Optimum Points Haul

I love Shoppers Drug Mart and I love Optimum Points. If you don't know what I'm talking about, let me explain. Shoppers Drug Mart is a huge chain of drugstores in Canada. You can get all sorts of stuff there: prescriptions, tylenol, toilet paper, snacks, shampoo, face wash, and many drugstore makeup brands such as Maybelline and Revlon, etc. A couple of years ago, Shoppers added a "Beauty Boutique" section of the store where they sell high-end makeup such as Benefit, Clarins, Smashbox, Lancome, Dior, etc. 

Optimum Points are collected at Shoppers by using you Optimum Card every time you spend $$ there. You get 10 points for every $1 you spend. The points can then be redeemed for monetary value, for example 8,000 points gets you $10 off, and the highest level is 95,000 points gets you $170 off. 

I only shop at Shoppers when they have a 20X the points event so you get 20X more points for every dollar you spend.

A couple times a year they have a bonus for points redeemed. So with 95,000 points, instead it being worth $170, it's worth $200 during the bonus event.

All year long, I save and save and save my optimum points throughout the whole year for THIS! The bonus points event. I then take my points to Murale, which is a Sephora-esque store affiliate with Shoppers and their optimum points program. At Murale, I go crazy.

This is this year's haul:

• Caudalie Beauty Elixir (34 FL. oz & 16 FL. oz). I featured this product in my first Beauty Wishlist post. This is a multi-purpose product: toner, facial mist, makeup refresher. It has a really fresh scent, sort of pepperminty, and from reading the ingredient list I know there's also some orange extract and rosemary in this product. It's so lovely. It's a beauty recommendation from one of my favourite bloggers, Vivianna Does Makeup
• Bobbi Brown corrector in Light Bisque. My current bobbi brown corrector in Porcelain Peach is getting dangerously empty. I don't ever want to to be without this product. I think the lady at the bobbi brown counter matched me to the wrong shade when I first bought porcelain peach, so I knew that when I purchased my next one I would go one shade up. I still have a couple weeks of use out of porcelain peach, but I won't be near a bobbi brown counter in a couple of weeks so I needed to get this stat!
• Nars eyeshadow duo in Alhambra. (swatch below) This too was featured in my first Beauty Wishlist post. I've used this a couple of times already and it's amazing! Once again, everything I thought it would be. The lightest shade in this duo is like a rose gold colour, whereas the other shade is more of a peach-yellow gold. The texture of nars eyeshadows is so velvety and luxe. I would definitely look into getting more nars eyeshadows, maybe for my next optimum points haul.
• Chanel Illusion d'Ombre in Emerveille (swatch below). I talked about this in my second beauty wishlist post (Another Beauty Wishlist). I haven't had a chance to use this product yet, I'm kind of scared to ruin it, but it's just as lovely as I expected it to be. It's a very subtle champagne-pink, not too shimmery. It has a mousse-like texture. It's Chanel! Total luxury. I'll have to do a full review of this product in time
• Bourjois Volumizer mascara. I know I'm doing my Mascara Problems series to try and find the best drugstore mascara, but this is my favourite mascara outside of the drugstore. If someone told me I could only have one mascara for the rest of my life, it would be this one. I know that Bourjois is a drugstore or high-street brand in the UK, but in Canada, this mascara is about $21 (not exactly drugstore prices). I'll also do a full review of this mascara when I get around to using it because it's a really neat concept
• Olivella daily facial cleansing wipes. I was $7 short to my total, these wipes were $8 so I got them. The girl who was helping me at Murale said these were really good at cleansing, and also not harsh on sensitive skin. I haven't used them yet so I don't know if that's true. I'm waiting to use up the last of my Neutrogena makeup removing cleansing wipes.

Eyeshadow swatches

Nars Alhambra

Nars "Alhambra" swatch

Chanel Illusion d'Ombre Emerveille

The Chanel illusion d'ombre eyeshadow product comes with a cute little synthetic brush to use to apply the product. I'll probably just use my finger, but I thought this was so adorable. 

Ah, Chanel. It's so lovely

Chanel "Emerveille" swatch

I haven't used the Chanel eyeshadow yet. It always takes me a little bit of time to rack up the courage to dive into using a luxury product. I'll get around to it eventually though. How can I not? It's such a lovely shade of champagne-pink. Right up my alley


So that's my Optimum points haul from Murale. In Canada, Murale is such a great place to shop for high-end makeup because they have some brands that Sephora doesn't carry, such as Chanel, Bobbi Brown, Deborah Lippmann, and a great selection of Clarins makeup. PLUS you can collect optimum points when you shop :)

Such a wonderful place. Bad though, for people like me, with a serious obsession with makeup. 

xoxoDarlingBuds