2017 favorites

Happy new year and happy 2018! I wanted to share my top 10 favorites  of 2017 with you.

10. NYX Away We Glow in 08 moon glow - I ran out of my beloved Becca shimmering skin perfector in pearl and replaced it with NYX for two reasons: 1) I'm a grad student on a budget, and more importantly, 2) There is no known universe where I could finish a full size shimmering skin perfector. The mini spotlight size took me 2 years! The NYX isn't a perfect dupe (not as gel like of a texture, doesn't blend as well over powder), but is 90% there and meets my needs perfectly. Like everyone else on the planet, glowy skin and I were friends all year long.

9. Whole Foods organic lip balm - I went through about a dozen of these in 2017, 50/50 lost vs. used up. I love the honey vanilla version, it moisturizes without irritating my skin and only costs about $3. Sold for life <3

8. Sheer glossy lips - My skin is too dry and I am too impatient for the perfectly carved out lip line and matte liquid lips. I need my skin and lips to feel comfortable and I'm permanently running late, so for me that means tinted lip balm, glosses, and sheer lipsticks I can apply on the bus without a mirror. Some of my favorites: Urban Decay and Too Faced La Creme lipsticks layered over lip balm, Clinique almost lipstick in black honey, Fresh tinted lip balm in rose and petal, and Bite's (discontinued?!) lip gloss in currant.

7. My Japanese brushes - My everyday brushes never fail me and I'm still amazed that some of these brands aren't more popular. Chikuhodo, Hakuhodo, Koyudo, and Mizuho all have some relatively affordable brushes (MAC or MUFE price range) that blow everything else out of the water in terms of quality. I like more natural and sheer looks with powder products, so my soft natural hair brushes deliver. Pictured: Hakuhodo tapered candle 5521, Hakuhodo J521 eyeliner, Chikuhodo Z-5 large eye shader, Mizuho PM11 brow brush, Koyudo 035 medium shader, Hakuhodo K022 blush/powder . I don't think everyone needs these exact brushes, but I do think it is worth buying high quality brushes of which ever shapes you use every day.

6. NARS Laguna - Check out that huge pan! I wear bronzer everyday and Laguna was easily my most reached for this year. Even on my cool toned fair skin, this is never too orange. I don't know how, but Laguna always makes me look healthy and pretty.

Affordable Japanese makeup brush - Mizuho PM11 eyebrow brush review

I'm finally getting around to posting a review of my favorite eyebrow brush - the Mizuho #11. I bought this on a whim from CD Japan about a year ago because I was curious about the brand and needed a brow brush. The PM-11 is very affordable (1500 yen, ~$13 USD before taxes & shipping)  and has a pink handle.

About Mizuho (瑞穂) Brushes

Compared to other Japanese artisanal makeup brush brands like Hakuhodo, Koyudo and Chikuhodo, Mizuho is not as well known in the United States. Mizuho brushes are handmade in the Kumano area of Japan. Like many other traditional Japanese brush making companies, Mizuho does sell private label. If you are curious about Japanese brushes, I have reviewed quite a few others on my blog.

The PM series is relatively affordable compared to some of their other lines and features cherry blossom pink handles. They do make other lines with different themes if pink handles don't appeal to you, but I personally think the pink handles are cute.

Anastasia Beverly Hills medium brown brow product comparison

I own and love several Anastasia Beverly Hills brow products, and using them has made me interested in trying out the rest of the ABH brow line. Shopping online poses a tricky question - are all of the Medium Brown shades the same color? I love my Medium Brown dipbrow pomade, but is it the same shade as the Brow Wiz in Medium Brown / Medium Ash?

Last time I was at Ulta, I swatched the 4 ABH brow products in Medium Brown to find out.

Left to right: Anastasia Beverly Hills Brow Wiz Medium Brown / Medium Ash, Brow Powder Duo Medium Brown, Perfect Brow Pencil Medium Brown, Dipbrow Pomade Medium Brown

My top 5 affordable Asian beauty favorites

I've been buying Asian beauty products for awhile now and have built up a substantial collection, so I thought it was time for a favorites post! Behold, my current top 5 affordable beauty products from Asia: Etude House I Need You A to Z sheet masks, The Face Shop Lovely me:ex Design My Eyebrow auto pencil in No. 1 Grey Brown, Etude House Lovely Cookie Blusher in No. 06 Grapefruit Jelly, Skin79 VIP Gold BB cream, and Skin Food's Rose Essence Lip Balm.

All of these products are price equivalent to American drugstore items and are great options for people new to Asian beauty. The price will vary based on where you purchase, but I have had good luck RoseRoseShop.

Comparison: Anastasia Beverly Hills Dipbrow Pomade & Perfect Brow Pencil in Medium Brown

I have enjoyed Anastasia Beverly Hills' Dipbrow Pomade for a while now (since the launch of my blog, my review of the dipbrow shade Medium Brown has been one of my most popular posts), and I wanted to try another product from the brand for the Sephora VIB sale. I figured I would stick with the group of products Anastasia is best known for - brows. And, since I know the color Medium Brown works well for my coloring, I had to take a brow pencil for a spin.

In choosing between the two brow pencils offered by Anastasia Beverly Hills, I chose the lesser known Perfect Brow Pencil over the perennial YouTube favorite Brow Wiz. Check out the stats: Brow Wiz contains .003 oz of product for $21 and the Perfect Brow Pencil contains .034 oz of product for $23.
A little arithmetic shows the ridiculous disparity in price: Brow Wiz costs $7,000 per ounce of product, while the Perfect Brow Pencil compares at $676 per ounce. (Just for fun, Dipbrow costs $128 per ounce)

5 Disappointing Products - Recent Makeup Fails

I love reading about other people's disappointing makeup products, especially when the item in question is on my wishlist. The 5 makeup items below were total fails for me, but they might work for you just fine. I bought this all myself and I wish I hadn't.

Let's get started, shall we?

Empties & Mini Reviews - Too Faced, NYX, Elf, Bare Minerals, Jack Black

I was inspired to share some empties today after doing an end of summer collection purge. All of the empty products below are *actually* makeup & beauty products. Anyone else get angry about body scrub and candle empties? Let's check out what I used up recently:

• NYX Butter Gloss in Creme Brulee (BLG 05)
• e.l.f. Essential Wet Gloss Lash & Brow Clear mascara
• Jack Black Intense Therapy Lip Balm in Grapefruit & Ginger and Lemon & Chamomile
• Too Faced Shadow Insurance
• Bare Minerals Lash Domination mascara (black)

 Let's get into the mini reviews:

Tony Moly Easy Touch Coloring Browcara 02 Grey Brown review & swatches

Tony Moly Easy Touch Coloring Browcara is a tinted brow gel. Tony Moly is a South Korean beauty brand with a wide range of products, mostly around a drugstore price point. I purchased this item on Rose Rose Shop for around $5.

Milani Brow Shaping Gel in Clear review

I bought Milani's clear brow gel because I saw a review of the product that mentioned the small brush. Most clear brow gel products at the drugstore, like Ulta Eye Brow Gel, Essence Lash & Brow Gel, and elf Lash & Brow Clear Mascara, have large wands that end up depositing too much product on your brows (and usually smearing some on your forehead). Milani's Brow Shaping Gel comes in an opaque black tube with a gold cap for $4.99 for .15 ounces, which comes out to $33.27 per ounce.

Packaging:

Unlike most brow gels on the market, Milani's comes in an opaque tube. On one hand, it is nice not to see how gross brow gel gets when you use it frequently - nobody wants to see your cloudy taupe brow gel. On the other hand, you can't see how much of the product is left.

Brush:

The brush on the end of the wand in this product is substantially smaller than every other drugstore brow gel I have tried. It has a tapered triangle shape with bristles that spiral around the wand. I did buy this product for the brush, and unfortunately the brush is the reason this product is a total fail. The bristles are so widely spaced out that the product collects in between the grooves and does not deposit evenly in your brows. The brush always pulls out of the tube with way more product than you need and overloads your brows with gel, creating a wet looking crunchy brow. Even if you wipe the excess product off of the brush, the widely spaced bristles leave little tracks through your brows, leaving you with unattractive linear clumped stripes.

Formula:

This formula is mediocre. By my lunch break at work, I feel like I need to reapply to make sure my brows stay in place the rest of the day. Not the worst formula I have tried in a brow gel (that spot goes to Ulta's store brand Eye Brow Gel), but the best I can say is that it is adequate.

The bottom line - Don't buy this unless you want clumpy, wet looking crunchy brows that will only keep their shape until lunchtime. I love Milani, but this product lets down the line.

Anastasia Dipbrow Pomade Medium Brown review & swatches

Anastasia Beverly Hills' new dipbrow pomade claims to be a pigmented, smudge proof, and waterproof product for brows and eyes. I am always on the prowl for long wearing versatile everyday products, so I had to pick it up to see if it is worth the hype. None of the original shades in the line appealed to me, but when I saw the shade medium brown as a new release, I couldn't resist. Anastasia's dipbrow pomade comes in a glass pot with a shiny black plastic lid and .14 oz (4 grams) of product. I picked mine up from Sephora for $18.