Ettusais Haul

I recently discovered this Japanese beauty brand and it might be a winner. As you can tell, I went a little crazy. With the weather starting to warm up here I'm already brainstorming ways to be more comfortable survive the coming summer. The name Et tu sais, is French for "you know what?" The brand has a selection of skin care, and focuses on incorporating skin care ingredients into their makeup to be suitable for sensitive or acne prone skin.

First I'd like to talk about the packaging. It is surprisingly minimalist for a Japanese beauty brand. I'm not saying it's pink-free but Ettusais has taken a much more moderate approach to all things cutesy and girly, than its competitors. They like to collaborate with other Japanese brands and come out with limited edition packaging which can be hit or miss. I do think the collab with Amphi, a lingerie company, is lovely!

My first Ettusais purchases were Puru Puru Serum, limited edition Princess Red rose cheek colour, and Lip Essence stick with the Amphi design. So far I love all three of these! You can read my reviews here!

Loft had a special gift bag of Ettusais summer essentials. As a side note, Loft has lots of value sets from different brands. I highly recommend checking them out. The one I bought was 1800yen, with around 5000yen worth of product! It included Aqua Splash OB, Aqua Splash UV SPF 25, BB Mineral White SPF 45, Oil Block Jelly, and Lip Essence.

Do you have anything from Ettusais? What do you think?

PS If you're interested in looking at Ettusais online, they have an English website but the Japanese one is way better, and obviously gets updated more often.

Korean Beauty Haul!

 

Before going to Korea, I did a little research to know what products or brands to look out for. I looked online and asked a few friends who had already been there. I didn't want to venture into anything too expensive, and I'm a sucker for pretty packaging. I'm also drawn to products that advertise as having more natural ingredients, which was lucky since that seems to be trendy among Korean brands. Watch my Korean haul video. Here are the brands I ended up buying from.

Nature Republic

http://www.naturerepublic.com/eng/

As the name suggest, the philosophy of Nature Republic is to make products from natural ingredients. The base for all their products is what they call "MD water", which is just clean water from different parts of the world with "various precious natural ingredients." 

The Face Shop

http://international.thefaceshop.com/index.jsp

Here's another brand wanting to share the best of nature with you, the consumer. In their 'brand story' they talk about the wisdom of nature and its many benefits. Reviews of this brand have commented that their ingredients have room to improve, and contain more chemicals than advertised. However, they seem to be moving in the right direction!

Skin Food

http://eng.theskinfood.com/

Another explanatory name, Skin Food's products aim to feed your skin, making it healthy for "14 years, not just 14 days." I loved the products here but the sales staff at Skin Foods (I visited 4 or 5) are quite pushy, and followed me around the store trying to up-sell products, which I hate. 

Etude House

http://www.etudehouse.com/

Etude House is all about play, and colour. They think beauty should be anything but mundane, and want their products to help you feel like a princess.

Too Cool for School

https://www.toocoolforschool.com/

This brand is newer, starting in 2010, and sports artsy, creative packaging. They are all about being artistic, nonconformist punks.

I will start posting reviews for some of these products this week! So far I am loving everything I picked up and can't wait to go back!

ELF Haul! (And granola bars)

I just couldn't resist!

This weekend my iherb order came in (thanks for delivering mail even on Sundays Japan!) I haven't had any ELF products since I was in high school when I randomly had one of their lip glosses. I might have gone a little crazy, but these are such good quality for the price! I couldn't say no to a 48 shade eye shadow palette for $5!

Here's a little list of what I got.

Little black beauty book in warm and cool (48 piece)

Matte lip colour in praline and coral

Mysterious nail polish set

Jumbo eye shadow stick in feeling lucky

Concealer brush

...and nature's path pumpkin'n'spice granola bars

Do you have any ELF products you love? Let me know in the comments!

Fukuoka Take 2 Goodies

After a mix up that meant we didn't have all of the pieces for our bed, I took another trip to Fukuoka to remedy the situation and do a little more shopping for myself. 

In addition to Ikea, I picked a few things up from Loft, Streamcream, The Body Shop, and Lush. 

The cute old fashioned alarm clock is from Ikea. 

Lush:

Sorry I don't have the proper names for the Lush stuff. The labels are all in Japanese. Anyway, I got a cocao butter bath bomb, a bubble bath (that's the pink swirly one), gold bubble bath/shampoo that's the consistency of play dough, and a tea tree disc which I'm hoping to turn into a toner. 

Body Shop:

Aloe Vera body butter. This is pure gold and my second tub. It's great for new tattoos and I find it helps calm my armpits after shaving. They can get really itchy and irritated. (Sorry for talking about armpits). 

Honeymania eau de toilet. This smelled so great in the store I had to get it. Again, for this who don't know, I'm obsessed with honey. 

Loft:

Mary-Lou Manizer by The Balm. Great highlighter. I heard lots of good things about this. It's super pigmented and gorgeous! I'm planning on wearing it every day forever. 

Powder eyebrow expert by Suzie N.Y. I think the idea is to use each colour on a different section of your brow but I've been blending them together. This powder stays put all day long! I've never used powder on my brows before but I'm a fan!

Steamcream. It took me 20 minutes to decide on a tin and then I realized I should have bought 8 more to send home as gifts because they are so beautiful!

No more spending for a while. I'm going to post more reviews now. 

What kind of posts would you like to see?