Beauty chat - freebies/gifts with purchase/offers THREAD SEVENTEEN

[OvaHere]

Sorry everyone! I didn't realise how near the end of the old thread we were.

What on earth have you all done with yourselves for the last few hours? 😂

As always everyone welcome to join in and hopefully this is the thread we see the first 'big' BAC reveal. 😍

Loose is better in my opinion and blends better. LF had them at 40% off not sure if they are still on offer.

Well, I have been to the Harrods Beach club - it was underwhelming!

My slot was 10am so all the shops were shut. The pop up was in the middle of the shopping centre not in H beauty.

I checked in and got given a warm can of some fruit drink, (no iced hot chocolate in sight!)

Once inside it was tiny: Three booths on either side with a handful of products to look at.

There were:

No games/prizes/spin to win opportunities

No opportunities to try products other than the usual swatching on the back of the hands

No masterclasses in evidence, (I think these were taking place in H Beauty but there weren’t any today according to the sign outside.)

No free samples

I got all my stamps within a few minutes and put a few items on my wishlist.

The girl in the CT booth was very pleasant, as were the Kerastase staff. The rest looked bored.

To buy things you had to trot back to H Beauty, (once it opened at 11am).

In order to get samples, the bag charm and the GWP you could only buy from the sponsoring brands - so SDJ, Kerastase, etc. which was disappointing.

I then proceeded to spend ages in H Beauty deciding whether to:

a) buy nothing
b) buy one item to get a sample
c) spend £50 so I could get in touch with my inner child and make a bag charm
d) spend £100 on stuff I could get cheaper elsewhere on order to get the GWP and bag charm

Which option did I go for?

Free delivery ended on Friday, unfortunately - talking of Elf though I have now tried their Main Stain Lip Marker and have mixed feelings. I got the Rose Macaron colour and found it too dark, I really wanted more of a mlbb and they don’t have one currently. It works well as a liner using the thin edge but actually filling my lips in was harder, kind of like a marker that’s running out of ink. However! Once you have persevered that stain is absolutely not moving all day (which kind of sucks if you’ve decided you don’t like the colour) so for longevity I’d give it 10 out of 10. You do need to use a balm or gloss or oil on top or it looks weirdly flat but if you want a colour you can put on in the morning and forget about it all day, this is your puppy.

@IlovePond thats disappointing

I’m going A

Can you only get the GWP with certain brand purchase or was that to get the extra samples?

I have the lilac green one and it blends imperceptibly which is another reason to vote for loose as you don't want a green smudge on your face. I was scared of it at first tbh and would have preferred more neutral colours like the paler palette but that one works with my ( winter) skin, I move to the shade up once I have a bit of a tan.

Stocked up on both recently at LF

Gotta be D 🤩

Edited to add
What a letdown! 😢♥️

Started using this morning, the Emma Lewisham Spf mineral cream from the recent Liberty kit. Not sure what I think of this at all. It's pinky beige and feels a bit greasy. I was expecting a day cream but it feels more like primer.

My face is now quite glowy so it looks nice but unsure of the texture and the scent. I've opened it now so I'll persevere but I can see me opening a normal day cream alongside it.

Im going D.

I booked for a couple of weeks' time, but I don't think I'll bother going, to be honest. I would have bought a top-up of the Kerastase shampoo and conditioner, but I got it from LF cheaper with a discount code anyway🤷‍♀️

Another vote for D @IlovePond

I'm also saying (I'm hoping for) D @IlovePond Hopefully they'll make you feel like you've had a successful day 🥰

I have tickets for the metrocentre on the 11th. I would've liked to have gone to the Dior masterclass but it's on at 2pm and my ticket is at 10am, I don't fancy think I need that long to spend £100 and get the goody bag 🤭

Well, I also went to the HBeauty Beach Club at 10am, so I was there at the same time @IlovePond 😂
I was a bit late so only got there at 10.15 but my satnav had already told me it didn't open till 11 so wasn't bothered. They were opening the store at 10.30 for browsing, and I poked my head through the half-opened shutter and they directed me down to the 'beach club'
Anyone want to guess if I went for A, B, C or D?

Hi @LightandBreezy - I wondered if you were there too!

I have just got home and, although the event itself was remarkably underwhelming I have to confess I went for…

Option D!

@LightandBreezy - I’m going to guess you went Option B

To answer the questions above:

You got the samples if you bought any items from the brands at the pop up.

I bought from CT, SDJ and Kerastase and got samples from all the highlighted brands. The sample bag was pretty much a GWP in itself.

Note: I have just realised I didn’t get anything from Kerastase in my sample bag, which is disappointing, but I did get two Memo sample perfumes. (I should have checked my bag before leaving the store!)

The GWP with a spend £100+ was only being given if you spent that much on the target brands.

However, different branches, different staff might have been more flexible on this.

I must say, given this event has been running for a few days, not all staff in HBeauty or at the ‘club’ seemed very clear about how it all worked.

Pictures to follow.

Here’s a picture of what I bought to qualify for the GWP. Of course, I didn’t NEED any of it, (although I have been wanting to try the Kerastase shampoo for a while).

Even with 10% off I could have bought these items cheaper elsewhere, but I had £5 in Harrods Rewards to use, which softened the blow slightly, plus the GWP, charm and the sample bag are pretty good.

Here’s the sample bag/GWP, (minus the missing Kerastase).

I have made it a sensitive image in case people going to the event don’t want spoilers.

The Beach club was as described - underwhelming. I wasn't even offered a can of the warm pop. You had to buy one thing from the featured brands to get the first lot of samples, and I immediately fell in love with a Charlotte tilbury unreal blush stick, and decided I wanted the Kerastase Genesis serum (anti-shedding serum) as I was playing with my hair whilst chatting to the nice staff there and strands and strands were coming out which was actually a bit gross 😬 I've got fine hair but a lot of it, and I'd like it to stay that way. So I thought I was doing well, over £80 of stuff on my buy list, and headed over to the actual store with my passport thing. Even better when I picked up the blush from the CT counter I saw a really nice tinted lip balm, a bit like black honey but better. So I thought I'd think about it whilst picking up the Kerastase. And that's when it started to go wrong... I couldn't find any on the shelves, so asked the nearest assistant - she said she'd sold the last bottle yesterday. She kindly went and looked in the stockroom, nope nothing there. I asked if I could order via store - no, not possible. Oh dear. I had been happy to find things I wanted as I don't need anything really atm. So I went back to CT, bit deflated and decided to get the balm anyway as it was a really good colour for me. THE BLOODY BALM WAS OUT OF STOCK TOO 😤 It was clearly not meant to be.

Oh no @LightandBreezy - that’s pretty bad. I thought the whole thing wasn’t well-organised - you’d think that if you were promoting specific brands over a weekend you would have industrial quantities of EVERYTHING in stock 🙈

Here’s the bag of samples, (I am annoyed about the lack of Kerastase!)

So after that I moped around the store for a bit, cursing Harrods and then of course somehow walked out with option D anyway 😂😂😂

Here’s the GWP if, like me, you get sucked into spending £100+ 🙈

@IlovePond your samples bag is the same as mine, there was no Kerastase in it. The only difference is I got a different sample perfume from a certain brand
edited because it was a spoiler

Finally, here’s the bag and the charm I made.

I must admit, the best part of the day was getting in touch with my inner ten year old and making the charm!

That’s interesting @LightandBreezy - there was no Kerastase in the big GWP either, which makes me think its omission was deliberate.

I wish they had made it clearer that you got the sample bag if you just bought one item. There is the - admittedly outside - chance that I would just have stuck with a £50 spend if I had known!

Was I right for you? Option B?

Re: Kerastase serum - I found this good at reducing hair fall. It worked best for me if I put it on damp hair.

Here's my freebie haul - all in one picture. Bag charm at front. Totally agree bag charm was the best bit, although Bag charms aren't my thing it was soothing to make and fun.