FINALLY! I've lost my CCO virginity ;-)

For the longest time I've wanted to visit a CCO. Every time I go to NY to see Chaud, I promise to myself that I'll put a day aside to trek to the nearest CCO in New Jersey and I never do. The nearest one to me here in London is the one in Bicester shopping village and Miss Virtue (check out her blog and follow if you're not already) and I drove down there last Saturday afternoon, to see what LE treats we could find.

We both have Pro cards (thanks to The IMATS), so weren't interested in buying anything permanent that we could get in the Pro store using our discount. The Pro cards we have entitle us to 35% off, and CCO stock has 30% off. For some reason I get 40% off when I buy MAC in the States - not that I'm complaining! Every little helps!

I dunno what I was expecting once I got to the CCO but I called beforehand to try and get an idea of what stock they had in and when the dozy SA hesitantly said they had the "Safari" collection in, (she meant Style Warriors), I knew listening to another word coming out of her mouth was pointless and I'd just need to check the stock out for myself. Our initial plan had been to get there for opening time at 10am, but due to unforeseen circumstances we ended up arriving mid afternoon. We found it pretty quickly and it was pretty busy as expected for a Saturday afternoon. MAC was located in the back left hand corner of the store and consisted of 2 shelves full of eyeshadows, foundations, pigments and gift sets. A small separate block thing was a couple of feet away which had a pot full of eye pencil and lipgloss testers on it.

What I didn't like is that you had to take the eye/lip pencil and lipgloss/lipstick testers to the till and then you'd be given new products. It's easy to miss out on stuff cos people may be standing in the queue with testers in their hands and you'd be none the wiser to more products that are actually available, and as we were poking around the pot, a SA came over with a handful of testers she'd bought from the till.

There are also no baskets for you to put your items in either so I was walking around clutching testers and e/s and struggling to swatch stuff at the same time - annoying! You can pick up the e/s, foundations, pigments and gift sets BN straight off the shelf and take them to the till to pay for. There were a pot of brush testers on the till which could easily be missed too.

I bought:

Silly Girl l/g (Balloonacy)
Chignon l/s (back up just in case my boyf has lost the one I ordered that he couldn't find
Quick Tease l/g
Meet The Fleet e/s
Bobbi Brown shimmer wash in Bronze

Off the top of my head stock included:
Meet The Fleet e/s (BBR)
Solar White e/s
Shimmermoss e/s
Submarine e/s
Bright Future e/s (Style Warriors)
Eversun blush (Style Warriors)
Tribalist l/s (Style Warriors)
Chignon l/s (BBR)

There were a few pigments but I didn't look at them
Some Hello Kitty stuff
Pink Lemondade l/g
Moonbathe l/g
Quick Tease l/g (CCO)
Tempting quad
Shadowy lady quad
MAC 136 brush - there were a few more brushes but I can't remember which. None of the usual suspets like the 139, 109, 242, etc though
MAC MSF in Deep Dark
MAC Studio Tech in NC45
Bobbi Brown shimmer washes
Bobbi Brown lipglosses
Bobbi Brown oil control lotion
There was also Prescriptives make up, Estee Lauder stuff from the Sun Goddess range, Origins Skincare and make up, Clinique Skincare and a variety of perfumes which are made under the Estee Lauder umberella.

I did take my camera along to take pictures so but it was so packed in there it was impossible to get any pics of the stock as women flocked around the shelves like flies to shhhh!

Next on our CCO checklist is the Portsmouth branch which we'll check in a few months time to give the stock a chance to change. It was a fun afternoon and I'm looking fwd to the next "road trip" LOL