Boscia Sake Balm Part II

Several months before my little one came along, I'd stopped using my jar of Boscia Sake Balm even though it gave me amazingly smooth and slick skin. I was afraid it might affect the tiny one in my tummy then--silly, I know, since I'd been using the stuff for 2-3 months into the pregnancy already. Ha. It wasn't like I slathered this stuff on all over but still, I stopped using and the rest of that jar dried out.

Now that baby hasn't been attached to me by a cord for 19+ months and hasn't nursed for more than half a year, I started on a new jar I picked up during a Boscia sale. I don't see this balm on their website anymore, by the way, which might mean it's been discontinued :(

Sorry, these pictures of the jar are recycled from the previous post. It looks exactly the same as the previous so I didn't bother photographing the new one ^.^"

L'Occitane Almond Supple Skin Oil

I've been using this 100mL/3.3fl. oz. spray bottle of L'Occitane Supple Skin Oil for a few weeks now. I even brought a few sample packets for use on our second short trip to San Jose late November. Here's a review for it.

Lubriderm Daily Moisture Lotion

Got this giant family pack (yup, from Costco) of Lubriderm Daily Moisture Lotion with two 709mL/24fl. oz. pump bottles and one 177mL/6fl. oz. travel size. I started using this after finishing one equally giant Cetaphil Moisturizing Lotion bottle and wanted a change.

Kiku-Masamune Kome and Hakko Moisture Gel

Hubby's been really enjoying this 150g jar of Kiku-Masamune Kome and Hakko Moisture Gel so here's a review for it. I bought it for him to begin with, just like the several other all-in-one gels he'd used up in the past (Organic Rose Skin Conditioning Gel, Grace One Perfect Gel Cream, Kokutousei Hakkou E Gel Cream Hydrating Elastic Gel).

Estee Lauder New Dimension Shape + Fill Expert Serum

This 7mL/0.24fl. oz. bottle of Estee Lauder New Dimension Shape + Fill Expert Serum was a third new item I took with me on the recent trip to San Jose with hubby. I'm using Clarins Double Serum for my nightly routine right now but the bottle is just too big to lug around in my carry-on, so I took this instead.

Clarins Extra-Comfort Toning Lotion, Part II

Brought this 10mL/0.33fl. oz. bottle of Clarins Extra-Comfort Toning Lotion on the same recent trip to San Jose also. I'm not through with my full size bottle of Suppin Essentials Essence Lotion yet and 150mL is over the liquid limit for carry-on, so I made do with this Clarins sample instead.

Wander Beauty Glow Getter Mist

Took this 60mL/2.029oz. spray bottle of Wander Beauty Glow Getter Mist on a recent quick trip to San Jose with hubby. He was going for work and I just tagged along as I always do ^.^ 

Clarins Booster

Last year I posted a long rant about these "boosters" products. Eventually though, my curiosity got the better of me and I ended up with a 15mL/0.5fl. oz. bottle of Clarins Booster Repair.

Kiehl's Rosa Artica Youth Regenerating Eye Balm

Boy am I glad to be using this Kiehl's Rosa Artica Youth Regenerating Eye Balm right now. I have a 3mL/0.1fl. oz. deluxe sample tube plus a 1.5mL/0.05fl. oz. satchet that I squeezed into a glass jar.

Konnyaku Sabon Facial Cleansing Soaps Part II

Been using another Konnyaku Sabon Facial Cleansing Soap for the past month, the Tokyo Bamboo Charcoal version in the Lavender scent. This is the second of the two soaps hubby and I received as gifts before we left Japan in the late fall of 2016.

Clarins Super Restorative Remodeling Serum

Finished this tiny 3mL/0.1oz. sample tube of Clarins Super Restorative Remodeling Serum last week so here's a quick review.

Daeng Gi Meo Ri Shampoo Part II

Hubby and I finished our bottle of Daeng Gi Meo Ri Shampoo for Damaged Hair and promptly moved on to another 500mL bottle of Shampoo for Normal to Dry Scalp. This is partly because I'm only half way through the bottle of Conditioner for All Hair Types. He doesn't bother with conditioners at all, so I always take a while to use them up. 

Clarins Double Serum Complete Age Control Concentrate

After going through two more bottles of Kuramoto Bijin Komeyu Rice Oil Serum, I finally got bored and moved on to this 30mL/1fl. oz. pump bottle of Clarins Double Serum Complete Age Control Concentrate. This isn't a full size but is a deluxe trial bottle. It was part of the Double Serum Complete Age Control Trio along with more deluxe trial sizes of Multi-Active Day Cream and Eye Contour Gel (will review later).

L'Occitane Bonne Mere Peach Shower Gel

Finally used up the tube of Biotherm Lait de Douche Cleansing Shower Milk and happily moved on to this 300mL/10.1fl. oz. bottle of L'Occitane Bonne Mere Peach Shower Gel.

CeraVe Moisturizing Cream

Here's another overdue review for CeraVe Moisturizing Cream. Like the Aquaphor Healing Ointment, I have a gigantic 453g/16oz. jar of this stuff I'd kept in my little one's bathroom and a 56mL/1.89fl. oz. travel size tube I still have in the baby bag, with a few backups in the medicine cabinet.

Aquaphor Healing Ointment

Been using this Aquaphor Healing Ointment for over a year now so this is an overdue review. As you can see, I have various sizes of the stuff, a gigantic 396g/14oz. jar I keep in my little one's bathroom, a huge 198g/7oz. tube I keep in my bathroom, and a smaller 50g/1.75oz. tube I keep in the baby bag for use on the road.

Also, I'm not sure why the big jar and the big tube have "baby" on it and the small tube doesn't. I've compared their labels and ingredients and found all three to be identical.

M.Y. China (Chinese cuisines), San Francisco

There were two nights while hubby and I were in SF where I had to hang around the Westfield Mall for a few hours starting in the early evening. It wasn't just for the convenience of having a chair and table to sit and write but also for the sake of staying near hubby. His work conference was just a couple of blocks nearby.

So I asked my pal J. to dinner with me one night and she recommended M.Y. China on the 4th floor of the mall. She works down the street from the mall and would come here with a gf and colleague a couple of times a month whenever they work late.

R & G Lounge (Chinese Cuisine), San Francisco, Part II

On one of the nights in SF, hubby and I decided to go back to R&G Lounge for that delicious baked black cod I'd been craving since we left the city.

Decorte The Rouge

Since trying Cosme Decorte AQMW Rouge Glow (which I don't see on the Cosme Decorte JP website anymore, by the way), despite picking a few misses I was sufficiently intrigued to try the new Decorte The Rouge for research ^.^

All pictures taken in natural light without flash.

The Rouge line is pretty extensive. According to Decorte UK's Instagram, there are 20 Glow shades, which supposedly includes 13 that are "High Gloss," and 5 Mattes. However, neither Decorte UK nor JP otherwise clarified which colors are Glow, High Gloss, or Matte, so I just picked three from Selfridges UK digital swatches and ended up with RD455 in the Glow range (I think), and RD456 and RD457 in the Matte range. The older AQMW Rouge Glows had names for each color but these newer The Rouges do not.