Korean Skincare - Essence

A few months ago I added an essence to my skincare routine and it is an absolute game changer for my skin! My skin is less oily and feels more plump and balanced. I get less breakouts and if one pops up it'll heal a lot faster when I use the essence.

Secret Key - Starting Treatment Essence: This was the first essence I tried and it didn't take long before I knew I loved the effects it had on my skin. This essence contains "galactomyces" which is basically a fancy way of saying it contains a fermented ingredient. It was my first time trying a fermented product, so I chose this essence because it is very affordable, and the amount of galactomyces wasn't as high as in other essences I looked at, so in case my skin didn't like fermented products I started out with a mild one.

It feels and looks like water and it has no scent. I used it morning and night after my toner, and I pat it on my face gently till it is absorbed. I didn't see results right away, it took my about 4 weeks to really notice the huge difference it had made. I wasn't breaking out like usual and my skin was less oily and just looked healthier.

I highly recommend this product!

Missha - Time Revolution First Treatment Essence (Intensive): After loving the Secret Key essence so much I quickly placed an order for an essence with a higher content of ferment in it, and since Missha has claimed that their Time Revolution Essence is a dupe for the SKII essence I knew I had to try it!

The essence is like water but has a slight yellow-ish color and has a very slight scent, but hardly noticeable. I use it morning and night after toning and pat it in till it is absorbed. This is my all over essence and I use the Secret Key essence as a "mask" where I wet cotton pads in the essence and place them on my face where there's spots or dryness or irritation and leave it on for about 15-20 minutes. By the next day my skin looks a lot better, but since I'll use up a lot of essence with this method I only use the Secret Key like this, since it is a lot cheaper than the Missha essence.

I will repurchase both essences since I love the Missha as an all over face essence and the Secret Key as a mask essence.

Both products can be bought on www.roseroseshop.com
The Missha essence is currently on sale for 26.25 US$
The Secret Key essence is curently on sale for 8.30 US$

Hope it was helpful!
~Kira

New in Beauty - Tried and Reviewed!

Recently I've seen a lot of interesting products be released, but either there wasn't a review on it, or the people reviewing the product had it sent to them, which I feel like is not as honest as if you bought it yourself, but maybe that's just me? So I bought a few items and tried them out!

Clarins Detox Booster - I love this product so much! These drops claims to detox congested skin and is aimed at people who party and over indulge on bad food, and people who spend a lot of time in smokey and extreme polluted environments. It claims to detox, revive radiance and plump the skin.
I've used this every day for a little over a week now, and I feel like my skin looks more radiant and plump. I've been having less breakouts and my blackheads are pretty much all gone! Love these drops and I'll recommend them to anyone. I might even try some of the other Boosters!

Clarins Instant Light Lip Comfort Oil - This is a new addition to the popular range of lip oils clarins has. This is the Red Berry shade and it's just as good as the other lips oils. It smells just like the Raspberry shade and honestly looks the same on the lips. I would recommend any of the 3 shades of this lip oil, though I prefer the smell of the Raspberry and Red Berry over the Honey shade.

Review of the Raspberry and Honey shade here.

Origins Maskimizer - This is a spray on mask primer. It is the first of it's kind and when I saw it I was very curious to find out, if it works or not. I've tried it a couple times and then tried my mask without it as well, to really see if there was any difference. Honestly it doesn't do much. It's like a hydrating toner that makes your mask glide on your skin a bit smoother than usual. I did feel like my skin looked great after using the Maskimizer and then my mask, but honestly I credit the mask for that and not this Maskimizer. I do tend to break out slightly after using a clay mask but when I used this I didn't, so maybe it does help get the grime out of your pores. 
If you're very curious to try it, I'd say to get a sample, cause I don't think there's much of a difference when I use it.

Hope this was helpful!

~Kira

Aliexpress Haul and Review #3

Hi everyone!

I always start this kind of post off with a disclaimer. If you don't like replicas or copies of items, sold on Aliexpress then this post isn't for you. 

BB cushions are everywhere now, and more and more brands are coming out with their own versions. Personally with this kind of product I have to love the packaging to use it, especially because it is something that's good for taking around with you.

When I saw this cushion compact  I was sold. I love the peony print on the top and I figured that if I didn't like the BB cream inside I could always mix my own and put it in the compact, in any case I had nothing to lose! 

This box came with the compact with a BB cream and application sponge inside and an extra refill. I bought the shade 13. Light pink. 

It's hard to tell from the swatch in the picture above, but the BB cream isn't pink but more on the yellow side. The coverage is sheer but slightly buildable, but don't expect anything over a light to medium coverage with this. 

I really like this BB cream and I'm very happy I got this beautiful compact! Sadly the item is sold out and the seller has taken down the add and I can't find it anywhere. I will update if I find it!

Not only are BB cushions all over the place right now, but correcting is the new big thing in makeup so naturally correcting cushions are a thing now. 

I have a lot of redness in my skin, so I went for the green corrector cushion in hopes that I could get my redness corrected, and not have to cake on so much concealer. 

The color of this corrector cushion is very sheer, to the point where you can't even tell this is green. It looks white on the skin and it blends into nothing on the skin, and trying to build it up is impossible because of it's very slippery texture. 

I tried this once. It did nothing to correct my trouble areas and my other makeup didn't sit well on top of it. Whats worse is, it broke me out like crazy. The day after I used it, I had a lot of zits but only in the areas where I used this, which makes me even more sure that it was this product breaking me out. 

I won't recommend this product at all!

hope this was helpful!

~Kira

Origins Clean Energy Cleansing Oil - Review

After the fail I had with the Taaj cleansing oil I had to quickly find another cleansing oil to use and hope that it wouldn't break me out. I had a feeling that it was the fragrance in the Taaj product that made me break out, so I looked for products without fragrance and I found this oil.

This is a really nice cleansing oil, it has citrus oils in it so it smells like citrus which is nice. It cleanses my skin nicely and doesn't leave my skin feeling stripped from moisture.

One very big con for me about this product is the packaging. There's no pump or stopper, so when you take the lid off there's just a big hole and you have to pour the cleansing oil out into your hands. I've wasted so much product because of this since I find it very hard to control, so I have to think of a way to decant this into another bottle (maybe the Taaj bottle which had a pump!).

I really like this cleansing oil, and I would probably buy it again if I can't get a hold of my fave cleansing oil which is the Boscia makeup breakup cool cleansing oil.

Hope this was helpful!

~Kira

Aliexpress Haul and Review #2

Hi everyone!

Just like my last post, about my haul from Aliexpress, I'll do a disclaimer and say that if you don't like replicas or "dupes" for expensive high end products, then this post is not for you.

I got a set of 6 "ysl stains" and as far as packaging goes they look like the real thing. However the products is more like a gloss and I don't think they're similar to the real product. The product isn't bad it's just not what I expected.

The colors look pretty similar but I chose the colors myself so that's partly my fault, because I'm more into neutral shades. I have the shades 1, 2, 3, 5, 7 and 8 (bottom to top). When I made the order I messaged the seller which colors I'd like and they sent them to me which is very nice. 

I got mine here.

I got this "Nars" blush and the packaging is spot on! I have a real Nars eyeshadow duo and the Pakaging is completely the same. The blush is very nice too. It's very pigmented and blends nicely. The only downside from this product is that the colors of the blush aren't dupes for the Nars blushes, only the packaging is a dupe, but if you like me love the Nars pakaging and like affordable and great blushes then these are awesome!

I chose nr. 7 which is a nice peachy shade perfect for spring and summer. Though I like the shade it was very hard to choose a shade because the pictures on the site turns out not to be that accurate in real life. 

 This is the reference picture on Aliexpress and as you can tell the nr. 7 shade doesn't look like the picture I took. Other than that I really like this product and I would by more!

I got mine here.

I hope you enjoyed this post and found it helpful!

~Kira

Taaj Cleansing oil - Review

In my last post I talked about how the Taaj micellar water had quickly become my go to cleansing water, so when I saw they had a cleansing oil I quickly picked it up and tried it out.

The first thing I noticed was the scent. It's very strong and smells more like a hair oil than something I'd put on my face. It's not a bad smell just not something I've ever smelled before in a face product, so if you don't like your skincare to have a strong smell this is not for you!

The oil feels nice going on the skin and when you add water it turns milky. I used it like I normally would with my Foreo dupe and my konjac sponge and I did feel like my skin was clean without being stripped of it's natural moisture.

However, only few hours after using this cleansing oil my skin broke out. I usually don't break out from products I use on my skin and I've only ever broken out from a cleanser once before, which was the Boscia Detoxifying Black Cleanser (review here).  

I waited a few days for my skin to heal and tried the Taaj cleansing oil again, since I have used stuff in the past, I thought broke me out, but then later it turned out it was something else, like stress or hormones or something else not related to the product I was trying out.

But the same thing happened, my skin broke out and I haven't used the product since. I might try using it to clean my makeup brushes and put it to use that way, but I'm never putting it straight on my face again.

I really wanted to like this product but I really can't recommend it, since I don't even have skin that normally reacts like that to skincare products.

I hope this was helpful.

~Kira

Taaj vs. Bioderma - Micellar water comparison

I've been using micellar water for years and my go to has always been Bioderma, since it was mild and good for my sensitive skin, but recently I tried the Taaj micellar water and though I use it for the same thing, there's something different about this product.

Bioderma is simple, there's no scent and it takes off makeup gently. Taaj has a slight scent, which I would describe as kinda like sweet almond, but it's very mild. For some reason the scent makes me believe there's some extra skin benefits in the Taaj water but I can't be sure, though my skin has actually been more blemish free since I switched to the Taaj one.

I made a video showing how the two micellar waters compare in taking makeup off. In the video I used waterproof mascara, concealer, black eyeshadow and a berry lip stain.

In the video you can see that both micellar waters have trouble taking off waterproof mascara, which is why I recommend not using them on your eyes, simply because they will drag the skin too much. The Taaj water did completely take off everything with a bit of scrubbing but to my surprise the Bioderma had more trouble with the lip stain than I expected. I had to scrub a lot harder to remove the mascara and the lip stain and my skin was a bit red as I'm pointing out in the video.

Surprisingly Taaj won this round, but I'm not complaining, because I actually like it a tiny bit better than the Bioderma, and the Taaj micellar water is cheaper too. It's a win win.

~Kira