Etude House Angel Kiss Cutie Angel lip and Cheek

Hey guys...

Sorry for the lack of blogposts: I have been going on a sweet little citytrip with two of my best mates to Copenhagen for a couple of days. We wanted to do something different, so Copenhagen was the city to go for.

The summer has been officially launched, so most of you will be reaching for the easier and more sweat and/or waterproof products for a period this summer (or the whole summer). Lightening up on makeup is often paired with warmer weather and an easy-to-go attitude.

In one of my gmarket posts of quite a while ago I showed you the Etude House Cutie Angel Cheek and Lip in its cute, winged packaging. I haven't reviewed it so far, but I will do a mini review now.

The packaging is quintessentially Etude House cute with its cartoon doll and her big eyes on the lid. There are 4 colour versions with different angels on them. I picked 02 Cutie Angel (you can see that on the picture as well: the reddish pink letters).

Opening up the packaging, I was expecting more of a peachy pink based on Etude's swatch chart online. Cutie Angel, however, is a straight on BUBBLEGUM PINK.

Which, colourwise, is dissapointing for me. I know lots of girls and women rock these kind of shades, but I love bubblegum pink only in the edible version (or icecream, which I have never tasted but would be an interesting flavour).

The swatch is made of approximately 3 swipes of Angel Kiss.

It is still not a hopeless product for me:

I once read that a hint of a stong bubblegum pink under a bronzer with no peachy/pinky undertones can actually make the bronzer more believable for girls with a pale to light complexion.

It actually does that, so two seemingly useless products (a bubblegum cream blush and a bronzer that is too brown) can together become a lovely bronzy flush...

I am always on the fence on lip/cheek combination products: they often work for the cheeks but are quite rubbish as a lip product. This one is no different, because I think it does not function too well as a lipstick in texture.

As for cheeks...ok, it is not as superior as Becca cream blush, Julie Hewitt Cheekies or some other high end, highly raved product, but it is affordable and in a fun packaging.

I bought mine on Gmarket, but I spotted them on ebay as well. I believe the prices range from $5 to $9, dependant on seller/shipping etc.

Blushing Cheaply

Today is one of those days I have nothing particularly interesting to tell, or to show on my blog.

Anyway, I still want to post one of my purchases that I forgot to post about.

It is the Rose Belle blush palette from British Brand POPbeauty.

Palettes are not really rare in the beauty field. Well, they are popular because they are
a. Handy for travelling purposes.
b. Often very cute and decorated in a lovely fashion
c. A perfect opportunity to try various mini-sized colours (lip, eye and cheek) in a dinky packaging

Well, often palettes are focussed on either eye or lip, or have both eye/lip/cheek products inside (and mascaras, for example with the Givenchy cases). Only a blush only based palette is not very oftenly seen.

The POP rose palette is indeed suitable for an English rose complexion (pale to light) but I think a slightly MAC 30/35 can benefit from the darker colours on the right side of the palette.

Indeed, the left side is for the Pale-and-Interesting under us...Also, they make fantastic highlighters for the light to medium (and perhaps darker) skintones as well.

A bit of bronzing based colours on the right side...Except for the upper right colour (that is a bit too terracotta for me) they are fantastic for summer bronzing purposes.

Everything lovely. The downside is that the pigmentation is not as good as some other bronzers. But that makes the application more foolproof for the enthousiastic bronzer-applyers among us. It just takes more time to layer to make it show up (or less to keep it subtle).

So, the summer is almost officially there (sorry for all Aussies and other Southern hemisphere readers, as you will have the official winter time approaching). Are you going to celebrate summer in style or will you just see what the summer of 2010 is going to offer you?

Worldcup peace

Today I feel like writing a bit about the uncoming worldcup soccer events. Because lots of girls and women reading and writing beauty blogs will probably have a person in their life (partner, friend, brother/sister or dad, perhaps even the mum) who will be totally hypnotised by anything worldcup related (ain't I right?).

I personally am not into watching soccer. Perhaps if there is a hot male member on the field, and only when the camera has the eye for him, and otherwise that kind of play is not really captivating for me.

I do like watching some sports, for example cycling. And that has not so much to do with the men, although they start out pretty fit and trim, but unfortunately end up in a superskinny version of their selves from three weeks earlier (eg with the Tour de France and Vuelta). I like the landscape of the cycling countries and the connection between teamplay (when a group of cyclist escape) and competition (even of the same group when they approach the finish). It kind of gives that Robin Hood dimension, hoping that the small group of escapers reach the finish before they will be caught up by the calculating groups.

Enough about cycling, gheee, it is a beauty and stylish items blog...

Well, the word wordcup widows sounds a bit dramatic and too focussed on the negative side of footbal so I think it is good to think of the perks of a certain kind of singleness due to soccer. And yes, I will focus on the pampering part.

But first, she will be my talisman during the worldcup. Meet my sweet keyholder doll Hitomi:

She carries the symbolism of Caring. You can read what her doll-character will say about it in the next picture:

Update (thanks for asking Jess): she is a Kimmidoll from the kimmicoll collection. There are various dolls with different symbolisms, and you can check them out at kimmidoll.com.

I believe that the need to care and to long for care is quite feminine, although I would not exclude this for men, as some research say that men often remarry faster after a divorce/death of spouse than women (perhaps pinpointing that men need to be cared off a bit more than women ?).  So, it is perhaps a human need.

Anyway, I think the attention towards women will be a bit less during the soccer matches, so the spiritual care would be ok...

Notwithstanding the doll is utterly cute, so if the symbolic strenght does not do anything, it is still cute and dinky enough to carry around...

Back to pampering. I would not like to be seen with my facial masks in front of the partner, but during soccer matches he will probably not even notice your hair would turn purple with pink stripes, so I might sit next to him with a conforting sheet mask.

It is another version of beloved Beautymate, in a purple edition...It claims to even out unevenness, which would be the most perfect thing for my face:

The bodily skin always needs some prepping too, either for summer of just for your own confort. I will stick to the standard version of Bodyshop: standard enough to be able to get easily but friendly enough for the environment and ethnically/globally concious.

Oh, manicures...I love them being done, but when you have enough time on your hands (no pun intended) you can do it yourself.

I still have this fantastic bottle of Lippmann in my collection, which is absolutely not a summery colour, but I think I am into a bit of brown with a coppery sparkle, so I will be sporting (pun intended this time) Brown Eyed Girl.

Besides of the pampering opportunities,  it is a good time to catch up with the other non-soccer fans (friends) as well.

Oh, and I actually expect more beauty posts online to be written because of the time away from the soccer-dominated tv set....

Anyway, I hope all of the non-football fans will have a good time during this period. And the football fans will have a blast as well, because it is their ultimate season.

Ps: do you have some extra plans that are related to the worldcup events?...please share! I'm always intrigued by what the other bloggers/readers are up to....

Soft Scent of Late Spring

The tail of the spring-period is possibly one of my favourite moments of the seasons. The anticipation of the summer is there, and the newness of the upcoming warmer weather wispers some kind of promise of a fantastic period ahead.

Sometimes, the summer does not live up to the expectations, but the end of spring and the beginning of summer still has that hope and lovingness that keeps things full of a bright, summer fantasy.

Wow, that was my somewhat poetic side...now, what did the haul-a-holic buy in order to 'capture' the spirit of the late spring?

I cannot find a better way to embrace this season with a accompaning scent (or two). Scent is the most connected element with memory, and a good memory can be relived with the scent that has been connected to that memory. 

Plus, honestly I am not one of those eyepopping gorgeous girls that depends highly on her looks. So, I add a bit of scent-beauty to my physique in order to be a bit more remarkable.

This can work in either a good or bad way...LOL (no explaination necessary, I believe everyone has been sitting in public transportation next to someone overdosing on a perfume you were not so fond of and I myself have been wearing the not-so-right fragance a few times), so I would always recommend a person wearing a perfume they are drawn to than a perfume that is recommended by someone else, or your scent-personality will give out a different message than you would like to give.

Ahaa, I have been sampling in order to find a wonderful scent. The scent I samples have been quite a mixture of fragance families in the categories floral, fruity, vanilla, citrus, leathery and some perfumes have been quirkily mixing up some of these notes...mmm.

I bought eight of them, and they were all suprisingly good, even though they were different in quite a few ways.

Byredo Parfums Tulipe I bought because, he he, as a Dutch woman I was curious how our national flower would be captured in a scent.

I also went for The Beautiful Mind Series volume 1 Intelligence and Fantasy. Those are my favourite key-words anyway...

Histoires De Parfums 1873 Colette has been an ode to literary figure Colette. I loved her livestyle, so I was wondering how this would translate in the perfume.

L'Artisan Havana Vanille has been described as a leathery, salty vanilla and it absolutely lives up to that description...it is Vanilla taking a day off on the beach.

Another unusual vanilla is the Hermes Vanille Galante. Hermes and vanilla sounded interesting.

Histoires de Parfums Tubereuse Trilogy 3 Animale was described as a sensual Tuberose scent. That is not something I would normally go for, but a sample...why not.

L'Artisan Mimosa pour Moi....mmmm, fruity tropicalness.

 But the one that was so suprisingly different was the Annick Goutal Ninfeo Mio. It has that zengy, energising citrus start that I like in perfumes, however, after a while it turns into a somewhat warm and grassy mixture that is unlike any summery perfume I have.

Oh no, you might have guessed it but after smelling this beauty I bought the whole bottle!!!

I did not 'hunt' for it as I did with the MAC beach collection lately. I was already in the city that has a specific Annick Goutal shop for a business appointment. So no crazy running around after limited editions, but a decided decision after lots of contemplating. 

I love Niche perfume shops, which is such a wonderful place for perfume snobs like I am.

Well, I had the choice between the pretty, curved bottle of 50 ml or the bulkier bottle for 100ml, and the one for 100 ml was only 10 euros more expensive. I bought the 100 ml one, as I still believe it is rather pretty.

The only concern is that I probably will never be able to finish this whole bottle. I probably will share this with some friends and acquantances (or extras with any giveaways) as I did with the Miller Harris L'Air de Rien.

Innisfree OLIVE Real Cleansing Oil

For a haul-a-holic of my standard, it is often a bit rare that I finally finish a whole sized product. Even though I love the product I am using, my curiosity takes over and I often dwindle to a promising new version of a similar product.

My poor closet is the one that has witnessed this, and is quite crammed with prefectly functioning goodies that were 'upgraded' by 'new and improved' versions.

However, if I like something I actually am able to finish it.

And sometimes, I force myself to finish up one thing, and try not to 'stray' on other products for the sake of....ehm...lack of space to store everything (?).

And although the next cleansing oil has not really been the most perfect cleansing oil ever, I really kept reaching for it for the time being, although I had several other cleansing oils lined up.

The blue pump dispensor on top of the bottle is not a part of the original bottle. It is one of Innisfree Olive cleansing oil's flaws. I happily added the pump dispenser from another cleansing oil bottle. Originally, it looks like this:

The bottle really aims to bring the wholesome aspect of a bottle of normal olive oil in the form of a cleansing product. It even has this 'new harvest' seal on top of it.

I would not put this bottle in the kitchen for non-beautyproducts afficionados, or your lovely cleansing oil would end up for frying your vegetables. Something I would not recommend for the taste-buds...because it might smell slightly of a perfumed olive oil, it is not suitable for any cooking at all.

Innisfree absolutely highlights that the oil would be lovely for the moisture care. Innisfree does not make too many claims further on the moisture-adding properties, however, sasa says this about it (perhaps translated from the words in Korean on the bottle):

Innisfree Olive Real Cleansing Oil contains fresh harvest of olive hydrating ingredients to provide maximum moisture care for skin, leaving skin balanced and watery all day long.

The oil, compared to other cleansing oils I used (Kanebo Naive, Etude House Dreaming Oil, Shu Uemura and some others) is relatively thick.

This mights scare some people with combination to oily skin, because a thick, dense oil might give the pores the clog-fright! I have rather combination skin as well, and my dear skin often suffers from thirty-something acne (sidenote: thanks for all the people who tried to confort me in my teens that my pimples would go away...they did not, I only got some wrinkles as additives!).

But no, the thickness of the oil did not disconfort my skin, and I did not got more pimples than before. I did not get less either, so the cleansing is more neutral than possibly a pimple fighter.

"Look Look, mummy, I finished almost a whole bottle"

I actually came to appreciate the denser texture, because I use these wonderful, but incredibly stubborn Japanese mascaras that can be a real *&5@ to remove properly.

This oil is so easy as a total cleansing devise: you apply it on, softly rub some extra on your mascaryfied lashes (be careful that it does not get in the eyes), add the lukewarm water, emulsify, and voilla, almost everything makeupwise is completely gone!

So, I mentioned why it was effective enough to completely finish the bottle. That was because:

• moisturizing properties: my skin did not feel dry after cleansing, which some thinner cleansing oils can do
• removes waterproof eyemakeup like a &*^, ehm, quite effectively...so it is the lazy way to remove all makeup at once.
• reasonably affordable price ($12.70): there are cheaper version, but also more expensive versions.
• The whole wholesome look of the bottle (looks count as well, even though it is on the fourth spot)

But...Why was it NOT perfect:

• Scent: it has that highly fraganced scent that you can find with those olive soap products as well, a bit olivy and really soapy. It wears off quite fast, but it is not my fave scent.
• No pump dispenser: I had to add my own.

I am still on the fence about reordering, because the poor closet need to detox from my other cleansing oils (that are really fine as well). Still, I love this for winter cleansing and if I am a good girl and finish my other oils on time before next winter, I will reorder this for sure (if sasa still has it).

I bought this cleansing oil at sasa.com (here) and it was still available the time I wrote the review. Sasa is wonderful in adding new things oftenly, however, it has the tendency to remove perfectly lovely products every now and then without notice.