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Etude House Pink Bird Box November “Snowy Dessert Collection”

16. December 2015

If you follow me on instagram or facebook you already know that I was offered to be part of the Etude House Pink Bird Program and I’m really honoured and happy to present to you my first Etude House Pink Bird Box today! The theme of Etude House November Pink Bird Box is “Snowy Dessert Collection”, which is the name of Etude House’s Christmas Collection 2015 on the same time, and as the name already reveals, this box contains products of that collection! If you are curious about some of Etude House’s newest product continue reading, but be aware that this post is picture-heavy :D

First of all, some words about the Korean brand Etude House: Etude House is one of the best known Korean brands for cute packaging. If you are a lover of cute, girly and pink packaging, reminding you of being a child and the princess you always dreamt to be, THIS is your brand. Their packaging is usually so adorable that you cannot keep yourself from impuls-buys – only because you saw the packaging… Etude House is having a blogger program called Pink Bird. Selected blogger will receive a monthly box for a defined period of time packed with selected products for reviewing purpose. Since I’m really a huge fan of Etude House I’ve always looked up to other bloggers who were part of the program in the past and read their posts of previous Etude House Pink Birds eagerly, and now, having a pink bird box in my own hands, makes me really proud and also ashamed, since some of the past pink birds are people I could call blogger-idols :D (please check out bloggers like for example HelloPrettyBird, MangoBeautyTips, or BeautyJunkie…there are many, many more of course!).

Opening the Etude House Pink Bird Box November was super exciting! I was so curious about the products of the Snowy Dessert Collection, but also about the other sample kit of the new Honey Cera skin care line, which was part of the Etude House Pink Bird Box, too. Inside the box there was also the Etude House magazine and some advertorial flyers of the two lines which are part of the box. The Etude House magazine is really cute and contains some how-to instructions and makeup tips. Are you interested in some pictures from the magazine? Let me know in the comments!

The products of my Etude House Pink Bird Box November were Etude House Snowy Dessert Play 101 Pencils in shade No. 71 and No. 73, Etude House Snowy Dessert Pudding Tint No.3 Grapefruit Tint, and Etude House Snowy Dessert Ginger Cookie Blusher. Moreover, there was a Honey Cera 4-in-1 Kit, containing the Etude House Honey Cera Nourishing & Elasticity Cream, the Etude House Honey Cera Priming Eye Serum and the Etude House Honey Cera Toner and Emulsion.

Let’s start off with the products from the Snowy Dessert Collection 2015: This collection is designed to remind you of all these tasty and lovely Christmas desserts, only here you cannot eat them, but instead use them for your next makeup. The collection contains 5 new and limited colors of the Etude House Play 101 Pencils (I reviewed some of their pencils in the past >>here<<), 5 colors of the Snowy Dessert Pudding Tints, the Snowy Dessert Ginger Cookie Blusher and Contour Maker, two different Snowy Dessert Hand Creams and two Snowy Dessert Scented Tablets. You can check out the whole collection on Etude House Online Shopping Mall.

I was most excited about the Etude House Snowy Dessert Ginger Cookie Blusher, because it was one of the products I was thinking about to buy, before I knew that I would receive the Pink Box. The packaging of this Blusher is really adorable and fits perfectly to Christmas. The Snowy Dessert Cookie Ginger Blusher comes in a cardboard packaging designed like an oven! This is so cute! I fell in love with this packaging at once!

The Snowy Dessert Ginger Cookie Blusher is a two-toned blusher with a bronze color. It has a sweet ginger bread man imprinted and I really hesitated to use my brush on this blusher, because I feared the cute ginger bread man would disappear. So far I’ve used this blush quite often but you still see the ginger bread man luckily!

The color of this blusher is very light and swatched on my hand you hardly see anything apart from a glowy, bronze shimmer. Nevertheless, when I applied it on my cheeks the color is more vibrant and visible, resulting in a brownish/ bronze color which is more than lovely for fall and winter season. The Snowy Desser Ginger Cookie Blusher contains 9 g of product and retails for 16.80 US$. It doesn’t come with a puff or a brush. Some pictures below I also will show you how my complete facial makeup looks like and how the color of this blusher turns out on my cheeks.

The Etude House Snowy Desser Pudding Tint in Shade 3 called Grapefruit Pudding comes in a cardboard box designed like those cake boxes you will receive at some bakeries. Another super adorable designed product! Once you open the cardboard box you will find the tint in a small jar together with a spoon/spatula.

The Snowy Dessert Pudding Tint has a pudding texture, as the name suggests, which also remind me a bit of some mousse or other desserts like that. Kind of a bouncy texture. The spatula has a soft plastic tip. You can use it like a spoon to scoop out the pudding tint. The spreading of the tint is better done with the backside of the spoon, or with a separate lip brush or your fingers. The color of the pudding tint is super vibrant and highly pigmented, but also can be blended in as soft gradient. As for the staying power of this lip tint the stain is visible quite a long time. It may be not as vibrant as when you apply it, but it doesn’t look bad either. If you have dry lips you should exfoliate your lips definitely in advance, otherwise the vibrant pink color will cling to every dry lip flake or wrinkle. The lip tint jar contains 5.5 g and retails for 10.40 US$.

The Etude House Snowy Dessert Play 101 Pencils, which I received in shade No.71 and No. 73 are both pencils with a shimmering finish. They come in a plastic box and have a stripe design. No. 71 is a light pink color, whereas No. 73 is a light pearly color.

Both shades are super pretty for the under-eye area or the inner corners of your eyes for highlighting. You can twist up the pencils and there is also a tiny sharpener included for sharpening the tip of the pencils. The texture of the product is a creamy type pencil, so it is also useable as eyeshadow for example. I love the shades, because they are really subtle and yet have such a pretty sparkle. Each pencil contains 0.5g and retails for 7.80 US$.

In the image below I used all the products I received from the Snowy Dessert Collection to create a makeup look. I used the Ginger Cookie Blusher on my cheeks, the Grapefruit Pudding Tint on my lips and I used the Play 101 Pencil shade No. 71 on my lid and shade No. 73 under my eyes for highlighting. I really like the combination of all the colors for this soft and yet fresh look. There are some discounted Snowy Dessert Makeup Sets available on Etude House which come with a Snowing in my Hand Snow Pen as gift!

Last but not least the Etude House Pink Bird Box November contained the Honey Cera 4-in-1 Kit. The new Etude House Honey Cera line contains honey as key ingredient for nourishing and moisturizing. Furthermore, it contains Royal Jelly and Ceramide. Royal Jelly has nourishing properties like the honey and Ceramide strengthens the skin barrier. Also, you will find extracts of the Helichrysum italicum or also called Italian Immortelle or Curry Plant in the Etude House Honey Cera Line. The purpose of this extract is soothing and moisturizing. Aim of this line is to make the skin plump and nourished and give it the “honey-look”. These ingredients are perfect for winter-time and for dry and rough skin types!

I cannot say anything about the long-term effects of this set since it is too few to make any conclusions, but from my first impression I really like this kit. The scent is a nice sweet and flowery scent, but nothing like honey as I imagined before. Unlike most other toners the Honey Cera Toner has a milky color, but the consistency is watery nevertheless. It absorbs quite fast without stickiness. The emulsion is a lightweight lotion, whereas the cream has a thick and nourishing consistency. The cream also leaves the skin a bit tacky afterwards, but definitively the nourishing and firming aspect is noticeable. The eye serum looks like a balm but is very light and doesn’t feel heavy. It feels nice under and above the eye. Toner and Emulsion contain 15ml each, the eye serum contains 4 ml and the cream contains 10 mg of product. If you order any of the Etude House Honey Cera products in fullsize you will reveive one of this kits with your order!

Finally, I’m at the end of my first Pink Bird Box review. Did you like the content of Etude House Pink Bird Box November? I really like the topic of the Christmas themed products and the winter-proof skincare items to combat dry winter skin. Which are your favourite products? Did you try any of the products already? Tell me about it in the comments below!

Just as a short reminder: All products mentioned and reviewed on this blog are of my personal opinions. This product here was sent to me for reviewing purpose by http://www.etudehouse.com/ which doesn’t influence me in providing my honest opinion on the products.

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asian cosmetics beauty review

Review: Etude House Play 101 Pencils No. 10,11,22

23. May 2014

// KBEAUTY / MAKE UP / AFFILIATE LINKS //

Since the YouTube video by Pony showing makeup tutorials using Etude House’s newest release, the Etude House Play 101 Pencils, everybody seemed to be curious about them. The tutorials show, how to create different makeup looks, by simply using these new pencil liners by Etude House. 50 different colors were released for this new multipurpose product. I couldn’t resist buying three of them, although I really want to cut down on buying until I’ve used most of my products…but all these new releases do tempt me so much XD.

I decided to limit myself to three of these pencils, because otherwise I would have spend to much money again :D It was so hard to decide, since there are so many colors and there are different types, too. You can choose between matte, creamy, glossy, glitter and shimmer pencils. I ended up choosing these three friends: No.10, 11 and 22. My idea was to get one color suitable for contouring (10), one suitable as a blush (11) and one for the lips (22). You can use these pencils for many different things and not only as eyeliner, but also as blush, lip stain, eyeshadow or eyebrow pencil.

No. 10 is supposed to be a matte pencil, No. 11 is labelled creamy and No. 22 has glossy properties. All the pencils are delivered in a paper card box, each card box shaded in the color of the pencil. The corporate design is playful and contains typical ornaments, as we are used from Etude House. The number of the pencil is written in different styles on the package. The font size of the number is quite large, so you know directly which number to pick.

The paper card box also contains the description of the pencils. The Korean description is printed on the backside. I love the tiny sketch of the pencil sharpener in the speech balloon on the bottom part of the descriptions. ♥ I didn’t even know that a sharpener was included, so I was more than happy :) The English description is written on one of the sides of the box:

“This is a gel-type pencil that comes with vivid colors and various textures for easy and fun makeup play.

Directions:

Twist to dispense certain amount and use on desired area. Close cap after use. When using sharpener, insert lead and sharpen while turning slowly.”

The pencils themselves are made of black plastic with a protective cap on one side and the sharpener on the other side. The sharpener has the color of the pen, which is quite convenient if you store the pencils in a jar or similar.

The pencils have the name written on them on the one side, whereas the other side contains some Korean description again (do round pencils have a side at all?!:D).

The bottom of the pencils is again marked with the number of the pencil and an arrow indicating the part which is twistable, in order to dispense the product.

Now, the interesting part: how do the pencils perform? Below you can see the colors of the pencils tips and the included sharpener. It is tiny, so it can be used on the pencil bullet only. It won’t sharpen the pencil like a normal sharpener would and remove the plastic part of the pencil.

I swatched the three pencils on my hand with one normal swatch and one blended swatch. You can see the colors of the swatches with and without flash below. Comparing the colors to the promotional pictures, they don’t look the same. I thought No.10 and 22 would be darker and No. 11 more coral than orange. Nevertheless they are nice colors.

The only color I wished would have been different is No. 10 actually, because I thought it is slightly darker, so I could have used it for contouring or as eyeshadow. The beige color is too light to show up on my skin tone. I can use it as base color for eye shadows or for slightly retouching eye bags, but the matte consistency of the pencil makes it a bit difficult for the thin skin under the eyes. Other than this, all pencils glide smoothly on the skin. No. 11 is a nice blush color, which is not too intense and will look quite natural. My favourite is the No. 22, definitively. I thought it would be a darker shade, but nevertheless I love this shade a lot. It is perfectly usable on lips and doesn’t look flaky or drying (it is not moisturizing, but it does not dry your lips either), and as promised by the label it has a glossy finish. I tried to use No. 11 on my lips, too, but it did not work out and looked patchy and drying.

So, what is my conclusion for Etude House’s Play 101 Pencils? I would definitively recommend trying them. As for the Play Nail polishes from Etude House it might turn out that you like the one or the other shade more, but still it is great to have such a huge selection of different colors, which can be combined in different ways. It’s a pity that the promotional pictures are not 100% like the real product– and unfortunately, there is no local Etude House store here in Germany, so I could have tested the colors before deciding which one to buy. But nevertheless I’m happy with my choice and I could imagine to buy other shades, too. The price is okay, keeping in mind the nice packaging and the included sharpener.

You can get these pencils at W2Beauty for 6.00 US$.

I didn’t rate the ingredients, because each color has different ones :)

♥ You can follow me on bloglovin’, facebook or since recently on instagram :D ♥

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asian cosmetics beauty review

Review: Holika Holika Pearly Eye Crayon No.06

14. May 2014

Another product from Holika Holika, which I received together with the Jewel-light Waterproof Eyeliner (click >>here<< for the review). Holika Holika’s Pearly Eye Crayon is a pencil-type eye product, too, but here the crayon is thicker and can be used as eyeshadow and eyeliner.

The design of Holika Holika’s Pearly Eye Crayon is quite cute. It is composed of a black colored pencil with a clear plastic cap. The end of the pencil is labelled in the color of the crayon. The logo of Holika Holika is displayed on the pencil, too. No. 06 is a light purple color with shimmering properties. In total, there are 6 different shades available.

It applies smoothly on the skin and can be blended in easily by rubbing, which makes it a nice eyeshadow. In contrast to the jewellight waterproof eyeliner this one is not waterproof. It can be used as eyeliner, too, but since the pencil has a broader tip it is not easy to create a thin line. On the other hand the broader tip works great for the inner corner of your eyes or for your eye bags. As you can see, this crayon is a multi purpose eye pencil :)

Here is a list of the ingredients:

Triethylhexanoin,Caprylic/Capric Triglyceride, Mica,Titanium Dioxide, Ceresin,Euphorbia Cerifera (Candelilla) Wax,Dipentaerythrityl Hexahydroxystearate /Hexastearate/Hexarosinate, Calcium Aluminum Borosilicate,Copernicia Cerifera (Carnauba) Wax,Microcrystalline Wax, Methyl Methacrylate Crosspolymer, Simmondsia Chinensis (Jojoba) Seed Oil,Tocopheryl Acetate,Propylparaben,BHT

There are two potential acne triggers within the list, but again (Candelilla Wax and Jojoba Seed Oil), as long as you don’t apply it on your whole face it should not be any problem. The other think is, that it contains the preservative BHT, which scores a red flag on COSDNA. This preservative is used often in cosmetics as antioxidant. The safety issue can be related to the point that it is not healthy to incorporate it, but as long as you don’t eat the crayon it should not be harmful either. I didn’t get any irritations while using it.

The only downside of this product is, that it doesn’t have an included sharpener or twist-up mechanism. The application would have been much easier- although this is only a minor downside, because it is nevertheless easy to use. On the other hand, this crayon is really easy to blend out. It feels soft while applying and the color is nice, too.The shimmering properties are only light which makes it wearable as everyday eyeshadow. since it is easy to blend out by rubbing I would recommend to use a eyeshadow base below.

If you are fan of eye shadows and eyeshadow crayons I can recommend you to try these. They are not expensive and easy to use. If you plan on using these as eyeliners keep in mind that the crayons have a broader tip and for creating a precise line you need to sharpen them.

You can get Holika Holika Pearly Eye Crayon here:

Twofacemall for US$ 8.05 ( free shipping option)

Testerkorea from 6000 Won onwards (around 6 US$) (shipping depends on weight)

Also check out ebay!

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asian cosmetics beauty review

Review: Holika Holika Jewel-Light Waterproof Eyeliner No. 07

6. May 2014

// KBEAUTY / MAKe UP / AFFILIATe LINKS //

Today’s review is about Holika Holika Jewel-light Waterproof Eyeliner No.07. With Etude House’s Play 101 pencil liners coming up now it may be interesting to have another set of good pencil liners in the back of your head, especially if you like pencil liners with glitter particles. I received this one in the Lunar New Year Giveaway by Tiffany, Misa and Maryangela (check out their blogs by clicking on their names!:D). Thanks again to all three of them for the nice products!♥

There are 16 shades available in total and each of them does contain shimmer/glitter. The pencils have a simple design, each of them in the color of the eyeliner, so you can grab easily your desired color. The pencils are made of soft plastic, which can be sharpened easily. The eyeliners don’t contain a sharpener themselves, but any usual sharpener works.

The eyeliner I received has a white shimmering color which is nice for highlightening. It is supposed to be smudge proof, waterproof and long lasting and it fulfills all these criteria as you can see in the image below. Only with rubbing and warm water together it starts to give in.

The ingredients don’t contain anything harmful, even hydrogenated castor oil, which may cause acne, is nothing to worry about, since you don’t use this product on your whole face (hopefully :D – it won’t look pretty).

Cyclomethicone, Trimethylsiloxysilicate, Mica, Calcium Aluminum Borosilicate, Polyethylene, Ceresin, Titanium Dioxide(Ci 77892), Silica, C12-15 Alkyl Ethylhexanoate, Polyglyceryl-2 Triisostearate, Hydrogenated Castor Oil

All in all there is nothing negative to say about this pencil eyeliner. It applies smoothly, it is pigmented and it is smudge- and waterproof. Even the price is good ;)

You can get these at:

Twofacemall for US$ 8.05 ( free shipping option)

W2Beauty from US$ 7.52 onwards (free shipping option. You’ll get a 5$ voucher upon registration with this link, which is usable for orders of minimum 30$)

Testerkorea from 4900 Won onwards (around 5 US$) (shipping depends on weight)

Also check out ebay!

♥ You can follow me on bloglovin’, facebook or since recently on instagram :D ♥

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