August Empties

Long time no post, I know.  Health reasons and school reasons and life reasons kept me from posting, but I'm back and here with an empties post for the last couple of months.  So: onward to the post!

I don't know if I'm just a mutant compared to the rest of the blogging world, but I just do not go through product as fast as the rest of y'all.  Maybe it's because I have a billionty of everything and use a little from all of it, but for some reason it takes a lot for me to go through a whole product.  I also just suck at using samples or foilies, but oh well.  Add to that my tendency to forget to keep my empties, and you have a lame looking empties post.  But I'm going to try.  Just like blogging, man.

Here's what I went through in the last couple of months:

See what I mean?  I just suck compared to those people who use like, four things of face wash and eight bottles of shampoo a month.  I just can't do it!  And this was for probably July and August.  Whups.

1) Etude House: AC Clinic Daily Acne Foam Cleanser (9.90 USD @ BeatuynetKorea.com)

So this is basically my HG face cleanser.  This is probably my third or fourth bottle of it, and it's just the best if you've got oily and/or acne prone skin.  It's a thick cream that builds to a light foam.  It smells clean, not overly medicinal, which is so important if you're using a lot of acne products.  Why do all of them smell like feet?  It works great in a Clarisonic, on a Foreo Luna, or even with a sponge.  

Rating: A+++, will buy it again, already did buy it again.  I'm halfway through my next bottle.

2) Boscia: Konjac Cleansing Sponge with Bamboo Charcoal (15.00 USD @Sephora)

This is going to make me sound like a skincare blasphemer, but I'm not really the biggest Clarisonic fan.  For what it does, it's great, sure.  But it's not the be all end all product to help my skin.  I used it religiously for a year, and I didn't see any market improvement versus not using it.  I don't know if I'm a mutant or something, but finding the right cleanser did way more for my skin than the Clarisonic itself.  Now that I do have the right cleanser, the Clarisonic seems like overkill for my face.  That, and the waste.  Augh, the waste!  I'm such a hippie, throwing out a brush every month hurts my heart.

So I got the konjac sponge, and it's been working out really well.  It's super gentle in terms of exfoliation, and it's not too drying in combination with my cleanser.  That, and it's biodegradable.  Fuck yeah!  I'm not too keen on the price, but fortunately there's lots of konjac sponges out on the market that aren't attached to the Boscia label and are much cheaper.  

Rating: A+ for product, but C- for price.  I've bought a similar product from another manufacturer already.

3) Josie Maran: Whipped Argan Oil Intensive Hand Cream in Vanilla Apricot (2.37 ounces for 22.00 USD @ Sephora)

This lotion is really nice.  It's whipped and creamy, just like you'd expect from the name, and it's hella hydrating like you'd expect from the Josie Maran brand.  Argan oil is something I love and have long sung its hydrating praises.  It works great, but honestly?  For the price, I'd expect it to work so well that angels came to give it to me every time I opened the bottle.  I'd expect it to clean my flat as I slathered it on my legs.  

Rating: A for product, but F for pricing.  I'm not rich, and even if I was, I'd be buying property or investing my wealth as opposed to spending 22.00 USD for 2.37 ounces of product.  Sorry, not sorry.

4) Etude House: Mini Jam Jam Hand Lotioin in #3 Steam Milk (I paid 5.99 USD for it @ RoseRoseShop about six months ago.  They're sold out of this scent now, but what they do have they're selling for about 3.15 USD right now.)

 This is hand lotion.  It's not too watery or too thick.  It didn't smell particularly like steamed milk, but it didn't stink either.  It just kind of smelled like off brand drugstore hand lotion.  It also made no marked difference in the hydration of my hands.  It's weird, it was like the idea of hand lotion more than actual hand lotion.  But the packaging was adorable?

Rating: C.  I'm not going to repurchase this, even though it was adorable, because it just didn't really do anything.

5) Josie Maran: Argan Oil Hair Serum - Model Citizen: Ian Somerhalder Foundation (2 ounces for 30.00 USD @Sephora)

My love of Josie Maran's Argan Oil Hair Seurm is known.  It's amazing, I've written its praises before, and probably will again.  (But if you want it, here's my post about how amazing this product is.) 

The only difference between the standard hair serum and the Model Citizen imprint is that once a year, Josie Maran's company picks a non-profit organization and partners with them to release versions of the Josie Maran products that will benefit the NPO.  It's a great idea.  The differences in the Model Citizen product is that there's usually a different scent.  This is last year's Model Citizen product, and it benefited the Ian Somerhalder Foundation.  They in turn help out a lot of animals and try to raise awareness and activism for various green earth charities.  I've donated them money before, so getting this for my anual bottle of hair serum was a no-brainer.

The scent was a little different, kind of a honey and chamomile thing, and it allegedly had some "luminizing essence" which ended up just being glittery stuff that stayed in the bottom of the bottle.  It didn't make a difference in my end use, so whatever.

Rating:  A++++, as always.  I go through about a two ounce bottle of this stuff per year, and I immediately repurchase.  This is my HG hair product, and I will literally weep if it goes away.

6) Yu-Be: Moisturizing Skin Cream (1.25 ounces for 16.00 USD @ Sephora)

I got a deluxe sample of this stuff with a purchase I made at Sephora a while ago, and recently I'd noticed that my elbows were really hurting me with how dry they were.  Clearly, my standard lotion wasn't working, and it was time to bring out some big guns.

This stuff smells like Tylenol taste if you let them melt on your tongue: painful and awful.  My roommate actually had to leave the room after I put this on, because the smell made her gag.  For all that stink, I'd hoped it would have a corresponding medicinal effect on my skin.  It didn't.  It moisturized well enough, but I have Eucerin balm that does a better job with minimal scent.  Screw this stuff.

Rating:  F for smelling like a funeral home.  I will pay you to not put this on around me.

7) The Face Shop: Rice Water Bright Cleansing Foam (6.83 USD at Korea Depart)

This is a foilie I got from a f2plus1 purchase I made a while ago.  I thought I'd try it as I love The Face Shop's Rice Water Bright Cleansing Oil and use that on the daily.  It was a cream that goes to a foam, as can be expected.  It smells the same as the cleansing oil - kind of an old lady floral perfume smell that fades quickly as it's applied.  I can't say how well the product works as I only got one use out of it, but it foamed well and played nice with my konjac sponge.

Rating: Ehn.  C, based on what I know from one use.  I probably won't buy this.  Too many cleansers to try already.

8) Jurlique: Lavender Hand Cream (40 ml for 25.00 @Jurlique's web site)

I didn't purchase this for myself; this is something my mother gave me when I last saw her.  Whenever I see my mom, whatever beauty purchases she made for herself that she's not feeling?  I inherit.  This was one of those.  She realized belatedly she had more hand cream than anyone needed and snuck it into my purse.  I always have a tube or three of hand cream in my purse, if only because when I'm a job, I turn into a compulsive hand washer.  I don't want to get sick.  

This hand cream was thicker than I'd expected, and really creamy.  It felt luxurious, almost.  Absorption was a lot faster than I expected it to be for how thick it was, and it smelled soothingly lavender-y.  Think less old lady and more field in Provence.  Unfortunately, this is one of those little luxuries that my mother can afford, and I just can't.

Rating: A for the product itself, but C when you take into account the price tag.  I'd love this as a gift, and might rebuy it as a little luxury, but not as my daily go-to purse lotion.

9)  Tokyomilk Dark: Tainted Love No. 62 Handcreme (.75 ounces for 8.00 USD @ Sephora)

I got this because I was looking for new fragrances.  (Let's be honest, I'm always looking for new fragrances.)  I'd heard good things about Tokyomilk and got this sample sized hand cream and a bottle of the perfume.  The perfume was nice, but faded super fast and I ended up giving it to my sister.  The lotion went into my purse and got used.

It smelled all right - really teenage girl on a vanilla binge at Bath and Body Works with just a hint of hippie wearing too much sandalwood to make it more "adult".  But even if I'd been in love with the scent, it faded too fast to really get worked up about.

Rating: D.  It smelled nice enough but faded so fast I may as well have been borrowing the scent instead of buying it.  Tokyomilk Dark, in my experience, does that, and it's enough for me to have written off the brand.  No repurchasing.

Disclaimer: All products were purchased by me.  No compensation was received. All opinions are my own.  I am not affiliated with any retailers mentioned here.

Skin Care Saturdays - The Face Shop Vitamin B Hydro Gel Mask Sheet

I'm a fan of sheet masks, but I was unfamiliar with the "hydro gel" mask.  So what the hell, I figured, let's do it and try it out.

The packaging is also adorable as fuck.

Okay, so I could handle this.  Basically, it's a sheet mask that has this plastic backing on it.  You stick the part that had the backing on your face, just like a sheet mask, only the mask itself is made of a more plasticky material.  One thing I did like about this mask is that it came in two parts, so it seemed to fit a lot better on my face.

It also makes you look like a serial killer.  But that's fine!  It smelled pretty decent, not fruity like you'd expect from a star fruit product, but just the sort of clean smell I've come to expect from Face Shop products.  After twenty minutes, most of the essence was absorbed into my skin and I didn't have much left over.  It also seemed to help with my dark circles, somehow.  The only downside to this is that it was more expensive than other sheet masks I've gotten from The Face Shop.

If you're a serial killer on the go who wants a little extra hydration, these are a must.  I guess if you're a normal person, it's good for you too.

Skin Care Saturdays - The Face Shop Real Nature Sheet Mask in Kelp

I love skin care.  I wasn't blessed with good skin, so for me, it's honestly less about vanity and more about 'how do I avoid painful cystic acne outbreaks that will take a month or so to resolve'.  Emphasis on the painful.  So doting on my skin, lovingly putting on toner and masks and creams - that's just me hoping that pimples won't happen.  But they always do, because life is cruel and unfair and likes to smash your dreams.  (I'm still waiting to become a vampire lawyer, world.  Four year old me is disappointed this never happened.)    But we'll still always try new stuff.

Which is why I snagged this sheet mask.

Protip for the non-beauty inclined: if you see "purifying" on face stuff, it's good for oily skin / blackheads / pimples nine times out of ten.

I'm sure one of you guys reads Hangul, so have at!

Some of you may be wondering what a sheet mask is.  It's basically what it sounds like; it's a sheet of fabric that's soaked in whatever awesome essence that mask is gonna help your face soak in.  Some of them will fit well, most of them won't, because we all have different faces.  They're way more popular in Asia than here in the US, though.

The first thing I liked about this mask was that it was hella saturated in the mask.  Some sheet masks give you a puddle of essence in the package but not much on the mask itself. So I felt I got my three bucks' worth.  As for fit, well.

For a sheet mask, this is the best fit I've ever seen.  It actually gave me enough room to get it on all of the blackheaddy parts of my nose.  (That's a word now.  I say so.)

It smelled really good too, which I like.  If something's going to be on my face for fifteen minutes, it'd better smell good.  I left it on until it dried out, so about thirty minutes, and noticed no ill effects.  My skin felt soft and not greasy, and a pimple that had been threatening to surface came to a head - a sure sign that the mask helped extract some gross nasties from my skin.

If you're cursed like me, I highly recommend these.  Don't be scared of kelp!  It's in your toothpaste, you know.  I've seen these for 1.50 each at resellers; I paid 3.00 at The Face Shop directly.

Haul - The Face Shop

It comes as no surprise to people who read my blog with any amount of regularity that I adore Asian makeup brands.  They're just good, and resellers have their stuff on the cheap.  But sometimes I don't want to wait three weeks for my stuff.  Sometimes, to quote Veruca Salt, I want it now.  I'm lucky enough to live in Houston where I can actually do that.  There's a Face Shop store about twenty minutes from my house.  Instant.  Gratification.  I love it.  What I don't love is that the prices are ridiculously higher; masks that you can get from Roseroseshop or Kocomall are 3.00 each instead of 1.25 (all prices mentioned are USD).  One of the items I paid 40.00 for in store, I saw on Amazon from a reseller for 17.00.  So, instant gratification does have its price.  However: I'm guaranteed that these are all 100% authentic, and oh yeah - NO WAITING FOR A MONTH.  Here's my loots!

It's like a beacon of hope!

So.  Much.  Stuff.

As you can see, I got a metric fucktonne of sheet masks.  I also got my beloved Herb Day Cleansing Tissues in the big 75 count size because they tingle and smell awesome.  When it's balls hot in Houston (as it always is), it's just the thing for when I've come in from outside.

So these are some of their Real Nature Masks.  I just snagged one in every kind they had available because I'm a weirdo and do things like that.

These are Hydro Gel Mask Sheets because that just makes it sound all spiffing and technical and awesome.

How can I live without you, Herb Day Cleansing Tissue?  I want to knooooooooow~.  Whoops, sorry.

It's hand lotion that's shaped like a cat in a flower pot and smells like baby powder.  I don't think I have to say more than that.

And here's a really blurry picture of the CC cream I got.  Still - I can cross something off of my covet list.  Yay!

Because I spent over a hundred dollars (because boo, retail is expensive!), I got free cotton pads (... yay, I guess?) and an AWESOME sample kit.

The sample kit has a whole sheet mask in it by itself, and some generous face wash / moisturizer samples.  All in all, I'm super stoked, and I hope you are too, because you're going to get craploads of sheet mask reviews.  YOU'RE WELCOME.  *drops mic and leaves*

Things I Desperately Want

I've seen them called "lemming lists", but for me, they're just things I desperately want right now.  This list is partly for you to go 'ooooo' at, but it's also for me for future shopping reference!

1) Tony Moly Floria Active Peeling Gel

2) Etude House Moistfull Collagen Eye Cream

3) Chanel Nail - Taboo

4) Too Cool for School - Smoky Nude Lipcolor

5) Too Cool for School - Max Pack Bag

6) The Face Shop - Face It Aura CC Cream

There'll be other posts like this in the future, but this is all what I can think of off of the top of my head at the moment!  What are you guys coveting?

Haul - Korean Skincare From RoseRose Shop

I know, I know, I haven't posted in a month.  Well, in that month I got accepted to graduate school and had an emergency appendectomy.  So I wasn't just sitting here slacking off, promise.  I'm going to try to get back into this weekly.

If you know me, you know I love skincare and makeup from South Korea.  I get my stuff from a few other places, and one of those is Rose Rose Shop.  They're reliable and they have a pretty great selection.  I put an order in about a month ago that came in today (it takes about that long for anything to get to me in Texas from Seoul).  Here's pictures of what I got.  Reviews will come!

I got two of the Missing U hand creams because they're adorable and great to leave around my work desk.  

No, seriously, they're the cutest.  The left one is a Fairy Penguin (it smells like baby powder) and I think it's from last year's MissingU.  It was 4.50 USD  The one on the right is a Pink Eagle Owl and it smells like cherries.  It was 5.50 USD.  They're smaller than you'd think they are - they fit in the palm of one's hand - but hell, I'm not really paying for the lotion.  I am paying for the adorables.

I also got Rice Water Bright Cleansing Light Oil from The Face Shop (say that three times fast!).  I'm currently in a phase of shopping around, trying to find the right oil cleanser, and I'm hoping this one will fit the bill.

As you can see, it's pretty generously sized - I put a largeish pill bottle next to it for reference.  It was 8.90 USD.

Primers are another thing that I shop around for all the time.  I love them, and I love how easily they make my BB cream slide onto my face.  I got 10 samples of Skin Food's Black Egg Pore Primer for 3.00 USD.

I also got Holika Holika's Cotton Oil Queen Cotton primer (7.92 USD).  It's friggin' adorable, you guys, I am not even kidding.

So, yeah, that's what I got recently.  I have another couple of orders coming in too, so this should actually give me lots of stuff to review!  Yaaaay!  What stuff have you guys bought?

Disclaimer: This product was purchased by me.  No compensation was received. All opinions are my own.  I am not affiliated with this seller.

Nail MADNESS - The Face Shop GR501

The Face Shop is pretty much my favorite Asian makeup/skin company.  I'm a huge hippie who likes natural products in my skincare, and they're a great fit.  But what about their cosmetics?

Last July I bought a couple of nail polishes from the face shop, and only recently did I bother trying them out.  The nail polish I used is their color GR501 (augh, come up with names, darn it!) and I bought it for two bucks USD.  Yeah.  Two dollars.  I've spent more on a coffee than I did on this nail polish.  I figured - how good can it be?

It turns out it could be AMAZING.  I only needed two coats to get a pretty, summery teal color that's perfectly true to what you see in the bottle.  And I ended up wearing it for two weeks without any tip wear.  I wore my typical Orly Bonder basecoat and one coat of Seche Vite topcoat and wear time was a dream.

So if you're looking for some inexpensive nail polish and are lucky enough to have a Face Shop near you, snag some.  They may seem like a throw away compared to their skin care and BB Cream offerings, but I promise, they're made just as well as the rest of their products.

                       Disclaimer: This product was purchased by me.  No compensation was received. All opinions are my own. 

Loot! - The Face Shop

I love finding out about other cultures.  I love eating other cultures' foods and watching their movies.  I adore reading their books and listening to their music.  Since I'm a Culture Sponge (it seriously is a thing - I'm listening to French kids' music right now while I'm typing this, and the book next to me is a gender studies textbook about Japanese hostessing clubs and I'm eating some random peanuts that I couldn't tell you what they are because I don't speak Spanish), I also love - and might love the most - sampling other cultures' beauty products.

I work in a part of Houston they call the International District; there's a lot of Vietnamese, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Indian, and Mexican places all within a few miles of each other.  I love it; where else can I get good butter chicken and pho without having to drive too far from each other?  I also just like signage that's not in English or romanized lettering.  It just makes me happy for some reason.  But now I have another reason to love it here: FACE SHOP STORE FIVE MINUTES FROM WORK ERRRMAHGEERD.  I'm not even kidding, I nearly skipped into the joint on my lunch today at work (and very nearly stole one of the posters of the gorgeous Kim Hyun-joong they have plastered all over).  Here's what I got (which isn't nearly half of what I want, but at some point I think I might need food again).

TREASURES.

I got this BB cream for 14.00 USD.  I've been looking for something to replace my beloved SKIN79 hot pink, and this feels (on my hand at least, I used the sample) much lighter.  I'll review it later!  It's kind of a smallish bottle, so I'm not sure if it's the same bang for the buck as hot pink.  I'll keep you posted.

Herb Day cleansing wipes for 8.00 USD.  I use wipes to take off my makeup at night, and also when I'm lazy.  Since the voyage from the car to the store and then back again in 107 F heat left me feeling not so fresh, I tried one of these at my work desk.  It left me feeling clean, left no weird residue behind, and tingled.  Mama likey, and that's pretty cheap for 70 wipes.

Nature Garden Cleansing Bar in sebum controlling.  I got this for 5.00 USD.  I'll use it and let you guys know how it does on controlling my sebum.  Sebum sucks.

Speaking of sebum, I love me these sheet masks.  They're a teeny bit expensive (3.00 USD each, and they're one use each), but they work so well I try to get them once a month.  Now I don't have to pay for international shipping when I do that.  Kermit arms, y'all.

And y'all know I couldn't leave without some nail polish.  The top one ran me just 2.00 USD (I know, right?)  That color is GR501 (I know, unfortunately no cute names here).  The bottom one was 5.00 USD and is BR801.

After work tonight, I'm going to go home, shower, fight some sebum, and do my nails.  ... and try not to think about next week when I get paid and probably go back to spend/waste more money.