What do you go to London Drugs for? I used to go there whenever I wanted to develop my photos! But now, I’ll be going there to shop for makeup! You may not think of London Drugs as the place to go for makeup and skincare but they actually have quite the selection including many brands that are exclusive to the chain. I recently went to the Granville street location in Vancouver which has a great beauty area and found some awesome new products to try!
Luxury Brands
Although London Drugs mostly stocks drugstore brands, there is still a good selection of luxury brands. I saw a full selection of Lancome, and Shisedo items. There was one section of Lise Watier items including the latest collections. You can also find Elizabeth Arden and Clarins although the displays were a lot smaller. The two items I picked up were a Lancome highlighter and a lipstick from Lise Watier that had marble packaging!
Lise Watier Rouge Gourmand Lipstick- Weekender
$25
Find it here
The lipstick was on a temporary stand with the rest of limited edition items from Lise Watier. As soon as I saw the packaging, I knew I had to have it. I’m surprised more beauty brands don’t use marble packaging as it’s such a trend these days. There’s only 5 in stock right now so better get your hands on it! Not only is the packaging amazing, the shade is actually perfect for fall. Brown lips are still hot and fall is the perfect time to wear this shade. The formula is smooth and has a slight grip to it. It gives pretty full coverage and decent wear time!
Lancome Dual Finish Highlighter- 03 Radiant Rose Gold
$53
I like to wear highlighter when I’m taking photos or going out to events. But this is the first rose gold highlighter I own! When I swatched it in stores, I was so blown away. The base shade is pink but when you tilt and catch the light, a lot of gold shows through. There is a nice sized mirror and it comes with a sponge pad. The formula is so smooth and almost creamy. But I find it doesn’t apply that nicely with a brush, it tends to only leave a light dusting of color/glitter. So now I’ve started just using my fingers to apply and that’s probably why it came with the sponge pad!
Dermatological Skin Care
The skincare brands carried at London Drugs are brands that are focused on effectiveness and those approved by dermatologists.
Bioderma Hydrabio Discovery Kit
$6.90 with a $5 voucher
Although I’ve tried all three items in this kit before, I’m going traveling in a few months and thought these were be perfect to take along. Included is a H20 micellar water (100mL), a Serum (15mL) and a Gel Creme (5mL). All the products in this line have a light scent that is very pleasant. If you have dry skin and you haven’t tried this before, you definitely should as this is the only line that gets rid of my dry flakes when it’s dead of winter. These kits are rather limited edition though but London Drugs usually have various different value kits available at any time.
La Roche Posay SPF60 Ultra Fluid Lotion
$29
Find it here
Drugstore Make Up
The biggest portion of the store however is still for drugstore makeup brands! You can find all of your favorites like Covergirl, Maybelline, and Revlon. But what makes London Drugs unique is the HUGE selection of NYX items. In the store I visited, there was 2 full aisles of just NYX products! Additionally I also love Makeup Revolution which is exclusively available at London Drugs in Canada.
After browsing the aisle, I decided to pick up some items from Maybelline, L’Oreal and NYX that looked like the newest releases!
I used to love the Maybelline BB cream so I wanted to try another foundation from them. Cushion foundations are all the rage, so I picked up the Dream Cushion in 40 True Beige. There’s lots of liquid in the sponge so the product is easy to pick up. It is creamy and surprisingly high coverage. The shade is a bit too orange for me though.
I also got the Maybelline FaceStudio Master Color Correcting Pen in Apricot for dark circles. The color correcting trend has been around for a while but I’ve never gotten really into it. The packaging of these were so cute though and sold me. There are 5 other colors available to correct various imperfections. The formula is quite light but the color actually is true orange! You definitely would need to use foundation on top of this so I’m not sure how practical this is for every day.
Lastly I got the Maybelline Colorshow eyeliner in Chocolate Chip. The shade is brown with a slight gold sheen and I thought it’d be great for lining the eyes for a smoky look.
Left to right: foundation, eyeliner, color corrector
From L’Oreal, I was drawn to the display of the Infallible Paints. There was a collection of highly pigmented lip colors and I was specifically looking for a deep color for fall. I found shade 334 Smoldering Eclipse which is a deep purple but also a metallic! There are definitely more wearable shades that are available but I love this shade if you are trying to do something bold.
For eyes, there were also new Infalliable Liquid Eyeliners. I chose the 310 White Party shade as I wanted a pure white eyeliner for any creative eye looks like cut creases or other decorative ideas. The felt tip was pretty thin so it would be easy to do detail work with it.
It took me a long time browsing the NYX aisles to narrow down the products I wanted to try. At the drugstore, NYX does some of the best palettes and their newest Perfect Filter in Olive You palette looks to be a great dupe to the Anastasia Subculture palette. It is on the pricey side at $21.99 but all of the formula was great except for one shade! Surprisingly the mattes were a better formula than the shimmers and the olive green shade is amazing.
I wanted another item for metallic lips so I went for the NYX Cosmic Metals lip cream. The shade is extremely pigmented and is a deep brick brown.
The other item that caught my eye was the Faux Whites eyeliner. I grabbed shade 01 Vanilla as it’s a nice yellow off white. I remember years ago when lining your bottom eye line was the best way to open up your eyes. There were 7 other shades available so you can find one that best matches your natural skin tone!
Tools & Accessories
If you are still with me, wow big props! I wanted to touch on the tools last as makeup brushes are expensive! Luckily you can find a huge selection of ELF, Real Techniques, and NYX brushes at London Drugs. These three brands have the highest quality for an affordable price. I also ended up getting a Tweezerman tweezer as I’ve never owned one and wanted to upgrade.
I went for the Real techniques blush brush, the ELF contouring brush, and the NYX crease brush. The blush brush is quite fluffy so it’ll give a light color pay off. The contouring brush gives the most intense contour I’ve had as the brush is so dense. The crease brush is perfect for blending out a neutral shade!
You can also find fragrances and Men’s skincare at London Drugs but I did not browse in those sections this time around. Where do you currently shop for makeup and have you shopped for makeup at London Drugs? Find your closest London Drugs with their store locator.
*This post was made in collaboration with London Drugs, I received a gift card to purchase these products*