Makeup and Skincare Empties + Review July, August, and September 2017 (Project Use Up All the Samples 2k17)

... Okay, this is a bit insane but I kept three months worth of empties. I was lazy okay (￣□￣) I couldn't fit everything into one photo so I don't have a photo of everything.

I got a helix piercing at the beginning of September because I had wanted one for the longest time. Since I have long hair and the jewellery is tiny, very few people have noticed it.

In this time period, I also went to Kcon and saw EXO perform live! I'm still a bit in denial, it was a dream come trueeeee. I was a bit bummed that my current bias D.O (Do Kyungsoo) didn't end up coming but I saw all the other members! Lay wasn't going to come anyway so I wasn't too disappointed at not seeing him.

I also won a Peripera Airy Ink Velvet lip tint in #4 Beautiful Coral Velvet from the beauty panel at Kcon (*adds more lip products to my collection*). 

BTS keeps on rising. I was slightly disappointed with DNA but it grew on me quickly. I love every song on the album and I have a deep appreciation of the hidden track 'Sea'. 'Mic Drop' and 'Dimple (Illegal)' are my favourite tracks. Of course, being Jimin biased, I love 'Serendipity' as well. Will stop fangirling now and move onto my unbelieveable three months worth of empties.

My friends and I also booked a holiday for next year. I'll be gone for most of February 2018! Super excited.

Samples

Makeup and Skincare Empties + Review May and June 2017 (Project Use Up All the Samples 2k17)

I'm so behind on blogging my empties. Whoops^^;; I've just been plodding along with life, wanting a bit more from work and my relationship(s). 

There's a lot here because I combined two months worth of empties. Let's go!

Benton Papaya D-Sun Cream Review

****This product was provided by Benton for review purposes and does not affect my honest opinion in any shape or form.

It has been cold and raining a lot for the past few days, but that's not an excuse to not wear sunscreen! Even through cloud cover, you will still be exposed to UV light. Of course, you should make it a habit to wear sunscreen everyday if you want to protect your skin from harmful rays and early signs of aging.

An avid user of sunscreen, I was pleased to hear Benton announce their newest addition to their skincare family-- a sunscreen! This is Benton's first sunscreen and is made up of a mixture of physical and chemical agents.

 I've previously reviewed other Benton products on my blog. What I like about Benton is the use of interesting and effective ingredients.  Many of the products are intended to be used 'fresh' and so end up having a shorter shelf life. 

The standout ingredient in this sunscreen is papaya! I do like papaya milkshake... but other than being delicious, papaya contains vitamins to help skin retain moisture and vibrancy. 

Makeup and Skincare Empties + Review April 2017 (Project Use Up All the Samples 2k17)

Lots of full empties this month! I think I'm getting better at using up my stash at the moment-- I think it's mostly just finding the beauty subreddits I like to hang out in 'boring'. I'm mostly on a discussion sub now, and scrolling through the front page.

As I mentioned in my last post, I've been putting more money into clothes... to the extent where I've spent the same amount on clothes this year as what I've spent on all makeup/skincare/hair care all of last year. Whoops. I am so bad and actually need to invest my money properly as a grown up.

The last thing I spent 'big' on in April was tickets to see BTS in Sydney! I knew exactly what I wanted and finished checking out and got my email confirmation at 2.02pm when the Ticketek website started crashing lol. Tickets were released at 2pm so *shrug*

Using my phone to take photos again. It's convenient but the quality isn't as good as my camera. I'm just so put off with using my camera after all those lens issues T^T

Makeup and Skincare Empties + Review February and March 2017 (Project Use Up All the Samples 2k17)

It's been awhile since my last empties post. I didn't think that I had accumulated quite enough empties (...rubbish) for the month of February which is why I decided to combine February and March together. Throughout the two months, I've mainly been enjoying my regular staple items rather than working through samples.

The thing that is worrying me this month is that I am using all the money I could have saved by not purchasing any makeup and skincare (I've been sooooo good about this) into buying clothes. So many clothes. Which I don't really have much of a chance to wear. WHY??? T^T

 

Makeup and Skincare Empties + Review December 2016 (Project Use Up All the Samples 2k16)

The year 2016 is officially over! I calculated I spent $662 on makeup, skincare, and hair care. This is compared to $550 I spent on makeup (including circle lens), skincare, and hair care in 2015. In 2017, I'd like to save money and spend less on 'fun' purchases in makeup and skincare.

Although the majority of my money is spent on transport and food (~$2000), my main goals this year is to just repurchase skincare necessities and spend less frivolously on makeup. I have enough in my back up box for all of 2017 and probably 2018.

Unfortunately, as I was taking photos of my empties today, I realised my Olympus 14-42mm lens is broken and it wouldn't zoom past 25mm. In my worry, I forgot to take a group photo of everything for the month even though I set it up that way ;( As something extra, I have posted a picture of some items that are not yet finished, but will be thrown away.

Makeup and Skincare Empties + Review November 2016 (Project Use Up All the Samples 2k16)

Can't believe this month is nearly over! I had an exciting and eventful November... I went out a lot. This month, I met Wengie in person. She was a lot skinnier in person than I thought she would be. Although I'm not a religious viewer of her Youtube channel and I don't read her blog, I thought she was very cool in person. She was very nice and offered me hugs:)

I also watched Chihayafuru part 1 and 2 of the live action. In the Christmas holidays, I plan to watch the anime to catch me up to speed now that I am interested in the storyline. I want to see if Chihaya eventually gets the Queen title.

Benton Prize Packs

Benton Cosmetics, famous for their Snail Bee line, Aloe BHA line, and having no filler ingredients, officially launched their website in July 2016.

You can visit the website here.

As part of the celebration in launching their official website, Benton ran a few competitions. They have had four competitions so far, and I have entered and won a prize in all four of them -_-b Benton is so generous with their prize promotions, though I was shocked to see that there were price hikes to accompany the launch for all Benton products throughout ebay, Jolse, BeautynetKorea, Testerkorea, eopenmarket, RoseRoseShop etc.

Their first event was to leave a congratulatory message to win a sample prize pack.

The second event was to leave a review on their website to win a full size of the newly launched Fermentation Essence or the Fermentation Eye Cream.

The second event took around a month to gather 50 comments to receive the products... when the prize shipped, I was very surprised and pleased that Benton commented us all back individually with a tracking number. Get this... the package was sent via EMS!

The third event happened a bit more unexpectedly, as I heard about it on reddit. You had to name a product contains dimethicone, and you will receive a sample pack as a prize.

The fourth event was to guess the name of Benton's new hand cream from the description.

Event 1 & 2:

Makeup and Skincare Empties + Review October 2016 (Project Use Up All the Samples 2k16)

This month has flown by! I'm not sure how but I think part of it was just constantly being so busy at work, and trying to keep on top of everything and not dropping the ball. I don't think I'm burning out, but I'm starting to lose that bright spark of organisational commitment I felt when I first started. Maybe I'm browning out?

I had a lot of fun with watching the Melbourne Cup with my colleagues. We went out for lunch, and after that, we all got an early mark to go home. Yay.

I'm glad that the festive season is approaching! I love Christmas decorations and the Christmas spirit. I'm not excited about the weather heating up again... I don't miss the 45 degree days. I have to be a bit more protective about changing up the storage for my lipsticks on hot days as I don't want them to melt or go bad in the heat. My MAC Lady Danger lipstick had a rough day yesterday and experienced a little bit of wax bloom.

I think I used up plenty of full products this month:D

Makeup and Skincare Empties + Review September 2016 (Project Use Up All the Samples 2k16)

My laptop decided that my only user profile on Windows 7 is corrupted and locked me out of it. It also decided to delete EVERYTHING except for my Word and Excel files. Those are the most important things I guess... I think I have most of my drawings and most of my photos backed up. Not everything though, especially my pictures of makeup and such. Also, all of my pixiv/dA/Facebook photos. Also ALL of my EXO photos, cosplay reference photos T_T Photoshop, MTT, Paint Tool SAI... all gone.

I think I need to save up for a new laptop rather than spend it on makeup in the future. So sad. Anyway, after this post I'll probably post a cumulative purchase for August, September and first half of October. Let's move onto the empties!

Rose Rose Shop Haul and Review #3

Backlog haul:) This one is from Rose Rose Shop in July 2015. This was definitely an impulse haul. I had initially only wanted more Mizon stuff, namely the AHA 8% Serum and more moisturisers. I really wanted to try more hand creams so in they went. In the last minute, I decided to try the Cosrx AHA and due to the upper weight bracket I had to pay for shipping, I threw in a whole heap of other stuff I wanted to try.

Ordered: 26/7/15

Shipped: 28/7/15

Received: 6/8/15

Shipping was unexpectedly quick!

eopenmarket Lucky Box Haul and Review (June 2015)

Just a quick review for the eopenmarket Lucky Box. It is now back in stock.

I ordered two to test my luck. During the month of June, all new members received a $3 coupon that could be redeemed with purchases over $10. Shipping is free (in other words, it's already calculated into the price of the products).

My order: 
Lucky Box x 2 = $ 8.80 USD x 2
                           - $3 coupon

= $14.60USD
This was equivalent to around $19AUD at the time.

Ordered: 28/6/15
Shipped: 29/6/15
Received: 9/7/15 (eight business days)

Jolse haul #1

Okay, so this was my first Jolse haul back in April (I know, I posted my third haul, then my second, my fourth, and now my first?!). I guess this is another one of those subtle introduction into the products I have used or currently own.

Ordered: 24/4/14
Shipped: 25/4/14
Arrived: 2/5/14

Benton BHA Aloe Toner Review

I'm sure most of you beauty and skincare lovers would have heard of snail products. Benton was one of the brands that I wanted to try out when I was first doing research on snail mucus products back in 2013 as they are known for having no fillers and preservatives in their products. I ended up buying the Benton Snail Bee Essence and put the Benton BHA Aloe Toner on my wishlist. The combination of BHA, aloe vera, and snail mucus sounded perfect (and no, snail isn't gross. It's actually very nice). Being an avid visitor to /r/AsianBeauty and seeing the mixed reviews on the Benton Toner further piqued my interest-- will this toner work miracles for me, or will my skin react badly to it?

Jolse was running a contest on facebook for 20 reviewers to try the Benton BHA Aloe Toner, and I was selected! Thank you Jolse~ 

Anyway, onto the product review!

Beauty Wishlist

Because I need one to keep my beauty wants in check. I always have a mega-list of things I want to try:

Nature Republic Hand cream (feating EXO)

Benton & Mizon Snail haul~ (more Korean skincare -_-;;)

At the end of October (25/10), I finally caved in and did another skincare haul. My skin has been progressively getting worse and worse towards the second half of 2013. It may have been due been due to switching out and trying too many skincare/ makeup products in a short amount of time. Having more money means wanting to spend more money!

I know that these items were not the cause as I had used them in the first half of 2013 and my skin was perfectly fine:

- Etude House Happy Vitamin C Foam Cleanser
- Etude House Wonder Pore Freshener
- Skinfood serum
- Skinfood Black Sugar/ Rice Wash-Off
- My Beauty Diary masks