Hihi ladies of the Nutt House :)
While in Japan during the new year, I spied the Fukubukuro which are mystery lucky bags that are propped outside almost every shop. Lucky bags basically contains pre-selected items from a brand and are available on New Year's day and of coz leftovers are still sold afterwhich. Traditionally, merchants stuff these bags with random leftovers and sell them in lucky bags at a discounted price as it is unlucky to start the new year with leftover merchandise.
Almost all shops have lucky bags for sale... clothing stores, supermarkets, Apple store, bakery, cosmetic counters, sports shop, pillow stores... you name it. Some of the lucky bags from popular brands are snapped out as soon as stores open, with throngs of eager customers lining up the night before to ensure that they 'get lucky' that year.
The whole day when I was out, I took many double-takes and back tracked to check out the nicely packed lucky bags. Some shops display the contents of the lucky bags while others seal if carefully to heighten the surprise element for shoppers. I had no intention of splurging on an expensive lucky bag and neither did I wanna get a lucky bag from a clothing store... so the entire day, I was wondering if I would eventually get myself a lucky bag.
Here's some of the lucky bags that I saw along Harajuku....
These are from Forever 21 and Adidas... the Forever 21 bags contains mainly clothes while the Adidas bags remain a mystery. Adidas had 'lucky tins', 'lucky paper bags' and 'lucky duffle bags'.
Here's a toy shop with a cart of lucky boxes... the 1000 Yen ones supposedly contains a PSP (if you are lucky) or some random toys.
Here's some fashion stores with their lucky bags.... you get a nice tote as well as what's in it :)
Before I show you the Calbee lucky bag... here's what we bought from the Calbee store... freshly made chips and potato sticks. The potato sticks are fab... they are not the crispy ones that we get from the packs. They are thick, warm, firm and chewy... (",)
So.... here's the Calbee lucky bag... at 2500 Yen... which is about $35 SGD and you get a whole bag of crispy snacks.
Outside the Matsumo Kiyoshi drugstore, they had these Kose, Shiseido and Kate lucky bags. I had been checking out lucky bags the whole day without much interest coz I didn't want something from a fashion store and neither did I want a sack of crispy snacks... and the high end cosmetic lucky bags contained things that I didn't need.
So, when I laid my eyes on this Shiseido lucky bag, I knew I had to have it... coz printed on the front, was the Shiseido foundation brush which I have read sooOoooo much about. The bag was rather heavy, so I knew that there would be other things inside other than the brush.
Instead of opening the bag right away to check the contents, I decided to hang on to the anticipation. I waited till I was back in the room, showered and fresh... and ready to be surprised! Throughout the night, I had my doubts. I wondered if the bag really contained the Shiseido foundation brush...
So, when I finally poured the contents onto the floor, I was thrilled to see the brush falling out along with a full sized Shiseido Integrate blush, a large box of Shiseido cotton pads as well as stacks of these samples that you see below. There were about 5 - 10 packs of each sample in the bag.
I went to read up online about the foundaion brush and found out that the brush I received in my lucky bag is actually the drugstore version and not the Shiseido Perfect Foundation brush (PFB) which retails at about $40. I was initially disappointed but soon found out that this #131 brush is almost as good as the PFB. The #131works really well for base application. I am currently using it for undereye concealer as well as foundation.
The #131 brush is tagged at 1890 Yen (appx $25 SGD) and the lucky bag was at 2000 Yen (appx $28) ... other than the brush, there was the full sized blush which I have not tried. It wasn't such a bad deal and I must say that I got lucky with this drugstore lucky bag, coz I wouldn't have thought to purchase the #131 brush despite having read so much good stuff about it. Coz I preferred using fingers to apply foundation until I laid my hands on this #131 brush :)
I also received stacks of this Maquillage powder foundation samples that came with a sponge. I tried it while still in Japan and I must say, they are really handy for taking along for short trips. It took about 4 days before I 'hit pan' on one side. So, I am holding on to these samples for my future short trips :)
And finally... to wrap things up, here's Kimmie The Dog... enjoying a rainy day at home (",) I love the cool weather that we are experiencing now (",)
Talk to you ladies soon!!!!!
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