In which Ulta enables my Korean skincare addiction hobby

Thanks to Nouveau Cheap, today I discovered that Ulta's website is offering all kinds of GWPs and deluxe samples and whatnot. As I mentioned earlier, their 21 Days of Beauty Event hadn't set off my MUST BUY MUST BUY mental car alarm noise. The one product I wanted, Cargo's OneBase concealer/foundation, wasn't on sale, and I planned to wait, in a mature and well-reasoned fashion, for a better opportunity to purchase it. My exact words were:

Sooner or later, one of those retailers will make me an offer I can't refuse ... something along the lines of a discounted price, with free shipping, free samples, and maybe a footrub. Oh, and eBates.

Until then, I will bide my time. Do you hear me, ULTA? Hmmm?

Well, Ulta has done it. With a $50 order, I could get free shipping and an embarrassingly huge number of samples.

The qualifying purchases

So what did I buy to make the $50 minimum? The Cargo OneBase plus some K-Beauty goodies.

Here's the sneaky thing about Ulta. They stock stuff you'd never expect. I mean, not only are they a source of Cargo cosmetics, if only online, they also stock Tony Moly and Hada Labo Tokyo and who knows what else, because I hit my $50 minimum and stopped looking.

I picked out a Hada Labo's Hydrating Facial Cleanser for $11.99

and then made up the difference with the four Tony Moly sheet masks that sounded the most beneficial for old ladies: Brightening Pearl

Hydrating Hyaluronic

and Red Wine

 Although, for me, red wine is less about Pore Care than a good time antioxidants.

And now for the GWPs

I include these less-than-glamorous screenshots because Ulta's website has a different approach to their freebies. They don't show up magically in your shopping cart, and you don't type in a coupon code. Instead, you have to find the items and add them to your shopping bag. A price will be attached to them until you make the minimum purchase, at which point, the price gets replaced with the word FREE. Whew!

There's a sample bag :

An Ahava deluxe sample set

and a Redken gift

And yes, you can stack these offers.

Really, Poppy? More samples???

Those Redken products are apparently designed to help me achieve texture-y beachy waves or something like that. Unfortunately, my hair starts off crunchy and wavy, and I spend a lot of time, energy, and money softening, straightening, and smoothing it out. So what am I going to do with these Redken products?

I thought about doing the world's lamest Beauty Blogger giveaway with the beachy waves products, but then inspiration struck. Next month, Jen Lancaster will be at a resort on Turks and Caicos with a bunch of incredibly lucky women, but blackbird, Susie Sunshine, and Martha McGyver and I will be getting together in Chicago. What better way of offloading samples than to lure my blogging buddies into my den of beauty inequity and keep them there until they relent and stuff dozens of samples into their suitcases?

And of course, you know I'll be blogging the whole thing.