Mod Cloth Confetti Falls Dress

For my birthday, which was in February (!!!!), my good friend Sarah bought me the Mod Cloth Confetti Falls dress. She is so sweet! She actually read a blog post of mine where I had posted about wanting the Confetti Falls dress and she so thoughtfully got it for me. :) I think it was one of the nicest and most thoughtful gifts anyone has gotten me. I know it has been several months and I kept meaning to do an OOTD featuring the dress, but it is such a nice dress that I don't wear it very often. I feel really fancy when I wear it hahah. I definitely think it's going to make a great dress for "nicer events." It's one of my favorites and I thought I'd do a little update blog post about it. I only have a few pictures from my birthday of me wearing it and they are kind of goofy pics, but better than nothing!

Ulta Haul - Featuring Redken and Stila

Ulta is draining my wallet! There is an Ulta way too close to my apartment and I pass it every day on my way home from work. I keep finding myself creating little lists in my head and convincing myself that I need all of these random things. Well, that is exactly what happened in my latest Ulta trip. Check out some of the items I picked up:

I'll get the boring stuff out of the way first...let's see I picked up my favorite razor refills, Venus Embrace. I also got some dry shampoo. I really like Batiste! I think it's one of the best dry shampoos around and at Ulta they had two new scents, "blush" and "fresh." I think the fresh scent was the best while blush smelt too floral. I also bought a new black gel liner from Maybelline. It was a bit pricey, nearly $10. I like it a lot though. It's super creamy so you don't have to tug on your eyelids to create an even line and it stays on so well without fading. The brush that comes with it is not so great, but I still recommend it.
Now onto one of my favorite items that I picked up...the Redken Cooling Deep Conditioner from their Nature's Rescue line. On the Redken website it is described as an ultra moisturizing conditioner that helps rebalance hair while cooling and soothing the scalp. I am obsessed with the scent of the Nature's Rescue line. It seriously lingers in your hair and I love smelling my hair all day long, hah...I just love this line! My only issue is I wish this conditioner came in a tube like the Redken's All Soft Heavy Cream. I hate dipping my fingers into a tub.
Last but not least, I picked up a Stila long wearing lip color in Coquette. It is definitely a "my lips but better" color. It's sort of a rose color and I think it stays on a little longer than a normal lipstick. I wouldn't say it's long wearing though. At $20 I expected long wearing results....but at least I'm happy with the color :)

Stila Natural Eye Shadow Palette

Hi guys! I stopped by Ulta after work today to pick up the new Stila Natural Eye Shadow Palette. I saw it a couple of weeks ago and I literally went to Ulta every single week until finally I stopped driving and decided to call the store ahead of time and get them to hold one for me. Like I said, I went and picked it up today and I'm so excited to use it! I've owned the Urban Decay Naked Palette since last summer and I've hit pan on half the colors in that palette and some of the colors like Half Baked are completely used up. I reeeally like neutral eye looks so I decided that this Stila palette would be worth purchasing. It was only $39 which is about $10 less than the Urban Decay Naked Palette. It has 10 shadows that are .49 oz each while the Urban Decay Naked Palette has 12 shadows at .05 oz each sooo you're getting a lot more shadow for your money. It also comes with a full-size Stila Smudge Stick waterproof eyeliner in Damsel which is a matte chocolate brown. I tested these on my hand when I got home and at the store and I could definitely tell the colors were creamy and went on smooth without a lot of fall out. The pigmentation was pretty good except I think Urban Decay has better pigmentation. I like that the Stila palette is shimmery, but doesn't have tons of glitter like the Urban Decay Naked palette. Sometimes too much glitter can make shadows really un-wearable for daytime. I also like that the Stila Natural Eye palette comes with a lookbook with 6 different eye shadow looks. I can't wait to try all of the looks!
Here's some pictures:

Top: Bare, Kitten, Bliss, Sunset, Sandstone
Bottom: Champagne, Gilded Gold, Luster, Night Sky, Ebony

My favorite colors in the palette are Champagne (pale gold shimmer), Kitten (shimmery nude pink) and Gilded Gold (bronzey gold shimmer).
There are 4 matte colors; Bare (matte ivory), Bliss (matte nude),  Sandstone (matte neutral brown) and Ebony (matte black). I think my least favorite color is "Ebony" because it's a plain black matte which I literally have tons of matte blacks in several different palettes. I guess it's convenient to have if you travel with this so I can see why they put it in there, but I wish that "Ebony" could have been replaced with a more unique color.

I also did some comparison swatches with my UD Naked palette....

First Row: Stila's Luster vs UD's Darkhorse
Second Row: Stila's Champagne vs UD's Half Baked
Third Row: Stila's Gilded Gold vs UD's Smog
Last Row: Stila's Night Sky vs UD's Gunmetal

I hope this post helped you if you were were thinking about purchasing the Stila Natural eye shadow palette. I really love both the Stila palette and my UD Naked palette....but I think if you had to get one of them get the UD Naked palette. It's just a really great palette. I got the Stila palette to try something new and because I already owned the UD Naked palette. So yeh, let me know what you think of the Stila Natural eye palette :)