K-Beauty On the Road: Inappropriate Sheetmasking & Involuntary Strobing

If you follow me on Twitter or Instagram, you've no doubt already seen/heard my special-event-attendance woes leading up to this weekend; I live a hectic life full of important things like reorganizing my spreadsheet or inventorying my sheet masks, not to mention writing a blog post every weekend and working 60 hours a week at my day job.  This means social outings that require the trappings of non-hermit life such as well-behaved skin, makeup, and spanx is more than I can handle.

Having had to do it a few weekends in a row has me ready to retire from human contact until at least midsummer.  Stress and troubled skin is a bad combination, but weddings are one of those events that you can't really dodge, so I took advantage of our out-of-state drive and loaded our car trunk with (I kid you not) a cardboard box full of skincare, makeup, and sheet masks.  Being 'ready' was beyond my means, but this was as close as it was going to get.

I loved the dark cherrywood of this desk so much that I'm writing this covered in sawdust. More on that later.

I'm actually already a few hours overdue to be asleep for an early morning workday, so this post is going to be brief (ahahaha no) and terrifying; I'm going to include a demonstration of the cushion + (accidental) highlighter on my skin.

I've also finally figured out how to properly create a linked table of contents (I think), so you can now just jump to the section you want, woo!

In this post:

• Preparing my skin in advance
• What I brought with me
• Unedited photos of the Hera cushion
• Unedited photos of my face wearing the Hera cushion (I need a drink.)

I need an adult, or preferably an adult beverage, but then I'd fall asleep at my computer and the rest of this post would be endless lines of "dfghjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjj" and then possibly a tweet tomorrow about how I caused an electrical fire by drooling into my keyboard.  If you don't want to see how my repurposed highlighter + cushion looked after a full night of wear, duck out after the money shots of the cushion.  You've been warned!

Speak Your Truth: On Receipts, Podcasts, & How Lifting Up One Another Benefits Everyone

I'm not sure if today's post is going to be short or long, because I'm currently curled up in my chair covered in a blanket, with only my hands peeking out as I slowly type between sips of tea and fits of coughing.  I'm not even sure when this post will go up, because I have to take frequent nap breaks as my nurse friends yell at me that I need to be resting, not blogging, before I end up with pneumonia or in the hospital.

I usually push through being sick and continue blogging into the wee hours of the morning, but seeing as my husband has to escort me to and from the washroom because attempts to walk on my own have me weaving back and forth like I'm failing a sobriety test, even I have to admit that I'm pretty sick and probably shouldn't be straining myself.  Husband is nagging me while still bringing me a constant supply of tea and soup broth; I've been living off a diet of hot liquids, the occasional poached egg, and saltine crackers.  Actually, this is pretty much me over the weekend, just with a saltine instead of a carrot:

Gif made from video here: Dito Lobito on youtube

Thankfully, not only does my husband support me by being my tea-and-soup dealer, he also doesn't complain when he trips over yet another unpacked box of Korean cosmetics, nor does he ask me judgey questions about how much I spend on my hobby (i.e. blogging) because he knows I respect my budget, nor does he side-eye me when he stumbles out for a washroom trip at 4 am on a Sunday morning and I'm still up blogging.  OK, maybe he glares at me forgoing sleep yet again, but at least he doesn't say anything?

He also made an effort to help me place and take a photo of my 'sick day routine' because I can't really stand up, let alone lean over, right now.  So this photo is courtesy of Mr. Snow, given with full credits:

Photo credit: Mr. Snow, who also patiently endured me "steadying myself" by holding his butt while he bent over to arrange these on the table and then snapped the photo.  I'm sick, not dead.

Thank goodness for cleansing water and decanting things into mist bottles, because this is as close to a 'routine' as this flu-riddled version of myself is going to get this weekend.  Did you know that sheet masks can be a way to pleasantly cool a fevered face?  Just saying.

I'm also exhausted from unnecessary drama that has been popping up lately over the last few months, but hit particularly hard this weekend- terrible timing, but is there ever good timing for people to make wild blanket accusations about the ethics of bloggers?  I'm going with no, but seeing as I was already in a haze of dizziness and flu symptoms, I was out of the resources needed to calmly ignore it and keep on living right.  Instead, I just decided to throw out some #receipts on the table so that people could stop speculating and realize that they're actively sabotaging the people who are living right, driving away people who are in it for love, not for money.

It's times like these that make me question blogging, because when the currency in which you pay yourself for your time, effort, and personal $$, is not money but love, how do you keep going when you get a facefull of misplaced anger and hate?

There's so much negativity in the beauty blogging world; so much jealousy and suspicion and shade even from within the blogging community itself.  So how do you offset that?  In my experience, it's by reaching out to one's peers as a hand in the darkness, and looking for ways to lift one another up instead of tearing one another down.

I don't think this gets talked about nearly enough, so I'm going to talk about it today.

In this post:

• Blogging #receipts: what my blog pays me
• The Snailcast podcast, Episode 6: The Truth about Asian Beauty Blogs and $$$
• Countering the beauty blogging culture of jealousy, speculation, and suspicion
• An open letter of appreciation to my readers

There's probably going to be a lot of rambling in my post.  Oh wait, there's also this:

• What's in my "sick day" routine

Ok, grab a lysol wipe and let's do this.  I have a fresh mug of tea in which to dip gingersnap cookies, so I'm going to give it my best shot.

Introducing Weekday Randomness: Wishlists, Thoughts, and Reviews in Progress

Often I find myself with topics that I want to discuss, trends that interest me, or products that I'm currently investigating, but none of them are 'big' enough to warrant a 'Weekly Review' post.

If you've been reading my blog, you will know that not properly testing skincare products before reviewing them is a huge pet peeve of mine.  It also slows down the pace of new content, because I have been limiting myself to just reviews after the product has been carefully tested over a long period of time, and the occasional skincare megapost.

Well no more!  I am going to start posting the random tidbits that catch my interest mid-week, and leave the giant posts where they are on the weekends.

This post:

• Mini haul from Avecko.com, featuring:
• Su:m37 Miracle Rose Cleansing stick (discontinued, amazed I actually found one)
• Etude House Real Art Cleansing Oil in 'Moisture' as recommended by Get It Beauty, Korea's top beauty talk/review talk show
• Prestige samples and why you should buy them
• Reviews in progress

Avecko.com sample bonanza!

Sample Saturday: Skinfood Ancient Rice Toner Review

I don't know about you, but I'm a bit of a sample hoarder.  It defies logic; you can't possibly form a full opinion of a product from a sample (or even a few samples) yet I continue to purchase them, hunt for that last item to take my order to the "get more free samples!" price bracket, and pour over my sample selections in a fit of indecision.

Then I never use them.  What is wrong with me?

They sit and collect dust.  Granted, since I live in the desert, dust collects pretty quickly, but it's still not a good sign.  So I am determined to make this work for me; I will work through my mountain of samples and review them in between my regular, long-term testing reviews.  Two birds, one stone.  Let's do this!

I picked up a 10 sample set of Skinfood's Ancient Rice Toner as part of a larger haul that included the Holika Holika Don't Worry Bee Care Calendula Toner (click here for review) as I continue the search for my HG toner and packets of 10 samples give me 5 days worth of product.  I figure that's enough to categorize it as either "Worth getting a full size for testing", or "Eh, hard to say, going to add it to the 'maybe' list", or "SWEET MERCY NO.  KILL IT WITH FIRE!" which is  generally the categories that skincare falls into for me.

Summer Holiday Haul!

This week I finally received some goodies in the mail that were slightly delayed by the summer holiday season, but I'm glad to have got them in my hot little hands at last.

If you're as interested in beauty products as I am, you're probably just as guilty of feeling the "I've got a package" thrill, so don't judge me for already opening the prettyandcute.com package-- I got it weeks ago, in fact 2 days after placing my order, so I was just waiting on the Korean package to arrive.

If you are wondering if that fabric is decorated with little green gremlins getting tanked at a kegger, you would be correct.  It was in my fabric stash and seemed ideally suited to a Canada Day/Independence Day-themed weekend, as I am pretty sure several of my neighbours are starting to resemble these little green guys after 4 days of partying.

Read on for the contents of my mega-haul!

Sheet Mask Snippet - My Beauty Diary Japanese Cherry Blossom + mini Haul

This week's review is the first of many sheet mask reviews, as there are so many of them out there it can be difficult to choose between them or judge their effectiveness.  Considering how comparatively short this week's review is, I have also included a mini haul from my usual ebay vendor, rubyruby76.

So first off is the sheet mask.  If you aren't familiar with them, they are a paper or cloth sheet that has been cut to form to the face (not necessarily your face, sadly, as they fit me terribly) and soaked in a solution which your face will slowly absorb as you wear it.   They are more convenient than wash-off masks as you only need to peel them off and pat your skin to absorb any remaining liquid, instead of messing around with washing it off and having to fuss with moisturizers afterward.

This review is of My Beauty Diary's Japanese Cherry Blossom Mask.  My Beauty Diary is a popular brand for face masks, so popular in fact that they're available from ... Wal-mart?!  *clap of thunder and faint smell of brimstone*  Either way, I actually prefer wash-off masks to sheet masks, even if the latter is more convenient.

So, keep that in mind as we review- everything is relative to that point!