Sunday 18 August 2013

European Beauty Haul Part 1 - Essence, P2, Catrice, Make Up Factory & Astor

Long time, no...write? I was in Germany and France for a while with my family, dealing with the loss of a much loved pet and am now experiencing camera issues, so it's no surprise that SSD has suffered a little as a result. Luckily for all you beauty lovers, I was thoughtful enough to take some basic photos of my first purchases while still in Germany so while I'm sorting my camera out, I thought I'd share part one of my European beauty haul with you all.



1. I found these two in a shop called Douglas (how German does that sound...not!) which was basically a beauty shop. I picked up Isadora's 'Creme de la Creme' after reading and conversing about it ages ago on a blog so when I spotted the Isadora stand I hunted it down. I also picked up BeYu's Shimmering Top Coat in '743'. I love this because the glitter is holographic (my favourite type of glitter polish) but the chunks are square instead of circular or hexagon shaped. 

2. Here we have Essence's 'Mrs and Mr Glitter', 'The Boy Next Door' and 'That's What I Mint'. I absolutely LOVE Mrs and Mr Glitter. Just before going away I had seen photos of mermaid-esque nails on Instagram and when I saw this top coat I had visions of creating my own. The Boy Next Door is a nice, shimmery, vibrant blue and to say these polishes are all so cheap, I was impressed with the wear of them.

3. I purchased the P2 Pure Color lipstick in the shade 'Kärtner strasse', which is an everyday dark nude shade and perfect for people like myself who have slightly darker lips than average. I also picked up the Astor Color Last VIP lipstick in the shade Bubbly, which is a gorgeous vibrant pink shade and was probably my most worn holiday colour in the end. I also picked up this P2 profi concealer palette because concealer palettes have always intrigued me but are rare here in the UK. I have only used the green and pinky-purple concealers but so far I've been fairly impressed with their coverage and staying power. The Catrice 'Absolute Nude' eyeshadow palette interested me because there are so many UD Naked dupes out there and I'm a sucker for nude eyeshadow. I purchased all of these things (plus the Essence polishes and the P2 polishes below) from DM. Finally for make-up, I picked up the Make Up Factory Automatic Eyeliner in '24' from Müller (that shop is insane) and fell in love with it instantly. I also went back and picked up shade 21, but that will be in part 2.

4. Given that drugstore products were SO much cheaper in Germany than they would ever be here in the UK, and also given that my holiday money was pretty much entirely for feeding my beauty addiction, I went a little bit crazy polish-wise. I picked up two of the P2 Rich Color + Care polishes in 'So Fresh' (green) and 'So Cool' (blue), as well as one of the Color Victim polishes in the shade 'Artful' (PERFECT with Essence's 'Mrs and Mr Glitter') and one of the Last Forever polishes in the shade 'Lovely Moment'. 

5. P2 also had a huge range of nail care type products so I picked up their Anti-Split coat, two of their Quick Dry Sprays (there were only two left, and they were so cheap...) and their Nail Food Ananas. 

I'll be writing up proper reviews of the products I've actually tried soon but do let me know if there are any you'd like me to review. Have you tried any of these products? Let me know in the comments below because I've missed you!

Thanks for reading,

Rachel xo

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