Two months ago I started a challenge for myself which I dubbed the Lipstick Only Challenge. This challenged involved wearing a different shade of lip colour each day for at least a month without any other makeup ie I had to go bare-faced with only a lip colour. (You can read more about the challenge on my last blog post.) The majority of the colours I have worn to date were NYX Cosmetics products; mainly because I had acquired their two vault selections: the Soft Matte Lip Cream Vault and the Liquid Suede Vault. By chance, New Zealand's department store chain Farmers also ran a NYX Cosmetics giveaway competition on their Instagram social media site around the same time I started the challenge. To enter the competition it required the participants to post a photo of them wearing NYX Cosmetics products onto their Instagram with the hashtags #NYXatFarmers and #NYXNewZealand. I knew with all the talented makeup artists out there I would have little chance of winning the competition but a little voice in my head urged me to try anyways. So I entered my daily photos into the competition. Imagine my shock when I was contacted by Farmers after the competition had closed. I was in such disbelieve I thought it might have been a scam. However, everything checked out and I was beyond excited to receive my prize in the mail. I have never won anything quite like this before and never thought I would. But sure enough I received the package from Farmers a few days after.

Currently Clarins counters around New Zealand are running a gift with purchase campaign dubbed "Time to Choose Your Gift". A quick search on the internet shows this offer by the French cosmetic company runs yearly from stores around the world. The gift sets on offer are more than generous; the condition being purchasing a minimum of two Clarins products with at least one being skincare. Thanks to my friend Emma introducing me to the wonderful world of Clarins products I have recently procured my very own gift set.