Beauty Haul: L’Oreal Warehouse Sale Fall 2013

Let the conspicuous consumption begin! I recently had the chance to check out the L’Oreal Warehouse 
Sale thanks to a dear colleague who had a buttload of passes. If you’re unfamiliar with this sale they’re held bi-annually and by invitation only. Many of the brands under the gargantuan L’Oreal umbrella are available, including Lancome, Vichy, La Roche-Posay, Biotherm, Redken, Matrix, Garnier, Maybelline, Giorgio Armani, Ralph Lauren, Cacharel, Yves Saint-Laurent  and of course L’Oreal Paris and L'Oreal Professionnel.

I didn’t take any photos at the sale because a) I needed my hands free for the grabby grabby and b) even on a Wednesday night it was crazy in there, I can’t imagine the chaos on a weekend. I did set a budget for myself and though I wasn’t sure what to expect I made a list of items to keep an eye out for, most of which I didn’t find. So here’s what I picked up:

Skincare: I was thrilled to see a small selection of Kiehl’s products were available. I found a gift set (the Kenny Scharf Holiday 2012 collection) priced at 46.75$ chock full of products I’ve already tried and loved. I know that in store 100% of the proceeds from the Kenny Scharf products went to various children’s charities. I would like to think that the same holds true for those sold at the warehouse sale but not even I’m that much of an idealist. I’m currently pretty well stocked in skincare so I bypassed the La Roche-Posay, Vichy and Biotherm.

Hair: I needed shampoo, conditioner and a hair mask. Sadly there was no Kerastase in sight. There were Redken products but none from the Color Extend line which is what I’ve been using so I ended up getting a couple of regular L’Oreal shampoos and conditioners. At 2.50$/bottle they were hard to pass up. There was a variety of L’Oreal Professional products available (including Mythic Oil) but hey, I had a budget! For the hair mask I just finished the Living Proof restore mask that I’d gotten as part of a 500 points perk at Sephora and I love it but it’s regularly priced at 50$ and so at Sephora it remains. I ended up getting a Matrix Biolage mask (or "conditioning balm", if you prefer) that I’ve heard good things about for 18$.

Make-Up: When I saw the brand list on the invitation I had my fingers crossed for Armani and YSL cosmetics but none were to be found. If there were any they probably flew off the shelves during the employee pre-sale. I’d also been hoping for a Lancome mascara but the closest thing I found was the brow shaper. For those interested in Lancome I saw foundation (ex. Teint Idole was priced at just under 15$), bronzers, quads and glosses, and there were testers out. I couldn’t spot the Touche Eclat dupes by L’Oreal and Maybelline through the hordes of shoppers so all I picked up in terms of drugstore make-up was a L’Oreal Infallible eyeshadow in Bronzed Taupe (4.50$)

Nails: There were tons of Essie nail polishes priced at 4.75$ with a buy 5 get 1 free deal so I picked up a base coat, a top coat, a cuticle cream, a metallic polish (L'il Boa Peep) and two reds since I don’t actually have any red polish. Jag-u-are is a sexy-glossy-race-car-meets-Kitchenaid-mixer-of-my-dreams red and Leading Lady is a gorgeous red glitter, it looks like Christmas in a bottle!

There were a variety of fragrances and I was very tempted to pick up a bottle of Stella McCartney (30$ for the mini EDP) but I have more than enough perfumes at the moment.

My budget was 125$ and my total was 118.42$ with tax. And a free Skinny Cow bar.

Have any of you been to this type of warehouse sale before? Haul-a back! (Terrible. I’m so sorry.)

Have a happy day!xx