Online Store Review: Kiko Cosmetics
Website: http://kikocosmetics.com
Despite being an Italian brand, Kiko Cosmetics products are only available in a few big cities throughout Italy at the moment. That’s why for a long time, I could only get their products through swaps with other fellow beauty addicts who were lucky enough to have a Kiko store near them.
Luckily, about a month ago, Kiko Cosmetics have become easily available to all Italian girls (sadly, they don’t ship internationally yet) with the launch of their online store. Since Kiko products are very inexpensive and there are often offers and discounts on the site, I decided to place an order, which will probably be the first of many.
Making an order is very easy: you just need to register, select the items you want and place them in your cart and click check out. Then, you will need to select a payment method. You can choose to pay with paypal, like I did, credit card or COD (in this case, there’s a €2,90 fees plus shipping).
Kiko ships by courier only and p&p is €5,90 but if your order is more than €59,00’s worth, shipping is free. Delivery is quick: I made my order on Thursday and got the package on Monday and everything arrived in perfect condition. Nothing was missing either. What a relief!
The only thing I didn’t like about their service is that I got my order in a huge package. And I only ordered four small items! I’m glad that they packaged everything carefully, but I thought the huge box, which was more than a half empty, was a huge waste. But oh well, I recycle everything anyway and nothing got broken, so it’s not too bad.
Summary:
Overall, I had a positive experience with Kiko Cosmetics. Their website is easy to navigate, you can choose several shipping methods and delivery is fast. All the items are carefully packaged, although I feel the huge box is just way too big and unnecessary for small orders, but unfortunately they don’t ship outside of Italy.
Rating: 4.5/5
Online Store Review: Cocktail Cosmetics
Website: http://www.cocktailcosmetics.co.uk
I’m always looking for online shops that sells cosmetics at cheap prices, MAC items that I have missed and NYX cosmetics (they are so hard to find in Europe!), when one day I stumbled on Cocktail Cosmetics, an UK website that offers all these things!
Products Available
In addition, to MAC and NYX products, Cocktail Cosmetics sells makeup and beauty items from a wide range of brands including Barry M, Gosh, Benefit, Opi, Stila, Bobbi Brown and Clarins to name just a few. Most of these products are limited edition or offered at a discount price and new items are added very often.
Authentic products
So far all the items I got from the website were authentic. I haven’t purchased any MAC products yet (but will soon) so I can’t personally vouch for those. But judging from the pictures that are up on the website, they all seem authentic to me, which is also what the people that bought from her website say. (I always do some research before ordering online as you never know).
Nice and reliable owner
But if you have doubts, don’t be afraid to contact Julie, the owner of the shop, and ask for more pictures and information about the products so that you can be 100% sure that you’re getting the real thing. You can also contact her to request any items you want but don’t see on the website and hopefully she will be able to track the item down and add it to her shop.
Ordering from the website is easy. You need to sign in and once that is done, you should get a confirmation email. I didn’t get one so I contacted Julie and she replied about an hour later saying she had checked my account and everything was in order. I was very pleased with the prompt response and I was able to make a purchase without any problems.
How to order
Just add the items you want to your basket and click checkout. You can pay in several ways: google check out, credit card or debit card and paypal which is the method I always use online. After you’ve paid, you should get a confirmation email (I got this one! lol).
Postage, packaging and delivery
All orders are shipped via Royal Mail. There is a flat rate of £2.95 for all orders to the UK, while postage to Europe and the rest of the world is sent via International signed for at £5.25 and £5.50 respectively for the first 3 items and each product after that is charged 25p.
Delivery is very quick. Usually it takes me about 10 days to receive packages from the UK but this time my order arrived after only 4 days! Also, all the items were carefully wrapped and arrived in perfect condition. I was very impressed and I’ll surely order from the website again and again!
Summary:
Overall, my experience was positive. Cocktail cosmetics has a wide range of items including LEs and discounted products that are hard to find. Delivery is quick, the items well-packaged and Julie, the owner, is very sweet and helpful.
Rating: 5/5
Website Review: The Makeup Mix Shop
Website: Makeup Mix Shop
In January, Toma, the beauty behind Makeup Masala blog, opened her own online store, called theMakeup Mix Shop.
Toma sells her own mineral makeup line, called Makeup Masala minerals, as well as other brands like NYX, Jesse’s Girl, Eco Tools and Coastal Scent to name just a few. The website also has a nice selection of jewellery and wallets. Most of the brands sold on the site are hard to find in Europe, so I was very excited I finally had a place to get them online. And I was also very curious to try Toma’s makeup line. So, I decided to order some stuff.
Buying online from The Makeup Mix Shop is very easy. You just need to create an account and follow the instructions. After selecting the items you want, you are taken to the payment page. The only payment option available for my order was paypal, which is actually my fave method for paying online as it quick and safe.
Toma ships worldwide and delivery charges aren’t very expensive at all! International p&p is $3.95 on orders up to $19.00, $5.95 on orders from $20.00 to $39.00, and free if you spend more than $40.00! In addition, The Makeup Mix shops often has lots of sales and discounts. There’s also a Customer Discount Loyalty Program, which entitles you to a discount if you spend more than $50.00 in a month. Please check the website for more details.
After making the order, I got a confirmation email. Half an hour later, I got another one stating that my order was being prepared to be shipped and, after a couple of hours, I got the last email saying that order had been shipped! The package took about two weeks to arrive. I was actually surprised it arrived so soon as packages from the States to Italy usually take longer to be delivered. Also, keep in mind that I ordered the items around Easter, so I probably would have got it sooner if postal offices hadn’t been closed for the holidays.
Everything was packaged very carefully. The pigments jars were put in a cute little bag and they arrived intact. Toma also included a sample of one of her mineral eyeshadows. I thought that was very nice of her. Thank you, Toma!
Summary:
Overall, my experience was very positive and I will definitely buy again from the website. Delivery is quick and not very expensive, the products are well packaged and Toma is a really sweet, professional and reliable lady. She was also so nice to add a sample as well.
Rating: 5/5
Disclaimer: I ordered from the website for personal purposes and the review is based on my own experience with them. For more information, please see my disclaimer.Website Review: Buying Online from Eyeko.com
Website: http://www.eyeko.com/
I had been wanting to try Eyeko products for ages. Their packaging is just sooo cute and the price are really cheap too. Everything only costs £5 ($7.48). In addition, shipping is free on all orders worldwide! How could I resist making a purchase?
So I went on their website and I was very surprised to find out that they don’t have a FAQ section. You can find information on delivery and returns but I didn’t like their stockists section. It only has a list of Superdrugs stores stocking the brand, which is written in such small characters you need a magnifying glass to be able to read it! Also, you can’t find information on payment methods anywhere on their website. They do have a wholesale enquire section so I contacted them to ask about that. Not every online shop accepts my credit card, so I just wanted to be sure they would before creating an account and add items to my shopping cart only for my card to be refused. I contacted them on Sunday evening and I got a reply on Monday morning, saying they accept most major debit and credit cards. The fact that they replied so quickly reassured me. I’m always worried there could be problems when I buy online and it is nice to know there is actually someone on the other end that can help with any enquires or problems you have.
So, I selected the products I was interested in and was taken to their payment page. I thought I would be asked to fill a form with my credit card details (after all didn’t they say they accepted payment by credit/debit card?), but instead I found out that the only payment option available for the order was paypal.That was fine with me, I actually prefer to use paypal.
Packages are delivered by Royal Mail standard service and delivery takes about 14 days to arrive for international orders. My parcel was shipped the day after I made the purchase and took about a week to arrive. It was packaged in a medium-sized white envelope and together with my order I got an Eyeko leaflet with this message on the back “Ciao!!! Benvenuta a Eyeko!!!”. (It means “Hello!!! Welcome to Eyeko!!!”) I thought that was very nice of them. They also included a discount code to claim a free Eyeko gift with any purchase.
Summary:
Overall, my experience was positive. Delivery is fast, they reply quickly to emails and include discount code and a nice welcome message in your package. I just wish their website was more informative.
Rating: 4/5
Disclaimer: I ordered from the website for personal purposes and the review is based on my own experience with them. For more information, please see my disclaimer.Website Review: Buying Online from Bottegaverde.it
Website: http://www.bottegaverde.it
I never thought that I would ever have bought anything from the Bottega Verde website. They have a shop in my town, so I didn’t really want to order online and having to pay shipping fees (€5,9) as well when I can just go to the store. I just visited their website because I wanted to subscribe to their email newsletter, so that I would always be up-to-date with their latest collections, sales and offers. After I subscribed, I got an email saying they would give me free shipping on my first order online (usually you get free shipping if you spend more than €30). Please note that if you pay by credit card, shipping is completely free. If, however, you choose to pay by COD, then you still have to pay a €1,90 fee. Unfortunately, they only deliver to Italy. I had a look on their website and saw they had lots of products on offer, so I decided to place an order for some products that were on sale.
Placing an order is easy, just register to the website and follow the instructions. Bottega Verde has a minimum order of €20, but with many products on offer, you can get quite a lot of stuff for that money. In addition, there almost always already is a free full size product in your shopping cart (sometimes you need to spend more than €35 to be entitled to free products, but usually the minimum order is enough to get a freebie). After I placed my order, I received an email with the confirmation and a discount to get 5% off my next online order.
Up to this point, I was pretty happy with my order. Afterall, who doesn’t like sales and freebies? The next day though, I got a phonecall from Bottega Verde. I thought there was some problem with my order or something like that. Instead, they asked me if I wanted to buy some of their products that were on sale!! I told them that I didn’t need anything else at that moment but they were rather insisting. I also hated the fact that they called in the first place. If I have just placed an order from their website, then I obviously saw what was an offer and if I didn’t buy anything else, that obviously means I wasn’t interested in those products, so why call? That actually made me want not to buy from their website ever again. And even though I haven’t ordered anything in months, I’m still getting calls from them every now and again!! I actually stopped answering their calls but they don’t seem to get the message and keep insisting!
In addition, the package took ages to arrive. It says on the website that delivery takes about two weeks, but I actually had to wait about a month to get my stuff. I understand that having placed an order a couple of weeks before Easter delivery may take a bit more, but I ordered some stuff from two UK website the day after I bought from Bottega Verde and they only took 8-10 days to arrive, so they really have no excuse! Surely shipping within a country should take a lot less time than shipping from abroad!
And if that wasn’t enough, two of the creams I bought were only half full! No wonder they were on sale! I also bought a mask and that tube was full. The product turned out to be pretty good as well. But from now on, I’ll only buy from the shop, that way I can make sure the products are full and can use them straight away.
Summary:
Overall, I was really disappointed with their service and I would never buy from their website ever again. They have lots of products on sale, discounts and freebies but delivery takes ages and not all the products on sale are full. In addition, you can get calls from people that work at Bottega Verde to try and make you buy more stuff.
Rating: 1/5
Disclaimer: I ordered from the website for personal purposes and the review is based on my own experience with them. For more information, please see my disclaimer.