Haul | How I Got Colour Pop To The UK!

Hello everyone! As I’ve mentioned before, exams had me taking advantages of offers online left, right and centre and lets just say that my makeup buying appetite has well and truly been fulfilled! (Although if the Kat Von D contour kit comes into stock before the end of May I may HAVE to place a Sephora haul, with it being my birthday month and all!). Anyway I’m sure you have all heard of the brand Colour Pop from your favourite YouTubers, a fun affordable brand that offers great quality eyeshadows, blushes and lipsticks. One of my favourites on YouTube is Kathleen Lights, she is so funny and I can happily sit through 20 minute videos without minding the length at all. She has collaborated with Colour Pop twice now and I was so impressed with the quality of the brand, well from what I could see, that I had to find a way to get my hands on it. As a firm boycotter of L’Oreal, Estee Lauder and Procter & Gamble many of the large brands in the makeup world, I no longer purchase. So when I hear about new brands which produce just as high quality cosmetics I am happy to go an extra step or pay a little more to get access to them.

Colour Pop do not currently ship to the UK, but I watch a lot of Shaaanxo’s videos and as she lives in New Zealand, she has the problem of companies not shipping there often. I learnt from her videos that she uses a courier service which gives her an address in the US, the makeup company send it there and then from that address the courier company send it to her home address – clever right! I should have probably done a bit more research and tried the company she uses, but instead I googled courier services from the US to UK as soon as I realised it was possible to send Colour Pop to the UK and the first sight that came up ‘Borderlinx’ was the one that I went with. When you sign up for the Colour Pop newsletter you are sent a money off code and if you spend over $30 you get free shipping. I had guessed I would be paying for customs anyway through the borderlinx site so I thought I may as well take advantage. The eyeshadows, lippie stix and lip liners cost $5 each which is £3.25 so very affordable. I also purchased one blusher which cost $8 = £5.20.

Cost of Shipping

I kind of had no idea what to expect in terms of the cost, there is an option where you can calculate an estimate of the shipping cost but you would have to know the weight of the package so it was pretty useless to me. I don’t know how much other companies or services that do this vary, however if you are thinking of using borderlinx you should know that they have a flat rate cost of $24 dollars if your package weighs 0.50kg and they increase it by $4 for every half KG (or less) after that. Lets break it down:

• – I spent $38 on the Colour Pop site buying 8 items (with one for free)
• – The shipping came up to $28 because my package weighed 0.83kg.
• – They also calculate and charge taxes onsite – $13.20 dollars
• – Leaving us with a grand total of so $41.20 for shipping alone! In pounds: £26.78

I was pretty shocked because it cost me more than the price of the order to get it here, BUT I wasn’t charged any custom taxes when it got here at the door, or asked to pay it at the post-office. At least when its all done and dusted you know there won’t be any horrible surprise payments. My order arrived in about 10 days, because from Colour Pop to the U.S address it took at least 5. Overall I’m happy with the service and being able to get orders from Colour Pop, plus the quality of the items I have tried have been awesome and well worth the money.

UPDATED: HOW I GOT COLOURPOP TO THE UK 2016 – CHEAPER METHOD!

I ordered 8 items in total, so if you add up the cost of the order and the shipping it works out to be £6.43 per item which is pretty good! If you purchase from UK sellers a lot of the time you’ll be paying double that amount…so if you want to pick up more than one thing, I definitely recommend purchasing from a courier service.

For the lippiestix I think that price is reasonable as it’s cheaper than most drugstore lipsticks and the quality is better than most, the matte formula is GORGEOUS! The eyeshadows upon first swatch also seem to be worth it and that price justifies it for me. Like I said I’d rather pay a little more for brands not affiliated with Israel than purchase from cheaper, easily available brands.

One thing to note also is that they estimated the goods to be worth over $100! This was very alarming, but easily fixed once I got in contact with the customer service team and send them the invoice from Colour Pop.

Would I use Borderlinx again? Probably not the next time and the reason is that there are so many of these companies available to choose from, when I next have a Colour Pop craving I’ll try to do a little more research and hopefully find one with cheaper shipping. I don’t think the cost is unreasonable and in total every item technically still cost me less than £7, but the fact of the matter is that the more you order the steeper the price gets thanks to the weight, so every saving helps!

The best thing about Borderlinx was by far paying taxes onsite! Exactly like ordering from Sephora, this meant that I wasn’t charged anything extra and paid for everything upfront – no nasty customs yay.

UPDATED: HOW I GOT COLOURPOP TO THE UK 2016 – CHEAPER METHOD!

On to the actual haul!

Finally on to the items I now have in my collection, very exciting stuff indeed. I decided to order three lippiestix  in neutral shades that I hoped I could use everyday.

I bought one blusher only because lets be honest, I do own enough for my two cheeks already ha, but I couldn’t resist no picking one up from the whole range! I bought the shade Between the sheets which is described as ‘a mid-tone beige pink in a matte finish’. They have swatched three different blushes on three arms to show how the colour would look against different skintones and I love how sophisticated this shade is on a medium/olive skin!

I then bought 4 eyeshadows (actually called super shock shadows) as I’ve heard nothing by good things! I will be doing in depth swatches for everything I have shown here in due course by the way, as soon as I am ready to review them all. The first shade I purchased is by far my favourite – Get lucky described as ‘ an intense ultra-metallic, liquid-like true gold’ and I totally agree, with one swatch left me amazed! I picked up Mooning – a rich bronze shade with hints of pearlized glitter. The next two I bought are matte shades: Shop – ‘a rusty coral’ which I have seen used in a tutorial and noted down straight away because it’s so unique and stunning! Finally To-A-T which is medium brown and basically the perfect crease shade!

They recommend applying Colour Pop shadows with the fingers and now I’ve take the photos I’m so excited to have a proper play with it all. With my order I got three cards with application tips on the back and with each lippie stix ingredients were written on a sheet of paper inside the box. From first impressions everything is well worth the price I paid to have them bought over here, with the unique formula of the shadows rivalling that of high-end. Longevity is yet to be known, but keep an eye out on The Blushing Giraffe for detailed reviews soon.

That is the end of my haul, I really really hope that some of you have found it helpful and if you were wanting to purchase some Colour Pop goodies, you can do so with an idea of what to expect in terms of shipping (yep it costs a TONNE, but it’s worth it to me).

UPDATED: HOW I GOT COLOURPOP TO THE UK 2016 – CHEAPER METHOD!