Okay, I know, I know, I’ve been flaunting my makeup haul and pressies in your faces for the past couple of weeks, but this is something I got for my birthday, which I want to share with y’all.

I’ve been ooh-ing and aah-ing over Geekchic‘s Nars Habanera duo eyeshadow, and about a week before my birthday, she and another friend insisted that I get a Nars eyeshadow for my birthday. Totally their treat. Awww, this was the first time I’ve actually gotten makeup as a birthday present! Gotta love your girlfriends, huh? 😉

It’s not feasible to buy Nars makeup in Australia, because it’s way overpriced. A Nars duo eyeshadow costs USD32, but over here, its RRP is AUD74, which is absolutely ridiculous. Even if you were to get them on eBay Australia, or other Australian online stores, it’s most likely to cost over AUD50. This was when Kiss and Makeup New York came in.

Kiss and Makeup New York is, you guessed it, a US-based online store. I found out about this from Paris, who found the store for us looking for Nars makeup. So Geekchic transferred the money into my account, so that I could buy it from the store. Sweet! 🙂

I can’t recall the number of times I went to Mecca Cosmetica just to check out the colours which I wanted. They were so pretty, and I simply wanted them all! I had decided to get two eyeshadows, and it was hard work actually confirming my choice of colours. In the end, I chose Habanera and Brazil.

I decided to do a bit of research on Kiss and Makeup New York, did some Googling, and came back with a lot of mixed reviews on a Vogue Australia forum. Some had trouble with very late shipment of the items (some took over a month to arrive), damaged boxes due to bad packaging, bad customer service, etc. Yet there were others who encountered great service and got their items fairly quickly. Since the international shipping rate was a very low USD5.95, I decided to take a shot. I did email the store to request tightly bubble-wrapped packaging because I would not accept the item if it was broken due to poor packaging. I received a curt reply – “We have not had problems with our packaging. Thank you for your order”.

That got me pretty apprehensive about the store, but by that point, I have already placed an order for two Nars duo eyeshadow. I did get a USPS tracking number for the items the next day, which meant that the item was already sent. To my utter delight, the items arrived exactly a week later! The eyeshadows were not individually bubble-wrapped as I’d hoped, but the padded envelope was small enough to keep the items pretty tight together. The powders for the Brazil got a bit loose, but the pan was overall intact.

Okay, now that I’ve gotten my story out, on to the pictures.

I also received a free sample of Mario Badescu’s Ceramide Herbal Eye Cream. According to the store reviews, you get samples with every order. That’s pretty good, considering the low shipping fees as well.

So yeah, I’m very happy with the eyeshadows, and will be doing a proper review on them very soon.

Geekchic and SY, thanks very much for the lovely girly gift. I love it! 🙂