Best Things in Beauty : London Shopping Trip -

Earlier in June, I took a quick weekend trip to London. The timing was pretty fortuitous as the summer sales had just started with lots of good bargains to be had. & Other Stories is a new fashion label by H&M that just opened up on Regent Street. Decidedly more upscale with a classier, Zara-like vibe, it has its own beauty line encompassing both skincare and makeup.

I picked up four of the Eye Colours. Made in Italy, these paraben-free eyeshadows were pretty affordable at just £7 each for 2.8g, with a shelf life of 36 months. The clear plastic packaging is reminiscent of Shu Uemura's earlier cases, with the shade name printed on the front. The names are pretty quirky too. Below is Sarsenet Petrol.

Moreen Blue.

Sarsenet Petrol and Loden Green.

From Pixi in Carnaby Street, I got the Eye Glow Cube in Lucent Lid Light (£18), which contains 16 satin eyeshadows, two eyebase powders and two double-ended sponge applicators. After wearing these over the past two days, I was impressed by the silky textures, which have a soft pearl glimmer instead of flashy metallic shimmer and zero glitter.

The shades are also well-coordinated and easy to wear for daytime.

From RMK in Selfridges, I picked up two of the Ingenious W Powder Eyes and Sheer Powder Cheeks EX05 Orange Gold from the new summer collection.

Tempted by the nice gift with purchase of over £100, I also selected the Face Powder Brush. At £48, this was less than one-third the price of the outrageously expensive Suqqu face brush (£168) and rivals the latter in softness. There are reviews on Sweet Makeup Temptations, Delicate Hummingbird, The Non Blonde and Messy Wands.

This was the GWP.

Sleek just released their i-Candy collection for summer. I picked up only the i-Divine palette, plus the Lagoon palette from Ebay that was earlier released in April as part of the Aqua collection. I haven't tried these out yet.

Dainty Doll, started by Nicole Roberts of Girls Aloud for ladies with extremely fair skintones, seems to have quietly met its demise. Earlier this year, it was pulled from Boots and tons of stock ended up on discount websites like Fragrance Direct. I snagged these blushes off Ebay for just £3 each, down from the original retail price of £13.50. There's a documentary on Youtube on the creation of the brand that's quite interesting.

A tissue case and pouch custom-made with Japan-exclusive Hello Kitty Liberty prints by the wonderful Fushigi Shop. You can view the full fourth seasonal collection of Hello Kitty Liberty (Japan) prints on Liberty Japan. As adorable as these are, they are also incredibly expensive at 3150yen per meter.

The July issues of UK magazines came packed with generous beauty freebies, so I hauled an armload. To save on luggage space, I finished reading most of these over the weekend and junked them. I find most magazines these days to be rather vapid, so there was no point hanging on to them anyway.

This ModelCo Fibre LashXtend mascara was just alright and not quite worth the retail price of £16 as it takes quite a few strokes to build up the length. It's not as chock-full of fibres as Majolica's mascaras so it did not irritate my eyes.