Julep August Mystery Box

In my previous Julep post, I mentioned that the only reason I would order from Julep again would be for the mystery boxes. Now I'm not too sure, but I think that Julep has mystery box sales every month. In the middle of August, they sent an email saying there was a mystery box sale. Seeing that I received a free polish coupon, and the fact that the box is a 'mystery', I decided to order the it girl box (because really, I want more polish than other items)!

The only gripes I had was that I was not given the "free shipping" option that is offered to Julep mavens, and the receipt I received in my email did not show details of what I ordered, and instead it showed the total amount that I paid (which included the price for the free polish I had a coupon for).

Slightly annoyed that I ended up paying for my free polish, I called customer service and asked whether or not I was charged. Fortunately, Julep customer service was surprisingly good, as she answered my question, she then proceeded to tell me that I could get free shipping and she was able to refund the charge on my credit card. 

Great! It was going ok, and then two weeks later my package came.... and I was disappointed. After looking up mystery boxes on the internet, I saw that I received the EXACT same box as other bloggers who ordered the same box. Not much of a surprise, and I was slightly disappointed in the fact that I received the minimum $60 box. 

From top to bottom: Sandra, Rachel, Megan, Jessica, Base coat

My general opinions on the polish, I'll use the base coat because of the convenience factor (it's so small, I can carry it anywhere), but other than that I have a bunch of base coats that I still need to use up, and would have preferred a top coat.

The only other polish that I tried so far was Jessica, sadly it was rather 'gloopy' and hard to apply. The brush was also odd, and overall the polish just... didn't wow me. I added some nail polish thinner, but I haven't tried it since.

Colour above: Taylor

For my add-on free polish, I chose Taylor. In my small collection, I don't own many blue polishes. Once I saw a periwinkle blue, I fell in love! Although for some reason, I pictured it to be a lighter shade of blue, but this one is quite pretty and I do enjoy it. 

Formula wise it applies nicely, the brush is decent, and I do like the colour! 

Overall, I think this will be my last julep purchase for a while. I'm done with the colours, as well as the odd bottles and I've noticed that the consistency of the polish gets thicker after each usage. 

I don't even find the mystery boxes to be worth your money. Unless you're lucky and get a better box, the chances you're taking with the small amount of polish contained in each bottle is not worth the $3 - $4 I spend with the box. 

Did anybody else get a mystery julep box before? Let me know your thoughts on the polish!

Preparation: Japan

That's right!

In October of this year, I will be on a semester exchange to Sapporo, Japan. The last time I went to Japan was in the summer of 2008, and I knew I wanted to come back after the short visit I had.

I've always had an interest in Japanese culture since junior high, so this opportunity is amazing and I am both extremely excited, and nervous at the same time.

Personally, this is a huge step for me. I've always lived a rather simple life, always being sheltered in my home city and living the typical school, work, and hang out with friends life.

Not to mention my first solo travel! I'm the type of person who is extremely shy when put into new situations, I'm taking this opportunity to come out of my comfort zone!

I still have a number of things to do (including figuring out what to pack), and working as much as possible before jetting off to the land of the rising sun.

Nervous? Heck yes. But at the same time I am looking forward to this!

Julep Maven - Intro and July Boxes and my thoughts

After reading and seeing several beauty bloggers and youtubers talk about Julep, I was curious and checked out the site. I'm not interested in subscription beauty boxes, I was signed up in the Canadian version of birchbox (Luxe Box) and I found myself hoarding the samples instead of trying them out weekly. Therefore signing up for a subscription nail polish box is not only costly to my wallet (at $20 a box), but to my already small growing nail polish collection. 

However after seeing the promotion for a 1 cent box, I figured why not! No shipping fees to incur (even to Canada! That is NEVER the case), and it was cheap. 

I took the test and was recommended the classic with a twist box. Now, given that it was my first time navigating the site, I settled on whatever my "quiz"  suggested I get. I didn't know you were able to switch boxes and decide on different colours. If I was to do this again, I'd probably go for the 'It girl' box, since it's a better bang for your buck. 

From what I've noticed, all the other boxes usually include 2 polishes and another small item freebie, whereas the 'It girl' box contains 3 polishes. I'd rather pay less for polish than get a sample of something else that I may, or may not use.

Without further ado, lets begin with the pictures!

Nicely packaged, I enjoyed the small box it came in and the toe separators (I don't have any, haha) and the pedi creme. Not that I need a foot cream (I have others that I use), but it was a nice addition and it smells quite nice.

The two nail polish colours I received were rose (top) and robin (bottom). I must say I quite like the colours. I'm not a fan of pinks or fuchsias, since I don't think they look good on my hands, but I have yet to try this colour and I am looking forward to putting it on. Both are nice creme colours, and the formula is really good. I've only tried robin so far but it goes completely opaque in 2 coats, and I'm sure you could do it in one coat but I like evening it out with two.

For me, robin wears a really long time. I usually get bored with my nails after 3 - 4 days, and my nail polish usually starts to peel off in the same time frame so I just take my nail polish off. However robin was kept on for around a week before I got bored of it. 

My major complaint would be the bottle design. It looks nice, but I'm clumsy when it comes to painting my nails and I'm always paranoid that I'll accidentally knock over the bottle and it'll spill. 

Onto the July box! After seeing that you get a free Canada or America polish, I jumped on that and got the (again), classic with a twist box. Once again I would have preferred the 'it girl', but I will explain that later on.

Julep sends a free polish voucher on your first full priced box you order. 

The lip gloss that was included! I forget the name but it's a incredibly pale pink gloss that makes me look..... ghastly. It doesn't compliment my current lip colour, and just makes my whole face look... weird! This was the main reason I wanted the it girl box, first off I don't even like lip gloss (I only own a handful compared to the rest of my makeup collection), and second off it's a pale pink colour that I know I won't look good in. But I figured it wasn't worth the hassle of mailing it back to Julep (since it IS from Canada, I don't want to pay shipping fees!), I kept the box.

 I've never had (or even heard of!) these candies but it's a nice addition.

The polishes I received. From top to bottom, O Canada, Freida, Audrey

Closer look at the colours.

The only colour I've tried is Audrey, and I can't say it's my favourite.

As previously mentioned, I don't like pink on my nails. I have yet to find the perfect pink for my nails, and I think if it wasn't so shimmery it might look better on my nails, but alas it doesn't.

Overall my thoughts on Julep:
It's an ok service. If you have the money to spend, go right ahead. Otherwise I would wait for the mystery boxes (which I have heard are worth the money) and any other specials they might have. 

I would highly recommend getting the 1 cent box, since it's a penny, you don't get that deal elsewhere! Just google for the code and check if it's still working.

Otherwise I'm still disappointed with the regular boxes, if I got 4 polishes, it only takes the cost down to  $5 per polish, which is cheaper than OPI or China glaze (at least in Canada), but then when you look at the amount you get compared to other polishes, I just don't think it's worth it. 

I have used robin twice (so 2 coats for each finger = I've used 20 coats of the polish overall) and I've already used up 1/4 of the bottle. I've been using several Revlon polishes over and over again and I still have a ton left. 

In my opinion, it's just not worth your money. Especially when you can get other polishes for cheaper that will last you longer and that come in a better bottle design, save your money and buy those instead.
If you do decide to sign up, please use my referral link (CLICK HERE)!
I am in no way affiliated with Julep, I just get credits for every referral I get which eventually would lead to a free box. I am not forcing you to use my link, it is totally up to you whether or not you want to use my link or not!

Sasa.net Haul

I've heard rave rave reviews of Sasa.net, since they carry such a wide variety of Asian cosmetics and beauty products. I've been stalking the website for a couple of months now, adding items to my cart, deleting them, and then looking at the shipping cost and giving up altogether. 

One day it said free shipping if you spend $38, given that my cart was already around then $25 - $30 mark, spending the extra $8 was no big deal. It wasn't until I realized that it was only a sale for 3 days and I caught it on the last day and missed it because I wasn't home to order everything. That and some of the items I wanted were out of stock.

A day or two later I checked again and saw they had another promotion but it was spend over $19USD!! I jumped at that chance and immediately cut down my cart so I spent around $20 total with shipping. That's an amazing deal, and I got everything that I wanted this time as well. 

2 weeks later I go to the post office to pick up my package and I see this behemoth box.

 WOW! Sorry to say I thought this was a little excessive, considering that I didn't order much for $20!

I was shaking it at the post office trying to figure out why the hell they packaged my stuff with this big of a box! Excessive box, but nice packaging! I love the use of the foam peanuts to protect everything in the box.

My packaged up items

Everything I ordered! See how big the box is compared to what I ordered!

First off is this foaming net, this was one of the items which is ALWAYS out of stock. It retails for around $2.60 CAD (at the time I ordered the items). I was really looking forward to this! This does an amazing job of creating tons of foam from one pump of my cleanser. I really do feel it's helped clean my face better because of the foam and how easy it is to massage into my face. Love it! Definitely worth the money.

Next up were cotton layers and cleansing oil. The cotton pads were $3.40 but they are amazing quality! So soft and really nice, and splitting it up into layers makes them last a lot longer.

The cleaning oil was $8.60, extremely cheap, and unfortunately I haven't tried it yet but I am so excited! I got the whitening kind because I want to see if it helps reduce my past acne scars.

Next up cheap blotting papers! I have been running out and didn't want to shell out the $8+ for clean and clear or other brands that I don't find work too well for my oily skin.

I also got a sample of the eye gel cream, which I don't know if it will work too well, given that gel eye creams don't tend to work well with my dry under eye. We'll see.

Last up! A shampoo brush. I know it seems a little weird, but I find that washing my hair with my hands don't really 'massage' my scalp. I know that brushing your hair while it's wet is damaging, but so far nothing horrendous has happened to me yet, so I will continue using it. 

With hair, it's very subjective in the way that what works for me may not work for you. I have lots of hair that is thing, so using this really helps massage my scalp and evenly distribute conditioner that I apply.

I will go into further reviews of everything else later on, as I use them more often, but for now this was my sasa haul!

I just checked the website and saw that there is a promotion of spend over $19USD and get free worldwide shipping! If you band together with friends to spend over $150USD you get cash back too!

Sounds like an amazing deal, and definitely check out these items before this promotion runs out!

It ends August 2 23:59 Hong Kong time! Do be sure to check it out :)

Bang Bang she shoots' giveaway!

Congrats to Nic Nic and her 500 000 hits! 

Please check out her blog and enter her giveaway by clicking on the photo above! :)

Daily Makeup Box

I have a small stash compared to others (although my family thinks it's huge and rather wasteful), but I have a small box that carries the makeup that I grab for on a frequent basis.

 The container, as you can see, is a thin cardboard box that I found in a big pocky package holding smaller pocky bags. Hard to explain, but I saw that this box was the perfect size and I decided to keep it. To make it a bit more sturdy, I taped the sides and... well, the whole box to make it sturdy. 

Now onto the products!

Hard Candy glamoflauge, I bought this because of all the rave reviews but it's a little too dark for my undereyes. I still use it for undereyes and spots because the coverage is amazing.

Mascaras, I am using the NYC volumizing show time as a base and then overtop use a sample of Clinique's high impact mascara. I really wish the Clinique mascara was waterproof (or at least hold a curl) because it makes my lashes look amazing. 

I got the Physicians Formula eyeliner and eye booster liquid eyeliner because there was a rebate for it to try it free last year. I decided to jump on that opportunity because free eyeliner, why not! I got it in the colour brown and I absolutely love this eyeliner. Thin felt tip, opaque and made applying eyeliner feel like a breeze! Can't say much for the eyelash booster portion of this, but it already ran out so once I go through my other eyeliners, it's a definite repurchase!

Lorac's behind the scenes eye primer, sadly I bought a set just for this eye primer (since Lorac isn't readily available in Canada), and I was disappointed. Urban Decay primer potion didn't work well for my eyelids, I figured this would be the next best thing. Nope, and not a repurchase from me.

Last is a Clinique pencil liner in 04 black coffee. I received this from a family friend, because it was part of a gift with purchase and they don't want the makeup, just the skincare items. Ah well, it works like any other pencil liner. I do however like the cap it came with, and will reuse that with all of my pencil liners in the future.

And last but not least my tweezerman tweezers, nothing special there, they work just fine.

Eye products next! Sephora eyeshadow that I received free as a birthday gift. I actually don't use this often at all, beside that in the white container is whatever is left of the taupe shade in the Wet and Wild silent treatment trio (it fell on my bathroom floor and only the taupe shade broke). A Rimmel eyeshadow in black, but it is really sheer and applies like a light charcoal so I use it for my brows. Elf cream liner in black, it dried up so I used some eyedrops to revive it but once again, I don't use this often (I prefer pencil, it's faster and easy to draw on). 

Ardell eyelash glue, nothing special but I won't be using this again and would rather try a Japanese brand or maybe the duo brand in the future. 

Last but not least my only cream shadows, Revlon in black magic. I don't use this as often as I want, but my lids are so oily that these crease within an hour without a primer. With a primer, maybe three hours. Definitely going to use whatever I can and then toss it.

NYC loose powder in translucent, for the price you get a lot! I'm going to have a hard time using this up, it works alright, I don't see it making a HUGE difference! L'oreal mineral foundation, I don't really care for it. Same goes for the blush beside it, and then a sample of blush from coastal scents.

NYC blushable cream sticks, I don't use this too often too but will try to because for some reason, I have a backup of this.

Three most commonly used eyeshadow palettes

Left to right, Laura Mercier in sandstone. Estee lauder palette and a Elizabeth Arden palette.
I absolutely love the Laura Mercier shadow, I got this in my luxe box and was extremely happy with the box. Amazing and easy wash of colour that brightens up above my eye easily, lots of product and small packaging.

As you can tell from the picture above, I used up the pink shade in the Estee Lauder palette, not my favourite colour but I managed to use it everyday for a few months. 

The Elizabeth Arden palette is extremely old, I actually found this in my mom's room. She doesn't use eyeshadow, and I fell in love with the browns in the palette, so I took it. The pink is extremely sheer, so I only use the brown colours.

My only lip product, Maybelline baby lips. I received this as a prize from a giveaway, and I must say it smells really nice! It adds a nice bit of colour too, but I can't say I like it very much. Mainly because I am a lip chap junkie, I reapply as much as possible throughout the day. Because of that the pigmentation on this builds up and turns into a really unflattering colour with my skintone. But for a sheer wash, works fine!

Another longer post! I am on a role. 

So what do you use on a daily basis? Around the same - or even more - than my little box of products??

Mascara galore!

As stated in my previous post, I am a mascara junkie. I absolutely love mascara! Fortunately I have been blessed with fairly long lashes (for an Asian girl) and I find that my eyes really stand out when I have mascara on. 

Rexall usually has a 50% mascara sale once (or twice?) every year, I usually take that time to try out new mascaras, as well as stock up on old favourites. 

As mascaras can range from $4 - $15 in Canada, I really like taking advantage of this sale because each mascara will usually end up being around $2 - $5 each. I definitely can't pass up a sale like that!

I decided to review the mascaras that I have been using since I bought them in October/November.

Side note, the Lorac one is actually from a Sephora Lorac kit I bought back a while ago but became interested in using the eye primer.

NOTE: All of them are waterproof except for the Lorac one. I find only waterproof mascara holds a curl.

Top to Bottom: Maybelline Colossal Volume, Revlon Grow Luscious Plumping, Revlon Grow Luscious, Lorac Special Effects and Prestige Lash Matrix.

 Starting off with Lorac special effects, my only mascara that is not waterproof. Half mascara and half mascara primer, I was quite excited to try this because I've never tried a mascara primer.

 If I had naturally curly lashes, I'd love this mascara! However I just have long flat lashes, it lengthens it nicely but that's about it. 

Top: Primer side, Bottom: Mascara side

Close-up of the bristles on the wand (same type of bristles on the primer end)

Altogether

 Overall it's a nice product, but not for me. I do really like the primer side though, when I used it under other waterproof mascaras, my lashes looked gorgeous. I will definitely look for another good primer to use on the special occasions where I don't want to apply falsies. 

Prestige Lash Matrix, as it says on the tube: Length, Lift, Volume mascara. Sadly I can't say too much about this mascara because it was pretty much dried up by the time I opened it. I can't remember but I think I might have opened it once and took a look at it when I first bought it... but as I said I can't remember. 

All the dried up product gunked on the brush, yuck. 

I do have to say though when I tried it the few times, it was nothing special. That and it has a REALLY strong fragrance. I'm used to smelling chemical like mascaras, but this one... smelled really nice. But if you're sensitive to fragrances, you probably don't want to apply this near your eyes... at all. 

My FAVOURITE of the bunch! In the past I tried Maybelline's Falsies (in black drama waterproof), It didn't really stand out for me and while it made my lashes look nice, nothing amazing. This mascara however... AMAZING!!

 The brush is nice, covers all my lashes, volume and lengthens it just enough. Not to mention my lashes stay curled all day long. Best of all, NO SMUDGING! I have had so many smudging problems with my old mascaras, that when I tried this and there was no smudging, I fell in love! This is a definite repurchase for me.

SUPER close up of the bristles

 Next up are the Revlon ones!

 I decided to try both because eyelash growth serum? Yes please!

Needless to say, both flake, didn't notice a difference in length and they dried up really fast. 

Grow Luscious

Grow Luscious Plumping

Top: Plumping
Bottom: Original

 Final verdict: Even though I wouldn't repurchase either, I did find better results with the original formula. Mainly because of the brush, it worked a lot better to get into the inner and outer corner of my eyes to reach every lash. Something to note is that both of these flake horribly. If your a contact lens wearer, there were times where it would just flake into my eyes and cause temporary pain.  

Last but not least, NYC Show time.

I bought this because my HG for a while was the Cover Girl mascara professional in the blue tube (I think) and I thought this would be similar. I would've continued using the Cover Girl brand, but it started smudging under my eyes so I stopped using it; even though it gave my lashes an amazing look. I thought this would be similar, as it was cheap and looked about the same.

I think the brush is what made it fail on my lashes. Didn't coat my lashes, and in the end didn't do anything for my lashes. It gave my eyes an extremely natural look, it didn't even seem like I had mascara on! But that isn't my preferred look, if I use mascara I want major definition of my lashes. I ended up mainly using this under other mascaras because it was somewhat waterproof, but again it didn't even hold a curl so in the end a waste of money.

Phew, long post! 

If anyone has a HG mascara please share! I love trying drugstore mascaras, with the occasional high end mascara that I get as a sample. I love mascara! Who else does to?! :)

Review: Rimmel Match Perfection Concealer

A while back I bought this concealer when Rexall had a 50% off face products sale, I decided to take advantage of that and buy a variety of concealers and a foundation.

I LOVE blush, mascara, and concealer. I have quite a bit of them that I still have to test, and this one has to be one of my favourites!

For the record, I have rather dark circles. Thanks to both genetics and school, my undereye circles stand out when I don't wear makeup. Also most of the time, I can leave my house without foundation or mascara, but I never try to leave without concealer under my eyes. As I wear big framed glasses, without concealer my undereyes stand out. I also have a couple of fine lines that I believe are from genetics, or because when I was younger I didn't care too much about my skin. 

Price wise, it ranges from $4 - $8 in Canada, but with 50% off it was around $2/$3? I can't remember because I bought it a long time ago, but I do remember that it was really cheap.

Coverage wise it was ok, it gave me a very natural look as it didn't completely cover my undereye circles. I had to use a tiny pea size amount to cover both of my undereyes.

My main complaint is with the packaging. Looking at the squeeze tube with the brush I figured it couldn't be too bad; fairly sanitary, easy to use, and small enough that it's portable so I can touch up on the go. For the first 2 or 3 months I was using it, it worked fine.

However a month ago this happened:

The cap is so dirty :(

I guess it got squished by other products in my bag, and too much product was squeezed out!

Zoom in of the brush tip

Even before this explosion of product, I could never 'squeeze' out the perfect amount. It'd either be too much, or too little that I had to squeeze out more and then it would be too much. There was never a perfect medium when I was using this tube.

It doesn't contain a shimmer or anything (not that I notice), but after blending it in it has a nice sheen and my eyes do look brighter!

For the highlighter use of this, I have not used this product for that purpose yet, nor do I plan to, so I can't say for sure how effective it is. But since I have extremely oily skin, most of the time nothing ever lasts on my face, I never notice how long it has been since my face has eaten whatever is on my face. 

Colour match wise it is ok, when I bought this I had a choice of 3 colours, and I'm not too sure if they expanded the range of colours since then, but even then it was still hard to choose a 'correct' colour. The packaging isn't see through, therefore it's hard to determine how much product you actually have left. 

Overall, since I have other concealers that I've tried and have given me an extremely naturally look, I don't think I'd repurchase this again. Even though it's really cheap, it tastes a lot of work layering it to cover my dark circles so that they aren't still showing.

If anyone has any HG concealers or has any favourite ones please let me know! I'm trying the drugstore ones now (I have a Revlon and Maybelline one left to try), but I am completely open to higher end brands.
I am eyeing the Bobbi Brown one because of all the hype, and I also want to give a Giorgio Armani one because I've heard that it does not settle into fine lines. 

Review: Dry Dove Shampoo

Today's post is going to be an extremely short review of the 'new' Dove dry shampoo. I write new in quotations because I am aware that it has been out for quite a while, however it's still fairly new in Dove's product line.

Overview of my hair type, I have curly hair that is oily at the roots and has rather dry ends. I usually wash it everyday because by the second day my scalp gets itchy and I can't stand how oily it makes my hair. 

Unfortunately I do not have a picture of my own bottle, since I threw it out. This was my first dry shampoo, I was shopping at a Shoppers Drug Mart and I wanted to spend over $75 to earn a certain number of points. As it was approaching finals soon, I decided to pick one up to try out!

I was so excited, it retailed for $6.50 when I bought it, however I got a $1 off coupon so I got it for $5.50. For the price, I thought it was worth it when I bought it, since I compared it with other brands before choosing this. 

I managed to try it out a month later, since I had put it in a drawer and forgot about it. My first use, it was good, it didn't leave a streak in my hair, no white cast, and my hair appeared less oily. I went back to use it 3 days later to find the can completely empty. The product had leaked out!! 

After being so angry that I spent $5.50 on a product that only gave me ONE spray, I emailed Dove Canada and complained. 

I really want to commend Dove Canada with their response, they were extremely kind, fast and prompt in replying to my email and interested in finding out what went wrong with my product. After giving them my address, code on the dry shampoo, and where I bought it, they emailed me back saying that they were sending me a complimentary coupon.

A few weeks later, I received a coupon for any free product (worth up to $7.49) and coupons off the brand 'simple' skincare products.

Sadly I have no intentions of buying 'simple' products, although I have a coupon. Also the free product coupon did cover my costs of buying the dry shampoo, so I am satisfied.

Overall, I'm disappointed in the product. Not sure if I will repurchase it, but I will try other dry shampoos. However I am satisfied with Dove Canada's response.

Garnier BB Cream review

Hello hello!

Long time no blog!

I do believe that my main reason for not blogging is the amount of work that goes into it, and my camera isn't the best. Therefore I don't even really try when it comes to photographing anything.

However! I recently discovered a new setting on my camera that takes amazing close up photos of products! I never read manuals, therefore whenever I tried this setting before I didn't understand how it worked. Now that I've discovered it, it's like I'm in a whole new world now!

Back to blogging! :)

I received a sample of the new Garnier BB cream in light, I wanted to buy this because of all of the rave reviews of Asian BB creams, but seeing as one tube of this was priced around $17 - $19 here in Canada, I wasn't willing to pay that amount. 

Soon after I think I saw on Garnier Canada's facebook page that they were giving out samples. Hooray! I signed up, it came in the mail, a couple of days later I tried it and found it extremely greasy. I already have oily skin, so it felt extremely gross, even AFTER I powdered the heck out of my face. 

I scrapped the rest into a small sample jar because I wanted to try it one more time, and when I took it out the other day I saw this:

Ew. If you can't really see in photos, there's a pool of oil surrounding the actual product. I found that extremely disgusting, THAT'S how much oil is in the product itself!! Wow.

None the less I will use up whatever is left in the sample jar, but I probably won't repurchase. I have rather problematic skin at the moment, so coverage is nowhere near what I am looking for, and actually I couldn't even see a difference in coverage after my first layer. And even after the first layer I didn't want to pile this product on anymore.

Final Verdict: Extremely oily, would not purchase. 

Next I want to try the BB cream by Marcelle, and some Asian BB Creams!