Unpretty Vanity

Easy and Quick Skincare Routine to Look Young in Your Late 20

Hey, everyone!

I think it’s really the first time I talk about skincare on this blog. I always talk about makeup while actually I care about my skincare as much as I do about makeup. For me, skincare is even more important that makeup, and I was interested in skincare first even long before I was interested in makeup.

I mentioned briefly how I was first interested in skincare on this blog post. And since that time, I have tried so many skincare products and have gone through so many trials and errors in skincare routine. Gladly I don’t have sensitive skin, so I rarely (or almost never) had a bad experience when trying new products. However, there were several products I felt really did something on my skin, while some others did almost nothing.

These past 8 months, or to be precised since August 2018, I’ve been using the same skincare routine. And just recently I realized that my skin has never been this clear, supple, and elastic. My makeup also sticks better onto my skin effortlessly. And countless times when I didn’t wear any makeup, I was mistaken for a college or even high school student by people I met on the street, while actually I’m a 28 year old married woman with one kid XD But it actually has some drawbacks, too. For example, when I was browsing through a makeup display in my local drugstore, the BA wasn’t even trying to recommend me any product. Maybe because she thought I was a student so I wouldn’t be able to afford any product she recommended anyway XD

Oh and first of all, just for transparency, I wasn’t sponsored by any brand I mentioned here. I purchased everything with my own money. I’m (sadly) just a small blogger, those brands don’t even know that I’m existed in this world XD So don’t worry, what I wrote here is based on my real and honest experience 🙂 But, I mean, in the future even if I was sponsored to make this kind of post, I’ll always stay honest with my review!

So, if you want to know my skincare secrets, just please keep on reading!

Prolog

I adopted this skincare routine actually from the infamous 10-step Korean Skincare Routine. Let’s admit that we, average women in late 20 with all of our everyday routine activities, ain’t always got time for that, right? Just thinking of that and watching beauty bloggers apply that 10-step skincare routine already makes me headache. So, I made my own version of it that is easier, quicker, and more realistic!

First of all, even though the name is “10-step Korean Skincare Routine”, doesn’t mean we must use ALL Korean skincare products. The most important thing is to understand why those steps are implemented. When we understand the purpose of each step, we can clearly eliminate some steps or alternately change some steps so that the phrase “10-step” is no longer overwhelming. And along with it, we can freely choose which product we want to use in each step, as long as it fulfills the purpose of that step.

10-Step Korean Skincare Routine

When talking about “steps” in skincare routine, generally people will ask “why this step is after that step” and vice versa. Actually, the answer is easy. We want to apply products from the ones that have lighter consistency to the ones that have heavier consistency.

Here I will give you a quick explanation of each step, along with the label of which step we can completely skip and alternately change. I will also mention which products I’ve been using for each step.

Oil-based cleanser

I’m sure you are aware that oil can’t be mixed with water. Now let see, what does our skin produce during the day? It’s oil. Even if you have (relatively) dry skin, your skin still secretes oil everyday (it’s just less amount compared to other people). So, what happen if you wash your face with water-based cleanser only? It won’t be able to get rid off oil-based dirt that our skin has produced.

So clearly, this step is a MUST and the first step that you want to implement on your skincare routine. Only oil can help pull out other oil-based impurities, for example sebum.

Products that I’ve been using in this step are Banila.co Clean It Zero and Garnier Micellar Oil Infused Cleansing Water.

Banila.co’s consistency is kind of like balm, but as soon as we apply it on our face, it melts even the most waterproof makeup easily. But, this feels uncomfortable on the eyes. It doesn’t stink, but if it exposed to our eyeballs, it’s going to be like there’s a kind of layer on top of them and it’s slightly obstructing our view.

That’s why on the eyes, I prefer to use the Garnier one. This works perfectly for waterproof makeup, too.

Water-based cleanser

The same principal to the previous step, water-based cleanser helps draw out water-based impurities that aren’t picked up by the oil-based cleanser, for example sweat.

This step is obviously a MUST, too. And I’ve been rotating between Garnier Micellar Water, The Body Shop Tea Tree Facial Wash, or Cetaphil Facial Wash. I use the Garnier one when I’m too lazy to wash my face with facial wash. And I love the Body Shop and Cetaphil ones because they are so gentle on my skin. Even though I feel completely clean after washing my face with them, my skin doesn’t feel tight.

Exfoliator

To make it easier to understand, generally exfoliator comes in a form of scrub, because, exfoliator is used to clean clogged pores or remove dead skin. Therefore, we need a product that contains small grains to make it possible to enter our pores and clean them.

This is a step that we can ALTERNATELY CHANGE with other steps. Actually it’s better to NOT do this step every day because it could scrape not only dead skin but also moisture or other important properties that our skin has. I personally only do this step twice a week, and the products I’ve been rotating to use are Freeman Charcoal + Black Sugar Gel Mask + Scrub, Skinfood Strawberry Black Sugar Mask Wash Off, Kanebo Suisai Beauty Clear Powder, and Cure Natural Aqua Gel.

The Freeman and Skinfood ones are clearly scrubs, so you know how to use them and how they feel.

The Cure one looks like a normal facial wash with jelly-like consistency. Even though it looks like your typical facial wash, it removes dead skin like magic. And the Kanebo one can be used as scrub or gentle facial wash depending on how much water you add to it. I’ll write more detail about the Cure and the Kanebo on another post I’ve planned so make sure to follow this blog if you don’t want to miss it!

Toner

Toner helps restore moisture to our skin after cleansing and exfoliating. It also helps balance our skin’s pH because cleansing our face with facial wash increases our skin pH (remember, soap is an alkaline so it has high pH). However, actually if we use gentle facial wash, it’s not as harsh as usual facial wash that is made of soap, so toner can be skipped. But toner also helps prepare our skin for the next products that are going to be applied to our skin. Therefore, for me this step is also a MUST.

For this past months, I’ve only been using The Body Shop Tea Tree Toner. I never use a cotton pad to apply my toner because I feel it absorbs a lot of liquid so I think it’s a waste of product. I always use my hands to apply my toner.

Essence

The one common question about essence is “what is the difference between essence and serum?”. Generally, essence is liquid product that has consistency between toner and serum. If you know SK-II Facial Treatment Essence or Missha Time Revolution The First Treatment Essence, both of them have the similar liquid-y consistency, which is a bit thicker than a toner, but not as viscous-y as a serum.

In terms of composition, according to Fashionista on their article here, technically essence and serum are actually the SAME thing! Both of them have key ingredients that are formulated to resolve certain skin problems. I mentioned about texture above, but recently (according to Fashionista also) essence is getting thicker while serum is getting more lightweight, so the consistency line is getting blurry.

In summary, since both of them don’t have distinctive difference, IMHO, if you’re on a budget (just like me!) you can choose only one of them. I personally completely SKIP essence, and go straight to serum after my toner.

Serum

As I mentioned briefly above, serum is a liquid product that has key ingredients that are formulated to resolve certain skin problems, such as acne, hyper-pigmentation, dark spots, wrinkles, etc. For me personally, I’ve been using this same serum for 8 months, which is The Ordinary Niacinamide 10% + Zinc 1%, that has brightening effect and also reduce the appearance of blemishes and balance sebum activity. For more detail information about this product, please refer to this link.

I started to use this serum because before I was using them, I had severe acne scars problem. Before, I always broke out during menstruation. And after that, it left acne scars every where on my skin. Although it is said on the website that this doesn’t have direct properties to reduce acne, after using this (and other products I mentioned and will be mentioning here), I rarely break out these days. And my old acne scars is getting disappear!

So clearly, this step is a MUST, and you can use any other serum that suits your skin needs! I do recommend checking out The Ordinary, though, because they are fairly affordable, cruelty free, and a lot of their products are paraben free, gluten free, and vegan!

Again, I’m not sponsored to say this XD I truly am in love with this product and will keep repurchasing it in the future. Now I’m already on my third bottle, by the way!

Sheet mask

Actually, sheet mask is just a mask that is soaked into an essence or a serum. The natural way of using it (by putting it onto our face and leave it for a couple minutes) is able to prolong the contact of that essence/ serum to our skin, thus enable our skin to fully absorb the ingredients and moisture. So actually, we can ALTERNATELY CHANGE the usage of sheet mask with our essence/ serum. When I use my sheet mask, I don’t use my serum, and vice versa. I only use sheet mask once or twice a week.

I’ve tried so many sheet masks from different brands, but recently, I’ve been using and keep repurchasing these sheet masks by Etude House. It has very thin layer and it sticks well onto my skin so I never feel it slips off my face whenever I’m using it. It also has perfect size for my eye and mouth holes.

Eye cream

Our eye area is the most gentle part of our skin. When we’re getting older, this is the part that gets wrinkly first, so taking care of it as early as possible is a MUST. Eye cream is formulated to hydrate eye area, reduce the appearance of wrinkle, and prevent dark circles or puffiness.

I used Innisfree Orchid Eye Cream for months before completely running out of it just a month ago. For now, I’m using Safi Age Defy Eye Treatment because I wanted to try more affordable eye cream. The Safi one definitely is more lightweight thus it’s suitable for using on AM routine underneath our makeup. The Innisfree one is much more thicker, and I must say it’s better to be used on PM routine only.

When I run out of my Safi one, I think I will buy both of them because I feel the Innisfree one is more hydrating, thus I need it on my PM routine much more than the Safi one. Of course currently I can’t say many related to the long time result, but I’ve been enjoying the two of them so far, and I rarely had a problem with dark circle or puffiness!

Moisturizer

Moisturizer, just like its name, is mainly used to provide extra moisture to our skin. There are many kinds of moisturizer on the market, so my advice is to choose one based on the ingredients or the consistency that suits your skin needs. For me who have normal to oily skin, I chose the one that has lighter consistency, so that it won’t add too much moisture to my skin that is fairly hydrated.

This step is a MUST for PM routine, and I’ve been using Laneige Water Sleeping Mask as my moisturizer since it’s very lightweight and absorbed pretty fast. But according its manual, this sleeping mask is not for everyday use, so I just use it three times a week.

Sun protector

You know what it is, it’s to protect our skin from damage caused by UV rays. This step is clearly a MUST for AM routine. Don’t forget to apply it not only on your face, but to all skin area that is exposed to the sun light during your daytime activity.

Sun protector or sun screen was the first skincare product that I owned, long before I know toner, serum, etc. And believe me, I’ve tried so many different ones, from Indonesian brands, to Korean brands, to western brands, but the best one yet is the one that I’ve been using now, which is Biore UV Aqua Rich Watery Essence SPF 50+ PA++++.

This one is perfect to use underneath makeup. It’s absorbed fast, not greasy, and not sticky at all but still helps add more adhesion to our makeup. 10 out of 10!

Face Oil (Additional)

I add an additional step to my PM skincare routine which is face oil. Having oily skin doesn’t mean we don’t need face oil. By adding face oil, it helps decrease the secretion of our natural oil during the night. After I incorporate this step as my very last step of my PM routine, I feel my face is less oily now, and I suppose that’s why I also don’t break out as much as before.

The face oil that I’ve been using is The Ordinary Organic Cold-Pressed Rose Hip Seed Oil. I only use it three times a week and a little goes along way. I’ve been using it for eight months but still have 2/3 left. This step is an ADDITIONAL step but I highly recommend you try it out!

Summary

So, to summarize all of the things I mentioned above, here are my AM and PM skincare routine for the past eight months that helps me reduce my break out, makes my face less oily, and brighten up my face, thus help my face look younger (according to the people I met on the street):

AM

Water-based cleanser (everyday): The Body Shop Tea Tree or Cetaphil Gentle Facial Wash

Toner (everyday): The Body Shop Tea Tree Toner

Serum (everyday): The Ordinary Niacinamide 10% + Zinc 1%

Eye cream (everyday): Safi Age Defy Eye Treatment

Sun protector (everyday): Biore Aqua Rich Watery Essence SPF 50+ PA++++

This AM routine only has 5 steps!

And if you want to see me applying this routine, check it on my video here!

PM

Oil-based cleanser (everyday): Banila.co Clean It Zero or Garnier Oil-infused Micellar Water

Water-based cleanser (everyday): The Body Shop Tea Tree or Cetaphil Gentle Facial Wash

Exfoliator (twice a week): Rotation between Freeman Charcoal + Black Sugar Gel Mask + Scrub, Skinfood Strawberry Black Sugar Mask Wash Off, Kanebo Suisai Beauty Clear Powder, and Cure Natural Aqua Gel.

Toner (everyday): The Body Shop Tea Tree Toner

Serum (everyday when I don’t use my sheet mask): The Ordinary Niacinamide 10% + Zinc 1%

Sheet mask (once or twice a week): Etude House

Eye cream (everyday): Safi Age Defy Eye Treatment or Innisfree Orchid Eye Cream

Moisturizer (three times a week): Laneige Water Sleeping Mask

Face oil (three times a week): The Ordinary Organic Cold-Pressed Rose Hip Seed Oil

This PM routine has 5 steps that I do everyday, and 4 other steps that are alternately change with each other.

I’ll make sure to film this routine also in the future, so don’t forget to subscribe to my Youtube channel and follow my Instagram account!

Final Advice

Thank you so much for you who made it until this part! Such a long post, isn’t it, but I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I love sharing it with you. My final advice would be:

It’s important to know the “why” before actually implementing a particular skincare routine.
Choose products based on your skin needs. Check the ingredients and don’t buy/ use something just because the hype of it. Just because we’re on our late 20, doesn’t mean we ONLY need to use products that have anti-aging properties in it. If you, for example, have severe acne scars or break out, fix that problem first, because clearer skin looks healthier thus makes you look brighter in general.
Choose products based on your skin condition. For me who has more of a normal-oily skin, I tend to choose products that is not really thick, not greasy, and absorbed fast.
Apply the products from lighter to heavier consistency.
Be consistent! I’ve been implementing this skincare routine for eight months before sharing it with you as now I can see clear result on my skin.
“You are what you eat”. Recently I also have been trying to eat “okay” (I want to say “healthy” but I don’t think I’ve reached that level as for now) . I’ve been drinking 2 L of water everyday, and also avoiding processed food as much as I can. I believe what comes from inside is also important to maintain what is seen from the outside.
Be happy! Surround yourself with positive people and positive activities!

So yeah, that is all for today’s post! I hope you don’t feel overwhelmed by so many products I mentioned here. That’s just because I love trying skincare products, so I try to rotate them as much as I could to be able to finish all of them. But, among all of skincare products I’ve tried, the ones I mentioned here are the ones that have clear positive impacts to my skin.

I hope this post is somehow helpful for you and don’t hesitate to correct me if I’m wrong.

What is your current skincare routine? Will you implement this routine to your routine? Did you find your holy grail products here? Let me know on the comment section below!

‘Till next time!

Reading sources:

10-Step Korean Skincare Routine

The Difference Between Essence and Serum

Be Grateful

Hey, all.

Today’s post is actually very short, but I just want to give you a quick update.

So, just recently I got new job! I can’t thank God enough for this! Well, actually it’s not ‘new’ new, but here’s the thing.

From the beginning of this year, I want to give a shot once more to this blog. I have this blog since 2012 but I never write it regularly with a specific theme, so I always ran out of idea of what to write in this blog. So, on January, along with the start of my low-buy year project, I revamped this blog, and actually set a designated schedule to write. I’ve been enjoying writing in this blog, updating my Instagram account and Youtube channel, and I was able to meet new friends from all over the world, all because of this new blog that I have.

Besides that, teaching Japanese has always been my passion also. So, in the beginning of this year, I also posted some advertisements on some local medias here in the city where I reside about me opening a private Japanese lesson. Since then, several people contacted me, but none of them finally became my students. It was like this until March, so I just focus on this blog, my Instagram account, and my Youtube channel. I tried to not have high hopes for my Japanese class.

However, in the beginning of April, suddenly two people contacted me about my Japanese class, and both of them finally decided to study from me! I am so grateful and couldn’t be anymore happier than these days. Three days a week now I have my teaching schedule for these past two weeks.

Therefore, consequently, I have less time to update all of social media accounts. Because of this new schedule that I have to add to my previous existing schedule, I couldn’t finish some drafts that I have prepared for this blog. I need to re-arrange my schedule ASAP!

So, I hope you don’t mind that there will be no beauty-related content this week. I have prepared two posts for the next weeks, but I need more time to do my research related to those posts. I don’t want to upload a blog post just for the sake of uploading every week. I want the content to be comprehensive and actually helpful for you who read it.

Regardless, I’m so grateful for my new job, and also for you who have followed me and read my blog posts. I hope I can sort everything out quickly and have a normal schedule again!

Thank you for bearing with me, and see you on my next post!

Super Easy Way to Make A Sushi Roll

Hey, everyone!

First of all, no, you are not opening a wrong blog. This is still me, Unpretty Vanity, and this time I want to share with you something a little bit different than what I usually write. But of course, this blog ain’t gonna change to a recipe blog. This blog will still be a beauty & lifestyle blog. And since Japan-related lifestyle is also part of me, I think it’s not out-of-nowhere that I write this kind of post once in a while!

Actually, I haven’t really told you about myself and maybe some of you who followed me just recently was a little bit confuse why Japan is related to me. If you’re Indonesians or understand Indonesian, you can read my previous posts about my life in Japan on the menu ‘Japan’ and ‘Monbusho’ on this blog. But if you’re neither, I’ll make sure to write more detail about my life in Japan later, of course if you are interested to know a little bit more about myself! For now, let’s diggin’ into this post!

If you happened to come across this post hoping for some fancy sushi roll recipes, I’m sorry that this post might disappoint you. Here I’ll mainly give you a SUPER EASY STEP-BY-STEP GUIDE TO MAKE A SUSHI ROLL WITH INGREDIENTS YOU PROBABLY HAVE AT YOUR HOME. If it’s your cup of tea, then just keep on reading!

Sushi roll is probably the easiest kind of sushi we can make by ourselves at home. You can literally fill it with any veggies or meats you like.

A couple days ago, me and my husband wanted to have fun a little bit at home, so we decided to make a simple sushi roll. Our son is only two and a half years old so we also wanted him to learn making food and we thought sushi roll is not dangerous to be made by toddler. Here were all the ingredients and tools that we used.

Ingredients: rice, fried chicken nuggets, fried chikuwa (a kind of fish sausage), furikake (food sprinkle) in any flavor (this time we used nori-flavor), and some sheets of nori (seaweed). You can find these ingredients in your local Asian market. You can of course change the filling with some healthier ingredients such as cucumber or carrot.

Tools: knife (to cut the ingredients), cutting board, and sushi roller. This sushi roller we have we bought in Daiso in Japan. I’m sure you can find it in Daiso or any Japanese dollar store in your area.

First, mix the furikake with the rice evenly. It makes the rice looks pretty and very Japanese. Also cut the ingredients (in our case: nuggets and chikuwa) into long and slim shape so it will fit inside our rice roll without making the diameter of the roll too big.

Next, spread one sheet of nori on the roller, and put rice as much as one third of the nori, and then put the ingredients on the center part of the rice. If my words don’t make sense, just see the picture below XD

Next, roll up the roller until in covers all first components that have been added above, give it some pressure until it feels tight. And then, add one third of rice again without opening the roller, just like the picture below:

Yes, we were using our son’s table to make this dish and don’t worry even though there were knives there, our son was completely safe from them XD

After that, open the roller, but immediately roll it again until it covers the second component of rice that has been added just now. And then, add a little bit of rice to make the rest of the nori part sticky, and lastly, roll it again until the roller completely cover the sushi roll. Give it some pressure again until the roll tight and firm like on the picture below:

Now, just cut the roll into some bite-sized pieces!

So it’s basically done! Super easy, right! It was also super fun to make with kids at home to make bonding time without having to go outside 🙂

That’s all for today’s post. I’m sorry that it’s very short, but I hope you enjoyed and got some inspiration for when you don’t want to cook complicated meals!

What do you think about this kind of post once in a while? If you like it, I’d more than happy to make this kind of post again in the future. Please tell me what easy Japanese recipes you want to read next on this blog!

Still want to read some more from this blog? Here are some of my popular posts:

Halal in-flight meals review (in Indonesian)

MEXT scholarship selection process (in Indonesian)

Life as a blogger (in English)

Tips for shopping on Colourpop website (in English)

Thank you for reading today’s post! Until then!

Things I Would’ve Bought: Feb-Mar 2019

Hey, everyone!

It’s another end of the month again, which means it’s time for me to give you an update about my low-buy year project! It feels just like yesterday I wrote my January “Things I would’ve Bought” and in fact it’s already the end of March. Can you believe how fast time flies!

So, if you haven’t followed me since before, then first of all, welcome to this blog! I’m glad that you came all the way here, and I hope you stick around!

In this particular blog series, I will be documenting my journey on my low-buy project this year. Before, I’ve written my rules here, and my January “I Would’ve Bought” here. On February, I didn’t have many things I wanted to buy, so I decided to merge my monthly “I Would’ve Bought” list to this post that covers my February and March list all at once.

What I Bought

Before sharing my list, I want to share what I have bought during these two months. I still managed to not buy anything new, so all of the items here are refills or necessities. But, I did receive one thing as a gift from my husband. I’ll show you a bit later in this post!

The first thing I bought was three packs of cotton pads. Each of them costs USD 1. I also bought two bottles of Garnier Micellar Oil-Infused Cleansing Water, which costs USD 10 for both. And then I bought Safi Age Defy Eye Contour Treatment because I ran out of my Innisfree Orchid Eye Cream and was looking for a cheaper alternative. It costs USD 6.

And lastly, I bought a small tube of hair conditioner that costs USD 1. This was a new product I didn’t have before but I bought it because recently my hair feels so rough and dry so I thought I might need a hair conditioner. I never took care of my hair properly because I rarely had problem with my hair (thank goodness). So I never had any hair care product except my shampoo. Now I realized I should’ve taken care my hair more.

All of my February & March haul, except the cotton pads are 3 packs and the Garnier ones are 2 bottles.

In total, these 2 months I spent only USD 20! This might looks so cheap for you to spend in 2 months, but here in Indonesia, it’s a decent amount of money!

Besides these stuffs, I also got a gift from my husband. He bought me a brush storage made from acrylic material that I’ve been eyeing for months but couldn’t pick up because of my low-buy project! Now I can store and display my brush collection prettily and without having to worry about them getting dusty!

What I Would Have Bought

Now let’s move on to the more interesting part which is my wish list! I don’t actually like to call this wish list, but rather “things I would have bought if I wasn’t doing a low-buy project”. I prefer call it like that because I tend to do an impulsive buy >< So by doing this low-buy project, it helps me restrain my bad shopping habit and not buy something immediately ><

So far, I must admit that the temptation to break my rules is getting harder and harder. As the season changes from winter to spring (although we don’t have that season-changing here in Indonesia), all makeup brands starts competing to release new spring items every other day. Recently, not only the products are getting innovative, the packaging is also getting cuter, and I’m such a sucker for cute packaging.

Before I continue to my list, I want to give a disclaimer first XD I apologize in advance that you might be bored of me mentioning this particular brand. If you’ve followed me for a while, you might be able to guess it by now. Yes, it is none other than Colourpop XD I’m sorry in advance that there will be a lot of Colourpop products mentioned here. It’s just simply because Colourpop ships to almost every where in the world so I find it cheaper and easier to shop directly from their website.

Okay, without further a do, here are some products that caught my eye and almost made me break my low-buy rules these past months.

Colourpop BFF Liners

Not stopping after colorful mascaras, Colourpop released yet another colorful product, which were colorful liquid liners. The second they announced it, I know right from the bat that I will buy one or two to pair with the purple and red mascaras I wanted to buy since January. But, I was a little bit disappointed when I found out that there was no purple liner! I was so heart broken because purple is my favorite color and I have planned to buy the purple palette and purple mascara together. It would’ve been perfect if there was a purple liner too! I do hope they add the shades in the future. It is Colourpop we’re talking about 😉

For now, I’ll settle with only the red one. So, if I wasn’t doing a low-buy year, I would’ve spent USD 8 for this liquid liner.

Colourpop Overtime Lippie Pencil

Colourpop released a bunch of new lippie pencil shades as well as renew the packaging. I wasn’t a type of lip liner girl. Can you believe that I only have one lip pencil until now? So I thought why not try a new one? I happened to need a red one anyway. Among all red shades on Colourpop website, I find this one called “overtime” is the most basic. So,I would’ve spent USD 5 for this lip liner.

Colourpop Spring 2019 Collection

If you can’t tell already, pastel pink, coral, and peach are my color, hence the logo I made for this blog. I made this logo even before I knew that this year’s pantone color is living coral. How happy I was when Colourpop released their spring collection this year and the main color was living coral!

This collection is the hardest collection to resist for me during this low-buy. To be honest, I almost break my rules. But, I still can hold on until I wrote this post.

All items in this collection is so pretty. There are no shades I dislike. But, since I’m always on a budget, I must select just a few things from this entire collection.

From this collection, I definitely would love to pick up the palette, the “sweet talk” palette. This palette is so special. Not only because the packaging and the coral color scheme that really scream spring to me, but also because it contains one super shock shadow which was reformulated to be able to not drying on the pan, and two pressed glitter. This is such a good deal for me who wouldn’t bought a single jar of glitter since I wouldn’t get a lot of use out of it anyway. But, since it’s on a palette, it’s a good chance for me to try it out!

And then, I’d also love to pick up the blushes in “get leid” and “growth flirt”. They are the ones on the first and third from top on the picture below.

I also love the jelly much eye shadows recently. They are easier to work with than my initial thoughts. And I like how foiled they look on my eyes. Among the jelly shadows, I probably would’ve picked up the ones called “doves n roses” and “wisthlin’ pixie”. They are the first and second from top on picture below.

And lastly, of course I would’ve picked up the lipsticks. I’m glad that they included the creme lux lipsticks in this collection, because they are my all time favorite finish among all Colourpop lip products. If I had unlimited amount of money, I would’ve picked up all of them. But since I didn’t, I probably would’ve picked up three of them, which were “ur thriving”,
“spring roll”, and “tea thyme”. They are the first, third, and last respectively from the top on the picture below.

So if I wasn’t on low-buy, I would’ve spent 18 + 4 * 8 + 3 * 7 = USD 71 for this collection only.

Colourpop Disney Villains

And yet another big collection from Colourpop, which was their second collaboration with Disney, the Disney Villains Collection. I was so hyped up when I first heard about this launch because I LOVE my Disney Princess’ palette and lipsticks. But, after all products were revealed, and I saw swatches everywhere, I feel a little bit underwhelmed.

First, the price. Almost all items in this collection retail more expensive than any similar products Colourpop has released before. Usually their 15 pan palettes retail for USD 20, the palette in this one retails for USD 22. The lux lipsticks that are usually USD 7, retail for USD 8 here. And the super shock highlighters that are usually USD 8 is USD 10 in this collection. Lastly the lip glosses are USD 7, which is usually USD 6.5. Only the jelly much shadows that remain the same price as usual, which are USD 8.

I understand about the lipstick, though. They have special “villains” emboss on it, which means Colourpop has to make a special mold for these lipsticks only. And the highlighter is super shock but stored in a heavy duty cardboard, which means it has to be specially formulated to non drying on the pan, unlike their usual super shock highlighters that are stored in a closed jar.

And then, usually in a collection, I would’ve been interested in the shadow palette. But the palette in this one, I feel the color scheme is sooo similar to “Perception” palette by Shayla. I don’t have that palette, but many have said that that palette was a dupe for Urban Decay “Born to Run” palette which I have. I don’t want to have palettes that are to similar in color scheme, so I am still unsure whether I want to pick up this palette or not.

And then the lipsticks. Almost all the colors look similar to their current existing shades, especially the Disney Princess’ lipsticks. Among all lipsticks, I would probably picked up only “Maleficent”, which is the second from the right on picture below.

Besides that, I probably would’ve pick up the Maleficent highlighter, and the blue jelly much shadow since I don’t have any blue jelly much shadow yet.

Maleficent highlighter “Mistress of all evil”

Ursula jelly much shadow “Just your voice”

If I wasn’t on low-buy, I would’ve spent USD 26 on this collection.

So, that’s all my imaginative haul. In total, I would’ve spent USD 110 in these two months if I wasn’t doing a low-buy year! Glad that I am!

If you’re currently doing a low-buy like me, how is your low-buy so far? What’s your biggest temptation, and how you restrain it? Please share your experience on the comment section below!

Thank you so much for reading today’s post and I’ll see you next week!

Top 5 Korean and Drugstore Matte Liquid Lipsticks

Hey, everyone!

In this post I want to share with you my top 5 Korean and western drugstore matte liquid lipsticks, as well as some comparisons between them. Since this is my own top 5 ranking, I evaluate them based on my preferences in matte lipsticks.

Basically, in term of matte lipstick, I prefer liquid lipsticks than conventional bullet lipsticks. I find liquid lipstick is easier to apply by nature and offer more crisp look without having to put a lot of effort by lining our lips first. I often do my makeup in a hurry so I rarely have time for a lip pencil.

To make it easier for us to compare, I divided the evaluation into some categories: price, consistency (creamy or watery), applicator (whether it makes application easier or not), finish (whether it sits on fine lines or not, whether it stains our lips or not, and whether it feels heavy or not), wearing time (whether it’s long-wearing or not), and transfer-ability (whether it’s transfer-proof or not). And for a quick disclaimer, since all lipsticks here are imported, I’ll be mentioning the price when I bought it, not their original prices in their country of origin, and convert them into USD so it’s easier for you to assess whether it’s affordable or not.

Okay, without further a do, here are my favorite Korean & western drugstore matte liquid lipsticks from top 5 to top 1.

Wet n Wild Megalast Liquid Catsuit

This lipstick is the cheapest among all lipsticks I’ll be mentioning in this post. I bought it for around USD 5.

It has consistency between creamy and watery. So it’s not too creamy, but not too watery either. It has doe foot applicator with a dent in the middle so that it can reach our entire lips precisely. I found it very effective to apply the products not only to the front part of my lips, but also to the top part, without having to go back and forth.

It doesn’t stain my lips, instead it sits on top of them. And because of that, there’s possibility it could stick on my teeth if I shut my lips before it completely dries. However, it dries fairly fast, so I don’t find this property very annoying. I don’t have chapped lips, but I find it sits on my fine lips after a long wear time. So please keep that in mind if you have a very dry lips. I also feel it a little bit heavy, nothing crazy, but I can clearly feel that I have something on my lips.

Speaking about wear time, I guess it has an okay wear time. As long as we don’t eat or drink, it isn’t really worn off for nearly 4 hours. But it’s not transfer-proof. It definitely leaves some marks on my cup or my straw when I drink.

Maybelline Superstay Matte Ink

They claim to be 16-hour long-wearing but I never had a chance to wear it for that long. But I remembered one day, I wore this lipstick and ate a kind of soup. After eating, it was still on my lips as if I didn’t eat anything. And until the end of that day, maybe around 8 to 10 hours after the first application and without re-application, it was only start to worn off of the inner part of my lips, but it definitely left stain on that part so I still looked like I have lipsticks on. That being said, I can safely say that this lipstick is the most transfer-proof and long-wearing among all lipsticks I’ll be mentioning in this post. It also stains my lips therefore it looks there even after quite a long time.

However, I feel like this one is also the heaviest. I definitely feel I have something on my lips. It has creamy consistency and doesn’t sit on my fine lines, which is usually the case for creamy liquid lipstick. But I don’t really like the applicator. It is too big for my small lips so I must be extra careful when applying it. It also needs a decent amount of time to be completely dry. And I highly recommend you to not shut your lips before it’s dry or it would wipe off some products you’ve applied.

Price-wise, it was slightly more expensive than the Wet n Wild one. I bought it for about USD 7.

Etude House Matte Chic Lip Lacquer

If you don’t know, Etude House is a Korean beauty brand. They always have cute packaging and are still considered drugstore/ affordable price among other Korean brands, although they aren’t sold in drugstores. They have their own stores widely spread across Korea and a lot of Asian countries, including Indonesia.

Etude House advertised this as a completely transfer-proof lipstick, and I must agree. Although it has watery consistency, and watery liquid lipstick tends to transfer easily, it’s not the case with this one. It almost as transfer-proof as the Maybelline one. But, it takes a decent amount of time to be completely dried. If you shut your lips before it dries, it might stick on your teeth. So please keep that in mind. However, when it dries, it’s not easily transferred to our drinks or foods.

I bought it for around USD 8.5, so it’s in the middle range among other lipsticks I’ll be mentioning here. It doesn’t stain our lips, instead it sits on top of them, so it has tendency to sit on fine lines too.

It’s quite long-wearing, and since it’s pretty transfer-proof, too, I find it very practical to wear on the day when I don’t want to keep re-applying my lipstick. But this also because in my opinion, the applicator is not the easiest to use. It has bent like Wet n Wild one (so I like it), but the tip of the applicator is too long for my small lips, so I must be extra careful when applying it. It’s not as difficult as the Maybelline one, though.

3CE Soft Lip Lacquer

Now let’s move on to the top 2 of my all time favorite matte liquid lipstick, and two of them are actually from a Korean brand called 3CE. 3CE is actually considered middle range brand in term of price. They are not fairly affordable like Etude House, but not as expensive as, for example, Laneige or Sulwahsoo. Their style is also very different with Etude House. 3CE is more elegant, as they seem to target women around age 25-35 (based on my observation only), unlike Etude House that seems to target younger women (under 25).

I bought this particular lipstick for around USD 12. What I think is a unique property of it is that it has watery consistency, but it dries down as velvety finish. That’s why it’s called ‘soft lip lacquer’, ‘soft’ because of the velvet finish, and ‘lacquer’ because of the watery consistency. And that’s why I love this one so much. Since it has velvet finish, it stains our lips, doesn’t sits on fine lines, and doesn’t feel dry whatsoever. It also blurs our lips texture and makes it looks so smooth.

It’s also long-wearing enough even though it doesn’t feel sticky on my lips like Maybelline one. I can safely say that it’s also very transfer-proof. I remember one day I had a lunch in a seafood place. It’s hard to eat neatly in seafood place, right? So I remember clearly that I didn’t try to maintain my lipstick during that lunch time. However after finish eating, my lipstick hadn’t come off AT ALL!

3CE Velvet Lip Tint

And here’s my favorite of all time, the 3CE velvet lip tint. This one if I’m not mistaken has the same price as the soft lip lacquer, around USD 12. It has also the same velvet finish, but the initial consistency is different than the soft lip lacquer one, this one is creamy instead of watery. It has the similar shape of doe foot applicator with the soft lip lacquer one, but this one is a lot smaller so it fits better to my small lips.

Applicator comparison between soft lip lacquer and velvet lip tint

Although it’s creamy and creamy liquid lipsticks are usually not really long-wearing and transfer-proof, this one is otherwise. It is very long-wearing and has enough transfer-proof property. And the darker color one, since it stains our lips more than the lighter one, it helps to maintain the vivid color. It is unquestionably non-drying and doesn’t sit on our fine lines.

Comparisons

And here are all of them swatched together as well as the summary of their properties I’ve mentioned above in a table so you can see clearly how they are different with each other.

Left to right: etude house, two of 3CE velvet lip tints, 3CE soft lip lacquer, wet n wild, and maybelline

The swatches. You can see pretty clearly that the 3CE ones are non drying compare to others.

From comparisons above you can see that although the Maybelline one has 5 preferred properties, the same as the 3CE velvet lip tint one, since it feels quite heavy on my lips and the applicator is a bit too big for me, I don’t reach it as much as the ones on higher rank. And because of the weight and how it looks on lips, I found it a little too thick and too crisp for a casual everyday wear.

And then, I also tried to wipe them off with an oil-based cleanser I normally use to clean my face, which is the Garnier Micellar Oil-infused Cleansing Water.

And here’s what they looked like from one to four swipes.

You can see from picture above that the most left one (which is the Etude House one) was the hardest to take off. That’s why I said it has the same transfer-proof property as the Maybelline one, but I prefer the Etude House than the Maybelline because the Etude one is not as heavy-feeling as the Maybelline one.

What do you think about my recommendation? Do you have one or some of the lipsticks I mentioned here, too? If yes, which one is your favorite? Let me know your preference on comment section below! Thank you for reading and I’ll see you on my next post!

Anastasia Beverly Hills Riviera Palette Dupe?

Hey, everyone!

Around a week ago, as you might have known already, Anastasia Beverly Hills launched the newest addition to their eye shadow palette family, the Riviera palette.

Riviera palette, via anastasiabeverlyhills.com

This launch is a part of their spring collection and I must admit that the palette looks so pretty. To be honest, I’m very tempted to buy it. But, if you’ve followed this blog for a while, you might have known that I’m doing a low-buy year this year. Therefore, according to my low-buy year rules, it’s hard for me to include this palette to my next shopping schedule, which will be on June.

By the way, here I wrote my intro and also my rules for this low-buy year project. Please kindly check it out if you are interested!

There’s a high possibility that I won’t buy this palette anytime soon. At the same time, I also feel like I have these colors already in my own eye shadow palettes collection. So, I tried to browse through my collection, to gather similar shades so that I can create a (sort of) dupe of this palette. Aha! I just practiced one of my tips on low-buy year which I’ve written here!

Okay, without further ado, let’s dive right into it!

ABH Riviera real swatches via IG: @thebeautyradar

The first shade is called ‘sails’. According to Anastasia’s website, sails is a matte white. Actually I don’t have any matte white in my collection, but the closest shade I got was from Urban Decay Born to Run palette, the shade called ‘breakaway’. This shade is the one on the most left of the 1st row of the palette on picture below.

I know from Urban Decay’s website, breakaway is not a white shade, and it’s not even a matte one. But on swatches, it looks light enough on my skin tone. Stay tune or skip to the end of this blog post to see the swatches!

The next shade is called ‘yacht’. Yacht is a duo chrome mauvy taupe with a violet shift. It is indeed a unique shade because of the shift. I think I have a shade that similar to taupe in my collection, but it doesn’t have that kind of shift. This shade is still from Urban Decay Born to Run palette, the shade called ‘smog’, which is the one on the 2nd row and the 2nd from right.

The next shade is called ‘seychelles’. Seychelles is a metallic aqua marine. I also don’t have any aqua marine shade in my collection. But I think I can use this shade from Colourpop Chasing Rainows palette, the one called ‘on one’, as a replacement instead.

PS: stay tuned until the end to get a 20% off discount code to shop on Colourpop website (NOT A CLICK BAIT)

The next shade is called ‘palermo’. Palermo is a metallic jewel pink. From my collection, the one that’s quite similar is from Colourpop Through My Eyes palette, the shade called ‘nocturne’. From picture below, nocturne is the one on the last row, the 2nd from right. On Colourpop website, nocturne is actually a metallic rosy red. But on swatches, it looks pretty similar to palermo, despite of the description.

The next shade is called ‘seaside’. Seaside is described as duo chrome silver with a subtle blue shift. Although it is a silver shade, because of the blue shift, it looks blue enough. And from my collection, the one that similar to palermo is another shade from Colourpop Chasing Rainbows, the shade called ‘lucid’. On Colourpop’s website, lucid is metallic eggplant with a blue flip. So it indeed also has blue element in it!

The next shade is ‘inheritance’. Inheritance is a metallic true gold. And this one is undoubtedly very similar (if not the same!) to, again, from Colourpop Chasing Rainbows, the shade called ‘so meta’. Even on Colourpop’s website, so meta is described as metallic marigold.

The next shade is ‘mediterranean’. Mediterranean is a metallic sky blue. I don’t have anything similar to metallic sky blue from my collection. But I’m pretty sure I can use shade ‘radio’ from Urban Decay Born to Run as an alternative. Radio is a deep emerald satin, though. So it’s far muted than mediterranean.

Move on to the 2nd row of ABH Riviera, the first one on the left is shade called ‘estate’. Estate is a matte soft pastel peachy pink. On my collection, I have the one that’s fairly similar, which is from Colourpop Chasing Rainbows, the shade called ‘woke’. And on Colourpop’s website, it is describe as matte mid-tone salmon pink. So they are indeed in the same color family.

The next shade is ‘cabana’. Cabana is matte muted birch mustard. I also found the one that’s very similar to this one, again from Colourpop Through My Eyes, the shade called ‘wild soul’. Wild soul is a matte dusty mustard yellow on Colourpop’s website. Again, they are in the same color family!

The next shade is ‘coastline’. ‘Coastline’ is a matte pastel soft peach. The one that I think the most similar from my collection is from Colourpop Through My Eyes, the shade called ‘euphoric’. Although on Colourpop’s website euphoric is described as matte bright true orange, on swatches, it looks pastel enough so I decided to use it as a dupe for coastline.

The next shade is ‘bahamas’. Bahamas is matte bright bold candy hot pink pressed pigment (such a mouthfull name!). In my collection, I have several pinks, but I think the one that’s bright, bold, and hot enough is from Colourpop Chasing Rainbows, the shade called ‘manifest it’. Manifest it is describe as matte fuchsia with pink flecks. So it is indeed can be considered as bright bold candy hot pink!

Not many shades left, the next one is ‘monte carlo’. Monte carlo is matte cool mid-tone pink. I chose the shade ‘wish list’ from Colourpop Chasing Rainbows as an alternative for this one. Although wish list is described as a matte vibrant coral, on swatches, it looks pink enough!

The next shade is ‘cannes’. Cannes is a matte bright violet purple pressed pigment. This one I got also a VERY similar one, a shade called ‘sista’ from Colourpop Good Sport palette. Sista is described as matte vibrant violet. From picture below, you can find it on the far right from the 1st row.

And, finally, the very last shade called ‘palm’. Palm is a matte dark chocolate brown pressed pigment. And I also got the one that looks identical, from Colourpop Give It to Me Straight palette, the shade called ‘actually’. Actually is a matte deepened chocolate brown. From picture below, you can find it on the far right of the last row.

Colourpop Give It to Me Straight Palette

So, here is the swatches of all shades I mentioned above!

PS: I borrowed my husband’s arm for the swatches ^.^

What do you think, guys? Are they similar enough? XD

Personally, I’m quite satisfied with my own findings and researches. Now I am not tempted anymore to buy this palette. And I can’t wait to create some looks using the dupe ones!

By the way, I also made a video when I live swatch everything I mentioned above. Please do watch it here if you are more of an auditory type of person!

And here are all palettes I used to make the dupe!

20% Discount Code

This is what I promised you guys. I have a referral link so that you can get 20% off your FIRST purchase only. This is not an affiliate code but I will get also 20% off my next purchase if you use this link to make your FIRST EVER purchase with CP. So it’s a win win for us!

https://www.talkable.com/x/boSyX0

This code (as far as I’m aware) is applied for all Colourpop’s products including new arrivals. So it’s a very good deal! Please feel free to use it or not. I really appreciate if you decided to use my referral link to make your purchase! ^^

Ok guys! I hope you enjoyed today’s post as much as I did writing it! Please tell me whether you will buy the Riviera palette or not, or whether you also will try to dupe it with your own collection!

I’ll see you on my next post!

Zoella x Colourpop Collection: Buy or Bye

Hey, everyone!

In today’s post, as you can see from the title, I want to discuss with you about a new launch from Colourpop (CP), which is a collaboration with a British Youtuber, Zoella, called Brunch Date Collection.

I don’t usually write this kind of theme on my blog, but this one is, I don’t know, worth to discuss? There is some sort of controversy surrounding this collection. However, if you come here expecting some kind of bashing or shady comments toward the collaborator, I’m sorry in advance that you ain’t gonna get it here in my blog. This blog is a place where only positivity is allowed. With that being said, I’ll try my best to review this collection as objective as I could.

Of course since I don’t live in the US, and CP doesn’t even know that I’m existed in this world, I haven’t got my hands on this collection. So I’ll be reviewing this collection solely based on pictures, swatches, and videos I’ve seen online floating in the internet ever since CP teased about it on their Instagram account.

Speaking about the teaser, I remembered being so shook when CP first posted Zoella’s photo on their IG account. It was like in the middle of the night here in Indonesia and I was about to sleep when suddenly it popped on my IG notification (and yes, I turned on notification for CP IG new post and story). I know right away that the comment section of that post would be full of people questioning CP’s decision to collab with her. It was just so sudden.

Just for a little background, I know who Zoella is, of course. I subscribed to her channel around 5 years ago, I think. I even bought some of her beauty products back when I was still living in Japan. Yes, I got them sent to my door all the way from the UK to Japan. And I remembered liking them! So, I don’t have any bad feelings or disappointment toward Zoella in particular. I just stopped watching her for almost around 2 years now. Not because I hate her, I just found more informative and entertaining contents from other Youtubers.

As far as I remember from the time I subscribed her and still watched her videos, I rarely heard she mentioned CP’s products. It’s true that she mentioned CP a couple times (CP even made a kind of their timeline with Zoella (maybe) to emphasize that Zoella did mention CP products sometimes on her channel). But she was not like some other Youtubers such as Kathleen Lights, Thatgirlshaexo, Mesijesibeauty, Andrea Matillano, Amanda from makeupjustforfun, or even Judy C that resides in New Zealand, that keep reviewing CP’s products on their channels. That’s why I found it’s so sudden and unexpected that CP chose to collab with her, not because of her controversy.

Of course I understand that CP wanted to expand their business scoop to the UK, and maybe they saw Zoella is still one of the most powerful influencer from there. Since it’s been a long time since I watched her, I’m unsure whether this is true or not. However, despite her controversy, I must admit that Zoella has a thing for product’s design. The first time I saw the collection’s packaging and color selection, I know right from the bat that it is very Zoella. I’ll talk about this more a bit later on this post.

Ok, I think it’s enough for the background. Now let’s talk about the collection itself!

This collection has been available on Colourpop website since February 27th. It consists of an eyeshadow palette, 3 ultra matte lips, 3 lippie pencils, 2 supernova shadows, 2 pencil gel liners, 1 pressed powder blush, and 1 pressed powder highlighter. Let’s discuss the items one by one!

Brunch Date Eye Shadow Palette

It’s the first time CP released a 12-pan eye shadow palette with this kind of layout. Usually they went with 3×4 layout. It retails for USD 18, the same as their usual 12-pan palettes with mirror.

Packaging-wise, it’s CUTE and very Zoella. She always has this kind of 70s or retro vibe, and TBH I like it. But, I rarely bought something just because of the packaging. The actual product itself must be worth buying.

The first time I saw the palette, I wasn’t very enthusiastic. To me it just looks neutral with a pop of literally one blue shade. Some shades even look similar to each other. And that pop of blue is just out of nowhere. However, after I watched swatches from Thatgirlshaexo, Ourbeautycult, Dupethat, and CP official Youtube account, I can see that those shades are not exactly similar. Some shades even look prettier and more unique than my initial thought, such as ‘skinny latte’, ‘cinnamon sugar’, ‘sundae funday’, and ‘sunny side up’. And about that one blue shade, based on the palette packaging that resembles blueberry waffles, I think they want it as a representative of the blueberry.

Formula-wise, based on reviews from those links I mentioned above, I think they are as good as any other CP eye shadow palettes. I have tried 6 different palettes from CP and none of them are disappointing. So I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t be disappointed either if I bought this palette.

Do I have similar shades already in my collection? I think so. Are four unique shades out of 12 with a pop of blue enough for me to buy a palette? Absolutely not. If I took out the cute packaging and replace it with plain white for example, would it still be look extraordinary? I doubt that. But…

If you are new in makeup and you don’t have any eye shadow palette and you want to try playing with eye shadow for the first time, I think this palette is good for you to start. Do the shades look pretty? Yes. Is it cheap? It’s indeed fairly affordable. Is the formula good? CP has one of the best eye shadow formula among other affordable brands.

If you decided to buy this palette, you would be able to create some neutral looks as well as a couple colorful ones. If you are a beginner, this palette is definitely for you!

Ultra Matte Lips and Lippie Pencils

They released these items in 3 bundles consists of matching ultra mate lip (UML) and lippie pencil (LP). Each bundle retails for USD 11.5, but if you buy the UML and LP separately, the UML retails for USD 6.5 and the LP retails for USD 5, so you actually don’t save any penny by buying them in a bundle, but you do get a cute milk-box packaging.

The first bundle called “what happens at brunch” consists of a previously-existing LP called “oh snap” and a new UML called “@me”. This bundle has a dusty pink mauve color vibe.

The second one called “give us the goss” consists of also a previously-existing LP called “bossy” and a new UML called “self love club”. This bundle has a true red color vibe.

The last one called “my day ones” consists of a new LP called “little one” and also a new UML with the same name. This bundle has a nude color vibe.

Again, these three bundles are very typical in any CP collaborations. Almost all of collaboration that has lip products offers this kind of color selection: nude, mauve, and red; as this kind of variety seems to be appealing to many people.

I can safely say that you might already have these colors in your collection, even though it’s not from CP. And so do I. Therefore, I don’t have any intention to pick any of the lip bundles.

However, let’s say I didn’t have similar colors like these in my collection, I might pick up the mauve one, because that’s the color I can get a lot of use everyday. The nude one is a bit tricky for me that has medium skin tone. It’s hard for me to find nude color that doesn’t wash me out. And the red one, I might pick it up because red is a color that sometimes I need in a special occasion.

Supernova Shadows

They released two new supernova shadows, from left to right are “OG” and “bellini”. They also have them in a bundle retails for USD 14, and each of them retails for USD 7.

On the bottle both of them look so similar, but based on real swatches (again from links I mentioned above), “OG” is more of a golden champagne with silver sprinkle and “bellini” is more of a metallic rose gold. The “OG” one clearly has bigger sprinkle of glitter while the “bellini” is more of a metallic sheen.

I think both of them look pretty. I personally never tried CP supernova shadow and don’t have any plan to try them soon since I still have so many shadow palettes and super shock shadows I want to use up. Based on the color itself, I’m pretty sure CP already has similar color before, maybe from Kathleen Light’s Zodiac collection.

Pencil Gel Liners

from left to right: “xoxo” and “sincerely yours”

They released two new creme gel liners, “xoxo” and “sincerely yours”, retails for USD 5 each. On CP website, “xoxo” is described as pearlized black and “sincerely yours” is describe as pearlized chocolate brown. So they suppose to have some pearly flecks on the formula. If you swatch them on your hands, they might appear quite clearly, but honestly once they’re on your eyes, I don’t think they’re visible enough.

I personally think these products are not necessary. Even if CP creme gel liners were great, they already have black and brown existing in their collection. You don’t necessarily need these particular two if you want a black or brown gel liners.

I personally don’t have any plan to pick up any of CP creme gel liners, this collab or not. I read some reviews about their creme gel liners that said that they are easy to fall off the pencil. Moreover, here in Indonesia we have similar products with great quality and much cheaper price. So, I’m not particularly interested in this product.

Pressed Powder Blush and Highlighter

from left to right: “swipe right” and “soul mate”

And finally, last products in this collection, the pressed powder highlighter called “swipe right” and blush called “soul mate”. Each of them retails for USD 8.

Based on the swatches above, I think the color is pretty and universally flattering. For the blush I think I have similar color already in my collection. But for the highlighter, I’m currently don’t have highlighter with pink sheen like this product.

However, for me personally, CP blush and highlighter’s price is a little bit expensive compare to the amount of product contained in one container. There are other products from other drugstore brands which are cheaper and have the same great quality and amount of product.

For my personal circumstances, I have several consideration before buying a product: what I am looking for, my budget, and what I already have in my collection. If I really had to buy, I’d probably pick up the highlighter and the lippie pencils in “boss” and “oh snap” because I don’t have those colors in my collection. If I really had to give recommendation, I’ll recommend the palette for sure because CP palette is the best among other affordable brands, the lip bundles because CP lip products are also great, and the pressed powder blush and highlighter.

With that being said, I do think it’s a pretty collection overall. I’m sure the quality of the products are as great as any other CP products. However, I don’t think I need any of these stuffs at the moment. Especially because I’m doing a low-buy year now, I must be very selective on where to invest my money on. Therefore, I don’t have any plan to buy anything from this collection.

Okay, that’s all I want to say about this collection. I hope you found this somewhat helpful in your decision making about buying these products or not.

Will you pick up anything from this collection? Or maybe have you? If yes, please share some thoughts about the actual products themselves based on your experience!

See you on my next post!

Life as A Blogger

Hello, everyone!

First of all, thank you so much for supporting me by reading, commenting, liking, and following this blog. I can’t believe it’s been two months since I revamped this blog and mainly focus on writing about beauty, traveling, and life style. And by this short time span, I learned a lot of new things which I believe will be beneficial for my self-improvement. And I hope this blog is someway beneficial for you who read it too.

In today’s post I won’t be talking about beauty-related stuffs. I just want to write casually and share with you things I unconsciously learned by focusing my life as a blogger for a solid 2 months. I said ‘unconsciously’ because at first I decided to do this to push myself to become someone who is more productive in a way besides doing my duty as a housewife and a mom. But after doing it with all my heart, I realized that there are so many things I suddenly am able to do, that I couldn’t do before I’m doing this ‘job’.

Doing a ‘job’ that doesn’t have a boss or a designated time and place is really challenging. I knew it from the start, therefore I made myself a very tight schedule that I must follow to be able to do it smoothly. First, I made a list about things I wanted to achieve each week or each month. And then, I arranged my schedule daily for a month according to that to-do-list. This way, I knew what I will have to finish by the end of each day.

However, doing a self-employed job needs flexibility. For example, sometimes I swapped blog posts I wanted to publish on that week. That’s why I wrote my schedule in a way it could be moved easily. I wrote them on sticky notes so I didn’t have to scratch my planner when I need to reschedule something. In a day where I have a lot of things to do, I also made a detail to-do-list for that day. Here are my monthly schedule for January and February look like.

Following those schedules I made by myself is really hard. I need to push myself real hard and restrain my ego to rest or to have fun. Sometimes I need to film until 1 AM. On the other day, I need to edit my YouTube video early in the morning before my son woke up (and by early here I meant before 5 AM). I also had to bring my laptop every time I was out of town because I need to write or to edit. This makes traveling harder than before because no matter where I go, I will always have to work.

Writing a blog post means I need to provide pictures to support the content I want to deliver in that post. In my case, not only this blog, but I also update my Instagram and YouTube account regularly. Therefore, learning to take picture and film video properly becomes necessary. I haven’t invested in a good DSLR camera, though, because my biggest focus for now are doing this continuously and giving meaningful content. But, during this 2 months, I was able to learn object arrangement, photo editing, and also video editing!

I took photos for my Instagram using my phone camera. I find it easier that way because I can directly edit the photos with an application installed on my phone. The application is called ‘Snapseed’. This application not only has variety of different filter, but can also edit photo manually, selectively, and also add some watermarks. Here is example of before-after of my Instagram post.

I film my videos and take photos for my YouTube channel with my old trustworthy Canon G15 camera (I bought it back in 2013!). Even though it’s only a pocket camera, it can be set manually too. But obviously, it can’t create a soft focus blurred look for the background. But, I’m okay so far since the most important for me now is delivering good contents to you regularly. I can always slowly upgrade my YouTube background later.

After doing all of this for 2 months, I realize now that I never feel as lively before. I always look forward my next schedule and the time where I get to learn to make my contents more attractive. I am 100% aware that I’m no way near perfect. But I enjoy the process I’m going through now. It’s been a long time since I feel like I achieve something, even though it’s a just a negligible achievement compare to other people.

If you did read until this point, I once again want to say thank you. What do you want to see more from this blog? How do you think I can improve the content of this blog? Please leave your advice so that I can become a better person. I’m more than happy to hear your constructive criticism.

See you on my next post!

Low-Buy and No-Buy Year Tips

Hey, everyone! Is it getting warm in the place where you live? Here in Indonesia is rainy season since 2 months ago. Almost everyday is raining, but the weather is still humid and hot. Such a horrible combination. It makes me don’t want to go out because as soon as I step outside my door, the bright hot sunlight welcomes me, and at the time I want to go home, I am always covered with heavy rain. We just have to wait until this season passes.

When I upload this post, it’s already the third week of February, and it means almost 7 weeks I am doing a low-buy year project. I must say that gladly everything is not as hard as it seemed in the beginning. Surely there were times I wished I wasn’t doing a low-buy year, for example when I was traveling to other city last week for the Lunar New Year Holiday and I saw a very cute piece of dress, and also when there was a big sale going on in local makeup brand store here, and so on. But this is all for good sake so I will be going through this project whole-heartedly!

In this post, as you can see from the title, I want to share with you my tips on how to survive a low-buy or no-buy year project. Of course I am in no way near perfect on doing this. But these are the mantra I’ve been applying to myself to reduce the pain of restraining my shopping desire.

The 7-ing Mantra

Unfollow-ing

This may sounds harsh, but we can’t deny that the hardest temptation for shopping most of the times comes from influencers or accounts that we follow on social media, rather than the need of using those products itself. Therefore, I highly recommend you to unfollow those accounts or unsubscribe all those newsletter that tell you about deals and promos from your favorite brands.

I understand that you might still want to know what’s going on in beauty community. Therefore, I propose you this, which is called ‘selective unfollowing’. Just unfollow certain accounts that make you feel left behind if you don’t buy certain products at the time they were released, or make you feel ungrateful about everything you already have.

You can still follow accounts or influencers that give reviews, info, or swatches about products. That way you can really consider which products you will get a lot of use and slowly but sure eliminate your wish list according to those reviews.

Skipping

When I do my grocery shopping, I always pass through beauty section at my local drugstore. Before this low-buy year project, sometimes I take a peek at that section to know whether there were new products worth a try. And after that, I would look for some reviews about them on Youtube or blogs, and because of that, I ended up buying those products just because they look pretty or just because I want to try what other people has tried.

Recently, I completely skip that part. I never look into my local drugstore again, nor watching any review about new local beauty products here in Indonesia. I’m still watching reviews about overseas beauty products, though, because the temptation is not that high from those products since it’s not that easy to get those in a short time after they were released. Unlike Indonesian beauty products that are available in front of my eyes easily.

Waiting

This mantra is basically what I apply to my low-buy year rules. As I mentioned on my post about my low-buy rules here (in case you haven’t read it), I can only buy things on June and December this year. This way I can really consider new released products from January to June whether I need those products or not.

So, if you have some products on your wish list, do NOT buy them immediately, but just wait until a certain amount of time that you defined by yourself. It could be a month, two months, or like myself, five months. But if I may say, at least one month is ideal. And while waiting, you can watch or read some reviews on beauty channels or blogs, compare them to your belongings, and compare them to some other new released products. Therefore, the probability of regretting what you would’ve bought can be minimized.

Revisiting

These days where beauty products were launched every other day, revisiting our old (or maybe not so old) stuffs could be an exciting experience, too. Recently we know this term as “shop my stash”.

By doing this, we could be reminded of how excited we were after buying them at the store or when receiving them in our mails for the first time. And how excited we were when we first open their packaging, swatch them, and finally tried on our face for the first time!

Try to watch some reviews about those products again so that you are reminded of how good they were. Watch some tutorials so that you could recreate some new looks you haven’t tried by yourself before. Or maybe you can also make some tutorials by yourself if you are a beauty content creator!

Finishing

Along with revisiting your old stuffs, try to incorporate them as much as you can in your makeup routine. Not only that, make defined target on how many products you want to finish, by the end of the year for example. You might know this challenge as “pan that palette” or “project pan”.

In this challenge, you will put all those products you want to hit pan on or finish in one storage and put it in your top drawer or in a place in your vanity where you can easily access it. In my case, I use those products continuously until I finish them and I don’t even use any other products except those products included in my project pan. After finishing some of them, I felt really accomplish and it made me feel I didn’t waste my money because I actually finished what I’ve bought.

Duping

Like I mentioned above that you should wait if you have something in your wish list, in that waiting period, you could also find some stuffs in your collection that might have similar characteristic or quality with the thing in your wish list. For example in an eye shadow palette, you might already have all the shades here and there in your collection. So if you find some dupes in your collection, it’s possible that after some times, you are no longer wanted to buy that palette!

Documenting

And last but not least, this is also basically what I’m currently doing, documenting my low-buy year journey.

You could make videos or blog posts where you write everything about your old stash, how you like it then and now. You might notice a huge different on how you use it the first time you have it and now. This way you can also observe your skill improvement.

Make notes on something you want to buy but in the end you don’t buy it so that you can track how much you save by doing this low-buy or no-buy year. Observe which products you are able to finish and how much money you spent that actually worth it.

By doing this, you could also inspire others to do the same. Your documentation might be helpful for others, too!

So yeah, I think that’s all I can share according to my experience in doing this for only seven weeks. I hope you find it helpful and practical!

If you are doing a low-buy or no-buy year, how do you restrain your shopping desire? Which of the things I mentioned here that you’ve already done or are currently doing? Do you have additional tips you could share with us? If so, please leave them in comment section below!

Until next time!

Colourpop 2018 Year End Sale: Tips, Haul, & Review

Hey, everyone! In today’s post I want to share with you what I got during Colourpop 2018 Year End Sale. First of all, please keep in mind that the main point of this post is not to brag what I bought. I enjoy seeing other people’s hauls as it gives me inspiration on what to buy next. So if you are like me, I hope this post would be helpful for you. Also, I want to share with you some tips for shopping Colourpop products to help you save some money, and reviews about the products I have tried until today.

So, without further ado, let’s get into it!

PS: stay tuned until the end to get a 20% off discount code to shop on Colourpop website (NOT A CLICK BAIT)

Shopping Tips for Saving Money

I’ve been into Colourpop maybe for just around 8 months, however because of some reasons, I just recently bought products directly from their website. Before, I bought them from a personal shopper here in Indonesia.

According to my experience, Colourpop has many different sales/ promos going on their website, for example BOGO (buy one get one free) sales, spend minimum xx USD get free stuffs, 24 hours free shipping without minimum purchase, etc. However, THEIR BIGGEST SALE is none other than their UP-TO-40% OFF SITE WIDE SALES, and this happens sometimes without notice. But on the other times, it happens around twice every year, which is around summer (end of August), and, of course, the end of the year (last week of Decemer). So if you have some Colourpop products wish lists, I highly suggest you to wait until this kind of promotion.

For any Colourpop products, I can safely say that THERE IS NO NEED TO BE IN A HURRY. Their products are always available most of the time, especially their high demand products. For example their collaboration with Disney that was released on August 2018. At that time, they said it was a limited edition. However since it is highly popular, they are still available even until now. You can always wait for reviews, probably discount code from beauty influencers, and their promo, before buying their stuffs.

For their staple products and permanent lines, JUST BUY THEM WHEN THERE IS SITE WIDE SALES. So, even though their high demand products (such as the Disney collaboration) sometimes are excluded from their promotions, their staple products and permanent lines are never. And most importantly, like I said before their biggest sale is their up-to-40% off site wide sale, usually this staple products and permanent lines are products that get discounted until 40% off! So, what’s the hurry?

Haul and Review

I divided the products I bought into several categories so you can easily read more details about products you are interested in. I have it cover for you from their staple products, lip products, until (the most exciting ones for me) eye shadow palettes. And, here they are..

Staple Products

Brow Boss Gel

I heard many good reviews about Colourpop brow boss gel, especially the ‘clear’ one. However, I bought the ‘dark brown’ one just because that’s usually what I go for when it comes to brow gel. I haven’t tried this until today when I wrote this post because I still have my brow gel I haven’t finished. However, what I like about this brow gel is that it has small bristles, so I hope it’ll reach my sparse eyebrow hairs easily.

Stick Foundation

I bought this foundation in a ‘Better Together Duo’ bundle, which includes a stick foundation and a concealer. I chose shade ’81N’ for the foundation. I also haven’t tried it yet but based on the tube, looks like it’ll match my skin tone well. I do have a neutral-to-warm undertone so I chose this one based on the color description on Colourpop website. For your reference, I am ‘NW22’ on MAC (although I’ve never tried any MAC foundation, since this color scheme is general for describing skin tone, I hope it’s easier for you to get the image of where my skin tone is in the color spectrum).

I actually don’t need anymore foundation at this point because I still have some shared-in-jar foundations I have to finish (read my article about shared items here). But I wanted to try Colourpop foundation, and I heard that their stick foundation works better than their liquid foundation. Moreover, from the packaging itself, the former is easier to travel with than the latter. I can’t wait to try it when I finish all of my shared-in-jar foundations!

Concealer

Colourpop’s concealer is a talk-in-the-town when it comes to good affordable concealer. I’ve written my complete review about it here. Please kindly refer to that article!

Because I bought it in a bundle, they’ve matched the shade with the foundation, and I got shade ‘medium 26’. Although before I bought ‘medium 28’, since it’s slightly darker for me, I think ‘medium 26’ will be good enough. I’ll surely use it when I finish my current Colourpop concealer.

Brush Set

I bought the ‘eye essential’ set and have been using them since I received them last month. I must say I’m impressed!

This set includes a ‘tapered blending brush’, an ‘angled eye brush’, a ‘medium dome brush’, and a ‘small pencil brush’. I use the blending brush for transition shade. It’s very fluffy so it’s suitable for blending in large area of our eyelids, and it diffuses the color well. I use the dome brush to set my eye primer since it’s large and pick up a lot of products at one application. I use the angled eye brush mainly for tight-lining my upper lash line and to make wing liner using powder shadow. It gives a nice crisp line. and finally, I use the pencil brush for tight-lining my bottom lash line or to smoke out my wing liner on upper lash line.

I highly recommend this set if you want to try Colourpop brushes, but just buy them when they are having a sales!

Single Shadows

Super Shock Shadows (SSS)

Colourpop was famous for their SSS long before they have these many products like now. This time I bought four SSS’s, which were ‘ripple’ and ‘three’s a cloud’ from their permanent line, and ‘roy g. biv’ and ‘rem’ from their 2018 holiday line. I haven’t tried any of them until now since I don’t want to ruin their perfect metallic surfaces! >.<

Jelly Much Shadow (JMS)

I bought only one JMS which was ‘half moon’ and I have tried wearing it once on my eye look! It is described as duochrome plum with a frosty green and blue flip. I like how foiled it looks on my eyes, and how it makes my eyes look more dimensional. It’s easy to apply using finger (I haven’t tried applying it with brush, though). It doesn’t crease throughout the day. When it’s on, it’s on. It’s also fairly blend-able. However, since I only have one, I don’t know whether their quality is consistent throughout all the shades.

Super Shock Blush (SSB)

I bought two SSB’s which were ‘between the sheets’ and ‘ooh she’s blushing’. I’ve only tried ‘between the sheets’ until now, and have been using it everyday I do my makeup. It really gives a nice natural pink sheen to my cheeks. Since it’s a cream-to-powder product, the best time to apply it is after foundation and before setting powder, so it won’t ruin your powder. It can be applied using finger or brush.

Lip Products

I bought quite a few lip products, and they were ultra satin lip in ‘november, creme lux lipstick in ‘brick’, ‘still crazy’, and ‘ariel’, and lippie stix in ‘lumiere’.

Creme lux lipstick (CLL) is definitely my favorite lip formula from all of Colourpop’s lip products. ‘Ariel’ is a peachy nude type of MLBB color which suits my medium skin tone well. TBH, this was the first nude lip color in my life that doesn’t wash me out. I’m even thinking of buying a back up of this one! ‘Still crazy’ is light rosy color that suits for the day when I want to look feminine. And for ‘brick’, I haven’t used it yet until now.

‘November’ comes as a light peach shade on my skin tone. I found it a little patchy compared to other ultra satin lips (USL) that I have, which are ‘lost’ and ‘frick n frack’. I have to apply it several times to get even and opaque color. I still like it, though.

On Colourpop website, ‘Lumiere’ is described as dusty mauve pink, but in real life, I think it also has a slight hint of plum color. It’s a bit dark than what I think of mauve pink, but still wearable for everyday look.

Eye Shadow Palette

And finally, my favorite products from Colourpop, eye shadow palettes! I got 5 of them since this was a collective haul. I haven’t bought any new Colourpop palettes since August so I’ve been saving my money for this time.

Brown Sugar

‘Brown sugar’ is a 9-pan neutral brown palette with attached mirror in it. It is a part of Colourpop collaboration with Karrueche. For you who have already so many eye shadow palettes in your collection, this palette might look boring to you. But for me who is just started building my eye shadow palette collection, this one is a staple. It is small and has mirror so I can bring it easily when I’m traveling. And I travel quite a lot. My parents live just one hour away from me and I sometimes sleepover at their house for a night or two. I can just throw this palette into my makeup bag. Moreover since it’s a neutral palette, I can’t go wrong with it.

I’ve used it a couple times so far and didn’t have any problem with any shades in it. Obviously, all colors go together very well. If I’m in a hurry, I can create a simple eye-look without thinking much. I can wear it day and night.

Good Sport

If you’ve followed me in this blog for quite a while, you might have known that my favorite color is purple, and my favorite season is fall. When Colourpop launched their 2018 Fall Edit, this palette immediately stole my attention as all of the colors really speak to me. The Yellow, green, and terracotta represent fall so well, and with additional purples in it, I couldn’t resist it. But, I still waited for reviews on Youtube and blogs from some beauty bloggers I follow.

After some times watching and reading many reviews, I could see that maybe around 90% of the time people likes this palette, if not love. And so many big influencers gave good reviews about this palette (e.g: Mesijesibeauty, Thatgirlshaexo, Allieglines, Jkissa, Nicolerenee on Youtube; Temptalia on her blog). Even some stated that ‘this is one of the prettiest color scheme Colourpop has among their eye shadow palettes’ (Make.up.just.for.fun on Youtube). However, one of my trustworthy blogger that often reviews Colourpop didn’t give this palette quite a good review, and I always trust her opinion and buy Colourpop’s products based on her review (Judyc on Youtube). That’s why in the beginning I was hesitant to buy this palette.

However, after months of consideration, I wanted to give this a go and decided to pick this one up during Colourpop’s site-wide sale. Fortunately, I didn’t regret my decision! All colors blend beautifully together and I can say that ‘This is so me. This is me in a palette.’ Indeed, what doesn’t work for others, might work for us, and vice versa.

It’s a Princess Thing

I’m actually not a big fan of Disney, but I did watched many Disney princesses’ movies when I was a kid. When I heard Colourpop’s collaboration with Disney, I wasn’t that hyped. But when I saw all the products they came up with, I must say they did an excellent job in designing them. The packaging, the item and color selection, all looks interesting even for non-Disney fans.

Here I will mainly talk about their eye shadow palettes. The color selection consists of neutral brown colors, as well as some pop of colors that are not too intimidating. You can play safe with this palette, and even if you are playing with colors, it won’t look too bold or neon. You might say that it looks standard, but for those who are big fans of Disney and just want to buy this for the sake of collecting them, they still can wear it day to day, so it won’t be such a waste of money. And for those who are not big fans, they can still buy this just for the colors. It’s a win-win solution! No wonder this palette has such high review even though it’s pretty new to Colourpop’s collection.

And for me personally, this immediately climbed up to Top-2 of my favorite palettes after ‘Give it To Me Straight’ and before Urban Decay ‘Born to Run’, with all the reasons I’ve mentioned above. The reason why it’s still behind GITMS is just because GITMS is compact but still consists of all colors I need (brown, peach, pink, and berry). And the reason why it’s on the top of UD-BTR is even though UD-BTR consists of all varies of colors (from neutral to pink, purple, green, blue, from light to dark, from mattes, satins, to shimmers), UD-BTR still feels a little big for me and it doesn’t fit to my makeup bag, so if I’m traveling and want to bring UD-BTR palette, I mjust store it separately from my other makeups. And it doesn’t happen to ‘It’s A Princess Thing’.

Chasing Rainbows

I got this palette for free when Colourpop has ‘get Chasing Rainbows for free with minimun 50 USD of purchase’ promotion. I never plan to pick this palette if it’s not for free. Not because I don’t link the color story, but just because I think I have enough palettes in my collection. This palette is a nice edition to my collection. It has pop of colors I don’t have in my collection. The formula is as good as any Colourpop palettes. I really don’t have anything bad to say about this palette.

Through My Eyes

This palette is part of Colourpop collaboration with Youtuber ‘iluvsarahii’ or Karen. I picked up this palette not long after it’s launched. There’s just something about this palette that really speaks to me since the first time they announced this collab. I like the green colors (‘moody and ’emerald dream’), the muted pink color (‘nostalgia’), the watermelon color ‘lomo’, and the bright coral (‘euphoric’). All shimmers also look so foiled on our eyelid. I love that I could create a pretty and feminine yet elegant looks with this palette.

20% Discount Code

https://www.talkable.com/x/boSyX0

Ok, guys, that’s all I picked up during Colourpop biggest sale of the year. I hope you enjoyed today’s post and found it helpful! Which one is your cult favorite products from Colourpop? Will you shop from their website when they have a site-wide sale? What are your tips to shop from Colourpop website?

See you next time!