Beauty chat - freebies/gifts with purchase/offers THREAD TWENTY THREE

[OvaHere]

Welcome back all.

We rattled through the last thread and with Black Friday round the corner this one will go fast too. I hope we haven't all spent up on advents... 😂

Thank you as always to our regulars for you contributions and if you've been reading and thinking of joining come and say hello. 😊

I’ve had a few emails over the last few weeks saying one of your favourites (AC) is back in stock so I wonder if it’s been going out of stock and back in stock over the last few weeks. I might be cynical but maybe it’s a way for they to send out those auto generated emails.

edited to add: I’m a simple creature all they need to do for me to buy is to let the 20% off codes work on it.

This edition usually sells out fast. This year it has hung around a bit longer. The other edition is still available with the gwp

I’m not happy with cult beauty at the moment. Tried using my birthday £25 off £100 spend code, checked the list of excluded brands first then filled my basket. Got a message saying items in my basket cannot be used with the code. Back and forth with cult beauty who have now sent me a list of 1152 items that are excluded, many of which aren’t on the excluded brands list. What is the point?! Gave up and ordered from space nk to get the gwp

Just tell them that you’ve checked the exclusions and it’s still not working. I did this and I got put through to another person who asked for photo of my basket again. I responded telling them I had already provided all this and this isn’t feeling like a birthday treat and they apologised and sent me account credit so I could use it in anything.

edited to add that what was in my basket was on the second list of exclusions but tbh I’m not sure there is much that isn’t on there but I ignored this list and confirmed it wasn’t on the list of original inclusions.

seeing as October was meant to be a low / no buy month I'm inclined to agree 😂

It will look lovely. I've got a 3 wick fir tree (not my fave, but it was my mum's fave and DB bought it for me when she died) on the hearth next to the log burner. I also keep the Espa jars with lids when they are finished and use them as decoration 😆 No one knows they are empty. I have quite a few as SIL has an Espa salon.

Thanks @Beautyfox , spoken to 2 different people and just keep repeating myself, why do they make it so difficult? They state the exclusions are certain brands, new releases and other promotions, which my items weren’t. Will try 1 last message.

Thank you! I think it is the special edition that I prefer... dithering about getting one at all, as I have quite a stash of bits from edits etc that I have bought this year, so trying hard to remain strong! Only got FOMO once I realised it was now OOS!

Is anybody else suspicious of how the Fairy gets the Cult Beauty stock? The only way I can think of that they could be selling the GWP now, when it has just been released, for that price, is if it is stolen goods. Presumably an inside job somewhere in the CB distribution chain?

I'm sure they would have been sussed by now if they were stolen goods. It's not like they are all hush-hush about it. The Fairy has been discussed on the threads for months now, anyone from CB could pretend to be someone interested in purchasing and get their contact details.

Yes, a few of us are as it's been discussed before on here (or maybe the BAC threads). Most people were happy to turn a blind eye, but I wouldn't touch it.

Two different experiences as a shopping fiend today:

1. Ordered from Stylevana for the first time last Wednesday evening and my order arrived today, I’m really happy with it and surprised by the expediency.

2. I ordered twice from Sephora a week and a half ago. They delivered to a random house. I queried both orders. Customer service came back on one order, said the product was out of stock (spoiler alert: it’s not) and said they’d refund me for the product. The way it was worded suggests that I won’t be refunded for the delivery cost but I’m giving them the benefit of the doubt until I get the refund. Meanwhile, they replied to my query on my other order with the order number from the first order and said it was resolved. I’ve had to raise a new ticket. I am finding this process tiring!

I think the Fairy is very suspicious and no-one has offered a credible explanation of the source of these products. The fact that they are available at the same time as on CB suggests they are not legit. Whilst not wanting to lower the tone of these threads, I do have to say I find it odd that there is such massive outrage on the threads about the FAC scalpers, who, annoying as they are, are not actually doing anything illegal, whilst so many posters are happy to buy from a seemingly dodgy source without asking any questions. (This is a general observation about the threads, I don’t know whether any individuals have both expressed scalper outrage and bought from the Fairy so this may be different pp).

I’m not convinced that CB read these threads and so the Fairy must be legit or they would have taken action. Why on earth would CB read them?

I think the reason people react differently is that the Fairy is seen as a bit of a Robin Hood figure 😂 He's selling us things we want, often at bargain prices, whereas the Selfridges FAC resellers bought up all the calendars, leaving genuine customers unable to get them unless they paid massively inflated prices. One feels like he's helping us get a bargain; the other feels like they're taking advantage of us.

We don't know for certain where his stock comes from, and it could be completely legitimate, but I can understand why people question it. I bought from the Fairy when he first appeared, as it felt like a one-off. It was a few days after the GWP was released, so I wondered if there'd been an auction for excess stock or something. I've bought much less since, as it does feel a bit dodge, although in all honesty, I'll probably buy again because I can't resist a bargain! 🤭

Thank you to whoever recommended the Sarah Creal concealer, mine arrived today and is amazing! I also got the lip primer and tinted lip balm which are also lovely. Definitely recommend the brand. I'm also very happy with the SNK GWP and impressed that for once it's turned up next day as promised (although the order is missing one of my Touchland sanitisers, so they still can't manage a full order delivered in time)

I was given an explanation by one of the fairies and it broadly made sense to me. They also operate through a company registered on Companies House. I don’t personally think there’s anything suss about it.

@namechange0998776554799000 Mine SNK order hasnt arrived. Which im not suprised about. I dont think ill bother with the beauty pass next year😫

Regarding the fairy, this is my third time ordering from them; it is a bit suspicious, but I am sure they have a reasonable explanation? Maybe🙈 Im happy with the bargain though every now and then🤭

@user593 I would be very interested to know what the explanation was?

I'm also curious why the retailers are happy to have sale of products that are still on their website at full price. I'd understand if it was last season / damaged boxes or similar.

Companies house doesn't make anyone legit or not by the way, it takes minutes for anyone to set up a company. They've only brought in the need to provide ID this year which is quite mind blowing

I’m not convinced that CB read these threads and so the Fairy must be legit or they would have taken action. Why on earth would CB read them?

The CB marketing team will probably run internet searches each day for hits on the name. They will be aware of SM threads discussing their products. MN has millions of users, so it's not an insignificant little corner of the web.

@OvaHere I have the Sunday Riley CEO Afterglow on today without anything over it (staying firmly indoors!) and it's fine. Luckily we are going into winter so I can hopefully have enough non SPF days to use it up!!

I've no idea how the fairy and friend get the GWPs. I doubt its theft though as they would be the easiest criminals ever to find!

The amount of stuff that goes missing from a/cs, including CB, that gets mentioned on here, suggests to me that theft from these companies at warehouse/distribution stage is rife.

I also don’t think for one minute that CB are organised enough to read these threads, think, ‘who’s the fairy?’ and spring into action! (Pulling a code is, by comparison, very easy to do and takes moments of some IT person’s time once instructed.)

I was not at all satisfied with the Fairy’s explanation, (as reported on here some time ago), for how he gets hold of these goods.

I really wish that people who do want to engage with him would discuss it via PM rather than advertising for him on this thread, and drawing other people in.

I’m sorry to be so blunt, but I have been really unhappy about this for some time. It really bothers me.

It may be legitimate, but I doubt it very much. There are plenty of dodgy people registered with CH, (thinking of just about every builder I have ever employed 🙈), so that in itself means nothing - imo, anyway.

I completely agree @IlovePond . The sets appear as soon as they go live on cult beauty. The reason given that they are buying in bulk from cult beauty and then selling on the associated GWPs smells like bullshit to me. The logical answer is that they are skimming some off in the warehouse or similar. Let’s face it, how many times have people ordered things and then stock isn’t available to complete the order. The likelihood is that things are stolen in warehouses.

Based on what they said it sounds like what they’re doing is ‘Amazon arbitrage’ (there are lots of articles about it online - beauty products are popular for this). They can’t list the GWPs on Amazon so they need to offload them some other way.