A Makeup & Beauty Blog – Lipglossiping

UPDATE 13/11/2009

SmartBeautyShop have now revised their shipping prices to be based on weight.

Up to 100g will cost £1.78, over 400g: £2.64 and so on.

Good stuff SmartBeautyShop!

I’ve had a few emails and DMs on Twitter with regards to buying NYX Cosmetics in the US.  I’m aware that NYX is starting to be more readily available in the UK at sites such as SmartBeautyShop which is fantastic!  No more worries about import duty, long shipping times etc…

but…

Let me give you a little run down of the costs involved here…

SmartBeautyShop doesn’t have the Round Lipglosses in stock, so I’ll exclude that item from both baskets.

Let’s do Cherry Culture first:

That’s my shopping list (minus the lipgloss).  The exchange rate conversion is correct as of 24/10/2009 and I’ve actually rounded *up* the values to the nearest 5 pence. E.g. The Jumbo Eyeshadow was actually £1.82

I haven’t included it in the shopping list total, but I also used a 20% discount code… so my eventual bill was closer to £22.

Now whilst I’m happy to pay Import Duty… I object to paying Royal Mail an £8 handling fee ontop of this, so I endeavour to avoid crossing the Import Duty threshold which is £18.

My goods order (inc. lipgloss and discount code) came to: £16.10 so I had a clear margin for exchange rate fluctuation.  You don’t include the cost of shipping in the £18 calculation… however, HMRC will include the cost of shipping in calculating the duty to be paid by you if your order value exceeds £18.  Does that make sense?  It confuses the hell out of me!

Ok, now that we’re all completely confudgeulated… let’s take the simpler route and shop for NYX in the UK!

Hoorah!

Um..

£56.95?

*double checks*

Um…

Are you freakin’ kidding me?

No, no there it is… 4 lippies, 6 eyeshadows and a Jumbo Pencil… oh and shipping.

Wait a minute? £7.50 for Royal Mail Inland postage?

But that’s more expensive than Cherry Culture all the way from the US?  And I personally consider Cherry Culture to be a little pricey on shipping!

Now, I do understand that SmartBeautyShop et al have to mark prices up… of course they do!  They’re importing from the US, they’re the middle men… they have overheads that are much greater than Cherry Culture’s.

They can charge what they want… but you won’t see me buying NYX in the UK anytime soon that’s for sure.

Confusion over international shipping or not… there’s no way I’m gonna justify paying over double for the simplicity of shopping this side of the pond.

How about you?  Will you be buying NYX in the UK now that it’s becoming more available?  Or saving up your pennies for US orders?

You’ve already seen the lipsticks from my Cherry Culture NYX haul…

Now it’s time for the eye shadows!

I wasn’t sure what to expect.  I’d heard such good things that I didn’t think I’d be disappointed but I wasn’t prepared to be quite so delighted either!

I stuck to what I consider to be great Autumn/Winter shades for me… Purples, Plums, Golds and Greys.  I was tempted by some brighter more Spring-like shades… but I’ll save them for my next haul 😉

Here’s the swatches (applied dry over UDPP):

My favourites are Eggplant, Golden, Champage and Charcoal…

Rust is an amazingly pigmented shade… it’s a touch too red for my taste but I’ve got it coming up in my next FOTD so you’ll get a clearer idea of how it looks on the eye.

I read up on a few forums about Champagne, and it was often suggested as a nice highlight.  Damn my paleness ‘cos it’s too dark to use as a highlight for me… it will be a gorgeous shade for a quick wash of colour though – still pleased I bought it.

Red Bean Pie looked fantastic on the site and doesn’t disappoint in real life.  It’s basically Eggplant but with more plummy/red tones to it.

Eggplant is gorgeously metallic, it’s simillar to Red Bean Pie, but a little more purpley.

I never use black in the crease, it’s just too harsh for my skintone so I’m always on the lookout for nice greys and Charcoal is the loveliest crease colour for me.  I’m very happy I chose it.

Last but by no means least is Golden – stunning… proper metallic, highly pigmented.. just beautiful!

I’m not disappointed by a single shadow.

I also bought this little beauty…

The much talked about Jumbo Pencil in Milk which is the creamiest, brightest white ever!  I know that it’s most often used as a base… but with my creasey creasey eyelids I’m actually gonna attempt to put it to work as an under the brow highlighter!  I’ll let you know how it fares…

Can I get a little feedback on my swatches?  I’m not particularly confident with swatching… I think they’re pretty colour accurate…  Let me know if you ever want a particular shade of anything I swatch incorporated into a FOTD, sometimes things just look different in a swatch than when put into context on the face – or maybe that’s just me?

I bought 4 more NYX Round Lipsticks to add to my collection…

Tea Rose: Medium/Dark Rosey Pink

Strawberry Milk: As the name suggests, very pale milky pink

Thalia: Medium/Dark Nude

Indian Pink: Medium Pink with Gold flashes

Wear on these aren’t fantastic, they don’t last much after a cup of tea, but they’re so easy to  reapply and very well pigmented for the price.

And finally… Nyx Round Lipgloss in Sorbet. Non-sticky, fairly sheer with a subtle hint of sparkle.

I’m really pleased with the lip products… my favourite is Thalia or Tea Rose.  I adore Indian Pink, it’s so unusual but it’s a little warm toned against my skin.  Strawberry Milk is gorgeous too, but I need to find a way to wear it that doesn’t remind me of Magda from There’s Something About Mary.

What are your favourite NYX Round Lipsticks?

Well, the general consensus from the bods paid to know about these things is that lightning really does strike twice.

With this in mind, after my previous experiences trying to get my hands on some NYX products from across the pond you can imagine my slight hesitation when I heard about a Cherry Culture 20% off code a few weeks ago.

I was obviously mainlining a dose of bravado when, with VISA in hand I started gaily adding items to my virtual basket until I was reminded of a). the import tax threshold and b). my overflowing makeup storage in the spare room.

Reluctantly, I pared down my overenthusiastic initial selection to items that (by this time) I’d decided I couldn’t physically live without.

The NYX prices on Cherry Culture aren’t the cheapest out there – but the 20% code sweetened the deal and I was happy that their stock list appeared to be current and up to date.

Fast forward 2 weeks later and my parcel landed on the doormat with a satisfying heavyweight thud, immediately reassuring me of a job haul well done.

Pulling apart the jiffy bag, I was pleased to see that all my items I’d ordered had been wrapped securely for the long journey across the Atlantic.  No casualties this time.

I ordered:

6 NYX Eyeshadows

1 NYX Jumbo Eye Pencil

4 NYX Round Lipsticks

1 NYX Round Lipgloss

See! I told you I was restrained!  It actually barely qualifies for ‘haul’ status!

I’m happy to recommend Cherry Culture as a distributor of NYX products to the UK.  I haven’t had need to make use of their CS team yet, and for me, this is what makes or breaks a company – but I’m pleased with the service so far!

Part 1 & Part 2 of the saga… and don’t read further if you’re offended by swearing.

…So, my original order was made back in May and included lipsticks, loose pearl eyeshadows and nail polishes.

I received 2/3 of my order 2 weeks later with the rest being marked as Out of Stock on the invoice.  I didn’t think anymore of it and assumed that I’d be refunded for whatever was unavailable.

Fast forward a couple of months and the rest of my order still hadn’t arrived.  Neither had my refund.  I was busy being a new mum, so was preoccupied with other things and not overly concerned about this.

I emailed them in July to query what was going on as I hadn’t heard a dickie bird from them and they replied promptly to let me know that my items were going to be shipped that week.  They weren’t infact shipped until the end of the month and I wasn’t notified of this until I had chased them up a couple more times.

We’re now heading towards the end of August, and I emailed to tell them that I still hadn’t received my order and I wanted a refund for the items not received.

I had a one line reply telling me to go check with my customs office.

That totally got my back up.  No apologies, nothing… just a ‘we sent it’?  Fuck off, I’ve waited since May for you to pull your fingers out of  your bums and send me my order and now that it’s lost somewhere over the Atlantic you tell ME to chase it up?

I’m gonna do a long story short thing here, because quite frankly… I’m boring myself thinking about the whole thing now.  It wasn’t a huge amount of money – but it’s the insincere “have a nice day (we don’t actually give a shit)” attitude they displayed towards the whole sorry saga which turned me into a dog with a bone on this one.

After some more emails which mainly involved them telling me what great communicators they felt they were whilst I tried not to piss myself with laughter over the irony, I got an email this morning…

…We will not continue back and forth email, as it is clear we view this situation very differently.

We have issued you a refund.

in other words: “You don’t half go on, we thought you’d have buggered off by now – so take this and piss off”.

I can do that! ‘Cos your stock buying abilities suck, your communication skills are non-existent and most of all… the name of your shop is rubbish.

I put in an order for some goodies from across the pond.  I’ve been wanting to try NYX Cosmetics for ages, but just haven’t gotten round to it until recently.

I scoured the net to find the best sites to order from (without the extortionate international postage charges) and it was a toss up between MsCuppyCakes & NonPareilBoutique.

After adding the products I wanted to both baskets, MsCuppyCakes had the edge on overall cost thanks to the fantastic shipping charges and current unbeatable offers on the Loose Pearl Eyeshadows.  I also found the website easier to navigate.  To be fair, NonPareilBoutique slightly had the edge on range of products that were instock so I may end up back there to pick up a couple of bits if MsCuppyCakes don’t stock them.

I really, really want to try Milani’s Mineral Blush in Luminous which NonPareilBoutique had listed on the site, but for some reason it wouldn’t let me add it to my basket – gutted about that.

Anyway, I ordered:

5 NYX Round Lipsticks which I’ve heard great things about.  I only own 5 lipsticks, so it’s a great way to try out some new shades.  As you know, I’m fairly neutral inclined – so apart from one, most of these colours are taupey/neutral pinks and nudes.  I got: Chaos, Darling, Ceto, Saturn, Rea

7 Loose Pearl Eyeshadows in shades: Pearl, Sky Pink, Nude, Charcoal, Baby Blue, Ocean Blue & Lime (eek!)

2 Nail Polishes in Jungle (a gorgeous teal/green) & Red Pearl

1 Slim Lip Pencil in shade Plush Red (to go with my Chaos lipstick if the shades match up well enough).

Total inc. shipping came to: $26.15 (how bargainous is that!) which should just about keep me under the Import VAT threshold as long as it doesn’t get overinsured by the seller (one of my pet peeves!).

I’ll be back to let you know how MsCuppyCakes performs as an international distributor for NYX cosmetics!

UPDATE: Read my experience with MsCuppyCakes here

Looking forward to receiving my goodies, I shall do swatches and reviews when the parcel lands on my doormat. ‘Cited!

P.S. – If you have any recs for US online cosmetic boutiques with reasonable international shipping – please let me know about them, I’m always on the hunt!

I’ve read that Cory Cosmetics offer some of the highest coverage for mineral foundations and despite the mixed reviews on MUA, I’ve plumped for a selection of foundation and blusher samples for those days when we need that bit of extra confidence in our foundation.

Cory Cosmetics is also purported to be one of the ‘purest’ mineral makeup lines – even doing mica free versions of their products.  Not hugely relevant to me, as I don’t seem to have too much in the way of sensitivity problems towards mineral makeup.

Samples are $.45 each – I’ve ordered 13 samples which combined with shipping came to a total of $10.80.

I’m really looking forward to comparing them to my Elemental Beauty foundation (review) which I am still totally in love with.  Infact, the only reason I’m cheating on it is because I want to try some mineral blushes and can try so many more different shades for the same price from Cory Cosmetics than I could from Elemental Beauty.

Will be back to let you know how they fare!