Facial Cleansers + Foundation

These days I hardly wear any makeup. And even if I do, it's really only foundation. I used to do a lot of heavy eye make-up back in the day because my eyes are so damn small -__- but these days, I've been letting my eyes breathe a little bit. I think it's paid off to be honest! :D I don't have the puff under my eyes anymore and that's probably because I'm not rubbing the shit out of my eyes every night taking off eye makeup. Nowadays, the only time I really put my FACE on is if I'm going to an event of some sort that differs from the ordinary. Instead, I've been directing all my attention to skin care!

I'm a total sucker for packaging by the way. I guess if you know any graphic designer friends, they'd probably tell you the same thing. We tend to buy things just because of the packaging and that's just the damn truth. But beyond packaging, I really wanted products that would work well for my unbelievably stubborn skin. And by "stubborn" I mean like, my skin is oily, dry, and sometimes combination products don't do anything for me! It's weird but combination skin products tend to either dry out my skin too much or they end up being oily anyway. What's up with that? Anyone else born with this terrible skin issue?
I think that's what got me into researching skin care products. I've been looking for ingredients more than anything, trying to see if certain ingredients are *active in making your skin oily or dry or whateverthefuq.

Anyway, I bought a couple of new products that I would like to share!

(From left to right) Rimmel primer | Rimmel liquid foundation | Aveeno skin brightening scrub | Neutrogena make-up remover and cleanser | Biore Marshmellow foam cleanser

So this is basically a primer for your foundation. It's supposed to go on smooth before you put on your foundation so that your pores are less visible and leave your foundation on your face longer.

When you squeeze the contents out, it looks a bit orangey but it actually blends into your skin so don't need to worry about. And like most primers, the feel is kinda oily and thick, but it's intended for small usage. I just dab a little bit on my fore finger and start rubbing it around areas that get red and my cheeks since my pores are visible.

The reason I got this was because I've been hearing a lot of girls use primer before foundation and it helps a lot. To be honest, I never really cared much for it because I thought my foundations lasted pretty long. I used to have a Laura Mercier mineral foundation primer and that was the only one I really liked because it was so light and actually worked really well without making my face feel oily. But that was like $35 or so. It does do the job and it's a drug store brand retailing at around $7-$10, which is not too bad if you feel like you need a little extra to make your skin feel smooth. (Sorry I don't have example pictures right now, I already washed my face lol. But when I do my Park Bom look, I'll probably use it. :)

Next is the Rimmel Match Perfection foundation. 
Now, call me pricey for a poor college student, but I actually repel against drug store foundation most of the time. Like I mentioned in the beginning, I have some stubborn ass skin and I found that a lot of drug foundations are kinda cheap on my skin and therefore I've resorted to buying the more expensive stuff from Sephora or M.A.C.  My main foundations right now are BareMinerals and my Smashbox picture perfect foundation. Both are pretty pricey (around $30-50) but I find that those are the ones that work for my skin without breaking me out. I have used a CoverGirl liquid foundation before and that was okay so since I'm running out of foundation, I figured I'd give the drug store foundations another try to save me money.

The color I chose was Ivory 120. I'm typical American Asian skin color, meaning I'm a warm undertone, light foundation color. Usually go for the third shade lightest from most typical American foundations. This isn't the best photograph but the foundation blends into my hand pretty nicely! Even though the lighting may seem like it's hindering from what it actually looks like, it actually blends in very well.

The 'Smart Tone' technology is supposed to promote a foundation that can eventually blend into your true skin tone. There are already foundations that promise such thing but I never really believed it. Although I have to say, this Rimmel foundation is pretty impressive so far.
The only Cons to this would be that it's a bit thick. I found the foundation rubbing off after only about 4-5 hours of wear. But if you're looking for a cheap, good looking foundation, this is not a bad option. I'd bring a powder compact if you're going to some kind of engagement though because as I said, it may wear off pretty quickly. (Then again, it was pretty hot today in L.A.)
Retails at most stores for around $10

This retails for around $7-10 at most stores.

To put it short and simply, I don't know if this is actually 'BRIGHTENING' my skin because I can't really tell to be honest.....but it does make my skin feel really supple. It does have microbeads but they aren't big. In fact they are almost not really noticeable. You can feel a little roughness when you wash your face though so you know it's there but I like it. It feels good. Some of the products with micro beads make my face feel like sandpaper so I like the subtle feeling in this one.

I do notice that my face isn't AS red when I get out of the shower but as I said, don't really know if it's actually brightening my skin. And I'm not like, pale Asian, so I'd know.

I think I'm in between like, pale Korean chicks and Californian filipino chicks. LOL. Meaning, my skin is in between being light and being Medium toned if that makes any sense at all.

Retails for around $12 at most stores.

All I can say is, it takes my make-up off and it feels nice on my face. So I'm guessing it works? lol. Now is it worth the price when there are so many other American cleansers on the market for around $5 or 6 bucks? Maybe? But again, I opt for the more expensive stuff because my skin is crazy. And I'm a believer in "you get when you paid for" so..I just tried my luck. Besides I've tried all the really cheap stuff and they usually dry my skin out to death.

I mean this kinda dries out my skin a bit too but I usually pair whatever cleanser I'm using with my Olay active hydrating lotion. It works like a mothereffing charm! Love that stuff.
;D

The last two items I bought I haven't actually tried yet, so I'll review that later. The Biore Marshmellow foam cleanser seemed interesting because it's foam and I've yet to try a foam cleanser. I know a lot of people say that foam cleansers are actually cheaper because it's just FOAM, but I heard good reviews about this product. The foam is supposed to be very thick and not like your ordinary bubbly foam. That's why it's called 'Marshmellow' lol. IDK. I'll see for myself. I got this because I'm still on the hunt for a cleanser that WON'T dry out my skin, but who knows if that will ever happen. This was only about $12 so I thought I'd give it a try. Hey, it's still cheaper than Lancome or Clinique cleansers okay.

I bought the Koji Eye talk (double eyelid glue) for the purpose of my upcoming Park Bom look. I want it to look REALLY similar, so me with my super monolids needed some help. The problem is that I've never really used eye glue or tape though so I'm kinda just like herpaderpin right now with them. I just can't seem to use it correctly! GRR. I know people say it just takes practice but it's seriously irritating. Hopefully I'll get used to it soon.

And let's face it, Japan has the best packaging ever. I mean, they can make generic bath soap look cute. So yes, I'm a huge fan of packaging in Asia but Japan tops them all. Minimal, clean, and aesthetically appealing. I need to work over there! D:

As you can see, my photos are super fancy like. I'm going to try and make it a habit to take quality photos when I'm posting pictures of anything. I have this camera I paid a grand for and most of the time it's just collecting dust! Poor guy.

Here's a bonus photo. I was trying to be artsy okay! :3

Until next time~

+Lo+

UPDATE! Wig reviews + Upcoming posts

Okay, I finally ordered a RED WIG!!
I've actually been talking about it for months and months, that I'd buy a red wig to do an updated Park Bom look, but I just  didn't have the money or time to really think about where to get it from. In the past I've bought wigs from wig shops, Yesstyle.com and EpicCosplay.com.

And I bought a red wig on Ebay! It's my first time purchasing a wig from ebay, so I was a bit skeptical at first, but I think judging from the feedback of the seller, I feel like it should be a good purchase. I was looking around many places, including sites I've already ordered from, but I just couldn't find the right looking wig for Park Bom. But I'd say that the wig looks pretty damn similar to her hairstyle and color.

So even though I don't really have a lot of experience buying wigs online, I figured for anyone who is interested in buying wigs for whatever reason, I can provide some reviews on the few places I've had my wig experiences with. :)


YESSTYLE.com
I'm sure a lot of people are actually familiar with Yesstyle, especially if they're Asian lol. They have a good variety of Asian fashion clothing sold by independent sellers and companies. I'd like to think of Yesstyle as being similar to URBAN OUTFITTERS here in the U.S. They don't sell their own brand of clothing, but they collaborate with third party companies to bring a nice blend of styles to choose from.
Anyway, on to the wigs.

Last year, I bought a wig from Yesstyle that looks like THIS
I paid $70 for it -__- and it took about 2 weeks to arrive. I know $70 is pretty expensive for a wig, but I think the quality was pretty good. I used the wig for a previous Park Bom look!

With Flash

You can read the full post HERE.

Without Flash

Honestly, you have to always be a little weary of Yesstyle. Because almost every product has a really cute model with multiple pictures of how cute the item will potentially look on you. But more often than not (and I say this because I've shopped from this website frequently in the past...) usually you are getting a far lesser quality item than you will think you will get from the pictures. But I think that's kind of obvious. Which is why I stopped buying from Yesstyle.

For $70, I thought the wig would be really high quality. It's made of high quality, heat resistance fiber, but I feel like the quality was still mid grade tier. I only say this because I've bought cheaper wigs from EpicCosplay and I think the quality is about the same. Maybe if this wig was about $50, it would be more acceptable, but honestly, it was too pricey. Most of the wigs on Yesstyle are over $60 so if you're considering from there because you see some really cute looking wigs (which they do!) just be weary of how good the quality is. I'm not saying that this wig quality was BAD, but I think for how much it was, you could get a better wig. Consider the fact that REMY hair wigs (aka, human hair) cost around $100-200 for pieces and up to $800+ for a full, long wig, $100 for a full head SYNTHETIC wig should be pretty good quality. But Yesstyle has really cute wigs because they cater to Asian styles and fashion. So if you really want one from there, I think you should do your research first. Check ebay top sellers who have similar style wigs. You'd be surprised. Some ebay sellers even carry the same wigs as Yesstyle (M.H.S. and Clairbeauty) so I'd check there first. Top sellers are top sellers for a reason and you are less likely to get a really shitty item if all the reviews are good.

Rating: 7.0 

Pros:
- Cute Japanese and Korean style wigs
- Trendy, fashionable colors great for gyaru styles
- Good quality, heat resistant
- Hard to find style in most wig stores or websites

Cons: 
- Over priced
- Takes a while to ship to the U.S. (ships from Hong Kong)
- Return policy is a bitch


EPICCOSPLAY.com
My second wigs came from EpicCosplay

Okay, excuse me because I'm lazy and don't feel like taking new pictures for the purpose of this review, so I'm using the old shitty pictures I took on my Macbook's photobooth. LOL but you get the point....


I bought 3 wigs from EpicCosplay! Originally I bought 2, the two pink ones above to the left. The first one looks like THIS. 

I actually bought this for the purpose of wearing it to an Anime convention. It was supposed to be like the style of Serah Ferron, who is a really cute character from Final Fantasy 13. ---->

I wanted to get a regular dark pink wig for the purpose of doing a DIY cosplay wig. As you can see in the link of the original wig, it's really quite curly. So I cut the wig to fit Serah's shape and straightened out the front parts.

 The second one was also the same color pink wig, but I bought a shorter one and styled it differently. This one was supposed to be Lightning's hair style (same game, FF13) but I fucked it up and ended up just cutting it really short and trying to make it look J-Rocker ish? lol. I like it. Even though I regret cutting it so short because the original wig was like, really long. -___- Kinda wasted my money there but it was a good experience.

And lastly, this was the third wig I bought from them. My friend Chrystal (on the left) is actually wearing my Yesstyle wig! haha! This was when we were in Vegas a few months ago. I actually ended up selling that wig to her because I wasn't wearing it anymore :(  But I love this green wig! Look how pretty the curls are and how nice the color is! ^^ It looks a bit uncurled on the right side but that's because I was up all night in it. The nice thing about EpicCosplay wigs are that they are all heat resistant! So you can curl them, straighten them, just like real hair! Now that's high quality.

It's kind of hard to tell because it's not a good quality photograph, but the above photo is without flash. And as you can see, there's more shine to the Yesstyle wig that my friend is wearing than the other wigs I bought from EpicCosplay. The shine in wigs show that it's really synthetic so I think the shinier the wig, the faker it looks. The pink wigs were around $30 each and the long mermaid green wig was about $45. Which is STILL significantly cheaper than the Yesstyle wig.

Even though it's for cosplay, if you're looking for DIY wigs or cute colors to work with, I'd definitely give EpicCosplay a chance! It's not CHEAP really.... but the wigs are really quite gorgeous. I've yet to be disappointed with them.

Rating: 9.0

PROS: 
- Every color you can think of!
- High quality synthetic fiber
- Heat resistant
- Lots of Anime styles
- Cute styles

CONS: 
- Looks fake with flash
- Kinda pricey but you get what you paid for.


--

I know I haven't gotten the ebay wig yet, but I purposely wanted to do a separate post on it because I also wanted to include the Park Bom look in the post as well! So that's coming soon!
A long time ago, I said I'd do a look for CL from 2NE1, since I had received so much positive feedback from the Park Bom look. But again, I didn't really have the time or money to come up with a CL look, so my apologies if you were anticipating it! I'll be doing a CL look soon as well, but since I don't want to pay money for a blonde wig, I'll probably just do my roots (since I'm already blonde...) and do a look that centers on her style and makeup.

Until then,
Stay chic!

+Lo+