Honeymoon Beauty Haul – Duty Free, Indonesia and Malaysia

Honeymoon Beauty Haul – Duty Free, Indonesia and Malaysia

Something I’m sure some of you have been waiting for is my haul of cosmetics from the honeymoon. I didn’t go crazy with buying things as we really didn’t have that much time for shopping, however some purchases were hard to resist! We also had very full cases that were very close to the weight limit, so were limited as to how much we could buy and I tried to keep purchases as light as possible!

Duty Free

The only thing I bought in the airport was a mini of the MAC Oil Control Primer (I think this was £8.20). This is the primer my MUA used on me on my wedding day and it seemed to hold in place my foundation really well so wanted to give it a try for myself. I’d heard it was cheaper to buy the minis rather than the full size, and they were right! This was cheaper per ml than buying the full size… crazy MAC. I’m now regretting not buying the In The Flesh Palette, which I’ve fell in love with but I’d read that it MAC at KL Airport was quite cheap online so I decided to hold out for a better deal, turns out it was £40 at Heathrow, and £72 at KL Airport. So I’ll be getting it for the £45 it is in shops normally instead!


Kuala Lumpur / Kuala Lumpur Airport

Kuala Lumpur was king of the mall, there is big shopping centres everywhere, and whilst I was trying to not really shop that much due to the fact we were quite low on time and wanted to see more things, rather than shops, we often walked through shopping centres as it was so fricking hot the aircon provided a welcome break. Ben was also pointing out any shops that looked like sold beauty stuff and asked me whether we were going in, so I didn’t want to correct him as that never happens ha!

I didn’t buy anything too chunky or go too crazy, because KL was our first stop our cases were quite full and we’d not got to the point were we had shed any weight on things like shampoo, conditioner and SPF like we did on the way home. My friend Hari, who lives in Malaysia helped me by creating a list of shops, brands and items to look out for so thank you Hari – it was really helpful to give me a starting point! I wanted to get some more skincare, but to be honest for the most part I really wasn’t sure what I was buying as lots was written in various Asian languages (they had imports from everywhere) and anything that looked like something I might like was also quite pricey, getting to the £15-20 mark so I kept things quite simple, and slimline.

Sephora

First stop, obviously Sephora! We went to a close by shopping centre on the first night as we arrived quite late and wanted to grab some easy food, naturally when I saw a Sephora I had to go in. I wanted to do an initial scope of the shop, and then I’d go back when I knew how much money we had spare. The first night I did pick up two sleeping masks for me and Ben as our skin was looking zapped of life by the plane, I can’t remember which ones we chose!

The second night we ended up near a Sephora again, and I picked up more this time, but hadn’t planned for it to be my final Sephora stop, but unfortunately it ended up being that, and despite the store being much bigger than the first, the selection was a lot more boring, as it was mostly stuff I could get easily at home. I picked up two sleeping masks, with the plan of us using them again – but we didn’t, these were 10RM each (£1.80), we got the Pomegranate one (energising and antioxidant), and Marine Algae (deeply hydrating and nourishing).

I then picked up some of their foot masks, I knew we were going to be walking a lot and that at some point that my feet would probably need a treat, which they did after doing a ridge walk in Ubud! So these will be in my empties, I chose the Almond Sock Mask which were 18RM (£3.29).

I then picked up a couple of items from Tarte, that final minis section in the first Sephora was huge and I’d planned on getting a shit tonne of goodies from there on my second visit, but the selection wasn’t the same in the second and I could only pick up two of the items I’d spied earlier from Tarte. Whilst we can get Tarte on QVC in the UK, we can’t see it in stores to swatch and play with, and quite often the good deals on QVC are huge bundles of stuff, and buying just something as a single item is quite hard! First up I picked up the dual ended Lights, Camera, Lashes mascara and opening act lash primer on the other end. I’ve been wanting to try the mascara, pretty much since it launched and I loved the Tartist one I tried earlier in the year. I thought this was a bargain at 40RM (£7.30).

Lastly another miniature delight from Tarte, was their Tartist lip paints, I’ve heard great things about these and I love the shades of these two tiny paints, with the shades Rose (a peachy caramel colour) and Fomo (rose). These were 50RM each (£9.00).

Bath and Body Works

The only non beauty place I ended up buying things from was Bath and Body Works. I spotted someone walking around with a bag in a mall and said to Ben (who had no idea what Bath and Body Works was) we need to find that shop immediately. Like I said we didn’t have space (or weight) free in our cases to go crazy. Whilst there were offers on – they weren’t great, none of this 2 for $25 on 3 wick candles, it was mostly on out of season scents, they still had a hell  of a lot of Christmas and Autumn scents in the back of the store for example.

I picked up a scent I’ve always thought that would love, and that was Watermelon Lemonade, compared to a lot of other scents it wasn’t as strong, but the majority of the candles didn’t have lids, and I wanted something to add an extra layer of protection for travelling. It might not have been the scent I’d chosen otherwise. This was discounted to 65RM (£11.91) down from 130RM (£23.82). When I was close to the checkout I spotted these decorative holders on sale, and there was one left which was non-Christmas! It’s a gold palm pattern, and again I thought it might be good to protect the candle on our multiple hotel changes and flights, this was reduced from 59RM (£10.81) to 23.60RM (£4.30).

Lastly I picked up just one hand santizer from Bath and Body works, I was hoping to stock up on some of the amazing scents I wished I could have taken home in candle form. Sadly they had three scents one of which was vanillaish (my least fave of all the scents), one was Christmassy – so I only got the other Limoncello 10RM (£1.80). They didn’t even have the holders in that store, but luckily I did have one from when my friend Chris and I did a swap last year, so it will replace that one in use at some point. I save that one for travelling so it feels a bit more special!

Sasa

Hari tipped me off about the store Sasa was a store which sold mostly Asian brands and I didn’t see anything in there that I recognised as a brand we could get in the UK on the high street other than the brand Art Deco.

I picked up two face masks from the brand Oozoo Bear, because quite frankly I quite liked the packaging, that’s all I really had to go for on most things! I picked up the Aurora Illuminating Mask, and the Black Space Pore Caring Mask both were 18,90 RM each (£3.46), but were on offer for buy one get half price.

I then spotted false lashes by the brand Dolly Wink Wink, I remembered back in the early days of youtube when asian beauty was having it’s first big moment in the west, that everyone was raving about the Dolly Wink Wink mascaras, so I asked the assistant if they had any. She said they did and I had two to pick from, I went for the Volume Mascara, which I can’t wait to put to the test, it was priced at 69.90RM (£12.80).

Guardian Pharmacy

We went in many Guardian Pharmacy’s whilst in Malaysia – on the hunt for one particular lip balm which Hari had told me about and no one knew what I was talking about despite me showing it written down! But I’ll lump together all the items together!

First up I picked up another mascara from the brand Cathy Doll – I chose their Pretty Volume mascara which was really cheap at 21.16RM (£3.87). I honestly can’t remember what drew me to buy this, probably a combination of packaging and the fact it was so cheap!

I picked up a Silky Girl Matte Junky Liquid Lipstick, I really liked the formula of these, but the colour selection just seemed a little insipid, or light on my skintone – and at this point I hadn’t caught a tan, so they would definitely be light now! The shade I picked up was called Artsy and it’s a pretty brick red colour. I don’t think I really have anything in this shade lip wise! Again a super cheap brand this was 21.51RM (£3.94).

In the airport on the way home from Bali where we had another stop over in KL, there was a Guardian Pharmacy, and I had a final look to see if I could track down the lip balm. Naturally I didn’t walk out empty handed with currency to use up! Another item from Silky Girl was their Matte Fever Lipcolour Balm, these seemed like nice balmy feeling lipsticks with good pigmentation, I couldn’t class these as matte  – they just don’t have a really glossy sheen. The shade I picked up was called Vogue, a pretty rose and these were 24.20RM (£4.40).

We then picked up two eye masks as we were feeling like our eyes were going to fall out of our heads, but never ended up using them! These were the Bye Bye Tired Eyes and were an own brand product by Guardian, at 12.95RM each (£2.37).

This just caught my eye and I decided to just pick it up, and I’ve already started testing this out. This is the Freeman Cleansing Apple Cider Vinegar Mask, which caught my eye cause I wondered how it would smell, and I can verify it smells good. This is a two in one clay mask and scrub and considering it’s hefty size it seemed like a really good price at 23.20RM (£4.25). This is actually a product which is made in the USA, but not something that we can get in the UK as far as I’ve ever seen!

Lastly, the Chulip. The lipbalm of much confusion to every sales puzzled sales assistant in every shop I went in asking if they had it! We finally found it in the last Guardian, and it was the last one! I have high hopes because I looked for it so much, and because it came with Hari’s seal of approval. Also the packaging does big it up…. “Chu Lip makes your lips lovely and makes you feel happier than ever!”. This is Raspberry scented one, the only one they had but I think they also do peach and vanilla ones, this was 25.90RM (£4.74).


Indonesia/Bali

Bali was never going to be place where we were going to shop for anything than a few pieces of local craft and momentos for our trip. We went to one shopping centre which was in the luxury resort we stayed in at the end and everything was entirely overpriced. So I only picked up one item in a Guardian Pharmacy in a bid to get some smaller notes as no taxi drivers ever had any. Currency in Indonesia had me constantly worried we were spending too much money, the largest notes were 100,000 and were worth £6, so we were often handing over 400,000-700,000 for meals in the evening and my brain just could never get around that being an average price for a three course meal with cocktails!

The item I picked up was a sheet mask which I picked because it came in two separate pieces, and I’ve not tried one like that before. I’m pretty sure this was around the £2 mark, but it’s the one receipt which seems to have gotten lost so I can’t remember exactly but I do remember it was pretty much the cheapest mask in the shop which wasn’t an own brand one. This is the Mentholatum Pore Refining mask with Which Hazel and AcHA, described as being for for aiding oil control, refining pores and maintain skin texture… maintain, odd choice of word – not improve, maintain!


Lip Swatches

Left To Right: Tarte Tartist Lip Paint in Rose, Tarte Tartist Lip Paint in FOMO, Silky Girl Matte Junkie in Artsy, Silky Girl Matte Fever in Vogue


There were a few brands I was hoping to buy more from, one of which was Silky Girl, but all the lip shades just seemed slightly off on my skin tone, and most of the face products seemed so light. Another brand I was hoping to buy from was Catrice as we can’t get that in the UK, and I’ve had a long list of items I’ve wanted from when Ann at Doves and Roses used to blog, and they didn’t have anything I had wanted from the notes on my phone. Essence which Hari had told me was a big brand out there, had the same kind of selection as what we have here, and whilst I perused every Essence counter I came across for that damn highlight that people are going crazy for, it seems like Malaysia have missed out on getting it like the UK have!

If there’s anything here you want to see me prioritise review wise, please let me know! I have an overwhelming amount of new things from the last few months of beauty boxes and I have no idea where to start at the moment!

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Helpless Whilst Drying

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20 Comments

  1. June 29, 2017 / 6:21 am

    Amazing haul! I can’t wait to go shopping now 😭 Looking forward to your future posts.
    Stop by my space sometime,
    Mena | femmerewritten.com 🌻✨

  2. June 29, 2017 / 8:53 am

    Oh my!! Mega drooling over here!! This all looks amazing!! Kinda sad we ran through all our airports!! KL was a cool looking airport…. Except for security at the gate…. That was random for me!! Xx

    • June 29, 2017 / 9:19 am

      KL was a really cool airport actually, I think you could be fooled if you were in a first block of gates as there wasn’t many shops there, but if you got on the train shuttle to the next set there were so many shops! So many shops it kept us busy for a 4 hour layover!

  3. Charlotte
    June 29, 2017 / 9:00 am

    Absolutely love hauls like this, great post x

  4. June 29, 2017 / 1:50 pm

    Wow! Amazing airport haul!!! Makes me wish I would stop in the stores more often but usually I fly when everything is still closed for some reason!

    • June 29, 2017 / 2:38 pm

      This was a mix of airports and stores in the city, but yeah we often get to duty free in the evening or too early when everything is closed too! I was lucky this time! x

  5. June 29, 2017 / 2:17 pm

    So funny you bought CANDLES from BBW! 😆 I would have gone crazy at Sasa and Guardian… since I have easy access to Sephora and BBW. 😛 And I have been to many Sasa stores in Hong Kong, they’re at every street corner – last time I visited, I had to buy a suitcase to haul all my stuff home! FYI. Sasa also has a great website and offers free shipping with certain $ spend.
    So weird you couldn’t find the ChuLip in the scent you wanted. They do sell it on Amazon if you’re still looking.
    Enjoy your loot!

    • June 29, 2017 / 2:37 pm

      I only saw one Sasa store, and hadn’t planned to do any shopping that evening so didn’t have much cash on me, I could have spent more if I’d had it! That’s good to know about Sasa, I’ll be heading there in future!
      It wasn’t a particular scent of Chulip, I couldn’t find ANY! No one even knew what a Chulip was, I was showing them the comment Hari left me of what to buy in case it wasn’t pronounced how I thought and they all had no idea! Hari went mad when I facebooked him and said no one knew what it was!
      That was my first BBW – I’m hoping my friend will be able to point me in the direction of one close to him when we come to Canada next year!

  6. June 29, 2017 / 5:35 pm

    I bought a tonne of Sephora feet masks in Milan as we walked a tonne and I got sore feet. The Bye Bye Tired Eyes products look so cute. I love Asian packaging x

  7. June 29, 2017 / 6:39 pm

    Woah you got such cool stuff! I saw the Oozoo bear masks here in Dubai but they were being sold in the mall as a pack of 5 for around 150 Dhs which is around $40. I thought that was way to expensive!

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