Review: The Body Shop Spa Wisdom™ Japan Adzuki Bean & Rice Washing Grains

My sister got a tub of this recently. It retails for S$34.90, I'm not sure if it's available only in Asia? After using it a few times, I quite like it! I have the Spa Wisdom Japan Apricot and Rice Finishing Mist myself, and the washing grains smell just like it - a very comforting, powdery scent. (I usually hate powdery scents like Flower by Kenzo or Sarah Jessica Parker's Lovely, but the Spa Wisdom Japan scent smells good to me! Perhaps it's more of a powdery fruit scent as opposed to overwhelming powdery floral. Very comforting and familiar and safe.)
So anyway, this is a salt-based washing powder with finely grinded rice and adzuki beans. (I feel kinda hungry just thinking about it, heh!) You could use it on face or body, but I've only used it on my face. (Wee bit expensive to use as a body scrub, I think!) It comes with a plastic spoon for you to scoop it out. It comes in a lovely glass jar with metal hinges like a cookie jar, which looks very pretty but not very functional next to the sink - I always have to use both hands to hold it steady on the countertop. Plus I find it quite troublesome to avoid getting the washing grains wet - I splash my face with water first, then I have to dry my hands thoroughly before opening the jar to avoid my damp hands wetting plastic spoon and in turn, the washing grains. Quite annoying.

How I use it - it's salt-based and I want to enjoy the exfoliation without the scrubbiness melting away into nothingness too quickly, so I just splash my face with water first, then I put 1 teaspoon of washing grains into my dry hand, add maybe just the tiniest drop of water to make it slightly pastey, then work it into my damp face. This way I get the exfoliating benefits and the washing grains melt away gradually. One thing to note - since it's salt-based, it'll sting your eyes if you're not careful and any open wounds/zits you might have on your face. And yes it tastes salty, somehow I always inadvertently taste it in the shower. >_< I like the fact that it's salt-based though, since salt is a disinfectant, I feel like it is disinfecting my face.

I would categorise this as a mild exfoliating cleanser, not a facial scrub, which means I'd use this in place of cleanser maybe once or twice a week, whereas for regular facial scrubs, I use them after cleanser once a week. I usually use this on no-makeup days, because it is not a super deep cleansing kind of facial wash (which is what I prefer to use after removing make-up, personal preference).

Overall, this is quite a unique product and I would purchase it for my own use in the future. I really love the scent, it's very soothing and makes me look forward to using it. The main drawback - it's difficult keeping the washing grains dry and lid of the jar is annoying. Then again, you could reuse the jar when it's used up, since it looks so pretty.

Rating: 8/10
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Some photos to share... I've been having training the past week, so I could leave work on time, go out with friends, get my hair dyed. Oh, how nice to have a regular life.

Beef hotplate from Manna Story at Plaza Singapura basement.

Bario half ramen with egg at Ramen Champion. It's this mini-ramen-town at Bugis Iluma with 6 ramen stalls which will be around for a year (till next July), and we get to vote for our favourite ramen stall. The winner gets to set up a permanent ramen stall here! They all taste so good. The Bario half-ramen with egg is only S$7.50, and I couldn't really finish it. If I can't even finish a half bowl, I can't imagine how filling a regular bowl would be. >_<

Macha float at Shokudo.

Beef kebab roll from The Flyin' Bread - really good and filling! It's middle-eastern, but somehow reminds me of burritos filled with rice I had at Chipotle in Chicago, so yummy and huge.


No I will not climb the stairs to fitness, no matter how pretty the stairs look. :P

Have you guys seen the iphone whale? ^_^

What I wore out recently. The dress was elasticised and too short so I unpicked the elastic but it was still too short so I wore denim shorts underneath.

Hot pink blazer - I wonder what people would say if I wore this to the office hehe.

I saw this really cute pink leopard print bag at Forever21, I'm thinking of getting it but it seems pretty useless, I can't think of what to use it for. Any ideas? It's too cute!

Review: Laneige Water Sleeping Pack EX

My friend helped me purchase a tub of Laneige Water Sleeping Pack EX from Korea. It's way cheaper there, about S$20 (~US$15) for an 80ml tub. And he got the one with the cute designs on the tub! I don't know if it's limited edition? Here's more photos of the design, it's really cute, much nicer than the plain-looking regular tub and makes me feel happy looking at it.




I like the way the tub is sealed to keep the contents fresh. Other similar sleeping masks I've used in the past don't come sealed; instead they have an additional plastic lid on top of the jar which I find kind of unnecessary but I guess it serves the same purpose?


The sleeping pack has a really nice gel texture that is readily absorbed - when I first apply it, it makes my face look very dewy (but not the kind I would want to go out in the day with, so this is strictly for night-time use). I use quite a generous amount of it, about a slightly heaped teaspoonful for the whole face. It comes with a plastic spatula (not pictured) so no problems with hygiene!

The way I apply it - don't just smooth it on and let it sit on your skin, you have to pat it in. It doesn't break me out at all this way and makes my skin super smooth and supple in the morning. I've been working late and feeling very stressed with a bout of gastritis the past week, so my skin has been horrid, dry with some zits. The Water Sleeping Pack has helped soothe and hydrate my skin really well and left it moisturized after just one use. It's a skin-rescue treatment for when your skin is dry yet still breakout-prone, and moisturizes my skin without causing breakouts (which is quite difficult as you can imagine).

This is a fragranced product, I've read it can be irritating to some people but I love the scent, it's very light and soothing. Apparently it contains hyaluronic acid (yay! no wonder it moisturizes well). I'm guessing the dewy look I get when I apply it is due to the cyclomethicone (third on the list). Doesn't break me out though!

Ingredients (from MakeupAlley so I'm not too sure how accurate it is since I can't read Korean): Water, Butylene Glycol, Cyclomethicone, Glycerin, Trehalose, Alcohol, Sodium Hyaluronate, Vaccinium Angustifolium (blueberry) Fruit Extract, Dimethiconol, Dimethicone/Vinyl Dimethicone, Ammonium, Acryloyldimethy Itaurate/Vp Copolymer, Polysorbate 20, Triethanolamine, Hydrogenated Lecithin, Carborner, Mannitol, Arginine, Serine, Sucrose, PCA, Citrulline, Glycogen, Histidine, HCL, Alanine, Threonine, Glutamic Acid, Lysine HCI, Magnesium Aspartate, Zinc Gluconate, Calcium Gluconate, Copper Gluconate, Pentaerythrityl Tetraisostearate, Silica Dimethyl Silylate, Sodium Chondroitine Sulfate, Atelocollagen, Beta-Glucan, Disodium Edta, Imidazolidinyl, Urea, Methyl Paraben, Propyl Paraben, Fragrance, Blue 1 Yellow 5.

The recommendation is to use the sleeping pack a couple of times a week, but since it's not heavy at all and I don't really have a good moisturizer for night right now (I'm skipping the Vitacreme currently with my skin's condition), I use it once every 2 days (alternating with another gel hyaluronic acid moisturizer which I'll write about in a while) and it works pretty well like that. I even dab it on my eye area (after putting on eye cream). The only thing - it can be expensive if you don't get it directly from Korea.

Rating: 9/10

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Gosh I really feel like I'm aging much faster than other people my age (22). No thanks to my horrible job! While working late is the nature of my profession, there are many who have better lives than I do, who are better remunerated and it can get trying. I'm trying desperately to get my youth back. I feel so unnerved every time I'm in front of my miror applying products. I'll be thinking 'is that a wrinkle I see there?!'

I've got some horrible new addition to my portfolio in the coming year which I predict will accelerate my aging process. >_< I'm going shopping soon to buy more products to cheer myself up! :D Till next time ~

Review: Kose Softymo Airy Whip

I purchased this can of Kose Softymo Airy Whip about a month ago from an online seller. I've been using it every morning since and I think it's gonna last me quite a long time! For each wash, I pump out an amount slightly larger than a golf ball in size. The foam is quite nice and dense:


My only gripe is the pump: it requires some strength to pump out the foam and so you can't really pump it out while holding it in the air; you need to have it stable on the sink/counter.

Lots of people have reviewed this wash before, I bought it cos it's quite novel and I've never used an aerosol wash, so I just wanted to try it out. Then again, aerosol cans aren't good for the environment so I will not repurchase (it's not great enough for me to have that on my conscience, y'know?).

The scent of the foam is a very generic Biore scent that I can't describe, but that I was pretty disappointed in. It's not offensive in any way, just that it's a typical Japanese drugstore scent and I kind of expected a more luxurious scent. Then again, Airy Whip is quite inexpensive so I shouldn't have had such high expectations. The foam is really nice and dense and I feel that my skin is really soft after using it. However, I only use this as a morning wash as it isn't very good at cleansing thoroughly. I'd use it in the evening only if I've worn very little make-up that day, and I'd use it with my 3M Nexcare facial cleansing cloth for better cleansing. I like that this cleanser is quite mild and gentle but it might not be suitable for really dry-skinned people as it might leave dry skin slightly tight. Personally, it leaves my skin really soft but I have oily-combination skin.

Ingredients list in Englishhere, I'm not too sure how accurate it is as the ingredients list on the can is in Japanese.

Overall, I think this is just a rather gimmicky facial foam - the aerosol can made me want to try it out cos it looks cool, but honestly this is just a very basic, generic drugstore cleanser.

Rating:7/10

Review: Vichy Essentielles Repairing Hand Cream, Malaysia day trip and food photos

I'm crazy about hand cream - I have an obsession with washing my hands and thus they're always dry. My mum lent me this tube of Vichy Essentielles Repairing Hand Cream recently and I'm loving it! (Plus it has hot pink packaging, my favourite bimbotic colour! ^^)

I'm not sure how much it costs, but Vichy products are typically a wee bit on the expensive side. I like that this tube is small enough to bring with me everywhere. Plus, it's paraben free!

Ingredients:


It's a really rich and thick cream with a light, comforting and unobtrusive floral scent. (In comparison, Crabtree & Evelyn's Lavender and Rose hand creams are heavily scented.) The cream is not greasy at all and a little goes a long way! The texture of the cream is quite thick, kind of like Gold Bond hand cream (which also has a nice scent and is a more affordable alternative). I like how this cream is concentrated so I don't have to reapply too often (because some people comment about how vain I am when I reapply too frequently, lol), and while one 50ml tube seems quite tiny, it lasts me a long time as I don't use a lot as compared to other hand creams.

Rating: 9/10 (-1 cos it's pretty expensive)


--------A couple of weeks ago I went to Johor Bahru, Malaysia for a day trip. It's been so long since I've been there! I went to Aeon mall at Bukit Indah which is super near Singapore and very convenient (just across the border). I liked how the mall is very organised - they have one row for food, one row for shoes, one row for hairdressers and salons... There's Jusco (department store) which didn't impress me, and Tesco (supermarket) which is slightly better cos I found so many interesting and weird skincare brands, like Likas papaya soap (which I read about online)! And I had PappaRoti, the super yummy coffee buns which used to be available in Singapore but went bust. They have shops in places like Australia and Korea though! Let the pictures do the talking -


Tea, cheesecake and omelette for brekkie




Stonegrill steak for lunch - huge portion


Fruttare ice pops! Really yummy like sorbet with real frozen fruit inside - I do think the strawberry one tastes like Haagen Dazs strawberry sorbet. Good alternative and cheap too!

Dinner @ New Hong Kong Chinese restaurant - fried tofu, spinach with 3 eggs, butter prawns, yam paste pork ribs and kungfu tea






Shopping wasn't great cos I try not to buy poor quality things no matter how cheap they are, you know what I mean? I found nice, good quality shorts at Tesco for S$10 (~US$7) but the salesperson was seriously careless (and so were we) cos he charged us twice for the same pair of shorts, and he forgot to remove the plastic ink-filled anti-theft device. Tsk. I found a cute floral dress in the juniors section that looks like something I saw on Urban Outfitters, but it was quite lousy in quality with no lining so I didn't purchase it.


All in all, I think JB is an ok place to go shopping, I think I might consider going there once every 6 months to stock up on contact lens solution, eyedrops and some other beauty items which are slightly cheaper than in Singapore. The immigration officers in Malaysia were really friendly when we had to do our biometric records for the first time. (There was some fiasco over the immigration officers mistreating some Singaporeans the other time, but I think it was the Singaporeans' faults too cos they were kinda careless and just drove through immigration without stopping when they saw there wasn't an officer at their booth. -_-U) Quality of food and apparel is not that great though, that's why most of the stuff I buy are from the pharmacy from international brands, which are ok. They have great coffee buns and durian puffs though!! :D And some of Tesco's house-brand apparel items are quite nice, they remind me of Target's!

And here's some more food photos from the past month-
Yuan yang (coffee and milk tea mix) and yuzu tea

Cheese baked rice from Kim Gary (some Hong Kong cafe)


Chocolate cake from Cedele for tea break in office - not that great though it's pretty

Cheesecake from Starbucks for tea break in office
Let me end off with a card an intern gave me-


When I was in a bad mood, I thought the quote was so depressing - it's like no matter how hard you chase after it, happiness is unattainable. But when I was in a better mood, I looked at it from a different perspective - happiness is everywhere depending on how you look at it. Hmm. I am way too mood-swingy to be happy all the time though. Lol.

Review and swatches: Fancl Nail Color, Jelly Nail Coat and Nail Color Remover

There was a Fancl anniversary sale (20% off) a couple of weeks ago and since I had the Isetan credit card which gives me 5% off, I bought a nail color, jelly nail coat and nail color remover, plus a bunch of other stuff. I saved so much!

I bought Fancl nail polish because I always had the impression that Fancl's products are 'safer' with ingredients that are free of preservatives. I've always hated the chemicals in nail polish (smells horrid and kills your brain cells) so I thought Fancl would be a good alternative.



With flash


After 5 days, slight tip wear, no chipping
Fancl Nail Color - Skinny Beige
This is a nice coral-nude color. In my swatches above I had 2 coats on, no top coat. Consistency is on the thicker side. Coverage is opaque from the first coat but looks neater with a second coat. I find this polish works best with a double coat; the thick consistency makes it difficult to build up a third coat as bubbles might appear and it'll be more difficult to dry. Drying time is average, about 10 minutes. The thing I really like about this nail polish is that the thick texture makes this super resistant to chipping (I think it's due to hydrolyzed silk), you can see from the photos above that I get slight tip wear after 5 days which is very even with no chipping, quite a feat as I do quite a bit of violent typing. ^_^

Ingredients:


Price is S$16 (about US$11) for a regular sized bottle that expires 1 year after opening and 3 years from manufacturing date. It comes in 5 colors: skinny beige, milky pink, ice rose, pink bronze and sparkling gold. Check it out here. I'd love to try milky pink next. I think the only thing bad about this polish range is the limited variety of colours! Pretty affordable for a counter brand, especially when I purchased it at 25% off. (:

Rating: 9/10



Fancl Jelly Nail Coat Base & Top
The jelly nail coat is supposed to give a jelly appearance, like Gelish nails, I suppose. The photos above are 2 coaters - I find 1 coat not shiny enough and 3 coats too difficult to dry and not worth the trouble. The jelly coat can be used as both base and top coat, but it's not a particularly great top coat because it's not as tough and chip-proof as Sally Hansen's Mega Shine top coat. Also, I'm not too satisfied with its 'jelly' claims because I would have preferred it to looks 'squishier' like real jelly nails. Also, drying time is a wee bit too long. I think it takes like 15 minutes to dry 2 coats properly.

Price is the same as the nail color. I don't think I'd repurchase again; I'd prefer to try other jelly nail coats, like Canmake's!

Ingredients:

Rating: 7/10

Fancl Nail Color Remover
This is a star find! It comes in a nice glass bottle, S$13 (about US$9) for 55ml It's alcohol free so it's non-drying, and it contains Nail Emollient Oil which help nourish your nails. I can feel the oiliness but I'm fine with it, it does feel like it's conditioning my nails. And the best thing is, this strips color really fast! Way better than other cheap nail polish removers which are drying and stink. The best part - this nail polish remover smells like artificial melon candy! (It's a kinda sickly sweet melon candy scent, but still better than the regular acetone fumes. Plus, a little goes a long way. I drip a little on a cotton pad and it's enough for one hand. A very worthy purchase!
Ingredients:


Rating: 10/10

I don't know if Fancl is easy to purchase in other non-Asian countries, but it's really a pretty good brand. I'm sure everyone knows it for its Mild Cleansing Oil (which I love as well), but it does have other really good products as well. The nail polish was a good find, I do think I'll repurchase the nail color and nail polish remover. I've also repurchased their powder foundation (hope to review soon) and drink Tense-up (their collagen supplement) when I'm on stressful engagements that wreck my skin. Overall I think Fancl is a pretty good brand (there were so many people swarming the counter during the anniversary sale) that's worth a try! I hope to review more products soon when I have the time. >_<