I’m back in China + Heathrow T3 Duty Free Haul!

I’m finally back in China after 3 short months in England. I’ll be in China for 4 months, until August, and then one month in Vancouver and then back in Kingston for my last year of university. Before we proceed, I’d like to say welcome to my new followers!! I’ve gained quite a few in the past few weeks and I feel so honoured that you want to read about my life and other stuff I want to say, thank you so much! I don’t know all of you yet, so please come say hi if you get a chance to =)

Now, here are some random pictures of the airport and parts of duty free…

This is actually T5, which is the British Airways hub. T3 is really ugly, so no point in taking pictures of that.

Yes, there were Dior and Chanel stores at Duty Free. Apparently T5 is even bigger so I’m sure there are more brands. There were also Harrods, Bvlgari (as you can see in the reflection), Gucci, Burberry, Tiffany & Co, Cartier and more… Too bad my credit cards were not in good shape by the time, so I didn’t get anything…

Now on to my haul! I didn’t buy *that much*, but I still spent quite a bit of money. It was a really stressful day for me as all of my suitcases were completely overweight, I ended up carrying like 10 kg on my back in a backpack, which was not good for my body nor brain. I didn’t shop that much, just went to the places where I know I would end up with something, like Chanel.

The Chanel counter there had the Asia-exclusive White Essential collection, including everything from the skincare line, the makeup base and powder foundation, both in 30. It also had the point makeup stuff that was just recently released, like the LE lip gloss, blush and eyeshadow. I didn’t get a picture of the display as my back was seriously killing me.

I ended up with… 4 brushes, 2 lip glosses and 1 lipstick.

The first thing is a Chanel kabuki brush. This is housed in a velvet pouch to protect the bristles of the brush. I actually dislike the pouch very much because it is velvet inside and out, so the fabric actually catches the hairs of the brush making it bend around when I need to take it out.

The hairs are all natural and very soft. It is not as dense as I would have liked it to be, but should still work well to blend and buff foundation, powder or blush.

Little details are also, of course, appreciated.

I got 2 lipglosses, one from YSL and one from Chanel. I had been looking for a milky, shimmery nude to layer over my nude lipsticks, so I got YSL Golden Gloss in #20, which is like like Gold Beige or something. I also got Chanel Aqualumiere in 68 Candy Glow to pair with the Chanel lipstick that I got.

The Chanel Rouge Coco lipstick in 13 Gardenia was my favourite purchase. When I went shopping with Jess in Vienna two weeks ago, we chose this lipstick for me together. 

Originally I was scared of the colour, thinking it would be too bright, but Jess convinced me otherwise. I am now absolutely in love with this colour, it is the perfect pink for me.

I also got 3 MAC brushes! They are cheaper at Duty Free, sometimes saving around 30%, so I got as many as I should need.

I ended up with the 130 brush for buffing foundation, 239 eye brush for all-over eye colour and 219 eye brush for when I want to apply colour on my lower lash line or to blend out harsh lines.

Here is a lip swatch of Chanel Rouge Coco in 13 Gardenia and Aqualumiere gloss in 68 Candy Glow. I really love this combination!

Oh and lets not forget the Duty Free that I bought on my Air China flight. Love flying Air China because the service is AWESOME, and because I need to transfer to a domestic flight within China after arriving in Beijing, that domestic flight is only $20CAD. They had some pretty good duty free selections as well, namely some whitening products for really good prices. I bought this Estee Lauder Cyber White Ex Extra Intensive UV Protector sunscreen with SPF 50 and PA+++, aka LOTS of protection. I’ll need it for my weeklong trip to Hainan later this month. I got this in a duo-package, it was $75 USD for the two which is actually a really good deal. I checked on Urcosme.com, which is like the makeupalley.com of the Chinese-reading world, and they list this as being $2000NT, or about $67USD/CAD each, so $75 for two is a good deal =)

Surprisingly, in the magazine that I bought upon arriving in Beijing there was a review/comparison chart of this sunscreen with a bunch of other high end sunscreens. I actually had to struggle to choose this one because Dior and Lancome both had sunscreens on sale at duty free too, for $40-45ish each (not in duo), but I settled on this one because the other ones were more expensive for less product (30mL only compared to this one at 50mL). I’m glad I did because this sunscreen received pretty good reviews!

That’s all for Duty Free. What did you buy this week?