-ended brushes or makeup sponge (I was heartbroken, tbh).



I ended up picking up three of their High Impact Eye Colour single eyeshadows (my jaw was dropping at the pigmentation of some of them in the store) as well as a Perfectionist Finishing Powder in the shade Alabaster, because I rarely find powders as light in shade as this one.



Going clockwise, I picked up three colours of shadow I'd been lemming for when I do my looks, and that I'd been planning to buy dupes of anyway- a cool-toned medium purple called Violaceous (similar to Morphe Grape Day), a brightened mustard yellow called Turmeric (similar to Luxie Wheatness), and a metallic lavender called Award Season (similar to the aforementioned Macaroon by Anastasia).



Here are some swatches of the three shades- Violaceous is rather weak, but as I'll likely just be building this up in the crease, I don't really mind. Turmeric is gorgeous, and Award Season is gorgeous, with just the right amount of sparkle.

Next, I met up with my friend, and I informed him that I needed to make a pilgrimage to the NYX store, preferably the one on Queen West, as the Eaton Centre one was ridiculously crowded. He agreed, and off we went.

The store was incredible. They didn't have the two items I wanted the most- the glitter primer and the Angel Veil Primer- but I did manage to find a few things to try out that I either couldn't get in Sudbury, or that were far cheaper than at home.



I knew I wanted the Tame & Frame brow pomade, and it's honestly done a world of difference for my brows since I started using it! I also grabbed a Face & Body glitter in the shade Violet to play around with, as I don't own any glitter and I wanted to pick up something cheap to decide if I liked incorporating glitter into my looks. I expect that the Pro Foundation mixer in White will be somewhat of a lifesaver- and yes, a review will be forthcoming. In fact, both of the foundation samples I got from Sephora were too dark so I'll be using this soon! The pro foundation sponge intrigued me as it was cheap and my H&M one is starting to get a little janky. I grabbed it, and the only thing I don't like about it so far is that there is no pointed end, so it's hard to apply powder with it.

Here's a close-up of the glitter.


Now for the colour cosmetics!



I picked up one of the Lip Lingerie liquid lipsticks in the shade Exotic, because I thought I needed more neutral liquid lipsticks (the keyword there being "thought"). I grabbed one of the matte lipsticks in the shade Crazed, a beautiful reddy rust colour. And I don't know what possessed me to buy two of the primal colours, other than the fact that they were on sale and *gasp* red eyeshadow!

Here are some clockwise swatches of those products:



The Primal Colours swatch a little poorly but over a white base, shouldn't be too bad.

Lastly, I dragged Joe into another Sephora on the way back from the ROM. This one was much less crowded and I really had time to look around. Despite that, I ended up just purchasing some skincare-esque stuff!



I bought a Makeup Eraser, which for those of you who don't know, is supposed to be a facecloth that removes all of your makeup with just water. I've been running down my stockpile of Target Up&Up makeup remover wipes, and I am not about to spend ten dollars on a pack of Neutrogena wipes, so I grabbed this. I figure it'll be good for when my makeup starts to look gross near the end of my evening shifts.

And this face mask set from Peter Thomas Roth had been in my online cart for a long while- my sister and I love to have weekly mask nights. There are a fair amount of hydrating masks in this set (for me), and a fair amount of purifying masks (for her), so I figured what the heck and threw it into my basket.

Well, that's all I picked up in Toronto! Sorry for the wordy post, but I figure as I've been posting less frequently, I'm really going to try and go into detail when I do manage to put something out. Have you tried anything I picked up?