beauty squared: Estee Lauder Sale

I was given tickets to the Estee Lauder warehouse sale this past weekend and made the trip up to the Markham Fairgrounds early Saturday morning. We arrived just before 8 am and got into the not-terrifying line, probably about 60-70 people from the front. By the time they started letting us in, the line behind us had quadrupled!

The line-up before they let us inside.

It was nice arriving first thing in the morning as the tester tables were much tidier and the tissue boxes were full. See my post from last year for more detailed info on how the sale works.

More photos:

A shot of room 3 and some of the lip product tester tables.

The main difference between the sale I went to last year and this year is the addition of Bumble & Bumble products. Here's a shot of part of the Bumble & Bumble section.

At the checkout.

And here's what I bought. Let's start with the free gift and the charity bag.

Once you have paid for your purchases, you turn in your ticket for a free gift. Last year I got a nailpolish, and this year, the same thing. The polish I received is MAC's Nightfall, a shimmery dark charcoal grey.

MAC Nightfall Nail Lacquer

After checkout, you also have the option of buying Charity Bags for $5 with the proceeds going to the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation and the MAC AIDS Fund. I picked up two.

Inside were MAC's Just My Type lipliner and MAC's Miss Piggy Pink eyeshadow.

And here's my haul!

My bag of goodies

Inside my bag of goodies

Jill, the other half of Beauty Squared, asked me to look for the three crushed metallic pigment Dazzlespheres from MAC's 2011 holiday collection. They were $25 each, $13.50 less than retail.

From the $4 bins, which were much better this year than last year, I grabbed a Phloof! eyeshadow pan.

I was thrilled to see the selection of Bumble & Bumble products available. I picked up their shampoo for red hair, the Creme de Coco masque for dry hair (for a friend), their Texture Hair (Un)dressing styling creme and their Grooming Creme. The shampoo was $18 and the other three products were $20. Prices were all about $10-$12 less than I'd have paid retail.

I was also able to pick up some favourites I bought at the sale I went to last year - Bobbi Brown Cleansing Oil ($20) and Origins Starting Over Age-Erasing Moisturizer with Mimosa ($20).

I picked up only a few makeup items. There weren't a lot to choose from in terms of eyeshadows and lip products. Many of the MAC Big Bounce shadows were available, but I knew well enough to stay away from them. We were in a hurry to get through the sale and back to the city, so that made it easy to not linger over the product testers.

I did however, pick up the following: