Online shopping has completely taken on a life of its own and to be honest, it’s how I do most of my shopping. You just can’t beat shopping online in your pyjamas and having life’s necessities delivered to your door the following morning, or sometimes even later that day. As convenient as that is though, I do still enjoy walking around the shops and coming home with my goodies and rooting through my mini haul. I thought I’d share with you where I like to shop, both online and offline and let you know what stores are my go-to.
Fashion
If I’m shopping in-store, I usually gravitate towards Topshop and Primark. Topshop is my go to for fashion inspiration and for getting a good indication of the current trends. I love their jeans, and denim in general, and I am a complete sucker for a sweatshirt. Topshop offers really good jewellery and accessories so you can usually find me in that area with handfuls of sunglasses and earrings. The personal shopping at Topshop really opened my eyes to what a great brand this is and how much they have to offer. The girl I used to see was called Holly and she was brilliant. They have a great eye for your style and every time I went she would absolutely nail it.
Primark has really upped its game over the last few years. I have to admit I became a complete snob and if it was Primark, I wasn’t going to wear it, but since Primark has grown at a rate of knots, so has their ability to meet trends seemingly at the speed of light. It used to be that Primark would have trend pieces a year or so after they were big, but I have found that they are there at the forefront of fast fashion and have trend pieces on par with other high street and high end stores during the same season. This is great because it means that you really don’t have to break the bank to be fashionable, and if there is an outrageous catwalk trend you would like to dabble in without investing heavily – Primark makes that possible. I’m a convert and although I do have my spending limits (I’m not sure how I feel about spending £20 and up on one item when I could go elsewhere), and there are still things that I would and wouldn’t buy in Primark.
If I’m online shopping it has to be ASOS. I have premier delivery (which is a really good idea because it’s worked at putting me off shopping in other places to avoid delivery charges), so I can get my order the following day which is a dream. I’ve been shopping on ASOS since I was 17, and I’ve never been let down. The range is SO good that it can suck you in for hours. I love that they stock their own range (which is great), but other brands too so you never really need to look at any other fashion sites again. I hate having to order one thing from one site, something else from another – paying delivery for both… With ASOS it’s a one stop shop, and you can get everything from socks to your winter coat. The return service is great, you can order multiples and give everything a try with no hassle when it comes to sending things back. I also really like that they have a men’s section because when buying presents or just items of clothing for your boyfriend/brother/dad, you can do all of this in the same order too. ASOS for life woo!
Beauty
House Of Fraser is the best department store I have locally for all things beauty. I go to House of Fraser to shop the Clinique and Estee Lauder counters. I find them really helpful, and when spending a lot of money on a brand, I do like to have an advisor to talk to and test the products with.
Boots and Superdrug are great for high street shopping, and are pretty much everywhere so you can always be sure to find one somewhere! The brands they both stock are great, and are both a one stop shop for basically everything health and beauty. I like Boots for more expensive purchases like high end makeup and perfume, and Superdrug is great for a really big selection of drugstore makeup brands – there seems to be endless walls of affordable makeup brands now which is amazing. Both tend to have offers a lot of the time, and both have store point cards which is always a bonus for me.
When online shopping for beauty, I don’t really have one site that I go back to – I shop around depending on stock and discount codes. My favourites are Cult Beauty, Beauty Bay and Look Fantastic, but I do occasionally buy beauty from Amazon and ASOS.
Lifestyle
Homesense is brilliant for everything and anything homeware and all the bits in between. Homesense is full of stuff I didn’t even know I needed but absolutely cannot live without. What I love the most is that the stock changes so often, even if you go twice in a week, the entire store is completely different. This can cause problems for your wallet, forcing you to buy what you find on the day because obviously you can’t risk losing that glittery rabbit table you suddenly feel compelled to buy (seriously, so many things you really don’t need)!
I love to buy prints and when I do, it’s Desenio every time. Sorry to be boring but I really do love their site. When I first started buying prints from Desenio I would order the frames and prints together, however now I prefer to order my prints online and buy the frames from somewhere like The Range.
You may have also noticed that I have a lot of plants around my home. I mostly buy my plants from local garden centres or Homebase, but have purchased from supermarkets and Wilkinsons before too! Wilkinsons are great for plant pots (I have had to repot a few times and these are good quality and fairly cheap), and smaller house plants.
Health
You may have read my post about bone broth, or collagen powder, and the place I go for these now is Amazon. I have tried so many powders and have ordered from a number of different sites, but the best powders for quality and money (and delivery of course) is from Amazon.
For vitamins and health foods I find that Holland & Barrett are one of my favourite stores. Unfortunately in the UK we really don’t have many health food stores, especially where I live, and although quite often I do feel like I need to take out a mortgage in order to pay for my snacks here, it does offer some great brands (including their own brands), and they are in most high streets so I can rest assured I am never too far away! One good thing though is that they offer a really good points card and I have ended up with a lot of money to spend in vouchers which does help balance the cost a little.
Check out – ‘Five In-Flight Essentials‘
