Mori Girl Fashion in August

In August online shops didn't seem to have offer too many exciting new clothes. These were my favorites:

Cawaii

Cawaii

Röse Böwl Saloon

I already have a different shirt withe exactly the same rabbit on it, also from Röse Böwl Saloon.

Cawaii

I love these tattered stockings so much. Cawaii already sold these last year and now re-stocked. I wish they would sell these when I was in Japan.

Natsusen

And a few days ago these were posted on Wonder Rocket's Blog:

I don't know whether these are for sale or one of Wonder Rocket's regular "Buy clothes for a certain amount and get a free gift" items as there isn't any info about them on the Official Homepage yet and the blog also only says that infos will be announced next week, but I really love the bunny girl in the style of Wonder Rocket's animal display dummies.

Review: Skin79 Diamond The Prestige BB Cream

Since I have a ton of BB Creams already, I decided not to buy any normal tubes for a while, but go for the small test- or travel-size versions. The Skin79 The Prestige BB cream is one I got. The normal size product contains 40g, but I got a tiny 5g tube as part of a Miniature Set.

This is my first Skin79 BB Cream. I bought a Powder by Skin79 before and, apart from its unhandy functionality, was quite content with it.

The (a bit weirdly worded) product description of this BB Cream is:

"The Skin79 The Prestige Blemish Balm Cream is a 3 effects functional BB cream. Adensosine and Arbutin ingredients, which are effective in whitening and wrinkles improvement, cultivates more bright and elastic skin. Intercept UV A and B at the same time and protect your skin exposed from the sun more thoroughly. Diamond Powder and Jewel Complex Powder of Ruby, Amethyst and Pearl make skin all the more radiant. A patent ingredient containing Natural Complex extract ingredients help improvement and care of skin trouble."

What I noticed at once about this BB Cream was that, compared to all the other BB Creams I have tried so far, this one has a pretty strong smell. The smell isn't unpleasant, it is a decent perfume-like smell, but I really prefer my facial products with as little artificial perfumes as possible, none would be ideal.

The texture of the The Prestige BB Cream is quite pleasant. It is not too liquid and not too firm, making it easy to distribute it on your face evenly. The texture reminds me a bit of the one of the ElishaCoy Always Nudy BB Cream, which I like a lot. The color seems to have gray undertone (BB Creams seem to either have a gray, pink or orange undertone, though I have the feeling all 3 shades work for me). Unfortunately the coverage is a bit disappointing to me.

I will demonstrate this on my hand, where I have a small burn mark and a mole:

I used quite a lot of BB Cream for this little spot, usually I use less and, depending on the BB cream, can get good coverage (for a BB Cream) with just a little cream.

Oops, that's quite a lot....

3 layers later...  This photo is a bit lighter, don't be fooled my this.

Both the mole and the burn mark a bit less significant, but the difference isn't all that great and I was expecting more coverage because of the texture of this BB Cream and the amount I used.
Here is the level of coverage Skin79 advertises with:

Usually the more liquid a BB Cream is, the less coverage it gives me, no matter how much I use of it. With "creamier" BB Creams like the The Prestige BB Cream you can usually built up a nice coverage if one layer isn't enough for you, but I had already applied 3 layers on my hand for the photo and it was not getting better.

In the end I had the feeling that, after applying this BB Cream to my face, there wasn't any significant difference and I had to use quite a bit of powder to cover it up.
Now, coverage isn't the most important factor in a BB Cream for me, because a lot of coverage usually means that the cream feels more unpleasant on my skin and I am not even sure whether the The Prestige BB Cream really has so much less coverage than some other BB Creams I like, but the overall effect after applying it on my face just wasn't really thrilling as there wasn't much difference to my skin pre-BB Cream.


Skin79 BB Creams have quite a good reputation, the texture is good, it doesn't make my face feel immediately greasy like Missha BB Creams do and it also provides a SPF25 PA++ sun protection. 

It only comes in one shade, but like almost every BB cream it miraculously blends in with my skin pretty well.

I think this BB Cream is probably good for people who have a good skin, and just want to add a hint of coverage and a bit of a moisturizing and sun protection effect. I have really bad skin and even though I don't like BB creams with extremely heavy coverage as they often feel uncomfortable to wear, I want at least some kind of coverage, and with the Skin79 The Prestige BB Cream I have the feeling there isn't any great visible difference to my skin :(

I am curious about the other Skin79 BB Creams from my new miniature set.

The Luminous Pearl one is way too liquid for me (unless my skin condition should suddenly get better), I can already tell so much. Pink Super+ and Gold Super+ seem to be a bit firmer and also slightly darker, though they all have a very similar shade.

I will write reviews as soon as I have tried them out!

Asian Cosmetic Brand Introduction: Canmake

Hello ~♥

Today I want to introduce another Asian brand: Canmake. I have not reviewed any of their products in my blog yet, though ever since I noticed this brand for the first time on my last Japan trip I feel in love with them and their products.

 What is CANMAKE?

Canmake, or キャンメイク, is a Japanese beauty product line established by IDA Laboratories co., Ltd.

CANMAKE is a brand endorsed not only by teenage girls and trendy executives, but also professional makeup artists. The reason lies in our consistent concept of 'cute, high quality and reasonable prices'.
Created by IDA Laboratories Tokyo since 1985, CANMAKE's fresh and vibrant colours are for the fashion-conscious who value quality cosmetics. Japanese model Lena Fujii is CANMAKE's current spokesmodel. CANMAKE is available in Japan, Taiwan, Korea and Singapore.

They specialize on decorative cosmetics like eyeshadows, BB Creams, blushes or mascara and do not offer any skin care products like masks, peelings or facial creams.

However, they also produce some cosmetic-related accessories like eyelash curlers, compact mirrors, tweezers and fake eyelashes.
Besides makeup and accessories, Canmake also has quite a list on fragranced products, like body fragrance, hair wax fragrance, lip fragrance, and so on.

They are a drugstore brand with a very reasonable price range of 400-900¥ ($5-10/ 4-9€), so I'd say they are among the cheapest Japanese cosmetic brands.

As I am a sucker for packing design what made me notice Canmake products in the first place was their lovely design: Their product designs are rather simple, but yet elegant and extremely girly-looking. 
In fact their designs often remind me of simplified designs of other known brands:

Not only the designs and of Canmake products are very girly-looking, with decent ornaments and little starts, but also the colors of the products are very vibrant, bright and girly, with pink being a very outstanding color. I guess given the design, product range and price, Canmake products are designed for a younger audience, though there is nothing wrong with using them even if you aren't a teen in my opinion. 

Canmake products are only produced for the Asian market. Nevertheless Canmake went through the trouble of designing an English language version of their homepage.

Under http://www.canmake.com/en/index.html you can look up very detailed information about every single of their products. The prices are all listed in Yen (It is not online store!) and the English site is never as completely up to date with their latest news like the Japanese version, but it is still a very helpful overview of all their products, including instructions about how to use their products in English.

The Canmake products I have tried so far were blushes and some eyeshadows I swatched in Japan, and I don't think I have ever seen such an awesome price/performance ratio in other beauty products from Japan. You get a lot of awesomeness for a very small price, so if you ever get the chance to get your hands on Canmake products, don't hesitate!

You can buy Canmake products from the following places:

Ebay - http://www.ebay.com/hi-kawaii/canmake

(Remember that ebay is often not safe to buy from. I never tried this seller as I bought my Canmake products in Japan myself, but believe this one to be safe to buy from as he ships from Japan)

Yesstyle - http://www.yesstyle.com/en/canmake-beauty

If you know other reliable sores to buy Canmake products from, let me know!

Review: Etude House Petit Darling Nails Matte Milkyway Purple

I made a review of  the Etude House Petit Darling Nails Matte Nail Polish color #1 Ceylon Tea Beige before, but didn't like how the nail polish looked so weirdly flesh-colored on my nails. 

Since I liked the idea of matte nail polish, I bought a different color from the same line, #03 Milkyway Purple.

Despite the color's name, the nail polish looked rather brown than purple to me and this was the color I wanted. There is a Latte Brown color, but it seemed a bit too dark for me. 

Unfortunately the color turns out to be more purple than I expected, I guess I should have trusted the color's name instead of going after the product photos only.

 The nail polish comes in a small cute frosted glass bottle, containing 7g. When you apply the polish, it looks shiny like every other nail polish at first, but then turns matte when it dries, which it does pretty fast.

Unfortunately I am not too thrilled by the Etude House Petit Darling Nails Matte Polish: I blamed the weird effect on the flesh color of the Tea Beige Polish I got before, but also think the result of the Milkyway Purple one is a bit weird-looking.

What I absolutely do not like is that you see every single imperfection on your nails so clearly with this nail polish. I can even see the structure of my nails through it!

Another thing I didn't notice with the Tea Beige one before, because I only wore it once and removed it again pretty fast, was that after a few days the Petit Darling Nails Matte Polish starts to turn shiny (and splinter of, but I don't blame it on the polish, because I work a lot with my hands and every nail polish has this effect for me):

The Etude House Petit Darling Nails is not a nail polish I plan to purchase again, the result is just not convincing.

[+] Small price
[+] Dries fast
[+] Doesn't smell too bad for a nail polish

[-] Shows every imperfection / nail structure
[-] Matte shades look weird (e.g. like raw flesh or dirt...)
[-] Matte nail polish turns shiny after a few days

The advantages just don't make up for the disadvantages in my opinion.

DIY Mori Girl Flower Tiara

A while back I bought a self-made flower tiara online. 

After looking at it closely, I decided that I could probably create something like this myself.

This was my first attempt, which I wore to a friend's wedding on Saturday. It resulted in me being confused for the wedding's flower girl, but I don't really mind. ^^;

BB Cream Obsession

Today I though..."You should really stop buying all these BB Creams"....

Review: Baviphat Peach All-in-One Peeling Gel

This review is about the Baviphat Peach All-in-One Peeling Gel.

I never had a Baviphat product before and also didn't know much about this Korean brand, which only launched in 2009.

I have occasionally seen their products online, but apart from their "Fruit Miracle Series" disguised in fruit packings (something I also know from TonyMoly), none of their product (packings) seemed cute or interesting enough for me to try them out.

 The original product comes in a cute packing looking like a peach and contains 100g. The sample contains about 6g and looks a bit silly with its dorky laughing peach and the headphones just don't make much sense. ^^,

The Baviphat Peach All-in-One Peeling Gel is a exfoliation, pore care and brightening product, which contains peach extracts with vitamin C to make skin whiter and more resilient.  

I am not a fan of whitening products. Now this might be appealing for Asian people who have a darker skin color than European people, but my skin is already very white and I would rather get a light tan than looking pale like a ghost, but luckily I have never really noticed any whitening effect in all the products which promise a "whitening effect", like most of my BB Creams do.

This is why I think the promised "whitening effect" can be pretty much ignored.

Of course all peeling creams or gels have "kind of" a whitening effect by default: They are supposed to rub off the outer layer of your skin cells, and with it, they naturally also remove a bit of your tan, but I don't think they can make your natural skin color any lighter.

You are supposed to apply the Baviphat Peach All-in-One Peeling Gel on your dry face and then to gently massage on until it starts to ball up. 

This is something I don't really know from peeling products I have used before: Usually you can apply it evenly all over your face and when you massage it in it doesn't change in any way, but this Peeling Gel actually really "balls up", as in the gel rolls up to little small cream-like blobs on your face. If I hadn't knowns from the product description that this is how you are supposed to use it I would have assumed there was something wrong with the product.

Picture taken from www.baviphat.com

You can already see by the texture of the product that this isn't really a common "gel". The texture reminds me a bit of rice pudding.

I am very undecided about the smell of this product. I have previously written how I prefer my face-care products without any artificial smell at all, though I don't mind natural smells.

The Baviphat Peach All-in-One Peeling Gel smells like (surprise! surprise!) peach, but I don't think it is a natural smell. Unfortunately I can't read any Korean, so I don't know what the ingredient are, but considering what a tiny amount of actual peach extract can be in a cream I don't think it should smell that much like peach. I wouldn't really describe it as a bad or unpleasant smell, I just have the feeling it is more something that is supposed to smell like peach, than actual peach smell.

Many peeling products have some kind of tiny corns or grains in it, this peeling gel doesn't. It seems to be a rather "soft" product, leaving my face without any kind of irritations or redness after usage, which is one of the most important factors for me.

I use some German all natural ingredient peeling product with which I am quite content with, but if I was searching for a new one, the Baviphat Peach All-in-One Peeling Gel would be one I would honestly consider as it doesn't seem to be a bad product and comes in a cute packing.

Review: ColourVUE BigEyes Green Circle Lenses

Hello ~♥
It seems to me that, among the many circle lens manufacturers out there, ColourVUE by Maxvue Vision is the only one that specializes on the western market, which is why their lenses are really easy to buy.

I bought my pair of ColourVUE BigEyes Circle Lenses in a random German contact lens online store. It has been a while, but I think I payed under 15€ including shipping.

They are available in 15 colors and I got mine in "Party Green".

ColorVUE Big Eyes lenses have a diameter of 15mm and, unlike most circle lenses they don't come in a little bottle, but in a flat packing. Since they specialize on the western market they contain instructions and details in many western languages, including English or German in their packing.

They are 3-month lenses, but as I have written in previous circle lens reviews, I don't think any kind of soft contact lens should be worn longer than this.

At first I didn't like these lenses much, because their design isn't really my taste: The green is a very bright and artificial color that and there is too much "design", too many lines, in the lenses. 

I like the ones with natural colors and a very plain design the most. Upon wearing them for the first time, I thought they gave my eyes kind of a "reptile"-like look. They are really the kind of lenses where everyone who sees you notices "Oh, she is wearing colored contact lenses", but I prefer the ones that make my eyes look bigger and people notice there is something different/off, but can't notice it is because of contact lenses at once.

However, after wearing these for a few times I really got to love these circle lenses, because they have the most awesome comfort I have ever had with circle lenses! 

I have very sensitive eyes, and can usually never wear contact lenses for more than 3 or 4 hours before they start to feel very uncomfortable in my eyes. Usually they don't feel all that great in my eyes from the beginning, but the longer I wear lenses, the more irritated and also slightly painful my eyes feel.

With the ColorVUE BigEyes circle lenses it is very different: I barely feel them at all when I put them in and I can wear them for hours and all I feel is that my eyes start to feel a bit tired after a while, but it isn't really painful and doesn't feel like there is something in my eyes. It is just a bit of a dryness and this can usually be fixed with either using some eye drops, or taking the lenses out, putting some more contact lens solution on them and putting them back in.

You shouldn't wear circle lenses all day, but even if I wanted to, usually I couldn't. When I go out wearing circle lenses, I always have my full contact lens kit with me, always prepared to take my lenses out at any time when they get too uncomfortable, but I could really wear the ColourVUE lenses all day if I wanted!

I also got a bit used to the design, and don't think it is all that bad by now.

Just because of the really great comfort of these, they have become one of my most favorite circle lenses by now. What use is a great design, if the lenses are irritating my eyes like hell? So I pick comfort over design and think, once I have used up the other about 56872 circle lenses I still have (not quite that many, but I really have stocked up a few on them)  I will probably re-purchase these.

Right now the BigEyes Series is the only one by ColourVUE that has a diameter bigger than the "normal" 14 (though they have a few nice "normal" size designs), but maybe some time in the future they will offer different designs? Considering the great comfort their lenses have, it is really a pity they don't advance in the "circle lens /oversize lens" sector a bit more.

Comfort: ★★★★☆ Design: ★★★☆☆ Color: ★★★☆☆ Enlargement: ★★★☆☆

Review: Kanebo Lavshuca Dramatic Memory Rouge #PK-3

I love Lavshuca lipsticks, I really do. None has ever disappointed me and the Lavshuca Dramatic Memory Rouge  from Kanebo is no exception.
It comes in a beautiful and very elegant design , in my opinion the most beautiful of all Lavshuca lipsticks. The lipstick was first released as part of Lavshuca's 2011 collection, but is still part of their current range of products.

It contains 2.5g and is a moisturizing oil-enriched lipstick to "help soften and smooth lips and give them a youthful, luminous glow. The lip protective formula helps reduce the appearance of fine lines and nourish lips as well as extend the life of the lip color." 

The Dramatic Memory Rouge lipstick comes in 14 different colors, of which I got the color PK-3, a beautiful soft pink.

 I think I don't need to describe the awesome design, the photos speak for themselves:

  

Freya wanted to be part of the photo....

Like all Lavshuca lipsticks, this one is very moisturizing, just perfect for my constantly dry lips. It isn't as creamy as for example the Lavshuca Moist Melting Rouge Bar, but therefore it stays on your lips longer. 
2.5g doesn't seem like a lot, but there is actually a decent amount in the lipstick.

 

I would say "this is one of my most favorite Lavshuca lipsticks", but they really all are. The texture is just perfect, creamy, yet fully pigmented, it lasts on my lips for a decent amount of time, doesn't feel sticky, doesn't dry out my lips. I just love it!