My 1st Apothica.com Haul (Nov 2011)

My 1st Apothica.com Haul (Nov 2011)

If you look at my sidebar, there's an ad for an online cosmetics company called Apothica. A few months ago I got a few items from there, so I thought I'd do a little review.  Before I start, I'd like to add that even though the company advertises on my blog, my opinion in this post hasn't been swayed by that.

I had browsed through the site before I let them advertise on my blog to ensure that the site was selling products that I would be interested in purchasing myself & I was pleased with their selection. When it was time for me to purchase, however, I noticed was that a lot of the products could only be shipped within the U.S., which was a bit disappointing. Even though this meant that I couldn't order the Becca Cosmetics Shimmering Skin Perfector that I wanted to try so badly, I still managed to find a lot of things that I wanted to get.

Here are the items that I ended up checking out with:

• Too Faced Smokey Eye Palette 2011 (I got 2 - 1 for myself & the other as a present)

• Too Faced Natural Eye Kit

• Too Faced Shadow Insurance Eyeshadow Primer

• Too Faced Teddy Bear Hair Mini Brush Set

• Laura Geller Blush-n-Brighten in Roseberry

• Yves Saint Laurent Rouge Volupte Lipstick in #25 Soft Beige 

• Yves Saint Laurent Rouge Volupte Lipstick in #23 Luscious Pink 

I used the coupon code PACK10 for 10% off my purchase + the shipping charge was a little over $25, which brought my total to around $256. I kept checking my account & they took 12 days to just get the stuff together & ship it, which annoyed me a bit. After they sent the items out, it received it in a little over a week. Once the mail lady arrived at my door with the parcel, I also had to pay a little over $27 for customs. If I lived in the U.S. (it takes me 30 minutes to cross the border), I would have avoided the custom charges & the shipping charges as well since shipping to a U.S. postal address is free when your order is over $49. So if I lived in the U.S. I would have saved over $50 & would have probably purchased something else with that money.

Moving on, the items itself were packaged very well & none of them were damaged. I noticed that 2 of the items (the brush set & the Natural Eye Kit) were back-ordered & one of the YSL #23 lipstick could not be shipped so the money for it was refunded. I found it really weird that the site let me check out with the lipstick when it couldn't be shipped to Canada.

The brush set & the Natural Eye kit arrived later. I was upset when I noticed that the eyeshadows had already been swatched before since I could clearly see shimmery fingerprints in the matte eyeshadows. The next morning, I got on the phone & spoke with someone from Apothica & they sent a new palette out right away. The lady on the phone was polite & quick, which I liked.

Once again, I love some of the items on the site & they are priced competitively. If you see an item listed for a lower price on another site, get on the phone & Apothica will match the price for you! Their customer service is great. The negatives are that the wait time after you order items is a bit long if you don't live in the U.S. & that online shopping makes me wish I lived in the U.S. If you're already living there then this would be a good site to shop from.

I plan on reviewing some of the items that I bought, which is why I've just included small pics for now. I thought I'd do a 1st experience/haul post since I advertise their site, so I wanted my readers to know about my experience with the company.

Hope those who are planning on purchasing from Apothica.com found this review helpful.