Gmarket haul - Fall 2009: Banila Co De la Couture II and more

Woot! I've been awarded a Gmarket Top Blogger for the months of August and September so I got 2 gift certificates from Gmarket valued at 150.000 Won total. So I had some nice fun money to spend and settled on getting the newest Banila Co stuff I was craving so hard!

I've come to the conclusion that Banila Co is one of the pricier Korean brands (especially give the Won got quite stronger within the previous months) but also one of the highest quality ones (if not THE highest quality Korean brands I personally have tried)


I ordered on September 09 and received my package just a few days ago (!!!). The seller took nearly 3 weeks to ship the package to the Gmarket warehouse and along the way canceled one of my items as it was out of stock.
I was nearly canceling the rest of the order but finally it went through and the package arrived.


To my delight this time I got some nice freebies and all came shipped in one box.
I ordered:
-De La Couture II Eyeshadow Palette - 24000 Won
-Copacabana Blusher (50% off) - 9000 Won
-Eye Love Eye Primer in Temptation (pink/clear) - 15000 Won
-De La Couture II The Mineral Surprise Baking Pact SPF17 PA+ Duo Luminous (pink) - 30000 Won

I got a free Love Holic Pearl Mascara, mini Deep The Eyes Mascara, a
mini lipstick palette (includes lip primer and 4 gorgeous nudes), a collagen filler (not Banila Co), plenty of their new Let Me Bebe BB Cream Sheer and a makeup bag.


This is the seller: CLICK


-De La Couture II Eyeshadow palette:
Maybe you remember the first De La Couture palette that came out as an "early Fall" collection in 2008. The palette was the first Banila Co had released and it was selling out instantly. They restocked a month or so later and I was lucky enough to snap one up as the palette finally sold out a few days after its re-release.


The compact looks similar to the first palette but the lace pattern is a bit different.
This time also the palette contains only 5 powder shadows and one cream shadow base.


The texture and pigment are perfect just like in the first version. You get silky, blendable shadows with a beautiful pearly and shimmery finish and a good color pay-off.


The cream shadow base is an off-white shade whereas the other colors are lilac, pale baby pink, golden peach, neutral light brown and a deep pigmented (and not shimmery) neutral brown.


I love the color combination and find it quite pretty and versatile. Lilac and brown is always a combination that looks good in my opinion.

-De La Couture II Mineral Baking Pact Duo Luminous:
This comes in 2 colors: Beige and pink and I settled for pink as I was sure it'd look better on me. While I wasn't too happy with the original Baking Pact I thought the Duo Luminous looked good enough to give it a try.
The compact is the same boring shiny silver plastic which attracts fingerprints too much =X


Also I didn't find a space to put the included sponge in but as I use my face brush anyway I don't care.


The powder consists of 2 finishes: satiny (not flat) matte and frosty. The matte side takes the larger portion so you can use this all over your face without getting the disco ball look. The matte side is also sheerer and harder. The frosty side is really very frosty and pigmented and has a softer texture so this beautiful champagne color would be used best as an eyeshadow or very sparingly with a skunk brush as a highlighter.


The color match is excellent, the finish is beautiful. This Mineral Baking Pact is great indeed!

-Copacabana Blusher:
I got this at the half price so this was considerably inexpensive at about US$7.


This comes in a beautiful pink compact without a sponge or a brush.
The blusher has a very silky texture with a fine shimmer. The color is a very pretty rosy beige that goes with pretty much most makeup looks.
I really like this one!

-Eye Love Eye Primer in Temptation:
I really like the older version (in the ugly plastic compact) so I decided to pick up the revamped one which comes in a sleek slim silver compact.


The Eye Primer I chose comes with a clear lid primer and a light creamy pink highlighter/concealer cream. I like using the (moderately pigmented and smooth) pink color under my eyes and on my brow-bones to make my eyes look fresh and awake.


The primer is a clear waxy very hard cream you apply to your lid before the use of eyeshadow. It does a nice job intensifying the eyeshadow color however I didn't feel that it was very good at keeping the shadow in place.


I will test this out more to see how it'll perform.

The Love Holic Pearl Mascara is nice, too. It has a gray-tinted clear base with silver glitters and a comb applicator.
The Deep The Eyes Mascara is decent but nothing like my favorite mascaras from Majolica Majorca.


I tried the Let Me Bebe BB Cream but it's too dark for me. If you'd like to try the Bebe BB Cream I will send 2 samples to the first 3 readers to email me. All taken, sorry!

All in all a great little haul and once again I am convinced that if you want to try a Korean brand I'd put Banila Co on top of the list!