A Beauty Haul from Paris

I’ve been in Paris this last week. It was everything everyone promised: beautiful, boogie, bountiful. I binged on baguettes. I bought a beret. And brought myself to the brink of bankruptcy.

Fragrances

Perfume capital of the world, I knew I was bound to do some wallet damage on perfumes. And I regret nothing. My first shopping stop was the Guerlain store in the Champs-Elysee, and trust me, that’s a luxury experience to be had – they even have the security guy at the door to intimidate us poor people – but I made him open it for me anyway. I’ll write a post reporting my experience and showing you all of the gorgeous photos we took.

I talked a bit with the saleslady who was epically overcoming her difficulty with the English language as we were going through the store. I tried a lot of different fragrances, and mentioned I enjoyed powdery scents, and all of a sudden she hands me a sample of something wonderful but oddly familiar. I knew what it was. “L’Instant Magic”, she says.

Honestly, I should have kicked myself for not asking for it upfront. L’Instant Magic was my favourite Guerlain scent, and the one I got more compliments on. It stopped being sold in Portugal and, apparently, the world, because she told me it was a Paris exclusive. Those damn nice smelling Parisians, keeping the good stuff for themselves.

“How about something for the husband?” Sure, as long as I love it too. My husband was more inclined to some other scent, but Santal Royal was my favourite. So Santal Royal it was. I told him not to worry, if he ended up not liking it, I would wear it. It’s all about thinking of others during Christmas, right? A little visit to the upstairs, a little more of fragrance testing, she includes a lot of samples in our bag, and I left Guerlain feeling good and smelling better.

Keeping with the fragrances theme, there was something magical about starting and ending the trip with perfumes. The last shop we visited before returning to Portugal was Buly 1803. Again, I’ll have a dedicated post to that visit altogether, but let me tell you, it’s an experience. If you love fragrance, history, or antiques, do not leave Paris without going there.

I fell in love with too fragrances: Forêt de Komi, and La Vénus de Milo, that’s actually an edition made in collaboration with the Louvre. The lady there strongly advised me not to buy the fragrances before testing them for a few hours. Problem with that, it was 15 min before closing time and we would be flying back the next day. She convinced me that I could purchase it online that they’ll ship it here, but I still didn’t want to leave empty handed. I was committed to becoming broke in Paris, damn it! I settled on a body oil in each of the scents and a soap with the Venús de Milo scent as well.

Makeup

Of course. One can leave without seeing the Eiffel Tower, but not without new makeup. Not exclusive to Paris, but not available in Portugal either, I took advantage of the opportunity to purchase makeup from Gucci and Hermes at the Galeries Lafayette. They also had a counter for the newly launched Valentino beauty line, but I don’t know enough about them yet so I didn’t get anything. From Gucci, I got a sheer and a satin lipstick, with no deeper criteria than I loved the packaging and wanted one of each. The sheer lipstick is in the shade Katrin Sand, and the satin is in Constance Vermillon. I also got the bronzer, in the 01 shade (02 would be my preference, but they didn’t have it in stock).

From Hermes, I decided to get a blush, and their somewhat recently launched highlighter. The blush shade I chose was 23 Rose Blush, which is neither rose nor blush – it was actually one of the more obvious corals of the line. The highlighter only comes in one shade, 01 Permabrass, and it’s as obnoxious of a gold as any highlighter priced this high should be.

Next stop for me: finding some Ladurée makeup. Ladurée is a famous Parisian macaron shop that a few years ago launched a makeup line. I had a sneaking suspicion that line was discontinued, at least in Paris, but since we were there anyway I asked the hostess of the Ladurée at 16 rue Royale if they still had it. She told me she also suspected it was discontinued, but if it still exists, it would be at the Nocibé chain of beauty stores, because they did not sell it at their boutiques. So we went in search of a Nocibé, and to our dismay, the suspicion was true. I walked around the store a bit before giving up and to my surprise, I found something that’s also not available in Portugal: Kylie Jenner’s cosmetics. And what’s more shocking, something that I think is not supposed to be for sale, at least in the US – her unreleased holiday palette. I got it (plus her best selling blush, “Winter Kissed”) and I’ll make a review and talk about the controversy later on.

Last but not least, I didn’t want to leave Paris without having something from Makeup Atelier. This brand, raved by Wayne Goss and made for professionals, doesn’t have a wide distribution network, so getting their products is not an easy task. I stopped by their shop and got an eyeshadow palette in the shade T29 Printemps, a concealer palette for yellow skin, and a cream eyeshadow in the shade Violine Brown, as you can see in the blurry photo below.

I intend to review everything. Might take me a while, specially because my posting pipeline is packed for the next few days – I’m preparing something leading up to Christmas… Let’s hope you like it.

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5 Comments

    1. I almost didn’t by accident! What if she never gave me that one to try?? Glad I managed to get it. I’ll have a review on the Gucci lipsticks, but spoiler alert, the satin formula is better 🙂 thank you for commenting!

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