Black Friday Haul: Sephora and Shoppers Drug Mart

Kudos to all of you doing Vlogmas and Blogmas this year! I just wanted to say that while I won't be doing that, you can expect a few more blog posts from me than usual. I still have a few gift guides, product reviews, and more coming your way!

For Black Friday, I went to my local mall for a quick Sephora haul to take advantage of their deals. And then on Sunday, Shoppers Drug Mart was having a "Spend Your Points" event. For those that aren't Canadian, they have a points program with monetary levels. And unlike Sephora with their Beauty Insider points, you can use the Shoppers points for just about anything in the store. So here are the few things I picked up for myself during the weekend!

Sephora usually has some pretty nice sets for Black Friday and Boxing Day each year. While they had a few on offer that were nice, none of them caught my eye as much as the Intro to Tarte and Nest Fragrance trio ones. I used 500 of my Beauty Insider points for the Smashbox set. While I am not doing a product review and swatches on the Tarte and Smashbox products in this post, I will be posting about them soon!

I hoard my points, because I rarely think anything is worthy to spend them on. If 500 of my points is going to something, it better be a nice something! I don't have a lot of Smashbox items and when I saw this set, I thought "bingo!". The contour palette is nearly full size, which I thought made it worth it on its own. I know I am not going into full detail on this right now, but if you see this in your store and have the points, I'm telling you it is worth it! With the contour palette, you also get a small Photo Op eye trio in Screen Shot, LA Lights Lip and Cheek Color in Hollywood & Highlight, and a Photo Finish Hydrating Under Eye Primer.

The $13 (CA) Tarte set came with a mascara, lipstick, and blush, all in colors I do not own. And I have yet to try the Lights, Camera, Action 4-in-1 mascara, so I am looking forward to testing that out. The set also came with a Drench Lip Splash lipstick in Living and an Amazonian Clay blush in Unstoppable.

My most prized set is the Nest fragrances, though. This is my first venture into Nest and this was a great value at $16 (CA). I couldn't believe they were still available online later in the day on Friday. I thought they would go fast. The scents are great and work well together, if you enjoy layering your scents. And they have a nice lasting power. Each spray is 5 mL and a Nest rollerball is 8 mL. Not too much of a difference in size. The three included in the set are Indigo, Citrine, and Dahlia & Vines.

At Shoppers Drug Mart, my purchases may not seem exciting. But these are just what I picked out for myself, the other things are gifts. The Nivea products were already on sale and I had coupons on top of that. I am so excited to try these. If you have, please let me know what you think! I have tried the Jergens shower moisturizer and really liked it, so I thought I'd finally get around to giving the Nivea one a try.

I also had a coupon for a free Essie nail polish. They screwed up recently by sending a lot of people on their mailing list an email saying they won a nail polish set. To make up for it, if you had actually entered said contest, they mailed out a coupon for up to $10 off an Essie product. I picked out the Cashmere Matte polish in Just Stitched and it was the last one on display, so it must be popular. Apparently it has been out a while and just completely escaped my radar. It's a gorgeous baby pink with blue shimmer. I just knew it would be perfect for winter for the days that I don't crave dark nails! And I do like the matte finish, I will probably opt for a shiny top coat when wearing it. Do you own this one? It's beautiful in person!

So that is my little baby Black Friday weekend haul. What did you get? Any big ticket items? I love that it is making its way north of the border, so I'm not missing out on my American tradition!