Muji Vancouver 無印良品

To kick off the long weekend, my fam and I went to check out the Muji pop-up store in Vancouver! Ever since I tested out my friend's Muji pen, I fell in love with the brand. I was incredibly excited when I found out that it was coming here!! There were lots of rumours about a Muji store opening in Vancouver, but I think it's now confirmed.

Reservations are needed to access the pop-up store (closed on weekends tho) because the space is actually super tiny. It's literally just a wall of merchandise. People weren't joking when they said it was small 😂. Someone on Instagram said that they were actually letting people in without reservations, so maybe it just depends on how busy it is. We came earlier than the time we signed up for but they let us in anyways. I don't think they looked at our time slot; they just scanned our reservation tickets.

I saw a pic on IG of someone sitting/posing in this but then when I went, there was a no touching sign LOL

The lobby of the Fairmont is really pretty! Very aesthetic with all the marble. It'd be nice to play tourist and book a room here to spend a night or something. They have private residences too so if you like that hotel life, you could actually live here. The lounge features live entertainment and my friend said the café had tasty food as well. Upstairs there was an exhibit being featured that showcased Japanese culture and modern architecture.

Ok, now time for the haul!!

(btw excuse the bad lighting; had to use flash cause I took the pics at night)

MUJI Toning Water for Sensitive Skin - Moisture +

MUJI Moisturising Milk for Sensitive Skin - Moisture

I didn't know Muji had a skincare line. I knew they had cotton pads but this was new to me. I'm a skincare addict so of course I had to try these. They were $10CAD each which is actually really cheap compared to other brands. On the US website this retails for $10.50USD which makes no sense to me lol .___. There were two versions of each bottle - light or moisture but since I have dry skin I chose the moisture one. I just used them now for my night time skin care routine and I haven't had any allergic reactions to it so far! I've been reading reviews online and people say that it makes your skin look dewy, which I did notice but I think it's because there are shimmery particles(?) in the moisturizing milk. My palms are actually sparkly right now LOL. I'll use this in the morning from now on.

MUJI Capped Gel-Ink Ballpoint Pen 0.38mm + 0.5mm

I've seen a lot of people at school using these pens! I got them in sky blue, blue, pink, red, and black. They only had 0.38mm for the blue pen, but the others are 0.5mm. They're all pretty smooth but I like the 0.5mm ones more. I feel like my writing looks even uglier when I use thin pens😅. These were only $1.25 each! Another good deal since the US website lists them for $1.50USD.

MUJI Retractable Ballpoint Smooth Writing Gel Pen 0.5mm

These pens are a lot more liquid-y than the gel-ink ones, which means these are prone to smudging and bleeding. They kinda remind of the Sarasa pens. You might not know what I'm talking about but if you google the name you'll prob recognize it. These ones cost $2 each.

MUJI Hexagonal Six-Colour Ballpoint Pen 0.7mm

This is THE pen that my friend had. We took a summer course together and I was floored at how smooth it was. Literally the smoothest pen I've ever used. Later that summer when I went to Italy, I was super surprised to see a Muji store there. Needless to say, I had to get that pen. Or two. You can't go wrong with having a backup!! I've been using it for all my notes this past school year and the dark blue in one of them has run out already. The other colours are sky blue, orange, pink, red, and black. It costed me $5~ in Italy but here it was $6.

MUJI Low Center of Gravity Mechanical Pencil 0.5mm

If you were to look in my pencil case right now, you'd see like 20 pens and one half broken ghetto pencil that my dog chewed up. I only use pencils for scantron tests nowadays but the one I had wouldn't erase properly. This one is HB but I'm still in shock at how this cost me $7. (The US site says it's $9.50USD??) I almost bought the lead too for $2 but my sis talked me out of it. The pencil is weighted so apparently it helps with "writing stabilisation" and is "knurled to prevent slipping". Guess I got a major upgrade from my other pencil hahah.

MUJI Instant Green/Mulberry Tea Latte

If you know me, you know that I'm utterly obsessed with matcha. One of my favourite drinks at Starbucks is their green tea latte, so I'm interested to see how this will taste (especially since it's an authentic Japanese brand). Another plus is that it's caffeine-free so you won't stay up all night like me currently. While one drink at Starbucks costs $5, this whole package was $6.

MUJI Japanese Plum Candy

I also didn't know that Muji sold candy! The candy is sweet but the plum kinda has a salty/sour taste. I'm not a big fan of plums though, tbh. I just tried one now for the review but had to spit it out LOL. I only have a sweet tooth. However, my mom really liked it. She liked it so much, she went back inside afterwards and bought all that were left on the shelf. Seriously. I have the receipts 😂. These costed $3.50!

MUJI Japanese Cotton Candy

This tastes like what you'd expect cotton candy to taste like. Idek if cotton candy has a flavour but the only two ingredients listed here are sugar and caramel. This also cost $3.50.

MUJI Chocolate Marshmallow

These are amazing!!! Highly recommend you pick one up. Idk if $6 is worth but I love them❤️ and I'm not even a huge fan of marshmallows. When you first bite into it, you might just see white because the chocolate is all the way in the center. If I had all the money in the world, I'd go back and empty their stock of this. No joke.

We also bought some afforestation notebooks (they were selling a pack of 5 notebooks for $4!!!), a porcelain toothbrush stand, and citrus candy (which I recommend too). They were also selling these aroma diffusers and the aroma oils you use them with. I believe you can also just use water too. The small one is $89 and the big one is $130 sooo yeah I didn't buy them. We have some at home already and I think you can just get cheaper ones off Amazon. They also had a wall mounted CD player which was super cool and aesthetic but that was $189... *sob*

We bought so much but another man who was also shopping joked that it'd still be cheaper than parking. He also kept saying this stuff was cheaper than a dollar store 🤔. I wonder where he's from LOL. But if you do pay for parking, don't pay for more than an hour unless you plan on eating at the café/lounge too because shopping and viewing the exhibit won't take you long.

Can't wait until Muji opens a store in Vancouver!! I'm also going to Japan this summer so def gonna stock up on Muji products since it's so much cheaper there. Hopefully all the pens I have rn will motivate me to study more!

Happy long weekend!!

Melissa

February 11, 2017