Product Review: Baviphat Peach Peeling Gel

OMG my 100th post! ^____^





Ahhh Baviphat Peach Peeling Gel! One of my FAVORITE products ever made!

Cost: $12.99
Purchased from: Seller bello-girl on eBay.

Click the Jump below to read more! I also just uploaded a video on how to use it!




So yeah. Peach peeling gel. Smells like amazing fresh peaches and glides on your skin so smooth. And then...? You rub it in! It balls up and grabs dirt off your face. At first I was a bit confused by this, not gonna lie. Because, damn, it's not like a US peeling mask. When I hear of "peeling gel" I think of something that you smear on your face and wait 20 mins or so and then it hardens/dries a little and you rip it off to remove dead skin cells, blackheads, and other nastiness. Well not this stuff! When I first opened the jar, I thought it was expired! But it wasn't! (Also FYI Korean manufacturers tend to stamp the date the product was produced on on the side of the jar. So what you're seeing is NOT an expired product, just when it was made!)

But I grew to love this stuff so much that this is now my 2nd jar! xD


Here's what it looks like when you unscrew the lid.


The gel.


Close-up. The crappy lighting in my bathroom makes this look yellowish but in reality it's CLEAR and smells lightly of real and very juicy peaches! No artificial smell!


The mini spoon is very handy for getting your product out of the jar without needing to stick your fingers in to contaminate it.


This is what the product looks like on my hand.


I know this photo looks gross but it's a really good example of how to use the product. You keep rubbing it into your skin and eventually it balls up and looks dirty. That's a GOOD thing, it means that you are getting all of the dirt, filth, pollution, etc., off of your face!! :) I guess my hands were kind of dirty, haha.


Eek! Bare face with no makeup! ;) This is what my face looked like after I used the product and then rinsed it off. It seems brighter and clearer and definitely smooth! My skin also smelled of fresh peaches for a half an hour or so after using the product. It's such a nice smell! But if you don't like peaches, stay away!



In summation...

Pros
-Very refreshing.
-Smells amazing!
-Clears acne if you use it continuously.
-You can visibly see the dirt coming off which is great because you know the product is working!
-Leaves skin smooooth!

Cons
-Not sure how this works on dry skin. It might be too drying.
-Jar takes up a lot of space!
-Can be messy, lol.
-Scented like peaches. You may either hate smell of peaches, or your skin might be sensitive to scented products. I have noticed many Korean-made cosmetics are scented!
-Had to buy it on eBay so it was pricey!

How to use video:



Final word: Yes, I would buy this again. In fact this is my SECOND jar of the stuff because I went through all of a first one! xD I think this comes in Apple scented too in case you hate peach. It does the same thing only it smells like Apples!

Manba Heaven!

So the other night, my amiga, Jax decided to come into town to go to a Hawaiian themed party with me! We decided the occasion called for manba style!

I was naturally scared as it was my first time wearing manba. Oh gosh. SO SCARED. Mostly that I'd mess up the makeup and do it a great injustice. I think I did A-OK for my first try but I hope to get better!

I spray tanned in advance for this look. I went with the darkest tan they have!

This was the result:



@___@;;

If you wanna know what products I used, click the jump! ;) Also more photos underneath the jump! >D




FIRST OF ALL: I know that the cowgirl hat is more of a kurobanba thing, not a manba thing. BUT WHATEVS. I love cowgirl hats and Liz Lisa so I wanted to do a Liz Lisa Western version of romanba! I say romanba because I feel like my outfit is not neon and hawaiian looking enough to be considered manba. But whatever, yo! Labels are labels, I just wanted to have fun.

Also ...first time doing romanba makeup, and I was scared, like I said, hahahaha. xD








Crappy bathroom lighting but you can better see my makeup in this photo.

Oh gosh, I felt so silly yet it was fun! It was cool! And different from my usual stuff, haha. Had this JASMINE song stuck in my head partly during the night:
Even though they call me bad girl. I reply 'so what?'
Even though they call me bad girl. If so, I'll puff out my chest
This is my lifestyle and no one else's
I'll see it through
(ENGL translation.)



My makeup:

- Stila face primer
- Covergirl liquid foundation in Classic Tan
- NYX Pencil in Milk (white) for pretty much all of the white stuff you see
- Geek Chic Cosmetics eyeshadow in Mana Battery for the shimmery white parts
- Too Faced Glitter for the glittery parts
- Kat Von D Tattoo Liner in Trooper for the black eyemakeup parts + kat von d black eyeshadow to set it
- Pink eyeshadow in upper corners is from Aromaleigh Rocks collection
- Make Up Forever HD translucent setting powder
- Urban Decay Shine Control makeup setting spray to set and seal it all!
- Black circle lenses. I think Barbie King Size type? from pinkyparadise.com
- Top lashes are Diamond Lash, and bottoms are generic cheapie eBay lashes from China
- Childrens stick on earrings + duo latex glue for the stickers on my cheeks
- crappy eBay wig from China, LOL
- cowgirl hat from Claire's



Also this song has been stuck in my head a lot lately. I wish JASMINE would release a new album!! Like STAT. xD

Lime Crime: New Nail Polishes

Mmm I just put on some of my golden carousel gloss and decided to go check out the LC site. I think I might be purchasing some of their white eyeliner soon because it would be useful for gyaru eyes. ;)



And that's when I saw that they have nail polishes now! Errr well, coming soon that is!
I am personally not *that* excited unless their formula is really good, because I feel like you can pretty much find any shade of nail polish in a cheaper brand if you so desire and you look hard enough.

But the colors are still pretty nice and of course I love LC, despite all of the bad history of the company. :P

What do you guys and gals think about their new nail polishes? Tried anything from LC lately? I really love their gloss consistency but they need more colors! I can't wear dark red, black, blue, and dark purple on a daily basis. X___x; I can barely wear this gold but it looks nice and bronzey on my tan skin right now.

Oh yes, I went spray-tanning today with my gal pal Jax because we're going to a Hawaiian themed party so we both decided to wear manba. Well, romanba for me. I am scared. It's my first time attempting such makeup! Trial run tomorrow, before the party of course! The party is Thursday. X___x;

Oh and Fyrinnae released some lovely eyeshadows! Pastels! <3

Space Kitty


Superstars


When I Grow Up


Cupcake Frosting


Aye Aye Captain


Can't wait to try these lovelies out! *w*

Online Shop Review: ARTKA (TaoBao)

OK so this was a long time coming and I cannot apologize enough that I have promised some people that I would review Artka but it fell on the back burner. I've still been really busy even though I am out of college now, with my job! >__<;;



So yes. ARTKA. The glorious online shop that many have drooled over but few have actually ordered from. It's on the Chinese shopping website called TaoBao.com which is sort of like a gigantic online mall/eBay for China. In order to place orders on this website you need a Chinese bank account to do the money transfer, and also some way of communicating. Google Translate isn't really enough. You need someone who lives in China who can order for you.



Personally, my boyfriend has a connection over there, so that is how I ordered. I e-mailed her and asked her if she could get certain items for me. I paid her with Paypal and she shipped me the stuff. I know the prices seem cheap in USD but the shipping is killer! It's around $25 ~ $40 depending on the weight of your package for EMS. So my 2-3 dresses ended up costing over $100! Still not a bad deal considering the quality and uniqueness of everything.

Anyway. Click the Jump below to read more!



I can't remember the exact dates I ordered and paid for stuff and because I have a middle(wo)man, it's kind of hard to give an accurate representation of things since she was busy with other stuff and had to wait a little while to get my stuff mailed to me. Plus we were still working out payments, so I can't give timeframes. But expect at least a couple of weeks to get your stuff! Especially if you are using a shopping service like TaoBaospree.com but they have charts on there to guide you for reference in how long it will take to get your stuff so just refer to those or e-mail them about it.

Price wise, the dresses I bought were roughly $35 to $45 each.

Here are the stock photos of the ones I own:



My less-than-flattering photo (sorry, night time here!) It's actually navy blue, not black, hehe.




Here is a photo of me wearing this dress from a while ago:
Clicky.


My photo:




Chandelier Skirt. I love this thing. It has a huge pocket and the top black part zips off and can be worn as a separate belt!



This is so simple and yet lovely.

It looks better worn too, curse my terrible photography. X___x;

.................


Quality wise, Artka makes VERY nice quality stuff. Seriously. Nothing about their clothing is cheap to me! It's all made with loving care. They claim each garment is handmade but I think there is some degree of automation to it. ;)


Also you may have noticed they have an Artfire.com shop. DO NOT. I mean, DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES try to place an order with their Artfire site. First of all, the prices are like 75% more expensive on there than on Taobao! It's so weird. And I tried to place an order once and they basically never sent my stuff. So after about a month or so of waiting, I filed a Paypal claim. Luckily I got all my money back, but man, was it weird. They sent me only one confirmation e-mail saying they would mail my items soon, but I never got anything or heard anything back from them again even when I emailed them repeatedly and eventually threatened to do a claim! Yikes. Very scary.

If you want to order on Taobao use a shopping service like Taobaospree.com. It's safe and you won't have to worry about dealing with foreign sellers and attempting to use google translate. ;)

If anyone has any questions please feel free to ask away! :D

I would love to order from Artka in the future, but the shipping is heavy on the wallet, for sure.

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!***