Singapore is a place where you can find tons and tons of foreign products. However, there are still products that we want that are unavailable here. For beauty junkies like me, I feel you. Barry M, Anastasia Beverly Hills, Lorac, Colourpop, Charlotte Tilbury, Zoella Beauty... And even if we have the brands here, sometimes, we still don't get the full collection or special limited edition pieces eg. Tarte's Rainforest Collection, or the full range of cosmetics from Soap & Glory. 

If you don't already know by now, you don't actually have to travel to the US or the UK, or other countries to purchase these products. All you need is an agent! Now there are a lot of agents who ship from the US to Singapore, a few examples are Shop and box, Vpost, Comgateway, Ezbuy, etc. Ultimately, they all do the same thing, but they incur different charges and the procedure slightly differs too. 

Last month, I shipped in a bunch of beauty products from the US, and I decided to use Shop and Box. It is probably not the cheapest (I've never used the rest before but a little search on Google told me that Ezbuy was the cheapest) however it was one that was more reliable to me. Basically, a lot of the other agents simply provides you with an US address upon registering. So when you shop on the US websites, all you have to do is ship the products to your US address. Once everything you want has arrived, you can choose the option to repack everything and ship one box of goodies to yourself. 

Shop and Box works a little differently. On Shop and Box, all you have to do is add in items you wish to purchase into your wish list. It doesn't have to be available online, it can even be items bought from the actual stores in US (or other the countries they offer), so items like chips, candies, or magazines can be included too. Once you're happy with your list, you can proceed to submit your order! You can still add or delete any items off your list, but at this point, Shop and Box will assign your personal Boxer to you and that is my favourite part! You will be able to chat with your Boxer which I feel is what gives me a sense of security. My Boxer, Dan, was able to use the promo codes I provided, take pictures of the items that arrived, and inform me if any item was out of stock asap. 

Even though Shop and Box charges a service fee (I believe it's a percentage of the total value of your order), it gave me a sense of security as I know that the items I bought is in safe hands. I guess that would be a major deciding factor for you - Whether you are a normal mail (cheap, but has chances of it missing in the mail or getting delayed) person, or a registered mail (more expensive, but guarantees that your items reach you safely without any hiccups) person. Well to be honest, I'm usually a normal mail person, but when I'm buying something that is over a hundred dollars, I'd like to feel assured. 

Payment was split into 2 parts, Invoice 1 and Invoice 2. Invoice 1 charges the items you buy while Invoice 2 charges the shipping and service charges incurred. Dan was really efficient in ordering, packing and sending out the items for me, I submitted my order on the 13th July 2016 and I made a few changes over the next 2 days (adding in items, deleting items, etc). I paid invoice 1 on the 15th July 2016 and after 10 days of paying, I received my box on the 25th July 2016. Once my items has arrived with my Boxer, it shipped it out the next day and I received it within 3-4 days which I thought was pretty quick! 

All products arrived to me safely and in good condition. The smaller and slightly more fragile items like the lip products were bubble wrapped to prevent breakage. 

In total, was it really expensive? Well, I did a little excel sheet to show you guys how much each item costs. The exchange rate wasn't the best (I used Paypal's rate for invoice 1 and my bank's rate for invoice 2) but in total, per item I think it was still reasonable. Even after all the extra charges, it still costs around the same as the make-up here in Singapore! So if you were to ask me, I think it's actually really worth it since these brands or products are unavailable here at the moment.