Skincare Things

This is a super over due post of some more items I got from Japan (back in August).
As you might recall, I was using Orbis with a mix of Paul & Joe. During the day time, I used the Orbis Aqua Force moisture lotion because it absorbed quickly, but as the weather started to change, it wasn't moisturizing enough. After finishing it in August, I purchased the Sofina Beaute Emulsion.
The emulsion comes in 3 varieties, Fresh I, Light Moist II and Moist III. I think the difference is the moisturizing levels. The one I got is II Light Moist 120mL, I can't remember the price, but HK sells it for $290HKD.
I've been using it for daytime since the end of August and there's still a bit more than half the bottle left. So I think it's worth the price.
The bottle is very pretty with the white flowers. It's plastic and you kinda half squeeze half pour the moisturizer out.

I translated the HK Sofina website using Google, but most of it doesn't make sense in English. It basically says that this moisturizer penetrates the cell's core and helps with anti-aging. It's supposed to also help dry damaged skin from the environment. You can read it yourself here.

This moisturizer is super milky, I'd say a bit more than the Laneige emulsions. It absorbs very quickly and has a light floral aroma. I definitely think this is a great moisturizer because it makes my skin really soft and doesn't leave any residue, whereas Laneige did (back when it was my fav skincare). The floral scent goes away quickly so there's no need to worry about leftover smells. Since it absorbs quickly, I don't have to wait before applying makeup and worry about dry patches on my skin.
I use a little more than what this picture shows and it's more than enough to moisturize my skin.

Other Sofina Beaute items I'm using is the Wrinkle Essence. I got that in HK in February for $380HKD 25mL. I use this under my eyes everyday and sometimes on my face and neck. I can't really give good results since I didn't notice much. I think it's just good to prevent any further wrinkles though. After I'm done all my P&J products, I'm going to slowly switch over to the rest of the Sofina Beaute items as they're supposed to help with anti-aging.

I've been using nose strips for a long as I can remember, but sometimes they just don't pull out all the junk. In a quest to find something to boost the nose strip power, I found the Kose Softymo Hot Cleansing Gel from Japan.
This is a small tube, 25g for I think $5-6CAD? But it works well with the nose strip. After cleansing and drying my skin, I rub a 2 pea sized amount on the areas that the nose strip will touch. There's no hot feeling at all, but whatever haha. The gel is black and has a bit of tiny scrubbage to it. I do this for about 2 minutes then rinse off with water and apply the nose strip.
After peeling off the strip, here's what I'm left with... a lot more crap out of my pores than if I didn't use the gel. Whhheeee!!!!

Weekend Goodies

Thanks for all the comments and all my new followers!

I found a link to download the Mina 15 minute makeup tutorial book/magazine. Click here to download! It features very basic makeup application for beginners.

Also, here's the link for December's issue of Voce. Most of it's writing and it doesn't have as many picture tutorials like Vivi.

Check out this blog for swatches of Maquillage's newest collection. It's so beautiful!!!!!!! The lipsticks look more like jelly and it's more like a lipgloss than lipstick according to the blogger. (if I translate that properly haha)

Christmas Present!

Since I'm being terrible at commenting back, I'm considering taking down my comment box and just leaving my cbox open. What do you think?

I know, Christmas is more than a month away, but how could I resist not buying a present for myself already? All the holiday collections make me drool. I could only pick one thing otherwise I'd be broke before buying everyone else's present.
My present for this Christmas (along with one more thing coming from Adambeauty) is the Aube Couture holiday palette. I didn't own anything Aube Couture before so why not start with this right?

The package is so beautiful. The case is a shiny pink with a silver border, white and jewelled snow motifs. This is also a huge compact, 3x4, to hold applicators, 3 lippies and eyeshadow.

I chose the 03 gold eyes x red lip variation. I figured gold would go with most outfits and I didn't own anything gold to begin with.
Isn't it so gorgeous? Sadly the snow design is only sprayed on top and is rubbed off immediately after touching it with the applicator.

All of the shades are very well pigmented except the main shade, even with BE Prime Time. I have to layer on the main shade 2-3 times to get the desired amount of color. However, even with all the layering, the shades lasted very long (about 10 hours) with no creasing and minimal smudging. I'm quite impressed by this.

The liner and brown shadow is very similar in color. A light hand is needed with applying it to the outer corner to prevent it from over powering the gold.

The lipsticks are very smooth and medium pigmented. I'm a bit sad how red these came out, it doesn't match me very well. The top shade is similar to the P&J lipstick 062 but a bit more rosy.

I lined with P&J pencil liner 01 before smudging the liner shade on. I think the gold appears more brownish than gold, but that's probably due to my skin tone.
I'm using the top and bottom lip color in the last picture. It doesn't look as red as I say, but it's just not very flattering.

Stila TM

After using the LM TM for a couple weeks, I couldn't stand it anymore. As much as I like the dewy-ness I get from it, my face got soooooo oily after a couple hours!! I didn't even want to try the oil free one because according to some people on MUA, it's still oily for them.

I went to Sephora to try something else and the SA gave me a Stila Oil Free TM sample. I was convinced that this was the one for me after using it 2 times so I returned the LM.

The one I purchased is Dark Medium 03, which seems kinda silly because I never considered myself in the dark shades, but yet it doesn't look dark at all. This is supposed to have SPF30, but the packaging doesn't say so. I asked Sephora why and they said it's because Canada has different labelling restrictions or something, but it still has SPF30. Weird.

The TM is quite thick and not as easy to blend as LM. I use this with the Paul & Joe Moisturizing Foundation Primer 03 and it makes blending a lot easier. Something about the P&J added more blendability to the TM.

Coverage wise, I think it's pretty similar to LM. It's light-medium without covering all the imperfections. Oil control gets a pass. I don't get as greasy as LM but I still blot once, although if I didn't blot it wouldn't be that big of a deal.

Oh, I'm also using the Maquillage Powder Touch Eyebrow (GY950), though you don't really notice a big difference. I use a light hand just incase I look crazy with dark brows XD I also just follow the natural shape of my brows. I don't really shape them either because I don't have a lot of brow hairs to begin with.

Vivi December

I don't know what's up with my blog, but some of my pictures can't seem to be clicked on to enlarge. I might have to go back to using the generic blogger layouts soon. *sigh*

Vivi December is out already! My friend got this in HK a few days ago before she flew back. I also have the November issue but haven't taken pictures of it. Vivi seems to be less and less makeup-y these days, but I can't complain.

This issue has a little booklet called Christmas Coffret Super Catalog. I've already ordered from one of the holiday collections for my Christmas present. It better get here by the end of the week, I'm sooo impatient!

There's yet another collaboration of Vivi and Visee. There are 2 palettes (mauve and beige brown) and a mascara. The mauve one reminds me a lot of the Bobbi Brown mauve collection, except I'm sure the Visee is a lot prettier.

I finally got my first brow product! This is Maquillage's newst one called Powder Touch Eyebrow in GY950. I can't really compare this with anything I've used, but this pencil is supposed to be powder. It's also thicker than the average pencils.
It glides on with a powdery feel and finish so it looks super natural. For a first time brow product user, this is pretty idiot proof as the color is very buildable and it's easy to correct mistakes.
The color is darker than what it looks like on the pencil, but I haven't taken a good swatch or before/after pictures yet.

I got this on Adam Beauty for about $12. What a great deal! Plus it'll probably last forever.