March 25, 2013

illamasqua Haul



Way, way, waaay back in the middle of January, Illamasqua had their annual sale where items were reduced to $5, $10 and $20 and there was a WIDE selection of products to choose from. Naturally intrigued, I had a look and a few items ended up in my basket. I tried my best to get a variety of different products and it seems I did.

It took nearly THREE months for my package to arrive! By then I had nearly forgotten what I ordered. The reason it took so long to arrive was because apparently Illamasqua had some shipping issues. Having worked at a post office, I know that nail polish is considered a "forbidden" item because of its flammability. You can however send it, as long as it goes by ground or by sea, which can either get lost or cost quite a bit (this is the reason why certain polish sites don't ship internationally). Now I knew that Illamasqua is located in the UK, but being a company with a broad nail polish line AND the ability to ship overseas, I assumed this was already taken care of and I was prepared to wait 6-8 weeks for the polish, along with the makeup to be shipped overseas via boat. Probably more than a month later, I received an email from Illamasqua saying that they were having problems with the Royal Post and that they couldnt send the nail polish because of their policies. They reassured me that they would resend my package at their cost, via another shipping carrier at my request. I agreed and waited. Another few weeks passed and another email was sent by Illamasqua saying that both attempts that they made to ship my package, the shipping services had destroyed my package...TWICE! Along with their lengthy apology, they offered me a £20 voucher on anything but nail polish and perfume (same reason applies to perfume when it comes to shipping).

That being all said, I appreciated Illamasqua's responses and their diligence to get my order to me. They were finally able to send my order via FedEx and it arrived quickly. Now that I'm done with my novel, here are the swatches of everything I got!




Concealer // CC105
The size of this concealer was surprisingly smaller than I had expected. Although in retrospect, the fact that this was reduced to $5 at the time does explain it a bit. The color is light enough for my skin which made me absolutely happy because I have a difficult time finding concealer that is light enough for me. Although it is nearly white, its tone is enough to lighten the area around my eyes (which can be seen in the swatches below) The formula is a typical concealer formula: thick and creamy; easy to blend and could easily be mistaken for a cream shadow. The concealer also comes with a little mirror so it's great for touch-ups on the go.



Powder Eye Shadow // Hype
This is such a beautiful canary yellow and I just love yellows. I would actually say that I own too many of them and yet, I keep buying them. It's a color that not too many people can carry off, but I think I can. I'm in love with warm colors, plus it goes well with my red and orange hair. This shadow was reduced to $5 as well and I think that's a mighty fine deal.



Pure Pigment // Chasm
When I opened my box, I thought to myself did I really order this? I dont even remember ordering it? so I checked my order sheet and sure enough I did. After opening it up and putting it on, I remembered why it caught my interest. It's a beautiful duochrome loose eyeshadow that reminds me of mermaids. It amazingly fits well with my eye color and it's definitely not a product that I regret. Along with the others, this shadow was reduced to $5.





Liquid Metal Palette // Enrapture, Surge, Electrum and Phenomena
I originally started picking out certain Liquid Metal shadows for $10 each, and then I discovered that I could get 4 for $20 in a palette with a mirror. Although the portions are smaller, the variety and value is greater. I was a little disappointed with the formula when I applied it to my eyes. I tried first over bare skin and then over a primer and it still didn't come out as I expected. The formula wasn't creamy and thick as I thought it would be. It was a bit thin, slippery and transparent. I'm hoping that maybe it was because I had opened it right as it came from the cold of outside and didn't give the pigment enough time to warm up to room temperature. It was as if I swiped off the condensation on the shadows which was a less pigmented shadow. I'll definitely try again later. I love the conventional metallic colors as they appear pretty decently on my eyes. I really want to give these a chance so I will try again when they warm up a bit and solidify.



Nail Polish // Caress
Caress looked a lot different online than what I expected in real life. Although that may be, I still find it to be a pretty color. It's a pale, powdery, sky blue. As I was swatching it on my color wheel, opposite to the colors swatched in my previous post, it fits right in my with "spring" colors without me even realizing it. The formula is fairly opaque and it took 2 coats to become opaque (however I swatched 3 coats on the wheel). Like mostly everything else, I paid $5 for this.



So as you can tell, everything was quite a wonderful deal and it was definitely worth the wait in my opinion. I would love to try more of their products in the future, now that Illamasqua was recently made a bit more accessible in Canadian Sephora stores.

1 comment:

  1. I love the yellow eyeshadow! So pretty and pigmented. I like the look of the concealer as well, I have a hard time finding the right colours in face make-up too and this looks light enough even for my skin. Nice haul!

    ReplyDelete

LinkWithin

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...