Paul & Joe Hand Cream review

Paul & Joe hand cream features the signature Paul and Joe orange flower scent, in a white creamy whipped texture, housed in a beautiful metal tin (that could be reused for other things once you are done with the hand cream!) 

It's 80g and about the size of my palm.

The cream is beautifully velvety and soft. Melts on contact with the skin. It really does feel like doing a mini hand spa treatment on something when using this cream.

Ingredients and instructions, click to enlarge:

Consistency:

Spreaded out:

Overall 4/5. It's fairly moisturising and nourishing on the hands, and cuticles. However even though I like their signature scent, the thing with handcreams is usually our hands got a certain heat and is warmer than rest of the body at times, once you apply hand cream and massage in, any scented handcream tend to have the scent even more amplified with the heat from the hand. So the scent may become a lot more noticeable and stronger. Wish the scent for this was just a bit fainter, since I tend to like a very very subtle skincare scent only.

(It's kind of annoying when you are doing work and all you can smell is the orange blossom from your hands for the next hour!).

Cosmedicine Medi-morphosis Self-Adjusting Exfoliator review

You know your reviews are lagging behind when you get to finally writing something and realise the product is actually discontinued!

Unfortunately this is it- this is probably my HG facial scrub in 2010.

Cosmedicine is one of those cosme-ceutical brands that doesn't seem to have a huge name anywhere. The medi-morphosis self-adjusting exfoliator is basically just a granular facial scrub.

Comes in a  soft squeeze tube with 100ml or 3.4 fl. oz, retailed for around 30USD or thereabouts.

Closer look at ingredient list and instructions. It says use once or twice a week on wet or dry face. Massage until the crystals seem to disappear and rinse.

Comes sealed initially- just a squeeze tube nozzle.

Here's what it looks like, slightly spreaded out without adding water.

It looks creamy, but if you look closely there are some tiny granules, they are about the size of beach sands.

Adding a little bit of water- you can see the exfoliator does not foam, the granules are extremely gentle (yet quite effective), while the crystals do seem to dissolve a bit, I do not find that it completely dissolves on me? Usually I massage as much as I feel my face needs that exfoliation then rinse off (without actually waiting for all the granules to dissolve) as I feel that is sufficient enough for me.

After rinsing away, I get clean, supple face, not dry and not taught or raw feeling like a lot of physical exfoliants tend to leave my sensitive skin.

I've strayed away from physical exfoliants in 2011 as I had a slight change in skincare regime and plus with age I do feel my once young, acne prone skin is now definitely getting drier and a lot more sensitive.

I still reach for this a few times a month though. Sad to hear it's discontinued because it's nothing like I've experienced with most other physical exfoliators (e.g. Peter Thomas Roth botanical beads, St Ives apricot scrub, Chanel's pink bead scrub (the name escapes me), Origins Modern Friction...
it's not as subtle as the jojoba bead scrubs, yet not as 'harsh' as those crystal scrubs that boost their likeness to microdermabrasion.

Overall 5/5.

Cellbone Peptide XS for Under Eyes Dark circles/ Puffy Eyes prep serum review

Cellbone Peptide XS for Under Eyes Dark circles/ Puffy Eyes prep serum

is one of those cosmeceutical brands which boasts powerful ingredients to give you skincare that really makes a difference.While the brand website says it's a US company, I've only ever seen it sold in Hong Kong (and perhaps Malaysia given there's a distributor listed on their website).

Comes in a medicinal looking drip bottle. Personally I think dripped bottles are the worst designs ever, who wants to squeeze in and out the same liquid and expose their skincare to constant air and other contaminants?

Here's the ingreident list. from the website it's also listed:

Ingredients:

Water, Glycerin, Hydrolyzed Rice Ban Protein, Soybean Protein, Oxido Reductases, Palmitoyl Pentapeptide-3, Melon Extract, Butyleneglycol, Hexapeptide-9 (Collagen Peptide), Centella Asiatica, Cucumber Extract, Phenoxyethanol, Sodium Hyaluronate

 

I don't know why any company wouldn't at least spell check their ingreident list, on a quick scan, "Hydrolyzed Rice Ban Protein" really means rice BRAN protein.

Hrrm...for 15ml that sells for 46USD RRP in the US website, isn't that odd!

It's a translucent looking serum, that's slightly tacky. Not quite clear on the skin.

Spreaded out (sorry my camera couldn't focus well ).

Overall for someone like me with massive dark circles and constant puffy eye, this did just about nothing despite use for 3 months. I've tried using it alone, or under other eyecream, nada.

Overall 1/5, save your money please.

Majolica Majorca Honey Pump Gloss lipgloss PK130 swatch/review

Majolica Majorca is a drugstore brand in Japan, it features whimsical designs and a bit of that magic and fairies theme. This is the honey pump gloss I'm reviewing, in shade PK130. They are 6.5g in size and only retails for 480yen (which is like 5USD?).

Here's the applicator' I tend to find these completely round tip applicator to be a bit awkhard to apply, they goop the gloss around your lips instead of spreading them smoothly.

Here's the swatch on skin, you can see it's pretty much clear! it has the faintest pink tint and minimal shimmer. Honestly very boring for my liking.

On my lips it's pretty much clear anyway- the shimmer only shows up under direct sunlight. It evens out my lip color a bit that's all.

Overall 2/5. It's cheap, but nothing special at all.

The texture is average, not sticky but a bit on the more runny side (but will not drip). I don't find this that moisturising for my super dry lips either.