Elizavecca Milky Piggy Carbonated Bubble Clay Mask Review: Tested & Detested

Mid-week is the perfect time for a mini-review of the famous Elizavecca Milky Piggy Carbonated Bubble Clay Mask.  (Update: my word counter tells me that "mini" review is a lie.  Eh, everything's relative!)  This mask is old news; it's a classic example of skincaretainment, and the product is more well-known for its entertainment value than the actual effects on the skin.  That's partly why I've avoided it until now, but it's summer and my skin is a slimy mess in this humidity so it's very ready for an occasional clay mask.  Why not one that inflates into a comically wide cloud of foam while on your face, making you look like a pixar character while doing double duty of first cleansing and clay mask style deep pore cleansing all in one go?

There is an inner jar lid/seal to keep air from reacting to the product.

Sounds too good to be true, right?  Plus, lots of people have used this mask, including fellow Snailcast podcaster Fifty Shades of Snail, so I purchased a jar of it and give it a try.  Then I dropped all irritants out of my routine and tried it again.  Sometimes, you have to just have to hurt yourself twice to confirm something is bad news.

In this post:

• Product details
• Ingredients
• What it did to my face
• What I'd rather use instead

Before using this mask the second time, I skipped anything that would compromise my moisture barrier for at least a week: no acid exfoliants, no manual exfoliants, no tretinoin, nothing to weaken my skin barrier or make me more sensitive.  I wanted to make sure there was no chance the culprit was just piling clay on top of sensitive skin.  Unfortunately, it still left my skin screaming for mercy and I smothered its cries with snail gel to recover.

Sheet Mask Reviews & Empties: a Month of Getting #Sheetfaced

I like sheet masks.  I like them so much I use them once a day (also known as 1일 1팩) or even twice a day.  Some days, I might even #doublefistmasks-- aka using two masks back to back, coined during a discussion I had with fellow Snailcaster Fiddy of Fifty Shades of Snail, which I shamelessly borrowed from the rich tradition in Canada (and elsewhere) of having an alcoholic beverage in each fist to ensure one can more efficiently imbibe without pesky interruptions like having to get up for another drink.  Hmm, I'm seeing a theme: #doublefistingmasks, #sheetfaced, drinking wine with a straw while masking ... well, considering the alcohol in some masks, clearly I need to write this review with a drink in-hand, eh?

This means I go through a lot of sheet masks, and it occurred to me that people might like to see the wreckage left behind after a month or so of rampant sheet masking.  Once a day, twice a day, or if it's prepping for a special occasion, even more?

Mmm, sheet masks.

In this post:

• 47 empty sheet masks
• 24 mini reviews
• Assorted inebriated jokes

As someone with chronically dehydrated skin that hates occlusive products, I have to spend a lot of time sloooooooowly restoring hydration to my skin.  Too many layers results in a build-up of product residue on my face once it's sucked the water out of  any essences, serums, and creams I apply.

So, I combat summer heat, winter dryness, stress, and laziness by doing the slow cooker Korean beauty equivalent: sheet masks.  20-60 minutes of slow, sustain saturation replenishes my thirsty skin and lets me relax from the long and stressful hours of my day job.  Here are my thoughts on this giant pile of mask empties!

LS Cosmetic Oriental Herbal Skincare Premium Mask Pack Review: Four Flavours of Hanbang

I like sheet masks a lot, and I use them a lot, but I don't review them often as my blog would be nothing but sheet mask reviews if I did.  I'll sometimes review them on my Instagram, or I'll put them in a Best of post, or pick my top masks for a season's routine.

I'm making an exception for the LS Cosmetic Oriental Herbal Skincare Premium Mask Pack sheet mask set, of which I have types but one, as they're worth reviewing and people have expressed a lot of interest in hearing about them.  I'm sure this is due to 1. them being very, very Hanbang (한방, traditional Korean herbal medicine) and 2. being in ultra cute packaging that looks like different styles of Hanbok, a type of traditional Korean garment.  Normally cute packaging results in really disappointing masks, but these were a pleasant surprise.

I've also already used almost all of them, as you can see in this image below, so it's high time I review them before they're all gone.

Yes, I did save these empties for this post. You'd think that I didn't like the blue or green ones as I have 3 left of each, but actually I'm hoarding them because precioussss.

I purchased these in my Korean buying service haul from the terminally adorable Boyah Shop, which you can read about here: Boyah Shop Korean Buying Service Review + Haul of Hanbang & Sheet Masks, and at this time they're not available (affordably!) anywhere other than Korean sites, but if that changes, I will definitely update the review.  These were about $0.86 each before shipping, and I'm quite pleased with them.

Even the boxes are fancy, with pretty gold detailing on the edges:

Image from: Boyah Shop Korean Buying Service Review + Haul of Hanbang & Sheet Masks

Still, when it comes to sheet masks, it's what's inside the package that counts, so let's get to it!

In this post:

• Chaga Mushroom Sheet Mask - Wrinkle Care Type Review
• Shang Whang Mushroom Sheet Mask - Sensitive Type Review
• Silk Worm Sheet Mask - Whitening Type Review
• Wild Ginseng Sheet Mask - Cleansing Type Review

Each mini-review contains product details, comments on fit, scent, essence, ingredients, and other details, including which ones I will (and won't) be repurchasing.

Boyah Shop Korean Buying Service Review + Haul of Hanbang & Sheet Masks

I use Korean buying services a lot, probably more than your average K-Beauty fan, for reasons ranging from "I'm a spreadsheet nerd who likes to min/max my costs for the best deal" to "I'm dangerously close to being a K-Beauty hipster looking for the next obscure thing" to "I like putting weird things on my face."  I've used 3 Korean buying services to date, and liked all of them, and today I'm going to review Boyah Shop.  I'm also going to post some haul photos, as peeps requested on my Instagram.

My buying service order has arrived! My heart sank when I saw a giant leak or possible rain damage on the box, worrying that my preciouses might be damaged. But thanks to the stellar packing skills of @boyahshopkr, my products were safely sealed away from what turned out to be massive rain damage.😱☔💧💧💧 I also received a sweet note and I'm a little 😭❤😭 over how amazing this service is. I'm not even sure if I want to write about it on my blog, because I don't want her to be buried in an avalanche of thirsty #kbeauty fans looking for their buying service fix (RIP @Dowaja, you were not long in this world), but spoilers: this buying service is amazing. AH-MAZ-ING. I just ... I can't even. The responsiveness, the customer service, the cute ... so cute. A++++ 😍😍😍 I need to find something I want just so I can use her service again and bask in the cute. 😍😍😍 (in addition to great service, obvs) Working with her is like hugging a pile of kittens, but without allergies involved. #koreanbeauty #koreanbuyingservice #hanbang #haul #cremorlab #jungsaemmool #sheetmasks #snailunit #rasianbeauty

A photo posted by Snow White and the Asian Pear (@snowwhiteandtheasianpear) on Mar 14, 2016 at 3:44pm PDT

I suppose the caption of this is a bit of a spoiler, heh.

In this post:

• How a buying service works
• What Boyah Shop offers
• My experience with the ordering process
• What I bought
• Would I recommend their service

Also featuring some gratuitous unboxing photos of my goodies, because that's how I roll.

Beginner Friendly: Simple K-Beauty Starter Kit #2 - Dry & Stressed Skin Type

Here's the second installment of my Beginner Friendly: Simple K-Beauty Starter Kits for 4 Skin Types series, where I share the actual suggestions/gift selections/starter care packages I have selected for 4 real people as their beginner's intro to Korean beauty products.

Historically, I've avoided recommending specific products for my readers (and still do) as I'm not licensed to be giving skincare advice and I'm very adverse to veering into Dr. Internet territory, but I realized that even though I can't recommend products to people, I can share the products that I've assembled as starter packages for K-Beauty beginners in my life.  By that I mean my family and friends who continually get beauty products for their birthdays and holiday gifts as I attempt to get them hooked on the good stuff.  I'll get my mother into snails one of these days, mark my words!

This week I will be sharing Starter Kit #2, which was for a college-age friend with dry, stressed skin who needed something simple that would give her a huge boost in moisturization without interrupting her studying and would also soothe her skin.

Left: simple. Right: eeeeek!  Both are examples of the daily routines I post on Instagram.

I've been pleasantly surprised at how much people seemed to like the first kit (link here: Simple K-Beauty Starter Kit #1 - Oily & Acne-Prone Skin Type) but as fellow Snailcaster Fiddy of Fifty Shades of Snail pointed out, sometimes it's easy for skincare nerds like us to forget that not everyone is a skincare hobbyist.  (I actually wrote an entire post about having skincare as a hobby, in fact!)   I tend to shy away from simple, because the endless possibilities in customization is what excites me about K-Beauty, but it's a good reminder that not everyone feels that way!

Making K-Beauty more accessible is something The Snailcast discusses quite a bit (our podcast episodes frequently touch on this topic as a recurring theme) and this series was inspired by the excellent example routine that Tracy of Fanserviced-b posted: Easy Starter K-Beauty Skincare Routine for $100 on Amazon for normal skin types.

In this series:

All starter kits will feature 5 items or less, what they're for, and how to use them.  All lovingly selected with thought and care, because when I make kits for my friends and family, it's a box o' love.  Obviously not everything works for everyone, patch testing is necessary, etc etc.  These are just my personal picks.

• Starter Kit # 1: My college-age friend with oily, acne-prone skin (link here)
• Starter Kit # 2: My college-age friend with dry, stressed skin (you are here!)
• Starter Kit # 3: My mother's sensitive, dehydrated, aging skin kit (link here)
• Starter Kit # 4: My mother-in-law's normal, hyperpigmented, aging kit (link here)

• Bonus Kit if I haven't thrown myself off a cliff from creating all these visual (yes, visual) kits:  My personal kit if my house burned down and I had to start over with nothing but Amazon gift cards, which won't be simple, less than 5 items, or anything else straightforward.  No promises. Done! K-Beauty on Amazon: Rebuilding a 15+ Step Routine if My Stash Caught on Fire

Once these posts are live, I will link them here.  Done!  As I mentioned in the original post, these items will be from Amazon for accessibility reasons as a counterpoint to the more internationally-focused From Beginner to Expert Mode: Where I Buy K-Beauty & Asian Cosmetics post.

Time for soothing skincare!

The weekend I broke up with 75% of my sheet masks

This weekend is going to be a light-hearted progress report and not an in-depth review, guide, or discussion, so if you're not particularly interested in how I attacked the contents of my sheet mask stash and culled the weak from the herd, check in next weekend when we'll be back to our regularly scheduled programming!

I poured myself a coffee, hauled my sheet masks out of every nook and cranny of the house, & prepared to be savage.

I know, last weekend when I posted my massive two-part megapost (2015 in Review, Part I: My Favourite K-Beauty Products of 2015, & Part II: My Favourite K-Beauty Tips, Concepts, & Trends of 2015) I said that I was taking this weekend off due to the double-post.  I was exhausted from a hectic season at work, family events, and writing a megapost that required me giving up sleep 4 nights in a row to finish in time.  I was determined to give myself a break this weekend, and maybe I'd finally tackle the giant, sprawling, terrifying catastrophe that is my office.

I had no intention of blogging this weekend; every once of mental fortitude was already spoken for this arduous task ahead of me.  So how did I end up breaking up with the majority of my sheet masks, and then staying up late posting about it?!

In this post:

• What possessed me to do this in the first place
• What I'm excited to use
• What I'm excited to try
• What I'm keeping, but not using, & what I'll be using up
• What's being given the boot- gifted, given away, and destashed
• What my mask collection looks like in the aftermath

There may be a few expired masks in the 'destined for destash' pile, so I'll be sorting through when I decide what to do with them, but it's such a relief to have culled so much from my stash.  Life is too short to be wasted on masks I don't want to use!

Sometimes I Never Learn: 3 Things I Always Regret Purchasing

A while back I wrote a post about The Painful Path to K-Beauty Wisdom: 7 Mistakes Beginners Make, which covered some of the most common beginner mistakes that I see people make over and over.  Some of them were mistakes I made myself, some ones I've observed are common in general.

What about mistakes that I keep making, even though I'm dangerously close to being a K-Beauty hipster who keenly remembers the days when BB creams could only be bought directly from Asia,  Korean skincare hadn't yet caught on, and snail filtrate was still unthinkable?  (Ooo, I can feel myself growing a curled-stache & glitterbeard at the very thought.  Quick, get me a Portland craft beer and a pair of suspenders!)   Surely I should know better by now, right?

Sigh.  Somehow, there are a few mistakes that I keep making, despite really knowing better by now, and I'm going to 'fess up.  For someone who is as seriously interested in mindfulness in purchasing and self-care, it's awkward to to talk about the things that I still struggle with but, I'm going to do it anyway!

Dirge of Duds: Reviews of Mizon Almighty Cold Cream, Acence Blemish Control Gel, & Good Night White Sleeping Mask

This week I'm going to be doing something a little different, because different is interesting and St. Snail knows I need "interesting" to get through this backlog of products that need review.  Why the backlog?  Because they bored me.

It's really easy to write reviews of things that you either loved or hated, but it's a lot harder to review things that are on the scale of "didn't really like it" to "sorta bland."  I can summon the burning fires of bloggerly rage about things that my skin violently rejected, but mediocre is tough!

Today's batch of boring products: Mizon edition

Then I feel guilty for being so behind on reviewing things long since discarded or even emptied, but I can't bring myself to spend all weekend writing about something that doesn't interest me.  So here's the Dirge of Duds: a series of mini-reviews to clear the backlog of products that I mildly disliked, felt ambivalent about, tolerated, or had tepid feelings about them one way or the other.

In this post:

• Mizon Acence Blemish Control Soothing Gel Cream Review
• Mizon Good Night White Sleeping Mask Review
• Mizon Almighty Cold Cream Cleansing & Massage Review

I'll be providing details, ingredients lists, and brief thoughts about each.  Onward to slay the Dragon of Dullness!

Making the Most out of K-Beauty: 5 Simple Hacks

I'm gearing up for a major post that will take a few weeks of hard research, so here's a fun little list of things I do on the regular and thought I'd share while I work on some in-depth projects in the background!

The usual suspects

The best part is that everything is either readily available (including from Amazon), repurposing what you already have, or just using things differently.

In this post:

Tips for:

• Avoiding shipping 'sticker shock'
• Cushion problems solved
• DIY sheet masks are the new hotness
• Get a perfect sheet mask fit with little effort
• Mists are more useful than you'd think

Also includes two bonus tips for even more cushion enabling usefulness.

Sheet Mask Roundup and Holy Grail: Spring 2015

As I mentioned in my prior weekday post Sheet Mask Shortage, Frantic Hauls, & Introducing Sheet Mask Reviews, I would be doing mini-reviews of any new sheet masks I've tried on my Instagram.  I don't post mini reviews daily, as I don't use new masks daily, only when I am not patch testing a new product.

However, since not everyone uses Instagram, someone suggested I periodically do a masterpost of the mini-reviews here, and I'm happy to oblige!  Besides, I do have a lot of masks:

What 153 sheet masks + DIY dry mask patches looks like.

I'm definitely a member of Team 1일1팩 (1 day, 1 pack) which is a Korean trend of using a mask every day, whether it is a sheet mask or wash-off mask pack.  Also, some Asian celebrities like Fan BingBing use sheet masks twice a day (link to CNN interview) and she is famous for her skin.

View from our car during
a Haboob (dust storm)

As a desert-dweller, my skin needs lots of uninterrupted daily ~alone time~ with topical hydration; the jealous arid air is usually trying to steal away any moisture that dares to flirt with my skin.  (Photo evidence at right!)

Applying essence/serum/ampoule type products usually results in evaporation before my skin has had a chance to benefit.  I also dislike wash-off masks; the water here is also, well, gross.  It's highly chemically treated and is a bit high on the pH scale, so by the time I rinse off the mask, my skin feels stripped and dry.  I'm not that fancy as to break out the bottled water to rinse my face, so sheet masks are my best friend, and I use them up to 2x  daily.

Uh isn't using masks daily way overkill?  As with everything in skincare, YMMV; if you skin doesn't like masks/doesn't like frequent usage, listen to it!

In this Post:

• Mini-reviews for: the Bad, the Good, and the Holy Grail
• Ranting about hydrogels and bio masks
• Liberal use of stickers as a form of expression
• Ingredients translation for the HG mask

 That may seem brief, but there are 27 mask reviews in this post, so that's plenty of reading!

Weekday: Sheet Mask Shortage, Frantic Hauls, & Introducing Sheet Mask Reviews

Recently I was approached by a company interested in having me review a sheet mask service, among a few other things.  Don't be alarmed; I've yet to have an offer come across my digital desk that I felt was a good fit- and in this case, although sheet masks are definitely something I use (daily in fact!) I had to advise them that I had recently purchased over 140 sheet masks and thus would have to decline.

I can only imagine how long it took for them to stop laughing so they could type a reply.  You are probably doubting my sanity right now yourself.  But let me show you how/why that happened:

Count the number of sheet masks in this picture.  Do ittt!

This is a picture of my (formerly) entire sheet mask collection, or at least all that I had left. That's right, that's a whopping 5 masks in that picture.  You might then think "That's not too bad, if you use one every week that will last you 5 weeks, plenty of time to get more!"

Ah, no.  During the winter, I use sheet masks every day.  Sometimes twice a day.  Why?  Because I live here:

Top photo: moving car = blurry & unedited!
The sky really IS that colour.

These are photos I took during a Haboob (also known as a dust storm: see wikipedia link), and yes, that is a tumbleweed skittering across the intersection in the photo on the bottom.

I've said before that I live in the desert and that it wreaks havoc on my skin, but sometimes seeing is believing- or in this case, seeing is understanding.

It's very, very dry here, and absolutely choked with dust. I need to clean my face properly twice a day, and I need lots of external hydration- just drinking water is not enough.  

I use a pH adjusting toner instead of waiting for my skin to naturally adjust after cleansing, because my face will become dry enough to form flakes within 30 seconds after rinsing.  It's that dry. 

(If you want to learn more about why I use a pH adjusting toner to prep for pH dependent products like Vitamin C L-AA serum, BHA, or AHA, check out my post on Putting your products in order, including pH dependent acids)

So you can see I need those sheet masks, every day, sometimes twice a day.  I neeeeed them. *grabby hands*  So when I realized I had less than a week's worth of masks, I panicked.  Then I shopped while panicked. Ooops!

In this post:

• Sheet mask shortage crisis (well you've already seen this part)
• Frantic sheet mask haul from 11st: cost, time elapsed, and savings
• Pictures + prices + reasons for purchase
• How I'll be reviewing sheet masks from now on 

Aritaum Ginger Sugar Overnight Lip Mask Review

I'm doing a quick mid-week request a review on the Aritaum Ginger Sugar Overnight Lip Mask, which I received earlier this year in a mini haul from Testerkorea.  This is going to be a pretty quick review, because I wasn't able to find a full ingredients list, even on Korean sites.  If you find it somewhere, let me know!

I've been using on nights where my lips feel dry or are chapped, as it's not a 'balm' in the usual sense, it's literally an overnight sleeping pack ... for your lips?

Plus, its got Ginger Sugar in the name.  I love ginger.   I love sugar.  I love sugared (candied) ginger.  I am constantly out of lip balm because I lose them almost instantly.  Sold!

You might be looking at this barely-touched lip balm and think I didn't like it, but that's not the case. 

The Hanbang Set Project: Part IV; Damning Children, Liquid Pearls, & a Happy Discovery

With one last week to go, here is fourth installment of My Adventures with the Mysterious Hanbang (한방) set, preceded by:

Upper left: Sap, Lower left: Cynanchum wilfordii Vitality Cream
Upper Centre: Eye Cream, Lower Centre: Wild Herb Cream
Upper Right: Lotion, Lower right: Pomegranate Pack

The Hanbang Set Project Part I: Translations, Patch Testing, & Pictures

Includes:

• Outline of my plan for the month
• Gratuitous photos of this gorgeous set
• What I've learned about the set so far
• More gratuitous photos of this gorgeous set
• My translation progress

The Hanbang Set Project: Part II; The Brand, Initial Thoughts, & 백수오 Vitality Cream Ingredients

Includes:

• What I've learned about the brand
• What I've learned about the set so far
• My initial thoughts of the products
• My translation progress
• Details of the “Oh Unemployed Vitality Cream” - ingredients analysis and research

The Hanbang Set Project: Part III; 15 Flavours of Fermentation, Sketchy Science, & Mold that will Melt Your Face

Includes:

• What the 15 fermented Hanbang ingredients are
• Totally unsubstantiated claims about ingredient benefits
• A breakdown of the 백수오 Vitality Cream ingredients, both Good & Bad

This week I was determined to translate the entirety of the info card that came with the set, as I'm nearly at the end of the month and thus this project!

In this post:

• What I learned about the brand
• Translations of the entire infocard

• Sap/Toner description and directions

• Lotion description and directions

• Eye Cream description and directions

• Wild Herb Cream description and directions

• Cynanchum wilfordii Vitality Cream description and directions

• Pomegranate Pack description and directions

• What I learned about the Pomegranate pack (that made me wish I had done this sooner)

All I'll say for now is that I have been missing out.  I thought that the Cynanchum wilfordii and the Pomegranate products were the same function, so either/or, but I was so, so wrong.

Social Media and Sheet Masks; or: My Beauty Diary Natto Mask + Art frenzy at 5:30 am

It's a good thing that I don't particularly care about having dark circles, because I am rocking the Panda Chic today.

I'll get to what I thought of the MBD Natto Mask here in a moment, but first I wanted to talk about what I was doing all night and why I'm feeling flushed with accomplishment today.

After my fiasco with RoseRoseShop and paypal's refunding of my money, I was gloomily sifting through various vendors online trying to find the products that I will now not be receiving.  While searching for coupons/discounts, I noticed that one of them tends to post a lot of their flash sales and discounts on Twitter.

Now, I hate Twitter on principle.  It always seems infested with a lot of self-aggrandizing navel gazing and I detest that.  However, if getting on Twitter means that I can keep up with sales from various Asian vendors, I will happily jump on that bandwagon!

While pondering what to cover for a cover photo, suddenly I was struck by the urge to paint a image of my namesake, since "Snow White" is public domain but images are trademarked.  I should just make my own!  I used to be very involved with design as a career until I got married and was whisked away to a life of being the breadwinner, and it's been at least 7 years since I picked up a pencil or brush.

So, while the idea of whipping up my own image was exciting, I was also filled with trepidation because I'm so out of practice that it was unlikely to be any good and would probably be an exercise in frustration and a hit to my self esteem.  I had no idea if I could pull this off.

Like the barren desert landscape which has been leeched of all colours but browns and dead grays, living here has similarly leeched the creativity and passion from me as time has gone on. (Seriously, this is where I live.  This is not a filter, the air is orange from the dust in the air during a haboob, and yes, that's a tumbleweed zooming by.  And it's really that flat and devoid of greenery.) My blog has been a tiny lamp in the obscuring gloom of life here, and last night, it sent me deep into the darkened recesses of our storage closet to find my art supplies.

I was looking for my watercolour pencils, but like I said it's been seven years since I touched anything, and I could only find a motley of graphite and coloured pencils.  I am total crap at anything involving pencils, but it was already 10 pm and I wasn't going to dare watercolour pigments or gouache when I'm almost a decade out of the game.

I'm also not great at drawing, nor am I fast.  When I sat down to put pencil to paper, it was a disaster, and I had ruined some of the fancy sketch paper that was in my collection, so I decided that this was going to be unusable anyway, I might as well use printer paper.

I realized, in the hours that followed, that 1. I have totally forgotten everything I ever learned about drawing, not that there was much in the first place, and 2. I had forgotten what it was like to use my creativity for something other than solving problems at work.  Even if the work I was doing was total garbage, I felt ALIVE.  It was like a large part of what makes me who I am has just atrophied over the years, becoming gnarled and wizened like something left out in the desert for too long.

At 3 am, I was still going strong.  I normally stumble around in a haze of insomnia and perpetual chronic exhaustion, but I was wide awake and intent- even with poor tools and faded skills, I was excited and full of purpose.

After I finally took my photos of the finished piece, all half-assed and glaringly faulty, I stumbled into bed brimming with accomplishment like I haven't felt in years.

So this means that I now have a Twitter account (click here) and a Facebook Page (click here) to boot!

And lastly, here's a short review of the MBD Natto mask, which wasn't exciting enough for a full review:

Details:

Full product name: My Beauty Diary Natto Mask

Purpose: It's a sheet mask infused with Natto in some way, which, if you aren't familiar with Natto, is a fermented form of soybeans that is famous for being an 'acquired taste' and has a consistency that looks like congealed phlegm.  Mmm.

According to prettyandcute.com, which is where I bought it, this mask "contains Isoflavones to help postpone aging and restore skin’s firmness and resilience. Natto extract stimulates and activates cells for hydration and water retention. While seaweed extract offers the skin adequate moisture content. Highly effective in moisture retention and providing nourishment, which allows skin to radiate. Recommended for those with dull skin lacking elasticity and moisture."

Benefits:

• Postpones aging
• Firms
• Hydrates
• Retains Water
• Moisture
• Nourishes
• Radiates

I was expecting some sort of ~*~*super sexy hydration and firming action*~*~, but it was nothing unique, just a typical mask.  Fermented products are all the rage right now (SK II, Missha's First Time Essense, Su:m37 products, etc) so I was really looking forward to seeing what a fermented mask would do, but this was a dud.

Scent:  Your granny's perfume exploded alllllll up in here.  It was so bad I kept sneezing while I was wearing the mask, and that's not the time you want your sinuses getting frisky.  I can only imagine what sort of fetid fermented funk must have been going on for them to liberally douse the whole thing in Eau De Femme Très Âgée.  I will never buy this mask again just due to the scent alone.

Quantity: Single use sheet mask, and like all MBD masks, leaves behind enough essence for you to pat it on your face, in case you want to smell like a senior citizen before crawling into bed with your honey.  Thankfully my husband was fast asleep, so I didn't have to worry about inflicting the stench upon his innocent person.

Availability: MBD masks are all over the place, but please be careful to buy them only from authorized retailers, because resellers and buyers alike are being bamboozled by counterfeit syndicates who are cleverly mixing in genuine MBD masks with fakes to trick wholesalers into thinking the entire order is legit:   Customs officers bust syndicate supplying fake masks of popular Taiwanese brand

Price: Single mask $2, box of 10 $16

Rating: Sheet masks are scored out of a possible 3, and this one is a 1/3.  I didn't give it a zero because it didn't damage my skin, but it was nothing special in the effects department and it REEKED.

Repurchase: UH NO.  Nononononononono.

And with that, we're done!

-Cat

Like me on Facebook or Follow me on Twitter; I will be doing giveaways as milestones are reached!

Tonymoly Latte Art Cappuccino Cream-in Scrub Review

This review has been a long time in the making, because it's one of those products that you neither love enough to use often, or hate so much you want to get a PSA out there as soon as possible.

This product is a classic example of me getting suckered into purchasing via a cutesy gimmick/adorable packaging.  Tonymoly in particular is very good at this; their products are never particularly good, yet I continue to pick things up because I fall in love with the packaging.  In this case, I was actually angry because I ordered it thinking it was going to look like this:
"The latte art hearts are so cute!" I thought.  "I love how the bottom of the cup unscrews and reveals the 'coffee'/product inside!"  I thought.   Thus, I bought it.  However, that's not what I got.  Instead, I got this:

I of course furiously started googling as soon as I unboxed it, and I saw to my dismay that it was not a fake, it was in fact the 'new' packaging and I was not going to have any latte hearts greeting me each morning.

I was really hoping the scrub inside would make up for it, but alas, it was pretty firmly mediocre, even if it has an interesting gimmick.  Read on for the full review!

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!

Weekly review: Sheet Mask Snippet -- My Beauty Diary Hyaluronic Acid Hydrating Mask

Greetings, fellow summer weather sufferers!  This week's review is of a handy summertime-friendly sheet mask, the My Beauty Diary Hyaluronic Acid Hydrating Mask.

My last sheet mask review was the My Beauty Diary Japanese Cherry Blossom sheet mask, and I wasn't happy with it (link) but the Hyaluronic Acid mask is quite decent by sheet mask standards.

Read on for the full details!

Lioele Waterdrop Sleeping Pack Review

This week we're going to review a "water drop" product, specifically the Lioele Waterdrop Sleeping Pack.  Sleeping packs are a sort of wash-off mask type that you apply before you sleep and wash off in the morning.

It's also a "water drop" type of product, which literally beads up into water droplets on your skin.  To be honest, I am not really sure what the point of having water drops form on the surface of your skin, because I don't see how that is supposed to help retain moisture inside your skin.  So it seems really gimmicky to me, but I promised myself I would test it in both winter and summer conditions before I made a decision.

So here's the review!

Mizon Pore Clearing Volcanic Mask Review

This week's review is one of your typical clay wash-off type masks, the Mizon Pore Clearing Volcanic Mask.

I can't say that I am a frequent user of clay masks, but I have used them from time to time.  As I continue to coax my skin back from a lifetime of congestion build-up, I am looking for treatment options to help clear my pores without irritating my skin too much and that can be easily added to my current routine.

Read on for the full details of this 'volcanic' clay mask.