Novato is a sleepy little town. There’s Napa north of us, Oakland to the east across the Bay, and San Francisco to the south, but Novato itself isn’t a hotbed of excitement and activity (unless you count the huge raging celebrity parties thrown by Tabs).
Sometimes, though, exciting things do happen here…like we just got a Nordstrom Rack.
It’s only been open a couple weeks, but I’ve already gone twice, and I’ve learned a valuable. Basically, if you walk there looking for something specific, like a white scoop-neck tee, good luck to you. May the gods be with you! Because the store must be a quarter of a mile long. It’s HUGE, and you absolutely have to be in the mood for a treasure hunt.
They also have pretty good beauty section, which, thankfully, is more contained than the clothing and shoe areas, and you can go peruse the shelves in a reasonable amount of time. It’s all very tidy and tidy.
They carry a mix of drugstore (weird!) and high-end products, too, which I’m assuming will change often, but when I was there last Friday, I saw some body care from Neutrogena and Burt’s Bees, and I also saw a makeup display for NYX.
In general, they don’t carry everything from a line, but it seemed like a good amount of stuff and better than usual prices. Like, I saw a bottle of Neutrogena Ultra Gentle Daily Cleanser for $7.97, and I think it’s normally $10 at Ulta.
I freaked out a little when I saw this Bliss display (I looove Bliss lotions). I found this gigantic tube of Grapefruit+ Aloe Body Butter marked down to $16.97 from $49! What a steal.
And I also spotted some Sephora makeup regulars from Urban Decay, Too Faced, Lancôme, YSL, Caudalie, Smashbox and Bobbi Brown, among others, and everything was discounted between $5-10 off the regular price.
Some of the items from older collections were marked down even more, like Urban Decay’s Alice Through the Looking Glass Collection, which was on sale for $29.97 instead of the original $60.
They also carry fragrances, too!
It’s definitely gonna be a place I frequent for makeup and beauty discounts, but I don’t know about going in there for clothes… There were too many racks. It was waaay too much stimulus for me.
Have you ever been to a Nordstrom Rack? How do you feel about big outlet stores like that? Do you get into shopping treasure hunt-style, or do you prefer going to stores that are hyper organized?
Your friendly neighborhood beauty addict,
Karen
Terry Paul
Paul Terry is a publisher and an author in wowplus.net and other news channel
