Empties #11

It's been a hot minute since my last empties! I try to get one of these up every quarter, but sometimes I just forget or keep putting it off until I finish a certain product because I'm sooo close. Anyway, this is the loot that I've come up with this time around!

Monthly Favourites // July 2015

Well, July came and went like THAT! *snaps finger for dramatic effect*. Legit though, I feel like I did absolutely nothing with my mid year break, oops. I did redo/move into my new room, so there's that!? Room tour coming soon(ish) - that is, if you want one! heh :P Anyway, favourites wise I did try quite a few new products throughout the month that you can check out in my haul. Some I acquired more towards the beginning of the month, and others more recently which will probably show up in my August faves! 

The Best of 2014 // Skin & Hair

Happy new year peeps! I hope y'all had an amazing NYE. I had a rather uneventful night, though we had a barbecue with family friends which was quite fun and food-filled! I'm sure yours was much more adventurous ;) Well, today is my first "Best of 2014" post for you all, featuring my most loved skincare and haircare products from the year! I will have my makeup one up next week (probably) :).

Omitted by Oil

Aaah, cleansing oils...the latest phenomena to jump from the Asian beauty world to the Western one! Although the cleansing oil I'm featuring today is from an Asian brand, cleansing oils have been making numerous appearances on the market in the US (drugstore prices!), so it's only a matter of time before they become more widely available here. The oil I'll be reviewing is from Hada Labo, I'm actually not sure what the proper name of this is as it's all in another language...but ya get the idea.

A lot of people might find the idea of smearing oil all over their face a bit disgusting, but when you think about it, it makes a lot of sense for good makeup removal as it breaks down even the toughest of makeup, just as long as it is practical amirite? 

The Hada Labo Cleansing Oil is the first one I've ever tried so I wasn't completely sure of what to expect, but I had high hopes. The texture is oily (duh) but it's not greasy, if that makes sense? I'm drawing conclusions to, like, cooking oils which probably isn't the best but hoping you know what I'm trying to say! The experience of using it is not as unpleasant as you might think, I actually find the worst bit is when you're rinsing it off. Basically, you rub/massage the oil into your dry face to break down all the makeup. Then you mix it with a bit of water to 'emulsify' it. I find the rinsing process a bit messy as the water runs down my arms, gross makeupy-dirty-ness splatters all over the sink, etc. I find it easiest just to wet my hands slightly and go from there. I also find that although it doesn't leave an oily residue after rinsing, some of the water-oil mixture gets in my eyes and blurs my vision which is pretty annoying but I go straight to the shower and wash my face etc, and it clears up. It doesn't sting my eyes though which is a plus! In terms of makeup removal, it removes pretty much everything really well. It breaks down waterproof mascara giving you that panda eye situation, but actually removing the smudgy mess is a little harder. It doesn't come off during the rinsing process so a second cleanse is key (I would always cleanse properly after anyway). Apart from that, I find it really effective and removes basically everything with no discomfort, dryness or residue after.

Although it took a little getting used to, using a cleansing oil to remove makeup has been a really easy, gentle way that gets rid of basically everything! While Hada Labo's version is nice, I feel like there could be better out there, which hopefully I will get the chance to try out!

Have you tried a cleansing oil before? What are your thoughts?

Haul | HK & Vietnam

Hello all! Today I will be sharing the haulage from my trip overseas to Hong Kong and Vietnam. This is only the beauty stuff, not the fashion or other miscellaneous things. If you guys would like to see what I bought fashion wise let me know! Anyways if you remember seeing my wishlist, I got everything on it (the HK portion) and a whole lot more! 

I actually only made one trip to Sasa (it was Sasa Supreme and it was HUGE) despite the fact that there is legit one or two on every street. So lets get into the bits! First up - makeup!

I knew that I wanted to pick up another Asian BB cream while I was over there but I actually hadn't done much research at all, so I decided to wing it! There are actually SO many BB creams available and I was definitely overwhelmed with choice! I ended up buying two BB items from Heroine Make. I've heard pretty good things about the brand in general and they were very well priced. Both of them were around $10 each. I got the Mineral BB Loose Powder and the Lasting Mineral BB cream. They had testers out and I got both in the shade 2 (the darkest there). Both are quite yellow which I was happy to see. Despite how much I love my Skin79 BB cream, its grey tone can often make me look pale. I also grabbed the Heroine Make Long and Curl mascara which was on my wishlist. I probably won't open this for a while though as I try to stick to only two open mascaras at a time, they would probably dry out before I got to properly wear them! This was also around $10.

I stumbled across the Maxfactor Miracle Touch Creamy Blush and was compelled to get it, haha. This shade, Soft Pink, has been raved about so much by the likes of Anna from ViviannaDoesMakeup and Amelia from Liana Beauty. I'm not sure whether this is coming to Aus anytime soon, I'm sure it will eventually, but I decided to grab it while I had the chance. This was also $10.

When I was in Sasa, the only Biore sunscreen they had was the Bright Face Milk, while I was after the normal one. I decided to pick it up, despite not knowing anything about it. The Perfect Face Milk was also sold out in a Bonjour that I popped into. With the abundance of Sasas and Bonjours around I definitely could have found it but, hey, effort. Haha, I actually ended up finding it in a Convenience store in Saigon/Ho Chi Minh City and picked it up there for near half the price! It was about $5 while in Hong Kong it was around $10. Still not sure what the difference between these is (the SA in Sasa wasn't much help) but I'm yet to try them and will review them accordingly!

I saw a stand for the Hada Labo Hyaluronic Toner (not exactly sure what this is called, there isn't a speck of english on there!) and decided to get it because of what I've heard and the glaring #1! on it. I also really wanted to try a cleansing oil, which are much more widely available in Asia, but again, due to my lack of research (damn you past Tasha!) I was completely unsure of which to get. I ended up getting the Hada Labo one because..it's a good brand? There was also a Maybelline and Neutrogena one but I was really taking a stab in the dark to be honest. Both of these were kind of expensive ($15 - $18) but pretty middle of the range in the store.

I grabbed the Nexcare Acne Dressings, just 'cause. Haha, they seem so intriguing! And they were only around $5.

Most of the reason I grabbed all of my stuff in one go was because of the Gift With Purchase they were offering. It really wasn't a very good gift...but hey free stuff. You had to spend 600 HKD which I did (I actually spent like, 700 HKD which is $100...sshh). The gift was a Baylis & Harding Body wash - I got the scent Wild rose and Raspberry. It's a pretty huge ass bottle and I did lug it all the way home - but no worry because we ended up being so under the limit that we managed to fit our small suitcase inside the big suitcase.

The backings of stuff - I got rid of the plastic

And! There was a MUJI! Actually a few MUJIs which I was super excited about! It has just recently opened in Melbourne but I reckon it'll take a while to get to Brisbane. I wanted to grab one little thing because I love the look of MUJI so much. I already store pretty much all my makeup in the Officeworks Keji four drawer set which I know a lot of people use, but it's getting pretty full up in there so I wanted to buy something for, I don't know, my daily makeup or something (I really just wanted something from MUJI). So I got the Narrow 2 drawer Acrylic Box with flip top lid. The flip top and normal were the same price - like $17 which is actually SO expensive but watevs (cos that's the right attitude...) lawl.

So that's what I bought! There really wasn't any beauty shopping to be done in Vietnam, Hong Kong is pretty much as good as it's gonna get. On a whole, Vietnam was actually a lot more expensive than I thought it would be and I actually didn't buy too much from there altogether. I actually think I was pretty restrained (as restrained as a beauty junkie can be) but I really didn't need any eyeshadows or lip products so I'm sorta glad I skipped on a few things I was tempted by. Let's hope I don't regret them!

Have you tried any of the products I bought? Do you like them?