2014-04-08

Curel UV Protection Milk SPF25 PA++ (for face and body) review/ swatch

Over the last year I've became a massive fan of Curel products and the brand in general. I've pretty much purchased most items from their original line (featured by green cap/ white bottle packagings) which is targeted at sensitive skin that needs moisturisation.

This was about 20-25USD in Asia. Available most commonly in Japan, then HK and Taiwan.
 Curel also has a whitening line which is featured by grey and white packagings.

Here's a review of the UV protection milk, which is Curel's version of a day moisturiser for face and body with sun protection.

Comes in a simple packaging with cardboard backing below:


Contains 60ml:




Comes in a small nozzle opening like this:


It's not quite those liquidity sunscreen that requires shaking before use like the Mentholatum sunkiller line, this feels less liquidpapery in consistency , it does require shaking but it doesn't have that fast evaporating feel like those liquid-paper consistency sunscreens. It's a light milky fluid. Unscented.


It smooths out easily, leaves a very slight shine, but not sticky.



I took this with me on holiday in Thailand- and quickly realised it may not be waterproof. Hence it's best used as a light day sunscreen for face and body instead. However when used as a body sunscreen I feel like you need a fair bit of product to get the right coverage so the 60ml is very small for use on the body. 

As for the face it's a pretty low SPF rating (SPF25 PA++) so I did not feel like it gave complete sun protection. It is lightly moisturising too so doesn't give that tight or dry feeling which some sunscreens leave behind. It's not quite oil controlling on the face though so does seem to make my makeup slip a bit quicker especially when I was in Thailand with the high humidity and all.

Overall this is best for use on a daily basis regular city life, I still prefer Sofina SPF for my facial sunscreen. For the body I like Kanebo Allie line. Both have consistencies I prefer. 

Rating is 3.5/5. It's a good sunscreen on the go and reasonably priced if you are using it as a facial sunscreen. However I just think Sofina is more compatible with me with higher SPF and better finish under my makeup.

2014-04-07

Canmake Powder Cheeks Blush PW20 review/ swatch

I went through a phase of Canmake blushers and collected quite a few colors. This particular shade was one which I reached for quite often for about a month.

Canmake 'powder cheeks' are small compact blushers housed in a plastic container and also contains a very small blush brush. It's handy to have the brush inside but it's definitely nowhere near the convenience or ease of use of a proper full sized blush brush.

This shade is "PW20" , which is a soft candy pink in the pan:




You can see in the pan there's visible shimmers in the blush, sort of silvery shimmers:


Some swatches (below on the left is Chanel irrellee blush #80 tea rose, just as a random comparison), on the right is Canmake PW20 blush.



All swatches below are Canmake PW20 blush.

You can see it's really finely milled and does have a slight silvery sheen (rather than visible silver flecks). It's a true soft, milky candy pink, adds that pop of innocent pink on the cheeks.


While it's a rather adorable shade, after a while I got a bit bored of it- I think Jill Stuart blushes often have a quad in this particular pink (e.g. #13 milky strawberry mix blush), which is more flattering than Canmake in general because Jill Stuart blushes have a bit more 'translucency' to the finish which looks even more natural than Canmake. Of course, Jill Stuart blushes are like about 4 or 5 times the cost of these..

Nevertheless I would still recommend getting one or two Canmake blushes to have a try- they are good quality drugstore blushes that retails for like less than $10USD in most places. These are also sold in Taiwan.

Rating: 3.5/5.

2014-04-04

MAC Tropical Taboo SIMMER Mineralize Blush and MAC NC20 Pro Longwear foundation fluid swatch/ reviews

MAC 2013 Tropical taboo collection came out with a bunch of usual mineralize blushes. Here's a review of the "Simmer" mineralize blush.


I thought I got an unusal one where there's way more of one shade than the other. Then I looked around online reviews and turned out it did seem like MAC intended this to have less heavy shade and more light shade in the same pan.


It's a apricot-beige-gold shimmer on one side and a plum on the other. It's a warm plum (though could be because the pan size is so small it's hard to pick up the shade without getting a bit of the apricot beige color in it too), not very dirty plum .


I'm not sure how the veining works underneath, but it does seem like there's gold shimmer on top for a few layers then there might be more plum underneath.



Here's the swatch: 

You can see it's a typical MAC mineralize blush consistency, there are bits of 'flecks' of shimmers while the rest of the color seems more evenly pigmented. It's not chunky by any means but does show up as visible shimmer under the sun.



Here it is on my cheeks- I used an even mix of both. I had to use a stippling / skunk brush (just a cheap sonia kashuk one, which is like MAC 187 brush but less bristles).  The lighting is indoor so overall a bit warm.


I also listed the other items I was wearing. I'm wearing Fancl skincare base creamy in shade "Natural pink", which is an illuminating foundation base, and trying my new MAC NC20 pro longwear foundation too. Then followed by a sheer application of Cezanna UV powder foundation (one in the blue case, shade #1 Cream Beige) then the MAC Simmer blush.

My cheeks are naturally a bit red so any blush shade does get influenced by that. It comes out as a plummy red. I thought the shade was a bit of de javu, like easily replicated by a lot of other plum blushes on the market, especially given my red cheeks which probably changes the color a bit. Unfortunately I didn't love the effect under the sunlight as it accentuated pores.



Here's MAC NC20 Pro Longwear foundation.




On my arms a quick swatch- I was in a bit of a shock when I applied some and realised how yellow the shade seems. I purposely applied some near a tiny bruise on my arm to see the coverage.

Below is before blending:


Blended out a bit on top of the bruise- again you can see the yellow tone.



Blended more

Fully blended. Yes it does have a decent coverage, probably covers half the bruise.


It's creamy but pats in to the face easy- though if you don't blend quickly or have dry skin it probably sticks to creases a bit like below.



Again, finished look. It gave a refined finish actually, it's not a full coverage (but I'm sure it's buildable). But after powder foundation on top it's medium coverage even though I applied a rather sheer layer.  A little also goes a long way.

I'm quite surprised it didn't turn out as yellow as it looked on my arms (my arms are probably a shade paler than my face though), but as I applied it over face I can still see a yellow cast, not sure whether it's because I had an illuminating primer underneath plus a paler powder foundation on top so the yellow tint didn't come through as much.

In terms of longwear of the foundation, I thought it was average, after 5-6 hours I still see a bit more oxidation like how my skin reacts with most liquid foundations- it always look a bit more dull in the afternoon. In the cold winter at the moment I think this is not very forgiving if you have any flakies or uneven skin, it does tend to sit in the lines a bit. The finish is a satin matte finish, it's not glowy or dewy or super 'natural'. It looks like "you have good skin, but I can see you are wearing makeup" sort of finish.

Blush rating 3/5. Foundation rating 3/5.