Grab your pumpkin spice vodkas and steal your significant other’s scarf – it’s fall! Just like every year, one of my major beauty motivators comes in the form of a near month-long sale: Ulta’s 21 Days of Beauty.
For the rest of the year, the possibility of buying high end beauty brands like Urban Decay, Benefit, and Too Faced are pretty much out of the question. On rare occasions, I’ve been lucky enough to find some Too Faced goodies at Nordstrom Rack, but for the most part, I don’t even try. My love for drugstore makeup is strong, and falling in love with high end cosmetics only breaks my heart. Or in the cast of the ABH Modern Renaissance palette, drive me to find as many dupes as I can before I lose my mind.
These 21 Days of Beauty events actually give me the opportunity to fantasize about owning some high end makeup because the daily deals are off the hook! I’ll have more posts coming your way to update you on new sales and changes, but for now, there is a major score that I just can’t keep to myself.
Ulta Collection: Buy Two Get Two Free
Buy any two products from Ulta’s in-house line and get two products of equal or lesser value for free! AKA buy an even number of Ulta brand products and get the cheaper half for free. That’s pretty darn good! Best of all, it runs all month long with 21 Days of Beauty, ending on September 24, 2016.
Sometimes, people poo-poo the inexpensive store brands, but in Ulta’s case there are some real winners hiding among some average (at worst) products.
Of the products above, I’ve only tried the Ulta Contour Kit ($18) on the far left, which I use literally every day. I’m very pale, so there are only two contour/bronzing colors in there I can actually use for contouring, but I can play around with dimension by using very limited amounts of the colors that are too dark. The highlights included are very pretty and great for layering.
I can’t stop looking at that Ulta x Jenny Fox Miss Fabulous palette ($20). I am a total sucker for warm eyeshadow palettes even though I’m way cool-toned.
The rest of the products are basically a list of things I want to try. Those three pencils on the right come in a set called the Inner Rim Eyeliner Kit. The kit includes a black, bronze-brown, and nude eye pencils in formulas that are perfect for the waterline. They don’t say “waterproof” anywhere, but the description says that the formula “sets for all day wear” which is very, very intriguing.
The rest of the products have been catching my eye over and over in my last few trips to Ulta but I just haven’t thrown them in my cart. Now that I’ll literally get half of them for free… It might have to happen. I can’t resist trying out an affordable makeup sponge, and that Ulta Blending Sponges twosome is calling my name.
21 Days of Beauty Highlights
The rest of the month is chock full of crazy-amazing deals on top of the line beauty products. Here are some of my favorites in the next week:
| [REDACTED] | T*RTE COSMETICS CONTENT REDACTED — Late 2018, T*rte Cosmetics contacted our web host (without contacting us first) and had our website shut down for multiple days due to “copyright infringement.” They alleged, with no explanation or provided proof, that we infringed upon the T*rte Cosmetics copyright in a sale post from April 2017 where we linked to a sale they were holding on their own website, with 23 links back to their website. After I sent multiple emails over three days, I received a response from the Brand Protection department stating that T*rte Cosmetics would “contact my ISP” to have my website reinstated. (Fun fact: ISPs, or Internet Service Providers, do not have anything to do with my website or where I host it.) Even after being denied clarification, T*rte maintained that I was infringing upon their copyright and I agreed to remove all mentions of them on my website. This message has been posted wherever T*rte Cosmetics was previously mentioned. |
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Saturday, September 10: Anastasia Beverly Hills Brow Powder Duo, This brow powder duo is the OG brow product in my life. Its super finely milled powder, pressed in two shades side by side, is perfect to use with an angle brush. (Especially the ABH #9, which is my favorite for brows.) Even if you do your brows full-on every single day, this little compact (complete with mirror) will last you for months. |
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Monday, September 12: First Aid Beauty Faves To Go Kit, Everything you need for rescue-me skincare, all in one convenient package! I have long wanted to try out First Aid Beauty, and this seems like a perfect way to do it under $20. The kit comes with a facial cleanser, facial pads loaded with glycolic acid and skin-renewing ingredients, and a repairing moisturizer made from oats (great for skin-calming) and whipped up into a luxurious skin treatment. |
Check out the rest of Ulta’s 21 Days of Beauty calendar here, or just sit tight until our next post goes up! Neither one is more lazy than the other, so no judgement here. And don’t forget to scoop up your favorite Ulta Collection beauty products before September 24, 2016!
What Ulta Collection products are you excited to try?