Illamasqua Counter Opening & Meadowhall Haul!

So, I was planning a post about the opening of the new Illamasqua counter at Meadowhall. Cosmetichameleon and I planned to meet up and get the train over to Meadowhall to have a look at this new counter. We were pretty excited and both ended up with a good list of things to look at.

We weren't expecting huge things but we figured there would be some hype about the opening and we were pretty excited on Saturday morning.

Once we got to Meadowhall (Zarah's first time!) we ran straight round to Debenhams to get to the counter before it got too busy. I think we spent less than 10 minutes there.

We were met with helpful staff, but the overall impression that they weren't quite ready for customers. Boxes were being unpacked and no one quite seemed to know where stock had been put. I wanted a foundation match and Zarah had a bunch of lipsticks and pencils she wanted to compare. I got the foundation match, but none of the other things I wanted were in stock and most of the pencils and lipsticks that Zarah wanted to look at weren't there. The new collection hadn't arrived at all, depsite there being plenty of promotional material about.

We were offered the chance to book a 15 minute make over but it wasn't exactly possible for us to go back.

I'm excited that there is an Illamasqua counter that's much closer to me but we were both left feeling a little deflated after visiting the counter. We were helped to the best of the ability of the staff but I got the feeling that another day of preperation might have been more helpful. We just felt that the opening was something of an afterthought. We'd seen so much hype over other Illamasqua openings that we thought this one might be the same. At the time, they were hyping the new fragrance launch so I suppose the focus was on that.

However, there's more to Meadowhall than one counter at Debenhams!


There's a good sized MAC counter at Debenhams so we decided to raid it before it got much busier.
-Illamasqua Skin Base Foundation "07" - the fact that I'm shade 07 should tell you something about the colour range!
-MAC Mineralize Skin Finish "Lightscapade" - I wasn't planning on buying this, but when I swatched I decided I had to have it.
-MAC Nail Polish "Rain of Flowers" - this was the main thing I planned on buying from MAC, it's so pretty.


I had a voucher code for Superdrug (fill in those receipt questionnaires!!) that gave me 25% off Superdrug exclusive brands and 10% of all other brands. It turns out I got 25% off everything but the Rimmel.
-Fashionista Baked Shadow "Globe" - interesting brand, this was the first time I came across it in store. This shadow is so pretty though!
-Rimmel Nail Polish "Camouflage Chic" - saw this in Tesco recently and decided to wait until I went to Meadowhall to get it. Lovely dingy khaki with a hidden shimmer.
-Rimmel Fix & Perfect Primer - had so many requests to review this and I forgot to buy this in Atlanta. It's just been released so I made sure to get one to try.
-Fashionista Gel Eyeliner "Style" - this is an interesting colour, sparkly blue-green.
-Accessorize Diamond Sparkle Lipgloss "Mysterious" - we got quite exited when we saw the Accessorize stand. I could have bought all the lipgloss shades but this one came home with me.
-Accessorize Shadow "Truffle" - this is a lovely shimmery cool-toned brown.


I had £40 on my Boots Advantage card to spend so I put it to good use. Zarah and I were more than a little excited to find Stila in Boots at Meadowhall!
-Too Faced Eye Shadow Collection - four eye shadow duos from their shadow kits.
-Stila Sparkle Waterproof Liner "Royal" - purple and sparkle, what's not to love?
-Too Faced Intense Eye Shadow "Poison Orchid" - I debated over this all week in Atlanta, decided to finally buy it.

So now I'm on a no-buy! You can read more about my reasons for this over at this post.