Sephora is one of the shops that I frequented before beauty blogging was invented. I lived in Barcelona for a couple of years in the very early noughties and I would literally spend hours every week in that shop. Fast forward fourteen years and Sephora isn’t in the UK (although they now ship to us) but every time I travel anywhere with a Sephora, I spend hours there. In January when I was in Istanbul I made sure that I went to visit the store.
I have to say that I was a little disappointed, for two reasons. Firstly, apart from the Sephora range itself, all the other brands in the store were readily available in London. They had Too Faced (Boots) Make up Forever, (Guru Make Up Emporium) NARS,Chanel, Sisley, Guerlain, Givenchy, Lancôme, Estee Lauder (department stores and some Boots) as well as GlamGlow (Space NK) Eurobian (Cult Beauty and Selfridges)
Secondly, the testers were a mess. Pencils were not sharp, lipsticks were empty and eyeshadows were messy. It was not the beauty haven that I remembered. That said, I was at the Istikal Cadesi store. Which is on the main shopping/tourist track. If you find yourself in one of the other stores in Istanbul, (Nisantisi or Istinye Park) you will have a better experience and the shop assistants wont pounce on you the minute you walk into the store. Anyway, on to the haul. As I said, Sephora was the only brand that I could not access in the UK so I picked up some items.
I had the original Naked Palette and loved it but after three years, it was time to replace it so I picked up the Sephora It Palette (Nude) which has two eyeliners an eye base and two highlighter shades and seven eyeshadows. It comes with a dark brown eyeliner which is pretty soft and quite tacky so it is a great as a based for the eyeshadows. It also comes with a double ended brush which can be used to pack on the shadow and the other end to line the eyes. I found that I only used half the colours in the Naked palette so I wanted something with fewer colours and this fits the bill.
You can never have too many black eyeliners and I loved my Trish McEvoy Intense Gel Liner which I reviewed here so I am going to compare it to the Sephora Waterproof version which also has shimmer in it. I also picked up an olive one – just because.
I also picked up some Sephora lipstains – Endless Purple and Dark Berry which I loved and have reviewed here.
To celebrate Easter, reaching one thousand twitter followers and to say thank you, thank you, thank you to everyone who continues to read and support PatentPurpleLife I am running a giveaway – Hurrah!
You could win a Sephora It Palette in the Smoky version which is a collection of shimmer, glitter and deep colours in gorgeous silvers purples and blues AND a cream lip stain in Strawberry Kissed which is a bright pinky red in a matte finish.
This giveaway is open internationally. You need to be 18 or over to enter. It will close on midnight on Saturday April 12th. To enter follow me on Instagram / Twitter/ BlogLovin using the rafflecopter widget below.
Good Luck
Terms and Conditions
-The giveaway will be open until 11:59PM (GMT) on Saturday 12th April, 2014.
-The winner will be announced on April 14th, 2014 via Twitter. I will email the winner to notify them and to get their shipping information.
– If the winner does not contact me within 48 hours of being notified another winner will be chosen.
-Entrants must be 18 years old.
-Giveaway is open internationally .