Rule one of friendship: make time for one another. Easier said than done most of the time. Working full-time, having a household, a man that needs his attention … everyday life is just filled with time-consuming "must do’s". But making time for friends is a top priority for me and combining girlfriend time with a day of shopping, well that’s just the perfect day. Time to wander around, talk a lot, eat and drink, do some shopping … what more does a girl need really? So yesterday I went to Lille, France with a friend to do just that, enjoy some much needed quality time.
Now, some of my friends accuse me of encouraging them to buy things and coming home empty-handed myself. That’s not entirely true. I like to shop but I work in Leuven, a lot of things I want or need I can get there and I’m out in the city every lunch break (I need my fresh air). A lot of my friends don’t work in the center of a city, they go on a shopping "day-trip" once every two months or so and come home with bags filled with clothes and things. I don’t, simply because I come home with a (little) bag at least once a week. So when I go on a shopping trip, I usually only buy the things I can’t get in Leuven.
Back to yesterday and our day in Lille. I wasn’t the one suggesting Lille but I immediately jumped at the idea because Lille to me equals Sephora and cheaper Pharmacies (the beauty beast in me awakened in a sec).
long lasting stick (8 hour no-transfer eyeshadow) in 06 €6,90
power pro nail lacquer in 82 €4,90
purifying pads (66 pcs) €7,90
First stop: Kiko Milano. For those of you that aren’t familiar with the brand. Kiko is an affordable Italian makeup and beauty brand. I got the purifying pads (because I love my acids and the ingredient list on this suggested that it’s packed with acids - the good kind), a nail polish (duh) and a long lasting eyeshadow pencil. I’m really excited about the eyeshadow pencil, I swatched a few colors on my hand and several bathroom stops later (and I’m a good girl so I wash my hands after every bathroom visit) they were still on there, they hadn’t even fade a bit. So big hopes for this one!
Galeries Lafayette nail polish from left to right: Hubert n°63, Felix n°15, Germain n°12 €3,90
Wallet €9,59
Next stop: Galleries Lafayette. Strolling around their beauty department I noticed that they had their own nail polish range. Lots and lots of colors to choose from and all of them have French men names. I took home 3 colors and a much needed wallet. I really needed a new wallet to replace my old travel-to-the-USA wallet.
That’s right, I have a special wallet for when I go to the USA and as you can see it’s only hanging together by a thread. There are some left over dollars in there along with my Sephora VIB card. Next time I’m going to apply for more fidelity cards, my address might be in Europe but I don’t want to miss any deals while I’m over there. Since I only use this one for traveling I didn’t want to pay a lot for it. Original price for this one was €29,99 but it was on sale for €9,59, good deal huh?
Benefit They're real in brown €25,50
Sephora nailfiles €3,50
Too Faced Chocolate bar palette €44,00
Formula X nail polish in Ignite €12,90
And then it was off to Sephora!! There are 2 Sephora stores in Lille, one on the Place du Gal de Gaulle and one in the shopping center Euralille. The one in the city center is very small, so I only picked up 2 Benefit They’re Real Mascara’s in brown. One for me and one for the bestie. I did look for Marc Jacobs nude lipstick in Understudy but it was sold out.
On our way back tot the train station we stopped at Euralille and did some more Sephora shopping. I finally, finally, finally caved in and bought the Chocolate Bar eyeshadow palette by Too Faced. It’s one of those palettes that I always want when I see it on the net but for some reason never buy it when it’s in front of me. This time was no different, I started to think (always a bad idea when you’re in Sephora) but when I saw there was only one left I told myself to get it. Understudy was sold out here as well, but I got Sephora Formula X nail polish in Ignite as a comfort present instead (not quite the same thing but oh well).
Bioderma photoderm bronze spf 50 & 30 €15,39 (vs. €18,09 on newpharma.be, €20,10 on IU.be)
Klorane eyeshadow remover 200ml €6,96 (vs. €8,99 on newpharma.be, €9,10 on IU.be)
Bioderma Sensibio H2O solution micellaire 100ml €3,04 (vs. €7,64 on newpharma.be, €5,4 on IU.be)
La Roche-Posay Effaclar Duo 40ml €9,29 (vs. 14,31 on newpharma.be, €14,45 on IU.be)
La Roche-Posay Redermic Yeux R 15ml €22,79 (vs. €21,78 on newpharma.be, not for sale on IU.be)
Last stop for me was Pharmacy De La Déesse (26 rue Esquermoise). This isn’t the most comfortable pharmacy to shop in, it’s very small and since it’s one of (if not the) cheapest pharmacies in Lille there’s always a crowd in there. But you have to get over that, the prices make it really worth your while. I got 2 travel size bottles of Bioderma Créaline Micellair water (I still have plenty of back ups of the big size at home but this is so easy for traveling), my favorite eyeshadow remover from Klorane, some sunscreen products (wasn’t planning on this but the 2nd one was 50% off) and then 2 La Roche Posay products: Effaclar Duo (holy grail to many on the internet) and Redermic eye cream. The La Roche Possay products were in the 50 best beauty buys under £20 list by Sally Hughes so I just had to bring them home (you can find the list here).
I compared the prices with 2 big pharmacy online shops in Belgium, usually they have lower prices than in pharmacy stores so retail prices in store should be higher. I was surprised to find that La-Roche Poasy Redemic Yeus R was more expensive in France than on newpharma.be but overall you can tell prices are so much lower in France.
And that was it. I think I kept it pretty decent. I kept back a bit because I have another quality day time in Antwerp planned with my bestie (you can visit her Dutch blog here) in August and unfortunately, money can only be spend once …
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