New Asian Beauty Shop in Adelaide - Colo7

Recently a new Asian Beauty shop opened in Adelaide called Colo7.  They seem to be popping up a fair bit now actually since there used to only really be Kawaii Fashion (which was mostly Japanese Cosmetics) and a few little shops selling a limited selection (like Morning Glory).

This shop has opened on King William Street, near Pulp Fiction Comics and has a very colourful front window, I was lured in by the sight of all the Eutde House sheet masks to be honest!

The lady in the shop was very friendly and curious that someone like me was so interested in AB products.  I was REALLY impressed by the pricing and interesting range here.  The Etude House sheet masks were $1.50ea from memory which is the cheapest I've seen them available here.

Alyssium Baby Beauty Box - a beauty box too good to be true!

This post is a bit of a fun post about a fake beauty box I made up.  I recently visited my friend, Alyssiumbaby, and she shared with me that she'd subscribed to Australian Beauty Box called BellaBox (BB) a little while ago but never really looked at the contents and put them aside to look at later. 

I'm really not a huge fan of BB because not long after I signed up, I found the value of their usual boxes to be extremely subpar.  I made the decision to subscribe a long time a go when I received TAMPONS in my beauty box.  They tried to say it was little "bonus" but honestly, I was just done, I'm sick of these crappy value subscription boxes that tend to be filled with a lot of skin care samples that most brands give away for free and a couple of full sized products that just don't sell (with maybe 1 decent item per month if you're lucky).

Anyway, I digress, AlyssiumBaby had this massive stash that she let me go through and I felt like a kid in a candy store!  She gave me a left over box so I decided to make my own beautybox with the choice items from a long running subscription (and any other minis or products that she'd picked up over the past year).

A visit to LUSH's new store in Marion

I was recently invited to have an after-hours look at the new LUSH store that has opened at Westfield Marion and decided to check it out with my friend Alyssium Baby.  I was pretty keen to see the new store as it's been a while since visiting LUSH - the only store we had prior to his was based in the CBD and it's a bit small and often super packed.

I had a lot of fun snapping photos of their vibrant bath bombs, they just show up so beautifully in photos but I decided against posting a hundred photos of bath bombs at different angles!  I've only tried one of their bath bombs a fair while ago but I often hear people raving about them so I picked up Butterball to try for myself at home (and then remembered I don't have a bath tub, derp, so my feet will be enjoying a very luscious foot bath).

Review - Cosmebox Rakuten Shop

I've been really interested in a few Japanese skin care products lately and have been trying to suss out a great place to get them for cheap.  Rakuten is a really great source for finding some hard-to-get Japanese products directly from Japan however shipping is often pricey so you'll want to try and nab all of your items from the same shop if possible.

I came across Cosmebox's shop which had all the products I was looking for, they do only offer EMS internationally though and no SAL, despite this, my order still came out quite a lot cheaper than if I sourced the products locally and also have some more hard to get items.

I placed my order on the 12/7 and opted for payment by credit card.  The seller will generally confirm shipping first before charging your card.  I received an email on the 13/7 to advise that they still needed to source some of the items and that the turnaround time may be up to a week, no worries.   On the 15/7 I received an email to confirm the shipping cost as everything was now in stock, I was billed that day and my product was shipped on the 16/7 and it arrived at my house on the 21/7, so it was really quite quick!

The order was packed securely, the only thing that bummed me out was no freebies!  Perhaps I've been ordering too much from Korean shops who always love to chuck in random samples.

My order included 2x Kose Softymo Speedy Cleansing Oils, 1x Hada Labo Gokujyun Foaming Cleanser + one refill, 1x Hada Labo Gokujyun Lotion refill, 1x Yamano Kohaku Hada Lotion and one Koji Eyelash curler.

July Favourites - Winter Product Loves

I've been really slacking on the monthly wrap up posts lately but I did such a hefty effort on destashing and using samples and other products that my empties posts have now become pretty... well empty.  I thought I should catch up on my favourites for the month though which hasn't changed too much throughout winter and are really great for this chilly weather.

My Skin Care Routine - from 4 products to 4 million!

This is a little bit of a personal post to plot out my goals and thoughts on my current routine.  Blogging is quite therapeutic as is any form of writing really so I'll forgive you if you just skim over this post!  

So a little while back, my skin care routine was pretty simple and looked a little bit like this.

• Oil cleansing to remove makeup and excess dirt
• Moisturiser
• Sunscreen

Pretty boring and only somewhat effective.  Oil cleansing is great as it really breaks down makeup and helps get out any dirt in your skin.  It's really great at getting the dirt out of the pores in your nose too (the kind that people are mistaken to believe are blackheads but are actually sebaceous filaments).

Sunscreen is always a must, aside from diet and drinking water, it's the number 1 product to fight aging skin so I always make an effort to ensure I've got sunscreen on my face and neck in particular (and other parts of my body for extended time in the sun).

Moisturiser is a standard addition too, I have dry skin so it makes sense that I'd use a thicker formula to help right?

This is closer to what my routine looks like right now (there's been a couple of changes already since taking these photos, whoops).  It may look pretty nuts but after doing a lot of research and really starting to take my skin into consideration. I've picked up a lot of great products.  Most of these are Asian products but I still incorporate a few locally found goodies too.

A lot of inspiration and information comes from browsing /r/asianbeauty and /r/skincareaddiction on reddit.  Asian beauty (AB) products are great, you don't necessarily need to be of Asian ancestry to be able to utilise these products, they're often just budget friendly and packed full of interesting ingredients for a variety of uses.  I'm also a huge fan of Fifty Shades of Snail and love her pragmatic approach to skin care as well as her focus on anti-aging products (and how it's not just something to think about once you're over the hill)

There's a lot Snail Filtrate, Honey and Hyaluronic Acid products in AB products which are some of my favourite ingredients.  There's also not a huge selection of affordable skin care products in Australia which is why I have imported a lot of these products.

Washing your Face with Vegetables!

Have you ever wondered what it would be like washing your face with a Vegetable?  Probably not because you're sane but, if you haven't already heard about them, I'd like to introduce you to the Konjac sponge!

Review - TesterKorea, Shara Shara Honey Bomb & Banila Co Honey Oil

I recently placed my first order with TesterKorea, I'd never ordered from TesterKorea before because honestly I'd never read very positive things about them, I'd heard that their turnaround times were slow and they were pretty stingy with samples.  Whilst these aren't huge issues, the Korean beauty market is pretty well rounded with RoseRoseShop, Jolse, Wishtrend, Memebox (for US buyers) and more so I think shops need to really focus on those bonus things to really stand out.

That said, Testerkorea had a couple of items that I wasn't able to find at my other favourite shops, namely the Shara Shara Honey Bomb All in One Ampoule and the Banila Co Miss Flower & Mr Honey Oil, so their first pro was to have a bit more of a variety in their range.

I placed my order on the 6/6/15 and received it on the 23/6/15 so 11 working days in total.  Packaging was sturdy with adequate bubble wrap so no issues there.  The order totalled a bit over 90,000 won so it was a bit on the pricier side (roughly $100AUD).

May Favourites!

I found some new favourites and rediscovered some old loves over the past month so I thought I'd share and give a quick rundown on my May discoveries!