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Article is open in Vancouver with a gorgeous new store you didn’t know you were craving
Skincare and makeup lovers rejoice! Sephora's Canadian site makes it easier to get what you need to stay fresh-faced and sweet smelling
Finally we have a Sephora site of our very own with Canadian prices, available-in-Canada items, bilingual functionality, and product lock-up in Canadian stores so you can check for product availability before heading out to a store.
Shipping is free with purchases over $75 and duties are paid by Sephora, so no more unpleasant surprises like brokerage fees.
And if you’re one of the few who can spend less than $75 per visit to Sephora, shipping is a mere $7.95 (standard shipping) to anywhere in the country. And like the US experience, every purchase includes the buyer’s pick of three free samples from a constantly rotating stock of lovely little gems.
To celebrate its Canadian launch, Sephora is offering a couple of beautiful benefits for online shoppers, available October 19-31.
Sephora.ca launches just in time to kick off the holiday shopping season. Its gift guide is lustworthy as always, and this year includes some new brands (like Hourglass and Bite Beauty) as well as tried-and-true classics (like Makeup Forever and Fresh).
All the products are available at Sephora now and if this isn’t your first rodeo, you’ll know they tend to be of excellent value and many sell out very quickly. So give your wallet and your stress levels a break this year and let your fingers do the shopping – early – and get some of your holiday gift buying done before the snow hits the ground.
Read on for our favourite items from this year’s holiday gift guide.
For many Tarte lovers, this brand is just as much about health couture as it is about beauty. Tarte uses natural ingredients that will give you sheer, vitamin-infused colour or a deep smoky eye with healthy lustrous lashes.
Its holiday set is a truly amazing and generous collection of Tarte favourites for eyes, lips and cheeks, all in a stunning tri-fold makeup bag. And, as always, these products are made without parabens, sulfates, synthetic fragrances, petrochemicals, phthalates, GMOs, and triclosan.
The kit includes:
Hourglass was developed by renowned beauty expert Carisa Janes. The brand is known for über -chic elegance, luxurious packaging and cutting-edge ingredients in every product. This is a great way to try this luxe brand, which remains largely undiscovered by many Canadians.
This set will let you try some of its best sellers including:
This much loved brand was created over 25 years ago by famous Parisian markup artist Dany Sanz, who was originally a painter and sculptor.
Makeup Forever is known for its high-performance, innovative makeup with vibrant shades and long-lasting formulas. Initially developed for fashion and show-business professionals, Makeup Forever has now achieved mainstream cult-level popularity.
All Eyes On You is a limited-edition holiday kit that features five of Makeup Forever’s best-selling products including:
Tangerine Tango may be the colour of the year, but foiled, coloured eyes are the look of the holiday season. This set includes six highly pigmented, ultra metallic, waterproof eyeliners in gorgeous metallic hues including silver, rose gold, bronze, gold, plum and smoky grey – perfect for any holiday look.
For the chic geek (like me): Upon application, the volatile ingredients of this waterproof, long-lasting liner evaporate and set the polymers and pigments, resulting in a quick-dry, high pay-off colour.
Its blend of silicones and emollients allow this formula to glide on smoothly and lock in colour to achieve a variety of long-lasting looks that go from day to night.
I talk about blotting tissues nearly every chance I get because I still have friends who don’t know about these little wonders. Pull one out, gently blot on face, and instantly blot oil from your face without disturbing makeup. This is usually the only touching up I do during the day, aside from lipstick.
Boscia is one of the world’s first preservative-free, bontanically-based skincare lines. This revolutionary Japanese brand has created an eye-catching floral box inspired by traditional Japanese prints to encase your blotting linens. The set also includes 100-count Green Tea Blotting Linens and 100-count Fresh Blotting Linens – everything you need to stay fashionably matte during the holiday season. The plastic cover of the linen holder is100% biodegradable.
Bite Beauty lipsticks are made with food-grade ingredients, making them good enough to eat. They also feature the super antioxidant Resveratrol, as well as organic shea butter, superfoods, and food-grade colours, but never contain synthetic oils or waxes, polybutenes, or petroleum.
The lip colours were designed by industry-leading makeup artists for the modern woman. The colours range from nearly nudes to deep berries, all very natural, all very wearable. This kit contains the shades: retsina, musk, shiraz, fig and pomegranate.
Each bite-sized lipstick contains the Resveratrol equivalent of three glasses of red wine. And in addition to fighting off those nasty free-radicals, these lipsticks will moisturize and nourish your lips with every use making every application a lip treatment.
These moisture-rich mini lipsticks come in a convenient, Altoids-sized tin complete with mirror. Throw the whole kit into your purse so you can change your look as quickly as you change your mood, or tuck one of these discreetly into your pocket as you head out for the evening.
I love, love, love these mini sets of nail polishes and every year I pick up the largest kit I can buy and I’m usually good for the year. The mini sizes are brilliant because, seriously, who can finish off an entire regular-sized bottle before getting bored of the colour? No danger of getting bored with this colour selection!
This set includess 16 mini shades of Sephora by OPI’s best selling colours ranging from your lightest pink to a metallic deep purple and a full-sized Only Gold For Me Top Coat (clear with chunky and micro gold glitter).
Wear the colours on their own or layer with the pretty, sparkly topcoat for an entirely different look (Hint: when your tips start to show some wear, use the top coat to camouflage the chippage and extend the life of your mani.) They’re long-wearing, chip-resistant, and as always, dibutyl phthalate (DBP), toluene and formaldehyde-free.
This sweet tin of colours contains some of Too Faced’s best-sellers and exclusive must-haves. It’s a fantastic way to experiment with looks and colours; the kit also contains three how-to cards to walk you through different applications for day, classic and fashion looks.
The colours are gorgeous, the variety is staggering but some of Too Faced’s best products (in my opinion) are its quiet, supporting-role items, which are included in this kit: its yeshadow primer (Shadow Insurance) and its highlighter (Candlelight Glow).
If nothing more, get this kit to try these workhorses and to help make your existing products work better. But, of course, if you buy the kit you get so much more!
Here’s the whole kitty:
One of my very favourite brands, Fresh consistently produces top-quality products that work beautifully, feel luxurious and smell divine. Its formula of mixing ancient beauty rituals with modern technology has resulted in a lineup of superstar products that will perform as well as they pamper.
This kit includes:
Everybody needs a proper hand cream. And there’s one in this collection for everyone in your life, even for guys. Really.
No one does hand cream like L’Occitane, and this collection of its top five sellers is a lovely and thoughtful gift. The essential oils will make them a sensory delight, while their nourishing properties will soothe and heal those hard-working hands. And their small size makes them perfect for tucking into a bag, glove compartment or carry-on for travel.
The set includes:
