Oh hai, folks! Been a while, thanks largely to the fact that I’ve been breaking my back at work. Retail during the holiday season? Get out of town, man. Now that all that madness is over, I have a stack of items to get swatched and reviewed for this here bloggity-diddlyo. But first, a tale of love, loss, and glitter!

It begins at Ulta, where I am returning a single eyeshadow of which I have multiple duplicates in palettes. I receive a nice chunk of store credit, so I amble over to the Urban Decay aisle to have a quick look before work. Here is where I meet a lovely Urban Decay artist, Andrew. He asks what sort of thing I’m looking for, to which I quite honestly say that I’m open for anything, as I’ll wear just about anything. He then has me park up on his little chair, and he goes to work demonstrating some of Urban Decay’s line. While I’m no stranger to the line – it is, after all, my favourite – there are still quite a few products I haven’t tried. Especially their brushes, which after getting that work-over, I am absolutely in love with. So soft, they are.

We get finished up, and I have to rush off to work. I was three minutes late, but it was worth it – everyone raved about the work he did. As soon as I walk in the door, however, I realize that things look… odd. A split second later, I realize I left my glasses at Ulta. I go back into the back room, grab a phone book, squinting with crossed eyes trying to find the number for Ulta, only finding the number for the old store and not the new store. Well, crap. I’ll just have to hope that someone finds them and puts them back so I can pick them up the next day, right? Well, no. Andrew found my glasses, and hoofed it all the way down to my store to drop them off for me. Give that man hugs and cookies!

End point? Urban Decay, and their people, are awesome. I really wish I could post a picture of his work, but by the time I got home, it was a bit jacked. Floorsets aren’t the best activities for full makeup, unless you’re wearing some serious sweat-proof products. I did snap a shot to keep for myself, but I don’t want to misrepresent his work. It was quite lovely, though, I can tell you!

TL:DR? You’ll Want To Read This:

Now, while we’re on the subject of Urban Decay, it might serve you well to know that the Book of Shadows IV is on sale at Ulta ($44) and the official Urban Decay website ($44 with free shipping). Sound good? It can get better: enter code MYGLAM11 at checkout, and your BOS4 drops another $15 (as of this writing). This cancels out the free shipping, but it does save you nine more bucks in the long run (or, you can buy six bucks worth of extra product, and get your free shipping back – Santa Tanita, anyone?). Either way you slice it, that’s a pretty great deal. I picked mine up at Ulta today with my store credit. Mmhm!

I’d like to thank each and every person who entered my Happy HAULidays giveaway! I never expected such a response – over 300 qualifying entries! I’m truly stoked.

Our first winner did not respond to the email I sent out (sad times), so one of you lucky ladies got a second shot, and nabbed the big prize! Let’s all give a big CONGRATS to Sarah Crawford!

I’m already planning out my next giveaway, which will be happening in honor of my turning one year closer to the grave. Who gives other people presents for their own birthday? Apparently I do. What a weirdo.

One final thing, while I’m on the blog and thinking about it, Google Friend Connect is about to go kaput. While I do find this annoying, the thing didn’t like to work a third of the time anyway, so I suppose it’s not a great loss. Since I do still want to keep track of my readers, and give you guys an easy way to follow my insane ramblings, I’ve decided to open a Facebook page. If you’d like to follow there, just go to http://www.facebook.com/glostix.net and click “like”.

Hey all! How we livin’? I’ve been keeping an eye on the Happy HAULidays Giveaway, and I must say, I’m mondo-impressed at the dedication some of y’all have! There’s still plenty of time to enter if you haven’t already, so hop on over and give it a look-see!

Lots of silence on my part here on the ol’ blag, but you know I have the same old excuses. Work, school, etc-a-blah. Don’t feel bad, though. I haven’t even had the time to do my laundry, much less blog anything. Stanky. I do have quite a pile of things to swatch and review, and I expect I’ll be able to start working on that once the semester is over, in a few weeks. But for now, as I have a little bit of time before work and nothing major to do beyond put some uniform-like clothing on, I’ll show you my mini-collection of Revlon Lip Butters!

Read more and view swatches below the cut!
Read the rest of this entry »

GIVEAWAY IS OFFICIALLY CLOSED!
WINNER TO BE ANNOUNCED SHORTLY!

Since I’m so close to my 50 subscribers, and it’s so close to the holidays, I decided to go ahead and do my wee little giveaway early. Sound like a plan? Then let’s do this!

WHAT YOU GET
One lucky winner will receive all of the following:

• Wet n Wild Color Icon “I ? Matte” Palette
• Wet n Wild Color Icon “Little Luxuries” Nail Polish Set
• Queen Helene Mint Julep Masque
• Urban Decay Loose Pigment “Protest”
• Fekkai Advanced Glossing Cream Sample Packet
• Burt’s Bees Beeswax Lip Balm Tin
• C.O. Bigelow Lemon & Strawberry Tinted Lip Balm
• …and a handy camo ditty bag!

HOW YOU GET IT
Each of the following actions will earn you entries:

• Subscribe to this blog via Google Friend Connect (Mandatory!) +1 entry
• Tell me what’s on your Holiday wishlist (Once) +1 entry
• Draw me a kitty! (Once) +1 entry
• Tweet this giveaway (Daily) +1 entry
• Post this giveaway to Facebook (Daily) +1 entry
• Link this giveaway on your sidebar (Once) +2 entries
• Blog this giveaway! (Once) +3 entries

Since we’re doing optional daily entries, comment ONCE for EACH ENTRY. That means a separate comment with your GFC name, a separate one with a link to your kitty, another one with a link to your twitter update, etc. Your facebook updates will need to be PUBLIC in order for me to verify that it was indeed posted!

This giveaway will be open until DECEMBER 5TH, 2011 at 11:59PM EST. Entries will be compiled the following day, and one winner will be selected via random.org. Winner will be contacted via email. Winner will have 24 hours to respond to said email with their mailing address. If the selected winner does not respond within 24 hours, a new winner will be selected and contacted.

This giveaway is open internationally, with one caveat: due to shipping regulations, international winners will forfeit their nail polish prize, to be replaced with another item of equal value. In this event, the nail polishes will be donated to a local youth home. Everybody wins! Huzzah!

And the award for fastest shipping goes to Urban Decay. The Friends & Family Sale at Urban Decay just started November 1st, and I made my order very, very late in the day. It was shipped the very next day, and arrived today, on November 4th. I’m really quite stunned.

Anywho, here’s what I picked up at 20% off:

Yes, even sale items included in the 20% off sale, so I used those to bring my order up to an even $50, as to qualify for free shipping. Not too shabby, if you ask me.

The Friends and Family sale is STILL ON, right now! Use code FFHOLIDAY11 to receive 20% off of your order until 11:59PM 11/05/11. If you haven’t already snagged the Anniversary palette, now would be a great time!