Review: Too Faced Primed and Poreless Powder

I've been using Too Faced Primed and Poreless powder daily for at least half a year and am left with half of the jar. It costs US$30 for 0.16oz (about 5g?) which is pretty affordable. It's meant to be used as a "priming powder and finishing veil" that minimizes pores and imperfections for an airbrushed finish. 

The powder is very light and finely milled. I like that it is not white - it has the slightest tint of beige and looks very natural. I have oily skin so I have to use quite a lot of it to mattify the sheen on my face, but once done, my skin looks smooth, poreless and at the same time natural! My daily make-up consists of nothing but Biore Tint Milk (tinted sunscreen) followed by this powder. I find Primed and Poreless Powder pretty good at oil control too! It lasts till lunch, then after blotting away the oilies, my face looks relatively fresh again. 

It can give a powdery look in flash photos, but no white chalkiness (because it's not white)! And the best thing about it is the packaging - it has a twist plastic cover such that the sifter holes can be closed and powder won't leak out, which makes it super convenient for travelling. I always bring this on my overseas trips, very handy!

Ingredients: Silica, Populus Tremuloides Bark Extract, Lonicera Caprifolium (Honeysuckle) Flower Extract, Water/Aqua/Eau, Lonicera Japonica (Honeysuckle) Flower Extract, Mica, Iron Oxides (CI 77492, CI 77491, CI 77499, Bismuth Oxychloride (CI 77163).

The silica really helps to make skin look flawless, while the other flower extracts are supposed to be good for the skin (soothing and anti-inflammatory). The last ingredient is Bismuth Oxychloride, which some people are allergic to. It seems to be used in a lesser quantity since it's the last ingredient, and it doesn't irritate me at all. 

In conclusion - I really like this! Minus 1 point because I have to use a lot to mattify my face, but other than that, I find it is a really good, lightweight finishing powder for oily and acne-prone skin. 

Rating: 9/10 

Review: Ettusais BB Mineral Cream and Loose Powder

I purchased these 2 weeks ago - the packaging was too cute and it promised baby-smooth skin. I'm such a sucker for stuff like that. The BB mineral cream is $38 for 40g while the BB mineral loose powder is $38 for 10g and doesn't come with a refill. (Ettusais' other loose powders are more expensive, but they have the option of refills.)

That's the swatch of the BB mineral powder in Natural Beige on top, and the BB mineral cream in 030-Natural Beige (darkest) at the bottom. The powder comes in 2 shades - Light Beige and Natural Beige, while the BB cream comes in 3 shades - 010, 020 and 030.

This is me with just the Ettusais BB mineral cream on - shade 030 (darkest). Coverage is light but I'm fine with that - apologies for dark eye circles. Haha!

And this is with both BB cream and the BB mineral powder (Natural Beige).

Ettusais BB Mineral Cream
I'm purchased this BB cream because I like how I can choose the shade I want. Previously I had so many tubes of BB creams but I was really annoyed that they all came in only one colour. They're all very fair and not suitable for anyone beyond NC25 skintone, and a lot of them are for super-pale people! I got shade 030 which is a good match for NC30 (030 is a little too dark for NC25). But as you can see from the swatch photo above, it runs a little orange. I'm really yellow-based, usually I get Ettusais foundations in the yellow-toned shades which suit me very well.

The BB cream comes with SPF30 PA++ and when I use it, I skip my regular sunscreen so it helps save time. The texture is very creamy and a little powdery and siliconey (but not overly so). It blends much more easily as compared to Korean BB creams, and I find the oil control is really awesome for a BB cream - I can go about 4 hours fresh-faced.

The ingredients list in English comes in a tiny, tiny silver sticker stuck to the side of the plastic packaging. I nearly went blind trying to read it!

Ettusais BB Mineral Cream ingredients:
Water, Dimethicone, Cyclomethicone, Alcohol, Nylon-12, Cyclopentasiloxane, Titanium Dioxide, Ethylhexyl Methoxycinnamate, CI 77891, Lauryl Peg-9, Polydimethylsiloxyethyl dimethicone, Glycerin, Zinc oxide, Disteardimonium hectorite, Diphenylsiloxy phenyl trimethicone, Erythritol, Xylitol, Dimethicone crosspolymer, Isostearic acid, Phenoxyethanol, Aluminium hydroxide, Alumina, Isostearyl alcohol, Triethoxycaprylylsilane, Polysilicone-2, Tocopherol acetate, BHT, Calcium chloride, Magnesium chloride, Peg/Ppg-14/7 Dimethyl ether, Sodium hyaluronate, Sodium acetylated hyaluronate, Tocopherol, CI77491, CI77492, CI77499.

I'm a little freaked out by all the ingredients in the list, there's lots of -cones, but there is also hyaluronic acid which is moisturizing, and Vitamin E. I find this BB cream moisturizing, yet oil-controlling, which is really good for oily but dehydrated skin. Usually BB creams are heavy and people with acne-prone skin will break out easily from using them, but the Ettusais BB cream actually lets my skin breathe without clogging it up. I've tried Ettusais' other liquid and powder foundations and I have to say - they're really good for acne-prone skin. I've never had a clogging problem with their base products.

The only bad thing? The colour's not yellow enough for me (might be good for others), and it gives a white cast in flash photos because of the sunscreen. (Note: The white-cast-in-flash-photos problem seems to be a recurring one with all Ettusais products I've tried. Just remember not to use Ettusais on a night where you're gonna be taking lots of flash photographs.)

Rating: 8/10

Ettusais BB Mineral Powder
The powder is very finely milled and blurs pores very well. Plus, this is one of the few loose powders where I actually use the included puff! Usually some loose powders come with very pretty puffs which turn out to be useless, but the puff that comes with this one is actually very functional. It's soft and the powder goes on easily (no patchiness!) and blends well by patting and rolling. Oil control is pretty good, I'd give it a 7/10 for keeping the oilies away. I've tried better oil-control powders but they also tended to be drying, so I think this Ettusais BB mineral powder has a good balance between oil-control and moisture. It also has SPF16 (but honestly, SPF16 in a loose powder doesn't really protect well enough, so I always disregard such claims when I'm trying to decide whether to buy a powder).

Ettusais BB Mineral Powder ingredients:

Talc, CI77019, Titanium dioxide, CI77891, Calcium carbonate, Dimethicone/Vinyl dimethicone crosspolymer, Methyl methacrylate crosspolymer, Zinc myristate, CI77947, CI77492, Aluminium hydroxide, Silica, Aluminium distearate, CI77491, Chlorphenesin, CI77499, Isostearyl alcohol.

Rating: 8/10

Hope this review is helpful! I really like Ettusais because their base products are really good for acne-prone skin and they offer a yellow-beige shade range for really yellow Asian skintones (sounds bad but that's me, hur hur).

However, their products are really quite expensive and while they give the impression of really good skin, the base products give a white cast in flash photography. So it's kind of like, even if I look like I have good skin, if I can't take a photo of it, I can't show other people that I have good skin, so what's the point, you know? I can only hear compliments from people who see me in real life, but hey that's good enough I guess. (Gosh that was a bimbotic comment, but I'm vain.)

Maybe when I have the time I'll review more of my Ettusais stash! :D

Review: Covermark Essence Foundation Liquid

I've been pretty much broke this holiday season cos I bought a lot of stuff... After doing some calculations I figure I can't buy much more next year because I'm saving up for my grad trip. :P

My best buy of the season must be the Covermark Essence Foundation Winter Coffret - you get an extra full-sized gloss and sample-sized loose powder with a pretty snowflake container for the same price that you usually pay for the foundation alone. I bought it cos one of my fellow interns tried it before and she loved it. And I do too, which is weird because she has dry skin and mine is oily and break-out-prone.

Anyway, the texture is a very light essence-like liquid, very blendable. It has pretty much the same feel as Ettusais Flat Liquid Foundation (which I love as well but has a greater tendency to emphasise fine lines) - one layer gives a lovely sheer wash that blurs out all imperfections. It's not enough to cover blemishes but provides a nice veil that makes you look fresher instantly. It doesn't emphasise blemishes either but just makes them less obvious. And it doesn't claim to control oil or anything but it keeps my face oil-free for longer than usual. I find you really don't need to go over with loose powder because the finish is semi-matte and very natural on its own, whereas loose powder would just ruin it and make you look made-up.

10/10!

The loose powder comes in a universal shade - 2 colours, one for blue-based skin and another for yellow-based skin. Most Asians are yellow-based I guess. The bad thing is that the colour doesn't really match for all skin tones - it's not translucent, but lightly tinted with pretty good coverage sadly and can make you look too fair as a result. It's very fine though, and really helps to cover pores. And since it's a moist lucent powder, it helps retain moisture and doesn't really help control oil much.

The gloss is really lovely - a blue-toned pink with silver glimmer. I wonder what occasion I have to use it - I don't usually use lipgloss because I eat all the time. :P Sometimes I'd offer my friends food and they'd be like 'Nah, I'm wearing lipgloss' and I'd think, isn't it sad?!

Oh well. ^^ I received my Chagrin Valley package yesterday, very nice and scented! Can't wait to break into it. In other news, my skin looks like crap since I've been sleeping late recently and the worst thing is I have to take a visa photo tomorrow. Sadness!!!

Bottle It Up

Yesterday I went to the Isetan private sale in the morning, before French class, because I wanted to get the camera (on offer) but it was sold out! I was so disappointed! So I had lunch at Pepper Lunch with my mom. ^^ They have a new Sukiyaki set! Yum!!

When I reached home it was almost 11pm, so I just bummed out on the couch and started flipping through the channels till I spotted Chitty Chitty Bang Bang airing on the Disney Channel. :P It was my first time watching it, believe it or not. I love musicals. My mom was also glued to the screen (musicals are the stuff of her era) and I watched it till about 1.30am. Gosh!



Here's a review of Chacott Finishing Powder. I bought 2 tubs, one in 753 (colourless) and 756 (suits my MAC NC25-30 skintone). One tub contains 170g, it's supposed to be really cheap at about 1600yen a tub, but with the shipping and agent fees, I paid double that. It's still quite affordable though. A tub of MAC Select Sheer loose powder is only 30g, so just imagine how huge a tub of Chacott is. O_o

Just some background information - if you read Popteen, you'll notice Chacott powder being featured in the cosmetics section. However, I haven't noticed it in any of the other Japanese magazines (Non-no, Seventeen, VOGUE nippon -d'oh it's too cheap-). Popteen caters more to the Kogal-ish type of girl (which is why I stopped reading it) which makes me a little suspicious of Chacott's quality - is it featured in the magazine because it's cheap, or because it's good?

Basically, Chacott is touted as the number 1 loose powder in Japan, described as a powder used by stage performers (thus explaining the large size), being able to resist perspiration. It does smell very much like backstage makeup - if you've ever had a dance performance or drama production and had to be made-up, you'll remember the scent, which isn't unpleasant, but not that great either.

There aren't any swatches, they wouldn't make a difference because the powder is so sheer, there's practically no coverage at all. As its name suggests, it's pretty much used only to set your liquid foundation (which should already have provided enough coverage in the first place), so I don't find the translucency a problem. The powder's very finely milled and practically melts into your skin, giving a very natural, poreless look. It feels really light, and doesn't break me out (and I break out so easily). However, it doesn't control oil very well (about 4 hours max). For packaging, the plastic sifter in the tub is cheap and flimsy - I just ditched it. I transfer the powder into a 30g jar of mine and use it from there, refilling as necessary to keep it more hygienic (and also in case anyone wants samples).

Speaking of samples, I recently sold 2 satchets to this girl on a forum at $4.50/tbsp, which is about 14.5g (a lot!). Be warned - I see so many people selling samples at exorbitant prices, like $4.50 for 3g, which is utterly ridiculous.

I'll end with something by Sara Bareilles - I saw one of her videos on MTV and fell in love with the song.

-------

There'll be girls across the nation
That will eat this up babe
I know that it's your soul but could you bottle it up and
Get down to the heart of it,
No it's my heart you're shit out of your luck
Don't make me tell you again my love love love love.
Love love love love.

I am aiming to be somebody this somebody trusts
With her delicate soul
I don't claim to know much except soon as you start
To make room for the parts
That aren't you it gets harder to bloom in a garden of
Love love love love
Love Love love love

Only thing I ever could need, only one good thing
Worth trying to be and it's

Love
Love
Love
Love
I do it for Love
Love
Love
Love

We can understand the sentiment you're saying to us
Oh,
But sensible sells so could you kindly shut up
And get started
At keeping your part of the bargain aw please
Little darlin'
You're killing me sweetly with love love love love
Love love love love

Only thing I ever could need only one good thing
Worth trying to be

Love
Love
Love
Love
I do it for Love
Love
Love
Love

Started as a flicker meant to be a flame
Skin has gotten thicker but it burns the same
Still a baby in a cradle got to take my first fall
Baby's getting next to nowhere with her back
Against the wall.
You meant to make me happy make me sad.
Want to make it better better so bad.
But save your resolutions for your never new year
There is only one solution I can see here.

Love you're all I ever could need only one good thing
Worth trying to be and it's
Love
Love
Love
Love
I do it for love, love, love, love
Oh, only gonna get get what you give away,
So give love, love
Only gonna get get what you give away
Love.