Wednesday 23 April 2014

Sephora In The UK



It's the moment us beauty lovers have been waiting for - Sephora now ship to the UK! I remember visiting one of their London stores way back in the day but it didn't take long for them to shut up shop and they sadly became exclusive to places like the US, Europe & China. I was lucky enough to travel to New York a couple of years ago & their store on Broadway & Prince Street was a complete revelation. Makeup heaven. So when they recently announced their plans to start shipping their products to the UK I literally squealed with delight. I decided to place a lil' order & everything went off without a hitch so I'd thought I'd share my Sephora purchases with you. I'm sure I'll be doing some full reviews & swatches of all these products very soon.



The first thing I knew I needed to order was some of the Tarte Amazonian Clay 12-Hour Blushes. Tarte have just come to the UK as well via QVC. However they've priced the blushes at £26.50 each & only had a couple of shades available - none of which were on my wishlist. So I ordered them off Sephora and even with the shipping & customs charges it still worked out cheaper overall. The shades I picked are Dollface, Tipsy & Exposed. Dollface is a light candy pink. You can never have too many pink blushes in my opinion! Tipsy is a bright coral colour. I've watched so many of Leesha's tutorials where she's used Tipsy on her cheeks & she always looks beautiful. Exposed is a nude pink shade. It's quite similar to NARS Douceur but a bit more pink toned. It's a lovely natural looking blush that will help to bring out your cheekbones.



Another Tarte product I got was The Sculptor Contouring Face Slenderizer in Park Ave Princess. This is basically a cream contouring product housed in the oh so convenient form of a chubby stick. It'll make contouring a breeze & I think it'll be especially good for slimming down your nose. I've never seen anything like this before but it's such an ingenious idea! I expect to see many brands copying this product very soon.



The last item I ordered was the Alterna Caviar CC Cream. I adore Alterna's Caviar haircare range & have heard so many good things about this hair cream. I think you can actually get this in the UK but it always seems to be out of stock everywhere & it ended up being cheaper ordering it from the US. CC stands for complete correction. It's a styling cream offering ten different features including heat protection, UV protection, moisture & shine. I've only tried it on dry hair but so far, so good!



They also throw in a few samples of your choice with every order. I picked GLAMGLOW SUPERMUD Clearing Treatment, Clinique Acne Solutions Clinical Clearing Gel & AmorePacific Future Response Age Defense Creme. I thought GLAMGLOW only had one type of mask but looks like I was wrong, they have several different ones on Sephora including an eye mask! I didn't get on with the GLAMGLOW Youthmud mask but I figured this one might be different. It's always good to keep a spot treatment handy so I wanted to give this Clinique one a go. The full size version of the AmorePacific moisturiser costs a whopping £123 so although I'll never be able to buy it, I thought it would be nice to try.

The shipping restrictions are fairly annoying as I would've loved to have gotten my hands on some nail polishes, NARS or Hourglass products. You also have to spend £75 to get the £10 shipping deal, otherwise you can end up paying crazy expensive postage & customs fees. I would suggest choosing the UK as your international shipping destination before browsing as it automatically converts all the prices to GBP. If you're worried about getting hit by customs charges when your parcel arrives at your door - don't be. Sephora use a company called Borderfree who add on some charges to your order so you're totally covered when your package arrives in the UK.

To break down the prices for you my order came to £80.51, I paid £10 shipping & then £18.09 on top of that to cover taxes and Borderfree's customs charges. In total I paid £108.60 which works out at an average of £21 per product. I placed my order on April 12th & it arrived on the 19th via a DHL courier. I've bought things from the UK that have taken longer than that so I was really pleased with the fast delivery. Overall I'm really happy with my Sephora buying experience. I stupidly didn't sign up as a Beauty Insider before placing my order so I missed out on another freebie. Make sure you register an account beforehand & you can pick a deluxe sample as well as the little sachets. The amount you have to spend to be able to place a UK order means you'll definitely earn enough points for a Beauty Insider reward. I can still claim it with my next order though & I'm sure I'll be buying plenty more things in future!


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12 comments:

  1. Ooh, those Tarte blushes are gorgeous! Love the Tipsy and Exposed shades especially.

    I'd love to treat myself to a few bits but £10 postage plus all those custom charges are just a little too much for me.
    Catherine, xo | Lady Liquor Blog

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  2. That countouring chubby stick thing look so good! It's now on my wishlist for when I go to the USA x

    beckyisobel.blogspot.co.uk

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  3. I would love to order but I still think it's way too much. I have bought things from places in America before - all for reasonable pricing and shipping. I think if you're willing to pay the custom charges etc there should be a lower minimum order for the £10 shipping.

    xx

    www.erinjaine.blogspot.com

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  4. i'm going to new york next month and the thing that is top of my wishlist is the tarte blush in exposed, really my kind of colour xx
    mollyox.blogspot.co.uk

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  5. So much Tarte goodness! Their blushes are so nice & pigmented. I am building up to making an order. I have a list that is growing by the day
    http://www.letstalkbeauty.co.uk/

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  6. I'm dying to try out some of Tarte's stuff. And I didn't know we ever had Sephora in the UK! I really hope they open up some stores here, there's definitely the market for it! xx

    ☾ www.liquoricepearls.com ☾

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  7. Oh dear, I think this might be a dangerous development! I'm dying to try out some Tarte bits, including some of the foundations which Essiebutton has raved about. I'd really love to try some of the blushes too, especially Natural Beauty. I'm interested to see how that contouring crayon works out, it seems such an obvious idea!

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  8. Those blushes look absolutely beautiful! Do let us know how you get on with the glamglow mask, as I want to try that one!

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  9. Oooh the Tarte Contour Pencil looks so interesting I've never heard about it before, I will definitely be looking into that as I want to start learning how to contour and a pencil would make the whole process easier for me :)
    xxx Claire
    http://wwwclairabelle.blogspot.co.uk/

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  10. Love the look of the Tarte blushes! Lovely shades too! :) x

    Style Sunrise

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