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Nosy Beauty Vol. 30: Elaine

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Ah! A new installment of Nosy Beauty. I am a failure at uploading, because Elaine actually sent this to me a few weeks ago but I hadn’t been able to fix it up in a post for you just yet. Anyway, please wish me luck as I try to wrangle up some future features and lightly tap the people I’ve already asked for updates. Ahem.

Elaine is my internet friend (though we met in line for The National when they played here!) and I first knew her through her blog, ourconsciousness, I think. She also started blogging about beauty and body acceptance here on Flabs Rule The World, which I love.

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Hello! My name is Elaine and I’m a Digital Marketing Specialist so you’ll always see me on the Internet. When I’m not online – which rarely happens – I read or binge watch television shows. It’s only recently that I discovered my interest in makeup and blogging about it.

I’m a huge fan of Nosy Beauty and today I’m in it (achievement unlocked!) to share with you my makeup bag and what’s in it which I haven’t done yet so thank you Carina for this opportunity. 🙂

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This huge makeup bag is from Happy Skin Cosmetics. I don’t always carry around a lot of makeup but when I do this bag houses everything I need from face primer to finishing powders to look polished and put together. Read More

Commodity Goods Fitting Kits

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I’m not into scents much, but lately, I’ve been trying on different ones to see which I like the best. So far, my scent preferences have differed a lot from when I was a kid (I used to wear perfume and cologne more before), so it’s been a challenge looking for something that suits me personally. I’ve got a post on fragrances in the works, but allow me to talk a bit more about a recent discovery.

Commodity Goods - Fitting Kits

I first found out about Commodity Goods from my new favorite beauty website, xoVain. One of the writers was sampling a perfume brand through “Fitting Kits,” little tester vials of the scents they offered. Priced at $9 each with free shipping, a fitting kit (one for Women and one for Men) had 10 scents you can trial before committing to a big bottle.

I’m personally pretty picky with scents. I don’t get on with a lot of cult favorites like Chloe and Prada Candy, for example. I don’t know. My nose is weird.

Commodity, a small company based in California, started out as a Kickstarter Project last year, and I missed out on it like a doofus, but wow. I’m so happy that it got funded.

So, the kits. I got both, so I was met with 10 scents. There are actually duplicates (Moss, Paper, Gold), but you still get to test A LOT. They come in these little individual plastic packets that are so cute, I had a hard time cutting them open.

Commodity Goods - Fitting Kits - Packaging

And now the scents:

Commodity Goods - Fitting Kits - W and M

Oooh! Aaah! I felt so overwhelmed and yet so excited at the same time. The Fitting Kits come with little cards where you can rate the scents, too. Mighty helpful if you’ve got a “forgetful nose.” Read More

my Pu Hyalu Water Volume Snail Gel Cream*

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my Pu - Hyalu Water Volume Snail Gel Cream

The my Pu Hyalu Water Volume Snail Gel Cream* is another skin care product from the BNT Box. I’ve tried a snail system, the Nature Republic Snail Solution Set*, a few months ago, courtesy of BNT as well, but the 3-step process proved to be too tedious for me, so I ended up moving on from the system. Here, we’ve got a single cream that has 70% snail slime. The other variant, Snail White Cream (blue tube), is more intense and contains 83% snail slime as well as hydrolized collagen, which is widely believed to improve skin elasticity.

my Pu - Hyalu Water Volume Snail Gel Cream - Hand

The product itself is a light cream with a texture similar to the other snail solution set I’ve tried. The smell, though, is much more pleasant and fresh. This variant is the lighter of the two and is perfect to use in the summer heat, as it’s designed to help cool and soothe damaged skin. I’ve been using this at night for the past few days after cleansing, toning, and moisturizing, as a topper, and it’s working out pretty well.

The Snail Gel Cream is a double-action cream that is anti-wrinkle (adenosine) and whitening (niacin amide). It also includes Hyaluronic acid and betaine for moisture retention, and a few natural extracts (centella, portulaca oleracea, green tea).

“my Pu” is supposedly short for “My Pure Skin,” which is the main thrust of the brand—”pure beauty provided by nature.” my Pu uses natural extracts and “good ingredients,” doing away with colorants, mineral oils, ethanol, and benzophenone.

All in all I’ve enjoyed how light this is and how well-hydrated my skin still is when I wake up. It’s light enough to use in the day time, too.

A little post-script: Whenever I get these products from BNT News, I get a little iffy because I literally have zero leads on where to look for information on where these snail excretions and starfish extracts are sourced from. You know that, as much as I possibly can, I buy cruelty-free products, but animal-derived ingredients like beeswax and lanolin (which are a no-no for vegans… which I am not) is still a bit fuzzy to me. As far as I know, snail mucus can be extracted ethically, but I’m not so sure about starfish extract. I find that these products work really well for me, but I don’t think that I can repurchase them, as a consumer. As a person who reviews beauty products, I will continue to provide honest opinions on these products to let you know how they’ve been working out for me.

Say hello to the bntgirls official badge! * PR Sample. Product was sampled and reviewed as part of the terms outlined for the BNT Girls.

Other BNT Girls: Joanne, Kine, Doris, Bella.

I have no information regarding my Pu’s animal testing policy.

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Hitting Pan

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I finally did it. I finally hit pan! Granted, it’s not for a color cosmetic like an eyeshadow or a lipstick, but for a product that I’ve been using pretty much everyday, on and off for two years. Behold: the dark shade of my The Body Shop Brow & Liner Kit in 02 is showing some silver. YAAAAAS!

Pan

I’ve attempted a lot of Project 10 Pan batches, but I’m really more of a rotater than a MUST-FINISH-THIS-THING so it didn’t work out so well. A lot of the stuff, I ended up giving away, and some I threw out. I suppose this puts my makeup buying into perspective.

I don’t feel ashamed or guilty that I’ve amassed a sizable collection, but I just realized just how much I would have to keep using something to finish it up. I’m not too iffy with expiration dates, except for mascara and when something starts to smell funky, so I don’t really bother too much with monitoring which cosmetics might “go bad.”

As Gandalf wisely said, “If in doubt, Meriadoc, always follow your nose.”

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Quick Summer Skin Care Routine

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Summer Skin Care

Here’s my super stripped-down Summer Skin Care Routine, when I’m feeling lazy. Which is to say these are non-negotiables following the mantra of the skin-care conscious: cleanse, tone, moisturize. The skin care “essentials” have evolved since then, involving eye creams, essences, serums, and whatever else people cook up, but this is what I’m going with.

CLEANSE
My facial wash of choice is the Human Nature Nourishing Facial Wash, which is for normal or sensitive skin. I’m on my second bottle. I used to use the Moisturizing one (with moringa extract, I think) for dry skin, and that worked better for me, but it smelled like crap, so I’m on this one. And it works well enough!

TONE
My toner du jour! Or of the past few weeks. I love this stuff. It’s magical. Ahem. The LUSH Tea Tree Water is something I’ve been going back and forth on purchasing until I finally gave in and got it. I had a breakdown in LUSH because I didn’t want to buy anymore makeup. LOL, my logic. It astounds.

Anyway, this is great. I had a few bumps on my face for some reason, and the day after I sprayed this on, the bumps calmed down.

As a bonus, I’ll let you in on a gross little secret. When I was in Baguio, I was so freaking lazy that all I did in the morning and night was splash my face with water (no soap, eee) and then spray it with the LUSH Tea Tree Water. I didn’t put any products on my face—not even SPF, which I paid for with a tan—so I reasoned that I didn’t really need to wash anything away. Guess what? My skin’s doing pretty well. This water’s magic, I tell you.

MOISTURIZE
I got this giant bottle of the NARS Skin Hydrating Freshening Lotion as a GWP for spending too much money on NARS. It’s actually a hydrating lotion used to prep the skin before moisturizer (what did I tell you about weird extra skin care steps), but I like it enough to use on its own. Sometimes. I actually like the NARS Skin range quite a bit; I don’t know why I don’t explore it more. Hmm.

Normally, I’d use a heavier moisturizer after the NARS Hydrating Lotion, and then an eye cream (currently testing out Benefit’s It’s Potent!*), but like I said, this routine is for the lazy days.

What’s great about this routine is that it keeps your skin good and well—at least my skin—and then I can just up the ante every few days with a good scrub (not for everyday! Danger of Overexfoliation!) and masks like a Dermal Collagen Essence Masks* or the Aesop Parsley Seed Cleansing Masque.

How do you deal with lazy days?

* PR Sample. Human Nature, LUSH, and NARS are cruelty-free.

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Made-Up History: Gerhard Richter’s “Détail (rouge-bleu),” 1970.

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Yay a new Made-Up History! When I made this series, I set out to do it once a week. Kinda funny (not really) how it all played out, but I am going to try to play a little bit more with this series since I’ve been kind of meh about makeup combinations lately.

One of the reasons why I haven’t been doing this is because I haven’t found a really nice work that I felt compelled to use for Made-Up History. If you’re new, MUH is a series in which I kind of re-create an artist’s piece as a makeup look by distilling the elements. It’s not really cosmetic art (like how some people re-do Van Gogh’s work on their face), but just translating a work into a look that I may or may not wear everyday. I have done a few of those, which you can see here.

Today, we’ll take on a work by Gerhard Richter, who is one of the most famous living artists (82 years old!) today. Richter, who hails from Germany, has a lot of iconic pieces, but we’ll be taking one of his lesser known (or I suppose not-that-well-documented) pieces, “Détail (rouge-bleu),” which is a blown up image of what looks to be like flowers or cloth.

Here’s what it looks like in full:
Gerhard Richter 3
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It may not look like much, but I think the scale and size of it adds greatly to the strength of the piece. Here is how I experienced “Détail (rouge-bleu)”:
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There’s not much on this piece by Gerhard Richter, but I did see it at the Pompidou when Richter had a huge exhibit back in 2012. Here are some of my other photographs of the show: Gerhard Richter’s Panorama. He is amazing! Here are a few of them, to entice you to check this post (and the rest of his work) out:

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It’s hard to briefly talk about Richter’s work and style, mainly because he explored and experimented so much. One of his most iconic trademarks is the blur, where his paintings (usually based on photographs) are soft-focused or marred by a layer of squeegeed-on paint.

My starting point for reinterpreting “Détail (rouge-bleu)” is to zone in on the corals and cool blue-greys. Read More

Take Two: Sorabee Balancing Aqua Cream*

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Sorabee Balancing Aqua Cream

I’ve been using the Sorabee Balancing Aqua Cream* on and off since first getting it in March. Like I said in my original review, this cream is a bit too light for me for nighttime use. Nothing much has changed since my last review, but I don’t find it to be particularly beneficial for long-term use either.

To recap, here are the claims of the Balancing Aqua Cream:

  • A luxurious restorative beauty treatment cream formulated with a complex of vitamins to intensively nourish energize and fortify skin in its fight against environmental stress and the visible signs of aging
  • Excellent for all skin types, especially skin suffering from dehydration, dullness or fatigue. Provides intensive nutrients and protects delicate skin area from wrinkles
  • Main Treatment Ingredients of SF Collagen Sea Water and Ocean Spa Plankton Extract helps to keep eyes looking bright and clear whilst ensuring eye contours are free from aging and fine lines
  • How To Use: After using Balancing Lotion and Eye Cream apply sufficient amount of Balancing Aqua Cream onto your palm. Massage into skin using gentle circular motions. Water drops penetrate deeply into the skin and and healthy glow is seen.

The Sorabee Balancing Aqua Cream is a matte-looking cream that looks like this when squeezed out of the tube:
Sorabee Balancing Aqua Cream - Product

… but breaks into water droplets when spread around:
Sorabee Balancing Aqua Cream - Droplets

It sinks into the skin fairly quickly and doesn’t leave a stickiness, which makes it really great for daytime use, if you don’t want to skip the moisturizer. I have been using this during the day since getting it again in my last BNT box. I usually skip moisturizer since it has been so hot lately that I don’t want to bother with it, but this is so light that you don’t even notice you have it on. Sorabee claims that its active ingredients are starfish collagen, sea water, and phophyridium cruentum extract from plankton.

Like my initial review of this, I have been satisfied with it for day to day use but have yet to see visible improvements in my skin. It’s the kind of product that I am satisified with just trying, but I don’t think I would repurchase it because it doesn’t do anything special for my skin.

A little post-script: Whenever I get these products from BNT News, I get a little iffy because I literally have zero leads on where to look for information on where these snail excretions and starfish extracts are sourced from. I’ve mentioned this before but for the record, as much as I possibly can, I buy cruelty-free products. The issue of animal-derived ingredients like beeswax and lanolin (which are a no-no for vegans… which I am not) is still a bit fuzzy to me. As far as I know, snail mucus can be extracted ethically, but I’m not so sure about starfish extract. I find that these products work really well for me, but I don’t think that I can repurchase them, as a consumer. As a person who reviews beauty products, I will continue to provide honest opinions on these products to let you know how they’ve been working out for me, but I will also be upfront about what I am comfortable with purchasing.

Say hello to the bntgirls official badge! * PR Sample. Product was sampled and reviewed as part of the terms outlined for the BNT Girls.

Other BNT Girls: Joanne, Kine, Doris, Bella.

I have no information regarding Sorabee’s animal testing policy.

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