The highly anticipated store of my US trip: Dollar Tree. I was so looking forward to it, for the wide range of older shades of Maybelline nail polish but the store I went to didn't have any left, at all, na da :(
I browsed LA Colors instead, as $1 is a lot better than whatever regular price we are charged in Canada for this brand. Also found a few other brands there too.
First batch:
- LA Colors Nail Dazzling kit with a mini nail polish and 2 glitter jars
- LA Colors Nail Art Deco in Black
- Sally Hansen Color Quick Fast Dry Nail Color pen in Blue.
The pen was a surprise, I don't know how it ends up at Dollar Tree as it's still full price everywhere else. The Art Deco was available in almost every colour, guess they just restocked it. I also heard that the LA Colors Craze polishes ended up at Dollar Tree too, but didn't find any either.
Second batch, all LA Colors:
- Lip Smacking kit with a lipstick, a pencil and a lip balm in baby pink shade
- All-n-one stick (used as lipstick, blush and eyeshadow) in Pink Satin
- Mineral eyeshdows in Teal, Purple and White.
I was kinda curious about the mineral shadows in pressed form, as I'm so used to the pigment/ powder form. And for $1, they are so worth trying. I limit myself down to 3 colours only but there were about 10 colour options there at least, lol.
Third batch, the pencils:
- L'Oreal Colour Fresco eyeliner in Pinkcicle
- Maybelline Forever Metallics Metal Shine Lipcolor pencil in High-Pitch Pink
- Maybelline Eye Duets liner/ shadow in Pennies & Loafers
- Maybelline Expert Eye shadow in Purple Passion.
I was still sad about Maybelline and LA Colors polish but don't think the items I found was a bad deal. The Dollar Tree I went to was quite new, so things looked pretty neat inside. I'd go there all the time if I lived in the area, lol. Our Dollarama has stepped up their game a bit with the Sally Hansen Natural Beauty line, now they just need to stock on good nail polish, then I'm happy :)
If you are going to the US anytime soon, check out a Dollar Tree to see what you can find there. It was a fun trip for me. It is grey and rainy here today, so posting about makeup bargain might be the highlight of my day, lol. Have a good one!
These finds are totally creditted to my friend in California who told me where she got all her nail polishes - Nail supply stores. I tried 2 stores and was very surprised at the price range they had. Are they what people call "dusties"?
What I got:
- OPI I'd Like to Thank and I'm not really a Waitress, $4.50 each
- China Glaze Cords, $2.25
- Essie Demure Vixen, Lapis of Luxury and Haute as Hello, $3 each
- Nail stickers, 3 for $5.
Colour selections were great, but are mostly not current, except for a special display of Essie where I got my shades. They also had OPI DS colours for $6 a bottle.
I tried to look through their stash to find any HTF colours but I wasn't that lucky, lol. Still very happy with the ones I got though. Later when I thought about it, I wish I grabbed a few brushes for cleaning up the cuticles after manis. They had base/ top coat in bulk bottles, could take years to finish. Now I wonder if they sell nail polish racks, lol.
Any of you get your polish from nail supply stores? What do you think about them?
Talking about nail polish, I can't wait till the fall when lots of cool collections come out. I was almost speechless reading the Fall collection post from Lacquerized. So many pretty little bottles staring at me all at once, lol. I love to see (and touch) Orly Cosmic and the Revlon mattes in September and China Glaze Awakening for Halloween. Are you excited?
Yes, you all know that I'd be hitting the drugstores while in California. There's no way I'd miss it. I'm already stalking Canadian drugstores, so why not US ones? :)
Rite Aid had some specials for their Wellness card holders.
Thought Canadians wouldn't be able to get a card, but they gave me one, with just my phone number. Very impressed with that.
- Borghese Stellare Notte, $5 with card
- NYC Extreme Lip GLider gloss in Chinatown Cherry and Carnegie Melon ($2.99, plus BOGO 1/2)
- Revlon Creme gloss in Fiercely Fushsia and Crush On Coral ($2.49 each - 75% off).
There were a few other BOGO1/2 promos going on too but they excluded LE colours, so I didn't want to get anything else.
We found an Ulta near my friend's place. While browsing around, I noticed a little basket with items with red stickers.
Turned out, it was Bourjois 75% off, guess it was cleared out.
- Effet 3D MAX lipgloss in Rose Acidule and Framboise Ardent, $.74. Yes, seventy four cents, crazy clearance (reg. $16 or CAD20)
- Brush concealer in Beige Rose, $.74 (crazy again, lol, reg. $15 or CAD19.50)
- Round Pot eyeshadows in Noir Precieux and Violet Absolu, LE packaging, $3.50 each (reg. $14 or CAD17)
- Round Pot blush in Rose D'or, $3.75 (reg. $15 or CAD19).
We went to Walmart for Hard Candy. No sales, but I heard the brand wouldn't make it to Canada until late summer, so I caved.
- Moon Glow Luminizing powder, $8 (CP for a friend)
- Mr. Wrong polish, $5
- Meteor-eyes Baked Glitter eyeshadow in Supernova, $6.
Stock on this brand wasn't great at this location, selection was limitted. Some items were even opened (the plastic seals were gone). At least I found ones that were still in tact, and the Moon Glow was the last one on the shelf.
2 CVS trips for their famous 75% off sale. The stores used their Courtesy card for my purchases, so I can't say whether they could issue a card for Canadians.
At the first CVS:
- L'Oreal Infallible Anti-imperfection concealer in Medium, $2.75
- L'Oreal HIP Color Rich Cream Crayon in Authentic, $2.49
- Sally Hansen Natural Beauty Color Comfort Lip color in Rose Bloom, $2.49; Natural Shine Lip gloss in Juicy Cherry, $1.99 and Ultra Soothing Lip tint in Guava, $1.99
- Sally Hansen Diamond Strength polish in Sunrise, Sunset, $1.25.
I didn't have luck finding SH lip products at Dollarama, so I figured I would get them on sale in the US. Dollarama price (CAD2) is certainly still better.
I found some Rimmel and Milani at the second CVS:
- Milani Buzz Worthy Lip gloss in Bee-utiful and Bee Bold, $1.75 each
- Rimmel Lasting Finish lipstick in Paradise and Crush, $1.32.
A few slots on the shelves with the 75% stickers - the foundations and mascara, I think - were already empty when I got there, so I did miss a few things :) I love these brands, so the haul could be a lot bigger if they had more in stocks.
At Walgreens, I only got nail polish, as there were some sales on them.
- Sinful Colors nail polish in Mint Apple, Green Ocean and Soul Mate, $.99 (reg. $1.99).
- Wet 'n Wild nail polish in Casting Call and Night Prowl, reg. $.99 with BOGO 1/2.
The sale on Sinful Colors were only applicable at certain stores, not nation-wide, which was never heard of at Walgreens, lol. Wasn't I lucky to experience it first hand?
That's all I got from the drugstores. I didn't do too badly, did I? :) No true BOGO deals at the time, except for Cover Girl eye products, so I was a little sad, lol. I used some online coupons for the items I got, love US coupon sites.
A while ago, I mentioned my dream of WetnWild Craze collection. I knew nothing about it except for the promotional picture on the website but loved it already. 
The colours were so summer-y and the bottles were cute, with pattern on the caps, very different. Also, I like the brand for its reasonable price and good quality. The release date is around July/ August, and I was constantly stalking twitter to see if anyone spots it in store yet. And Scrangie did, more than a week ago. It is not helping that her review on the polish was very positive :-) She even thought they were better than some of the high end $20-something polish brands. Imagine that! Read more about how good they are from the link above. Anyone that loves colours and nail polish would be itching to grab a few bottles, I guarantee you that.
This post is mainly to let you all know about this obsession of mine, lol, and it'd be lovely to hear from any of you who have posessed these babies. Just wish the collection would come to Canada soon (if WetnWild releases it in Canada at all - I'm not sure). Or the bf will have to haul them for me when he's in the States. I normally prefer doing beauty shopping by myself, but in circumstances like this, he'll have to do it :-) He did it once before when I went crazy and wanted some makeup from the US. Wanna see what I made him buy?
I checked out sales at both Walgreens and Ulta, picked out the BOGO deals I wanted and gave him a list. He brought back:
- Ulta Gift of Colour Blockbuster (the silver box with red bow at the bottom)
- HIP shadows (Guilded, Gun Metal, Playful, Saucy, Shady, Lively) - I think he got 1 colour wrong
- Jane Blusing Cheeks Blushes, Shimmering Bronzer, Liquid Lip Color, "Be Pure" Mineral Lip Balm, "Be Pure" Mineral Gel Eyeliner and Eye Zing Mix & Match Eye Shadow palettes
- NYC Sparkle Eye Dusts
- Sally Hansen Lip Inflation Lip Gloss and Diamond Lip Treatment
- EcoTools Bamboo 5-piece brush set
- Almay Moisturizing Eye Makeup Remover
- Revlon Illuminance Creme Shadows
You can tell with a haul like that, I was happy as a clam :-) Love him!
Sorry, I got a little side-tracked there. Didn't mean to brag or anything, just to make a point that there are a lot of makeup products we don't have in Canada, or if we do, they are more expensive and harly go on sale BOGO - except a few crazy sale at Shoppers that I blogged about. So you can understand why it's very easy to go overboard when I have a chance.
Hope you have a good weekend so far. It was sunny out yesterday, rained on and off today, but warm. I won't complain, as we only have about 3 months of warm weather, and the winter is always too quick take over for the rest of the year. Watch out for my shopping post tomorrow, I have some surprise finds!