Unexpectedly Amazing Products I Fell In Love With! Plus Another 20% Off at Sephora?!

Hello everyone, welcome. Today I'm going to be sharing products that I truly didn't think I was going to even like, but I ended up loving. Starting off with a fragrance. This is the K. Ali Yum Bougie Marshmallow. I had been hearing so much about this fragrance, but after hearing the notes, I felt that it was definitely going to be much too sweet for me. But I'll admit I was curious, so when I was at a Sephora recently, I went over to the K. Ali area and I sprayed it on the card, on a little card, loved it. Decided to then spray it on my body and walk around to see how it dried down. And after about a half an hour, I had my husband smell me, and then I was actually at lunch with my son and his friend, and I had them smell my hand where I had sprayed it, and it was unanimous. They all thought that it smelled fantastic. The keynotes of this are strawberry, pink marshmallow, and whipped vanilla. So it is definitely a warm and sweet gourmand, but I don't find it to be cloying or headache inducing like so many other sweet scents that I've tried in the past. Reason I started with a fragrance is because Sephora is sponsoring today's video, and usually when I partner with Sephora, it's because they are having some sort of promotion. And right now until December 24th is Sephora's Fragrance For All event, which means that if you are signed up for Sephora's Beauty Insider Program, you can receive 20% off any full size fragrance using the code fragrance20. As always, you can shop online or in store. You can do buy online, pick up in store, curbside pickup, same day delivery, and fragrance makes a great gift for yourself or anyone else on your holiday list. I will place the link to join Sephora's Beauty Insider Program for free down below in the description box. And even if you sign up today, you can immediately use the fragrance20 promo code. Okay, do you feel like it would be wrong to just leave you with the one fragrance recommendation? So I'm going to quickly give you two more recommendations. The first one being another fragrance I didn't think that I was going to like, but I ended up really loving, and it's from Fenty. This is the Fenty Eau de Parfum. This is a warm floral with notes of magnolia, musk, and Bulgarian rose. I didn't expect to love this one because I'm not usually drawn to anything with rose or even the slightest bit of patchouli, but I cannot get enough of this one. This is truly a very sexy fragrance because it does have that musk to it. The rose isn't too overpowering. This is a fragrance that I would wear on a date night or just anytime I want to feel sexier. And then another super sexy fragrance that's also considered a warm floral, but it doesn't have those notes of rose or patchouli. It's the Valentino Born in Roma Intense. I've been wearing this one for a little over, gosh, two years, I think. It contains notes of vanilla and jasmine. And just because I know someone's going to ask, I do prefer the Intense to the original Born in Roma. That's just my personal preference. And I get so many compliments when I wear this. The next product I did not expect to love, but now I use every single day, is this Natasha Denona High Gen Energizing and Hydrating Primer Serum. I cannot tell you how many times I walked past this product at Sephora on the Natasha Denona display. I don't know why, I just never picked it up. And then one day I decided to pick it up and I placed a little bit on the back of my hand and I thought, ooh, that looks very cool. It is a iridescent serum. And of course then I immediately opened up my phone to read reviews and the reviews were really, really good. I love a product that is hydrating, that leaves a glow without being greasy, that gives you that glass skin look. But little did I know that it also works on skin like mine that is oily to help balance out the oils that come through on my skin. I seriously cannot put this down. Whenever I use this product, my makeup ends up looking flawless for hours. I just cannot get over it. And I am kicking myself for not trying this product sooner. I also did not expect to love this Guerlain Terracotta Le Tente Foundation. I didn't expect to love this because it's not meant for my skin. If you look on the Sephora website, it does say that it's best for normal, dry, and combination skin, not oily. But I was convinced to try it by another YouTuber, or should I say, influenced to try it. And I'm so glad that I did. I tend to ignore skin tints because I do like a more medium coverage foundation. And this offers me that medium coverage without looking like a mask. In my opinion, this offers the perfect amount of coverage for anyone. You can sheer it out with a damp sponge if you'd like when you apply it, or you can use a brush, which is what I do, and you get that medium coverage that still looks like skin. The only downside to this foundation is that because it's Guerlain, it does contain some fragrance. So if you think that's going to bother you, or you have extremely sensitive skin, then I would probably pass on this. For me, it's been wonderful, and I will recommend this to anyone, especially with mature skin of any skin type, if they're looking for a true luxury, flawless finish, long-wearing foundation. The next product is Charlotte Tilbury's Exaggerize Mascara. I don't tend to talk about a lot of high-end mascaras in my videos, because I'm usually very unimpressed by them. Although I will say, over the past year, the two that I have been enjoying the most are the YSL Lash Clash, as well as the Iris and Romeo Peptide Mascara. I would say prior to trying this, they were my two favorites. And the reason why I didn't think I would like this mascara in particular is because, being totally honest with you here, I have not loved the other Charlotte Tilbury mascaras I've tried, and you compound that with the idea or the fact that I have been so unimpressed by high-end mascaras in the past. I just did not expect this to live up to the hype, but it does. Personally, I love a mascara wand that is curved. I just really feel like it does help to keep the lashes lifted after you use a lash curler. Look at this before and after. For my short, blonde, puny lashes, this is pretty impressive. It's very rare for a mascara to give me both length and volume with no clumping, no smudging, no flaking. It's a beautiful, beautiful mascara that truly lives up to the hype. I'm so impressed. Now I hope they will make it in brown, or at least dark brown, because this is truly a jet black mascara. Now I wanna talk about this Volumizing Finishing Spray from Amika. I didn't expect to love this because I have been let down by so many volumizing, texturizing products in the past. I must have at least six or seven different brands of volumizing spray in my bathroom right now. I picked this one up from Sephora about a month ago or so, and I have used nothing else since. Clearly, I put my hair up today, so I can't show you right now what it looks like, but actually, I do think I have some old footage that I can insert as B-roll to demonstrate how I use this and the results I get from this. My hair has gotten so fine in the last couple of years due to hormonal hair loss and everything that comes with aging, all that wonderful stuff and not-so-wonderful stuff, so getting volume in my hair can be a little challenging, and this stuff works. It gives me volume and hold. It's not super sticky. That is something I hate about any type of spray, whether it's a finishing spray, texturizing spray, heat-protectant spray. If they are sticky, I will not use them, and when I looked at reviews of this product, some people did mention that they don't like the smell of this. Personally, I think it smells really good, and finally, I don't know if you've noticed that my lips are a little bit darker than what I normally wear. Well, if you're new to my channel, you wouldn't know that I normally have a much lighter lip going on. Not that this is dark, but it's a little dark for me, but if you look at the product that I used, it's very dark. This is the Dior Lip Maximizer in the shade Mahogany. I normally would never even glance at a shade like this. The only reason why I picked it up and I got the very last one at my Sephora is because I saw a viral video on TikTok from someone with similar coloring as me, and she used this, just this and a lip liner, and it looked so stunning. I was influenced like that. I had to have it, and I am just crazy about it. The only thing I have on right now is this gloss and this Huda Beauty Lip Contour in Warm Brown. I outlined my lips, filled in my lips just a little bit. I did not fill in my entire lip, and this is a sheer but buildable color. So with one swipe, you get a hint of color, and then if you go back in, you can build it up, and it's not thick, it's not sticky, it doesn't run outside of my lip line. I absolutely love this gloss, and I would never have chosen this shade had I not seen that content creator's video, and I will tag her in the description box. So there they are, products that I truly didn't expect to like, let alone love, and I love everything I've talked about in today's video, which, of course, I will have linked down below in the description box. Don't forget to use the code FRAGRANCE20 until December 24th to receive 20% off any full-size fragrance at Sephora. You do need to be a member of Sephora's Beauty Insider Program in order to use the code FRAGRANCE20, and I wanna thank you all so much for watching. If you're not already subscribed to my channel, I hope that you'll consider doing so. I do upload new content at least twice per week, and you can also find me on TikTok and Instagram and Facebook under the same username, risadozmakeup. Please give this video a thumbs up if you enjoyed it. I hope to see you in my next video.