Avecko Haul - Products I purchased directly from Korea (Part II)

Now that I've regaled you with unboxing pictures of beautiful things, buying decisions, and vague references to prices in Part I of this post, now we're going to get detailed about how I did it.

 Technically, the products in this image are actually from two separate hauls, both placed via group order:

For pictures of everything unboxed, please see Part I here

In this post:

• What I purchased, with lots of pictures, and why I purchased it (Part I)
• Upcoming blog posts about specific products from this haul (Part I)
• How much it cost, and how much I saved compared to regular channels (Part II)
• How I found the items I wanted, and where I purchased from (Part II)
• My experience working with Avecko, including a small snafu (Part II)

When I was asked to do this review, the most frequently asked questions were: how much did it cost, and where did I get it?  So let's get to it!

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.

Haulpocalypse 2014: My Wallet Ends, Haulzilla Begins.

Well guys, it's been 3 months in the making, but the final piece of HAULZILLA has arrived, and it is finally ready to post!  Haulzilla is  a terrifying mutant comprised of multiple sellers, packages, and late night cart hoarding.

It's been growing slowly over time, and my living room has been a wreckage of boxes, bubble wrap, and packing peanuts for a very long time.  I squirrel away a small amount of money each paycheque for discretionary spending, but my beauty fund is currently a smoking ruin.

Somehow it looks even larger in person, I swear.

Please note before we start breaking down the components of this behemoth:

• This is a collection of many hauls, including things I have completely emptied and repurchased.  I do not normally buy multiples of products unless they're a staple and I'm tired of overpaying for emergency resupplies.
• I only ever introduce one new product at a time, and I don't open things until I am ready to start using it.
• I test it for at least two weeks minimum before introducing another product
• I test things for a minimum of a month before I review them, sometimes longer if I feel I need to put it aside and come back to it later, or combine it with different things to gauge its effects
• In the case of whitening items, you need 3-6 months of testing to gauge its effects.

It also takes me weeks, if not months, to build a large haul; I research things exhaustively, I consider if there is a 'gap' in my routine a product will fill or if it's redundant, I discuss it with people, I meditate on it.  Ok, my meditation involves long hours of browsing Korean sites with the aid of Google Translate, but the point is, I don't act fast.

In fact, as you will see, quite a few things are repurchases as I completely emptied several products and had to replace them while Haulzilla was ... hatching.

Weekly Review: Beauty Tool Edition - Missha Special Edition Magic Cushion Case

If you follow beauty trends, you have probably heard of the latest craze that has gripped the ever-fickle Korean beauty market; cushions.  If you're not a diehard kbeauty follower, you're probably confused.

Cushions aren't exactly new, as they use the same general concept as a pressed powder + puff compact, but the difference is that the product is liquid and is suspended in a sponge much like an inkpad for a handheld stamp, and they also have an ingenious little puff that repels product instead of absorbing it.  The combination of the two allows for an ultra thin, even layer of product to be picked up and applied to your face.

Laneige Cushion $34 at Target

I'm not totally sold on the cushion bandwagon, because I dislike the hygiene implications of dabbing something onto your face (teeming with bacteria no matter how carefully you prepped it, especially if you have acne), then dabbing back onto the product, transferring contaminants to it, then repeating the process.  You can wash the puff, but washing the sponge will result in losing all the product infused into it and the whole thing just makes me squirm a bit.

Plus, cushions are expensive!  Cushions are commonly between $30-$40 or more, whereas you can get a good BB cream for $10-$20.  They are new, which means they come in fewer shades and you can't get samples to colourmatch, you just have to bite the bullet and fork over your money while praying.

I was intrigued by the idea of cushions, especially since there were so many rave reviews about them, but I wasn't willing to plunk down that much cash for something that was inherently unsanitary and very likely to be the wrong shade.  Enter today's Beauty Tool to rescue- a DIY cushion case that lets you transform your favorite BB cream into a cushion BB, and allows you to tinker with the product, adding in foundation, pigment, skincare, and sunscreen to whip up your own custom blend.

And it's pretty:

I love gold, and red.  Ergo, I loved this cushion case before I ever saw it in person.  I couldn't resist the concept of being able test out the cushion craze without ending up with yet another unusable BB cream rattling around in my collection.  Does it work, though?

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!

Skin79 Orange Super Plus BB Cream Review

This week's review is of the many-named Skin79 Orange Vita Super Plus Triple Function Beblesh Balm Cream.  For the safety of your tongue muscles and the sanctity of anyone within spit-radius, do not attempt to say all that three times fast.  I've had this BB cream for ages, but summer is in full swing in Texas and since this BB cream was supposedly designed with oil control in mind, I decided to give it another try.

This is a bit of a "retro" BB cream that hails from the Glory Days of the Skin79 Hot Pink furor, when Skin79 started experimenting with some new formulations of BB cream.  Nowadays, there are so many brands and formulas of BB (and CC) creams that's it's hard to imagine a time when your choices were more limited!

The main points of the Orange BB was to provide more coverage than its Hot Pink predecessor, along with better oil control and meant for 'troubled' skin.  (That's polite Korean-speak for ACNE UP IN HERE!)  I've heard people describe it as being more "foundation-like" in its intent, but in my case I purchased it because it was recommended as the best match to an NC15 skin and I liked the high sun protection.

Read on for my thoughts on how this BB cream rates against the Hot Pink and my favourite Mizon Snail BB.

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:

Guest Review of Beauty Blender Sponge Dupe from LeCosemetique

This week's review of the Beauty Blender Sponge Dupe from lecosmetique.com is is brought to you by Guest Reviewer Courtney of San Francisco, who shares my interest in meticulously researching obscure beauty items.

Courtney and I have very different skin profiles, and she provides the following details about hers:

• Ethnicity: Asian (Japanese & Chinese)
• MAC skin tone: NC35-NC40
• Skin type: oily/combination, occasional acne, tans easily
• Concerns: wrinkles, dark circles and bags under eyes, uneven skin tone, scars, aging.

Read on for her fantastic review of a better quality dupe of these famous sponges:

Mizon Snail Repair Blemish Balm Review

This week's review is of the Mizon Snail BB cream, specifically their Multi Function Formula Snail Repair Blemish Balm with SPF32/PA++.  It's part of a line of snail-based beauty products from Mizon, which was a brand I had never heard of until I learned of their snail BB cream from beauty blogger PBunnieP and after her rave review, I had to try it myself.

2015 update: Wow, looking back at old photos from old cameras is painful. Everyone has to start somewhere, right?

Hold the phone, you did not just say SNAIL?!

Yep, I did.  More on that later.

That is the most disgusting thing I have ever heard of putting on my face!  I'm outta here.

You'd be missing out on something that has a near-miraculous effect on acne.

Snail filtrate (meaning it's harvested [cruelty-free] from a species of snail farmed just for this purpose, and then filtered) is famous for it's skincare benefits, which include speeding the healing process of any wound, which means it helps heal your acne more quickly and without scarring.  Seriously, just google it.

To me, that's huge.  As long as the little guys are not harmed, I'm all for anything that will help me combat the acne that continues to plague me right into my 30's.  It is also linked to various skin benefits and supposedly it has been clinically tested to confirm that it does in fact have chemicals in it that assist with regenerating the skin, as snails rely on healing abrasions, preventing infection, and quickly reducing inflammation so they are not compromised by whatever sharp nasty things they are gliding over.

Makes sense when you think about it that way, doesn't it?  It would be like dragging the inside of your lips over any and all surfaces; you wouldn't survive if you didn't have a way to keep the ensuing abrasions and contamination from killing you.

It's not even that exotic an idea anymore; it's been A Thing in the beauty world for quite a while, including Brazil, France, and of course Asia.

On to the review!

There once was a girl with lips as dry as prunes

There are lots of beauty blogs out there, so why start this one?  The short answer is: because when I (dubbed 'Snow White' by my very tanned co-workers) needed it, it wasn't there.  I wanted detailed reviews on Asian beauty products from a western perspective, or even just readable without the help of Google Translate.

Why Asian?

Because I have a fairly light skin tone, as in NC10-15; only my freckles tan, the rest of me stays stubbornly white.  For anyone who isn't familiar with MAC shades, those numbers mean that I'm on the lighter end of the spectrum for foundation shades.  All my life, I have avoided wearing foundation and concealer, even though I have mild to moderate acne.  It's not on principle, it's because everything readily available to me was just too dark for my skin. Nars, Illamasqua, and Kat Von D were not yet a thing in my days of teenage acne angst.

Also, I lived in the desert.  You can read about how my skin reacted to living in dusty hell here: Skin type/history

I just couldn't wear makeup without breaking out.  Then I learned of an Asian beauty product called BB cream.  I heard it was bottled magic that was a skincare, sunscreen, foundation, primer, concealer, and all sorts miracle in a bottle (or tube) but the biggest complaint was that it was just too light for most westerners to wear.

Of course I was immediately interested, because if it was too light for everyone else, there was a chance it might work for me?  Thus began my months-long research journey, which eventually moved from BB creams to Asian cosmetics in general.

I learned that tanning isn't considered the pinnacle of healthy beauty everywhere, and I was able to let go of a lifetime of comments (snide and well-meant alike) about my natural skin tone.

Asian beauty products have been my saving grace.  From BB creams with high SPF to moisturizers that helped lighten my sun damage, I've had skincare success that has always eluded me with western products.  However, there are not a lot of reviews out there for Asian beauty products outside of BB creams, which is a shame because they're so wonderfully suited to those with very light skin tones like me.

So here's my blog of Asian products that make it possible to survive being 'Snow White' in the Desert.