Pandora bracelet, charms and similar - What to expect?

Hello everyone! Today I want to talk about a piece of jewelry (this week no make-up, bear with me) that means so much and more to me... Yes, this blog post will be about Pandora bracelet and beautiful charms that accompany the whole idea of collecting memorabilia.

Now, I'm not going to lie, I really wanted to have a Pandora bracelet and several charms for the longest amount of time, but of course I didn't find any pleasure in buying it myself. Since I had my PhD defense a bit more than a month ago, I knew that I will get it as my boyfriend indicated he wants to get one for me. He wanted to make sure it will fit correctly, so he preferred me to come with him and pick the one we both liked. Although he initially wanted to get the one with heart closing clip, they didn't have it in my size at the time so we opted for standard Pandora closing clip. As my wrist's circumference is 16cm, the lady in the Pandora store recommended 18cm long bracelet (she said 2cm difference is what they usually recommend). 

The price for a standard Pandora silver bracelet is 59€, but it can vary a lot if you want to get a golden bracelet or a bracelet made of mixed materials such as leather. Pandora jewelry comes in thes elegant white boxes with subtle 'Pandora' inscription on top.

Again, I am not going to lie, since I got my bracelet and several charms, which you'll see below, I kind of became obsessed and wanted to make my bracelet slightly 'richer' looking. As you might know, Pandora charms can be a bit on an expensive side, so of course I wanted to do a bit of research to see if there are cheaper alternatives out there. And of course, there are! :) One of the companies that seemed legit and had (IMHO) visually appealing jewelry was Soufeel. After a week of thinking and reading reviews, I decided to give it a go and purchase several items. Soufeel jewelry comes also in a nice packaging, with white box and baby-blue bow.

On the photo below you can see my Pandora bracelet with several Pandora and Soufeel charms. I bet on the first glance you wouldn't be able to distinguish them from each other. The quality seems comparable, but the prices are quite different. 

I've been wearing this bracelet for more than a month every single day. The last charms I've received 15 days ago. I washed my hands with soap and water and wasn't paying too much attention on the bracelet itself. I didn't see any discoloration or fading in color/shine in either of the two brands.

I have read tons of reviews on both of the companied and their products. I've seen posts where people claim their clips got broken, stones fell off and even silver faded. And these posts I've seen for both Pandora and Soufeel jewelry. Now, both companies claim their jewelry is made from 925 silver which should be of the highest quality. Soufeel does indicate on the packaging that their jewelry is silver-plated copper, but they claim to do it to reduce shipping and customs fees. The items themselves have 925 stamp and should be of real 925 silver (they even have 365 day return option if you prove their jewelry is not made out of silver or have any other problem). I have also read some people never got their package from Soufeel, so I was kind of anxious when I made my order. To my surprise my package was sitting on my desk within a week! To prevent a possible scam, I have paid my package via PayPal which would enable me to get my money back in case something goes wrong.

Pandora is an European (Danish) company founded in 1982. They've became publicly acclaimed to the degree that they became the world's third-largest jewelry company in terms of sales, after Cartier and Tiffany & Co. In contrast, Soufeel is founded in 2011 in Hong Kong, China. I'd say they copied the idea from Pandora, but hey, many companies now offer the same package (even Fossil and Esprit). The main difference between the two seems to be the price! In truth, I have not noticed any difference so far between the two - no chipping, no fading, nothing. Everything is perfect!

So let's dig in my bracelet and all the charms I own... Below is my 59€ Pandora bracelet. It has two 'dividers' that divides the bracelet into three sections. Supposedly this helps to keep the bracelet preserved because it allows you to place the right amount of charms into each section keeping the overall balance. I find it in general nice and thoughtful - however I am 100% positive you'll not purchase 15 charms in one go just to keep 'the balance' of the bracelet intact.

So here are my Soufeel charms. I got myself a clip (I would have linked it, but seems to be gone from their webpage) - 15,95€; then a heart charm - 15,95€; then a flowery charm with blue stones - 15,95€; and a hanging fairy charm - 19,95€. In total my order was 67,80€ for four charms and I even got a pair of pearl earrings for free. I didn't have any shipping costs since my order was above 50€. Now this may seem a lot, but bear in mind that Pandora charms are way more expensive.

One thing I find important to say is that the Soufeel clip doesn't fit to the separator space on Pandora bracelet (as where the Pandora clips would normally fit). They have two rubber pieces with which they kling onto the bracelet and prevent the charms from freely slipping down.

Here are my Pandora charms. I do prefer them as they are all gifts from my loved ones and I have to admit I do find a slightest hint of satisfaction in owning authentic Pandora items. But, as indicated, they are much pricier. The ocean mosaic pave with mixed green crystals - 65.00€ and love & guidance - 49.00€ were gifts from my parents and my grandma (they've sent me some money from my birthday since we live in two different countries and I've picked those two charms to remind me of them). One symbolises the sea, which I adore and relate to our family vacations and the other symbolises love and protection which I always had from my family.  The graduation hat - 29.00€ I received for my PhD defense from my colleagues and the wise owl charm - 45.00€ from two of my close friends, also for my defense. The patterned lattice charm in the middle - 39.00€ I got from my boyfriend (we both liked the design) together with the bracelet and - lastly, the bird/dove charm - 39.00€ I got from my best friend (my surname means bird in one of the Croatian dialects, hence the bird). In total, this is 266.00€ without a bracelet and 325.00€ with a bracelet!

Although I know it is not nice to look up the prices of presents I've got, visiting the Pandora webpages so often made it impossible not to see the actual prices. For me the amount of money they cost is not important at all, as I really appreciate and cherish every single one of them. As I said, I sort of expected to get the bracelet from my boyfriend, but everything else came as a surprise (apart from the Soufeel charms) and I honestly like them so much and I want to wear them all the time!

With this I come to an end of this post. I hope you liked my little review of Pandora and Soufeel charms. Do you have any experience with Pandora or Soufeel? Do you own such bracelet? Let me know your thoughts on such jewelry below in the comment section.

Have a nice week ahead,
~Anelei

Brushes #4 - Eyeshadow blending brushes

Hello, hello my little makeup blogosphere! I am so sorry for being absent for such a long time, but I have a confession to make. To be as short and as concise as possible: I had to write my thesis. And I had to defend my thesis. As a result I finally obtained my PhD and now I am entitled to call myself a doctor of natural science (I am not joking!). :D 

As you can imagine, that took a lot of energy, time and effort, so I could not invest my time in anything else. Since I still have this crazy passion about makeup, I want to keep writing about it and other related things and I promise I will try to write at least one post per week. Otherwise shame on me! 

This week I want to continue writing about brushes and hopefully bring this brush series back to life. Today I am presenting eyeshadow blending brushes that I own: Ebelin blending brush, Kiko Eyes 200 and M.A.C cosmetics 217. 

First, Kiko Eyes 200 - I already mentioned this brush in one of my older posts (Kiko cosmetics review) and it was the first blending brush I owned. I still believe it does the job, BUT comparing it to the M.A.C 217 and Ebelin blending brush, it is SO rough - it hurts and pokes the eyelid all the time. I use it so rarely because it simply hurts to use it! I might use it for a quick wash of color or to highlight my cheeks, but not in the 'window-sweeping motion' needed for blending the shade, because it 100% will poke your skin. If you swipe it in one direction, you are pretty safe. 

Since I prefer to have my eyeballs intact, I wanted to try something different and 'softer', so I decided to give a go to Ebelin blending brush. Now, this is an ultra-cheap brush, but oh so soft and so capable of doing what it is meant to do. It cost unbelievable 2,95€, compared to 9,90€ which is the price for the Kiko Eyes 200. It really does the job, you can apply the eyeshadow with it, swirl it around to blend it in the crease and finalize the application with 'window-sweeping motion' above the crease for a 'full blend'. And you cannot do wrong for this price!

Finally, the queen of the blending brushes, the one and only: M.A.C 217. It is truly a wonderful brush, worth the hype and worth every single cent or penny or whatever you want to name it! It is just a perfect eyeshadow brush! I use it so often, I have to wash it almost every other day. So far the bristles are intact and they are not falling out, which I was afraid might happen due to frequent washing and using. It costs US$24.00 (I bought it in the US), which is not a small amount of money, but in my opinion it is a good investment if you're into makeup. As far as I am concerned, it is very soft and you can apply and blend the eyeshadows impeccably - it is good as that! In comparison to everything else I own, this brush does the job for you, whereas with other brushes you have to make some effort.

That concludes this week's post. I hope you liked it! If you have any comments and/or suggestions, don't be shy to leave them below.

Until next week!

Love,

~Anelei

Disclaimer: All of these brushes have white (Kiko, M.A.C) or black (Ebelin) bristles. Since I used them before these photos were taken, they are stained with eyeshadows and therefore can seem to be dyed. Ebelin brush is made out of synthetic fibers, Kiko brush contains the mixture of natural and synthetic hairs and M.A.C brush is made from natural white goat hair. I thought this information might me important for some of you!