Tony Moly and Etude House

I hear often that Asian cosmetics and skin care are just amazing, and I fully agree, I've written some reviews on other Asian products and my holy grail cleanser so far is also Asian. But these are some of the new products that I have recently gotten! All of these have come from eBay, they came in perfect condition with a good amount of samples to try as well!

First off is a lipstick and a red one at that! Red is my all time fave shade and I think this would have to be my favourite packaging! Now this is a limited edition product so you will want to get on this fast if you really want this in your life, It's from the brand Etude House (an EXTREMELY popular brand) and is the XOXO Minnie Kissing Lips collection.

As you can see this is a beautiful shade of red. I love the shape of the bullet as I feel this shape it easy to work with.

And finally a swatch on the back of my hands! I honestly love this and think this will get a lot of love in the future!

Below are a mix of skin care and lips! These are products that I wanted to try because they looked fun and also the claims were too good to pass up!

First off a primer!! It looks a little confusing in this packaging and I promise it only gets more confusing :)

This is the product outside of the box! I love this packaging! Although it's not travel friendly I think this is going to look so cute on my vanity!

This is the inside of the golden egg. I LOVE the smell of this sooo much! It made my package smell soo nice! The purpose of this primer is to help with pores. Thankfully on the box there are directions in English, so I will have to make sure I don't throw it away. I am so excited to use this and see how it works. This is called the New Egg Pore Silky Smooth Balm by Tony Moly.

PRICE: $11.99 US (eBay) please note links provided are from the seller I purchased from.

Next is another egg related product. Again the packaging of this is just sooooo cute!!!

This is a face soap, thankfully the two different eggs are wrapped apart so it makes it easy to travel with if needed. I am interested to see how this is going to work! From what I could tell from the description that you use this like a normal soap... but only for your face!

PRICE: $9.99 US (eBay)

Next are some more lip products! These are from Etude House and Tony Moly. The bunny looking product is by Tony Moly, one of my uni mates uses this all the time and so I thought I would give it a shot! The two Etude House products I wanted to try because I love the colours, granted I wont get much use out of the darker shade until next year, I'm still excited about this product!

Here are the swatches of the lip products! These are in the order that they appear in the image above.
Left - right: Etude House Dear Darling in Real Red, Tony Moly Petite Bunny Gloss in Juicy Cherry and Etude House Dear Darling in Vampire Red.

PRICES:
TONY MOLY: $5.49 US (eBay)
ETUDE HOUSE: $5.48 US (eBay)

With the retailer that I bought everything besides the lipstick from, gave me loads of samples! I think some I will have to ask my friend who speaks Korean what they do, but others I'm excited to use!

Thanks for reading! Hopefully I'll see you next time!

Bye xx

Favourite Lip Balm - Maybelline Baby Lips - Menthol

So today I decided to write about my favourite lip balm! Though I haven't tried many high end lip balms, I have tried a fair few drug store ones (that are available in Australia) and wanted to share my favourite. I understand that lip balm is a totally person thing but if you're looking for a different option here you go!

My all time favourite lip balm is the Maybelline Baby Lips in Menthol. Now to start off it is only this one that is my favourite. I am not a huge fan of all of the other colours and option in the range, it is only the Menthol flavour that is my favourite.

The packaging looks like this! It is a pastel green and blue. This can be a little difficult to read, but it does make it stand out a lot so it's really easy identify. 

Like all of the lip balms the shade/flavour the packaging has the name on the side. I find this very useful for when I want to find the lip balm again! Or even better when telling other people which lip balm to get.

This is an image of what the lip balm looks like. It is a clear balm which I really enjoy. It is important to understand that there is a strong smell that goes with these lip balms. If you don't like the smell it will bother you when you are wearing it because if you're not used to it you can still smell it. After roughly half an hour the smell will go away.

PACKAGING:

This lip balm comes in plastic packaging just as you can see above. This is a wind-up lip balm, with the wind-up mechanism at the bottom. This can break when trying to wind the product down (I do this to see how much I have left) but never had a problem winding it up. It doesn't scratch easily, or if it does I can't tell. One good thing about this packaging is if you accidentally wash it, you can still use it. Some people might be disturbed by that, but the lid is secured that tightly that no water got into the product making it fine to still use. The product wasn't affected and I didn't notice any difference in taste or performance.

REVIEW: 

These lip balms have a sales pitch of lasting 8 hours, straight off the bat I don't agree with this. I mostly wear this for work because it DOES moisturize my lips really really well, but I personally don't think it lasts 8 hours. When first using this lip balm it does tingle, personally I like how this feels because it means I know that the lip balm is there. There is a distinct smell like I mentioned before, and you can taste it when you lick your lips. It doesn't taste amazing which I actually like because then is discourages lip licking and biting (biting my lips is a nervous/ bored/ I'm hungry habit so having a non pleasent tasting lip balm is a plus for me). In saying that though it is not a horrible taste that you can't stand and want it off your lips as soon as you put it on.

The main reason why I love this lip balm SOOO much is that it helps heal my lips. I get dry lips pretty quickly and so I wear lip balm often because I hate how my lips feel without something on them. But when wearing this I know that I am helping my lips improve. I will generally only wear this at work because it protects my lips from the dry air and also lasts until smoko (which is when I eat and it gets rubbed off).

One thing to note is that if you do leave it in your pocket or a hot place it will make it go soft meaning if you're not paying attention you could swipe a LOT of lip balm all of your lips making it awkward to use and an awkward situation. I have stored it in my bra (maybe TMI but its the truth) and its fine there, it doesn't get hot enough to smear which is good if you don't have pockets!

 I also know that this helps heal lips well because after travelling a friends lips were destroyed (I have never seen lips looking that painful and sore) and so I gave him my lip balm. In one week he used the whole thing (super impressive) but his lips were healed and looked great! So it does work. I have also recommended this lip blam to some of my friends and they too have agreed that this is a great lip balm.

I'm super sad though because I believe that they are discontinuing the lip balm in Menthol because I'm finding it more and more difficult to find it in store, and when I do its on sale. I really REALLY hope they aren't getting rid of this lip balm because it means I will lose my favourite. Because of this I have been buying it whenever I see it (which means I have about 5 backups) but it's totally worth it.

Places to find the Baby Lips range are generally anywhere that sells the Mabyelline line, though in stores the variety changes. The most common place for me personally to buy these are at Priceline where they are sold for $3.95 AUD. But because Maybelline goes on sale often all you have to do is wait for the right time to pick one up!

Overall I truly love this lip balm and it's the only one that I have numerous back-ups of. If you see this lip balm I defiantly suggest picking one up to give it a try! You won't regret it!