Skin79 BB Cream Swatches

Purchased from eBay seller bigclothcraft for $16.90 including shipping. The auction came with both sets. Also came with some Skin79 BB Cleanser samples!

Click jump to see more!






As you can see this is what the sample sized tubes look like in their boxes.

I did a swatch of each one on my hand below, and the order that the swatches are in corresponds to the order the creams are swatched in.




For some reason even though I rotated the image, it is not cooperating with me. >_<;;
So from TOP to BOTTOM, the swatches correspond with the way I have lined up the bottles above.
The first swatch you see on top is corresponding to the GOLD tube (Super BB) and the bottom swatch corresponds to the SILVER tube (Diamond Pearl BB.)

Have I tried these on my face yet, I am sure is the next question? ;)

Well I have been slowly trying them and I think I have tried *almost* each cream. I actually used to have a tube of the pink Skin79 original BB Cream and I honestly did not like it that much. It had too much of a grey undertone.

Based on the swatch alone on my skin tone, I would say that the two pinkish tubes in the middle look the best on me. ("The Oriental" and "The Prestige.") But nothing about any of these gives me excitement. I did wear the pearl one the other day (silver tube) and I looked SO ridiculous in natural light. @___@; It looked like I had been sweating or had a really greasy/oily face because of all the shine the pearl gave me. I don't think shimmering pearl BB Creams or Foundations or even Tinted Moisturizers (Eyeko Glow Cream, I'm lookin' at you!) look that great on me, sadly. It just causes me to look sweaty, maybe I am using too much? LOL. I guess I could always MIX these BB Creams to get the best result but that's a little crazy, huh? Hehe.

All in all, I wouldn't bother purchasing again, since the point was to try small ones before getting a big one. I have some doubles now, of course, but I might give those to my friends or send them to people who read my blog if you are interested in trying them. Just pay the postage fee and I will send you a tube! ^_^


....Annnnd I leave you with a pic of my makeup from last night! xD Even though a shitty one...my camera and bedroom lighting were a lethal combo... ;___;



I was reading The Hunger Games all freaking day yesterday, practically, and so at night I somehow managed to put the book down and go out with my friends. I wore gyaru even though they aren't gyaru and didn't know what it was probably but hey whatever! It was fun though. :)

Recipe: Fish Stew (Brodetto) Ancona-Style

So I am going to take a brief break from all of this BB Cream reviewing to mention that I cooked a fish stew the other night and it turned out really tasty so I thought I would share this with you all! :)



Link to recipe: http://allrecipes.com/recipe/brodetto-fish-stew-ancona-style/detail.aspx

Ingredients

1 tablespoon olive oil
1 onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 carrot, chopped
2 celery ribs, chopped
2 bay leaves
1 cup chopped fresh parsley
red pepper flakes to taste
1 (28 ounce) can whole peeled tomatoes, mashed
1 1/2 pounds red snapper fillets, cut into 2 inch pieces
1/2 cup white vinegar
salt and ground black pepper to taste
3 cups fish stock
1 pound clams in shell, scrubbed
1/2 pound medium shrimp, with shells

6 (3/4 inch thick) slices Italian bread, toasted


Directions

Heat the olive oil in a large saucepan, Dutch oven, or preferably a clay pot over medium heat. Add the onion, garlic, carrot, celery, bay leaves, parsley, and red pepper flakes. Cook and stir until the onion has softened and turned translucent, about 5 minutes.
Stir in the mashed tomatoes and cook for 15 minutes over medium heat. Add the fish. Pour in the vinegar or wine. Cook until the liquid has almost evaporated, about 10 minutes; pour in the fish stock. Cover, reduce the heat to low, and simmer for 10 minutes.
Gently mix in the clams. Cook until clams have opened (discard any that don't open) about 2 minutes, and then stir in the shrimp. Cook until the shrimp are pink, about 3 minutes.
Place a slice of toasted bread in the bottom of each bowl. Ladle brodetto over the bread and serve immediately.



I really love this recipe. I used swordfish, lobster claws, shrimp and short neck clams to make my strew. It was very good! :) And makes many meals.

Apparently this recipe is Italian???

Review: Holika Holika Peach Girl BB Cream

Holika Holika Peach Girl BB Cream

Purchased from eBay seller: cosmeticmarket2012 (same place I got my Tony Moly Milk Latte Pack from.)

It cost $13.59 including shipping from Korea and it took about 10 days to get here. Also I got some awesome free samples with my purchase!



As I mentioned before, Holika Holika is one of my favorite brands from Korea because of their innovative products, and super cute packaging. But will the products work? That was my big question. Because even if the products seem new and interesting and the packaging is uber cute, well, the product will be useless to me unless it works!! It will end up in the bottom of my makeup stash...the darkest, deepest reaches... hehe.

So I saw a blog review of Peach Girl BB Cream by Holika Holika and decided I had to try it, as I was running low on my Baviphat BB Cream which I will definitely need to review soon as it's my favorite and most used BB Cream!



Click the jump below to read more.



What do I love most about this BB Cream? It's probably the fact that it's a two in one! The cap unscrews and then opens up to reveal a miniature mirror inside, and a lovely peachy pink colored cream blush/lipgloss!



Sorry for the bad lighting, btw.



It's a really lovely color. It has the consistency of Urban Decay Cream blushes, if you've ever tried those before. Here is a swatch of the cream blush on my hand:



And here is a photo of me wearing both the BB Cream and the blush over top of my Tony Moly primer from the last post (the Milk Tea pack.)


Sorry for my derpy face! @____@; my hair was not cooperating that day either lol.

Annnd I decided to compare it to two other BB Creams I have and enjoy:


(L to R: Holika Holika Clearing BB Cream, Baviphat Magic Girls Fresh for Oily Skin BB Cream, and Holika Holika Peach Girl BB Cream.)

Swatches:

As you can see the Peach Girl creams is a bit lighter...maybe I should have tried 02? The Baviphat cream is my all time favorite, and I think the Clearing one is my second favorite.

Anyyyway! To sum things up... here is what I like and do not like about the BB Cream and Blush:

BB Cream
- very spreadable, smooth, great texture
- too light for my skin! it comes in two shades, 01 and 02, and I decided to get 01 because the swatches I saw online of the 02 looked too dark for me.
- smells nice! (but again not good for those who are sensitive to smells. it's kind of a mild artificial perfumey peach smell ...I personally prefer the smell of the Baviphat BB Cream better.)
- when it dries/oxidizes it has a very odd matte/powdery feel to it even if I am not using a setting powder over top of it. so yeah... kinda...weird. @___@;
- not as spreadable unless you use a primer underneath

Cheek/Lip Cream:
- love the little mirror it comes with and the fact that it's built into the cap for portability
- kind of greasy and hard to apply, had to use fingers
- long lasting, especially if you set it with powder!
- also has a nice scent
- gorgeous, gorgeous color! looks great on my fair skin and would look good on other types of skin tone too
- even though it claims you can use it on your lips, I tried it and looked really nasty and clumpy, so I would avoid using it on your lips!!
- it's build-able so you can go sheer or darker depending on how much you apply!

All in all, I'd give the BB Cream 3.5/5 stars, and the blush 4/5 stars. I doubt I'd buy it again mostly because I have so many other BB Creams I would like to cross of my list of trying, but this one isn't bad, it probably won't be my go-to cream except for in the wintertime when I am already uber pale or when I need to look lighter. (?!)

Thanks for reading and I hope this review was useful to someone! :)
More reviews to come soon!!!

***Disclaimer: I never receive products from companies to review. All of the products you see on my blog are 100% purchased by me, the cosmetic maniac for my own personal reviewing pleasure and satisfaction, hehe. If a company does send me something, I will note that on the review. ;) These opinions are mine and mine only, no one has paid me to say things!***

Review: Tony Moly Latte Milk

Tony Moly Latte Art Milk-Tea Morning Pack



Purchased from: eBay Seller cosmeticmarket2012



Click the jump below to read the full review.



OK now. Isn't this thing so darn cute? Admittedly I purchased it because I was intrigued about the packaging. I read a few reviews first before buying, though, of course! ;)

My initial thought was...how in the *bleep* do I use this thing?! Seriously. It's soo weird looking! Thankfully I found this uber-helpful review on Youtube:



The video explains that the little creamer container is a whitening pack that you can opt to mix into the product. Now to be honest, I am already pretty darned pale even in the summertime, so I was thinking I probably shouldn't use it, but I was worried the product wouldn't have the right consistency if I didn't add it...so guess what?



If you guessed I mixed it in, you are correct!



I stirred mine in. xD I feel a little silly doing this and I asked my boyfriend, Sean, to take some photos of me doing it hehe.


Here is a photo of the product on my hand. Looks kinda like....ehhh..uhhh...I'm not going to go there! >_<;; lol. it does spread kind of oddly, though. It's REALLY wet and slippery feeling! I have a suspicion that they used far too much silicone in this formula. Dimethicone is one of the listed ingredients.



So I tried wearing this stuff underneath my BB Cream for a day to see the effect. Overall, I will say the following:

- It makes a REALLY excellent "canvass" to spread your BB Cream onto. Seriously, my BB Cream was SO easy to spread around on my face and it looked very nice and even.
- Smells nice (though some might be too sensitive to the smell!)
- Texture is kind of weird though, as I noted above. It's very slippery and wet feeling.
- It takes a few minutes to dry on your face before you can apply your BB Cream. You have to wait to apply it or else it will be all weird and goopy and you will have to wash your face and begin again. >_<;
- Cute packaging, which is what enticed me to buy it.
- Downside is that you can only buy it on eBay unless you live in Korea

Price was $13.99 including shipping from Korea and it took about 10 days to reach me. Not bad!

Overall, I am not sure if I'd buy it again or not mostly because there is TONS of product in the jar and a little goes a long way. But every so often I encounter a really amazing product that I end up buying a second jar of it (for instance, Baviphat Fresh for Oily Skin BB Cream, or the Baviphat Peach Peeling Gel Pack.) But there is a Holika Holika Silky Veil Primer that I want to try too as I have heard very good things about it. So I will continue to use this for some months and see how it ends up.

Compared to my Stila primer, this stuff DOES last all day and as a plus, even though it was starting to fade by the end of the day (My BB Cream that is) it still kept my face from being super oily. It has a mattefying effect which I love because I have oily oily skin.

More photos in my album here.

Hope that review was somewhat helpful to you guys! :) My next review is coming soon!


***Disclaimer: I never receive products from companies to review. All of the products you see on my blog are 100% purchased by me, the cosmetic maniac for my own personal reviewing pleasure and satisfaction, hehe. If a company does send me something, I will note that on the review. ;) These opinions are mine and mine only, no one has paid me to say things!***

Lime Crime: New Eyeliners

So I don't usually follow what certain brands release but I am kind of a sucker for Lime Crime's packaging and general colorfulness! xD



Wonder if they will be any good. I avoided their eyeshadows because I heard they basically just repackage.... lol. But I own some of their (maybe repackaged?) lip sticks and gloss!

Also... I took a ton of pics last night of my bb Creams and other products but I haven't had time to upload them. Here are the items I want to review:

Holika Holika Peach Girl BB Cream
Tony Moly Milk Latte Art Morning Pack
Skin 79 BB Cream Minis
Misc samples.

So stay tuned... X___x;;

http://baviphat.com.sg---Is it a scam?

Ugh. So. I placed an order on May 10th on this website: http://baviphat.com.sg/ because it sounded like an amazingly good deal. Well if things SOUND too good to be true, they probably are. And I think I am starting to discover that. I ordered about $38 worth of stuff. I got about 15 or so items because their prices are SO cheap. On eBay $38 would maaaybe get me two items shipped to the USA and that's it. Ugh. So naturally I was like "wow what a good deal!" But of course, too good to be true.

At least they've been in contact with me. They told me it would take 2 WEEKS to get my items from Korea to their office in Singapore. Which is ridiculous IMHO but maybe that's really how long it takes.

But my REAL beef with them lies in the fact that no where on their sketchy-looking website does it mention that it is going to take over 2 weeks to get my stuff. I could understand that the international mail taking a while because I DID just order some Holika Holika bb cream from eBay and it was from a Korean seller and it DID take about 10 days to reach me which is barely even 1 week let alone 2.

I smell trouble.

I told "Celine" their e-mail rep to cancel my order and refund me all of my money via Paypal. I really hope she does. Because I am too stressed out to deal with this crap now. And I guess if they don't, and I still haven't received my items after 45 days, I am going to freak out and do a Paypal claim.

I mean, it would *have* to be legit otherwise Paypal wouldn't be a payment method, would it? Unless they scam people by making up fake tracking numbers? But I doubt it would fly. Seeing as someone tried that on me before and it failed pretty hard. (I'm looking at you, Artka shop on Artfire.com. lol.)

Well, anyway, if she refuses to cancel my order I will assume it's a scam. But even if she refunds my money, I am going to still feel that there is something fishy about it. Maybe I should have only ordered 1 cheap item instead of like 15 things to test the water .... yeeeah not my style apparently, gaah!


Well anyway, fingers crossed! I am loving my new bb creams so hopefully reviews soon. I work 8 hours a day though so by the time I get home, I am so exhausted. BAH! I thought this would be better than school, hehe.

Hard time for me.

Even though I just graduated, and I've been so happy, I just learned of something terrible.

My cousin committed suicide on May 2nd. My parents knew about it the entire time I was finishing school but they chose not to say anything about it to me because they were worried it would make me sad and my grades would drop when I needed them to be high at such a crucial time. Or at least passing. Well I passed and I got my diploma...but I can't shake this horrible feeling.

I wasn't super close with my cousin but we always wished each other happy birthday, merry christmas, and so forth. And now he's gone forever. I can't go back in time and tell him everything is going to be okay.

I'm sorry, readers. I know my blog is supposed to be happy and celebrating the fun things I enjoy in life, but this came as such a shock to me.

I still want to make some updates soon about new make-up reviews and so forth, maybe some webstore reviews, but I am not sure when I will do that. Maybe next weekend or sometime this week after work. My parents are still in town and they're leaving tomorrow.


...

Finally Done with College!! + some game rambling

Whew, I am SO glad to be done.

I am a little sad that my professors haven't posted grades yet. Well only one did, and I got an A- in English which isn't bad! I just hope I passed circuits because that class was pretty much the baaane of my existence this semester. -___-;;

I start work full time next Monday. My graduation ceremony is tomorrow, and Saturday. My parents are flying in for the weekend, and I am going to take them to my favorite restaurants, hehe.

In the meantime I have been selling off my old textbooks. I just got $91 for a trade in on Amazon for one of them, and the other might sell for $105, but if it does, I will only get like $78. -___-; evil amazon! LOL.

I want to some of the money I get from textbooks to cross some videogames off my wishlist. I've been making money at work, so I got some clothes and stuff online. Some Korean cosmetics which I will be reviewing soonish (new bbcreams from eBay!) some eyeshadows from Fyrinnae (omg, SO excited!) and uh, other misc stuff.

The game I really want to buy is Atelier Totori!


It just looks sooo adorable and I love that the protagonist is female. ^__^;
I heard it involves a lot of synthesizing items together to complete jobs, as well as building your character's relationship with other characters. The storyline is really simple...a girl wanting to become an adventurer so she sets out on a journey.



I like that the premium edition comes with an artbook since that's what got me into the game in the first place--the gorgeous artwork. :3 I am such a sucker for visuals, what can I say? Maybe I will do a review of the game once I've tried it!!



Secondly, I want to get Rune Factory!


It's like Harvest Moon only more fantasy-ish! I haven't even tried Harvest Moon yet, so this should be fun/ :)

Lastly, I actually just bought Eternal Sonata a week or so ago on eBay! xD

It also looks really fun. ;___;


Can you tell I am on a JRPG kick? xD

Do you guys/gals have any favorite JRPGs you want to share with me? I have a PS3 as well as a Wii, and Gamecube. Oh and a PSX. I really want to get a PS2 and an XBOX360. (Technically I already have a PS2 but it's at my other home in FL...lol.)

And here is the rest of it.

Holika Holika Korean Makeup Brand

OMG. I couldn't not blog about this!!

http://www.makeupstash.com/2011/05/holika-holika-in-singapore.html
It's as if the anime Soul Eater came out with make-up. No, really! Haha.

Why am I such a sucker for cute product packaging?!



I want to try their products now...unnnnff. *temporary eBay retail therapy inbetween exam studying*

xD






Holy crap! @___@;;

Quinoa and Crabmeat Salad

I know I haven't talked about food or done a food post in aaages but today I concocted something random I wanted to share. I've been trying to eat healthier as of late (not having much success with not drinking alcohol anymore, though, lol) so I stopped by Trader Joe's a few nights ago to pick up some goodies.

What I used:
1/4 cup tricolor quinoa 1 cube of chicken bullion (can use veggie broth instead to make it vegan/veg)
I microwaved the quinoa with the bullion cube and about 1/2 cup water mixed together for 4 mins on high + 2 mins additional time and then I let sit for 1 minute.
Crabmeat
Lemon Juice (about a teaspoon and a half or so)

Coconut oil (about 1/2 tablespoon, for flavor and health)

Fresh chopped chives

Assorted spices (peppercorn grinder, seafood seasoning grinder, salt)

I was actually planning to serve this (to myself, lol) in half of an avocado but my avocado wasn't ripe when I cut it so I had to pitch it. ;____;
So to give it more kick I added some thin sliced almonds on top, and some strawberries as a side dish. I had orange juice to drink. Mmmm!
Nutrition wise there's about 160 calories in 1/4 cup of quinoa but it also has 6g of protein! It's super good for you. Quinoa is a seed oddly enough, a pseudo cereal, and because of it's high nutritional value, NASA is considering it for long-duration mission foods.





I love fish, fruit, and nuts together. It's such a good combo. I like to imagine myself in the forest eating this where it's peaceful and quiet, and not the annoying loud noises of the city just out my window.

Not my photo but I adore it! From tumblr. <3

Been busy busy busy!

Ack. This whole new blog editer thing is crampin' my style. @___@;; If I ever need to make some changes to my banner and such it's going to make my head explode having to re-learn where everything is, LOL. Annoying! I wish they would have left it the way it was although maybe it's now supposedly better, who knows? I might discover the changes later... But yeah. Graduation is only a couple of weeks away. I'm starting to freak out, hehe! Last night I had a charity fundraiser event to support Child's Play Charity. I didn't really advertise it on my blog since I don't know anyone on here who lives near me. But yeah... It was fun! We raised over $750 for the charity which donates videogames to childrens hospitals. So nice. ^__^ We had a photographer there for a little while and he took a few photos. I didn't like the way I looked in most all of them though, sadly. Meh. I have 1 paper, 1 project, 1 test, and 1 final exam before I can graduate. Wish me luuuck! *kisses blogger goodbye for a few weeks* LOL. I love the composition of this photo but I feel like it made me look bigger than I am.... >___<;; Oh that's Sean standing next to me, my BF...he helped me plan the event!