I love outlet shopping

Way back in the day, I would have to drive about an hour and a half to reach any outlet shopping in my area. The biggies are the two centers in Lancaster, PA. Then, about 3 years ago, an outlet shopping center opened not 10 minutes from my work. Oh, boy, was I in trouble. In addition to Coach, Kate Spade and Nike were a slew of children clothing stores - Gymboree, Children's Place, Gap Kids - oh, I could go on. It's a dangerous place. I've actually been good and not made that many lunch-break trips (those are for trips to Ulta which is across the street).

Each year in December, the dearest and I take one Friday off, drop the spitfire off at school and spend the entire day Christmas shopping. Of course I had to make a quick side trip into the Cosmetics Company Outlet. This store holds overstocks and past collections from Estee Lauder and brands owned by Estee Lauder (like Bobbi Brown, Origins, Clinique, and MAC). The dearest found the Sony store and we agreed to meet in 30 minutes.

I picked up a few of the Estee Lauder nail polishes from last Spring's collection (I'll post about those later). I skipped by Clinique because, well, lets face it - I really only buy Clinique nowadays when they have their gifts with purchase. And I picked up a few MAC polishes and Dazzleglasses (I love the shimmer!). Just a note - if you live near one, may still have the older MAC pigment packaging, which hold a lot more than the current packaging in stores now. And they have many of the permanent colors. I picked up Rose and Melon there in the recent past.

After I met up with the darling again and kept shopping I found the Lancome store. I don't really wear Lancome. When I was younger, spending my hard-earned allowance money on Wet 'n Wild makeup, my mom wore Lancome. I always thought of it as "mom makeup". Well, guess what? I am now a mom and close in age to how old my mom was when I started wearing makeup. So, I went in. I passed over the battery powered makeup and settled on a quad.

Finally, pictures!

This is the "Kissed by Copper" quad from the O My Rose Spring 2010 collection. Normally these quads retail for $42, I snagged this baby for $15. That's quite the deal, even if it is over a year old.

Kissed by Copper

Being that I'm now buying "mom makeup", and due to the fact that I walk a 5 year old to school, I tend to keep with neutrals. This quad fit the bill. There are four very nice, very wearable colors.

Expose - top left - is a very shimmery ivory. It is also quite sheer. I did a few passes on my hand to swatch, and I could barely get it to show up, although the shimmer definitely showed up.
Golden Lust - bottom left - is a metallic copper. This one is also very pigmented, soft and blends great. This one has a very high shine when applied.
Lounging - bottom right - is a neutral camel-color with *very* subtle shimmer. Very sparse shimmer, you have to look hard for it, it's mostly matte. This one is very pigmented and very soft and blended out beautifully. It's slightly darker and slightly rosier than my skin color. This would be a great lid color.

Chocolat - top right - is a rich chocolate brown with some subtle shimmer. It swatched a bit chalky, but it evened out with a bit of blending.

I foresee quite a bit of usage from this quad. It's great for everyday wear, and can  be blinged up a bit for nighttime wear with some liberal usage of Golden Lust. Do I care that it's from last year? Nah. A bargain is a bargain!

(this post was posted twice, I'm having some technical difficulties)