Sephora Birthday Gift - 2020!!!

The years are passing by way too fast! My birthday last year was great; I got to spend it with my family back home in India after many years and it was full of activities and laughter! I cannot believe that it has been a year already and my birthday is almost here - again! I think I am reaching a season of life where birthdays have started to come faster that I care to admit! :-)

But there is always free birthday gift from different stores and brands to cheer me up! :-) Almost every year during late December or early January I patiently wait to know the options for the free Beauty Insider Birthday Gift Sephora offers. I try to order it as soon as I can in January and blog about it. I enjoy this entire process! When I look back at the S Sephora Free Birthday gift posts from previous years, I notice that these are some of my most viewed blog-post ever! 

This year there are three (3) options for Beauty Insider members and VIB/VIB Rouge get one more exclusive option! If you don’t know much about the Beauty Insider program, keep reading to the very end of this post.

Just like the previous years, I picked up the makeup option. This year the makeup options includes one Mini deluxe Lip+Cheek and Kush Mascara from Milk Makeup. I have been using both of these for last 3-4 days and here are my initial thoughts!

Lip+Cheek (WERK): This is a tiny little blush with 0.21oz of product. On Sephora website, these mini size retails for $15. It is a beautiful everyday mauve shade but unfortunately it is a tad bit lighter on me! And I fear that it looks a little ashy on me! If you have a skin-tone that is similar or deeper than mine than it will probably not be the best shade on you. The formula seemed a little bit dry when I swatch it however on the cheeks it felt ok. It is not too intensely pigmented which is not a bad thing for a blush! It is easy to use a less pigmented blush and slowly build up the color. Personally, I had to swipe it a couple of times to get the color to show decently. I don’t really have that much patience in the busy mornings to sit and keep swiping it! It was still on my skin 4-5 hours later. I went to a yoga class one day with this on and I was still able to see a little bit of color and glow left on the cheeks still hanging on. I wore it to work last two days – it unfortunately did not survive toward the end of my 7-8 hr. work day.

Typically, these Lip+Cheek two-in-one type of product never works on my lips. I still tried it as a lip-shade and as I expected it felt & looked really dry, patchy on the lips.

Kush Mascara:  Hmmm! People seem to absolutely love this mascara! There are about 5k reviews on Sephora Website. This a tiny sample size and it performed just ‘ok’ for me. It is a dry formula and over the years I have realized that I like my mascaras to be a little bit wet. This mascara gave me just a little bit of definition and volume; nothing special or even worth noticing. I was expecting more! I was underwhelmed by its performance! Maybe it is just my lashes? It also fades towards the end of an 8-9-hour work day. It did not smudge but the lift and volume definitely faded away. Overall, I am not too excited about the mascara.

Sorry about the shadow on my cheeks. Lighting glitch :-)

Overall, it was a little bit of a disappointing this year. In fact, if I look back at the years, I have not been happy about the product curation for birthday freebie from Sephora for the last 2-3 years. Maybe it is because I have been a heavy beauty-product-consumer for a quite a few years now and I have tried and used a lot of products; it is no longer easy to impress me! 

What you guys think?

After 5 hours that included 1 hour of yoga!

After 5 hours that included 1 hour of yoga! Look at those dry lips!

Now that I have shared information in the makeup items, let’s talk about the Sephora's Beauty Insider program. It is a membership program which Sephora offers; you can register for it for free here online or in the stores. It rewards you with points against your purchases and later, you can claim sample reward products against those points that you have been accumulating. They also send you emails about some pretty cool promotional deluxe size products from time to time. (These emails have proved very dangerous to my financial health as I have purchased unnecessary items just to get the free products! I know :-) !!)  They have different levels for their membership with few added benefits with each level. In a calendar year, if you spend 350$ you become VIB and if you cross 1000$ you reach VIB Rouge status. One of the perks that I have TRUELY enjoyed is the free shipping for VIB rouge members.  I am no longer a Rouge though! So, even though you don't really shop regularly at Sephora, I suggest you open a Beauty Insider membership; it is a good thing.

Oh! Another thing! If you are not really very interested in the makeup kit you can choose one a haircare or a skincare item from following options. At least they are giving more options – that is always good. There is additional Jo Malone deluxe sample option for VIB/VIB Rouge members! 

Birthday gifts are redeemable in store (no purchase necessary) or online (you need to buy at least one merchandise to add this gift to your online order) during your birthday month. If you somehow forget to collect it during that month, you can always approach their customer service and they will reimburse you with beauty insider points in lieu of the gift (at least I have been told so, when I contacted them with the same query!)

Love,

~Arrru

Sephora Birthday Gift - 2018!!!

Unlike the last 3 years (or 4 may be?), I took a few days this time in order to get a hold of my free Birthday rewards from Sephora! Otherwise, I try to order it as soon as it is available on the website. I love talking about this reward in the first two weeks of the year; it is one of the few nice-to-have perks of being a January born!

Sephora no longer adds an extra item for VIB Rouge but like last year, there are 3 options to choose from - a Lip Set from Bite Beauty, a Skincare Set from Glamglow and a Haircare Set from Bumble and Bumble. Read more here. 

I, of course picked up the Bite Beauty set! I have always reviewed the makeup option in this blog, so it made sense :-) If you are interested - 2017 gift (from Tarte) is reviewed here, 2016 gift (from Marc Jacobs) is reviewed here, 2015 gift (from NARS) is reviewed here & 2014 gift (from Make Up For Ever) is reviewed here.

Bite Beauty is a Canadian Brand founded by Susanne Langmuir and it is exclusively available in Sephora. They have lip labs in Toronto, New York and San Francisco where you can go and create custom lip shades. I really wish to visit one of these one day! Anyway, I am no stranger to Bite Beauty products. Ever since I bought Cin Cin, I have fallen deeply in love with the brand. I am positive that almost 25% of my embarrasingly big lipstick collection is from Bite Beauty :-) It is almost a miracle that I did not already own the shades in this set! I have reviewes quite few products from Bite Beauty. 

This cute little set comes with the following products -

• a deluxe size Matt Lip Crayon in Glace
• a deluxe size Amuse Bouche Lipstick in Chai
• samples of Agave Lip Mask and Agave Sugar Lip Scrub 

I know that the sizes for the lipsticks look very small, but I am telling you from my personal experience that you will get a lot of usage out of these.

I absolutely love both Matt Lip Crayon and Amuse Bouche formulas. I have been using both of these formulas in different shades for a long time now and I really, really enjoy them. I was a bit sour when they discontinued their Luminous Creme Lipstick to be replaced with this Amuse Bouche formula but I have made my peace with it. These are some beautiful formula; highly pigmented, extremely moisturising and has incredible staying power! What more do you want from your lipstick? :-) Additionally, they claim that their lip products are made of food grade ingredients. I am not sure if I will be able to point out major differences between the two formula, they are kind of same but also different! The point is, I love them both :-) 

Here are the shades -

Glace: The color on the packaging looks a bit grey-lilac; I was very concerned that it would be quite pale and unflattering on my skintone! But the actual shade is much deeper; it is described as "dusty mauve" in Sephora website. On my skin tone it appears a bit pink than mauve. For those of you who loves a real, hard-core matte finish, you may not like the final finish from this lip crayon. As you can see, these is a still a satin type look. I personally have no problem with it though. If you have lighter skintone than me, you will adore this shade.

Chai: This is an instant LOVE! I have heard a lot about this particular shade but I never relly wanted to try! The moment I applied it, I knew it is going to be a perfect everyday shade for me. Have you ever tried the oh-so-famous shade "Lolita" from Kat Von D? Chai is like a demure sister of Lolita, in a much cremier formula. I absolutely enjoy this shade and I am sure I will wear it a lot!

Shown below are some of the similar shades I have from Bite Beauty in different formulas. I think this year, Sephora did a great job in selecting the shades; both Glace & Chai are going to be flattering for a lot of different skintones. Of course, both of these shades will appear a bit different on different skintones but I am very hopefull that they can be easily worn by all Beauty Insiders!

I am quite happy with this year's gift. I was not extremely happy with Tarte set last year but this year, I know for sure that I would love and use both quite a lot. And if ou fall in love with these colors, you can easily buy the full-sized ones, as these are permanent shades.

Are you excited about this year's gift? You have to be enrolled in their Beauty Insider program to be elligible for this reward. If you still have not enrolled, this might be a good time. Read more here to enroll!

Love
~Arrru 

Sephora Birthday Gift - 2017!!!

Happy New Year, everyone! I hope it's off to a great start for you!

I joined Beauty Insider program in Sephora in 2014 and ever since, every holiday season I patiently wait for sneak peaks of the free birthday gift! Being a January born, I am always excited to get the gift way early in the year! We all feel excited about the free makeup but I have to agree, I feel extra excited when it is from a coveted brand. 2016 gift was from Marc Jacobs (reviewed here), 2015 gift was from NARS (reviewed here) &; 2014 gift was from Make Up For Ever (reviewed here); I have thoroughly enjoyed all of them.

I am going to sound like a Negative Nancy, but I am not at all excited about this years gift. I love that this year they gave you 3 options to choose from. Read about it more here. I have been reviewing the makeup product every year so I picked up the Tarte "happy birthday tartelette" Lip and Cheek set. I love Tarte as a brand, but this type of deluxe mini lipstick and blushes were included in so many different Holiday sets that it kind of diminishes the elusiveness or the charm of the gift. May be it just me, but it does not feel luxurious like the NARS or Marc Jacobs sets! Additionally, I am 31 and my dry, chapped lips aren't really excited about another liquid lipstick. 

Keeping my disappointment aside, let's discuss the shades. Both the blush and the lip paint are in exclusive shade!

Amazonian Clay 12-hr Blush in Paaarty: This is a deluxe size, but believe me when I say that this tiny compact is going to last you months, if not years. I love these blushes, I have Tipsy (reviewed here), Flush (reviewed here) and one other shade from the permanent line and I use "Tipsy" quite regularly. Paaarty is a very pale soft nude-y mauvy pink. It has a strong cool-undertone! When I first got it in the mail, I was afraid that it is not going to work on my skin tone. But now that I have tried it on my cheeks, I think I can be easily wear it! But I am afraid that it will not be flattering on skin tones that are few shades darker than me. Also, staying power, pigmentation and blendability feels about the same with the permanent Amazonian Clay blush formula, however as you can see from the picture, it kicks up a lot of powder. I don't see that happening with the permanent blushes.

Tarteist Creamy Matte Lip Paint in Birthday Suit: I am not very intrigued in liquid lipstick so I don't really experiment a lot. But I have had tried a few and I like only a handful of them. I personally feel that all the best liquid lipstick formulas are already in the market and the we don't really need anymore new formula. Anyway, I thought this will be a very very light shade on me and will give me "concealer lip look". I do NOT like that look, at all! But surprisingly, the shade looks ok on me and I actually quite like how it looks on me. The formula however I did not enjoy! It applied nicely, was even in one coat and it was light on the lips. It did not even feel dry on my lips but it appeared so very dry and it made me me look so aged! All the fine lines on my lips were exaggerated. After 4-5 hrs, the inside rim of my lips got even mor dry and it kind of got all wrinkle-y! It is a very embarrassing look! I tried to put on lipbalm, or different lipgloss on top but everything turns out into milky pinky shade! Ughh, it is annoying!

I am not sure if I would wear the lipstick that often but I will definitely use the blush. When is your birthday? What are you going to pick up? Pictured above are the 3 different set available :-)

Love,
~Arrru

Sephora Birthday Gift - 2016!!!

Last year I was so very eager about the free birthday gifts from Sephora. My birthday is in January and I remember ordering my gift online from Sephora on 2^nd of January and posting the review (check here) the week after; I was just so excited! I still adore that little set from 2015!

This year, however the situation is completely different. When I first starting coming across pictures of this gift via Instagram in late December, I know that I am going to be disappointed! Here are the main reasons for why I am not as excited as last years,

• There are no additional gifts for VIB Rouge members this year and that’s really disappointing. As far as I am concerned, “free shipping” is the only real useful perk of being a VIB Rouge as of now!
• I already have the liner offered here; to be honest if you are a Sephora junkie you already have a few black eyeliners in your collection.

Now, I know that these are free gifts and it is not really “nice” to complain about free stuff :-) Ha ha! Keeping my disappointment aside, I do love the products themselves! Marc Jacobs is a respected brand, a brand from which you can expect great products. These are expensive too! So, I am happy about the fact that Sephora picked this brand to create this set!

Highliner Gel Eye Crayon Eyeliner in “Blacquer”: I have several of these highliners (reviewed here) and I love all of them. “Blacquer” is a jet black shade and it’s amazing. It’s super creamy, intensely pigmented and applies very smoothly! I love wearing it on my waterline and I totally enjoy how black it is! It is one the eyeliner that stays the longest on my waterline. It applies equally easy on waterline or upper lash line as a proper eyeliner. And it is a twist up pencil which is always, always great! The only small complain I have is that because of its creaminess and the thickness of the pencil it’s not great for drawing thin sharp line. Personally, it does not bother me though as I love to wear a thick eyeliner.

Le Marc Lip Crème in “Kiss Kiss Bang Bang”: I think this is one of their best-selling shades. It is such a pretty everyday color. Sephora described it as “baked rose” but there is a hefty amount of soft pink in it. Especially against my skin tone, it appears very pink; I can still wear it for every day. The formula is absolutely amazing. It’s very creamy in formula and quite matte in appearance! Extremely easy to apply and to layer. It is quite opaque and heavy in pigmentation. Even though its matte, it is not drying. I can feel my lips remaining comfortable during the day. It helps if I use a lip balm over it after 6-7 hrs, but my lips don’t horribly crack up if I forgot to do so. The staying power is also impressive. After 12 hrs. of my usual work day I can still see faded but gorgeous stain at the end of the day. This is definitely one of best lipstick formulas in the market.

As you can see, as products these are great and if you have not tried anything from Marc Jacobs I think this is a great little “free” set to start with :-) But, compared to previous years, I am just very disappointed by the curation of this set. By the way, they have a skincare alternative too! This year they have “Rose Face Mask” and “Soy Face Cleanser”. I do have this face mask and I absolutely ENJOY it; especially for these dry winter months.

If you are not a Sephora “Beauty Insider” yet, you can register for free; online or in the stores.  Here is a link to read more detail about these free birthday gifts :-)

Have you already collected your gifts? This is definitely one of the perks of getting older earlier than the rest of you :-)

Love,

~Arrru

Sephora wishes "Happy Birthday" :-) :-) :-)

My birthday falls in January and that definitely comes with few perks. For example when I was a student I could enjoy my birthday without having to worry about any tests as the school year would have just started. January born babes also get to collect the free birthday gifts from beauty stores like Ulta, Sephora or from other cosmetics brands comparatively sooner than the rest of the members! :-) This is something that I have been really enjoying for this past two years!!

I loved the gift that Sephora offered last year (blogged here). I came across a few sneak peak of 2015 Sephora Birthday gift via various social media in December and I have been pretty excited since then! The gift set was activated in Sephora website come January 1st, I ordered it ASAP. It reached my apartment within 4-5 days too! But I was out-of-station since then for work and it is just these past couple of days I have got around to exploring it. I am particularly more pumped because the NARS products in the set are highly raved about in the beauty industry and I did not have any of these in my collection yet. 

Sooo, this year’s gift consists of deluxe-size velvet lip pencil in "Cruella" and satin lip pencil in "Rikugien" from NARS. I recently became a VIB Rouge (yes, I spend or waste(?) a lot of money in cosmetics :-)) my gift also included a bonus mini Larger Than Life Long-Wear Eyeliner in Via Veneto.  NARS and Sephora teamed up to design this kit named which they are calling as NARS Happy Birthday "One Year Bolder" kit. 

Cruella (0.06 oz./1.8 g): This shade is described as "Scarlet Red" and you know I love my reds! (buy full-size here) If you compare it to the iconic Red- "Ruby Woo" from MAC Cosmetics, this is slightly more vivid, as to me it appears to have a very subtle orange hint. Personally, I prefer my reds to be a bit deeper! But after wearing it a few times I have really started to LOVE “Cruella”. It’s red, it’s bright and it’s playful! The finish is definitely matte but it’s easy-to-apply and feels weightless on the lips. It has not bleed or creased on me and it definitely does not make me conscious about wearing a red lipstick. I have had at least 9-10 hours of wear that survived a very cumbersome Indian Chai tea drink in a moving car. It faded after I ate a big homemade chicken roll but it did leave a beautiful stain. It does feel a little drying after 6-7 hrs of wear. But overall, I am very pleased. 

Rikugien (0.05 oz./1.7 g): This appears as nude barbie-pink shade on my skin tone. But it is described as "rose pink" in Sephora website. (buy full-size here) Very pretty color, but I thought it will not look good on me. In fact when I first used it I did not like the feel as well the look on me for the first hour. I felt it was a bit too plastic-y, But after that, it settled on the lips pretty well and I loved the look thereafter :-) It is definitely hydrating compared to the velvet pencils. If you have pale skin tone, this shade will look so adorable on you. Sephora did a great job this year in assembling this comprehensive little gift; you get your red, your MLBB and the classic black liner :-)

Via Veneto (0.01 oz./0.3g): I am very glad that it was included in the VIB Rouge gift even though I was not very thrilled at the beginning about another black eyeliner. But I have to say, this one has impressed me the most in the kit. First of all, sleek packaging! It is automatic (I don't like things that need sharpening!) And it also comes with a tiny sharpener at the end. I may not use it ever but I always appreciate the option. The finish is matte, which makes me really happy because I did not have a black matte eyeliner till now. The staying power is very impressive; the first day I tried it without a primer and I took a small mid-day nap (guilty :-)) and I was surprised to see the liner intact. It may appear a bit less creamy than others, but I am loving it. (buy full-size here)

Now that, I have shared my excitement over the products let me describe Sephora's Beauty Insider program for those of you who is still unaware. It is a membership program which Sephora offers and you can register for it for free; online or in the stores. It rewards you with points against your purchases and later, you can claim sample reward products against those points that you have been accumulating. They also send you emails about some pretty cool promotional deluxe size products from time to time. (These emails have proved very dangerous to my financial health as I have purchased unnecessary items just to get the free products! I know :-) !!)  They have different levels for their membership with few added benefits with each levels. In a calender year, if you spend 350$ you become VIB and if you cross 1000$ you reach VIB Rouge status. One of the perks that I have been TRUELY enjoying is the free shipping for VIB rouge members.  So, even though you don't really shop regularly at Sephora, I suggest you open a Beauty Insider membership; it is a good thing. 

Oh! Another thing! If you are not really very interested in the lip kit from NARS, you can choose this skincare kit from Peter Thomas Roth, another highly valued brand! I have used the mask and I love it! I am really glad that Sephora offered this interesting alternative. 

Birthday gifts are redeemable in store (no purchase necessary) or online (you need to buy at least one merchandise to add this gift to your online order) during your birthday month. If you somehow forget to collect it during that month, you can always approach their customer service and they will reimburse you with beauty insider points in lieu of the gift (at least I have been told so, when I contacted them with the same query!)

I am thoroughly enjoying my gift! January and February born divas, go and collect your gift! For the rest of you, I am sorry but you have to wait :-)

Love,

~Arrru