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!

Fair Skin Friendly: BB cream swatches vs NC15 Pt 2

Since my last BB cream megaswatch post was both more than a year and many, many BB creams ago, after receiving several BB and CC cream samples with Haulzilla, it was high time I stopped procrastinating and got swatching!

Swatching is challenging for me; I have short arms, lots of BB creams but minimal swatching real estate unless I want to stripe things up to my armpit and find an assistant who won't think I'm completely crazy (the neighbours already do), and worst of all, I have a point-and-shoot camera that likes to treat my in-direct-sunlight-skin as white balance.   

Take a look at the image below, which was the only picture I managed to get in direct light that didn't wash my skin out to complete white and give it an unearthly nimbus, like some sort of pudgy extra from the vampire scenes in Twilight.

Note: I did not edit this image in any way other than cropping out my scowling face.  I did not adjust the colours, or lighten the image, or anything else that would increase the freakish whiteness of that arm.  That's 100% pure natural pallidness.  Urgh.  Click for huge, if you're that brave and/or curious!

As a result, I look forward to swatching with the same excitement as an overdue dentist appointment; something that you dread with only the silver lining to look for of it finally being over.

Skincare Discovery: Cleansing Part II - Cleansing Tools & Techniques

As I mentioned in Part I of my Skincare Discovery: Cleansing megapost (click here), cleansing is one of those things that people don't reflect on as much as their other products; you stick a soapy thing on your face, you rinse it off, and you proceed with your other products.

I know I ordered cleansers with abandon yet I'd research potential moisturizers to death before purchase, but like everything related to asian skincare, my perspective has evolved.

Can you believe these were just the products and empties I was easily able to find lurking in my bathroom?

Included in this megapost:

• Double Cleansing (Pt. I)
• Cleanser Types (Pt. 1)
• Cleansing Tools (Pt. II)
• Cleansing Techniques (Pt. II)
• PH-conscious vs non-PH conscious cleansing (Pt. II)

If you haven't read Part I, I definitely recommend doing so first for context, but if you're up to speed, read on!

Skincare Discovery: Cleansing Part I - Double Cleansing & Cleanser Types

Sometimes it's a good idea to reflect not just what you put on you face, but how you take it back off.   The last Skincare Discovery post was on layering products (click here for Part I, click here for Part II) to custom-fit your skin's needs rather than struggling to find something that tries to do everything at once and therefore accomplishes nothing.

Cleansing is one of those things that everyone does (at least, I hope they do) but few people really think deeply about.  Or it was possibly just me.  Derp!

Now that I've been obsessed with asian skincare for a few years, the way I clean my face has drastically changed.

Included in this megapost:

• Double Cleansing (Pt. I)
• Cleanser Types (Pt. I)
• Cleansing Tools (Pt. II)
• Cleansing Techniques (Pt. II)
• pH-conscious vs non-pH conscious cleansing (Pt. II)

This post will be a collection of tips and techniques I have gleaned through hours of watching korean beauty shows, videos, and consuming vast quantities of blog posts.

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!

Sheet Mask Snippet: Holika Holika Blueberry Essence Mask Sheet Review

There are hauls afoot, my friends!  But in the meantime, here's a review on Holika Holika's Blueberry Essence Mask Sheet as part of my ongoing determination to work my way through my collection of sheet masks.  Why am I determined to do this?  So I may purchase more of them, of course.  Oh right, and be nice to my skin.  (But mostly to collect more of them without feeling guilty.)

I always feel so nostalgic when I see blueberries, because there were a vivid part of my childhood up in the rocky wilds of northern Canada.  We would hike up the low mountains of the Canadian Shield and pick the wild blueberries that grew like weeds over the thin, scrubby soil that clung to the rocky surface, in defiance of other plants that needed more soil cover to grow.

I love blueberries, but I can't ever enjoy fresh ones anymore because the southern species you can find in stores are these bloated, tasteless globules of mush that seem to be immediate members of the cardboard family.  Ugh.  But trip down memory lane is over, let's see what happens when you put them on your face!

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!

Holika Holika Don't Worry Bee Care Calendula Toner Review

This week's review is of the "hydrating" style of toner prevalent in Asian skincare, as opposed to the "astringent" or cleansing type that we normally associate with "toner" in the west.  Infused with calendula flower petals and bee propolis, it's the adorably bee-decorated Holika Holika Bee Care Calendula Toner.

Note the flower petals at the bottom, continually infusing the toner with calendula goodness

I picked up this toner to experiment with adding toner into my skin care routine, because I was looking for ways to add extra hydration without making my skin greasy, which would lead to breakouts.  After reading about the difference in Asian toners vs western ones, I decided to give this one a try after reading up on the benefits of bee propolis and calendula.

Onward to the review!

Skincare Discovery: Layering Multiple Products Part 2

In Part 1 we  talked about the techniques of layering skincare regardless of which products you use:

Part 1 contents:

• It's not always about the products you have, sometimes it's the way you use them
• Buy skincare, not makeup
• Application: pat, tap, or press to apply instead of rubbing
• Layer several different products, instead of an all-in-one product
• Layer 'fat over lean', like a oil painter

Onward to discussing products designed for layering so you avoid the pitfalls of over-moisturizing!

In this post:

• Sometimes more is more, when it comes to the number of products
• You can and should build your own custom lineup
• Examples of Brand lineups
• Example of a custom lineup

Fair Skin Friendly: BB cream swatches on NC15 skin

Instead of a review this week, I thought it would be helpful to swatch my BB cream collection compared to MAC's Studio Fix in NC15.  Although there are a lot of BB cream swatches out there, most swatchers had deeper skin tones than mine, which made finding a match difficult.

To help out other similarly fair ladies out there find the right BB cream for them, I swatched all the BB creams in my collection, ranging from those I only tried in sample sizes up to those I purchased in full-size and wear on a regular basis.  I have tried many others in sample sizes, but unfortunately I tossed them as soon as I realized they were the wrong shade for me, not realizing that I'd be blogging my adventures in skincare one day. **Update:  I have recently swatched even more bb creams which you can find here.

I will warn you that the light on a mid-afternoon on a chilly day in the desert in February isn't as conducive to taking photos as I had hoped, but I also included photos in the shade which made the contrast between the different BB creams more obvious.

As you can see in the photos below, I have swatched the MAC Studio Fix NC15 along my arm, so each BB cream swatch can be visually compared to it.  The below image in the sun (on the right) is the most colour-accurate of all the photos.

Click here for a full size of the swatches, unblended, in the shade and in the sun. 

Although the above image taken in direct sunlight provides a better idea of the differences in the BB creams when they are unblended, the picture below with blended swatches is unfortunately a little blown out by the sunlight reflecting off my pasty, pasty white skin.  For that reason, I will be using a close-up of the below image taken in the shade for the swatch breakdowns.

Click here for a full size of the swatches, blended, in the shade and in the sun.

Now for the detailed breakdown for the below close-up:

Holika Holika Soda Pore Cleansing BB Deep Cleansing Oil Review

July 2014 Update:  After some discussion with other bloggers about cleansing oils, I have updated a few points in this review, marked with **

This week's review, much delayed by a paralysis of indecision on what to review next, is the Holika Holika Soda Pore Cleansing BB Deep Cleansing Oil, which I purchased in my mega-haul from pretty&cute.com

Like most of the items I purchase, there were not a lot of English reviews of this specific cleansing oil, but considering my overall faith in the Holika Holika brand, and the affordable price point, I figured I would give the Oil Cleansing Method (OCM) a shot.

OCM, if you haven't heard of it before, is cleaning your face with a blend of oils, usually specific ones with certain properties that lend themselves to this application, rather than smearing whatever you have in your kitchen onto your face.  OCM is something that I have been aware of, but have scrupulously avoided, for years-- primarily because I associated it with hippies who were fond of wearing patchouli and sandalwood in lieu of proper bathing, or trend addicts who were constantly latching onto every new "natural" beauty trend, up to and including cleaning their face with their own urine. (EURGH!)  Thus, OCM was something I was pretty skeptical of, and considering my skin clogs very easily, I was not willing to take the risk.

However, I had read someone describing how the oil loosened their blackheads to the point where it felt like "sesame seeds" under their fingers, and considering my ongoing quest to de-congest my skin, that sounded promising.  Plus, PBunnieP and her video on how to cleanse your face with oil convinced me to give it a try.  I noticed that the actual cleansing appeared to be from massage as opposite to the oil itself doing the "heavy lifting" and that it needed to be removed via emulsification to accomplish a proper clean, which made perfect sense to me.

**Update note #1:  'Emulsification' is a nebulous beauty term, and is casually used by many bloggers, including by PBunnieP in the link above, but more on that later.**

I have been using this product once a week for about 10 weeks, and it's one of those things that I'm glad I took the time to use for a while before reviewing it, because my opinion of it has drastically changed in that time.

Holika Holika Water March Moisture Green Full Cream Review

This week's review is of Holika Holika's Water March Moisture Green Full Cream for acne-prone skin.  It also comes in Pink for anti-aging.

Holika Holika (official website) is a sister brand of a larger prestige line from Korea, and is known for it's cute, whimsical, magic-themed motif.  The logo is a witch on a broom (apparently 'holika' means 'witch'), it's salespeople dress in purple and black, and it's packaging is often shaped like potions.  Albeit cutely.  It's sort of like Majolica Majorca's little sister in terms of style.

I will say that I have a lot of items from Holika Holika and I absolutely love their products.  The Water March cream was only the first of many.  I would love to show you my own nearly-empty jar, but this cream comes in a beautiful heavy glass jar.  I am sure you know how this story ends.   Onward to the review!