A Haul; Part One, Beauty

Yesterday, me and my mom went to my old uni town to do some shopping. Housing a Sephora, a MAC store and all my favourite clothing stores (Zara, I’m looking at you), it’s one of my favourite cities to shop ever and even though I stopped going to university there, I find myself frequently going back there to do a spot of shopping, most of the time with my mother. It’s a really beautiful city, especially in summer, with all of the gorgeous buildings and there’s even a church that houses a book store- I know, cool, right? So when me and my mom went there yesterday, it was thankfully one of those sunny days and I knew beforehand that my bank balance was going to suffer.

I bought quite a lot of things, most of them which I had wanted for a really long time, so I will start with the first part; beauty stuff.

First of all, Essie polishes were on offer; 2 for €15, where they normally cost €11 (at least that’s what I think) each. They only had a limited set of colours, but thankfully, two of the colours I’ve been eyeing up were part of the offer. The first polish I picked up is ‘Meet Me At Sunset’, which is the most gorgeous orangey-red. Being called a dupe of Chanel’s Holiday, I knew I had to have it, especially since I prefer the formula of Essie polishes to that of the Chanel ones (more on that in this post). The second polish that I picked up was 'Chinchilly', which is just a gorgeous, gorgeous grey-purple colour which looks really good on every skin tone and is the perfect all-year-round colour.

The next items I picked up are two skincare items. I knew beforehand that I wanted to buy an eye cream, since my eyes always feel really sore and the area around them can get quite dehydrated. I was browsing the Clinique stand in Sephora and my eye immediately fell to the All About Eyes serum. It sounded exactly like the thing I needed and more. I also picked up the Turnaround Concentrate, which is something I’ve been wanting for absolutely ages after reading numerous reviews on it. It’s basically a serum which exfoliates dead skin cells overnight, leaving you with brighter and clearer skin upon waking up.

Now on to the make up. Since Sephora is leaving the Netherlands in June, all of their make up was priced at €5, except for their foundations and primers, which were €7.50. Sephora is one of my favourite stores EVER so I’m really, really, really, REALLY sad they’re leaving. I couldn’t leave without picking up one of their blushers, which are normally priced at €12.50 so it was a really good deal. I picked up Romantic Rose, a really nice pinky colour which goes really well with my blue eyes and blonde hair. I also really wanted to pick up the Urban Decay Naked 2 palette, since Sephora is the only store in Belgium/the Netherlands that sells Urban Decay, but sadly, they were all sold out, so I opted for the Naked Basics palette. Since I’ve been wanting to experiment with eye shadows a little bit more, this seemed like the perfect option to start with, providing all natural and matte colours. You just can’t go wrong!

The next stop was MAC. The first thing I picked up there was their ‘Rebel’ lipstick, which was another item that I’ve been wanting for a couple of months. It’s a gorgeous plum colour, and I absolutely loved it. Lastly, I picked up their 224 blending brush. I actually wanted the 227 but the lady at the counter said the only difference was that the 227 is white whilst the 224 is black? I didn’t actually own a blending brush before (I know) so I’m really excited to get started experimenting with eye shadow!

So that’s all I’ve picked up beauty wise. My bank account is crying right now, but at least I’m absolutely in love with everything I bought! What do you think of my purchases?