So as some of you might have heard this weekend, the beloved online site hqhair.com, a mainstay of many European gals who used this website to get their hands on US brands not available in their country, is rumored to have filed for bankruptcy or some such thing. I don't really know what's going on myself, but you might have noticed that many of the most popular brands have been removed from the site. On their Facebook page, some customers have reported their accounts being deleted.
Personally, the part that irks me the most is that this was the only place I could buy Nars products from. Switzerland has a few counters, none of which bother to ship the products within my own country and are located hours and hours away from me (why yes, Switzerland apparently still lives in the dark ages) and the Nars online shop for Europe only ships to EU countries apparently. Why they don't ship here, I do not know.
Anyhow, so thanks to a Twitter follower, I was recommended by an Australian gal to check out this website: Kiss and Makeup. It's a makeup boutique located in the USA that carries most of the Nars line, among other brands like Laura Mercier, Trish McEvoy, Kiehl's, etc. Prices are the regular US prices (score!!!) and worldwide shipping is about $10 USD flat rate right now. I don't know if this is a special price or if that's for all time, but that seems quite reasonable.
YAY! Crisis averted. I cannot imagine living without my Nars foundation anymore. Apparently many Aussie beauty fans use this website to get their Nars fix, with good reviews. I think I'll be trying this out. If anyone knows of other retailers of Nars products that ship worldwide, please list them below.
Update: You can also order NARS cosmetics from Asos.com which currently offer free shipping worldwide! More convenient for European customers as Asos is based out of the UK. Standard UK Nars prices.
I know how you feel about living far away from a NARS counter. I myself live in Ireland and the only place I know of that sells NARS is in Dublin, which is about 4 -5 hours by car from where I live. It's probably because NARS is so expensive that they make scarce the number of makeup counters they have in each country.
ReplyDeleteGlad I could help :D
ReplyDeleteI've already got a big wishlist for the site, just gotta earn some money first haha!
Thank you so much for that information! Strawberrynet. com carries a lot of NARS products, and a lot of other brands as well. They ship worldwide, and the shipping cost is included in the price :) x
ReplyDeleteI used to live in New Zealand so can definitely share your frustration at not being able to get hold of NARS or other brands. I've ordered NARS products from Kiss and Makeup before, thank goodness there's at least one place that ships worldwide! YIf you're looking for brands besides NARS you could also try a parcel forwarding service, which can be very worthwhile if you're planning to order a lot in one go.
ReplyDeleteHi girls, i'm one of the "happy" hqhair customer who found her account deleted.
ReplyDeleteActually i'm a bit worried for the order i placed 4days ago, whatever.
Hqhair was my only chance to buy Nars with good prices and loads of products i can't find in Italy, like Essie, Nails Inc, Japonesque...
So Nars ships to my country, prices are higher than hqhair and shipping costs are bloody expensive, but for an italian girl is more convenient than pay custom fees ( who start from about 20euros) and wait 1-2months, tons of ebay sellers don't ship to Italy because of this.
Suggestions:
-You can place an international order at Selfridges. From their website:
We are sorry but we do not deliver online orders outside the UK. You can, however, place a telephone order to the store for international delivery. Call our Customer Services team on 0800 123 400 (from the UK) or +44 113 369 8040 (from overseas).
-Apparently you can place an international order by calling SPACENK.CO.UK. From their website:
do you deliver to international addresses?
please contact our customer services team on +44 (0) 20 8740 2085 or click on contact us for enquiries and information on international deliveries outside of the UK and Channel Islands.
I am a SIngaporean living in Sweden and both countries don't carry NARS. Singapore used to have a counter at Sephora but not anymore. I got my foundation in London during my trip there in Dec. I love the foundation so much, never felt like this before. Thanks for sharing the site that ships worldwide.
ReplyDeleteHi Julia!
ReplyDeleteI live in Switzerland as well and Nars is available at MANOR. Have you checked your local store? I think I have seen it at Globus as well...
i ordered two times from this website and their nars products are 100% authentic (i first thought … looking at their prices … that they are not … lol)
ReplyDeletethey have only a few things … but the things from nars they have are very cheap!!
they have a lot of other brands and a lot of asian brands!
http://www.cosme-de.com/en/main/main.html
i can't get nars here in austria … and ordering from narscosmetics.eu is way to expensive for me :(
I actually tried to order a Nars blush in December. Found out it wasn't "in stock" with HQHair and the manufacturer about a week ago. Now, when I try to log on to the site, my password or email adress are "invalid". I am getting quite scared here...
ReplyDeleteI live in Switzerland as well but I've never seen Nars in Manor or Globus! Maybe in Zurich?! (I live in Basel and we don't have it here!)
ReplyDeleteAnother choice for NARS would be the recently opened webshop by House of Fraser (houseoffraser.co.uk). European, so less waiting time and free shipping when you buy over 50 pounds ;)
ReplyDeleteI'm so pissed that I can't order Nars from hqhair. I live in Romania, that's in the EU, but the NARS website offers us the worst shipping ever : 25 EUROS!!!!!!! Are you kidding me? The foundation itself is already expensive, 25 euros for shipping is ridiculous!
ReplyDeleteI've used HQHair myself for NARS products as they were an official authorised stockist (I've heard strawberrynet send fake items - dont know if anyone knows for sure).
ReplyDeleteThey told me only this week they were getting more NARS in as I noticed everything suddenly was out of stock.
It was my only way of getting NARS in Cyprus, now I'll have to use selfridges
I sent an HQHair gift card to a friend for her birthday, she tried to log in and her account had suddenly disappeared. So she re-registered, entered the gift card code during check out and it said it was invalid...bit odd. That's when I found out about the bankruptcy rumour :/
ReplyDeleteI tried to log in myself, but I got the "password or email address are invalid" message... Then we both tried to contact customer service, but their e-mail address is gone and there's no contact form to be found on the main site anymore either.
So yeah... Ehh... Not good. I've opened a Paypal claim, but I doubt I'll hear anything.
Hi girls,
ReplyDeletei'm from Russia and NARS isn't available here(
You can also find some of the NARS products on the asian online shop called strawberrynet.com. I'm not sure if this site is available from all countries (for example for visitors from Germany its not), but they have some products and these are quite cheap. The worldwide shipping is free!!
I would also recommend you to buy Giorgio Armani cosmetics on this website. This make-up line is gorgeous, but is much more expensive offline!
There's also the option of using sephora.fr except their postage within Europe is ridiculous. I think it was something like 14 €. And of course one needs to speak French. The next time I'm in either Colmar or Strassbourg I'll check out the Sephora's there to see how they are stocked. Maybe that's an option.
ReplyDeleteHi Julia,
ReplyDeleteI live in Zürich too and there is no chance to get Nars here, not at Manor, Globus etc.
I wish there is a chance to buy it here:-(
Bianca
Hi Julia
ReplyDeleteI hope you don't mind me posting. I found your blog over the weekend, and thought I'd let you know about BeautyBay.com - we're based in the UK (have been trading for 11 years), and sell many of the brands that are now no longer available on HQ. Unfortunately, we don't have NARS :-(, but we do have many others, including Essie, RMK, Urban Decay, Mario Badescu, Sebastian, Illamasqua and many more!
I know this doesn’t help with the NARS sourcing, but do hope it might help some of your readers with sourcing other much loved products. We're on Twitter and Facebook if anyone has any queries.
Disclaimer: I don't want this post to read as spam or advertising etc, so haven't included any links. Please feel free to edit if you prefer, we really just want to let everyone know of the alternatives!
Many thanks
Ailsa
BeautyBay
Hi All,
ReplyDeleteWe are v. sorry to hear about HQHair.com going into Administration. It seems however the HutGroup have purchased them on the same day post administration so existing customers should be able to get some answers from them.
Yes unfortunately lots of brands have been removed and as Alisa highlights there are many alternatives in the UK and we are another - wantthelook.com
At wantthelook.com we are always striving to get the best brands that people really want and we too are here as alternatives.
Ollie
wantthelook.com
It's a shame that HQHair isn't doing too well as they have been my source for Nars :(
ReplyDeleteEven this list only has four online shops selling Nars http://www.shobble.com/en/search/?q=nars It seems that I have to try out Kiss & makeup as others have good experiences with them.
-Natalie
Hiya! http://www.kissandmakeupny.com/ carry NARS and ship worldwide. HTH!
ReplyDeleteNatalie: I live in Lugano and NARS is available at Manor. I don't know if it's available in others cities though... I think I've seen it in Genève as well but not 100% sure... :-)
ReplyDeleteHallo Julia!
ReplyDeleteIch habe NARS auf der Seite von ASOS entdeckt. NARS erscheint entweder unter den Marken von A-Z oder du musst es oben in die Such-Leiste eingeben. Momentan muss man auch keine Versandkosten bezahlen!
Viele Grüße aus Deutschland!
Katja
aber asos liefert nars nur nach irland und in das uk :/
ReplyDeleteI'm desperate to find a shop that sells Bobbi Brown worldwide. It might be impossible and my only choice are eBay, but does somebody now a good seller?
ReplyDeletethe search for nars products that ships to europe ( NORWAY ) continues..! I wish there was a biiig site that sell all the favorite US and UK brands at one place! i guess we just have to settle for ebay and amazoon for now ! :/
ReplyDeleteEven if asos provides international shipping they actually dont ship Nars to Switzerland. I just tried and when you add a Nars product to your cart it say "ships only to UK and Ireland" :(
ReplyDeleteAlso no Nars in the Zurich Globus/Manor stores.
actually i found a swiss website that ships out of Zug - http://www.oswaldparfum.ch/
ReplyDeletei just ordered a blush and i couldnt choose an eletronic payment form, instead they send you an invoice payable within 10 days... lets see :)
https://www.facebook.com/oswaldparfum.ch