Etude house moonlight shimmer blush

Price: 8500 ($8.50)

Size: 7g

Comes in 4 colors.

I love highlighters. A highlighter and a coat of mascara go a long way to making skin look even and beautiful.

I don’t find that north American make up brands offer than many highlighters.

At least not in the cheaper, low to mid-range brands.

A few brands like Guerlain (like meteorites line) and Lancôme have beautiful ones, at exorbitant prices…

So finding a good highlighter that doesn’t cost an arm and a leg… Not the easiest.

My old stand by - benefit high beam.

For a highlighter its kind of expensive at $24.

In comparison the Etude house highlighters are a lot cheaper at around $8.5

The Etude house moonlight blusher comes in  a pretty, girly pink compact. It’s small, light and in my opinion cute but not so cutesy as to be tacky (although I am sure tons of people would disagree)

Inside there is a mirror and brush in the same cute style as the compact.

As a general rule, I never use included brushes or applicators. Since they tend to be of super cheap quality, and I have an assortment of beautiful brushes.

However, in this case I make an exception.

The Included brush is beautifully soft. Feels like natural hair rather than synthetic(though I don’t know what it actually is.)

but mostly the wide but flat brush works really well for apply the highlighter.

Its narrow enough to sweep highlighter on the brow bone, without getting it every where. The bristles are soft enough to apply the highlighter lightly, so the application doesn’t look obvious.

And since most of my brushes are either face brush size, or smaller eye shadow sized, I don’t have a brush quite so well suited to application of a highlighter.

As you can see from the pictures, the highlighter is divided into 3 bands of color, white,  pale blue and lavender.

The stripes are wide enough that you can puck up individual colors if you desire, but upon application they all just look white so it’s pointless.

The color of the powder is very WHITE, and cool.

If I apply more than the tiniest bit, it looks like I’ve covered myself in white powder.

The highlighter is also oddly matte.

Honestly, I’ve never come across a matte highlighter.  So the effect is different than I’m used to.

When used sparingly, its one of the subtlest highlighters I’ve ever encountered.

Its subtle enough to work with a soft natural daytime look.

Based on that, I like it. But Its almost unusable for a  glowy face. It’s too white to be applied more than sparingly.

I think on someone darker than I the effect would be even more pronounced, in a bad way…

Hyaluronic acid Serum by Juju cosmetics 
US $20.95
Amount 30ml
From http://stores.shop.ebay.com/Alpha-Beauty-Store

With a high concentration of moisture-rich Hyaluronic acid, as advertised, only 2 drops are enough for maintaining an overnight treatment effect comparable to moisturizing mask. The moisture-rich beauty essence efficiently penetrates deep to the skin and gives instant replenishment while at the same time helps remove fine lines and improve your skin texture. The improved skin moisture balance also helps a better application of makeup in next morning.

If you are a skin care addict like me than you’ve probably seen the term Hyaluronic acid being thrown around.   Restylane, a trade name for it, is used in injections to plump up wrinkles. But it is one of the new Star ingredients in a lot of topical skin care. 
As a topical ingredient it’s claimed to help moisturize the skin and improve moisture retention, and help plump wrinkles (through the skin being moist mostly). 
Since moisturizing is one of the 3 most essential components of any skin care routine (the other two being sun protection and cleansing) Hyaluronic acid is very interesting to me.

So why did I go out and buy a Japanese Hyaluronic acid serum when lots of moisturizers from reputable brands have Hyalurnoic acid listed.
Well, quite frankly I don’t trust brand packaging.
...
Really.  
I tried the Loreal; Skin Genesis line. I’m quite fond of L’Oreal, they are generally inexpensive, but of decent quality.
There was no noticeable moisturizing difference. Even after a couple of weeks of using the Serum and Moisturizer.
They were nice...
In my opinion Hyaluronic acid has fallen into the same trap as Retinol (retin, vitamin-a, etc.) It’s a selling feature, but there are no claims as to the amount of the key ingredient in the products.
You can add a miniscule drop of hyalronic acid and call it an ingredient.
So, I went to Juju. I love Juju. Seriously, I’ve used a ton of their products and they are always of really nice quality.
Now, I admit my Japanese skills aren’t very good. I can only roughly translate the label...
But, it’s supposed to be a hyaluronic acid serum, and I believe it.
The Japanese are so much more anal about their skin care.

So, the serum.
It’s clear with a gel like thickness. It goes on like water and absorbs immediately. Like freakishly immediately, as though my skin is a giant sponge baking in the desert. I apply a drop of the serum and it’s gone.
In fact, I have to be careful to spread it out quickly, otherwise it all gets absorbed into where I dabbed it...
Once applied my face feels exactly how it did before applying the serum.
It doesn’t feel moisturized, soft, wet, oily or sticky.
And if I don’t work quickly I can’t even tell where I’ve applied the serum and where I haven’t. 
I then move on and apply my moisturizer. Then I feel moist (well duh), but there’s no real textural difference than if I applied the moisturizer without having applied the Serum first.
So, so far, it seems like a dud right?
*laughs* that’s what I thought too.
But OMG, when I wake up in the morning, my face feels amazing. It’s like I just moisturized. My skin is soft and smooth and almost plumper.
And that softness carries on through most of the day. Even under make-up my skin is better moisturized.
It’s amazing.

The best part of all though is it makes even cheap moisturizers seem like magic. 
This stuff is so worth the money!

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.