Browsing Tag

toner

asian cosmetics beauty PR Sample review Wishtrend

Review: Klairs Moisture Rescue Kit Part 1

9. February 2015

A while ago Wishtrend send me the Klairs Moisture Rescue Set for reviewing purpose, which contained a skincare routine in form of four products from the brand Klairs. As you might have seen from my previous reviews of this brand I really do like their products and this is why I’m really happy to be able to review these items for you. I devided this post into two parts and they gonna be picture-heavyKlairs Moisture Rescue Kit Part 1 will talk about the Klairs Supple Preparation Facial Toner and the Klairs Rich Moist Soothing SerumKlairs Moisture Rescue Kit Part 2 will be about the Klairs Rich Moist Soothing Sheet Mask and the Klairs Rich Moist Soothing Cream.

Klairs Moisture Rescue Kit Part 1

Klairs is a Korean brand sold on Wishtrend. It is eco-friendly, claimimg to produce products which are animal-testing-free, alcohol-free, paraben-free, and articial-color-free. Their products adress people with sensitive skin and people who want to moisturize their skin. I reviewed the Klairs Illuminating Supple BB Cream and the Klairs Gentle Black Cleansing Combo before, which both convinced me in their effects. I was interested in this Rescue Moisture Set especially, because as you know, my skin tends to become drier in winter as it is right now. This set consists with everything you need for a solid skincare routine, starting with toner, serum and moisturizer. The mask sheets on top are a great addition for days you want to treat yourself with extra moisture.

Klairs Moisture Rescue Kit Part 1

Usually, the first step after cleansing your face is to balance the pH of the skin and helping it to keep moisture by using a toner. This is different from western astringent toners, which tend to be an additional cleansing step here. By giving the skin moisture and an adequate pH it helps other products of your skincare routine to be more effective, too. The Klairs Supple Preparation Facial Toner claims exactly to have this fuction. It is supposed to be a good start for your facial skincare routine. According to the very throout description from Wishtrend this toner is designed for people who

– need a facial toner that re-hydrates and refreshes skin.
– prefer an alcohol free toner that neutralize skin surface impurities such as excess sebum.
– want a gentle yet effective toner for everyday use.
– have sensitive skin and need products that are free from chemicals and harsh ingredients.

It sounds like a good toner for almost everybody according to the description. The packaging of this toner fits perfectly to all the other products from the Klairs range. It is a simple and yet vintage-like design, focussing on few decorations but a lot of text on the packaging. If you have several Klairs products together they look quite pretty together in the bathroom. The Klairs Supple Facial Prepation Toner comes in a hard plastic bottle. The plastic is brown, but you can see through it in order to check the amount remaining in the bottle.

Klairs Moisture Rescue Kit Part 1

The labels contain a clear description in Korean and English. The ingredients are also listed in English. You can also find the ingredients in the product description on Wishtrend. The ingredients can also be checked via COSDNA. Mostly they are green flagged, but there is also one red flagged preservative included (but in  a small quantity, as it is almost the last ingredient on the list). Apart from this it contains a couple of plant extracts and hyaluronic acid as moisturizing ingredient. Moreover the key ingredients are phyto-oligo and Betaglucan for antiinflammatory effects. The pH of the toner has a weak acidity and lies at 5.

Klairs Moisture Rescue Kit Part 1

The bottle has a regular drop dispensing opening which is closed by a white plastic lid. Although the bottle is of hard plastic you can lightly press it and make the toner come out more easily. The toner itself is transparent and a bit less runny than water. It feels thicker than water, too, but I wouldn’t call it geltype, yet. It feels refreshing on the skin and has a light scent which is a mixture between herbal and flowery scent. After it absorbs the scent is not noticeable anymore. Also, it doesn’t leave stickyness or greasyness on your skin.

Klairs Moisture Rescue Kit Part 1

All in all, I like this toner. The pH it provides is perfect for other products to be effective. It feels also quite moisturizing, refreshing and isn’t sticky or greasy. I would say it is a perfect toner for everyday use. What I don’t like about the toner is the higher price compared to other toners. The 150 ml bottle retails for 21.99 US$ on Wishtrend. It still lasts for quite some time I have to admit though (I’m using it for almost three weeks and I’ve only used 1/5ths of the amount). The opening is easy to use. I directly applied it on my hands, but you can also use it with a cotton pad. Alöl in all, I’m totally happy about having this toner in my skincare routine at the moment!

Blog_Rating_KlairsSupplePrepToner

The next step in my skincare routine using the Klairs Moisture Rescue set is the Klairs Rich Moist Soothing Serum, a serum designed to boost the moisture level of your skin and give your skin a healthy and moisturized glow. This serum is designed for people who

– have sensitive skin that needs a calming, soothing serum lotion for sensitive skin.
– have dry, dehydrated skin that needs deep long-lasting moisturize.
– want to smooth and reduce redness and irritation on your skin.
– want to cure your skin constant flaking and peeling.
– want to smooth out fine dehydration lines.
– want to prevent the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles.

We have here a very basic serum focusing on moisturizing properties, perfect for dry skintypes. On the other hand this serum is designed to have soothing properties, too, so people with irritated skin are addressed aswell. Also here the design fits to all the Klairs products, having a lot of text on their packaging instead of cute or colorful illustration.

Klairs Moisture Rescue Kit Part 1

The serum is delivered in a cardboard box, unlike the serum, which was only packed in plastic. The cardboard box made of recycled paper contains  descriptions in Korean and English. You can also find a detailled description on Wishtrend.

Klairs Moisture Rescue Kit Part 1

The serum comes in a pump-type bottle made from brown see-through plastic. The pump comes with a protective cap, too. The serum is clear and more of a gel-type consistency than the toner. It has the same scent as the toner, which is a mix between herbal and flowery scents. The ingredients are listed on COSDNA and a lot of vegetable plant ingredients are part of it. also Hyaloronic Acid is the second ingredient in the list, providing moisture. Phyto-Oligo is also listed as main ingredients here. The lists also contains two red-flagged ingredients which are Triethanol amine and the same preservative used in the toner called Methylchloroisothiazolinone. If you know that you react to those two ingredients I would advice you to not use these two products or be careful and make a skin reaction test before. I didn’t have any negative reactions on my skin while using any of the products from the Klairs range yet. After using the serum on the skin it feels almost creamy rubbing it into the skin. It feels moist and hydrating, but it also leaves the skin noticably softer. Also here I didn’t experience any stickiness after it fully absorbed into the skin.

Klairs Moisture Rescue Kit Part 1

Also for the Klairs Rich Moist Soothing Serum I can say that I was positively surprised how I liked the serum. The feeling of it on the skin was nice and also the point that it wasn’t sticky. This made the application of other products afterwards and of any makeup much easier. I also do like the pump -type bottle. What I don’t like is the small amount of only 50 ml. I used up more than 1/3rd of the bottle already within the three weeks of use. The price on the other hand is relatively normal for a serum. The bottle retails for 22.99 US$ on Wishtrend. The serum is available with free shipping right now!

Blog_Rating_KairsRichMoistSerum

Both these products are nice products. If I had to choose which one I would by myself from the two mentioned I would choose the toner propably, but only in order to buy a serum with other properties, like anti-aging, etc. I also made a post about the promotions from Wishtrend for February >>here<<. Also, keep in mind their friend-referral program: You can receive a 5 Us$ referral coupon if you use my invitation code 17939205 upon registration and you’ll receive this voucher immediately. There will be a specific field in your registration form called “friends invitation program” where you can put the code mentioned above. This way new customers can safe 5 US$ which is a great possibility to safe some money.  I’ll try to do the post about the second part of the Klairs Moisture Rescue Kit about the Klairs Rich Moist Soothing Sheet Mask and the Klairs Rich Moist Soothing Cream as soon as possible and I hope this review was helpful for you, too. See my other Klairs product reviews here:

Klairs Gentle Black Deep Oil Cleanser and Sugar Facial Polish

Klairs Rich Moist Soothing Sheet Mask

Klairs Illuminating Supple BB Cream

Klairs Moisture Rescue Kit Part 1

 Do you have any favourite product from Klairs? What are your experiences?

asian cosmetics beauty beautystar PR Sample review

Review: Tunemakers Original Moisture Lotion

2. September 2014

I introduced the online shop Beautystar in my previous review about Relevance Highlighter Tip and today I will review another item which was provided to me for reviewing purpose, the Tunemakers Original Moisture Lotion. Beautystar is an online shop selling Japanese skincare and cosmetic products which are harder to find in other online shops. Apart from the lotion (Japanese lotion is the adequate to Korean toner or skin) I received a serum with I will review separately in future.

Tunemakers Original Moisture Lotion

Tunemakers is a Japanese brand, which seems to be featured in a lot of Japanese magazines…unfortunately the brands site is in Japanese only, but according to Beautystar’s describtion, Tunemakers was born through the wish of a lot of people for skincare products which contain ingredients which are part of the skin. I think this means, the use of raw ingredients in a good concentration to be absorbed by the skin and yet have the best possible effect.

Tunemakers Original Moisture Lotion

The Tunemakers Original Moisture Lotion is a simple waterbased lotion containing ceramide, hyaluronic acid, honey, collagenand royal jelly extract in a ratio of 5:3.5:2:1:1. Water with a weak acidity builds the basis of this mixture. Ceramide is one of the main lipid components of the skin. The content of ceramide declines with age, so ceramide is a skin-identical component and is supposed to help the skin regenerating or balancing the decrease in ceramides.  Collagen is also one of these components which occur naturally in our body and thus in our skin. The amount of collagen declines with our age, too. Ceramides and collangens in cosmetics won’t probably affect our skin in a way, that we start building more collagen and/or ceramides in our skin, however, collagen binds moisture and thus does it help to prevent our skin to dry, when applied on our skin. The same for ceramide, which, as a lipid keeps the right amount of fatty acids on our skin. Hyaluronic acid binds moisture aswell and thus helps the skin to stay moisturized, too. Honey and royal jelly extract are both natural ingredients. Honey is one of the ingredients with the oldest history for beauty uses. Both these ingredients contain vitamins, aminoacids and have anti-inflammatory and also antioxidant effects.

Tunemakers Original Moisture Lotion

The full ingredient list is supprisingly short: water, glycerin, 1,2 – hexanediol, sphingoglycolipids of rice bran , hyaluronic acid Na, honey,water-soluble collagen, hydrolyzed royal jelly extract, licorice root extract, ascorbyl phosphate Mg, lysolecithin, hydrogenated lecithin, BG, xanthan gum, apple acid Na, malic acid, citric acid, citric acid Na, phenoxyethanol. Thant’s it! According to COSDNA almost all the ingredients are green flagged. No fragrance, no coloring, no mineral oil, petroleum based surfactant-free, paraben-free,and alcohol- free. I guess this should be suited to people with sensitive skin, too.

Tunemakers Original Moisture Lotion

The product itself comes in a brown colored glass bottle. It is real glass, so you have to be careful while using it. Other than this, the bottle looks like a vintage medicine bottle, with a simple ettiquette and all in Japanese. The opening has a drip function, so you won’t spill too much lotion on your hands. I usually apply these moisturising toners/lotion with my hands, directly after washing my face. It has the same consistency like water, it has no scent and feels very light. After applying it absorbs really quickly into the skin and leaves my skin very soft and hydrated.

Tunemakers Original Moisture Lotion

Apart from the fact that it is a glass bottle, this lotion/toner has nothing I would complain about. It has a short ingredient list, feels like water, but makes the skin feel hydrated. I didn’t have any skin irritations while using it and I’m using it every day since two weeks now :) You can get this from Beautystar for US$ 19.50 and I’m sure, that there will be quite some of you, who will share my opinion.

 

Blog_Rating_TunemakersLotion

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.beautystar.me/ which doesn’t influence me in providing my honest opinion on the products.

♥Feel free to take parte in my “End-of-Summer”-Giveaway ♥

Giveaway_2014August_1

asian cosmetics beauty review

Review: Innisfree Green Tea Pure Deluxe Kit

3. July 2014

// KBEAUTY / SKINCARE / AFFILIATE LINKS //

I received this Innisfree’s Green Tea Pure Deluxe Kit a while back during a giveaway and I was very happy about it. Innisfree’s Green Tea line is often talked about within the blogger communitiy and since green tea is a very beneficial ingredient I was especially curious how this would work, especially as a mini version of the complete skincare line, including toner, emulsion, cream, essence and sleeping pack. These kits are always a great way to test a special line if it works with your skin or doesn’t. Here is my impression on these products:

Innisfree Green Tea Pure Deluxe Kit 1

Innisfree is an eco-friendly korean skincare and makeup brand focusing on natural ingredients and recycle packaging. The design of their products is simply and neat and nicely reflects the ideology of the brand. The Green Tea Pure Deluxe Kit is a 4-free product, that means that it is free of 4 commonly used ingredients, which are not beneficial, most likely parabens, etc. I couldn’t find any english ingredients list, so I don’t have the exact information for you, unfortunately.

Innisfree Green Tea Pure Deluxe Kit 2

Nevertheless, the key ingredient in this line is Jeju Green Tea. On Innisfree’s official web page you’ll find the following description:

“Green Tea Pure Line with the clean and clear moisture of 100% Jeju Organic Green Tea Water: The vitality and condensed moisture of green tea grown on the organic green tea field of the pure island of Jeju, refine the skin for clarity and suppleness.”

Innisfree Green Tea Pure Deluxe Kit 3

As I stated above, the kit constists of the Innisfree Green Tea Pure Skin (toner), Innisfree Green Tea Pure lotion (emulsion), Innisfree Green Tea Pure Cream, Innisfree Green Tea Pure Sleeping Pack and Innisfree Green Tea Pure Seed Serum. I used the items for my daily routine as this: toner, emulsion, cream. During my night routine I used: toner, serum, emulsion, sleeping pack. Of course it depends on your skintype how your routine works best. It may be, that cream and emulsion are to much for oily skin for example. My skin is rather dry, so I used emulsion and cream together.

Let’s start with the toner and the emulsion.

Innisfree Green Tea Pure Deluxe Kit 5

These two items come in two miniature plastic bottles, as do also the full size products. The plastic appears sturdy. The Innisfree Green Tea Pure Skin is a gel-type clear toner. It contains tiny particles which disolve while applying onto the skin. This makes it feel grainy during the application first. But the toner absorbs quickly and since the grains dissolve the only thing which lingers is the scent of green-tea mixed with some fruity/flowery scent. It is a nice scent, but if you don’t like scents at all, I wouldn’t recommend you this line at all. In principle all the products have this scent.

The Innisfree Green Tea Pure Lotion is a milky emulsion, which absorbs really fast into the skin. It is not sticky and doesn’t leave a greasy feeling. The skin feels instantly smooth and firmer. It has the same scent as the toner.

Innisfree Green Tea Pure Cream:

Innisfree Green Tea Pure Deluxe Kit 6

The Innisfree Green Tea Pure Cream also contains some grains, but in contrast to the grains in the toner, you don’t feel these on your skin. This cream is a good moisturizer and feels very refreshing. In contrast to the emulsion, the cream takes a bit more to absorb, but once it is absorbed, it isn’t sticky either. The cream gives you really that glow you get after being well moisturized. The deluxe sample comes in a mini jar, which is really nice.

Innisfree Green Tea Pure Seed Serum

Innisfree Green Tea Pure Deluxe Kit 4

The Green Tea Pure Seed Serum is a geltype serum, which is lightly milky. The consistency is thicker than of the toner. After it absorbs it is not sticky at all. It feels like adding some moisture, but not a lot (so this might be good for combination/oily skin?). Again, it has the same green-tea scent of the other products. The set included 6 of these ampoules. Each ampoule was for one usage only. The other products of the kit are more often usable, so it would have been nice, if the set included also more of these serum ampoules. The fullsize product comes in a pump bottle.

 

The last product is the Innisfree Green Tea Pure Sleeping Pack

Innisfree Green Tea Pure Deluxe Kit 7

The sleeping pack in this kit comes in a tube (the fullsize product comes in a jar). Also here, we have tiny beads. The beads dissolve while massaging the pack into your skin. The sleeping pack doesn’t absorb quickly, but it takes some time, but since you put it on before sleeping it doesn’t matter after all. The skin feels a bit sticky, too, but this is also a minor problem for a sleeping mask. On the next day the skin feels soft and refreshed. Also here, I really like the green tea scent, especially before going to bed. It is so relaxing.

My total impression about Innisfree Green Tea Pure Line is quite positive. My favourite products are the sleeping pack and surprisingly the emulsion. I’m rarely using emulsion during my skincare routine, only if I’m testing a specific skincare line as a whole like now. This emulsion made my skin so soft and firm, I really enjoyed using it ♥ The scent is also nice if you like green-tea scents. That’s why I like the sleeping pack aswell. It is so relaxing to use. Most important, none of the products gave me any breakouts or irritations :)

Also, Innisfree refreshed their Green Tea Line. The line is now divided into Green Tea Fresh (oily skin), Green Tea Balancing (normal/combination skin) and Green Tea Moisture (dry skin), which is a good idea. I think the former line will resemble most likely the  new balancing line. I would suggest you to browse through W2Beauty for all the products

 

Blog_Rating_Innisfree_GreenTeaKit

asian cosmetics beauty review

Review: Shiseido Hada Senka Hoshitsu Lotion

30. June 2014

A while ago I baught some Japanese skincare and beauty products, but I never found the time to edit the pictures I had taken. Finally, I managed to write the review on Shiseido Hada Senka Hoshitsu Lotion :) This is a basic toner, from Shiseido’s drug store brand Hada Senka.

Shiseido Hada Senka Hoshitsu Lotion

First of all, as I said, Hada Senka is a drugstore brand from Shiseido. The product range is not expansive and directed towards younger people, since it is a basic skincare line. Also, since it is a japanese brand they use slightly other terms than korean brands do. This product is called a “lotion”, but that doesn’t mean that we have a liquid form of cream here, but it is the equivilant to korean toner or sometimes also called “skin”. That means, that the lotion is used as first step of the skincare routine, after cleansing. This product is also available in two forms, a light version and a heavy version and you can differentiate them according to the color of the cap (pink for the heavy version and white for the light version). I’m showing you the heavy version for dry skin.

Shiseido Hada Senka Hoshitsu Lotion

I bought this as a promotional kit, which is why it came with travel size samples of the Hada Senka Perfect Whip and the Perfect Watery Oil. Also, the set contained samples of the Hada Senka Milk, which is the emulsion from this skincare line. The description of the product is unfortunately only in Japanese. You can find the ingredients listed on COSDNA, too. The key ingredients for moisturization are hyaluronic acid and royal jelly extract. This is also the main reason I wanted to buy this moisturizing toner, because I love the effect of skincare products with hyaluronic acid, since it provides the skin with moisture. The ingredients are safe to use according to COSDNA, but if you have very sensitive skin be aware that this toner contains alcohol.

Shiseido Hada Senka Hoshitsu Lotion

The tones comes in a hard plastic bottle, which appears sturdy. It is milky plastic, so you can see how much is left inside the bottle if you see through it against the light. The bottle comes with a simple cap with a small hole for dispensing, but the application works nice and it is not difficult to get the product out of the bottle. The packaging is not very special, I would rather say the packaging is super boring, but it shows the simplicity of the product. Since shiseido Hada Senka is a cheaper branch of Shiseido I can live with the boring packaging on the other hand.

Shiseido Hada Senka Hoshitsu Lotion

As I said, this is a moisturizing toner containing hyaluronic acid. It does exactly what it claims to do and provides the skin with moisture. The toner is  geltype, so it is not completelly liquid. It has a light alcoholic scent when you pour it out, but the scent dissapears quickly and leaves a scentless product. The lotion absorbs quickly and is not sticky after absorbing. The skin feels soft after apllication. I like this toner a lot. I especially liked to put a few drops of the O.S.T Vitamin C serum in my palm and mix it with the toner. This worked very well! Moreover, this toner has a PH of 5, which makes it work gerat together with active ingredients like vitamin C or BHA/AHAs.

Shiseido Hada Senka Hoshitsu Lotion

Overall, the Shiseido Hada Senka Hoshitsu Lotion is a solid basic lotion with a good pH (weak acidity). It works good with skincare routines containing actives, too! Unfortunatelly, it contains alcohol, so if you have sensitive skin make a patch test before. I bought the promotional kit at Adamsbeauty and it is still available. It costs around 10 US$, which is quite cheap for a japanese product. The great thing is, that there are refills available which makes it very environmental friendly, too. I can totally recommend you to give this affordable product a try!

Blog_Rating_HadaSenkaLotion

asian cosmetics beauty review

Review: TheFaceShop Mango Seed Silk Moisturizing Facial Butter, Toner, Emulsion and Exfoliating Clear Smoother

22. February 2014

As you know, I’ve normally dry skin, especially in cold winter. This year’s winter is still quite mild, so luckily my skin is not that sensitive yet. But in any case, I love good moisturizing creams for my skin especially my face. One cream which caught my attention is TheFaceShop Mango Seed Silk Moisturizing Facial Butter, after I saw it on an episode of Get it Beauty, where different moisturizers were being compared. This one was the most loved moisturizing facial cream, so I decided to give it a try and bought a bunch of samples. And since I was really curious about the product, I added the toner, the emulsion (lotion) and exfoliating liquid from the same line.


The design of the Mango Seed Line is made in yellow, which is the color everybody would associate with Mango :D Let’s start off with the main product: The Mango Seed Silk Moisturizing Facial Butter.

The full size product comes in a jar and it is delivered together with a spatula for scooping out the butter.

Special about this product is the consistency of the cream, which has the consistency of butter. Although it seems having a rather solid structure, it melts off easily if it is in contact with the skin. It has a silky and smooth feeling and it leaves the same smoothness on the skin.

The scent is fruity and similar to another Mango product I tried (Nature Republic Fresh Hawaiian Mango Pack, click >>here<< for the review). It absorbs quite quickly into the skin and leaves the skin moisturized in a pleasant way. I had the feeling that the moisture really sunk into the skin and wasn’t lying on top of it, if you know what I mean. And the great thing is, that this feeling was noticeable all day long! Moreover, the facial butter doesn’t leave the skin sticky or greasy at all. I really loved using this facial butter ♥

You can combine the facial butter with the other products from this line, like the Mango Seed Moisturizing Toner, Emulsion (also called Lotion) and the Exfoliating Clear Smoother. All products come in bottles with a pump, which is super convenient to use. The toner has a see-through plastic body.

The toner has two phases: a milky phase and a clear phase, which have to be mixed previously. You can see in the image below that the toner has a milky color after mixing. The scent is the same fruity scent which the butter had. The toner also feels moisturizing on the skin. Probably the milky phase is some kind of lotion providing the moisture.

The emulsion/lotion is a light creamy type emulsion, which is lighter than the facial butter. It is slightly sticky after application, but the stickiness fades away after 1-2 minutes. Also here, the scent is the same, as for the other products of the line.

The last product I bought is the Mango Seed Exfoliating Clear Smoother. You have to use this one after cleansing your face. I put the clear liquid on a cotton pad and wipe it over my face as an additional cleaning step to remove dead cells. The cotton pad did show excess dirt, so I guess it was effective. This one feels also slightly sticky after application, but also here the stickiness fades off after some minutes.

I discovered for my dry skin, that if you use all products together, the skin starts to look a bit greasy. I would recommend the use off all products together only to very dry skin, or people living somewhere, were it is super cold and dry and your face is exposed to that. This is a super moisturizing line for this purpose. If you have oily skin, I would use the toner and the emulsion only, occasionally the exfoliating clear smoother. For dry and normal skin the facial butter in combination with the toner is the best choice in my eyes. Using the Exfoliating Clear Smoother in the evening after cleansing.

This line has a lot of potential if you are looking for moisturizing products. If you are not sure which one or which combination might be the best for you, you should order some samples like I did (I ordered my samples at www.testerkorea.com). I decided to buy the full size jar of the facial butter definitely after I used up my other moisturizers, because I really loved how nice and supple my skin felt all day long. I also used this butter in combination with the Face It Primer Moisture Fitting I reviewed yesterday, and it gave me a super nice finish ♥

You can get all of these products at W2Beauty. The Facial Butter (50 ml) costs US$ 32.23, the Toner (145 ml) costs US$ 24.49, the Lotion (125 ml) costs US$ 25.49 and the Exfoliating Clear Smoother (145 ml) costs US$ 25.49.

My rating for the whole line and especially the facial butter is: