Sparkling Body Powder
Silver color

I was shopping in one of the big department stores in Kobe, browsing the make floor (there’s a WHOLE floor of just make up and skin care!) when I spotted this body powder.
It looked so pretty. Oh so pretty.

But I resisted, I mean I know I practically never use body powders. I have had this fabulous one from Lush forever  and have used it maybe twice…

Inside the cute packaging is a blue powder puff with a glitter purple flower.

I find the powder puff peculiarly ugly…
I’m not entirely sure why.
You pat the puff on your skin, and it leaves it covered with silver sparkles.
It takes an awful lot of patting to get and sparkles to come out.
So the first time, I pat it gently on the back of my hand.
Nothing.
Again, nothing.
And again, until I’m basically beating myself trying to get the god damn sparkles out.


They did. Eventually.
Once they did though, I was pleasantly surprised, the sparkles were small, delicate and almost shimmery.
They are actually wearable.
I cat pat the powder puff along my collar bone, atop my arms, or down my legs, and get a very attractive effect that doesn’t scream disco ball.

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Rainbow wave brush

If you haven’t heard of ionic treatments for hair yet I will be shocked.
Now every heat styling tool available is touting some Ionic capability.

I admit, I’m skeptical.
How in the world are ions supposed to make my hair smoother and more beautiful????

But I’m eager to try anything that’s not another goop that I need to slather over my chestnut strands.
So I picked up the Rainbow wave brush.
It comes, as its name would suggest, in a rainbow of colors,
As I’m as sucker for Pink, that’s the one I selected.
It takes two AAA batteries, which insert behind the prongs of the brush itself.
And even has a cute little mirror opposite the bristles, mind you it’s so tiny that it’s absolutely useless ( what am I supposed to do, look at my hair one strand at a time?)

So you turn it on, there are high and low settings…. The difference between which I have yet to determine…
Once on it buzzes, like a vibrator, or an electric tooth brush (for those of you whose minds don’t immediately go to dirty).
Then you just brush your hair.
So I brush and brush.

The first time, I was like “this is a crock.”

But I kept using it.

Eventually I noticed that the brush didn’t just vibrate, the little metal bristles actually get really cold when it’s been on for a little while ( it makes me go all shivery when it touches my skin).

And slowly I started noticing a difference.

If I gently brush my hair when wet after a shower, it air dries in nearly half the regular time.
If I brush my un-styled, curly frizzy hair, it actually does diminish the frizz slightly, in a way a normal brush has never done.

And If I brush my hair when styled it makes it a little bit softer, a little bit smoother.

But best of all, if I curl my hair around the brush, and hold, my hair will retain the shape!

I can curl under the aggravating ends of my hair which insist on flipping outwards, with no heat!!!

That makes it a completely worthwhile product.

And I know I know, that the Ionic brush is not meant to be a styling tool, it’s supposed to improve my hair slowly over time…
But since I change up my hair care products so often It’s hard to say whether or not the brush is slowly improving my hairs condition.

I think so… and I Love my brush... but I suppose I’m inclined to say that (It is Pink after all…)

Face washing brush
This is my all time Favourite face tool.
It’s a soft little silicone brush. The package says “Pore-clogging debris and excess skin oil on your entire face are refreshingly dropped”
*laughs* I love that “refreshingly dropped”…
Anyways it’s designed to fit between two fingers, and it’s very comfortable to use.
It’s a huge improvement on just rubbing my cleanser all over my face.
What you do is place the cleanser directly on the brush, and wash your face, the cleanser never needs to touch your hands.

The brush is soft and super gentle, it doesn’t tug or pull at the skin at all.
Which is good, because face cloths (my previous cleaning method…) do. Cloths tend to be rough, they pick up dirt and bacteria easily.
In fact, if you use the same face cloth to wash your face a couple of days in a row (even just to rinse off…) you can get a build up of bacteria, causing acne.
*sigh* It’s happened to me, back before I knew anything about the proper washing methods…
So if you can find one of these little brushes, buy it! ( I have 4 in different colors…)          
                            

Garnier Nutritioniste Skin renew eye roller.

The Garnier Nutritioniste Line is one I adore… usually. I have tried and tested quite a number of their products, everything from shampoo to cleansers to skin treatments.
Sadly the Anti-puff eye roller didn’t do it for me.
To begin with, there is no designation for evening or day eye treatment. So one would assume it’s meant to be an anytime sort of treatment.
The only problem is this is NOT any anytime type of treatment.
The primary selling feature is its anti puff capabilities. The primary ingredient that is supposed to diminish puffiness is Caffeine.
But Caffeine is a band-aid treatment, it temporarily reduces eye bags, it doesn’t treat the cause of them, it doesn’t treat the skin or the eye area. All it does is temporarily cosmetically treat those horrible bags that I always get under my eyes.
Now don’t get me wrong, I love cosmetic treatments that work. Hell if something makes me look even better for a couple of hours I’m all for it.
It’s just misleading in this case.
So basically the Anti-puff eye roller is good for Daytime use, not as a night time treatment.
There is no point in making the bags under your eyes disappear before you go to bed, not when there’s no one to see them, and you could be putting on an eye treatment to actually help make them permanently go away on instead.
So the Garnier roller was moved to my day time treatment section.
But because the silly thing is pretending to be an any time type treatment, it’s not day time specific.
This means NO SPF! I hate products that don’t multi task.
Because no matter how wonderful it is at removing the bags under my eyes I still have to go out and buy another product to protect against sun damage.
Still, the eye roller does actually help with the level of eye puffiness. After a couple of days the bags under my eyes have diminished.
Not miraculously, but visibly.
But, from my perspective I am better off buying a dual action eye treatment for the day. Pretty much every beauty line has something… and nearly all of them claim to reduce the bags.
And finally the last great wonderful selling feature of the Eye roller, is it’s “Massaging action”
Yeah….
If you buy it, first make sure you roll it on the back of your hand to get it started, otherwise it just pulls roughly at the delicate eye area.
Once the product has started, you gently roll it around the eye area, and my the time you’ve rolled it around once you already have too much product on.
There’s no way you’re getting ANY benefit from massaging action in the amount of time it takes to put the product on, and if you keep going you apply waaaay to much.
SO it’s a gimmick. It’s a nice idea, but it doesn’t work.
Buy something else.

L'Oreal Skin Genesis 

multi-layer Skin Strengthening daily treatment Serum

The Skin Genisis Serum is one of the new pretty skin genesis line. The serum contains

Hyluraonic acid and Pro-Xylane (a L’oreal patented addition). It’s meant to increase 

the moisture of your skin. It claims to be “skin strengthening” whatever that means…

Unlike most serums it’s not packed with treatments.
That’s something I HATE, when a product claims to do 10 things, and then does

 none of them well.

A product should either do one thing really well, or two or three things quite well.

When a label starts claiming vast lists of miracle ingredients you know they 

are in microscopic amounts.
So the Serum is intended to help moisturize, but after 2 weeks of using it…. I’m not

 a fan.
The serum is really thin, not the thick sticky sort of texture you often expect 

from a serum.
In fact, I have notice NO improvement, or change in my skin since using it.
It doesn’t make me feel any better hydrated, or even more hydrated than 

moisturizer alone.
I believe in Hyluranonic acid. It does help moisturize. It should be a component 

of your skin care routine. It’s just the L’oreal Skin Genesis Serum seems to have 

so little of it that it does barely anything….
I’m not going to bother buying anymore. 

I’ve never claimed to be beautiful.
I didn’t get into make and skin care because I wanted to maintain my good looks.
In fact for a really long time had very little interest in skin care at all.
I went through my teen years relatively blemish free, so other than the requisite face washing… and the possible occasional moisturizing, I did zip for my skin.
Plus I’ve always been sensitive to sunscreen… So… it’s only in the past few years I’ve started wearing it when not off to the beach.
Then how did it all start?
Well it all began with my sensitivity to sunscreen.
It burns.
I’ll slather on a light cool layer of sun protection. Minutes later I’m beet red, and my face is on fire.
Lovely.

So my family was taking a family vacation to Hawaii, and I had to find something…
And on my quest, my interest was piqued.
Then I became good friends with a Native Korean in University. She was nearly five years older than me and very concerned about skin care.
Well the addiction caught on.
Now, after living in Japan for a while, Skin care just excites me…

-Mack

My package from alpha beauty shop came today!!!!
I ordered it on the third of August, and it arrived today the 14th. That’s precisely two weeks…
Which considering it travelled from Hong Kong to the East coast of North America is quite a trip.
Hell, I order stuff from the other side of the country and it takes longer.
So what arrived is the juju Hyluranonic acid serum, the Softmyo Q10 powder wash, the Anessa Pearly SPF 50 and the Suisai powder enzyme wash!
Some of these I’ve used before and these are only refills… But I’m still weak with excitement!
Reviews will follow shortly.

Intro

Welcome to my blog, where I rant and occasionally rave about 
various beauty and skin care products.

I have a mad obsession, join me, despise me, criticize me.... it's 
all the same.

-Mack