Thursday, May 24, 2012

Kose Freshel White C Cleansing Oil

Ah...yes, another cleansing oil review... This time, it is from Freshel a brand of Japanese cosmetic giant, Kanebo.

Wont talk much about the packaging design here. simple clear plastic bottle with convenient pump. all boxed in clear plastic box, which you will have to rip to open.

the texture itself is just like regular oil, more heavy than FANCL's version. Dont worry... it does not feel heavy at all once you have massaged it on your face and emulsify/wash the residue off with water. it makes my face feels fresh and clean.

Is it potent enough for me? apparently yes! it easily took off my stubborn MAC liquidline eyeliner. wonderful.

it doesnt sting my eyes if i accidentally opened my eyes during washing. but it makes my vision blurry for a second or two but blinking my eyes quickly clears up the problem.

Bottomline...
another pleasant, economical find from japanese brands. Now I realize I am not going to be forever attached to FANCL! yay!

Wednesday, May 23, 2012

Kose Cosmeport Softymo Super Point Make Up Remover

I honestly dont need another make up remover... Yet I picked this one.

Softymo is another brand from Japanese cosmetic giant, Kose.

Now, I do think this bottle is full of instruction I dont understand... they are all in Japanese! And I dont understand any Japanese. So, I just followed what the illustration is doing... She's wiping her face with cotton pad! And that's exactly what I'm gonna do.

This remover is like light liquid gel. it is not fragranced and feels light on skin. So I put sufficient amount of remover on my cotton pad, and continue on wiping my eye make up (I was wearing Lavshuca eye shadow, Urban Decay 24/7 pencil eye liner and Maybelline waterproof mascara). To my delight, Softymo managed to take off all my make up pretty easily. just dab your eye area a little to make it a little easier to take off the colors, then wipe. Off all the make up! Wonderful.

No oily feeling, no heaviness, not drying as well. litlle warning though, I felt it sting my eyes a little bit when I put too much cleanser on my cotton pad, and opened my eyes before I wiped the cleanser residue properly.

Next test, of course... my favorite MAC Liquidlast eye liner + eye shadows! unfortunately, it doenst work as well with liquid last. It can lift the liner up, but it is not optimal, I still need to do a bit of rubbing, patting is not enough here.

bottomline... Nice cleanser to have during light make up days, but definitely not enough for heavy duty cleansing work.

@Anonymous: I got mine thru adambeauty.com . i'm not affiliated with him, but I shop in the shop a lot. highly recommended, reasonably prices, reliable and fast shipping too. 

Sunday, May 20, 2012

Shieseido Fine Toiletry Perfect Oil

Since I found oil cleansers, I cant live without them! This is true. The principal is, you clean and lift up oil with oil, since oil in make up and our natural oil will dissolve better in oil. Just try one of those cleansing oils if you dont believe me!

And I love trying new products too. Beside my favorite FANCL cleansing oil, I always have at least a bottle of cleansing oil from other brand. This time, I picked up Shiseido's Fine Toiletry Cleansing Oil.

Standard packaging here, clear plastic pump bottle to dispense just the right amount of oil. Massage in your face, then rinse with water to emulsify and cleanse...not with cotton pads.

The oil here is light and clear, I couldnt detect any fragrance too. Usually I first test oils on back of my hand, to cleanse Urban Decay eye liners. It worked nicely! Then the ultimate test... to clean my favorite bulletproof MAC liquidlast eyeliner... and... it worked! YAY! No residue at all, no tugging involved.

This is certainly going to be my favorite oil cleanser. With economical price (USD 11.5 from adambeauty.com), I am surely going to repurchase this one.

Maybelline blushstudio Jelly Glow in 02 Fresh Pink

Can't deny it, my latest addition is blushes... I find myself purchasing different textured blushes lately...including this fun, pretty, cute jelly glow blush from maybelline.

It is housed in domed plastic palette, which reminds me of baked blushes. but the texture of this baby is not hard as the baked cousin.... it is springy and soft and totally fun to use!

pigmentation wise, Jelly Glow is rather sheer rosy pink- no matte no frosty no pearly here. just healthy pink glow. Building up color is easy peasy with this one. 

Honestly, I have no complaint here... reasonably priced, fun product.

Heavy Rotation Creamy Cheeks in 02 Cutie Pink

Heavy rotation is drugstore make up brand from japanese beauty manufacturer Isehan. I havent tried any other heavy rotation product before, so I don't expect much from this purchase. I am just interested in the pretty pink rosy color on the packaging.

All I know about heavy rotation is their simplistic black packaging and neutral wearable colors. Creamy cheeks is available in 3 colors, Baby pink, cutie pink and peach pink.

heavy rotation recommends applying teeny weeny 3 mm sized dot on each cheek and blend. I can't agree more. I find blending then building up color when necessary is easier than trying to make colors appear lighter when you applied too much.

Clown cheeks alert here... 02 cutie pink is bright blue pink in the tube and blends to make healthy pinky rose flush on my cheeks. I find it not oily and easy to blend, once dried, the color fixed easily too. It gives really pretty natural finish, not matte. Not shimmery...just natural.

Bottomline,
Great pigmentation, easy to use and gives pretty, natural finish. I am totally eying on the other color!

Flormar magnetic twist nail enamel in MG08

Another purchase from Turkish brand, flormar. Previously I purchased their eye shadow quartet and reviewed it here.

One of the joy shopping in flormar shop in istiklal is the ultra cheap nail polished which comes in myriad of colors! All under 5 TRY or less than 3 Eur per bottle. How nice! They offer pastels, neutrals, deeps and.... The trendy magnetic polish I have been dying to try.

the idea of magnetic polish is to fast apply the polish on your nail, then while still sweet, hold the magnet on top for about 10 seconds or until it dries to hold the design. I heard other brands might sell the magnet separately, but flormar includes the magnet in the box as well.

Unfortunately, all of the magnet design is stripy. The most difficult part would be holding the magnet still on top of wet nail polish for 10 seconds or so. I find that I need s few tires to master how to hold the magnet better, and another numerous tries trying not to touch the magnet to the wet nail, which when happens, will ruin your nail design, of course.

Most of the time, I am not patient enough to make the design on all of my nails. So I just end up with 1 or 2 fingers with design while the rest, I just use the polish like regular polish.

Mg 08 looks deep gray with silver and multiple colored glitter in the bottle. But when applied, it is gunmetal gray (left nail). With the magnet, it forms stripes of darker gunmetal (right nail). Pigmentation is good, however, it is slightly thick tha makes it difficult for me to apply evenly at one stroke.

Bottomline,
Fun cheap addition to my polish collection. But I don't bother to use the magnet as much. It is so difficult to master!

Flormar Quartet Eyeshadow in 405

After doing bit if google research, I was hopeful to find beauty hall and pharmacies or supermarkets in turkey to stock up on various beauty products. But it was the other way round... Either I have been looking at the wrong places or I am just hoping too high...

Needless to say, i was extremely thrilled to find flormar shop in istiklal area. The shop totally reminds me of MAC or sephora make up section, where all nail polishes would be in one rack and blushes in the other while the new releases has their own small themed pedestals in the middle.

I believe flormar is local brand from turkey. The shop features pretty much everything, from eyeliners, shadow palettes, blushes to magnetic nail polishes. This time, I picked up a quartet eye shadow palette.

The palette is housed in sturdy white plastic packaging with clear panel on top to make it easier to see what color is inside. It also features tiny mirror and curved sponge applicator. It is generously sized at 12 gr. Unfortunately, dont think there's color names for the palettes, on numbers. I picked up springy vibrant 405.

As you can see, the colors here is really feast for the eyes. From cool shimmery turquoise, cheerful shimmery grass green, poppy purple magenta and versatile deep bronze. Pigmentation for this baby is good, very good. One swipe and I picked enough color to make the swatch pictured here.

Unfortunately, it is lacking in texture. It feels hard and dry borderline chalky to swatch. Blending is not a problem, but the dry texture will definitely make me use it less.

Bottomline,
Good pigmentation, but dry texture. I am used with butter velvety feel of Japanese eye shadows... So, this is not s very high value purchase for me. I just like the colors to enrich my color collection.

Kanebo Kate Real Create Eyes in BU 1

Lately not much of Kate's product launches interest me... Nearly forgot about the brand, until I saw real create eyes in adambeauty.com.

Real create eyes is designed looking like other Kate eye shadow palette. Housed in black plastic case. It is light, yet doenst feel flimsy at all. This palette comes with five color combinations raining from browns to blue, pink and green. From the website swatches, the colors looks pretty safe and versatile for daily office use.

This palette color is meant to make your eyes look bigger naturally. It contain glow jelly color, Clear color (accent color) and range of pretty neutrals. You are supposed to use the clear glittery jelly color as base. Unlike other eye shadow bases included in Japanese drugstore palettes, this one feels really like soft jelly. I was shocked by it's softness when I first swatched it. The glitter in this jelly is so fine and not gritty at all. The tiny glitter sparkles in pastel rainbow colors.

Clear color in this palette is, well, clear blue. It is sheer and shimmery baby blue. Reminds me of clear blue lagoon water in midday. This color has the hardest texture of all colors in the palette. But don't get me wrong,it is still easy to blend , to pick up. Just, not as butter velvety as the other 3 neutral contouring colors. I was pretty surprised with the contouring colors here. i find them more pigmented than I expected it to be. Color c is pretty ivory with golden sheen, color d is pale brown-gray and color e or the liner is deep brown. All three are shimmery but not glittery.

I enjoyed this palette so much, the texture is just lovely. But I won't be tempted to get the other palettes. I am partial to the jelly base. Do love the shimmer and all, but since my eye lids are oily enough, I dont think I need additional jelly to make it more moist. The colors appear stronger and last longer with the jelly base underneath, but it is just not for me. Beauties with drier skin may enjoy this more than I do.

Bottomline,
Enjoyable purchase, nice palette to have. Lovely texture. But I do think owning one is enough.