What to Buy: Sephora VIB Insider Sale

Halloween is over and the holiday season is most definitely in full swing.  That means red Starbucks cups, Christmas decorations and, most importantly, sales!  In celebration of the Very Important Beauty Insider 20% off everything in Sephora, I'm sharing my top picks to kick off the weekend.  Just enter VIPTOPIA at checkout and you're good to go! Not a VIB Insider?  Check out the program here!

Have you heard about Luvocracy?  It's the Pinterest for shopping! Join and trust your friends and, if they buy products from your store, get credit!  I could scroll through the products for HOURS.  Trust me here to see the what I'm stalking on a daily basis.

Here's what I'm feeling for the Sephora sale:

Naked Basics Palette by Urban Decay:  I love, love LOVE the Naked Palette.  It's versatile and compatible with any outfit you could put together.  My only issue is that it didn't fit neatly into all my purses!  This one is a great on the go alternative.

Ocho Loco 2 by Urban Decay: Urban decay makes color saturated, fun eyeliner variety packs.  Gift this to your most beauty loving friend and she'll thank your for it!  Or, you know, just keep it for yourself.

Deck the Halls with Ribbon Hair Ties by Sephora: I got one of these hair ties in a Birchbox a while back and they are FANTASTIC.  Reduce the kinks in your hair that come with normal hair ties and throw in a pop of color while you're at it.

Caudalie Beauty Elixir  Limited Edition by L'Wren Scott: I discovered this facial spray while traveling in Paris (whoo - that sounds so fancy!).  I was skeptical, but it does work!  Your face just wakes up after the 2pm daily crash with just a few spritzes.  And who doesn't like limited edition packaging?

Benefit Badrageous Love! BadGal is one of my go-to mascaras.  I love Christmas because you get such fun gift packs!  This one gets you one mini for on the go and one to stash in your bathroom make-up drawer.

Fresh Sugar Treasures: These soften your lips up in a heartbeat and have some awesome tinting powers.  I lose my lip products so often that minis are actually a great option for me.  Stash one in every purse!

Oscar Blandi Pronto Dry Shampoo: I've learned the merits of not washing your hair every day.  This is my favorite product to ditch oily roots. Don't be intimidated by the white powder -- I have black hair and still love it!

Ole Hendrikson Ole La La from Head to Toe Blockbuster Set: Holiday sets give you the opportunity to try otherwise too expensive products.  I already use the Truth Serum, which works amazingly, but would like to see how the whole product line works in tandem.  I may have to put out for this one.

NARS Guy Bourbon Holiday Collection: This brings saturated lip color in mini sets the same way that the Fresh Sugar pack does above.  I love the NARS pencils for their strategic color selection and, really, I just like pencils.  Store one in every purse and you'll be sure to have amazingly hot lips!

Interested in any of these products?  Go ahead and click on the image!

iFabbo Social Media Conference Recap

Outfit Details: Top: Madewell via Crossroads Trading Company/Tank: Yummie Tummie/Pants: Urbana Outfitters/Shoes: Target

This past Saturday was the iFabbo Social Media Conference.  I have to say, it was a fantastic event!  They brought together a wide array of new brands (BooHoo.com! Dermalogica! Becca Cosmetics! Lotus Premium Denim), engaging speakers (Tracy Sun from Poshmark! Marlena Stell from Makeup Geek! Christina Martinez from Luvocracy! Susan Yara from New Beauty Magazine! Annemarie Frank from HSN!) and super fun fellow bloggers -- all of whom made the whole thing super duper fun.

I'm not a Redditor, so I'm going to knowingly do this wrong.  Here's the TL;DL key take away of the conference:

Be authentic and use your voice on your blog.  Actually engage your users and, of course, keep creating content!

And you know, while this sounds like "duh" advice, it was amazing how consistently these different speakers and brands with wildly different backgrounds drove this message home. 

From Right to Left: 1. Plaid dress from BooHoo.com/ 2. Trying on Google Glass/ 3. BooHoo Display/ 4. My Skin Map from Dermalogica/ 5. The "Future of Fashion and Beauty" Panelists/ 6. Close up of my outfit pants and shoes (hehe)

And for those that are still interested, here's the highlights: 

• Bloggers are better en masse.  It's significantly better to band together to work with brands than to try to step on each other.  No YouTube trolling! (On a related note, anyone want to band together with me? :D)
• Quality readers are better than quantity of readers.  How often do your readers engage?  Can you motivate them to do things?  This is what makes brands notice you. 
• Personality and Authenticity is extremely important.  There's something endearing about being a liiiiittle bit weird with your content. 
• On taking pictures on your phone vs. a DLSR: Sometimes the best camera is the camera that you have.  
• You can get Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop on Creative Cloud for 9.99 a month - yay tools! 
• As a blogger, disclose all relationships with brands.  It can be something as simple as getting swag from a store -- ensure it's clear that you were given something to avoid legal trouble. 
• One way to get more following is to jump on a social media platform in its infancy.  Many of the big bloggers and vloggers got their start when YouTube, Pinterest, and Instagram were just starting. 
• Engage with others - Find a community with the same interests as you! Reply to every single on of your comments.  Comment on other blogs! 

Honestly, there were tons more good tidbits, but this is what I took away.   Apparently iFabbo is replaying the conference on Spreecast if you missed it.  Check it out here.

Thanks to all the fantastic people that put this together -- it was a great learning experience!

Did you go to the iFabbo Social Media Conference? What did you learn?  Share in the comments?

Thanks for stopping by!