In recent years, I'm not sure you can class it as post Christmas sales anymore but still most stores go into sale on Boxing day and that is where I like to shop. Personally I am not a fan of online shopping and much prefer to see things in person. However I WILL NOT shop on Boxing day, having worked retail for a number of years I disagree with stores being open. I know it is tradition for most but it is hard on the people who have worked their butts off in the lead up to Christmas and then they only get to celebrate the actual day and then they are back to work. They get assholes being ungrateful, trying to return gifts without receipts, being rude to them and even worse they have to try and organise a sale. As I will not shop on the 26th, I tend to go out on the 27th and that was when I bought the main bulk of sale items this year. Although I did pick some items up before Christmas so I will take you through the items in the order that I shopped.
If you read my Blogmas then you might have seen my post on Tips for Christmas Present and Sales Shopping and the tips that I shared in this post are the ones that I live by. I only buy items that I had been eyeing up previously, that I might have wanted but now I could get a discount on them. If I don't apply these rules I feel like it is very easy to see a discount and think you are getting a bargain when really you might not be. As I said, I did start picking up a few bits before Christmas so I will share those with you first.
The Body Shop
My first shop was actually in The Body Shop. Now I don't usually shop in The Body Shop too often but if you couldn't tell from some of my Blogmas posts, I have been loving one of their Christmas scents, the Vanilla Marshmallow scent. I bought the Hand Cream just to test out the scent as I wasn't sure about it at first. However after getting a couple of compliments on it, I am now in love with the scent, so much so that I have introduced others to it. A couple of days before Christmas I was struggling with the amount of crap I had to do and I decided I was going to treat myself. I was walking around and I walked past The Body Shop and they had 25% off gift sets so I thought I'd have a look and they had a cute little Vanilla Marshmallow Set that seemed perfect. It contains mini products of the scent and the mini products are: the body wash, body butter, body scrub and a hand cream. For around £13 this seemed like a good treat so I decided to go for it and I am so glad I did, it certain gave me the pick me up I was after.
When I got to the till (eventually, there was quite a long queue) the sales assistant said I could buy another little set for only £6. Now I know this isn't the best deal but they had a set with the Almond Milk & Honey products which is easily my favourite scent from The Body Shop. I decided to pick one up just in case I needed to give someone a gift and I had maybe forgotten them or so I could include it in a future gift. This would also be a good one for travelling so I decided to add one onto my purchase. Both of these sets were only discounted rather than being part of the sale but I thought I would include them as it shows some of the discounting happens before Christmas and the discounts do not change much after Christmas. I did decide I was going to look for some more products in the post Christmas sale so you will have to continue reading to see if I picked anything else up from The Body Shop.
The White Company
I would say I am quite a regular shopper in The White Company but I do not own much of their stuff myself. I mostly buy it as gifts. I adore the brand but I do think it is a little bit of luxury that I would prefer to give to others than spend that much on myself. Saying that there were a few items I did want to see in the sale. As I had spent so much time looking at The White Company for gifts I had amassed quite a long list of things I wanted for myself and luckily for me, their sale started on the 24th so on my way back from work, I made a quick trip to my local store and picked up the 3 items I wanted.
I'll start with the most extra thing I could possibly buy and I have tried to use it but I'm not sure it is for me. This item is an Eye Mask but it is a 100% Silk eye mask. I had actually bought my mother one for Christmas as she can only sleep wearing an eye mask but she buys disgustingly cheap ones which do you no favours. I wanted to get her a silk one as they are supposed to be kinder to your skin and your hair. I had been looking at the Slip Eye Masks but they are too expensive to give someone who doesn't bother to take off their makeup so when I saw the one from The White Company it seemed perfect. It wasn't cheap but I did buy it on Black Friday when they had a discount. The discount was not quite as good as the sale price but there isn't much I can do about that. In the sale this mask was £15 so I decided to be a boujie bitch and buy one for myself and see what all the fuss is about. At the moment I can't get it to work for me but hopefully I can become one of those people who wears eye masks one day. If you like an eye mask and you are looking for a silk one, seriously check out the ones from The White Company because they are lovely quality.
To go with my fancy eye mask, I had also been eyeing up some jammie bottoms. I always buy them for my mum but I've never had any myself. I actually got my favourite design for my mother but I also liked the Brushed Cotton Star Pyjama Shorts which had small white stars on a pale pink short. These were 40% off and they were only £19.20 which was so much better than the £32 they were supposed to be. I am always running low on jammies so I always try to pick some up in the sales but these are going to be kept for special occasions. These are easily the fanciest jammie bottoms I own so I will definitely be taking care of these.
To complete my White Company haul, I have saved the best till last. I've spoken about the Winter scent collection quite a lot over the years and for that length of time I have been eyeing up the Large Candle. Usually I buy the signature size which is £20 as the large size is normally £60 which is quite a significant difference. £60 does seem like a lot to spend on a candle so when I saw that the Winter range was in the sale and they had some of the large candles for £48 I decided to get one. £48 is a lot but that is basically the same price as a regular Jo Malone London candle which I do buy so I could justify this price. As I've bought this size I am definitely not going to need to buy a Winter candle for a while. I will be saving this for next year now as I am still using my Jo Malone London Orange Bitters Candle but I am thrilled to have purchased this. One thing that I did forget when I purchased this candle is that you do not get a lid with it, which is so stupid and rather annoying so eventually I will need to buy one.
My trip to The White Company literally lasted around 10 minutes and this was the damage I did so you can only imagine what happened when I was let loose on the shops on the 27th. My excuse is that The White Company is a luxury and I wouldn't normally buy it for myself but in the sale I can justify it a little bit more.
After these two brief pre-Christmas shopping trips, I had to wait until after Christmas to do anymore shopping. As I refuse to shop on Boxing day, I went shopping on the 27th and there were a couple of things I had been eyeing up online. There was one store which did disappoint me which was Victoria's Secret, usually you can get some pretty good deals in their sale but there was absolutely nothing I wanted which was very unusual. Other than that I did manage to pick up a couple of items in a few other stores.
Lush
My first stop whenever I am shopping post Christmas is always Lush. Lush only ever do a sale after Christmas so you have to make sure you make the most of it whilst you can. I usually do quite a big shop in the Christmas sale but this year I think I was more restrained. I already had a list of things I wanted to look for and I managed to get all of it, in some capacity. I actually did this shop across two different stores in Bristol but I did it all on the same day so I'm going to talk about everything I bought in this one section.
I have to say the shop in the centre of Bristol did not come up with the goods, all I managed to get was a bottle of the Cinders Shower Gel and the Buck's Fizz Body Conditioner. I make this sound like it was a bust but these were two items on my list, all I couldn't get was Perle De Sel. I couldn't even see it in any of the gift sets. I'm actually using Cinders Shower Gel at the moment and it is incredible, it smells really almondy, a bit like Disaronno but then you get spicy elements which smell like the bath bomb used to. It is so nice for the colder weather so I was pleased to get this and as I said in my Winter Lush Haul 2018 I was going to look for the Buck's Fizz Body Conditioner in the sale as I think it is ridiculously expensive full price so thankfully I got a big tub for £9 again this year. I have to say I was glad I was able to get these two but I did want some more Perle De Sel so on my way back from town, I stopped in The Mall to see if they had any.
They did not have any single Perle De Sel so I had to see if it was in any of the gift sets and The Mall still had stock of two gift sets which contained Perle De Sel. The two sets I picked out were: Hygge Holidays and Golden Wonder. I thought I recognised the packaging for Golden Wonder and it turns out I actually bought the Golden Wonder set in last years Christmas sales. Last Year the set was a lot smaller and only contained two products whereas this year they have improved it and it contains a lot of my favourites. This years set contains: Perle De Sel Bath Bomb, Golden Wonder Bath Bomb, Golden Pear Soap and Yog Nog Yule Log Bubble Bar. Not only do I love Perle De Sel but I also love Golden Wonder so this was a great combination for me. Not only that but the box the gift came in is beautiful. The second set, Hygge Holidays, contains: Yog Nog Yule Log Bubble Bar, Perle De Sel Bath Bomb and Plum Pudding Bath Melt. I wasn't too fussed by the Yog Nog Bubble Bar but the rest of the products are ones that I love so in the end I managed to get everything I wanted.
Boots
As well as heading to Lush, I also knew I wanted to go to Boots. Boots have some amazing gift sets which automatically go down to half price and there were a few I wanted. The one set that I was desperate to get was a Glamglow Set, I spoke about the All Set to Glow Glamglow set during Blogmas and I said that they were a brand to watch in the sales, so that was exactly what I did. The particular set I was after this time was the Forget the Filter Set purely because I really want to try the Instamud Pore Refining Treatment. Normally Instamud is £30 and this set had gone down to £20 which was a saving you don't usually get on Glamglow. They had sold out online but they had one set left in store and it ended up being mine. I have got the Glowstarter Moisturiser already but this is a handy travel size. I wasn't bothered by this, the moisturiser is a nice product but nothing to rave about but I was dead excited about the Instamud.
Having checked out the sale on the Boots website, I had seen that some of the Spectrum Brush Sets had gone into the sale. I only own one Spectrum brush and I really like it. I've always wanted a brush set as Jess from Fairytales and Foundations talks about the Spectrum brushes quite a lot and I've always wanted to give them a go. They had two sets in the sale, the Mean Girls Really Pretty 4 Pieces Brush Set and the 5 Piece Mermaid Brush Set. Of course I went for the Mean Girls set and it had been reduced from £25 to £12.50 which seemed amazing for 4 brushes and they are all pink with Mean Girls quotes on the handles. Both sets are now sold out online but you might be able to find them in your local store. I felt like this would give me a good chance to try a variety of their brushes. The bag that came in the set will 100% meet my bin but I'm excited about the brushes.
The final item I picked up in Boots was one of the Real Techniques Christmas Tree Decorations which contained a Mini Buffing Brush. I bought the Grab & Glow set from Superdrug (which is now only £4 in Superdrug) which contained two mini brushes and they have come in super handy. This was supposed to be £6 but was £3 in the sale, I mean can you even pass on that? Nope so I got one for when I travel. This was the only set left in Boots from Real Techniques so if you were looking to get some Real Techniques brushes in the sale, you might have been a bit disappointed this sale season.
Superdrug
When I went into Superdrug I was actually looking for one of the Soph x Makeup Revolution sets because everyone who knows me thinks it is hilarious that there is a makeup collection which has my name on it. However they were all out of the set I was looking for. I still had a look around and there wasn't much I really wanted but I did pick up one set and oddly it came from Zoella Beauty. This is the first time I purchased something from Zoella Beauty but as it was only £3 I thought I would give it a go and I also thought it would be quite a good one to review. I don't often talk about drugstore products but I do talk about perfume a lot so I thought I would give the Scents of Wonder Rollerballs Giftset a chance. I haven't smelt them yet so I can't comment on them at the moment but I'm sure the review will be up soon. I figured these would come in handy for work as they would be a lovely size for my handbag. Not only that but you don't often see roller balls and they are easier than sprays sometimes.
The Body Shop
My final stop on the 27th for my sales shop was The Body Shop and this time products were 50% off. As I said at the beginning of the post I am in love with the Vanilla Marshmallow scent and all of the products are half price so I picked up some of the Shower Gel and the Body Butter. These two products came to £10 which I was incredibly pleased about. Then I also managed to get another Almond Milk & Honey gift set but this time it was slightly bigger. It is the Festive Picks set which contains a full size Shower gel, a hand cream, a Soap, a mini Body Butter and a mini shower puff. This was half price as well so I got it for £10 which seemed reasonable to me. I love the Body Yogurt in the Almond Milk and Honey scent so I am eager to try a few more products from the scent range.
Lush
After I had got home from doing my big sales shop, I was scrolling on Instagram and I actually follow the Lush Cribbs Causeway store and they posted a picture of a Christmas set that I had to go into Lush to buy. It was in fact the gift set I had my eye on as I adore the two products within it but I hadn't seen it earlier that day. I had to go to The Mall the following day for work reasons so I went to see if they had any of the Season's Greetings Gift Set. I didn't know that was what the set was called but I knew the packaging so that was what I was looking for. Turns out they had lots left so I picked up two. Sort of dismisses the point that they were 50% off but I am just happy to have the two products in the set. This set contained my absolute favourite Perle De Sel and a small bottle of the Cinders Shower Gel. This set was £12.95 but it was 50% off so this was great for me. If I had seen this set the day before I would not have bothered to get the Hygge Holiday set but that is only in hindsight.
A lot of the things I have purchased are items that I have wanted to try that I did not want to buy at full price and I had been eyeing up everything since before they went into the sale, other than the Zoella set that was a random purchase. I can't say this is it for my sales shopping as I simply cannot help myself but this means I managed to buy everything I had been eyeing up so anything else I purchase will be random items I see on a shopping trip. I know this seems like a lot but it was in the sale so it isn't as much as it looks. Plus I had a bit of spending money from Christmas. If you've done a little bit of sales shopping, let me know what your best find was in the comments.
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