I've been getting more & more lucky with foundations this year, surprisingly. This is a rarity for me. After watching a bunch of gossmakeupartist's reviews, I took several of his recommendations & am in love. I've picked up a Maq Pro 6 pan foundation palette, a Kett Hydro foundation, some Avon liquid foundations which are absolutely spectacular - his recommendation & he really was right on this count. I got their Extra Lasting and their Ideal Flawless formulas and am LOVING them more than any liquid foundation I've ever used. Truly great products for oily skin! Then I picked up a few shades of Time Balm on sale to try out. Not bad, but not incredible either. As far as eyeshadows go, I've picked up some Makeup Forever shades for about $12 a pop - 5 different ones I believe, some theBalm shadows for only $6.99 each, a Bobbi Brown palette from a blog sale for about $35 - not at all impressed, a Smashbox 6 pan palette that was on sale - incredible - and came with a full sized freebie of my choice, some Avon fat shadow sticks for $5.99 (half price) - LOVE!, some new MUF shadow sticks for $12 each - a steal, a whack of NYX matte shadows which are insanely great & blow MAC out of the water, some Avon Glazewear cream/liquid shadows for $3.99 each - beautiful under powder shadows, 10 or so Mark eyeshadows - gorgeous/beautiful/amazing, 5 or 6 MAC shadows, an Estee Lauder 4 pan palette from a blog sale, some Bobbi Brown cream shadows & gel liners, a Smashbox cream shadow that's drop dead gorgeous, several Essence shadow singles - shimmers & baked, and a couple of Z Palettes & MUF empty palettes for good measure. I know I've forgotten quite a few! Oh, an NYX HD Eye Shadow Base, just to try during the NYX promotion. Blush products: a couple of Sleek blush singles, a Bobbi Brown blush, a couple each of limited edition MAC blushes, skinfinishes & beauty powders (all at very low blog sale prices), a Sleek contour palette, 12 La Femme single blush pans - thank you again gossmakeupartist! $2.50 each & truly the best blush products you'll ever find, some NYX cream blush sticks - absolutely beautiful, a couple of MUF HD blushes - at IMATS discounts, a couple of Essence blushes - single shade & marbelized like some MAC's Mineralize products, some Ben Nye cream blushes/cream contours/cream highlighters.....etc
Lips: several Bobbi Brown lipsticks & glosses from blog sales - my newest obsessions! Some OCC Lip Tars and pretty much identical Sleek lip products, various MAC/NYX/NARS glosses, 6 or so Revlon Lip Butters, a few Dior glosses, 3 NYX Jumbo Lip Pencils, 3 or 4 Essence lipsticks & glosses, 4 new Rimmel lipsticks, a couple of ELF matte lip crayons, and various other stuff which I've lost track of. Powders: Kett powder compact, Ben Nye Banana powder, BN Neutra Set powder, Lotus Hi Def Finishing Powder in Daffodil, 2 Aromaleigh Finishing Powders in green & lavender 'color correcting' shades & 2 NYX powder foundation compacts (which are so sheer & smooth they act more like finishing powders). Some Physicians Formula multi-product kits which I got with a 2 for 1 coupons at Target that include powders, blush & bronzers. I've really come to like their stuff and don't pass up deals like this when I see them. Great for swaps & gifts, as well as myself
Various brushes from Royal & Langnickel (IMATS dirt cheap prices), a couple stainless steel makeup palettes & steel spatulas for custom mixing foundations & cream blush shades, along with assorted other tools. A stupid amount of nail polishes I picked up during Rite Aid's nail polish promotion a couple of months back. Oohhh and the 3 of theBalm eyeshadow palettes I got during their 3 palettes for $39 sale. I believe that was the price. What a killer deal! I know it's a lot, but I bought the majority of these products from June til now and normally buy products during online sales, in-store sales & blog sales from people I know are reputable. For example, I recently noticed that a MSF in Blonde is selling for $56 & up in several places. I got mine for less than $20, brand new, from a MUA I've been following on YouTube & Facebook for the past 3 years or so, who I know only deals in authentic products & who often has blog sales. I never pay the insanely inflated prices that people try & charge for limited edition products on eBay. Some items I also got during giveaways, swaps, etc. I also always take the MAC products I get online into my local MAC pro store to have them verify that the products are authentic. Haven't had a problem as of yet as I'm careful who I purchase from & trade with. I don't let unbelievably low prices get me too excited because I'm aware that this is one of the ways people get ripped off. That being said, you can get some incredibly great deuneven even limited edition products if you're patient & careful about who you deal with.