A Makeup & Beauty Blog – Lipglossiping

I first came acros the Ginvera brand about 5 years ago after they’d released their Marvel Gel onto the UK scene and were exhibiting at The Vitality Show, I remember being so thoroughly intrigued by the idea of Asian beauty products, and I supposed it contributed to the interest that led me (a couple of years later) to discovering beauty blogs such as A Touch of Blusher and Cosmetic Candy.

Following on from their blackhead-busting Marvel Gel is this, the Singaporean brand’s BB Cream.  It comes in a single shade, designed to suit all skintones <insert raised eyebrow here. and leave it there>.  It promises a fine-textured finish with SPF30 PA++ sun protection, good concealing strength and all day hydration from ingredients including: green tea, ginseng, chinese angelica and hyaluronic acid.

It’s priced at around £20 for 25ml, making it ml for ml, one of the more expensive BB Creams that I’ve tried to date.  The packaging is simple and unfussy, it doesn’t present more luxury than the other BB Creams that I’ve owned in the past.  Whilst I’m on the subject of the packaging, mine does that horribly frustrating thing of continuing to dispense product long after you’ve stopped squeezing, I need to hurry to pop the lid back on to avoid wastage which isn’t always easy when you’ve got a blob of newly-squeezed BB Cream on your fingertips/back of hand.

Packaging issue aside, the texture is really quite sublime.  True to its word, it feels lightweight and finely-textured.  Many Asian BB Creams are quite thick and take considerable rubbing-in to even out the finish, this one glides on and blends effortlessly.

The shade is about 1 shade darker than my summer skintone, I’d say that it’s a NW20/25 as a rough estimate… this is obviously NOT suitable for all skintones, if you’re darker than an NW30, you’ll struggle.  I’m currently inbetween an NW15/20 and you’ll be able to see a little later how well it fared once blended on my pale skin.  As for the tone, it has the signature grey-ish cast that I personally love in a BB Cream for disguising my redness but I felt that although this faded somewhat after warming up on my skin, those with warmer skintones probably won’t appreciate the ashiness.

As an all-in-one solution, it didn’t fully work for me.  I still needed to prime my skin with additional moisturiser to keep any dry bits feeling comfortable, though it certainly didn’t contribute to any additional dryness.  I also felt that the Ginvera Green Tea Nude Cover BB Cream lasted well on the more oily areas of my skin with minimal migration and good longevity.  Coverage was also impressive, though any spots would still need additional concealing.

Overall, I was happy with how it performed but for the (slightly higher than average) price tag, I’d prefer additional refinement and for it to be more compatible with my personal skin needs.  If you’re a normal/combination, mid-toned girl who wants something with medium coverage and no-fuss application, I highly recommend that you check it out.  The broad spectrum SPF30 may well make this a fabulous choice for your Summer holidays this year.

The Ginvera Green Tea Nude Cover BB Cream is available to purchase online from Janiro.co.uk and instore at Harvey Nichols, priced at £20.00

* press sample

Starting tomorrow morning and lasting for 48hrs only, receive a free D.J.V. Beautenizer Fiberwig LX Mascara (worth £18) with any CultBeauty order over £40.  Perhaps now’s the time to plump for the Face Atelier Ultra Foundation I talked about the other week?  Or… how about this 3 Custom Color Century in Red Lip Palette that has a permanent place on the Lipglossiping wishlist (alter-ego, can’t blame myself for these wishlists).

Whatever you choose, the D.J.V. Beautenizer Fiberwig LX Mascara has a cult following and even got me rightly told off by die-hard fans when I reviewed it without reading the instructions properly!

The offer ends at midnight on Monday, so be quick!

My lovely friend Rowena from Cosmetic-Candy sent me a couple of Skin Food Nail Vita polishes last year and after falling in love with both of them (and not having swatched them yet, naughty!), I popped on eBay and picked up another that had caught my eye over on Witoxcity’s fabulous blog.

Puppy Purple is a beautiful, vampy shimmer – perhaps a little too vampy for March but I’m happy to break the rulez for this one.  It’s a little thick, though completely controllable and opaque in a single coat, although I did use two in the above photograph for the neatness value!  The shimmers in the creme base are striking and apparent on the nail, catching the light beautifully.  It’s not the most unique polish in the world but it’s one that I’m delighted to have in my collection and wouldn’t give up!

Perhaps the best thing about this polish?  I paid £3.49 for it, including shipping from South Korea.

You can buy Skin Food Nail Vita in Puppy Purple online from rubyruby76 on eBay.  Shipping was a little slow, but no major grumbles.

I’ve heard SO much about this eyeliner over the past couple of years and following my semi-disappointment with my Illamasqua Precision Ink, I was in the market for trying out something new.  Combine this with a late night mooch around eBay, and the rest (as they say…) is history.

Kiss Me Heroine Make Smooth Liquid Eyeliner is the finest-tipped eyeliner pen I’ve used.  It’s a brush tip rather than a felt tip and the bristles hold together tightly to provide a very tight line.

I find the formula to be quite watery and it can bleed a little but thankfully dries very quickly.  For a very dark line, you’d need to make a couple of passes which is a shame.

I paid around £10 for mine (inc. shipping) which brings it well under high-end prices but toward the top end of high street.  It does fade throughout the day and I’m not going to give this holygrail status simply because I’m not completely sold on the formula.  The precision brush though?  Well, it’s an absolute dream for winging out.

The above photo shows one pass and you can see that it could do with a second swipe, there’s a hint of feathering but check out that sharp wing!

Kiss Me Heroine Make Smooth Liquid Eyeliner is available to buy on eBay (prices vary).

What’s your favourite eyeliner at the moment?

I promised you a post on BB creams and in all honesty, what I know about BB creams can probably be written on the back of one.  In other words, not an awful lot.

However, one thing I do know is that they’ve been around for a lot longer than you might think.  Currently hot topic across the UK blogosphere, we’re about 3 years out of date on this one.  Here’s the post that introduced me to them back in 2008: The lovely Muse talks about BB Creams…

Since then, I’ve been gathering snippets here and there from other Asian cosmetics aficiandos like Rowena, Kathi and ParisB (just a small selection of amazing blogs with an Asian beauty focus) and dipping my toe in the proverbial waters.

The biggest complaint lodged against the Asian BB Cream market is the lack of colour variation and this still holds true 3 years down the line… for medium toned or paler skins, it’s not too bad.  Darker skintones (with the exception of one or two products) are pretty much ignored in this genre.

Speaking from a personal point of view, my pale pink skin isn’t as bothered by the oft-disliked ‘beige/grey’ tones found within many of these creams.  Infact, I find that they cancel out my redness better than any other foundation or concealer I’ve tried but I can absolutely appreciate why they don’t look as good on olive or yellow-toned skintones.

The below image shows them swatched on my inner wrist where the skin is considerably more milk-bottle than my face.  The texture of the three varies considerably.  I’m going to do a speed review on each…

Therapia ECO Feel BB Cream

This one has the heaviest texture, it’s quite hard to spread and drags a little unless my skin is well moisturised underneath.  The colour is good, though a tiny bit too dark for me.  Skin-loving properties are based around whitening and calming irritated skin with Apricot Oil and Aloe Vera Gel.

Coverage is medium, it conceals redness nicely but blemishes will need extra work.  I don’t find that this builds very well, more than one layer and it starts to look caked on.  It’s unscented and has an SPF rating of SPF25 PA++

I would recommend this for normal/combo skins.

Skin Food Gingko Green BB Cream

The lightest in texture of the three I currently have in rotation.  Best for drier skins, this leaves behind a medium coverage and a dewy finish. If you’re oily, you will probably hate this with a passion.

It’s delicately scented and promises to be filled with ‘beauty enhancing’ ingredients like lecithin and Vit B to moisturise and nourish.  Sadly, this one contains no SPF.

The colour is less ‘beige’ (read grey) than the other two and will be better suited to warmer skintones (though it is still very light).

Shills Super Magic BB Cream

My favourite and the one I’ve been reaching for recently is this offering from Taiwanese brand, Shills.  With the highest SPF rating of SPF50 PA+++, it’s been doing a good job of keeping my skin protected in the sun.  It promises to aid with whitening, wrinkles(!) and general skin improvement.

It’s the palest of the three and the most suited to a cooler, pink skin tone.  It covers my redness phenomenally well and is mid-way between the other two in terms of spreadability.  Again, this one is delicately scented which may put you off.  It glides on over a moisturised face but if you’re combo-skinned, you may not want to add that extra dewiness as this is pretty moisturising on its own.

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As you can see, these ones all come from the Asian marketplace but I’ll be interested to see how the bigger brands currently throwing themselves on the bandwagon will interpret the ‘genre’ for the Western market.  I buy all my BB Creams on eBay but please be aware that there are fakes.  Infact, I’m not certain that all my purchases are genuine (though I’ve thankfully had no adverse reactions) so do all your usual eBay homework, check ratings… compare products to stock images etc and if in doubt, ask questions!

Have you tried BB Creams?  Want to?

Phew, you don’t wanna be trying to remember the name of this foundation after a few sakes.  But for the record, Shiseido Integrate Gracy Cream Foundation Moist SPF22 PA++ in PO-10 *cough* is definitely worth remembering.

I first heard of this foundation after Kathi at LotusPalace blogged about it… anything that Kathi calls HG frankly has me running for my debit card, foaming at the mouth.  So I ran for my debit card. I’m not admitting to anything else.

I paid around £15 for this on eBay from AlphaBeautyUK and it arrived within 9 days of ordering.

You get 25g of product in a small glass jar… it’s not particularly fancy, it’s just… functional.

My skin is still recovering from the Winter, dry at the best of times.  I’m still needing to consider foundations that won’t be attracted to dry patches of skin and although creams are usually cited as being the ones to go for, I can’t say that I’ve noticed them being particularly more moisturising in the past.

Perhaps I’ve just been going for the wrong ones!

The most compelling thing about this foundation for me is the almost perfect shade match… it’s possibly a hint lighter than my skintone but once it’s had time to fit (oxidise?), it’s pretty damn spot on.

Although clearly pink-based, I think it has enough peach in it to stop it from turning ruddy… if colour matching to a so-called English Rose complexion is an issue for you, I really recommend giving this a try.

So, how about that moisture then?  Seeing as this is called “moist”… well it’s not bad.  It’s not as moisturising as something like Chanel Vitalumiere but to be honest, I find that too tacky on my skin and a little uncomfortable to wear.  I’d class this as somewhere between that and a normal, satin finish foundation.

I’ve read this described as a medium-coverage foundation but for me at least, this is pretty full-on.  I don’t own many foundations that give a fuller coverage than this.  I’ll probably find this far too heavy for the Summer but I’m fine with it while the seasons are still changing.  Here’s a before/after – prepare yourself, it’s shots like this that remind me why I like makeup and NEED eyeliner.

After is on the right, I’ve applied the Shiseido Integrate Gracy Cream Foundation Moist with my fingers over a moisturised face.  No concealer.  God I have big ears.  And please excuse the bloodshot eye.  And the lip spot.  And…oh, bugger it.

What do you think?  I think it tones down redness nicely, covers most imperfections adequately and doesn’t accentuate my dry bits.  I think it’s a bit full-on for the Summer and wish I’d discovered it a couple of months ago.  Mostly though, I love the shade which is pretty damn awesome.

Shiseido Integrate Gracy Cream Foundation Moist SPF22 PA++ in PO-10 is available to buy online from eBay (and possibly many other places that I’m not clever enough to translate).

My first foray into the infamous world of BB Creams!

What are BB Creams?

BB Cream stands for Blemish Balm Cream and is a very popular base product in Asia.  Korean companies in particular offer a wide-range of BB Creams to suit many different skin types.  They fill the gap in the market between cosmetics and skincare… a product designed to give flawless coverage whilst benefiting the health of your skin in one (or many) ways.

I first heard of BB Creams when I went to South Korea a few years ago, I had absolutely no idea what they were or did until I arrived back in the UK and started blog reading.

BB Creams at the minimum, offer moisturisation and coverage, with many more offering SPF, Whitening Properties and Anti-Aging to name but a few.  They’re big business in Asia and have been slowly but steadily making a splash amongst makeup aficionados worldwide.

So, why has it taken me so long to try one?  Ultimately… convenience.  You have to head to eBay or online stores that specialise in Asian cosmetics.  Then you have to work out which BB Cream you fancy trying and frankly, there are so many available… it all gets a bit confusing.

I took the plunge and settled for South Korean brand Skin Food.

Skin Food Gingko Green BB Cream #1 (50g) to be exact.

Here’s what they say about it:

A multi-function product for skin care and makeup.  Containing gingko leaf and green tea extracts rich in lecithin and vitamin B, it protects sensitive skin and improves skin tone.  Use when you want to achieve a bright, radiant skin tone.

It’s a little warmer than my skintone but ultimately blends to a decent match.  Colour matching seems to be one of the biggest issues with BB Creams and it’s always worth googling for a swatch to get an idea of how it might suit you.

The texture is truly rather lovely.  Thick but not so thick that it’s hard to spread.  There’s still enough slip to the product to stop it dragging across your face as you spread it.  Coverage is medium… it tones down my redness quite well and evens out my skintone.  Blemishes are not covered and concealer is necessary.  It really does feel like I’m wearing something different to my usual foundations… far more natural feeling on the skin.

Ultimately, this would be all you need if you’re blessed with great skin.  Oily skins will probably want something a little more matte.  I’m pleased I bought it, do I want to try more?  Oh yes….

I think I may have developed a dangerous new addiction.

Are you a fan of BB Creams?  Let me know some of your favourites!