Saturday, July 31, 2010

Giveaway Alert: Elizabeth Arden 8 Hour Cream Lip Protectant

One of my favourite bloggers (-coughs-)Tiphanie's doing a giveaway on her blog for Elizabeth Arden Limited Edition Lip Balm/ 8 Hour Cream Lip Protectant.

Picture taken from her blog

It is not stated but I think it's only open for those residing in Singapore.

Do drop by her blog to participate in the giveaway. :)

Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Skincare Tips: Removing Blackheads/Whiteheads

Here's my skincare tip on how I remove my blackheads/whiteheads. This is also done to deep cleanse the skin.

I use these 2 products: St Ives Mineral Clay Firming Mask and Daiso's Charcoal Mask.


From left: Daiso's Charcoal Mask, St Ives Mineral Clay Firming Mask

St. Ives Mineral Clay Firming Mask is a kaolin clay mask with deep cleansing properties. It also helps to firm and tighten the skin while cleaning. I've looked it up and found it in another packaging. I'm assuming that's the new packaging so here's the pictures of it.





Daiso Charcoal Mask is just a peel-off charcoal mask. Charcoal is also good at absorbing oil and dirt from the skin. Here's a clearer picture. It comes with a Chinese character "charcoal" and a distinct sticker with a girl spotting a black mask. The sticker is crucial for identifying whether it's a mask or a cleanser since it's not that easy to distinguish between the two (unless you know how to read Japanese).




1. Make sure your face is properly cleansed. Always use a cleanser to wash your face before masking because you don't want any more dirt to fall into your pores instead. Pat your face dry.

2. Squeeze a small amount of St. Ives Mineral Clay Firming Mask onto your dry hands. Your hands must be dry because you don't really want to dilute the clay mask. Spread it over your face in a thin layer but yet thick enough that it's opaque minty green on the face. Squeeze more and add if it's not enough. Wait for 5-10 minutes for it to dry when you're done. This mask dries rather fast and you can feel the mask firming up on the face.

3. When the clay mask has dried up, wash it off with warm water. Warm water helps in removing the clay faster. Tap water is fine for me but you just have to be more thorough in washing everything off. After washing, pat your skin dry. You can see some of the whiteheads/blackheads surfacing to the top since the kaolin clay brings the impurities to the surface of your skin.

4. Next, squeeze a generous amount of Daiso Charcoal Mask. You have to be more generous with this because if there's not enough, the mask couldn't be peeled off in one piece. Spread it over the area you want then try to thin it out while making sure it's still opaque black. You don't want this to be over thick too because this mask takes ages to dry. Wait for 30 minutes to an hour for it to be dried completely. To speed up the drying process, I would recommend you to sit in front of a fan. It speeds up the drying process a lot.

5. When the charcoal mask has dried up, start peeling off the sides of the mask. I would usually start from the bottom and go upwards. Slowly peel everything off. You will see all sorts of whiteheads/blackheads or even tiny facial hair stuck on the underside of the peeled mask.

6. After peeling the charcoal mask, use a gentle cleanser again to wash your face. You can skip this step if you feel the 2 masks have over dried your face. I usually do this because bits and pieces of the Daiso Charcoal still get stuck on my face. It is quite hard to get it all off with just water.

7. After masking and all that extraction, your pores are now open. Pat your face with a toner. Perhaps a toner with witch hazel or orange oil as they help to minimise your pores. If you don't want to invest in a toner, just splash icy cold water will do.

8. Follow up with your normal skincare routine by using moisturiser, essence etc.


I've been using this method ever since I learnt this from other forumers. I really find that the 2 masks work well together. You don't have to buy the exact brand. For clay mask, you can try Queene Helene Mint Julep Masque or you can just try purchasing kaolin clay in powder form to DIY your own mask. For the charcoal peel off mask, you can substitute with any charcoal or mud mask.

You don't have to apply it on the entire face. You can just use it on problematic spots prone to blackheads/whiteheads. At times, when I'm lazy, I'll just apply it to my acne prone area. The clay mask alone helps in bringing the pus (in pimples) to the surface and also dries up the pimple. I use it as a form of acne treatment since it's deep cleansing that area. Of course if there's any open wound, it's best to avoid masking.

You can do this mask once every week.

Wednesday, July 14, 2010

How to Spot a Fake Skin79 BB Cream

Photos Provided by Skin79 Singapore

As there are too many fake Skin79 products in the market, it's important to know how to spot a fake BB cream from the real deal or else it'll just cause more damage to your skin due to inferior quality.

Skin79 Hot Pink Super+ Beblesh Balm










Skin79 Diamond Collection The Prestige Beblesh Balm



Tuesday, July 06, 2010

Free Stuff: Mentholatum Acnes Medicated Skincare Sample Kit

Fr3b.com will be giving away free Mentholatum Acnes Medicated Skincare 3 pieces Sample Kit.



The Kit contains:
Step 1: Acnes Creamy Wash 5g for cleansing
Step 2: Acnes Powder Lotion 10ml for toning and moisturising
Step 3: Acnes Sealing gel for special care

It's free for all. You don't even have to pay postage.



Simply click the banner above or link here to sign up and redeem the sample kit.

Review: E.L.F Studio Cream Eyeliner

Here's my quick review on E.L.F Studio Range Cream Eyeliner. I swept up 3 colours - Coffee, Midnight and Ivory in one of their sales.


E.L.F Cream Eyeliners in Coffee, Midnight and Ivory

These cream eyeliners come in little plastic square jars. Super adorable. I love the packaging to the max until I realised they were a pain to close tightly (which is a must when dealing with cream or gel liners). Sometimes the screw caps just wouldn't align properly with the jars leaving a gap, which makes you frustrated that air might get it and dry up the liners. Not pleasant when you're in a rush.

The texture of the cream eyeliners differs a little when I first tried it out. The darker shades were creamy but seem to be of a drier consistency as compared the Ivory cream liner. Ivory was nice and fluffy like a mixture of a cream mousse formula.


Swatches: Coffee, Midnight and Ivory (provided by E.L.F website)

The colours are rather accurate on the E.L.F site (they had revamped the site with better pictures. I'm impressed).

Cream Eyeliner in Coffee is a true matte medium chocolate brown. It's just very natural looking. Cream Eyeliner in Midnight is a very dark shade of midnight blue. The swatch for Midnight isn't as accurate for this as it is a lot darker and you can't really see the blueness in it. It's almost as dark as a black. When swatched, the colour goes on pigmented but not very intense. To darken it, you just have to build on a few layers to make it dark. It dries up really fast so you'll have to work really fast. Once it dries up, it wouldn't budge at all and if u keep rubbing it, it flakes. This is kind of terrible to work with if you are intending to use it as an eyeshadow base. When applied with a finger on the eyelids, it dries up almost instantenously making the base look patchy. These 2 cream eyeliners do smudge after a day of long wearing so do remember to use some eye primer before using the cream eyeliners.

Cream Eyeliner in Ivory is a shimmery white paste. I couldn't really figure out whether it should be considered shimmery or sparkly but there's so many multicoloured tiny glitter bits that's so shimmery and it's just so pretty. The texture is super smooth and can be applied sheer and I love it as an eyeshadow base. It doesn't really intensify eyeshadow colours that much but if you layered an eyeshadow that has a pearl sheen, the pearl sheen really intensifies making the colour on the eyelid look more 3-dimensional. If you applied a matte eyeshadow over, the sparkles in it changes the eyeshadow into a more interesting colour. It's just so fun for me to play with this. Alternatively, if you don't want to use it that way, just pop it on at the inner corner of the eye to bring attention to your eyes. It's such a sparkly colour but not so overwhelming and eye catching as compared to when you use a true white eyeliner.

Overall, I find the darker eyeliner shades all right only. They are a pretty good deal for the price you pay and they do work but I'm just not super impressed. I'm not sure if I got a bad batch for the Cream Liner in Midnight just seem very dry to me. Cream Liner in Coffee was nice, just something I'll use for a natural makeup look. I like Coffee a little more than Maybelline's Eye Studio Lasting Drama Gel Eyeliner in Brown. I would definitely repurchase the Cream Eyeliner in Ivory though.