Love Packages!

Despite the fact that I was super busy last week, I was truly blessed by a couple of friends who gave me love packages. Both will remain anonymous but they know who they are.

The first package was from my friends because I was their pet sitter. They traveled to Japan and Korea on a business trip and brought me back so many wonderful items.

From Japan, Tokyo Banana and Shiroi Koibito! The Shiroi Koibito is usually found only in Hokkaido. Both are so yummy!

The rest of the items are from Korea. A lot were skin care items from a brand called Nature Republic. I haven't heard of them before except that from their last trip they brought back small samples of foundation and serum. Has anyone reading heard of them and know anything information that they can share with me? I can't really find any reviews either. It looks like a really nice line of products and I can't wait to try them. It seems that they are a natural ingredients line.

Whitening face cleanser, toner and emulsion. I can't wait to try this but will use up what I'm using right now since I'm almost finished with it.

Two different cleansers, the lemon is a foam cleanser and the peach is a shower gel.

A bunch of samples of skin softener and emulsion, blackberry & blueberry sweet body wash and stem cell serum.

A couple of mystery items. I have no idea what is in these cute containers. Anyone know the answer?

From Etude, cute things...

A travel kit of body wash and intensive care cream.

Several lip glosses, including a Hello Kitty mini gloss (so cute!), something called Milk Screw (???) and Lash Designing Vitecara Curl Mascara

From Tony Moly...

Peach lotion. I just love this jar!

The other love package that I received actually arrived at my office on Saturday so I didn't see it until today. I was totally floored by the generosity of this lovely gift. While I was opening the box that it was mailed in, I could smell such a wonderful fragrance emitting from the box. When I finally opened it up....

Another box! LOL! This was wrapped in beautiful sakura wrapping paper! Sakura is my favorite flower so of course it was so impressive to me. On the card it says Hello Gorgeous! and it's from Lush. Lush put a sticker onto the wrapping paper that says the paper is made from 100% recycled paper. Please recycle again for a lush environment. I will definitely be recycling it but by keeping it for me to enjoy looking at.

In this Hello Gorgeous set, there is a Sakura Bath Bomb/Ballistic, MMM Melting Marshmallow Moment Luxury Bath Melt, Gorgeous Moisturizer, Rub Rub Rub Shower Gel and Helping Hands Hand Cream. I usually don't take baths, only showers but I can't wait to try out the bath bomb and melt. I will definitely use it one night when I am completely alone and can really relax and leisurely enjoy it. The Helping Hands hand cream I did use today and it's great. I use lotions a lot at work. I am so grateful for the generosity of this gift. I know that Lush products are not inexpensive and this gift was completely unexpected. Thank you, my dear friend!

*Kat*

Product Review and EOTD: Lancome and Estee Lauder

Sorry that I've been MIA and not doing any blog posts for about a week now. It was a crazy week at work and this upcoming week will be not quite as crazy but still not like normal. I'll be especially busy over the weekend since I'll be working another job again, helping out a friend at a trade show.

Despite the fact that I've not been around blogging, that doesn't mean that I was too busy to do a bit of shopping.  Amongst the things that I picked up, there are two LE items from Lancome and Estee Lauder. From Lancome, it's La Rose Deco Rosy Glow Blush and from Estee Lauder Surreal Violet eyeshadow palette from the Blue Dahlia Collection.

I had actually seen the La Rose Deco blush in a Fall 2010 preview on Haru's blog, Rouge Deluxe a few months ago. Since seeing it, I knew that it was something that I really wanted and kept on checking out the various makeup counters. It's a lovely two-color blush in the shape of a rose. The color isn't too strong is on the neutral side. I really like it because it gives me a nice contour.

Sorry, it's difficult to take pictures of blush since the color doesn't show up well unless you really pack on the color. It'll then look nice in the picture but awful in person.

While I was walking past the Estee Lauder counter, I spied the Surreal Violet eyeshadow palette. Since I'm into purple lately, I knew that I wanted to get this since it has five different shades in there.  The palette case is beautifully done in gold metal with the "E L" lettering as well. The only problem is that it really shows the fingerprints.

Here's the EOTD look that I did using the palette:

I won't go into detail on how I did it but if there are any questions, please feel free to ask. I just have too much to catch up on at this time to write out a detailed tutorial. The one thing that I did notice using this palette is the colors are a good match for me as they seem to make my eyes look a lot bigger.  I may go back and buy the other palette in the collection, which is a blue/teal palette. There were only a few left so it might already be sold out.

Now I need to catch up on some sleep, catch up on reading and commenting on blogs and catch up on writing more blog posts.

*Kat*

NOTD: A Somewhat Successful 1st Konadicure

I bought a bunch of konad items a couple of years back and have played with it from time to time but haven't had any success with it. I ended up getting frustrated and put it away. A sweet and generous blogger friend, who wishes to remain anonymous, sent me an awesome gift a couple of months ago. She sent me the expensive Rescue Beauty Lounge nail polish in Scrangie and some discontinued Sally Hansen chromes. Thank you so much! You know who you are! I finally worked up the courage to try to dress up my poor, mangy nails. My nails have gotten really soft since I stopped taking GNC's Hair, Nails and Skin formula (or whatever order the name is in). I wasn't sure if it was doing anything but now I know that it was helping to strengthen my nails a bit.

I won't review Scrangie extensively since I know many reviews are out there. It is a lovely holo purple shade and I really like it applied as a single coat since it applies as a light purple. Unfortunately, my application skills are horrible and I can't get an even coat with just one application so I had to apply two coats. It's beautiful plum color.

I then decide which konad design I want to use and which color of the chrome to use. The first design and color that I chose doesn't come out well. I think that I needed a brighter chrome color for it to show better so I switched and it still wouldn't come out well.

In this picture it shows up nicely but I took it outside in bright sunlight. Otherwise, you can't see anything in normal lighting. I also noticed that when I put it onto the stamper, a lot of the lines were not showing up. I think that maybe the lines are too fine and unfortunately, most of my plate designs are like that.

I switched to another design, which reminds me of tiger stripes. I am one of those people who do not tend to like animal prints so this tiger design really doesn't appeal much to me. However, for the first time ever, I was able to get a good konad print!

Here is the print on my left hand. Oh, please excuse the really messy application. This was taken soon after I finished my konadicure and I didn't even clean up my fingers. I like how this design shows up really well and I'm happy that it actually turned out!

Next I do my right hand and it is an epic fail! Well, maybe not quite epic but it is somewhat a fail.

First of all, my middle finger is all wrong! The stripes are going from side to side! LOL! Okay, I could reasonably say that this was intentional since it's my middle finger and I wanted to do something interesting. Unfortunately, my left hand's middle finger was already done properly so I couldn't make it match. If you look at the rest of my fingers, the design is pretty much straight up and down rather than at an angle like my left hand. I really like it at an angle.

I did my base coat and top coat with Deborah Lippman Hard Rock, which I like very much. It is the one top coat that really helps to make my manicure last for a decent amount of time. With normal top coat (OPI), after one day and having washed my hair, done dishes several times plus my normal wear and tear of doing housework and work (I'm really hard on my hands), I would have tip wear and/or chipping. I have done all of that and so far my nails look like it was just done, sans the messy polish on my skin.

Now I will have to go and look for more konad designs with thicker lines and see what happens. Do any of you have problems with the small designs and/or designs with fine lines?

*Kat*

Friday with Dior--One More Thing

I just remembered as I was putting on my makeup this morning that I wanted to include in my previous post's report something that I learned about foundation.

I am not sure how many of you are lucky enough to have vanities in your bedroom. I think that many women in Hawaii do their makeup in the bathroom with their products on the counter, as mine is. Ms. Pham said that if you keep your foundation in the bathroom--I'm pretty sure that she was referring to liquid foundation and not sure if it also applies to other foundations--you are ruining your foundation. Your foundation should be good for one year after opening it but will be good from at least half way through if stored in the bathroom. The reason for this is every time we shower, the room gets hot and condensation builds up inside the bottles. The water from the condensation ruins it. If you've ever had a foundation that had perhaps 1/4 or 1/8 left and noticed that the formulation looked a bit funky and need a lot of shaking to mix it, then it's probably the result of all of the build up of daily condensation.

I will start storing my foundation in the bedroom and carry it with me into the bathroom to do my makeup from now on.

*Kat*

Friday with Dior--Long

On Friday at Nordstrom, there was a Backstage Beauty event by Dior. My Dior MUA/SA asked if I wanted to attend this event, which had two time slots--11:00 - 1:00 or 3:00 - 5:00. I signed up for the 1st session but my initial thought was that I would be surrounded by old, rich women because the rest of the women would be working at that time. Of course, I match the old woman profile but definitely not the rich woman.

I arrived at Nordstrom Dior counter before 11:00 and asked how many people have signed up for the session. It turns out that there were only 6 signed up with 5 in actual attendance. It also turns out that I was the oldest person there. I thought that this was going to be a demonstration by the Diorshow Artist but I was wrong. It turns out that it was a hands on event.

The Diorshow Artist was Thuy Pham, a gorgeous woman! I learned so much from this and I'd like to share some of the information with you. I don't think that this will be in any structured order so forgive me if I kind of skip from here to there.

How often do we hear people talking about how their pores have gotten larger as they've gotten older? Have you said it yourself? I have! Well, in reality, your pores do not get larger as you get older. Ms. Pham put it this way, your face/head doesn't grow as you get older--well at least not after you've actually stopped growing from a baby. The reason why your pores have gotten larger is because it's holding more residue and dirt. This is where cleansing your face properly will help to reduce the size of your pores because you're cleansing away the residue and dirt.

The first thing that we did was to remove our makeup by first using a makeup removing oil and then a cleansing milk. She asked how many of us feels that our skin is taut after washing our face. If it is, then we are not using the proper cleanser. Our skin shouldn't feel taut but should feel clean and yet supple.

Do you use serum? If so, what are you looking for in a serum. A lot of us answered, hydration, take care of fine lines and wrinkles, brighten, etc. Well, serum has no hydrating properties. What a serum is, it's a treatment. Serum takes care of damage unseen under the skin.

How many of us learned when growing up that when applying lotions and moisturizers from under our chin to our decolletage that we do it in an upward motion? According to Ms. Pham, that is wrong, wrong, wrong. Our glands are in our neck area and when we do that, we are pushing the liquids from our glands upward towards our face. We want to stroke with a downward motion instead, drawing the liquids away from our face.

Speaking of downward motion, our foundation should be applied the same way. The hairs on our face grow downward so we should apply our foundation in the same direction for smoother coverage.

The last bit of information that I learned that I want to share with you is probably the most important of all. It's about sunscreens and SPF formulations. We all should wear sunscreen on our face. The minimum should be SPF 30. I'm sure that we are all aware of this but I will say it anyway...the different SPFs in your skincare, sunscreen and foundation do not add up. In other words, your day moisturizer has SPF 12, your sunscreen has SPF 25 and your foundation has SPF 15. This doesn't mean that you have SPF 52 protection. Here's the really important thing that I learned: The first application of anything SPF is going to be the protection coverage you will get. That first layer is the only layer that will penetrate into your skin to give you protection. Anything applied after that will only sit on top of your skin and will not give you any protection. Since you apply your sunscreen last after your skincare routine, none of your skin care products should have any SPF in it unless you have it in SPF 30 or higher. I had to come home to make sure that my moisturizer didn't have any SPF in it.

One other important thing about sunscreen, it takes 20 minutes for your skin to absorb it and have it be protecting. If you are at the beach and already sitting in the sun, it is too late to start applying your sunscreen then. Make sure to apply your sunscreen before you even go out into the sun.

After skincare, we went into makeup and makeup application, which I will not go into. One thing that totally impressed me was that Ms. Pham just looked at us from where she was sitting and told our assigned MUA what was our foundation color. Woah! That completely blew me away!

After we were done, we were led back up front to the Dior counter and we could purchase whatever we wanted. We were given a free goodie bag which contained a cute little case with a Miss Dior perfume sample, trial-sized mascara, trial-sized Capture Totale One Essential serum, and a Dior cell charm.

I ended up buying the lip gloss that I used and the One Essential serum. This serum is actually a detox for your skin. I like the concept of it. You apply it after washing your face, before your toner.

It was a fun event and I learned a lot. I'm so glad that I took the time to go. I hope that some of the information that I shared was also informative for you.

I also spent Friday and Saturday doing more shopping than I should have. Some things that I bought: 2 UD NAKED Palettes (for gifts--yup, I lucked out in finding it in stock again), 4 pairs of shoes, some clothing, Japanese magazines, and much more.

*Kat*

Product Review: Canmake Gokubuto Mascara + EOTD--Pic Heavy

I'M IN LOVE!!! I believe that my search is finally over. I've searched long and hard for a mascara that will curl my stubborn eyelashes without using an eyelash curler. A mascara that is not waterproof and/or will wash off easily with warm water. I've spent a lot of money in this search and have been disappointed time and time again. Some have come close but most have failed...until now! I introduce to you...drumroll please....

TADAAAAA!!!
Canmake Gokubuto Mascara

To show you just how awesome this mascara is, I've taken pictures in different situations, which is why this post is rather picture heavy. I am also including an EOTD for K of cosmeddicted, which will be explained a little later.

I have the typical asian eyelashes, which are straight and do not hold a curl well. I can curl my eyelashes and use waterproof mascara and they'll stay curled. Removing it is a bit of a pain and can cause you to lose some of your eyelashes in the process. I've resorted to using Shiseido The Makeup Mascara Base, which is quite awesome. It helps to hold my curl and I can use non-waterproof mascara. I still have to use an eyelash curler to curl my lashes though and that in itself can also be harmful to your eyelashes.

For the first set of pictures, I decided to be fair and use a mascara that Mai finds to be pretty awesome for her. It is the L'Oreal Panoramic Curl. She says that it curls her eyelashes quite well but it does flake somewhat after it's been on for a while. I am not curling my eyelashes first, just applying it onto my normal, straight eyelashes.

Can you see any curl in my eyelashes? I don't. This mascara doesn't work for me at all.

Now for the Canmake Gokubuto Mascara...

Curled lashes--I see curled lashes! It's not just barely curled but nicely curled! This is so exciting for me! I can't stop staring at my eyelashes.

I went to work like this, with two different curling mascaras and only one side curled. My eye with the curled lashes even looks a little bigger.

Next day, I decide to try curling my eyelashes with the eyelash curler first.

This is curled using Koji #70 eyelash curler. You can see how curled my lashes are.

My eyelashes after applying Gokubuto mascara shows that it did lose some of the curl from the eyelash curler. It kind of looks like the way it did the day before. This is fine because the curl has a more natural look to it. Also, by the end of the day when I went to shower, I noticed that I lost more curl to my lashes however, this was like 16 hours after applying so what did I expect. It was definitely still curled.

Today I decided to curl my eyelashes with the eyelash curler, apply Shiseido Mascara Base and then apply Gokubuto mascara.

My eyelashes are super curled and I think that this look will be great for an evening out or special occasions.

There is no way around it, this mascara is awesome! I've been having such great luck with Canmake products lately. Canmake is an inexpensive Japanese brand. You can buy this from A Pop Of Kawaii and the cost of it right now is $10.90 plus shipping and handling. Of course if you are in Japan, the cost is a little less than this. Be sure to look for GokuButo mascara because there is also a Gokunobi mascara by Canmake. The Gokunobi mascara does not work as well as Gokubuto.

I want to end this post with an EOTD. I said that it was for K. This is because in one of my posts I had said that I haven't really worn brown eyeshadows until recently. She had asked me what colors do I normally use. So here they are...

Products used:

Smashbox Halo Hydrating Perfecting Bronzer
MAC Silver Ring
MAC Amber Lights
MAC Print
Canmake Loose Cheek 01
K-Palette Real Lasting Eyeliner
Gokubuto Mascara

I had been searching high and low (again) for a copper eyeshadow that is matte. It's difficult since copper is a metallic color. I had been using Amber Lights in my contour area but as I've gotten older, the shimmer in it isn't flattering in the contour area. I finally discovered that I had a matte copper color in my stash but it's in the form of my bronzer. Thus, Smashbox Halo bronzer is what I used in my contour area, from lashline to browbone. Silver Ring on inner 1/3 of upper eyelid, Amber Lights on middle 1/3 of upper eyelid and Print on outer 1/3 of upper eyelid and along outer 1/3 of lower lashline. Canmake Loose Cheek 01 is applied lightly onto brow bone. Lined upper lashline and corner of lower lashline with K-Palette and applied Gokubuto Mascara (this was 2nd trial day). On all 3 days, I did use the same eyeshadows.

Thank you for reading through this very long post but I am just so excited with this mascara.

*Kat*

Product Review: Canmaker Cover & Stretch Concealer UV

I am an Asian American with full Japanese ethnicity and I grew up with freckles on my face. I've always thought that it was unusual and I definitely disliked my freckles. As I grew older, the freckles became more plentiful and grew bigger in the tropic Hawaii sun. On my right cheek a cluster of freckles started to mesh together. Then a pimple appeared and the discoloration from the pimple merged together with the cluster of freckles and formed one big, ugly spot right on the apple of my cheek. No amount of lightening products has succeeded in making that spot go away. Then a few months ago, hot frying oil splattered up onto the same side of my face resulting in some discoloration on my upper lip and chin. *sigh*

I've tried different types of concealers but found that the best coverage that I got was from powder foundation on top of liquid or cream foundation. A couple of the cream type concealers that I have tried recently are The Balm and Benefit Bo-ing. Both of them didn't conceal the discolorations well enough.

Now the problem that I found with using the powder foundation applied on the discoloration that it looks great when applied--covers completely and the color matches skin tone perfectly. A problem arises when I apply my blush. In the area that I've concealed, it shows up as a white spot. Recently I had been trying some other techniques which was working out a little better.

I was online shopping at A Pop of Kawaii when I saw the Canmake Cover & Stretch Concealer UV being offered. With some trepidation, I decided to order it since it is quite reasonably priced. My order arrived quickly and I've been playing around with the concealer for the last few days. Can I just say...I TOTALLY LOVE THIS! According to the description, it covers skin problems while protecting your skin from UV rays and dryness. (Yay, this means it's hydrating!) This concealer isn't supposed to run or look powdery. The bonus is that it's waterproof. The interesting thing is that it's a flexible, stretchy powder. Please read the complete info here. 

It comes in 3 different shades and I got it in shade 2. I was debating between shade 2 and 3 because shade 3 is supposed to cover dark spots. I am still debating whether or not to try it too. It has a doe foot applicator so it comes out of the tube creamy but after you pat and blend it on, it dries to a powdery finish. Since cream finishes didn't work out on me, this is perfect. I also find that cream finishes tend to cake on me and shows my fine lines--definitely a no-no.

Naked face

After BB cream application

Concealer dotted on areas I want to conceal

Concealer blended out

After foundation applicaton (used Temptu)

I really don't have dark circles under my eyes but there is some darkening. It actually makes my undereye area look dull. I decided to try using this on my undereye area as well and WOW! It brightens my eyes! I think that it makes me look well-rested and younger (YAY!!!) Also, a white spot doesn't show up under my blush! (Double YAY!)

I am so happy with this concealer! I will definitely be using this every day.

My next review will be another awesome, awesome item that I purchased from A Pop of Kawaii. It's been a long time since I've been this excited about a product.

Although it may not seem like it, I definitely have no affiliation with A Pop of Kawaii except as a completely satisfied customer. The service is exceptional.

*Kat*