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

[OvaHere]

New thread. Welcome oldies and newbies.

I'm expecting this thread to be busy as we head towards both advents and autumn releases.

There's a dedicated advent thread for advent calendars here to keep up to date with reveals, waitlists etc.
www.mumsnet.com/talk/style_and_beauty/5549187-beauty-fragrance-advent-calendars-infochat-2026-spoilers?page=32&reply=153745800

I’m not happy @Thelifeofawife - I remember getting the box and then I cancelled my subscription. (GB had set it up in error - it was only supposed to be a one month purchase, but they put me on the 12 month plan and it was a nightmare getting out of it!)

I know Miss Boux did an expose of Next beauty boxes a while ago - finding out via CheckFresh that the whole box was years out of date.

I checked as many of my products as I could for dates a little while ago, but this must have slipped through the net!

I’ve not had any adverse reactions and it looks fine, but obviously it’s in the bin now!

I’m surprised they can get away with it @Thelifeofawife - I was shocked by Next.

Speaking of boxes: How easy is it for me to cancel BD and then rejoin in a year’s time and be reunited with my money?

I have so much stuff to get through, that even if I wanted the Liberty calendar, (and it has grown on me a bit), I probably shouldn’t get it.

However, I don’t want to lose my current balance through a Liberty admin error!

I think there's a time limit on spending the vouchers whether you cancel or not. I think it might be slightly longer for BD vouchers than the reward vouchers but you'd have to look into the T&Cs. Personally, if I was going to cancel I'd spend the vouchers on something first.

I cancelled BD after the April box, with £120 in vouchers on my account. I then rejoined with a 3 months for £20 BD offer.

When I rejoined my balance only showed £20. A quick call to Liberty CS sorted it out. They got the tech team to align my new BD membership with my previous one so it now shows £140 in vouchers.

Elemis once gave me a sample of cleanser that over 3 years old. I thought that was a bit rank 🤣

Need to think what to do with mine as have over £200 and not enthused with the advent.

Re Liberty points and vouchers:

"Loyalty Points that haven’t been turned into a Loyalty Voucher will expire and be taken off your balance after 12 months of not using your account."

"Loyalty vouchers remain valid for a period of 12 months from the date of issuance."

Hopefully a new edit will come out soon that you like x

Thanks @keepincool and @OvaHere - I have nearly £200 in BD so really don’t want to lose it. However, I don’t want to waste the money on an a/c that I am indifferent about.

There’s not really anything else in Liberty I would buy - I am not the sort of person who could bring herself to drop £200 on a perfume! Fabric holds zero interest for me and Liberty just don’t sell any clothes/bags/shoes that I am interested in, (not that I need any of those, either!) I wobbled on the fragrance edit, but the uncertainty put me off.

As far as I can see, my options are as follows:

Keep BD going until next year in the - probably - vain hope that 2027’s calendar is better for me. This is probably throwing good money after bad, tbh.

OR:

Suck it up on the calendar - enjoy the items I do like, (about 2/3s of it, tbf), and try to sell the rest for peanuts. Annoying, as it means I really can’t have another calendar for 2026 - not just because of the money, but because of the existing HORDE/HOARD 🙀

OR:

Hold off from doing anything until the Liberty summer GWP appears, to see if that makes me want to buy anything, (but again, what???)

Joining BD was an expensive mistake, basically, but not the end of the world!

Thanks @keepincool

This is completely a problem of my own making. I will wait until the summer GWP and then either buy something then, or just suck it up and get the calendar!

I have decided that I really do need to curtail my purchase of beauty items - I have a ludicrous amount already.

That’s another reason I am annoyed with myself - I was definitely leaning towards ‘just’ having my DIY calendars this year.

(Although, tbf, I am one concealer down this morning 😹)

I was convinced I'd ordered the Alpha H from M&S yesterday but it seems not. It's gone back to normal price today (less 50%). Ho hum.

That’s disappointing @Cyclingmummy1

Escentual have 25% off most things, more off lipsticks and a free mini (red) lipstick if you spend £40 on lips.

One of the products on offer I bought a few months ago and it's weirdly great - the Guerlain kiss kiss lip primer. I thought it would be just another lip balm but it's really dry. But when I use it, whatever lipstick I use over it stays on all day. I really like using it

https://escentual.com/products/guerlain-kisskiss-liplift-1-85g

Nice looking Clinique GWP on John Lewis today (£60 spend)

ETA ooh, MN automatically made that a link!

ETA2 and then the link disappeared when I edited!

It's still an absolute bargain tbf, it was only £5.50 cheaper yesterday.

@IlovePond Anything you could get from Liberty for someone as a Christmas gift? Or makeup? They sell Hourglass and their concealer is my holy grail.

I'd ordered 2 @owlpassport 😆

CB have launched their waitlist and reveal the BAC design. I posted screenshots on the advent thread.

@JoRaRaRaor anyone else, has anyone seen a UK date for the Dior cushion cases? I have seen a US date of the 7th but nothing for the UK yet.

Dior UK has a countdown on, it's currently saying 7 days 3 hours. So that's the early hours of next Thursday? I think. I'll see you then 🤣 They're member only.

Thanks very much! For some unknown reason I don’t seem to have a countdown, unfortunately (or fortunately) due to the amount I have spent with them I am platinum member although can’t see me spending as much over the next 12 months.

Sadly @owlpassport Liberty don’t sell the kinds of things DS1,2 and DH are interested in having. (Liberty are really missing a trick by not selling Magic the Gathering cards, expensive Lego and terrible T-shirts with husky pictures on the front - all things that go down well come Xmas at PondTowers!)

I do like HG makeup, (but am supposed to be reducing the stash!) It’s worth considering, though - so thanks for the thought. I do also like a couple of the perfumes Liberty sell, but they are SO expensive 🙀

I have thought about waiting for the Xmas sale and seeing if there is something vaguely useful/appealing available then. I did like the look of the very expensive jewellery a/c they did one year and was tempted to buy it in the sale, (before common sense prevailed!) I don’t think they did one last year.

I dislike the physical shop intensely, but might have an exploratory visit once the a/c is available in store. That way I can combine looking at the calendar in irl, with visiting various floors to see if there is anything else I might actually need/make use of.

I would have bought the current perfume edit if I could have definitely got my mitts on Adelphi Sun. I will watch out for future edits, though, as I did buy the sleep edit and liked it a lot.

Oh that's strange. The countdown comes up on this page for me https://www.dior.com/en_gb/beauty/teasing-dior-forever-inter.html

If you scroll across where the veil primer is, the cushion cases are there, you can click on it and see the others 🙂

I'm a gold member atm, I could potentially go platinum, I'm loving so much from them this year 🙈 If I'm platinum by my birthday in Jan, will they send me a gift?

I decided to try the Sweed pro lift mascara today, given I acquired so many from edits recently (I’ve sold some already). I wasn’t keen on the cloud mascara that came in my BAC (I think it was SNK), but decided to give it a chance before offloading my remaining stash.
Anyway, it’s a no from me. I did not like the brush at all (but I do go over all mascara with the Glossier mascara brush so this massively helped). It did make my lashes look longer and more defined which was a big plus for me, but I’ve noticed a very mild irritation throughout the day (not enough to wash it off, but enough to put me off it). The same thing happened with the cloud mascara as well iirc.
I’ve also had a mild rub off, which genuinely was mild, but I’ve been working from home today so it was hardly put through its paces.
I knew I shouldn’t have bothered with it, now I’ve just wasted it

I have been using a mini Lancôme mascara the past few days from another edit (no idea which one) and I’m really liking that

Yes you will get the platinum birthday gift, a gift for reaching platinum and then there is a seasonal gift as well.