Oh hello! I am back for another face scrub review . I love face scrub. I especially love using face scrub after a long day of having makeup on. Face scrub is also a good way to scrub of all the dead skin cells from the skin surface and to remove all the yucky stuff that are stuck in the pores. Talking about face scrub already got me so excited. Let me excite you more with another fantabulous product that I have been using for a good few months. And I am hitting the bottom of the jar of Skin Food Black Sugar Mask.

First of all, please ignore the beat up label on the Skin Food Black Sugar Mask cap . I had it on the vanity shelf in my bathroom and water got onto the cap like no body’s business. I have really been enjoying the product and I tried not to be as generous as I am on the usual so that I can have this scrub longer. I managed to drag it for a few months and I keep reminding myself to review this since I am about to finish the tub. Lucky me that I remember this time round!

Now, we all know how I like my face scrub to be. I like to feel the scrub grains scrubbing my face. Most of you, don’t. There is nothing wrong with that. We are just different individual and we each have our own preference. The Skin Food Black Sugar Mask is in the middle of that. It is an exfoliating wash-off scrub-slash-mask that leaves skin clean and revitalized. It contain sugar bits in it that acts as the scrubbing grains.

On the look itself, it does look harsh on the skin. Once I scooped it out from the tub and applied it on my face, I was not expecting the scrub to be this soft. It smells absolutely yummylicious and sweet. Of course. It is a black sugar after all. Have I tried licking it? You bet lol! It is sugar alright. No doubt about it.

Sugar usually do not melt with scrubbing motion. This one does. It melts and get sticky watery as I massage it on my face. I would scoop out a big dollop, warm the product slightly using both palm and massage all over the face. It has a little bit of warm sensation. It is not as harsh as I expected it to be, which will be a good news for most people. I like it as I can massage the scrub longer on my face without face feeling sore or pain. As this Black Sugar Mask also acts as a mask, you are recommended to leave the scrub on for 10 to 15 minutes, which I don’t. No particular reason. Just that I forget all the time and because I massage the product longer, I guess I am alright.

No wonder this Black Sugar Mask are sold out ALL THE TIME. It is ridiculously good. It makes my skin feels clean and good. It makes me feel good and happy. I only use this face scrub once a week. I try to scrub lesser these days as my skin are slightly dry now. However when I do use this face scrub, I am amazed with how smooth, soft and clean my face is thereafter. Rinsing on the other hand is easy peasy. Just make sure to rinse thoroughly to get all the sugar off the face

Disclaimer: This is not a sponsored review. I bought the product on my own.

The post Skin Food Black Sugar Mask: Sugar, sweet and everything nice appeared first on Street Love. by Fiona

I’m pretty sure what I’m going to talk about today is not something new to you. You might have already heard, been told, seen, and even shopped personally at Althea Korea. Althea Korea made its debut appearance in the Malaysia beauty scene 2 months ago. Almost everyone I know has been asking me if I knew or tried shopping at the new online store and they want to know what I think before they place their order. You see, my friends sometimes treat me as the “experimental” type of person when it comes to online shopping. I have no idea what they are afraid of. Not like the online store will bite

I’m not going to torture you with my whole shopping experience first so here is my haul from Althea Korea. I know you are curious with what I got

Now that you have already seen briefly of my overall haul, let me tell you what I think.

Interestingly, I found out what Althea mean. The national flower of Korea is Hibiscus syriacus, which is Mugunghwa in Korean. Althea is called the Mugunghwa (무궁화), which also known as Rose of Sharon. That solved my curiosity on the name Althea . The concept of the online store is to be an one-stop shopping destination for all K-beauty products at an affordable, if not cheaper price. Just like being physically in Korea to shop for K-beauty products. Thus the name Althea – representing Korea and delivering Korea beauty to beauty enthusiasts all over the world.

The site is simple, clean, user-friendly and very easy to navigate around. It’s basically fool-proof type of website, even for someone who never shop online before. I have been asked so many times before on how to shop online. Actually there is no formula. Just follow the step by step and you’ll be done by the time you know it.

Price. The main question that everyone has been wondering. Yes, it is true that Althea offers lowest price in the market. It is even cheaper than buying from physical store in shopping mall. Product selection on the other hand is a work in progress. I believe Althea is working hard to add more and more brands or products into the store.

Althea Promises

Now, there are 3 simple ways on how you can start your online shopping at Althea – by Facebook, by Google Plus or even by creating new account the good ol’ way. I prefer to have an account so I register mine using the good ol’ way

As for the navigation of the site, I find it to be easy as well. Everything is well-listed on the top menu bar. All you need to do is to pinpoint what exactly you are looking for i.e. makeup or skincare etc and click on the button on the top menu. If you select Skincare, you will be able to see ALL skincare products. If that’s too much for you, just click on the specific brand you want from the left menu and you will only see that specific brand selected.

I love it’s short but sweet info full product page. The description beside the product photo is the summarize version, which I find is good for quick reading, but if I really need to find out more about the product to decide if I want to buy it, I would need to scroll further down for a more detail version of product description.

This is what I’m talking about. Actually I prefer this type of description. It’s compact, not too lengthy like an essay and I’m able to find out what I wanted to know about the product. Basically this is where I decide if the product suits me.

If you’re impatient like me (sometimes) and you don’t want to spend time browsing, use the search box. Some online site search box can be a bit wonky, not this one. It’s pretty accurate provided you enter the correct name. Even before you press the Enter button, a bunch of similar results already appear. You can either select from the drop-down or press Enter to be directed to the search result page.

And if you find yourself still in the indecisive mode, try reading the Reviews left by other consumers. It helps.

I had a small hiccup when I was placing my order due to my own mistake. I accidentally pressed the “back” button at the payment page. My order was captured and I can see the full order, but I cannot make payment. So I contacted Althea customer service using the little green Help button on the bottom right of the page. I received a reply from the customer service within the short half an hour and my issue was solved there and then. I was impressed!

My order was placed on the 3rd September, parcel was shipped out from Korea on the 4th September, and I received the parcel on the 8th September. It took a total of 4 days including the weekend. That’s even faster than Luxola parcel which was sent from Singapore! The pretty baby pink box was wrapped with bubble wrapping before placing it in a bright pink courier wrapping. I gotta say, I love the pink theme. Along with the box is also the invoice of my purchase.

On the inside, I find that each and every product was individually bubble wrapped, carefully and neatly arranged in the box. The empty areas are stuffed with loads of soft tissue papers. Not the face tissue paper, k? It’s wrapping tissue paper.

Also included in the box are loads of samples from Missha and Skinfood skincare. I have used Missha before many years ago so I was happy to get Missha samples

Here are my haul in detail. I took more than an hour of browsing and careful planning because I did not want to end up with the same product that I already have in my stash. First and top priority in my list was cleansers. I ran out of cleansers at home and that almost never happened to me before. So I picked up two cleansers from my favourite Korean brand, Innisfree

You will know that I apply Laneige Water Sleeping Mask everyday to boost hydration to my skin in order to lighten acne marks. This trick works and because I was applying daily, I ran out of the mask. So I grabbed a jar. It’s way cheaper too.

I also ran out of grainy face scrub and I’m now using non-grainy type from my stash. I still prefer something grainy for exfoliation and I’ve heard so much of Skinfood Black Sugar Mask. And this product is almost half price from retail store. Score!

I have something for face primer. I cannot stop buying makeup primer and I find myself constantly searching for “the one”. The Innisfree No-Sebum Blur Primer was calling out for me and based on all the positive reviews I found on Google, I knew I had to have this in my life. I now have it in my life

The next following item has been on my wish list for so long. I often walk to Innisfree store but always forgotten to grab it. For some reason it never occur to me to buy it because I have so many powder that I’m using on rotation that it is not the top priority. This time I remember. It is slightly cheaper than the store so that’s a plus point for forgetting previously lol.

Lastly, an item which I’ve been trying to get my hands on from other online store last year and it is ALWAYS out of stock. I finally FINALLY got it! At a much more cheaper price as well. Double score!

Too Cool For School Dinoplatz Dear Brachiosaurus Oil Paper to Sponge (what a mouthful!) is an oil blotting paper BUT you don’t pick up the paper like normal. You use the sponge that comes with a sticky base to pick up a paper and blot. Too cute.

How do you like my haul? I did not expect to pick up mostly skincare. I thought I would go all out for makeup products but I guess my skincare stash is running low so I decided to pick up skincare products instead. All of them has already been taken out to use after I photograph them

I have been receiving Althea newsletter recently on their current promotions such as freebies, special discount and many more. The current promotion would be 10% OFF all Laneige products from 15th to 18th September, and RM15 new sign ups for the month of September. Free shipping for all orders amounting RM150 still applies so start your shopping now

The post Althea Korea: One-stop K-Beauty online store shopping experience and my haul appeared first on Street Love. by Fiona

The best thing about my job and the industry I’m in is that my client sometimes give me products to try. The very first time I met up with Skin Food a few months ago, I went to their office. The marketing girl and I had similar skin problems, except that her skin is better than mine by double. We spoke about oily skin, large pores and how foundation melts on our types of skin. Throughout the conversation, I was staring at her skin. She looks like she had foundation on but in fact she only apply makeup base. That’s right. Only makeup base. A makeup base that gives her a little bit of coverage, fills in the pores, smooths out uneven skin tone and controls sebum. At the end of the meeting, she gave me a tube of Skin Food Black Egg Pore Gel Base to try along with a few other goodies to take home.

The Skin Food Black Egg Pore Gel Base is a pore-refining makeup primer that minimize the appearance of enlarged pores. Usually pore-refining product contain silicone in it but not this one. It’s comes in a gel-ish fluid that does not feel silicony at all. It has a tint of shade to it to smooth uneven skin and at the same time to brighten dull skin tones. It also claimed to control sebum, just like what Skin Food marketing girl told me.

To me, the scent is a bit too annoying. Don’t get me wrong. The scent is floral, which smells nice and it wasn’t very strong at all. It was the lingering scent that gets on my nerve.

I find that this primer works at it’s best on my skin when I don’t have any skin care on. The product seems to have a hard time blending in to my skin when there’s an oily layer of skin care on top. So no pores were covered. It dries down to velvety matte finishing within a few seconds when used on it’s own without any need to set with powder if you do plan to get it and use it on it’s own. The direction was to apply it in an outward motion, which does not work for my ginormous pores. I have to buff in small circular motion in order to get an even coverage on all the pores. Unlike the Skin Food marketing girl, I cannot use this on it’s own. It really is just a makeup base on me (I have lots to cover) so I’d apply foundation after the base. My foundation gets on more evenly with the base compares to without. Does it really control sebum? Well, not so much for me since I do have layers of skin care underneath and I wore makeup for 12 hours straight. On the bright side, it does help to keep the makeup fresh for the first few hours but after that, it’s the same

Here is the Before and After. As much as I didn’t want to show you my hideous pores, which I didn’t even include at the beginning, but I thought what is a review if I don’t show you what I was talking about so here is my ginormous, absolutely the crappiest pore problem that you will see in your entire life lol.

Well, the “After” seems like any other primer I have at the moment and to be frank, if I buff my foundation well enough, I could achieve the same effect. This product would be good for someone who has smaller pores and who doesn’t like to wear heavy base makeup out. Although it performs fairly good on my skin, I don’t find it to be a must product for me. I can live without it.

Have you try this Skin Food Black Egg Pore Gel Base? How do you like the lingering scent? I’m not someone who will complain about product that smells good but the lingering scent is so annoying after one minute.

Disclaimer: Gift.

The post Skin Food Black Egg Pore Gel Base: The lingering scent puts me off but I like the velvety matte gel that minimize the appearance of large pores appeared first on Street Love. by Fiona

Sorry that I’ve missed 2-3 weeks of weekly edition of “Newly Opened”.

Here’s 2 weeks worth of new products that I opened up 2 weeks ago.

Skin Food Egg White Pack (5 sets consist of nose, forehead & jaw)
Review: Read here
This works superbly well removing those stubborn blackheads from your nose especially. I like the fact that Skin Food included jaw and forehead as well. That’s a bonus.

Watsons H Bella Purify & Renew Body Polish Strawberry & Cinnamon 250g
I received this from recent Watsons event. I’ve used up the previous jar which I gotten from Watsons event as well and I love it. I might repurchase this when I finish this jar.

Urban Decay Eyeshadow Primer Potion 11ml
Yeap. I jumped into UDPP bandwagon recently after reading all the great reviews BUT I was disappointed. I’d still prefer Etude House Proof 10 Eye Primer though. Will do a review soon.

Clarins Lotus Face Treatment Oil 2ml
This is my 3rd 2ml mini bottle. I’m only using this at night so after this I’m gonna purchase the full size bottle which is 30ml.

Make Up For Ever High Definition Foundation 5ml
I got this mini bottle from a recent contest. Although the shade is too dark for my skin tone, I didn’t mind it as my Paul & Joe compact is too fair for my skin. So this sort of balance up the shade. It really does what it claimed; High Definition. I would definitely drop by MUFE counter to purchase.

Make Up For Ever High Definition Blush 4ml
This is also won from a recent contest. This is a cream blusher which needed to be applied after foundation but before the powder. A little goes a long way. I still prefer powder blush.

L’Occitane Shea Butter Foot Cream 30ml & 150ml
Review: Read here
As I’m having some skin issue now, I carry the 30ml in my handbag to keep my foot moisturized while the 150ml stayed on the side of my bed which I’m using it generously before sleep. This is a good moisturizing cream for the foot but doesn’t do anything for crack heels. Clarins one is better for crack heels.

Clarins Cleansing Milk With Gentian 50ml
Review: Read here
My must-have makeup remover! This is my second last 50ml bottle. Time to repurchase soon

Clarins Gentle Foaming Cleanser With Cottonseed 20ml
Review: Read here
After being advised by Fennie, I’ve swapped the day and night cleanser routine so this is my day cleanser now. Mummy is also using this. Second last deluxe sample on hand. Still considering if I should purchase this in future.

The post Newly Opened (2 weeks worth) appeared first on Street Love. by Fiona