HAPPY CHRISTMAS! 🙂
Hope everyone is enjoying the festive holiday season. I usually enjoy Christmas because it’s the time of receiving gifts (who wouldn’t like that) but actually this year I’ve been equally excited in dishing out the presents. Why? Because my gifts to almost everyone included something related to Korean beauty products and I was excited to share a bit of K-beauty love.
Of course, buying products for family also gave me an excuse to treat myself to some Christmas presents when I was ordering online. Part 1 of this 2 part haul will be a quick rundown of two orders I got for myself and as gifts. Part 2 will be presents I received for Christmas + the rest of my own haul.
1ST Order: rubyruby76 on Ebay
Authentic and reliable seller. I’ve used them before years ago to buy BB creams and they stock a large range of beauty and skincare from the more popular Korean brands such as Etude House, Innisfree, Missha etc. I also find they have one of the lowest prices compared to other Ebay sellers and the markups are not too high from the original. Rubyruby76 also has an online store which is quite popular among Kbeauty lovers called RoseRoseShop. They have a larger range of products on their own website but if they also stock it on their Ebay shop I usually order from there instead because they have free shipping, the prices are cheaper and the shipping + delivery time is super quick. (My order was shipped within 24 hours of placing the order, and I received it about 1 week later.) The only downside is they aren’t very generous with samples. I only got 2 with my whole order.
(Note: These products were on sale at the time I bought so they may not still be the exact price)
NATURE REPUBLIC Soothing & Moisture Aloe Vera 92% Soothing Gel
My boyfriend actually bought one in Korea a few months ago through my recommendation and my dad saw it in his bathroom and was interested in it. So I bought this as part of his Xmas presents. Can be used on any part of the body, hair or face. Light, absorbs quickly and a lot of product for the cheap price.
TONYMOLY Backstage Gel Eyeliner
A Christmas present for sister. We’re both big fans of the Bobbi Brown Long-Wear Gel Eyeliners and I’ve heard this is meant to be a dupe for it but at a fraction of the price. I haven’t personally tried this yet since I’m working my way through a lot of other Korean eyeliners so I’ll let her be the judge of this and whether it can replace Bobbi Brown.
Blushers
I love the concept of cushion foundations and BB creams so I love that the idea has spread to other types of makeup like blushers. Makes application and touch-ups so much more convenient.
ARITAUM Sugarball Cushion Blusher
These will be my first experience with cream blushers and I can’t wait to try them out especially since you apply with a cushion puff applicator. Got 2 out of 4 colours available. Posy pink looks like the type of pink that suits my skin tone really well. Daisy coral is a light coral colour and I don’t generally go for orange/coral based blushers because I don’t think they suit me as well, but this coral leans more on the pink side so I think it’ll be a good happy medium.
PERIPERA Cushion Blusher
This lavender/pink was the darkest of the 5 shades available so I went for this since I like my blushers to be a more obvious pop of colour. This is such a cute way of applying blush. Just squeeze out the liquid tube blusher until it appears on the cushion and then dab on the cheeks. I’m hoping it lives up to expectation.
LANEIGE Brush Highlighter Pink Beam
Look at the quality of this! So beautiful. Definitely the most high end highlighter I’ve ever bought. And the prettiest. You twist off the top to separate the product and the retractable brush making it very compact to throw in your bag on the go. The highlighter itself is a pale cool pink tone with silver and pink shimmers.
Sheet Masks (x12)
From left to right: Innisfree Rice, Etude House Vita Complex, The Face Shop Kelp & Red Ginseng.
Price for each x3 set varied from £2.48 ($3.70) to £2.82 ($4.20).
2ND Order: ibuybeauti
Well packaged and each product protected with lots of bubble wrap.
This is my 2nd time buying from ibuybeauti and it’s my favourite online store to buy Korean beauty products. This is the first place I go to check when I want to buy something. They are based in Korea, all products are 100% authentic and shipped directly from there. The first time I bought from them they were super quick and I received my order after a week from date of order. This time was a little slower (probably due to the busy Xmas season & I bought more products) but still within 3 weeks from date of order. I placed my order on 26th Nov and received an email receipt. On 1st Dec it was shipped and took just over a week to arrive. I like this company because they are reliable, they respond to questions and have prices that are the closest to the original Korean price I’ve found among online K-beauty retailers. I like they also have free shipping over $50. While some other online retailers have very cheap product prices, when you factor in shipping, the overall cost jumps a lot higher. I don’t need to worry about that problem with ibuybeauti. Also, they are much more generous with their samples. The only downside is that they don’t have the widest range of products compared to other online retailers.
So onto the products I bought:
LANEIGE Water Sleeping Mask
I got this previously in my last haul when I was in Seoul and I love this Water Sleeping Mask. Its so so great and I can understand why it’s Laneige’s best product. Smells nice, makes your skin so soft, hydrated and plump. Got another two as Xmas presents for my mum and my boyfriend’s mother.
RYEO Anti Hair Loss Shampoo
Got this as a present for my mum. She dyes her hair regularly and her hair is quite damaged. She uses a lot of hair products to improve the condition but I don’t think many of them work that well. Read some great things about this bestseller hair care brand Ryeo and how they use traditional herbal ingredients which really work in reducing hair loss. Can’t wait for my mum to try this out.
LANEIGE Two Tone Lip Bar
This is quite pricey for a lipstick in my opinion. Especially since I’m not a big fan of lipsticks having dry lips most of the time and they usually sink into all my cracks. However I couldn’t resist these two-tone lip bars because it’s such a clever concept for achieving a gradient lip and makes it a lot easier and quicker to achieve. And as always with Laneige makeup, it has such a nice high end luxury feel and design to it. It comes in 10 shades and there are a few others I’m keen to get but I got 1 first to try and this is a two tone red and beige colour. Excited to see how if I can achieve a nice gradient lip effect with this.
ARITAUM Honey Melting Tint
Aritaum are well known for their great lip products and their Honey Melting Tints are extremely popular. I was interested in these after I realised lip tints work better for my lips than lipsticks. This however is a lip tint in the form of a lip balm which appeals to me because it’s easier to apply and also touch up when you’re out and about. Whereas regular lip tints can get messy and splotchy since they’re very liquid-based. My initial impression is that Sugar Syrup is a much brighter pink than I expected. It is quite creamy and thick and tends to tug on the lips as you apply. Not as ‘melting’ as I expected it to be and also accentuates dry patches. I’ll have to give it a few more tries before I come to a conclusion about it.
ARITAUM Water Sliding Tint
This is very similar and like a newer upgraded version of the Honey Melting Tints. It promises to be more silky smooth and is a solidified liquid texture. On initial impression, I love this consistency so much more! It really does glide along the lips and has such a strong colour payoff. The buttery texture works wonderfully on my dry lips and doesn’t seep and dry into the cracks. One thing to note is that you can’t wind up the whole tube because it’s not retractable so you have to be careful to only twist a little bit up at a time. There are 15 shades available and already I plan to pick up more colours.
PERIPERA Peri’s Tint Water
Another one for my sister. This is highly regarded to be as good as/or better than the popular Benefit Benetint but at a much cheaper price. Looked at swatches of the 5 shades available and this looked like the most natural wearable red colour.
INNISFREE Mineral Blusher
Usually rely on Innisfree for their great skincare but I wanted to try more of their makeup and since I needed new blushers I decided to try one from their Mineral Blushers line. Looks like another nice cool pink shade for me. However when I did a quick swatch of it, it’s not actually matte like it looks in the pan and is a more frosty shimmery colour. I don’t mind if it’s not fully matte because shimmery blushers can look beautiful but I just hope its not as pale and sheer as it looks.
INNISFREE Mineral Rose Marbling Brighter
So after hitting pan with my old highlighter I was on the lookout for a Korean one to try. As well as the Laneige highlighter I wanted to get an Innisfree one that I saw swatches of online and thought it had such a beautiful iridescent shimmer but unfortunately I wasn’t able to find it in stock. So I went for this alternative and it looks beautiful and pigmented and I’m looking forward to trying it out.
CLIO Gelpresso Waterproof Pencil Geliner
I already have this in ‘Dark Choco’ that I picked up from Korea and I liked the creamy texture since it felt more like a gel eyeliner than a pencil. Since they have a wide variety of colours, I wanted to pick up more so I could experiment with different eye looks since brown and black is getting to be a bit boring lately. Two of the shades are newly released – Bloody Devil & Bloody Sweet. I also got Golden Black and paired together with Bloody Devil, it looks amazing. Creates a deep dark shimmery plum. I use Bloody Sweet (shimmery pale pink) for the inner corners of my eyes and it opens them up and brightens the eye in a really lovely way.
That’s it for Part 1 of my haul.
Check out Part 2 here!
Wantastic Beauty 
I own half of these and some of the products are hit or misses. The clio blusher is something I won’t purchase again, since I find it too sheer and removes base makeup if applied on top 😓
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Yeah thats what im finding with liquid blushers atm. 😦 And generally Korean blushers are much more sheer than I’d like. Which ones are hits for you?
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Too Cool For School seems to be the best I’ve tried for blush, though not that impressive anyway. I suppose I’m in the same boat as you for blush.
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Ah I was just looking at their cushion blushers yesterday. I may give them a try at some point
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