More To Mica - Life & Fashion Theme Update

Every woman has her beauty that she can further enhance with skincare & makeup, it's a woman's secret. There's a ton of beauty brands for us to try and to find which products work best for our skin type but there aren't as many online makeup stores for us to shop at here in the Philippines. One of which is BeautyMNL.com, a go-to beauty destination, with over 300+ brands, for all things beauty.



For someone like me who's work is home-based I don't get to go out as often. Browsing online had actually become a hobby. I'm greatly thankful for websites like BeautyMNL to keep me stocked with my beauty supplies without having to go to the mall.



After months of just browsing through their page (hoping I could one day make a purchase) I finally got the chance to try shopping at BeautyMNL. I've always wanted to shop at BeautyMNL but I was loaded with chores & pending posts so I didn't had the chance. Good thing I was contacted by Erika to try out and test the site. Now I have my reason to check it out. Lol.

SHOPPING WITH BEAUTYMNL

Personally, I like the look of the site. It's pretty straight-forward and easy to browse through. Plus they have this similar feature where you can read feedback and review from other buyers who have tried specific product you are looking to buy. I also like that they have a detailed description & how to use on the product page. All the details - product description, how-to, brand description, reviews etc., are all in one page (same with mobile) which is really nice. Sorry I'm a web & graphic designer so... I talk about the technicals.

Payment

Payments through Paypal, Credit Card via Paypal,  Bank Deposit & Online Bank Deposit (BDO, BPI, Metrobank) and Cash-On-Delivery (COD) is accepted. For more info on payment modes click here.

Credits

What are BeautyMNL credits? Credits are accumulated points which can be used as payment for your orders at BeautyMNL. Although credits will only work with Paypal transactions. Still awesome right! Credits are earned from the product reviews you've submitted. For more info about BeautyMNL credits click here.

Shipping

About shipping. They guarantee next day shipping with Metro Manila addresses. I can't assure that since I had my package sent to Laguna. So it took a while but they mentioned it would take 5 to 7 working days for the rest of the Philippines. Ugh, the downside of not living in Metro Manila... Oh well. Hahaha.

Here's how it went. I placed my order early morning of January 11. Two days later January 13, I got an email saying my package is with the courier and is en route to the given address. My package arrived six days after order was placed. That's fine since they didn't make me wait longer than 7 days but I was 'atat' and wanted to get my goodies sooner. Haha. Also, the delivery guy called me, he was in our village already but he needed help with finding our house.

MY BEAUTYMNL HAUL

Or should I say mini haul? Since we've only got a total of five products but anyway... Here's a list of what I got from BeautyMNL.

• It's Real Squeeze Tea Tree Mask , Innisfree P65.00
• It's Real Squeeze Bija Mask, Innisfree P65.00
• Holy Moly Snail Mask , COSRX P150.00 [Bought on sale for P135.00]
• 2-in-1 Gift Set: Baby Blues + Gel Top Coat, Solique P380.00
• Pro-Artist Precision Eyeliner Brush , W7 P199.00

OVERALL SHOPPING EXPERIENCE

I'm very happy with the websites ease of use & the shopping process. I had no problems whatsoever. The products were pack in a resealable packaging. My orders came in tact nothing was damaged. I will definitely shop again at BeautyMNL for my beauty needs. I do recommend trying this go-to beauty destination out specially, if you live in the metro, if you still haven't.

BLOOM & BEAUTY BY YOU

Before I end this post. I'd like to invite you to check out BeautyMNL's in-house magazine - Bloom.  You can browse through several articles about Makeup, Beauty, Celeb's and the like. Here's one article I enjoyed reading: 6 Beauty Secrets We've Learned from the Japanese.

Beauty by You is a place dedicated for product reviews. Here you can easily search for comments and feedback from users of a certain product. The page also has a categorization of which product is rated best, most waistlisted and has the best bargain, Recently reviewed products can also be viewed on the page.
That's it beautiful ladies! Don't forget to check the site out!

Previously I've shared an Aliexpress review & experience on the blog, this time as promised, I'll be sharing some Aliexpress guide & tips. Do note that this isn't the ultimate Aliexpress guide or something, as I haven't tried purchasing products aside from clothes, bags, wigs and small camera accessories. Everything is solely based on my experience. Some people have asked about shopping for gadgets and I really haven't shopped any of those because I'm afraid of customs and taxation but I do have some suggestions that might be helpful if you really want to purchase gadgets and similar stuff. Heads up: *Long post ahead!*



Before I start with the actual guide, I'd like to share a short introduction about Aliexpress.

Aliexpress is a giant online market from China. It was launched in 2010 and had grown a huge visitors worldwide since then. It's very popular in Russia, Brasil and Baltic countries.

How to Order?

For the guide I've purchased one particular item to feature so I can show you the basic process from browsing, ordering, paying, etc. blah, blah... you'll also get to see the actual product which I'll have it attached below. Before anything else create an Aliexpress account (Check out: How to create account here). You can also do this later at checkout, I think.



I was looking for something cheap and something I can wear, so I searched for hats. As you can see, they provide a drop down function with a series of similar keywords to help you search and make it easier to find the closest of what you're looking for.



Here's a cropped screen grab of the search results. The white Anti Social Social hat on the right most is what I had purchased.



After choosing the item you want to buy from the search catalogue, you will be taken to a product preview page with all the details, specifics, more product images and such. In this page you can also add it to your Wishlist.

Shopping Cart

Here's my shopping cart with the pink and black hat. Check your orders and click the 'Buy from this seller' button to proceed to checkout.



Since I've already shopped and entered my shipping information before, Aliexpress had already saved this information for me. If you're a new buyer you'll be asked to fill up your shipping info. Proceed with payment by clicking 'Place Order'

Payment

Next, fill out the payment form with your chosen payment method. I pay thru my SmartMoney which is a MasterCard. Click this link for list of payment methods. I actually paid thru mobile.. Because there was a discount for the products I ordered. You can check from the product page if the shop is offering discounts. Below the posted price you'll spot a QR code which you can scan via Aliexpress mobile app to see if there is extra discount when you shop mobile. On my case, there's a 0.12 extra discount, and I will avail that one so I paid via mobile. Hahaha. More about payments, click here.



The discount was a pretty small amount.. I saved like 0.12 hahaha, but since I will still be paying for Philpost handling/fee.. that small amount matters to me. Lol. Saving is good thing no matter how small the amount is. Yes!



A successful payment notification will be sent to your email address.



After payment you may now check your latest (even previous) purchase on 'My Orders'. From here on you will have to wait until the seller has packed and shipped your order. Your transactions will now be saved and you can look back on the items you've ordered on Aliexpress.


I'm actually happy with this seller, my order was shipped just a few hours after payment. Usually, other sellers would take 2 or more days to ship the item. By the time the seller had shipped the item you may go back to 'My Orders' menu and track the shipment.

Tracking

You may click the 'Track Order' button to open the tracking page, or just hover like the image below for a quick view. Do note that it would take 5-10 days before Aliexpress would flash the status of the order. Sometimes there is no status posted at all. So what I'd like to do is check through Phlpost Track & Trace or Chinapost if you don't live in Philippines.



Here's what you should see when you click the 'Track Order' button. You can check the status from here if Aliexpress was able to post a tracking status of your order. Sometimes Aliexpress can't fetch your package status like I've said earlier.. You might be worried/wondering that you're package is lost.. So better check Phlpost/Chinapost... Check my Phlpost Track and Trace screen grab below.




The status you're waiting for is - Enroute to delivery office. This means your package is on it's way, either delivered to your doorstep or you'll get a notice to pick it up at the post office. On my experience, all my orders were delivered to our home, never have I picked up an item at the post office, i don't even know were it is so I'm lucky. My bf tried.. he had to pick up his first order, which was kinda small compared to some of most of my orders, at the post office. He lives in Las Pinas, fyi.

Here's the actual photo of the baseball caps ordered from Aliexpress. I bought one for me and one for my beau. Haha. Since, we're both kinda shy we kinda belong to the ASSC club.

Extra Tips

That's basically how you buy products from Aliexpress. Now, I'd like to share a few tips, things I check whenever I'm shopping at Aliexpress.

Feedback

It's best to look at actual feedbacks from previous buyers. You'll find it next to the product details tab. If you're lucky some buyers will share actual photos of their orders from the shop. It's really handy since you'll get to see the actual photo instead of the advertised photos posted of the seller. Make sure to weigh in the positive and negative comments. Sometimes buyers would expect too much, forgetting that they bought the product at a cheaper price, and would say very negative comments but the product they got are actually okay and passable. So just make sure to read the comments...

If there are no comments, but you really want to the product.. This happened to me... I ordered the product from the seller because I couldn't find other sellers selling the same product what I do is check out the seller rating and the overall store feedback - includes all comments of different items from the buyers. If the store is new usually they haven't accumulated enough comments so I put my faith forward and pray that the product is good enough.

Seller Rating

As mentioned above, always check the seller rating. Let's do this by comparing the stores below.

Ganssia has earned a total of 6,288 sales (check with diamond icons/medal) and 99% feedback, while Bag Best had sold 538 with 98.5% feedback. Both are actually great values, I'd say these are 'Safe-to-Shop' stores. Most stores would actually have 90%+ of feedback. You'd think that's good but personally anything below 97% feedback is on the 'Not-So-Safe' to shop stores.. Anything below 95%, be careful... quality might not be as great as the picture.

It's a bit tricky but just check the years they've been open (if there is), total sales and read feedbacks.

Wishlist

Don't really think this would fall as tips but anyway one of the things I like with online shopping is the Wishlist function... Aliexpress has an enormous catalogue and once I find an item I might not be able to find it anymore. Plus, I like that you can categorize your list. Like what I have in mine.. Shorts, Shoes, Skirts, etc.

Disputes/Refund (Buyer Protection)

I have to say the dispute/refund feature made me trust and shop at Aliexpress. There's this one time.. I ordered a wig but when I got it, it came in a bad quality. An area of the bangs were unevenly cut off.. It was tangled.. So I escalated a dispute.. and to cut the long story short, the seller was kind enough to give me an almost full-amount refund. I felt relieved... I had sent evidence photo of course.. You can check more about the Buyer Protection feature by clicking this link.

Shipping

I've already mentioned above how you can track your post, via Aliexpress My Orders page, Phlpost & Chinapost. Most items sold in Aliexpress offer free shipping via China Post Registered Mail usually it would take approximately 20 days. It's actually faster now compared to my previous orders 2 years ago where it took 30+ days to arrive. If you want to get you're orders faster (3-10 days) you may opt to have the items shipped through EMS/DHL, quite pricey though. If you live in the Philippines and plan on buying gadgets I suggest you have it shipped thru DHL so you don't have to worry about customs as much. Know more about shipping and delivery, click here.



I guess that's all I'd like to share for now. You can also read Aliexpress' New User Guide to help you through their site, which makes this post sort of pointless. There are many helpful guide/faqs on Aliexpress site actually, just head to the footer section. Haha... Feel free to comment/send me a message if you have questions I might be able to help you with.

I've forgotten how I landed on the pages of Aliexpress.. all I know is that it happened when my online shopping was at its peak and spotted some cheap-priced-good-looking-things sold at Aliexpress' site. I used to just browse the site because I was hesitant to order anything. The items would be coming from China and I was afraid it might get taxed at a hefty price. Online shopping outside the Philippines could be horror because of some taxes.



Little did I know, my dad had ordered stuff already. I think I'd asked him whether he knew Aliexpress and told me that his recent packages came from Aliexpress. Sorry, i forgot coz' it was a long time ago (yeah, it took me a long time before I came up with a review, I'm so sorry)... So anyway, I tried to order a wig.. Yep! My first order is a wig since I've been wanting to do cosplay (and still haven't cross that of my bucket list) and most wigs sold at Aliexpress are undeniably affordable compared to the ones sold here.

I was like a kid when my Aliexpress package arrived after appx. 30 days (quite a long wait though but I'm a patient kid so that's okay with me). Imagine how happy I was when it was delivered straight to our home address... I don't like the thought of visiting our local post office. I don't even know where it is... Haha. I paid the courier guy P50 for the delivery charge at that time.



Despite the wig being longer and thinner (some strands are even falling out) than I expected, I should say it was still of good quality. It's not the shiny and plastic looking kind of wigs that are sold in most streets of Divisoria. It looks close to natural hair.. Ill need to comb out the mess from trying it on.

The first order was followed by a bunny shorts, a few more wigs, lens cap, fujifilm camera case (for my guy), bucket hats and whole lot of clothes.. I was shopping for one whole year, almost every other month at Aliexpress. I've ordered a total of 27 items. Two to three transactions failed.. According to the seller my orders got out of stock. The other order got frozen because Aliexpress have suspended the seller due to suspicious trading activities (woah, atleast I know Aliexpress does not allow suppliers who do not follow their rules and terms)... You won't have to worry as much for failed transactions like those as you're eligible for a full refund in times of unfortunate transactions. In my case though, some refunds would be short of a few cents already.

Here are some outfits I've previously shared in the blog featuring a piece bought from Aliexpress.







*You may also use the search tool, type in Aliexpress and check out more posted items bought from Aliexpress.

What I like about Aliexpress is that it keeps a record of the items I've purchased. The first item I've ever bought was still saved in 'My Orders' profile section. Mine is currently at three pages but I'll only share parts of the first and last page.


And here's the very last items I've purchased up to date. You can see the Time & Date of my orders and from what store I bought them from. Yes it was a year ago.. Haha. I'd like to apologize for the late review.. I wanted to have proof/photos of me wearing the items.. and test possible positive and negative experiences.


If you check the order status in one of the orders above.. the written status is 'Closed'. What happened was the items were not available, it got out of stock (Boo!). The amount was refunded back to me since items were already paid for. I've had a bit of items requested for refund in partial or almost full amount... you can get a certain refund as long as you send in photos and proof (item is small, different color.. and such). Btw, you can also talk to the seller first before ordering/sending your payment. Will be talking more about this in another Aliexpress post I'll be making, Aliexpress Shopping Tips & Guide.



These are the bags that I was able to keep from all the items I've bought, the other bags were thrown away already. As you can see all bags are different... I've never gotten a uniform bag, unlike our usual Xend, LBC, 2GO, etc bags... they have a uniform look (color, logo, stuff like that) and comes in different sizes. The first package - wig was shipped through Sing Post then most of my succeeding packages were shipped through China post. I chose China post because I wanted to avail the free shipping (note: not all sellers offer free shipping), that's why it took me about 25-30 days. If you want to get the item faster you can choose other shipping methods like EMS, etc.



I would say Aliexpress is safe with 'buts'.... The overall experience was a hit or miss (well, that's the usual online shopping situation). Some goods would be a like hitting a jackpot but some were just okay, some just meh... For example, there's this leggings I ordered that came in a really really small size, like a size for a 6-7 yrs old, I had to give it away. And one time, I ordered for a white polka dotted stockings but the seller delivered a black lacey stockings instead, boo! what a mess. That's the thing though, the items come from different sellers all over China.. Some are really good some are lousy. It's indeed a surprise! Hahaha.

It's really up to you to take a risk or not, just make sure to check the score of the store and READ feedbacks from other buyers. As for me I can say I'm satisfied with 8/10 of my orders so I'm fine ordering again. I'm actually planning to buy a few stuff again one of these days.

Anyway, it's okay if you'll be shopping at Aliexpress from the Philippines. I guess just don't order in bulk and be careful when shopping genuine leather of some sort. All of my orders were delivered straight to our home her in Laguna but not for my Dad.. Haha. Some of his orders had to be picked up at the post office and he had to pay thousands to get his computer bag & a few small hardware wheels (probably because it was heavy). Also, I've noticed that the delivery charge had increased. I used to pay P50 but then the last 3-4 packages were now charged P100.

To sum it all up:
It is safe to shop at Aliexpress if you're from the Philippines but be cautious and pick a shop you'll be ordering stuff at. Check the store rating & feedback. It takes appx 15-40 days for your order to arrive when you pick China Post. Some items might get taxed. If Philpost is kind enough to deliver your package at your address, prepare P100 to pay the courier if not you'll have to drop by the post office.

That's all! As mentioned in the post above I'll be working on a more detailed post for guides and tips for those who want to shop at Aliexpress. Hope you stay tuned. If you can't wait feel free to send me an email.


UPDATE (April 23, 2016):

• Just ordered a few pieces again from Aliexpress.. My orders took 18-19 days appx. to arrive. And they now charge me P112.00 for a package.

Is there an item you’ve been looking for but it’s only available in the US or some place else and no matter how far you search you still can’t find it in the Philippines? Then we’re in the same boat!

But miracles happen, God heard our cries and sent us Galleon.PH to solve or ‘Not Available in the Philippines’ woes. Yarrr!



Here’s my case, weeks after I’ve started attending sewing classes previously, I’ve been on an online search for sewing machines but the exact machine I wanted isn’t available here in the Philippines. I felt so defeated and heart broken but I didn’t give up just yet. Lo and behold I stumbled upon Galleon.ph and found the machines I wanted, and looked for other things I might need.

Here are three items I found on Galleon.PH:

1. Janome 18750 Hello Kitty Computerized Sewing Machine
When I saw this particular brand Janome on google, I spotted their Hello Kitty machines but since it’s not available here in the Philippines I gave up on it. Since I’ve just bought industrial sewing machines, I’m still putting this as well as the Singer serger below on my wishlist.



2. SINGER 14T968DC Professional 5 5-4-3-2 Thread Capability Serger Overlock with Auto Tension



3. Beadsmith Bead Loom Kit for Beginners, Includes Weave, Necklaces, Bracelets and More

I’m one of those crafty/diy kind of girl and I’ve been looking for this bead loom kit so I can make some beaded bracelets I see on handcrafting sites.




The thing I like about Galleon.PH is that prices are all-inclusive and they take care of shipping, customs and taxes. We’ve heard a lot of issues when it comes to the taxation here in the Philippines and how shocking others have been charged for their orders. It’s a sigh of relief that with Galleon.PH we won’t be worrying about that.

More Galleon.PH features:

• Ships nationwide and delivers via air (6-12 business days) and sea (35-40 business days)
• Has efficient customer care. With that, buying and shipping of items not on their website can be requested.
• Has multiple payment modes.
• Has a “ship my item” feature where in Galleon.ph act as a PO box service but you don’t get charged shipping fee by the box but on the item itself. www.galleon.ph/shipmyitem

Head over to Galleon.PH and look for the hard to find items you’ve been wanting to have.
You can also check out their social media accounts: Facebook | Twitter | Instagram