October BeautyDNA & other early-month treats

October is the best hecking month of the year. Autumn starts to kick in, the days get cooler, the leaves get crunchier, and people are wearing all of my favorite colors. Food and beer just start to taste better in the fall. I've been looking forward to this season's beauty boxes, to see if we can finally stop receiving bronzers, self-tanners, and summery coral makeup shades (the least flattering of all products on this cool-toned girl). The first box I received this month was from BeautyDNA. They always ship promptly at the beginning of the month. After a weird September product (a hip & abdomen cellulite gel), I was happy to receive the Paula's Choice Resist BHA 9. It's a salicylic acid spot treatment that you use after cleansing & tonight and before serums & moisturizers. It'll fit perfectly into my skincare routine and I look forward to trying it! 

I love BeautyDNA's thorough quiz & the way they match the details of each product to my preferences. BeautyDNA is typically $25/month, but I signed up during a special promo & received 6 months for $80-something. I'm not sure I would pay the full $25 for the service, but I do enjoy treating myself with it. 

I also ordered a fun Halloween nail polish set from Julep (which is pretty consistently my favorite subscription box - once I realized how awesome Julep's makeup & skincare lines are, I've loved being able to curate my own boxes ... & have spent way too much money doing so). 

For just $15, I got four polishes - Sam, Scout, Brigitte, and Tatiana. I used a promo code (FALLCOLOR) to add-on a polish for free - Cameron, that pale lilac shade, which dries to a textured, "stardust" finish, and then topped off my order by adding the cuticle oil in the middle for $9. I justified it by saying that since I skipped my Julep box this month, I might as well spent the normal monthly fee to get these great goodies.

Finally, because I am an absolute SUCKER, I fell for one of Sephora's promos. They were giving samples of Sunday Riley Good Genes with any purchase of $25 or more. That's a pretty big deal since Good Genes is, oh, a mere $105 per oz. 

I ended up ordering the Sephora Favorites Beauty Sleep kit, & I'm so glad I did. The teeny extra sample of Good Genes was worth $18, so $12 for everything else feels like a steal. As a side note, I can't recommend the Urban Decay Eyeshadow Primer enough .... and I especially recommend ordering it as a free add-on sample when you can. The sample is a separate packet of each type of eyeshadow primer that UD offers, and each packet lasts me about a month, so that's four months of primer from each free sample. I'll take it!