Sephora Hauls and Parcel Forwarding Comparisons

I came home from work today to find 2 Sephora packages waiting for me! :) I spent about 2 hours sorting through my hauls, taking photos and finding a place for everything :P I've actually run out of room in my makeup storage unit and I'm desperately waiting for the acrylic makeup box that I got for my birthday to stop smelling like chemicals so I can start using it :)

I won't go through everything that I got in detail as not everything is for me. I got some birthday presents and some stuff for a swap that I'm doing at the moment. I also want to fit in a little bit about the Parcel Forwarding companies that I used.

I placed my first Sephora order through PriceUSA (parcel forwarder). I use PriceUSA for pretty much all my orders from the US as they don't charge any fees other than shipping fees when I pay via bank deposit (rather than Paypal or Credit Card).

2 Sephora parcels

There are 2 Benefit sets behind this but I won't show them as they're for birthday presents and giveaways :) I dropped my iPhone a few times today and now the camera is a bit weird so while I did take photos, they were too fuzzy to use. I've put links on each item that you can click on to see the item on the Sephora website.

Dior, YSL, Duo

1. Dior DiorSkin Forever Wear-Extending Invisible Retouch Powder in 002 Transparent Medium $42
2. Yves Saint Laurent Volupte Sheer Candy in 02 Dewy Papaya $30
3. DUO eyelash adhesive in black $8

How pretty is this lip balm?!

My second Sephora order was placed by me (using a friends Sephora account and credit card due to Sephora not accepting international credit cards) and sent to Hop Shop Go who then forwarded it onto me. This was my first time using Hop Shop Go and I'm so impressed with them. They're more expensive than PriceUSA but so so worth it!

Samples!

I'm super excited to try samples of the Urban Decay BB cream and the Benefit Fine One One. They're new releases from both companies.

Lancome, Tarte, Benefit birthday gift,
YSL mini lipstick, Bobbi Brown

In this order, I got the Lancome set for $34, a Tarte set for a swap that I'm doing at the moment, a birthday gift from Sephora, a free mini YSL lipstick and the Bobbi Brown Concealer kit.

Look how pretty the mascara is! It's all
glittery on the bottom :)

Birthday gift and YSL mini lipstick

Sorry for the really bad photo quality!

So.. for the comparison of PriceUSA and Hop Shop Go:

First Sephora order placed through PriceUSA:

21st December 2012 (midnight or so) : Emailed PriceUSA for a quote

21st December (2.03am): Received quote

21st December: (sometime between 2 and 7am) Paid PriceUSA the deposit

21st December: (2.21pm) PriceUSA placed order

22nd December: Advised that Sephora had shipped my order

29th December: Advised that PriceUSA had received the order and sent me the invoice for the remaining money that I need to pay

29th December: I paid the remaining amount that I owed

30th December (8am): Advised that they had received my payment

3rd January: Advised that they had shipped my order to me

15th January: Received order

Obviously the times have been affected by the public holidays but the shipping time was less than 2 weeks when it normally takes about 3 weeks.

My order was 3lbs (1.36kg) and cost $24.14 to ship. There were no extra fees that I had to pay. If I had shipped this with Hop Shop Go, it would've cost me about $40 to ship but the shipping time would've been drastically reduced.

My gripe with PriceUSA at the moment though is that I placed the Sephora order as Sephora were giving away the Fresh Sugar Lip Balm sets with any order over $25. These sets were the 2012 birthday gifts and I really wanted to try the Fresh Sugar Lip Balms so I asked PriceUSA to add it onto my order. I also asked them to add the free YSL mascara sample to my order IF the lip balms were out of stock (you can only use one code at a time on the Sephora website). So while I didn't *need* any of the stuff that I ordered, I really really wanted one of those sets.

So when I opened the box today, I was expecting to see the Fresh Sugar set but instead I saw the mascara... I was really confused as the Fresh Sugar sets are still in stock so I'm really confused as to why PriceUSA ordered the mascara instead. I know that it's only a small thing but it actually really ruined the order for me. I think it was just the fact that I've had a crap day and it's affected me when really... when I think about it, it's just makeup and not the end of the world.

The reason why I've had a crap day is because I managed to superglue my hand at work today and the medical centre couldn't get it off my hands.

Super glue and some tissue paper that got
stuck to it.

Now onto Hop Shop Go...

5th January 2013: Ordered from Sephora

7th January: Sephora shipped the order

10th January: Hop Shop Go received the order

10th January: Paid Hop Shop Go for the shipping fess

15th January: Received order

So all up, it took 10 days for me to receive my order and the shipping time was only 5 days.

The order was 1.5lbs (0.68kg) and cost $32 to ship. I think that's actually pretty reasonable considering that they use a fast method of shipping and I was able to get my order really quickly. If I had shipped this with PriceUSA, it would have cost me just over $18 in shipping fees and I wouldn't have been able to get the Benefit birthday gift.

I think overall, I'm actually going to start using Hop Shop Go for my Sephora orders. This way, I can accumulate Sephora points (I spend enough in a year to qualify as a VIB) and redeem my points for deluxe samples.