A little Sephora.fr haul and Sunday chit chat

It's been a bit quiet on the blog I know.  So what happened?  Just life I guess.  I feel like life is just rushing by and I'm nog able to keep up.  Of course the fact that it's dark when you leave for work and it's dark again when you come home isn't helping.  I am in desperate need of some sunlight let me tell you.  And let's not forget my trip to the dentist that costed me enough to go into a no-buy modus for the rest of the month.  I kept telling myself that I don't need anything new makeup wise and that the latest editions coming out aren't worth splurging on ... did I believe it?  Deep down I didn't but it worked for a week or two ;-)

I failed on the no-buy thing though ... but in my defense, I had to!  You see, my bestie has a birthday coming up and I already knew what I wanted to get her so when I got a 20% off mail from Sephora.fr I just had to go for it (and get some things for myself while I was at it).

The thing with Sephora.fr?  First of all there are shipping costs and as you may know by now, I'm allergic to shipping costs, especially within Europe.  These days there are so many sites that offer free shipping that I try to avoid site that do charge shipping.  But the thing with Sephora is that they have a few brands that are hard to find elsewhere and with the discount I more than made up for the costs.

The second thing is that Sephora.fr is always a bit disappointing to me.  I've been in the States at least once a year for the past five years or so and the French Sephora hasn't got all the brands you can get in the States.  No Kat Von D, no Hourglass, no Becca ... But I'm keeping my fingers crossed because Sephora US started shipping to Germany, The Netherlands and a few other European countries so I'm hoping Belgium will soon be joining the ranks.

I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised by Sephora.fr.  I ordered on a tuesday evening and my package arrived friday noon even though the website stated 2 to 5 days and I always assume the worse.  

So what was in there you ask?  I treated myself to Marc Jacobs Style Eye-con no.7 plush eyeshadow palette in The Dreamer, Marc Jacobs New Nudes lipstick in Understudy and Sephora express nail remover wipes.  You can expect swatches of these on the blog soon.  I got the Sephora Rouge Infusion lipgloss in Pink Essence (33) for a friend and than there was a present for the birthday girl that isn't in the pictures because it's a surprise and I know she's reading.  You have a few more weeks of waiting to do!!!

Another great thing: you get to choose your samples. I went for By Terry moisturizing cc cream, Make Up Forever HD foundation and Benefit Air patrol eyelid primer.  I can't wait to try these!!

I will definitely be buying Sephora.fr again when I have a discount code!! But for now there are other things to buy ... like Zoya nail polish, the winter collection of Essie, the holiday editions that are launching, the Urban Decay palette in collaboration with Gwen Stefani ...  too much prettiness, not enough money!! 

Enjoy your week and I promise to update more regular from now on.  I have some articles that are almost done and I'm planning them for this week.  

NOTD: Marc Jacobs Beauty in Louise (160)

If you're a regular reader of my blog, you may have noticed that a lot of products hold a special memory or meaning to me.  This nail polish is no different.

Last year right before I went to New York I was busy making my wish list as usual.  I always bring back a Marc Jacobs nail polish, to me these scream luxury and they are my guilty pleasure.  So while making my wish list I was strolling through the colors and noticed this one, named Louise.

A few months before, my bestie had just given birth to a baby girl named Louise.  Needless to say I just had to get my hands on this one (not just for me but also for my bestie).  If I'm honest, I was a little bit jealous.  I mean, who gets a nail polish named after them after being in this world for around 3 months?  I've been here 38 years and I've never seen a nail polish called AN (if you know one, please let me know).

So I thought it would be easy, just stroll in to a Sephora and buy two bottles of nail polish.  Sounds simple right?  Wrong!  Apparently this polish was part of a range that just got out and after spending 3 days in New York I still hadn't been able to find it.

And then came the last full day and we decided to walk the high line.  We were just casually walking towards it when I noticed a Sephora, a really nice Sephora I must say.  It was just around opening time and by now my travel companions all know that I can never, and I really mean never, pass a Sephora without entering.  'Just a quick look' I said, and in we went.

Without hesitating I went to the Marc Jacobs display but unfortunately without much luck.  My friend was trying out polishes on the separate nail polish display when she called me and there it was: Louise.  I immediately grabbed 2 bottles and went for the cash register (after 3 days of New York, I just cannot afford to wander around a Sephora anymore, it's just dangerous for me).

It's a very wearable color, a soft nudish pink.  A bit of a baby nude pink I think.  I love Marc Jacobs polishes, they are good quality, have a good brush and apply without streaking.  But this one holds a special place: little Louise, this little bottle will always put a smile on my face.

Where to buy:

You can buy the Marc Jacobs Beauty range exclusively at Sephora.  Sephora.fr does sell the nail polishes (€19,90) but unfortunately Louise hasn't made it over here yet so for now, you can only get it at Sephora.com (they ship to a very limited amount of European countries) ($18).

Update Make Up Forever Artist Palette - now for sale in Europe

Just a very quick update on my blogpost about the Make Up Forever Artist Palette (you can find the article here).  I just noticed that the palette is now for sale on the Sephora.fr website and costs €39.  Sephora.fr does charge shipping costs so make sure to check these first before ordering.

Shop log Lille, France

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 …

Sephora + Pantone Color IQ and findation.com experiences

I love shopping for beauty products. All but one: foundation.  Even though I want to try out as many as possible to get the perfect one for that *flawless* effect, shopping for foundation is just stressful. I do my research and usually know which one I want but then there’s the tiny problem of color matching.  Too warm, too cold, too yellow, too rose … there’s always something.  For high end foundations you can ask for help from a saleslady/makeup-artist but for me it's hard to put my 'faith' in a strangers' hand.    Drugstore foundations are a definite no-no because 9 out of 10 you can’t even try them out.  So I usually end up going to MAC (because once you know what color matches you, you’re set for the rest of your life).  And when I come home I think „Is this what I’ve become?  A creature of habit, too scared to take a risk?” ( just kidding, foundation doesn’t really make me question my life or myself but you get the point). 

So when I read about the Sephora + Pantone Color IQ matching service I knew I had to try it.  I decided to go for it in a Sephora in Las Vegas. I choose this one because it had a lot of natural light coming in, I figured if you tried it in a dark store filed with artificial light it wouldn’t be the same (and reviews on the net proved me right).  I asked one of the ladies about the Color IQ service and she immediately called one of the makeup artists over and I got matched.  Easy peasy, they take off whatever you’re wearing on your face and hold a little ‚scanning’ machine against your face and you just wait for the result, turns out I’m 2Y05.  We tried a few of the color matching foundations on my face and they all looked like perfect fits.  I wasn’t planning on buying a foundation at that point but that was ok, the results were send to me by email.  Now I know which one’s to buy in the future and I’m even contemplating buying one from a brand we can’t get in store over here, like Lorac.  I’m feeling quite confident about the matches.

High end foundation problem solved!  What a relieve.  But what about drugstore foundations?  I decided to try my luck on findation.com.  I put in 2 of the matching colors according to the color IQ system and there it was: a whole list of color matches!!!  Sweet mother of god, so many choices, so many brands, all available for me without having to worry about the coloring.  Now, I’m no fool so I started comparing the outcome with the Sephora list and turns out most color matches of findation are 1 shade darker.  But that’s ok, at least now I know where to start.  Needless to say, my last trip to Walmart had me buying a few drugstore foundations (with confidence this time). 

I highly recommend trying the Color IQ system if you are in a Sephora store, unfortunately the system is only available in the US I think.  If you combine your outcome with some common sense (I did my color IQ in may, so I imagine I’ll need a color a bit darker for summer) and a matching system like findation it can make your foundation search a lot easier.

You can always try out a few different Sephora stores for the Color IQ system to see if the results all match.  Like I said, the lighting it the store can make the outcome different from one store to another.  

I’m really happy I tried this and I can’t help but wonder why more stores/brands don’t offer this system.  It’s science, it’s color matching, it shouldn’t be so hard to do. 

Beauty shopping in the USA my way

I just got back from a 3-week road trip in the USA.  The last 7 years I’ve been to the US almost every year I think.  Road trips with the man and New York with the girls (because the man doesn’t want to go to NY again any time soon, "been there,done that” is what he says — BUT IT’S NEW YORK!!! there's no such thing as "been there, done that” is what I say) so I think it’s safe to say that I have gained a bit of experience when it comes to beauty shopping in the USA.

First of all, let me say that I always make a wish list but when I come home I probably haven’t bought half of it.  "Why” I hear you ask?  Because it’s one thing to make a virtual list and another one to actually spend the money on it.  The first times I went I really didn’t focus, I just wanted everything that was cheaper than in Europe.  Unfortunately for my bank account that is almost everything (even with the current exchange rates, so can you imagine what it was like a few years ago?).  Nowadays I try to focus on the brands or products we can’t get in Europe, are hard to get or aren’t available yet.  I also always look at the products that I can get online but can’t see in real life (like Hourglass, Urban Decay, Makeup forever, Too faced), if I like it than I know I can always order it online later.

So where do I shop?  First of all WALMART !  My absolute favorite store to shop, prices are ridiculous (especially compared to Europe) and they carry my all time favorite budget brand Neutrogena.  I love their foundation and skincare!! And I always bring back some Revlon nail polishes, lipstick and eyeshadow because, well because it’s almost half of what we pay in Europe for it.  This time I was also lucky enough to find the blush nudes palette by Maybelline.  And don’t forget the Lady Speedsticks deodorants, I haven’t found another deodorant to match this one yet.  EOS, Covergirl, Sally Hanssen … you can go all out at Walmart and still keep it affordable.

Next up are the pharmacies, CVS and WALGREENS.  Now, one thing I don’t understand in the States is the way products are priced.  In Belgium we have a 'recommended retail price’ and usually products cost about the same in every store (with sometimes minimal differences) but not so in the USA.  You can buy an EOS lip balm at Walmart for a little less than 3$, if you turn the corner and you go to your local CVS, the same lip balm could cost 4.75$ (happened to me) which is over 50% more!!  And online they retail for a different price.  I’ve stopped trying to make sense of it.  I just try to get as much drugstore products as I can at Walmart and shop what’s left at the pharmacy.  Usually that would be NYX (at CVS) and some Milani and whatever catches my eye.

And then there are the mothers of all beauty stores: SEPHORA and ULTA.  My Sephora experience is kind of a ritual: I need -at least- 3 trips!  The first time I’m always so overwhelmed that I can’t buy anything.  It’s always the same: I go in thinking I’m going to buy the things I wanted but when I’m there it’s just too much.  I know it sounds ridiculous but that’s just the way it is.  I walk around, feeling all intimidated and when it gets too much I just leave.  The second time I’m more relaxed and I can actually look at the things I wanted, only to think "but you already have so much, do you really need this?" (the answer to these questions is no of course) or "doesn’t this cost too much?" .  You know, rational questions, the one’s we don’t want to ask ourselves while shopping for beauty products.  But the second time I force myself to buy something and once you’ve put the first item in you little Sephora basket, the others follow easily.  The third time (usually our last day) I buy what I really regretted not getting the second time (and I admit, sometimes I just blow what’s left of my travel budget).

Ulta is different as it isn’t that easy to find.  They are usually located outside the city so we have to drive there for the soul purpose of me shopping.  I have only one chance there.  Luckily they carry a lot of the same brands as Sephora so I  focus on the one’s that are exclusive to Ulta (like Lorac, it-cosmetics, ZOYA, China Glaze, more NYX …).  

Bath and Body works and Victoria’s Secret need no introduction or explanation I think.  They speak for themselves.  Bodylotions, shower gels, hand sanitizers and candles that smell divine.  Here I always curse the airlines and their baggage restrictions.  Shame on you for not allowing me to bring home as many 3-wick candles as I’d like!!

A picture is worth a thousand words and the picture in the top says it all for me.  I think I did well, I don’t think I went overboard.  I bought what I liked and so far I have no regrets.  

Let me know if you see something on the picture that you want me to write about or if you have any remarks. I'd love to hear from you!