Friday Finds & Check-ins, Volume #570
Share your recent beauty purchases or rediscovered favorites in your stash (for those on low/no-buys!), chit chat about weekend plans, and learn a little more about each other!
Let's Chat!
Share your own answers in the comments!
- Recent Purchases/Rediscoveries: Makeup by Mario palettes and highlighters, Charlotte Tilbury holiday products.
- Weekend plans: I spent more time photographing/swatching/editing photos than I like to allocate in a week, so I need to really get into gear and write reviews this weekend.
- Do you garden?: Not too much, though now that we have a lot more plants and trees in the front and backyards, I find I am pruning and trimming quite a bit!
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You are very cute Mellan!
Recent Purchases/Rediscoveries: Nothing
Weekend plans: We are cooking our own Thanksgiving dinner because my husband came home on Wednesday afternoon at 3 with a fever and aching all over, the fever went away at midnight and comes back intermittently, otherwise he seems fine. He went to get a covid test yesterday and they will text him with his results in 36 hours. It’s unnerving because I am high risk so I wear a mask around him and sleep on the couch and I’m bleaching everything all day.
Do you garden?: We buy flower pots in the spring and put them on our decks so I am doing a lot of watering and dead heading. But we usually go away a lot so we don’t do a lot of gardening.
You and your husband are in my thoughts, Brenda! I hope that it won’t be COVID, that he’s feeling better soon, and that you can have a lovely Thanksgiving together.
Thanks AJ, he doesn’t seem sick. I just keep pumping him full of echinacea, oil of oregano and zinc (is this what they gave Trump lol?)
Oh no, Brenda! I’ll be praying for you both that this is NOT Covid. You definitely don’t need that.
Thank you Nancy the results haven’t come back yet it’s a long weekend here so it might take longer!
Sending good thoughts for your husband and you.
Thank you Rachel! We all need to keep safe!
I sincerely hope that your husband is negative to Covid. The problem with this virus and your country going into autumn/winter is that it is the time when people often get colds and it is easy to confuse the two as the symptoms are similar, if not the same. Take care.
You are so right Genevieve. We are hoping it is just a flu, fingers crossed! Take care as well.
I hope you spouse gets the result of his test soon and is feeling better! You’re smart to take precautions, Brenda!
We went on line last night and his results are negative yay! Very relieved!
Phew! I hope he feels better soon!
Recent Purchases/Rediscoveries: Pat McGrath Celestial Divinity Luxe Quad in Fleur Fantasia. Can’t wait! I bought it when the collection went live, and the bundles for the quads and the highlighter weren’t available yet, so I will just see if the others end up on sale eventually 🙂 For the other two quads, it’s really just two shades that draw me in (Lavendaring & Life on Mars; Hypnotique & Divine Dahlia), so I think I’d like to see more looks and swatches.
Weekend plans: Finish a book, work on my kitchen still life, and write some letters to friends.
Do you garden?: Yes, I love gardening and surrounding my home with plants! It’s also so satisfying to eat things that you started from seed, trimming, or root. I have a cucumber that I trained up the sides of my inside windows, and it’s been so fun to watch it flower.
Recent Purchases/Rediscoveries: Last week I purchased a bundle of two Juvia’s palettes, and while there was a shipping snafu, they did arrive in perfect condition. No rediscoveries as I have been playing with a lot of new stuff lately.
Weekend plans: Working. I am thankful to have a job, but I know that this isn’t really the best use of my skills and experience. It can be fun though, so I can’t complain too much. Also painting pumpkins with my nephew, and Saturday after work on Saturday, my favorite band is doing a livestream concert from Great American Music Hall in SF, so it is an opportunity to not only support an independent artist but also help an independent venue as well. Slim’s has closed, so SF was already losing gritty punk/indie venues.
Do you garden?: Yes. Badly, but still. I love to plant things that attract pollinators, and after the frosts are over we are going to make a butterfly garden in the front and a small raised-bed garden in the back. We live right on the corner of our street, so I feel like we can go ham with the plants out front and it’ll be nice.
Recent Purchases/Rediscoveries: No new purchases although my Clionadh order has been shipped. I have started using my Viseart Minx palette again. Those shimmers are perfection.
Weekend plans: It is probably time to organize my closet for cooler weather, certainly to put the sandals away and get out the boots.
Do you garden?: I don’t. I have lived in apartments my entire life and it’s been decades since I had access to outdoor space. I do try to visit local botanic gardens when I can.
Can’t wait to get my sweaters out! It’s getting chilly in my area, but getting warmer again next week. Still, I think I will get them out and wash them at least.
Recent Purchases: PMGL MTHRSHP Mega Celestial Divinity (that’s a mouthful; why do products have such complicated names?) which is BEAUTIFUL, the Shroud Cosmetics/Beautbean It’s Freaking Bats palette.
Rediscoveries: I have a lot of things on rotation at the moment, so nothing specific is sticking out to me.
Weekend plans: Hanging out with my family, cleaning, cutting my husbands hair and my husband’s and my seven year anniversary is Oct. 12, which also happens to be an extra day off for us and my son’s daycare is closed that day as well, so we may do something special. We’ll definitely cook dinner together and probably watch a movie after our son is in bed.
Do you garden?: I definitely don’t have a green thumb, though I do like pulling weeds and trimming things down. My husband wants to start a small vegetable garden in a little plot we have at the side of our house, but it’s overrun with weeds and we have a ton of bunnies and chipmunks that like to roam our yard. Maybe we’ll try in the spring. In the meantime if anyone has any tips for getting rid of pesky chipmunks, I’d appreciate it! They’re already gnawing away at my new little Autumn Joy plant my mom gave me, the little buggers!
Happy anniversary! My husband and I celebrated our 31st the end of September. Fall weddings can be so beautiful. I hope you enjoy your day.
Have a happy anniversary!
Recent Purchases: I was running low on SPF, so I made a Paula’s Choice order with the Resist Youth Extending Daily Hydrating Fluid SPF 50 (never go lower, even in winter), the Soothing Body Butter, the Hair & Body Shampoo, a mini of the Super Antioxidant Retinol Serum and a mini of the 5% Benzoyl Peroxide Treatment ( I prefer my potent treatments in smaller formats to use them as fresh as possible). It was a 15% off sale and I also got another mini Azelaic Acid Booster.
Rediscoveries: That I hate scented hair care. I have been using at home fragrance free shampoo and conditioner for years. I was saving some samples and minis for traveling… but since that hasn’t happened in a while and won’t happen soon, I decided to use some things I had around. They scents weren’t horrible, but I remember how much I dislike strong scents during wash and scent lingering in my hair days after.
Weekend plans: I think I just stopped making plans, and I just go with the flow. I do hope to make time for more sleep… but my sleep has been a mess since… March. ?
Do you garden?: Absolutely not. My mom has a green thumb, I have a black one. Any plant I try to grow dies. I can’t even have flowers in my house, they start dying the next day. Even parsley in water wilters on me, while other people keep in fresh for 10-14 days.
I too, am beginning to dislike scented shampoo now that I’m back to it (I’m pretty much fragrance-free for everything else: I don’t even like scented cleaning products or candles). Do you like the Paula’s Choice shampoo? What else have you tried that you like? I’m thinking about putting in an order at Function of Beauty bc you can request to forgo fragrance and dyes but I’m hesitant bc I have sensitivities to other ingredients as well.
I tried the Eufora Aloe Therapy Shampoo and it seemed a bit drying: like my scalp and hair could handle it if I washed every 3-4 days but I think most couldn’t. I have straight, medium strands, and medium density hair.
The Paula’s Choice shampoo works so good for me, I never bothered trying to find something else. I have thin hair, frizzy and I usually wash every 3-4 days, depending on how hard I workout (I don’t have that greasy hair, but I do workout a lot).
Purchases: Another week of nothing!
Rediscovery: Every time I use the Pat McGrath Sublime Bronze Ambition palette I am reminded of how much I love it, and I feel a desire to wear gold eyeshadow every day.
Weekend plans: My spouse’s b-day is on Monday so I’m taking a three-day weekend! Lots going on. Tonight a pre-recorded dance show I am in is debuting. We’re doing the first of 3 virtual scotch tastings (a b-day gift for my spouse since we can’t go out for a nice date which is their preferred b-day celebration). Between Saturday and Sunday I have 5 hours of dance workshops to attend (online). Sunday we are getting an Asian fusion fried chicken dinner to go, and we’ll pick up some pie slices for dessert. Monday will probably be a lot of resting and relaxing.
Do I garden? One reason why we chose to rent this place is that it has a big, beautiful, secluded, wild yard with very mature trees (they’re HUGE!). If we stay here, I’d like to eventually plant some stuff of my own, but right now I am mostly focused on clearing out some invasive species and getting things just tidy enough that the neighbors won’t complain, while still maintaining the wildness and providing a home for native insects and such. I’m really excited because a few times recently I’ve heard an owl hooting somewhere out in the yard! I’ve never had my own yard-owl 😉 We also get a lot of crows, buns, squirrels, assorted birds, the occasional neighborhood cat, and someone once saw a coyote in the neighborhood. There’s a lot of patches of wilderness in our suburb and I love it.
Recent purchases: I got several backup SG shadows a few weeks ago when SG had its sale. More recently, I’ve been buying PJ type items, mostly the softer fleece type for cooler/cold weather. Also have been buying more items for my husband (PJ/lightweight sweat pant or similar type items). I like buying things for him more than I do for myself. But we try to move out other stuff when we buy new stuff.
Weekend plans: mostly just cooking. Maybe moving around a few seasonal things.
Garden: I love gardening! It was a late-in-life discovery for me and I get a lot of pleasure from learning about plants and getting some challenging workouts in. I’m also a strong believer in getting exposed to dirt to help build up resistance to nasty stuff–we need soil microbe exposure. I used to play in the dirt and woods a lot when I was a kid so gardening now feels like an extension of that time.
Agree with the dirt to be healthy concept! One of my favorite YT’ers, Roots and Refuge, were saying the very same thing ?
Awwww! I love this picture of Mellan so much! He looks so soft and cuddly. ?
Purchases/rediscoveries: Had a moment of weakness and pushed pay on Huda Rich Nudes e/s Palette and Sephora Cream Lip Stain in Endless Purple. So my beauty budget is officially spent for October.
Rediscovered my PML SW Dark Star palette and had a gorgeous smokey purple and bronze look come out of it several days ago. It has been many months since I last used it. Don’t know why, though.
Weekend Plans: I have to bring Scunci to the Vet on Sunday afternoon for his next round of steroids and antibiotics for his feline squamous cell oral cancer. (I have his GoFundMe page link by my name for anyone who wants to read about the details) Buuut; NO ride. My son and I had a major falling out, so now I have to hope an Uber or Lyft driver won’t mind a cat in their vehicle. I am so stressed out over this whole thing that I was literally up until 5 a.m. last night. Plus, it’s just one more expense, on top of it all.
Do you garden? I actually used to do plenty when we lived in NJ! My outdoor plant skills were far superior to my abilities to keep a houseplant alive! I found a certain joy in gardening that never happened with indoor plants. Miss working in the soil and mulch, and watching everything grow and bloom.
Haul: I didn’t purchase anything makeup or beauty related this week. I am in quarantine until Sunday and haven’t really been in a makeup shopping mood.
Weekend plans: More of the same. I haven’t felt well lately but not anything COVID related. Just having some gastro-intestinal problems. I continue to work on my origami Christmas ornaments and am still frustrated with a couple of roses I am folding but I love a good challenge.
Gardening: Does it count that I can buy a house plant and within 3-4 days, it is dead? No, I never really got into any kind of gardening. Working 12 hour shifts really didn’t leave me a lot of time to do anything that required a regular time commitment.
I’m glad you are not getting any COVID symptoms. Did your daughter get back her test results yet.?
Recent Purchases/Rediscoveries: I just received two Touch in Sol sparkling foiled pigments and can’t wait to use them! Rediscovered City Color Beach Cottage and made my look super lovely! Surprised City Color never got more attention.
Weekend plans: Hopefully score a Poshmark mystery box I’ve been wanting that keeps selling out too quick for me! Gift to myself for my birthday.
Do you garden?: Oh no not at all! I’m an inside person!!
Mellon, in a reflective mood – how gorgeous he is! And he is looking so well too.
Recent Purchases: Some more routine skincare products, as I am building up a collection for my daughter in law for Christmas.
My ND Glam palette arrived this week – but I am keeping it for my birthday in November. It’s hard not to have a play with it right now, but I do have enough of other palettes to keep me going.
Rediscoveries: Using up the rest of my Lorac Pro Metals before I open the backup. And using the Sephora It palette of taupe neutrals too.
Weekend Plans: Still in the land of lockdown and our numbers are going steadily down. Hopefully hairdressers will be open next week and I have made a tentative book for next Wednesday.
It’s the 5 km ruling that is making me feel quite stifled at the moment, as I could take our grandchildren to different parks if the ruling was extended to 10 km.
Hopefully we will see our grandchildren over the weekend and little Harry has finally managed to put on some decent weight.
Do you garden? Not really – I am not what you would call a ‘keen’ gardener, but I am in the process of reorganising our front garden, adding topsoil and new plants.
Genevieve, I’m so thrilled to hear that your youngest grandchild Harry is doing better and putting on some weight! Excellent news!
I’m so glad Harry is doing better. I hope he continues to improve,
Recent purchases: I’ve been on a nail polish bender lately so I’m waiting for some orders to arrive so I can play with them.
Plans: My weekends are usually pretty open ended, besides getting a few errands and chores out of the way. I’ve been working on officially swatching all my nail polishes so I’ll keep going on that. I also hope to get some cross stitching time in, and maybe do some baking. I’ve also been banging my head against a few writing projects, and I need to get some of my ideas out of my head and onto paper soon.
Do I garden? I have – I especially enjoy growing herbs in a container garden during the warmer months but I didn’t do that this year. I’ve got a few houseplants that could use a little TLC.
RECENT PURCHASES: SugarPill Cools Pro Palette Mini; Shroud Cosmetics x BeautBean It’s Freaking Bats Palette pre-order.
WEEKEND PLANS: Getting my flu shot and shopping.
DO YOU GARDEN: No. I have back and sciatica pain from an old car accident.
Recent Purchases/Rediscoveries: Nothing new purchased. Switched up some of my summer eyeshadow palettes to the more fall/winter ones. Have been eyeing the new holiday Dior lipsticks on the Bay website. Like the snowflake pattern on them. Am a sucker for beautiful holiday packaging. Saw that the Lancome holiday set is already available. Seems early.
Weekend Plans: Debating on whether to go to my cousin’s Canadian Thanksgiving BBQ on Saturday. Have been feeling a bit off for the past few days. Minor COVID symptoms that could really be anything – sneezing, slight fever, aches and pains. Attributing it to mainly allergies. May cook a small turkey breast roast for myself on Sunday. It is a challenge to find a small turkey for when one is by oneself or maybe just making dinner for two. A 20 lb turkey seems excessive.
Gardening: I live in a duplex condo. My ‘gardening’ is a small rhubarb patch in the corner of my yard. Along with a few veggie or herb pots on my deck and a couple pots that have flowers, along with flower planters by my front porch. Noticed slugs or other insects attacking my rhubarb plant leaves part of the summer and it’s the insect part of gardening that is unappealing. My peppers were okay but could have done better with less rain and more warm temps. I also tend to have a black indoor thumb.
Recent Purchases/Rediscoveries: No purchases this week, as for rediscoveries I’ve been exclusively wearing the Super Shock Shadow in “Honor Roll”. It’s one of the Super Shocks that’s more of a putty texture in the pan and doesn’t easily apply with a finger, but applies much better with a brush. Despite being a little harder to work with compared to my other Super Shocks, after learning how to work with it I love it as a one-and-done on my lids
Weekend plans: My extended family wants to get together to make up for all the celebrations we missed during quarantine: mainly the graduations of my sister and I, and then a celebration of life for my grandfather who passed in mid-September. They’re also probably now going to pile on celebrating me getting an internship since I just got confirmation of that today. Speaking of my internship my work for that starts tomorrow, I have to attend their film festival and make note of potential highlight points to edit together
Do you garden?: I’ve always wanted to, but at home my mom controls all the plants in the house, and keeping plants in the dorm was too cumbersome since I would have to unload them onto someone for the summer/winter breaks (my mom would kill me if I tried to bring a plant onto a plane). It’s one thing in a long list of “Things I’ll Be Able to Do When I Have My Own Place”
Good luck with the internship! Glad you get to connect with your family, especially to honor your grandfather.
Congratulations on your internship!
Recent purchases/rediscoveries: Purchases – nothing/nada/nowt/rien! Rediscoveries: Tarina Tarantino Emerald Pretty palette (perfect for this time of year).
Weekend plans: It’s Thanksgiving weekend in Canada and, as almost always, also my birthday. My younger son and his girlfriend are uncomfortable taking the GO train in (there are limited #’s but it will be at its capacity) so we might defer to next weekend or another one when the trains are less likely to be as full). Invariably I spend MY birthday having to cook a traditional Thanksgiving dinner since hubs is basically useless in the kitchen (and likes it that way – grrrr!). But this year, on Thanksgiving, I have asked that HE cook me a birthday dinner. A recipe he loves is called “Dilly Beloved”. It’s not too difficult and hopefully, he can do it without asking at every turn “what do I do next” (READ THE RECIPE is always my answer!). I’m hoping to get to the gym and I also need to get to Sephora to pick up a gift for my former trainer, whose birthday is next week.
Do you garden: Yes, but I don’t generally enjoy it as my knee is so bad. My husband is going to build me a raised bed for vegetables and herbs but my traditional flower beds are in dire need of weeding and now of clearing out and trimming back but there’s a lot I can do because kneeling and squatting for an extended period are both killer on my knees.
Wishing you a happy birthday and Thanksgiving!
Recent Purchases/Rediscoveries: G. Armani Eyes to Kill in # (Stellar) ….they were on sale at Nordstrom. Have been loving playing with ND Bronze palette as well as the 5 shimmers from my eyeshadow project.
Weekend plans: Back to the hardware store for paint samples for the bathroom. Its also our anniversary weekend, so we had lunch out and people watched at the farmers market.
Do you garden?: We try…this year it became an embarrassment of weeds. So we are going to raised beds (to save the back and knees) and lots of mulch and compost. We are also starting our own seedlings. Will see how that will work.
Happy anniversary!
Thank you ?
Haul: Suqqu Powder Blush Palette 102 (pre-holiday collection), Wayne Goss Vivid Azalea blush/highlighter; pre-ordered Lisa Eldridge Velvet Dragon lipstick and Velvet Blush lipstick/liner/gloss kit.
Weekend Plans: Enjoy a truly warm weekend . On Friday, did takeout from a restaurant we haven’t been to in a long time. Tonight I made a curry coconut salmon recipe for dinner (delicious!). I’m trying to declutter, unbox, and organize items in the new house. My spouse and I had some tense exchanges lately as we’re making decisions about work that needs to be done and by who, us or professionals. It reminds me of how we picked out our china: he was so finicky that I asked him to point to what he preferred, and I agreed to the one I liked enough. It was the same with coffee tables, oddly enough. We’re about to do the same with landscaping and window coverings. We’ll agree on the companies to use, and then as long as I can reach the blinds and/or easily draw the drapes (automation is preferred), I don’t need to be more involved. The negotiation is like torture to me and I’ll be fine with the result. (I’d bulldoze part of the garden if it were left up to me. ?) Otherwise, catching up on Y&R episodes.
Do I garden? No. I like to water, trim/deadhead, and see what is budding/opening, but nothing is intuitive to me. I would prefer to tending to trees and shrubs and maybe planters that are already arranged.
Happy Thanksgiving to my fellow Canadians. Be safe in your celebrations, especially this year.
Recent purchase: a mini Bobbi Brown face base
Rediscovered: MAC Tan pigment. Put MAC Soft Teddy in the crease and packed tan on the eyelid. Lovely and simple look!
Weekend plan: dyeing my hair
Do I garden: Not really. I have a couple of cacti and that’s about the extent of my green thumb!