Trying Out KIKO Products For The First Time & In-Store Experience
For the first time this year I finally got to hang out with my best friend Saudia aka The Drowsy Reader. I was in Indonesia for almost a month so we were obviously very excited to hang out and catch up; but more importantly we may have turned our day trip to a Treat Yo' Self day.
I have been looking at KIKO products for awhile but there's no physical store in Philadelphia and I'm very weary of ordering things online because I have sensitive skin and I just want to make sure that any beauty or skin care products I buy are things I actually need and have a place in my collection.
We ended up at Woodbridge Mall in New Jersey which has a KIKO store and they just happened to have a sale going on. Before we get to the actual products I do want to talk about our In-Store Experience. We actually went to Sephora first because we both wanted to buy a couple of things and for some reason it was very difficult to get assistance even though there was only 3 other customers in the store.
When we walked into KIKO it was a completely different experience. There was a new trainee along with a more seasoned associate who basically told us that they were in the middle of moving products around and they have this huge sale going on and she was going to the storage area but if we had any questions to just call for help. I didn't end up getting a lot of things but they were still really nice and even gave each of us a free product.
The first one that caught my eye was this set of Intense Colour Lip Kit in #10 Fairy Pink. I believe this was part of a holiday edition but it's still available online. Saudia physically blocked me from buying anymore nude/light brown lipsticks so I went with a light pink which makes me feel very "spring-y". I'm not a lip liner person unless I really need it for red or purple lipsticks but this is a beautiful formula. It glides along really nicely and for a light color such as this tone of pink it's more about filling in the lips and making the actual color lasts longer on my lips rather than lining to avoid color bleed.
I really love the shade and formula but I have a love/hate relationship with the packaging. I noticed that KIKO likes these big packages. I don't know if it's strictly from the holiday line but I just think the packaging is unnecessarily big. In addition, the actual Lipstick container is too large to fit in my lipstick stand and it's also too big to fit in my MUJI drawers. The love part is the fact that the lipstick bullet is magnetic which is fantastic cause sometimes when I have lipsticks in my bag the cap would separate which causes a huge mess.
The second item I got was the Double Colour Eyeliner in #122. One side is a medium brown shade and the other side is a frosted vanilla color. I picked this up because I tend to use brown eye liners more than black ones and in a pinch I can use this to fix my brows and I can use the lighter shade to highlight around my brows and inner corners.
The final item is the freebie which is their quick dry nail lacquer. We got two different shades but mine is 226 Rogue Noir which is this beautiful deep burgundy. The brush is thick and compact and is slightly smaller than the wet n' wild which is just the right size for my nails. The best part is that it only needed one coat of polish to get this really vibrant color.
Overall, I am super impressed by the store and the products. It was really great that I got to try these products that do truly work and have really good results during one of their sale period but the in-store experience is the one that pushes this over the edge and makes me want to go back and try out more products. As always thanks for reading!
Until next time,
I have been looking at KIKO products for awhile but there's no physical store in Philadelphia and I'm very weary of ordering things online because I have sensitive skin and I just want to make sure that any beauty or skin care products I buy are things I actually need and have a place in my collection.
We ended up at Woodbridge Mall in New Jersey which has a KIKO store and they just happened to have a sale going on. Before we get to the actual products I do want to talk about our In-Store Experience. We actually went to Sephora first because we both wanted to buy a couple of things and for some reason it was very difficult to get assistance even though there was only 3 other customers in the store.
When we walked into KIKO it was a completely different experience. There was a new trainee along with a more seasoned associate who basically told us that they were in the middle of moving products around and they have this huge sale going on and she was going to the storage area but if we had any questions to just call for help. I didn't end up getting a lot of things but they were still really nice and even gave each of us a free product.
The Products
The first one that caught my eye was this set of Intense Colour Lip Kit in #10 Fairy Pink. I believe this was part of a holiday edition but it's still available online. Saudia physically blocked me from buying anymore nude/light brown lipsticks so I went with a light pink which makes me feel very "spring-y". I'm not a lip liner person unless I really need it for red or purple lipsticks but this is a beautiful formula. It glides along really nicely and for a light color such as this tone of pink it's more about filling in the lips and making the actual color lasts longer on my lips rather than lining to avoid color bleed.
I really love the shade and formula but I have a love/hate relationship with the packaging. I noticed that KIKO likes these big packages. I don't know if it's strictly from the holiday line but I just think the packaging is unnecessarily big. In addition, the actual Lipstick container is too large to fit in my lipstick stand and it's also too big to fit in my MUJI drawers. The love part is the fact that the lipstick bullet is magnetic which is fantastic cause sometimes when I have lipsticks in my bag the cap would separate which causes a huge mess.
The second item I got was the Double Colour Eyeliner in #122. One side is a medium brown shade and the other side is a frosted vanilla color. I picked this up because I tend to use brown eye liners more than black ones and in a pinch I can use this to fix my brows and I can use the lighter shade to highlight around my brows and inner corners.
Here are the swatches for the eye liners, lip liner and lipstick. The eye liners are really long lasting and are actually pretty waterproof.
The final item is the freebie which is their quick dry nail lacquer. We got two different shades but mine is 226 Rogue Noir which is this beautiful deep burgundy. The brush is thick and compact and is slightly smaller than the wet n' wild which is just the right size for my nails. The best part is that it only needed one coat of polish to get this really vibrant color.
Overall, I am super impressed by the store and the products. It was really great that I got to try these products that do truly work and have really good results during one of their sale period but the in-store experience is the one that pushes this over the edge and makes me want to go back and try out more products. As always thanks for reading!
Until next time,
