Canmake Bright Up Base SPF15 PA++ in 01 Beige Pink

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Eid mubarak to all those who celebrate =)
I stopped by the Canmake "counter" in one of Hong Kong´s department stores when I was there so I picked up this Bright Up Base as it swatched really nicely.
You get a cute shiny pink box housing a simple light colored squeeze tube containing the Bright Up Base.

This is a makeup base which offer slight coverage to even out your skin and contains ingredients to keep your skin "happy".
Here are Canmake´s claims about this product!

This is a slick cream with a fair beige tint to it. What is a bit weird is that when applying it I get a sort of slightly grainy/scratchy feeling that I don´t like. I don´t know where this feeling comes from but it makes my skin feel slightly irritated.
This stuff is unscented and offers very light coverage to even out my skin. The finish is slightly shimmery but not too glittery in my opinion.

25g retail for 900 Yen so this is one of the more inexpensive Japanese beauty products. This product contains a SPF of 15 and PA++.



Overall this is a decent base but I don´t like the feel of this during application. After application the weird scratchy feeling is gone though.
I wouldn´t repurchase this as there are nicer cheap makeup bases (e.g. Media or Integrate) out there.

Rating 3.5/5

LP - The USA edition: Physicians Formula Happy Booster Glow & Mood Boosting Blushes, Powder and Light Bronzer

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Sorry for another non-Asian makeup post =) I am just so excited about my Physicians Formula stuff that I can´t stop posting hehe =D

I first stumbled across the Happy Booster products on Rouge Deluxe which is still my favorite blog to read =)
There are blushes, powders and bronzers in the Happy Booster range so I picked up both blushes (Natural and Rose), the powder in Translucent and the Light Bronzer.
All products come in cute pink metallic pink compacts with a clear flip-top cover and a brush and mirror stored below the blush pan. The blush cases are smaller than the powder and bronzers and also are a bit cheaper.
The brush looks quite cute (pink and red bristles!) however the quality is quite low, these will do in a rush though!

All products smell supposedly like violet but to me it´s more of a rose blend... The scent is not that strong but it´s there so if you dislike scent in your makeup you might not be fond of these blushes.
All 4 products have a silky and fineily milled texture and are nicely pigmented (except for the powder).

Happy Booster Glow & Mood Boosting Blusher in Natural and Rose:


Certainly the blushes attracted me first with their super cute heart patterns and their beautiful slightly glowy finish.


These are quite pigmented and blend very well to a natural finish. These look shimmery at first but in fact these aren´t, they offer a pretty ethereal kinda glow but without shimmer, more of a pearl finish. Very pretty!

Natural is a reddish peach shade

Rose is a nice hot pink shade

Happy Booster Glow & Mood Boosting Powder in Translucent:

At first I thought this would be only suitable as a highlighter however this is actually a really nice finishing powder for all over the face. It looks as cute as the other products with all the hearts, there is even a pink heart which can be used as a blush (it´s pigmented enough to show up for sure).


This gives a softly glowy finish without glitter...it doesn´t exactly make me look dewy but really glowy.

Gorgeous stuff just like the blushes, has become a daily staple.

Happy Booster Glow & Mood Boosting Bronzer in Light Bronzer:

I am not much of a bronzer person even though I am so super pale. I like myself pale so I am not into faking a tan I naturally can´t achieve (I am only turning red if I don´t put on enough sun protection).

I got the bronzer mainly to use this as a contouring powder and since PF has lighter bronzers suitable for fair skin I thought I am going to try this one from the Happy Booster range because it´s so cute with the hearts design.
The Light Bronzer works great as a contouring powder as it´s subtle but still does the job well. I am not sure how it performs all over the face as I haven´t used it that way.

This has a pink heart just like the powder which can be used as a blusher.
This product has the same silky pearly finish like the other Happy Booster items.

Overall I totally love these 4 products, they are so pretty, give a gorgeous glowy finish and are affordable (I think I paid around €6.50/each for the blushes and €8-something for the powder/bronzer on drugstore.com).

Possible cons for some might be the scent and the crappy brushes but I don´t care for either.

Rating 5/5

LP - The USA edition: Physicians Formula Shimmer Strips Custom Eye Enhancing Gel Cream Liner part 2

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This is just a quick review to complete my Physicians Formula Shimmer Strips Custom Eye Enhancing Gel Cream Liners review I wrote here. If I get more colors there will be another review of course =)

Please refer to the other review regarding texture etc.
I equally love these 2 colors to the other ones I reviewed before...creamy, easy to apply, absolutely budge-and smudgeproof.


The colors I received:


-Blue Eyes:
I don´t know why it took me longer to purchase this. The colors are a gorgeous deep antique bronze/khaki kinda color, a very gorgeous true royal ink blue and a black with lots of fine blue shimmer so it looks like a deep blue on me.

Using the brown respectively blue liners:

-Glam Hazel Eyes:
Contains a gorgeous metallic antique gold shade, a medium metallic purple and a black with loads of fine golden shimmer which definitely shows up on my eyes.

Here is also a closeup pic of the brush which I forgot last time:

Rating 5/5

Etude House Petit Darling Matte Eyeshadows in #1, 2 and 4

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I didn´t own more than a handfull of matte eyeshadows as I just prefer shimmery shadows =) However recently I felt I wanted some matte shadows just for adding definition to my eyes without shimmer....maybe to make a shimmery colorful liner pop or something.

I found some very neutral and wearable colors in the Gmarket store of Etude House (etudegmark for those interested to check them out).
These shadows are really inexpensive (I want to say less than US$4/each?)... and come in cute little compacts.

The texture these eyeshadows sport is very silky and not chalky like you might expect from many matte eyeshadows. The color pay-off is decent, sheer to medium and buildable. These are a bit hard to blend but not to the extent of being un-blendable.

#1 is a pale cream shade which blends into my natural skin-tone so it´s almost invisible but still it brightens my eyes. Makes a great highlighter especially to counteract a shimmery lid color!
#2 is a creamy peachy beige shade great for crease-definition
#4 is a deep charcoal color good as a liner or crease-definition. Btw I don´t think this works well with the other 2 colors, I should have gotten #3 which is a deep brown shade

Overall these are nice little shadows to have around if you appreciate a matte natural eye look.

Rating 4/5

P.S. I am going to our beach house for the next 4 days or so so it´s highly possible I have no internet there. So probably no new posts until Sunday or Monday =(

LP - The USA edition: Physicians Formula Mineral Glow Pearls Blush in Natural Pearl and Rose Pearl

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As I mentioned before one of the very few non-Asian brands I really like is Physicians Formula, a US drugstore brand. I used to collect a lot of their stuff around 6-7 years ago and have recently fallen in love again with their beautiful new offerings (like all the Shimmer Strips stuff!).

I got the Mineral Glow Pearls Blushes in Natural Pearl and Rose Pearl recently with my drugstore.com haul as they looked very pretty in swatches and youtube reviews.

These are the virtues of these pretty blushes:

These Mineral Glow Pearls are silky and pigmented and blend nicely while lasting very well (even here in Egypt where I sweat a lot).
The finish of these is a gorgeous candlelit glow, in bright sunlight you can see shimmer though (not huge glitter anyways).

The compacts these come in are quite bulky and tend to get scratched easily and the included brush is definitely craptastic (like pretty much all PF brushes, they should just leave them out to be honest) however I still like this kind of packaging for some weird reason...the included mirror is also a nice touch =)

These blushes are unscented and don´t irritate my skin at all.

Natural Pearl: A very pretty lighter peachy pink

Rose Pearl: A cool hot pink

Overall I absolutely adore these blushes and have been using them a lot in the past weeks. I am not sure about their retail price, on drugstore.com I paid €6.51/each plus shipping.

Rating 4.5/5

Hada Labo Air BB Cream SPF20 PA++

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As always I couldn´t resist this new "BB cream" from Japan, this time from Hada Labo.
I got a tube in the lighter of the 2 available colors from Alphabeautyuk on eBay who states about this product:

"Features
1. A single tube gives you all-in-1 foundation performance plus skincare benefits from the Hada Labo series
2. It helps depress excessive sebum secretion, cover pores & small flaws, and even skintone.
3. It contains hyaluronic acid and collagen for skin nourishment
4. With effective whitening ingredients like arbutin and vitamic C derivatives
5. No fragrance, mineral oil-free. Alcohol-free. Preservative-free.
6. With SPF20 PA++ sunscreen support"

Sounds quite good but unfortunately this BB cream in its plain white tube is a total fail.
First off this stuff has nothing to do with a BB cream. This feels like a pure silicone cream which means it features this weird powdery feeling once you apply it. Furthermore this has zilch coverage, not even the least bit.

As you see on the swatch pic a bit below this stuff has a color like mustard but once applied it is so sheer that there is no color, no coverage, nothing.
I might give this the credit as a silicone makeup primer...it´s decent in this respect but it´s NOT a BB cream. Sorry, Hada Labo, by just writing "BB cream" on the tube it doesn´t morph into one!

This is unscented and I haven´t tried this long enough to determine if it would cause blemishes like many other silicone primers tend to do.

This was also on the pricier side at around US$20.
Rating 2/5