Beauty Blog: My Beauty Products “Treasure Hunt”

Today I decided to go through my beauty counter bathroom shelves for beauty products lol. I’m not editing actually. Because I already have edited a load of products and these are some of what remain. If you have been reading this blog for some time, you’d know that my skin has been fairly low maintenance– meaning I hardly ever go to the dermatologist or a skin care specialist for that matter. And no, I was never blessed with a flawless, blemish- free face. Rather, I was either too much of a cheapskate to have professional skin care maintenance, or I just don’t have the patience to wait inside a clinic to get my face “done.” Confession: Truth is, I can’t stand the pain of the “pricks” and what- nots that they do to my face. For the longest time, apart from the facial cleanser and either Clearasil or Oxy (hello 90s), skin care products remained an entirely foreign concept to me.

And then I was introduced to sunblock creams. A little late already too, because I already had a few unsightly dark sun spots on the sides of my eyes. I honestly cannot fathom how those came about because I hardly stayed out in the sun– I only got to know “the beach” in 2010 and even before that, I had already been applying sunblock to my face quite liberally and those spots were already there! Ugh. *I heard IPL would remove/ lighten those spots, but I was also told they would come back, so forget IPL. I ain’t doing it lol. It’s so expensive to do it too lol*

After sunblock creams, came Olay Total Effects. All because of my friend Daphne who was the brand ambassador.  I loved using Olay Total Effects. It was then that I recognized the need to “moisturize.” I would later switch my facial cleanser from Dr. Murad to Olay as well because it worked on my skin– and it’s more economical 🙂 

See, the thing about my lifestyle is, it is rather unhealthy in the sense that I don’t sleep normal hours like most people do– and should. I figured before that if one sleeps between 7 to 8 hours daily regardless of what time they go to sleep, they won’t have dark circles under their eyes. Perhaps I was wrong. Because even if I did get enough sleep, I still had them. And my friends tell me it’s because I don’t sleep by 12 am at the very latest. Someone out there please tell me that there is really bearing to sleeping by at least 12 am to get better skin. Please. 

Anyway so today, I decided to whip out some of my beauty products. Some new which I have yet to try (because I only took them out in the box now, despite them being in my bathroom shelves for over a year. You see, the treasure hunting always starts in the bathroom, girls! lol).

Let’s begin with these facial masks. 

A few days ago, I read an article about a Korean face mask product on the Daily Mail— “Could an $8 face mask replace $100 facials?” Made me wonder about these masks I had. I’ve used these in the past, but I do wonder exactly what they do. It did make my face feel really cool and relaxed, so perhaps it did its job. Your thoughts?

I am actually obsessed about erasing the dark circles around my eyes. I feel like a complete raccoon with them and like I mentioned earlier, if I don’t sleep before 12am and get at least 7 hours of sleep, I wake up with them. Darker than ever. Eeps! So I am hoping one of these products will at least lighten them. Confession: with eye creams, I usually have my nightly “cocktail” of them– they get mixed together (ok if there’s a skincare specialist out there who just read that I do my own eye cream cocktail, please tell me that it’s ok to do it LOL).  I’ve used that yellow Aveeno “roll on” but I don’t see any change yet. Hylexin has definitely helped, without a doubt. I haven’t used that in a bit because I want to try the newer products. I have alternated with the Nivea which was sent to me over the holidays (thank you, Raisa), and also the Laneige one (thank you, Winnie) which has this wonderful cooling effect.  Dr. Wu is a product I bought on a whim while at Watson’s Singapore and I have yet to try if it does anything. Olay Total Effects is something I continue to use on my face and I use the Olay eye cream every so often– it’s more to moisturize than to lighten I think. I was actually asked to try Pond’s but I haven’t yet– can someone tell me how that compares to Olay.

BB stands for Blemish Balm/ Blemish Base, and is said to be used earlier by dermatologists on laser surgery patients to protect, soothe, and refine their sensitive skin while providing coverage. The Avene cream which is photographed on the left is actually a tinted sunblock cream which I find exceptional (and I loaded up on it)– it not only acts as a sunblock, it also provides good coverage. So I ended up putting that tube together with the 2 actual BB creams. I first learned about BB creams just last December 2011. Unknowingly though, I was sent a tube of Laneige BB Cream last year (and it was just sitting on one of my shelves in the bathroom)! I bought the Rojukiss BB cream and tried it out and really liked it– it did cover up the blemishes and I actually went out of my hotel with just that on my face, as opposed to the usual foundation coverage and powder. It did brighten up my face for sure, but I was hoping it would also allow my skin to “breathe”. Somehow it felt suffocated, just like it would when I put on foundation. And then I discovered the Laneige tube just this January. (I told you, it can be quite a treasure hunt for gifted and unopened beauty products from inside my bathroom– and probably inside yours too lol). I loooved the Laneige BB Cream! I was given the #2 tint, and it was far more impressive than the Rojukiss brand. It did give ample coverage, and it also felt like my skin was able to breathe! I think I have found a winner in Laneige. And it’s supposed to be a top Korean brand. Since I am Asian, I think it is actually best to work with beauty products that are made for Asian skin.

There’s the compact powder for extra coverage and well, to prevent that *cough* frying pan (aka oily) face– because I always, always end up with one! 

I was a Chanel compact powder user before, until I actually lost it (haha I have a knack for losing these compact powders, actually). I had no patience to sit through another session at the makeup counter to determine what shade it was I had hahaha. But I liked using Chanel. And then I had Guerlain. Bought in Paris because I realized I had a frying pan face when I was about to go into a meeting. And I didn’t bring my Chanel compact with me. I saw Guerlain along Rue de Castiglione (my meeting was very close to Place Vendome), so I went in and just bought one. I remember walking out of that corner boutique with a cakeful of freshly applied powder on my face LOL. And oye I was darned confident too LOL!  Another brand I use currently is Shu Uemura. Cindy Pineda, whom I trust to do my makeup at Shu Uemura Rockwell Power Plant Mall was the one responsible for introducing me to the wonders of the Shu Uemura compact powder. Of late however, I am enjoying the compact powder from Avene. I like that this has different shades of coverage. I think it makes a world of a difference in terms of how light or how dark/ thick coverage you want for certain parts of your face. The last one which I have just begun using today, is from Majolica (thank you, Cathy).

Majolica is a fairly new brand that I got to know about just last December 2011– again as a result of my “treasure hunt” lol.  I know that this is without a doubt a good brand because it’s from the same makers of Shiseido! And Shiseido is very well known to manufacture excellent products meant for Asian skin.

I am already loving the Majolica compact powder *that gold case is sooo cute too*– I tried it on about an hour ago on one side of my face *without putting on BB Cream yet* and wow, the coverage is really great! I should actually start minimizing the use of a skin foundation (replacing it with Laneige BB cream) and just bring this compact powder for touch ups! 

I have yet to experiment with my eye shadow/ eye make up collection (one of them you see above, from Majolica). Hopefully I find the time to do it again soon. Imagine me writing about beauty products now lol– from someone who knows nothing about skin care and beauty, to someone who is getting a little interested (but hopefully not too obsessed) with or in it 🙂 One thing I do know though: it always makes skin care and beauty maintenance soooo much easier if you were born with good skin *big sigh*. Ah well, since I wasn’t born with this, I guess the best way to do it is to try to live a healthier lifestyle… and have better skincare coverage/ make up lol. *No, I can’t entertain cosmetic surgery– I have a terribly low threshold for pain!*  So I guess this beauty products treasure hunt will continue 🙂

Have a great Saturday, everyone!!

x

TheBagHag (please don’t let me be a Makeup hag lol)