Loose Powder

I bought the Neutrogena Wave Sonic a while back when it was on sale at Target. I don’t remember the price I paid, but it is listing for about $14.99 right now.

The Wave Sonic is advertised to be 50x better than ordinary cleansing, which might be true since most of us have the usual routine of rubbing on foaming cleanser on our faces and patting it dry with a microfiber towel.

I’ve never used the Neutrogena Wave, but instead of vibrating, the Wave Sonic has a spinning head that has two speeds. To change speeds on the cleanser, you only have to press the second button with the swirly symbol below the power button.

In order to use the Wave Sonic you have to have the Deep Clean foaming pads which are securely gripped onto the head of the cleanser with a rough surface. There are two kinds of foaming pads: the “original” and the “gentle exfoliating pads”. I’ve only used the “original”, and I feel that the “original” pad gives a gentle enough exfoliation when used against my face. If I manage to try the exfoliating pads, I may write a comparison between the two types.

The Wave Sonic is very easy to use: put on the foam pad, rinse under water, turn on, and rub it over your face. After you’re done, you just toss the used foam pad, and rinse under water to clean off the excess foam. Note: The top attachment head can easily be popped off for cleaning, and the cleanser is battery operated and water resistant, so it can be used in the shower.

The spinning head lathers up easily and can work up a good foam, but it may take a moment for the foam to develop. Warning: make sure all strands of hair are away from your face, because some stray strands may get caught in the spinning head. Also the soap that generates from the pad stings when it sneaks into your eyes, and it doesn’t taste pretty either.

After using the Sonic Wave for a couple weeks once daily, my skin does feel smoother and cleaner. It did not get rid of all my acne or blemishes, but that wasn’t the intention of the Wave Sonic cleanser.

My main gripe with this cleanser is that if you use this daily, the foam pad cleanser can run out quite quickly since they are only one time use. You can get refill packs of 30 pads for about $5, but the cost can add up over time. You don’t really need this cleanser if you have a good face cleansing routine already, but it is fun to use once and a while.

Beauty Army is a brand new sample box subscription service that launched on January 1st. I was lucky enough to be one of the first wave of people who managed to sign up during that first hectic day of us beauty junkies crushing the web servers.

For $12 per month, Beauty Army allows you to select up to 6 samples from a slightly larger list. I think it’s great that you can pick what you want to try and also that some months you can just pick 3 or 4, which is great if you’ve already got a bunch of samples you’re not going to use.

I was surprised at the size of the box that arrived! The outside mailing box is custom printed with “Beauty Army” printed in a band around the box. The samples are packed in a hinged black box that is spot glossed with various text.

Inside, the samples are wrapped loosely in pink tissue. If there was one criticism I would give, it would be to wrap the items a bit more securely since a few of them were floating around loose in the box. The notecard on the inside is printed on a lovely canvas textured card. Nice touch!

Here are some photos of the samples I picked:

For my first box, I chose Sun FX Body Wash, Shea Terra Organics Rose Hips Black Soap Facial Cleanser, Strivectin Get Even Brightening Serum, Boo Boo Coverup, and MyFace Cosmetics Blingtone Eyeshadow in Morocco. I also had picked the Cellceuticals Neocell skin treatment, but it somehow didn’t get photographed!

The eyeshadow is a creamy metallic pressed shadow. It’s a very light and would be good for a highlight color. Here’s a swatch:

The rose hips black soap was the first thing I tried. It’s a really great gentle exfoliating soap that left my skin very smooth. I would definitely purchase a full bottle of this one the sample runs out.

The next item that I really loved was the Boo Boo Cover-up. It’s meant to be used over scratches and wounds (not open wounds) since the natural ingredients help heal the injury. I tried this on a blemish that was on my chin and worked great! Best concealer product I have right now and I will certainly be buying a full sized tube of this.

I’m also using the Strivectin Brightening Serum, but it’ll be a few weeks before I can tell if it’s made any difference evening out my complexion.

Overall, I’m very happy with Beauty Army and look forward to choosing my samples next month!

My December Birchbox arrived last week, but I’ve only just had the chance to take photos of the contents. This month’s theme is the holidays, of course, and the usually pink outer box had festive white snowflakes! Inside the box, the plum tissue paper was replaced with one that is white with very fine pearlescent glitter. Very pretty!

So very pretty! Definitely saving the tissue to reuse for gifting. Inside the box were five items that should all be fun to try out:

• Benefit Cosmetics, The POREfessional
• Harvey Prince Ageless (Perfume)
• Jouer Moisturizing Lip Gloss in Birchbox Pink
• Orofluido Beauty Elixir hair treatment
• Extra: Showstoppers Designer Fashion Tape
• Extra: EBoost Orange Natural Energy Booster

I haven’t used these products yet, but the Jouer samples I’ve gotten in my Birchboxes have all been great. The fashion tape could come in handy… if I ever wear a fancy dress that would need them, of course!

The Harvey Prince perfume is a light, fruity scent with notes of pink grapefruit, pomegranate, mango, and jasmine. I also love that these luxe perfume samples are now tiny sprayers instead of the traditional stopper tops which could get everywhere when you try to open them.

I don’t usually drink any of those energy boosting solutions, but perhaps I should give this a try as I’ve been feeling kind of run down lately.

Not super-wowed by this month’s box, but I’m still loving the monthly box of treats so I’m keeping my Birchbox subscription!

This Mineral Wear Correcting Powder is another Physicians formula 3-in-1. The powder is advertised to correct skin imperfections, smooth skin textures and skin tone. Like most of the other Mineral Wear the correcting powder is talc-free, hypoallergenic, fragrance free, non-comedogenic, and paraben free.

I tried using the correcting powder by itself, but I found it didn’t do much covering up or evening out of my skin tone. It mostly just made my complexion lighter. The correcting powdered consists of four colors, pink, yellow, green, and peach swirled together on the palette. The three main colors are Pink for brightening, Green to tone down redness, and Yellow to add warmth. The compact also comes with a built-in mirror and a flat brush. I have expressed my dislike of the brushes that come with the Physicians Formula compacts in the past, so I refrain from using the included brush and use a mini kabuki brush from eco-tools instead. Since the powder doesn’t work well as a primer or corrector for me, I’ve been using the powder as a finishing veil. In fact the powder works quite well as a finishing veil in absorbing any access oils or moisture on my face.

So if you are looking for an alternative translucent finishing veil this talc-free correcting powder might work for you.

I thought I would give Physicians Formula new Correcting Primer a try since it had a Try Me Free sticker attached to it. Additionally, I was in the market for new concealer. This primer is promoted as a 3-in-1 corrector + Primer + Sun protection, since this primer also has SPF 15.

This Correcting Primer comes in three different colors, green, yellow, and pink. I opted for the green color since I tend to use the green concealer to offset redness from my skin blemishes.

The correcting primer comes in a container with a flat brush shaped like a concealer brush. With a couple twists of the tube the correcting primer will flow through the brush and you can apply the correcting primer without having to use your hands, which is very convenient.

However, having only used foundation primers that give my face a soft silky feeling, this primer did not give the same effect at all. This primer is more of a concealer than a primer since it is a lot thicker than the face primers that I am used too, but still smooths out your complexion just without the silky feeling.

Despite this correcting primer not give my face an instant silky smooth feel, this primer does managed to hold my foundation in place for the whole day and it did not feel heavy or constricting to my pores since this correcting primer is also talc-free, hypoallegenic, fragrance free, paraben-free, non-comedogenic, and oil free.

Overall, this correcting primer does its job in concealing my blemishes effectively, smoothing my complexion, helping my makeup last longer, and giving me some sun protection. If you don’t mind not having the silky smoothing feeling for a primer, I’d recommend this correcting primer since it is 3-in-1, and we all know we can use a few less things in our makeup bags.

Here’s another BB Cream review! This time, it’s Missha M Perfect Cover BB Cream in No. 23 Natural Beige. This is the first BB Cream I’ve tried with some color choices and I just picked my normal beige.

I bought this on eBay for about $15, shipped. When it arrived, I saw the seller had also included a bunch of samples of other BB Creams… which I haven’t tried yet.

The BB cream comes in a tube with a flat top so you can stand it up for easy dispensing of the cream. The texture of the cream is smooth, but the color seemed a bit dark out of the tube.

On first application, it looked lighter on my face than I thought it would. The consistency was thick like a tinted moisturizer, though. The coverage was decent – it didn’t completely cover blemishes, but it did lighten them and even out my skin tone. The cream has a very strong perfume scent that lingered for quite a while – hours it seemed.

After 2 hours, my face felt very oily, so much so I wanted to wash it off. My face didn’t look mask-like, but I thought it looked a little too pale in daylight. After 6 hours, my face just felt heavy and oily. I really didn’t like it and won’t be using this BB cream again.

Even though I’m currently using Skin79′s Pink Label BB Cream, I’m still trying out some other brands. If you missed my previous overview of BB Cream, see this post.

One of the brands I tried after Skin79 was Etude House. Their BB Magic Cream was rather inexpensive (I think I got it for $11 on eBay) and it arrived in about a week and a half from a Korean seller. Etude House BB Magic Cream comes in two formulas: Refreshing or Moist. I actually wasn’t sure which I was buying and ended up with the Moist, which is for dry skin. Refreshing, for oily skin, might have been a better choice.

This particular BB Cream comes in only one color and doesn’t contain whitener, anti-wrinkle properties, or SPF. The tube has a pump on the end which is an interesting way to dispense product from a tube. I actually didn’t like it since on the second or third use, it was difficult to get the product out.

Directly out of the tube, the BB cream is a bit darker than the Skin79 ones I’d tried previously. The consistency was very smooth, though, and easy to spread with my fingers. On my face, it seemed a bit light, but after a few minutes it did oxidize to a color that matched my skin. The cream did feel a bit tacky on my face for quite a while.

It did even out my skin tone, but in natural light I think my skin looked a bit chalky. After about three hours, the color looked much better and my face didn’t feel tacky, but my face felt greasier/oilier as the day went on. It’s probably because I’m using the Moist type instead of the Refreshing formula, though. Otherwise, the color was good, it didn’t look powdery at the end of the day, the coverage stayed consistent, and my skin was smooth.

Unfortunately, I am probably not going to use this particular BB cream again because of how oily my skin was at the end of the day. I would consider trying the Refreshing formulation, but there’s not SPF in it. Maybe I will get around to trying another Etude House BB Cream, though, as they are pretty affordable.

Last month I reviewed Holika Holika’s white egg soap. I liked it a lot, but I wanted to try their Green Tea Egg Soap! While the original soap is for tightening skin, the green tea soap is for controlling excess sebum (oil) and moisturizing.

I found the green tea egg soap on eBay for a good price. It included two soaps in a little egg carton.

The eggs are individually wrapped and each is about the size of a small chicken egg. This soap definitely doesn’t leave my skin as dry as the white egg soap and I’ll probably keep using this one instead of the original white one.

As for my other white egg soap – my mom has started using it and likes it a lot!

I’ve recently become interested in Korean cosmetics and one of the big trends there is blemish balm cream – also called bb cream.

BB creams were supposedly  developed in Germany by dermatologists to help heal skin after laser surgery. It is supposed to have skin regenerating properties that help smooth skin and heal blemishes. Many Asian brands of BB cream also contain anti-wrinkle, skin whitening, and high SPF.

BB creams also usually come in one color and they oxidize once applied to match your skin tone. This usually means that bb creams are only good for those with fair skin, though some brands (like Missha) do make other shades. As much as they even out skin tone and lighten blemishes, they are not foundations and are more similar to tinted moisturizer, though they’re not exactly that either.

Skin79 is a Korean brand that makes many types of BB creams and are one of the #1 bb cream brands. I wasn’t sure which of the many types I should use, so I purchased a set of sample sizes from eBay.

From left to right, the sampler contains Super+ Gold Label, Super+ Pink Label, Diamond Collection Prestige Pink Label, and Diamond Collection Pearl.

I tested each BB cream for a full day and below are photos and what I thought of each cream.

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I never used to bother washing my face at night to get all the makeup off. Really awful, I know, but just using mineral foundation and minimal mineral shadow, I didn’t think it was that big of a deal…and I was being lazy. However, in the last year I’ve revamped my night time routine to include various facial cleansers (still looking for one I like) and a wash cloth.

One of the products I’ve been using comes courtesy of my very good friend, Saff, sent to me all the way from South Korea: Holika Holika Egg Soap!

Two soaps come in this cute box, made from recycled paper. It looks just like a small egg carton.

Each egg comes individually shrink wrapped. The egg soaps are about the size of a small chicken egg and have a nice, light scent. There are a few types of these eggs and the white ones are supposed to tighten pores and make skin sleek.

I’m not really sure how often I am supposed to use this soap, but when I use this soap as a final cleanser after my make-up removers, it does look like my pores are smaller and my skin looks clearer.

I think each soap will last a while since it takes very little to get a lot of lather to wash your face with. Basically, what I do is just wet my hands and rub the egg for a second and then rub my hands together until I get enough lather to massage on my face. I leave it for a minute and then use a wash cloth to wipe my face clean. You’re supposed to also be able to use it as a mask by leaving it on your face for ten minutes before rinsing off, but I haven’t tried that yet.

Overall, I really like these egg soaps and gladly include them in my cleansing regimen.