Concealer Comparison! [Etude House] Surprise Essence Concealer vs [Collection 2000] Lasting Perfection Ultimate Wear Concealer

Collection 2000's Lasting perfection ultimate wear concealer has been claimed to be 'comparable to NARS radiant creamy concealer', a concealer that's considered a grail item by many gurus on the internet.

It's "a little" out of my price range, but NARS' concealer has been so hyped up as such an amazing concealer especially for dark undereye circles, I've been wanting to try it out.

However...

When I heard that Collection's concealer was a comparable dupe, I thought, why not? 

See if it's worth the splurge, or if my current concealer is good enough. (I'm currently still using the Etude House Surprise Essence Concealer).

Here's a quick comparison of the two. Collection's costs about $9 NZD in the supermarket on discount, and Etude House costs about $7 on discount. Collection's tube contains more product though.

I've read some comments online about how the writing on the Collection's concealer rubs off in about a week. I've had mine for over a week, but it hasn't rubbed off, bearing in mind I don't use it very much.

Etude House on the left, Collection on the right.

Etude House uses a tear drop shaped applicator, while Collection's is doe foot. Haven't really noticed much of a difference since I use fingers to blend it in.

However, I think the Etude House's applicator is slightly softer.

Both are bought in the fairest shade. Neither brand's colour selection is wow-inducing. Funnily enough, when blended out completely they don't look entirely different.

In terms of consistency, both are creamy, but the Etude House one is slightly runnier. It doesn't dry as quickly as the Collection concealer, allowing for a bit more of time to work with the concealer.

Personally, I think the Etude House one does a better job of covering up than Collection's concealer.

In terms of undereye circles, my main problem area, Etude House does a better job of neutralising the darkness than the Collection one.

Additionally, for whatever weird reason, the Collection concealer accentuates dryness, making your undereye circles look even more tired. 

Maybe I should've bought the Collection concealer in the medium? Either way, I'm not going to rebuy that one.
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Etude House Pros:
☺Runnier; more time to blend in
☺Better at neutralising undereye circles
☺Better suited for Asian skin tone
☺Applicator is softer on the eye area
☺Better coverage

Collection Pros:
☺More product
☺Comes in lighter shades for fairer skin tones (useful for chest blemishes)
☺Better suited Caucasian skin tone
☺Good coverage

Etude House Cons:
☹ Product sometimes squishes out of bottle
☹ Isn't as light Collection's concealer
☹ Less product

Collection Cons:
☹ Drying
☹ Gives somewhat reverse panda eyes
☹ Dries very quickly

Verdict: I'll probably stick with the Etude House one. I don't need a lot of product so its lasted me a long time, so the less product issue isn't really an issue. I find it easier to use and better at neutralising dark undereyes circles. I like the texture of the Etude House concealer better. A little bit disappointed about the somewhat over-hyped Collection concealer, but if you have cool-tone, extremely fair skin, I'd recommend giving it a go.

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Japan Trip 2014 Part 3 (Tokyo Disneyland!)

Day 3
Destination: Tokyo DisneyLand!

After a good night's rest, we headed off to the land where dreams come true =w=
Usually, this is a place where people choose to spend 3-5 days, because of how big it is, and the amount of people there, which means that you might not be able to go to all the rides you'd like.

Our hotel had a bus that takes you right to Disneyland; all you have to do is tell the people at the service desk which of the available times you want to catch, and then show up on time.

We picked the one around 10am, so we wouldn't have to rush too much, or waste too much time. Also, we had to grab some food from the almighty 'conbini' before we headed off for some fun.

Anyhow, that's the bus we took from the hotel. Isn't it cute?

The bus had a this screen that advertised Tokyo Disneyland and a water park. At first we were like 'oooooh :D', but then when it repeated itself for the 10th time, well... we found the scenery passing by outside much more interesting.

When we arrived there there were a ton of buses in this area, where all the buses stopped. 

And the line to get the ticket... there were at least 10 lines, all at least 30m long LOL.

I totally recommend buying your tickets beforehand so you can skip then line. But even if you don't, the wait isn't too long.

Just a note, there's a line just for buying tickets, and a line to get through the gates, so make sure you get in the right line for whichever it is you're getting. 

After you get in, this is what it looks like :3

And yes, we all wrote wishes on a Mickey Mouse shaped card and tied it up with a gazillion other wishes 

Just some pics from DisneyLand~

When we saw the bear, we all agreed that it looked like us during the semester... all worn out. Poor Big Al.

The figures inside the box above was all made from paper. It was so pretty =w=

The box itself wasn't too shabby.

Oh man, the girl kneeling. She looks like she's trying to pick a fight or something.

"Wanna fight bro, wanna fight?!?! ...sorry ma'm. No, I'd still like my pumpkin carriage please,  godmother..."

Minnie Mouse House!!! She's one of my favourite Disney characters.

Some food from DisneyLand. Chips, special bun burgers, hot dog, strawberry pie... It was pretty yummy, at DisneyLand prices haha.

Oh man, it was a really long and tiring day. I was too accustomed to waiting no more than maybe 20-30 minutes maximum for a ride, but some rides had an estimate 40 minute wait?
And when we talked to some Japanese friends, they said some rides on a busy day they had to wait for 2 hours.

I definitely recommend using the fast passes, where you get a fast pass ticket for a specific ride earlier in the day, and then go back when you can use the fast pass. You still have to wait around 10-15 minutes, but it's bearable. Sort of...

If you're very keen on all the rides, I recommend at least two days.

We watched fireworks at the end of the night, and got back to the hotel at around 11, and were dead asleep pretty quickly after Disneyland.

Next: Visiting a Japanese University

Estee Lauder Double Wear All-Day Glow BB Cream

By J
Sample Review

Uhh yeah so I decided to give this a try since they were offering a 10-day free trial at the counters here. I thought I'd give high-end bb cream a try and see if it was worth the splurge.

It claims to "brighten, perfect, and even skintone" and is "lightweight, oil-free, moisture-fresh" with SPF 30

I went to my most convenient pharmacy and picked up the pottle. 
At first when the counter assistant brought  out the little pot I was like, "What....", because the little sample pottle they give is the size of the cosmetic containers you can buy at the dollar store, and I didn't think it could possibly be enough for 10 days. 
Boy was I wrong...

Anyway, the container is really nice, even though it's just a sample.

The 'intensity' (as it's called) that was given to me was 1.0, the lightest available. 

It's actually not that light, and it's geared more towards a pinkish skin tone.

The colour above is pretty close to what it looks like to me in real life.

And funnily enough, the smell reminds me a little of playdough.

 Even though it claims to be light weight, I find the formula quite thick and much heavier than any of the Korean bb creams, and heavier than the Bourjois Healthy Mix Serum foundation.

It might be oil free, but it has zero oil control, so if you need help in that department, powder up.

It's pretty moisturising I guess, but it doesn't leave you feel cool and hydrated? Maybe I've been too spoiled with Korean bb cream formulas haha.

So here's what it looks like on. I'm a bit pink from washing my face and around my nose, and  have some minor spots on the left cheek in the image, and some minor spot son my forehead.

Its coverage I'd say is medium to full, but bearing in mind I did slap on quite a bit on my face. Because it's so thick; I found it hard to blend easily. 

Although the picture doesn't show it, in real life, it makes me a little more beige than my own skin tone.
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Pros:

☺ Decent coverage

☺ Evens out skin tone

☺ Not drying

Cons:

☹ Thick (not as light weight as you’d expect)

☹ Expensive

☹ Colour caters to western skin tons

☹ Smells like play-doh

☹ Not much oil control

Overall: 2.5/5
Verdict: The product itself I'd give about a 3/5, it's a decent bb-cream, but it doesn't really live up to its claims. The price itself is pretty steep, and I wouldn't be willing to pay so much for a bb-cream that I felt so meh about, when there are so many others that I find nicer.

I'd say save your money and buy a cheaper bb cream.

I'm keeping that cute container though. Just sayin'

Japan Trip 2014 Part 2

Date: July 2 2014
Destination: Tokyo Skytree and a little wandering

If you've checked out our instagram, you'd've seen us post this agessss ago! If you haven't, check us out here!

Onigiri of some sort and some cold bottled tea was our staple breakfast for a lot of the time when we weren't at a hotel that provided food--at the end of the trip, a friend of our's said she didn't want to see another onigiri for a long time LOL

It's pretty cheap from the convenience store; you can buy it both for less than 250yen in total.

We decided to walk from our hotel to Tokyo Skytree, which thankfully wasn't too far, because the day was so hot. Any time we weren't in the shade or there wasn't a breeze it was stifling. 

Luckily, the walk there was incredibly pretty and peaceful. We went through this long green park that had trees and a stream and all sorts of people passing by. Grannies, men on bikes, a dad and son catching a bugs with nets, young school kids with their teachers running around in the heat...

But finally, we made it to the bottom of Tokyo Skytree. We saw this cute panda costume sitting by the store and the lady so kindly helped us take a photo with the panda. We felt pretty bad for not buying something from her store D: 

Something cool in Japan; their recycling. THIS ISN'T EVEN IT'S FINAL FORM. This is a quick taste of what their recycling is like; everything is separated for efficient recycling.

This is taken across the river from Tokyo Skytree. It was so green and pretty, and even though we decided against going up the Skytree, it was really worth exploring outside of it.

It was around tanabata when we were in Japan, so everywhere you could write wishes on paper and tie them up. If you check out our instagram here you can take a look at another picture that K took.

The photos below were taken from inside the mall at the base of the Skytree. The decorations were so cute and colourful ^U^

The two pictures above are fake food! Pretty impressive huh? Japan has some of the most realistic fake foods for display that I've ever seen before. I just wanted to take some home with me!

It was a super hot day and I'm so grateful that everywhere indoors was airconditioned... 

But what better to do on a hot sunny day than to drink cold green tea and eat sweets? Seriously, it's such a good combination I totally intend to do it when it's summer time here~

At the base of a lot of malls, you can find the food level, where there are SO many different food stores which give out lovely, lovely samples for sweaty people. 

We met this really nice guy who gave us a ton of soy food samples to try, and chatted to us about where we were from and so on. (I guess it was pretty obvious we were tourists haha.)

We ended up eating yakitori (chicken skewers), a wakame salad (seaweed salad), and the tofu roll thingy from the guy. 

We couldn't find a place to sit so we went back outside and sat in the shade of a sculpture to eat, while watching a lot of little kids play in this water feature.

All in all, day 2 was a pretty relaxed day to recuperate from our flight. While we can't say much for Tokyo Skytree itself, I totally recommend taking a look at it and checking out the mall underneath it.

Part 3 coming soon I hope... sorry it's taking us forever to do any posts; we've just been so swamped with assignments and projects, and we've got the exams coming up. We'll probably have reviews and more posts after November~

[INNISFREE] Glossy Lip Lacquer

By J

If you've checked out our instagram, you'll have seen this picture before!

I posted this up before we went to Japan... and now I'm finally getting round to reviewing it.

I've been looking around for some darker lip colour to use, mainly because I always go for bright colours.
I bought this lip gloss/lacquer mainly as a splurge, and also to hit the $50 target in the last haul, so I could get the free tracking deal that comes with spending $50 in one go.


On the side note, jolse has done this huge overhaul of their site. They're having this 15% off sale on every item, which is pretty awesome. Except for the fact that using chrome as your browser means that you can't actually see any buttons that allow you to add things to cart, or even save the changes to your profile. Such as your password. :/

So back to the main thing in question. The glossy lip lacquer.

It looks really nice the packaging; nothing cheap. It's all sealed up when you get it.

I got mine in shade 5; they label it at the bottom of the tube.

You can see this glittery sort of sheen in the tube when you look at it in the light. This doesn't actually show up when you wear it so I wonder if it's actually just the tube.

Application wise, it's not hard. The wand is quite nice, and it's angled enough that you can manoeuvre it around on your lips.

Opacity-wise, this thing is pigmented. In fact, it looks quite daunting to slap this on your entire lip during the day time, so I've actually just been applying some, then dabbing it out to a slightly sheerer finish.

The bad thing is that it's really sticky. It's breezy in NZ in winter, and I like to keep my hair down as it actually keeps the heat to my neck and head (anyone else find that?). 

The result is something like, either I hold onto my hair to stop it attaching itself to my lips, or every so often I detach my hair from my lips. Not pretty, but for its price tag, I'm sure as heck gonna use this baby up.

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Pros:

☺ Really glossy

☺ Really pigmented

Cons:

☹ It’s really sticky; it won’t stand a chance in the breeze

☹ You can noticeably feel a layer on your lips

☹ Not long lasting; if you eat, reapply

Overall: 2/5 
Verdict: I kinda regret getting this. ):
$9.88USD on ebay.

Look forward to the rest of the Japan blogs, makeup we got from there, and stuff we brought there to use!

Japan Trip 2014 Part 1

It's been over a month since we went to Japan, and nearly a month since we got back D:
So sorry it took so long to write up these blogs QQ

Date: July 1 2014
Destination: Tokyo, Japan, Narita Airport

A little back story to this trip: 
This was a relatively spontaneous trip decided in about a week or two, and planned very quickly (and roughly) during our summer break with two other friends. 
During our highschool years to now we'd all been fascinated and interested in Japanese culture (well, the three of us since one of us is Japanese and grew up in Japan).

So onto the story!

Udon on the plane c:

We arrived in the Narita Airport at around 4pm (jst) and got out at around 5pm. From the airport we took a bus near to our hotel. We were staying at the Tobu Levant Hotel since it offered a free bus to DisneyLand which was our third day's plan.

When we were done hauling our (at the moment, light) luggage down a stretch of the road and arrived at the front of the hotel, we realised how grungy we were LOL.

Tobu Levant Hotel has a pretty impressive entrance and an even more impressive lobby, so imagine 4 girls arriving in 11 hours worth or airplane smell and wrinkle clothing, hair starting to look a little gross, and everyone quite dishevelled from lack of sleep and makeup, into this grand entrance and into an airconditioned (hooray!!!!), marble tiled and marble columned lobby. :D"
It would have been a little embarassing if we weren't so excited to be there.

We sorted out all the admin stuff and were led to our rooms, which we then discovered weren't smokefree even though we'd asked for smokefree. 

Word of advice is, definitely ask for smokefree in Japan if you aren't a smoker/dislike the smell of smoke. Smoking seems to be a relatively common occurence in Japan.

Anyhow. We agreed that we'd wash our faces and then head out to look for some food.
We walked up and down the stretch of road outside our place and decided to have kaiten sushi, otherwise known as a sushi train.

The tap looking thing in the front gave out hot water for your tea.
Thankfully our friend taught us how to use it or else
 I would've gotten boiling water all over my hands ;A;

IT WAS SO GOOD.

K ate the other one before I managed to take a photo D;

Most memorable dishes were the unagi sushi and the scallop one.

For me (J), the scallop was like biting into the buttcheek of a baby cherub; it was so soft and pillowy and dreamy and @O@. It was ambrosia. It was beyond words and I'd give up my right eyebrow to eat another one. 
It was pretty cheap too since K and I shared the plates.

We didn't stay extremely long in there since the air con was so strong that when you scooped up green tea powder to make your tea, you could see bits of the powder blowing off o_o 

Afterwards, we bought some snacks from the convenience store and headed back up for the night.

Some sort of green tea frozen ice-cream/melty thing? It was good. 

Walking to find food

View from our room. We were right beside train tracks
but it really wasn't that noisy.

Day 1's post is pretty long but I promise the other ones won't be as word D:
Also, sorry about the lack of photos; we were just too dead to take any.