Beauty Shopping in Covent Garden

This is a collaborative blog post.

Covent Garden is a pretty special corner of London; not only are there brilliant museums, incredible restaurants and great hotels in Covent Garden, but it's also a fantastic shopping destination for beauty enthusiasts such as myself. If you've not visited in recent years, you might be surprised to know that Covent Garden has emerged as one of London's favourite destinations for beauty shopping and the eclectic vibe of the area extends to the plethora of beauty stores on offer. There's a brilliant mix of designer beauty destinations, niche skincare and makeup shops and pop up stores so virtually every taste and budget is catered for.

It had been a while since I'd properly explored all that Covent Garden has to offer so I recently   ventured to the West End to have a little explore, with my mum and toddler along for the ride.

It's not often I find myself in a designer beauty boutique so the lure of Dior, Tom Ford and Chanel's dedicated beauty spaces were kind of hard to resist. To be honest, this first stop was pretty much just about immersing myself in a little luxury, plus I needed to inspect Chanel's Baume Essentiel (in Transparent) in the flesh since basically falling in love with it via a few blogger's reviews. Let's just say it didn't disappoint and may well be one for the birthday/ Christmas wish list.

Next stop was Charlotte Tilbury, which I'll start by saying is a totally different experience to visiting a CT concession in a department store. This place is called a Beauty Boudoir for a reason; it's all red velvet chairs and light-framed mirrors, very glamorous and vintage and gorgeous. A definite must-visit if you're in Covent Garden (I repurchased my beloved Hollywood Glow, one of the most impressive bits of makeup I've tried in recent years).

All this beauty browsing had us working up an appetite pretty quickly so we opted for an early lunch. There are so many places to grab a quick bite (and an array of lovely restaurants perfect for long, lazy lunches) but I've always wanted to visit the iconic Shake Shack so we indulged in a quick burger and fries. I had the mushroom burger, which was much tastier than it sounds, while mum enjoyed the chicken burger and all three of us partook in a generous portion of cheesy crinkley fries, which were particularly appreciated by my little boy.

After lunch we followed our noses to some classic fragrance retailers including Molton Brown, Floral Street and Penhaligon's (which you can smell in the air long before it comes into view!).

Africology is a brand and store I hadn't actually heard of before but the spa-like scent wafting from the shop definitely had us interested.

The small but perfectly formed shop has shelves of natural skincare, bath, body and wellness products and I felt we couldn't leave without a souvenir or two so picked up some incredibly scented bath salts and a pillow spray.

Of course our excursion to Covent Garden wouldn't be complete without visiting the amazing new Boots concept store. Opened in June this year, the revamped Boots stocks all the usual brands as well as newer offerings including Fenty and Urban Decay and has a strong focus on wellness and sustainability. The new flagship features a whole host of exciting innovations and even has a Rehydration Station to refill your water bottle. I really loved exploring in here and picked up a few bits I hadn't come across before including a shampoo bar and an eco-friendly toothbrush for my son.

It's worth mentioning the Boots is open until 11pm every night (except Sunday where it closes at 6pm) so most evenings you can browse till your heart's content well after the sun has gone down.

It was really lovely to spend a few hours wandering around Covent Garden and we finished our day with a caffeine fix via seriously delicious iced lattes from Abuelo, a small, hip cafe on Southampton St that serves Aussie coffee.

Even though we packed so much into the day, we only scratched the surface of all that Covent Garden has to offer- not just in terms of beauty retailers, I'm talking things to see and do too! If you are a lover of all things beauty though, it might be worth knowing that Covent Garden is hosting the first ever London Beauty Week next month. Coinciding with Fashion Week, London Beauty Week is in partnership with the British Beauty Council and will take over Covent Garden's Piazza with a variety of special events. Special events aside, my visit to Covent Garden has reminded me what a special part of London it is and I'll leave this post here with one piece of advice- if you've never been, go!

The spending money for this blog post was gifted by Hotels.com, but all views and words are my own.