Alternative to BB Cream

I think lots of you heard about bb cream, or already order them from ebay or ask friends and relatives to bring you over some when they travel to Asia. I just come back from Singapore, and I have heard (and seen some of) the high-end cosmetics companies have set foot into the market which is dominated by Korean and Japanese firms. So this is really 'hot' at the moment!


N.B. FYI, I have seen bb cream from the following companies: Estee Lauder, Lancome, Bobbi Brown, Clinque, Dior as well as MAC


So what's bb cream?


"In a nutshell...

BB Cream is an all-in-one cosmetic beauty and skincare product. Depending on the brand you choose, this cream can act as foundation, concealer, sunblock, and moisturizer all in one go."

quoted from squidoo.com

Therefore, anything that claims to improve our skin, which means tinted moisturiser is kind of the same thing, so why border?

The only reason that I have only one bb cream at home is that when I was in Singapore or HK for holiday, I have tested lots of the bb cream that's available in the market and to be honest, I found all of them too heavy for my taste. This is because most of them have very high SPF, I found any sun screen lotion that has more than SPF 30 too heavy for my skin as I felt I can't breathe though the skin (well, this is just my opinion).... Also, they can turn grey easily and it was quite hard for me to find the right colour (most of them are very pink based or on the other extreme, very yellow based)

Therefore, I have a list of 'alternatives':

The closest match is actually Olay total effect, as there has been lots of good review on Olay's total effect moisturiser and Max factor's foundation. This is the perfect match as it said on the bottle: 'total effects with a touch of MF foundation'. This has SPF15, which is ideal for base. I have used this everyday when I was in Singapore, and with an extra layer of mineral powder foundation, I can go out quickly and that it is moisturising enough for the whole day without suffocated my skin cells.

The 3 at the corner are only available in Asia, sadly. These are from Za, one of my faourite brand. The 2 in front are blend with their beauty powder, which I will explain further in my next review as I have taken the photso ages ago, but just have not got the time to type up the review.

The one in the box is same as the Stila one. These 2 have whitening effect. If you shop in Asia, you will find every single brand with whitening foundation, almost no exceptation. You may ask why Asian people use whitening products all the time? I can say it is due to culture, but I will say it is because our skin tend to be yellowed tone, whitening product does not meant making your face like Michael Jackson, but it is more about even skin tone as well as give the skin a more radiance effect.

Furthermore, although these 2 have not got any SPF, I think these are not bad for an alternative to bb cream, as they claim to have skin improving ingrdients. They are my newly arrive Bourjois 10 hour sleep effect and Bourjois healthy mix foundations. They have been out in the market for ages and I have always heard good reviews about them. But I only managed to purchase them now as I was planning to use £20 to get a good quality bb cream in Singapore, but at the end, I could not find any, as I felt cosmetics in Singapore are quite expensive and that other than Dior bb cream, I really wasn't keen to purchase the rest... so I managed to save £20 and purchase these 2 instead.

So what do you think?

Kyanvi.

p.s. phew... this is one of the longest review I have ever typed in this blog. @@ so please leave me some feedback!

p.s.s. and the one of the left, the white compact is almay line smoothing foundation, which I have wrote about previously: here

Stila Eye Shadow Trio

I first seen this eye shadow trio on Jojoba's blog, and I then kept looking online to get hold of this as you know, Stila has left uk market....and it is a good buy.

It is a bake mineral eye shadow, which meant that they can be used ethier wet or dry, though I only use it dry as they give a good soft metallic colour. Also, it can be used as a mix colour or 3 separate colour.

Compare with the Tiramisu from Laura Geller that I have got, this is a much lighter tone and it is great to use at all, as I can complete my look quite easily.

And last brown eye shaodw palette to go tomorrow!

x kyanvi x

p.s. as I am heading to Singapore this Saturday, my reviews will be temporliarly suspended unless I can use my partner's phone to upload stuff.

The ray of Browns

Since I have started work from October, I found out that people in my office dont wear makeup, or mininal make up, so I kind of trying to adopt a more nude/ simple make up to work; and from then, I have build up a collection of brown/ netural eye shadows. [and I know this sounds like a very rubbish excuse to buy a lot of sutff hahaha]

Terefore, tomorrow, for this week, I am going to write about the 7 palettes that I currently using, as I still got a few hidden around my drawers.. lol

So see you tomorrow!

x Kyanvi x

2010 Favourites Continue

Blush (Clockwise)

• e.l.f. Cool Bronzer
• Sleek Face Contour Kit - Light
• Laura Geller Baked Sateen Blush -n - Brighten Ethereal Blush
• Muji Blush - Orange
• Cargo Beachblush - Coral Beach

Eyeshadow (Clockwise)

• e.l.f. 6 colour palette
• Laura Geller Baked eyeshadow - Tiramisu
• Stila eye shadow trio - champagne glow
• Muji 4 colour eye shadow - brown
• Ruby & Mille Completed Eye kit

This is the end of my series... as I actually forgot to take the rest and I have already throw the magazine away... sigh..... = =//

Kyanvi.

2010 Favourites

Although I know it's already February, since I have already took the photos, then I might as well upload the photos [but too lazy to write that up @@] and put this as a record. ;-P

Eyeliners

Gosh Velvet Touch
Prestige Automatic
Prestige Total Intensity
Benefit Eye Bright
Stila Kajal

Brush - Eye

Barry M E/S brush
No 7 e/s blend & contour brush
e.l.f. e/s shading brush
Gosh eyeliner brush
Models own e/s blending brush

I will update the rest tomorrow! Good night!

Kyanvi

Prestige Total Intensity Eyeliner

As I mentioned before, I prefer Prestige Total Intensity eyeliner, but as you can see, I only managed to get hold of 3 of them, with getting 1 from ebay instead of @ Boots.

They are the best eyeliner I have ever encountered, they are long lasting and soft. For once, I have used the black one to draw an inner eyeliner, it managed to stay for more than 10 hours, which I was so amazed.

They have only 6 colours available at Boots for £4.99 each, though they have apparently 8 colours in the US. I wish I can get a hand of that, but don't think I am going back to US for a short while. sigh

Anyway, I managed to find the 8 colours online and for us in UK, we will be missing out the fearless teal and strong slate which are the ones I really want as I am not that interest in fierce blue and powerful purple.

(N.B. these are found on google search engine and belongs to beautyandthedirt.com and vivi-bear from yahoo blog)

Swatch

These swatches are compare with Gosh Total Intensity eyeliner.

2nd line, L-R:

02 Bold Brown

05 Intense Olive

01 Deepest Black

Compare with Black Ink (R1), I think deepest black is much blacker and Bold brown is in a similar case as it is darker than truly brown.

So this is it, I have finally managed to write the reviews for the 2 eyeliners that I like most, and these are the 3 that come after this.

Stila kajal eyeliner - I saw Michelle Phan (a popular youtube user) used the black colour version  in her video, but sadly I didn't manage to get hold of.

Prestige Mineral eyeliner

Revlon  High Dimension eyeliner

- these 2 are quite soft and highly pigmented, the only downfall is that they do not last that long.

These are my favourite at the moment, but I still have a list of eyeliner that I plan to try:

- Urban Decay 24/7

-Mac Powerpoint

-Make up forever

-L'Oreal HIP

and what else??

Kyanvi.

Shopping Haul

Finally... I have waited this for almost a month... I bought this over Brandalley in Jan as there's a special sale on Stila. This site does different brand sales in a given period and you have to wait for at least 1-2 weeks before the products are dispatched to you. From my understanding is that this website is act as an agent for the brand to clear out the old stocks. That's explain why the discount rate is so high. It was up to 70% off for Stila.

As you can see from the photo above, that's the thing i bought and only costs me £4x.  As the delivery cost is £4.95, therefore it is better to google a voucher code for that ;-P

Sadly some of the stuff won't able to stay with me and go to my friends. Therefore, I will write a review afterwards when i got time to start using the ones I have.

Kyanvi.

p.s. I bought a 2nd round from ASOS, since this website is really as good as other said.

Love the fingerness gloves most as it keeps me warm while typing as my house is so cold... and of cause the belt too, as it is so cool.. but haven't got time to try the cosmetics yet...

p.s.s. just in case I don't update that often.

Happy Chinese New Year & Valentine's Day everyone!