Pond's Cleansing Oil

I had a great experience with Pond's Pore White Cleansing Oil while in Taipei so I picked up with "regular" version of Pond's Cleansing Oil in a 175mL bottle before I left Taiwan. Been using it along side with Dr.Ci:Labo Enrich Lift Cleansing & Massage since late April.

Arcona Cranberry Toner

One of my biggest pet peeves is to under-pack, not so much clothing but more like toiletries. Why? Because I have a enough skincare and cosmetics for a few incarnations over and nothing boils my blood like packing too little for a trip and then having to buy even more to make do. When that happens, I just beat myself up with the thought of not bring the whole trunk full!!! Why, oh, why?!?!

Anyway, I didn't pack enough for this past trip, taking just one 30mL/1fl oz. travel sized bottle of Clinique Clarifying Lotion 1 (will review soon) instead of, well, the few I have here in SF. It was supposed to last for 2 weeks with morning use only, but I miscalculated and ran out half way. Sigh. Fortunately, this was a moving trip, and reuniting with the rest of my stuff I had "stocks" to fall back on ^.^ I decided it was time to try the 30mL/1fl oz. bottle of this Arcona Cranberry Toner from the Dermstore 2012 Black Friday Special Mystery Black Bag.

Lancome Maison Lancome

The biggest downside to our moving around is that my precious cosmetics are scattered among a few places. There are those I brought with us, those newly purchased sent to either our folks or our in-laws who were so kind to look after our mails and packages while we were away, and those packed up and stored in grandma's basement. 

But the big silver lining is I get to "discover" these forgotten items all over again now that I'm home, and among them some pretty limited edition Lancome blushes like this Maison Lancome Powder Blusher.

All pictures taken in natural light without flash.

DHC Imperial Green Tea Shower Gel

It has been a while since I bought something from DHC, so I visited their USA online shop and found a few goodies, including this 250mL/8.4fl oz. bottle of the Imperial Green Tea Shower Gel. It was unfortunately being discontinued and was on sale, and since I've read that it smells amazing, I figured that was my excuse chance to try it before it's gone forever.

Kiss Mix Heart Cheeks Part II

Spotted this 05 Strawberry Pink, the newest addition to the Kiss Mix Heart Cheeks family and snapped it up along with the Mix Moon Highlights (will review soon).

Mix Heart Cheeks in 05 Strawberry Pink. All pictures taken in natural light without flash.

Boscia Soothing Cleansing Cream

Update Sunday, May 19, 2013.

So I learned the reason behind the "demand" that this cream cleanser is to be used with dry hands and face. Because it's actually a cream-to-oil cleanser.

As mentioned below this cream cleanser starts to dry up about 30 seconds into application. Usually, this is the cue for me to rinse my face before it becomes too tugging, not to mention my arms would get tired. Then one night, I was in a rebellious mood and stubbornly massaged on even though the cleanser became drier and drier. And then -poof!- the whole thing just melted and became oily and slippery. The first time this happened, I brushed it off as a fluke. But since then, I've been consistently replicating this cream-dries-poof-oil process with every use, so my only logical conclusion is that it's a cream-to-oil cleanser. It makes perfect sense now why the instructions say to start with dry hands and face.

While this cream cleanser is no longer "demanding," I now blame it for being misleading and confusing. Nowhere on the packaging or even Boscia USA's website explains fully the nature of the cleanser, that the users are to massage the cream cleanser into their skin until it completely dissolves into an oil, then rinse. This means unless you stumbled upon this fact accidentally like I did, you are using this cleanser incorrectly, like I was, up until my discovery. And this means if the cream cleanser hasn't been doing a good job cleansing your face, removing your makeup, etc., well, perhaps this is why!

Ha...

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Original post Friday, March 15, 2013.

I bought this Boscia Soothing Cleansing Cream during Boscia's Surprise Beauty Box Holiday 2012 promotion, wherein you get 5 full size products with every order of $75 or more. I ended up with 2 of these, having received the second for free as part of the Surprise Beauty Box.

Boscia's Surprise Beauty Box promotion was quite generous!

***Screencap from Boscia.

Coffret D'Or Smile Up Cheeks Part II

After caving in and buying Coffret D'Or Smile Up Cheeks 02 Peach and 03 Rose prior to leaving Japan, I told myself I would not put up with such bulk packaging anymore. And then they came out with these two limited editions 05 Coral Pink and 06 Red Rose last winter, which look different enough for me to break my vow and bought them despite the same packaging. For spring 2013, Coffret D'Or also released two other limited editions, 07 Rose Pink and 08 Peach Beige, but (thankfully?) these look like recycles of 02 Peach and 03 Rose, so I'm skipping them with glee ^.^' Phew.

Limited editions 05 Coral Pink and 06 Red Rose. All pictures taken in natural light without flash.

Caudalie Vinoperfect Radiance Serum

I have a few of these 10mL travel size bottles of Caudalie Vinoperfect Radiance Serum, accumulated from the Beauty Essentials from the Vine set below and bonuses from a few other Caudalie orders. I kept one to use and gave the rest to my mum ^.^

The Beauty Essentials from the Vine set includes 50mL Cleansing Water , this 10mL Vinoperfect Radiance Serum, 7mL Pulpe Vitaminee Eye and Lip Cream, and 10mL Vinosource Quenching Sorbet-Cream (now changed to Moisturizing Sorbet).

Sweet Maple (American Cuisine)

Sweet Maple here is another popular location for lunch and brunch in the neighborhood of Japantown and Fillmore Street. It opens at 8AM and closes at 3PM daily. They don't take reservations on the weekends and unless your idea of a nice weekend brunch involves hour-long, actually, most definitely longer-than-hour-long wait, forget about eating there because the line can get absolutely absurd. Sure, they have separate weekday versus weekend menus, but both are so similar I don't know why they even bothered. Hubby and I always go on the weekdays, especially in the earlier part of the week ^.^

Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco

On a random weekend afternoon, after a random late lunch at Kippu's we hopped into our car and went on a random drive. Across the Golden Gate Bridge. It was really nice, especially when there was a lookout spot just on the other side of the bridge with a parking lot. So we joined the gazillion other tourists who lined up for the quick stop-in.