Kanebo Kate Designing Eyebrow N EX04 (eyebrow powder palette) review/ swatch

I was on a quick business trip overseas then realised despite having already brought my usual arsenal of massive makeup bag, my eyebrow pencils must have both fell out at home somewhere, so I desperately tried to find a safe and cheap substitute in a random department store. 

Then I spotted the Kate counter, with the designing eyebrow compacts again, which I've had at least one of that I can recall (several years ago). It's also very similar to shiseido "ff" brand of eyebrow compact even more years ago. These eyebrow compacts last almost FOREVER, I find I use the lightest and medium color far quicker than the darker color, but you'd easily get more than 18 months use out of it even with daily use.

Personally I think I overpaid- it costed me almost 12-13AUD for the compact (it's rather small, but lasts forever, but Kate being a drugstore brand I kept on thinking it shouldn't cost more than $8 especially in Asia). They retail for 330NTD in Taiwan which is 11AUD, but sometimes goes on sale for 10-15% off.

Anyway, here's the Kate Eyebrow compact below , shade is "EX04" which is printed on the back of the compact.

There's also EX05 from the line.

Shade colors per their website. EX04 is slightly lighter than EX05, but personally I dont think the difference is huge.

EX04 below:

The compact is just a long rectangular plastic compact, with mirror inside. I think it's extremely portable and well designed, because you can hold both the compact vertically or horizontally to utilise the mirror with just one hand.

There's a dual-ended brush included. The brush end is a rather soft bristle. It doesn't feel scratchy.

The smaller end is a more firmer and shorter bristle so you can do a precision eyebrow especially for the arch and the ends.

EX04 feels like a warm toned palette to me, but if you are Asian I think the slight warm undertone is rather flattering no matter you have an ash or yellow based hair color or a more reddish dark brown hair color. From top to bottom it's a dark chocolate, a muddy brown, and a muted beige. All shades are finely pigmented and densely packed and more matte than satin (in a nice way). No shimmers.

Here are multiple swatches, darkest color on left and lightest on the right. I used my fingers to swatch, you can see  how subtle the colors are. But they are very buildable, once on the eyebrow and applied with the brush you can really build to a darker eyebrow. 

Now my eyebrows- they are naturally a bit longer and slightly sparse, so I really like to just pluck a few stray ones and fill in the gaps to give more definition. Because of my face shape, I suit a more wider natural brow than a thin, well defined one, so eyebrow powder are the easiest thing to use for me. 

I can see why this has been a staple in many Asian blogger's makeup bags and has been one of the Kate product line for as long as I can remember. The powder texture is really suitable for an eyebrow powder, it's firm so as to allow precision application, so it doesn't fly away everywhere, yet it's finely pigmented so it looks "natural", rather than the "look at my obvious brows".

In addition Kate's designing eyebrow N is also designed to be a contouring powder for the eye area. Due to the face shape of many Asians, one of the common makeup technique is to slightly shade the area between bridge of nose/ underneath the beginning of the brow, to give a more defined eye look. The lightest shade is amazingly good for this- anything other than something just a tinge darker than your natural skin color would look really silly in contouring this area. 

I also like using the lightest shade (sometimes mixed with the shade in the middle) as an eye socket shade to add more depth. The overall finished look is polished and contoured and very very natural.

Below I'm using the medium and lightest shade over most of the brow using the bigger bristle end of the applicator, then mixed the 3 shades together and used the smaller end bristle to define the end of the brow. (Usually I'd go even slightly finer and longer at the end).  Then used the lightest shade at the beginning of the brow, and also just the small 1cm area under it for the shading/ contouring I mentioned.

Overall 5/5. A nice compact to have and I'm quite glad I'm using an eyebrow powder again (strayed previously to a MAC eyebrow pencil for a while).

Kanebo Coffret D'or Beauty Sharp Designer Face Color 02 Pure Pink (blush) review/ swatch

As usual I'm seriously lagging behind on using any new purchases lol. I was looking to bring some items to my holiday (which is a good time to experiment with new things while I have time on some nights to do a more full makeup). 

I was looking for maybe 2 blushes to bring with me on holiday that's versatile. Looking at this palette I thought, of course, it has blush, highlighter, contour plus a dual end brush, what could be more convenient!

You can get a palette to fit these blushes in that will have a mirror, but I consider it rather unnecessary as the item on its own comes in a plastic pull-out container which works just fine.

You pull it out like photo below:

Instructions, suggested use etc:

Now for the actual item, 02 Pure Pink contains a patterned blush (I think the color variations goes all the way down to the base of the blush powder), and on the bottom 3 shades for highlight and contour.

Overall the whole thing is surprisingly very unpigmented- I swatched it below in the same order as how it is arranged in the palette. Pink on top, and 3 different shades on bottom row from left to right.

As you can see the pink is a pale pastel and rather sheer. However it's probably the most pigmented color in the palette and can be built up to a more pastel pink blush. The bottom shades of highlighter to contour have quite little pigmentation.

All shades have slight shimmer but not really pore emphasizing so I consider it very subtle.

Overall I know a lot of reviews complained about the sheerness, but I find it still shows up on my skin and looks even nicer when layered with other things. e.g. the highlighter shade goes well as a really subtle highlight under eye and on brow bone etc, while the pink adds a nice luminosity to other more pigmented blushes. The contour is fool proof (though even slightly too subtle for me- it will never look like a bronzer) and very easy to use for beginners.

Rating 3.5/5

Kanebo Kate Nail Color BE19 Beige polish review/ swatch

Kanebo Kate is a drugstore line under the Kanebo group. Sold in most Asian countries like Japan, Taiwan and Hong Kong and quite readily available online with ebay etc.

I needed a polish during my HK trip as I was going to a function, so I went to the local Watsons and grabbed this quickly (for a mere 3USD equivalent or something)- looked like a really safe and foolproof color.

It comes in an elongated bottle, only contains 5ml.

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The shade is labelled on the back (BE19).

In the bottle the color is just a plain nude pink, a tiny bit of beige but without going brown or bandaid like.

Here's the color under sunlight. Two coats. Base coat is Paul & Joe base coat and topcoat is the Coffret D'or gel top coat.

When I wore this in HK I was rather disappointed- the formula is a bit watery and sheer and uneven. However it turns out all it needs is a base coat. With any base coat it grips onto the watery consistency a lot better and the color is way more even and streakfree. Two coats I get a glazed nude pink, slightly beiged. Even a touch apricot-nude-pink under some lights.

A few different lightings. Sorry my cuticles look a bit red since I wore this OPI red shade previously and it was a pain to remove and stains my cuticles a bit!

This is about as yellow toned as it can look.

Overall 4/5, pretty cheap for USD $3, easy and foolproof shade. Requires a good base coat and topcoat to go with though, as it dries rather slowly. It is a semi opaque creme , no shimmers or glitters but not too flat either since it applies with a nice gloss.

Kanebo Sponge Cleaner review

I use powder makeup (either pressed powder or powder foundation) far more often than liquid / cream foundations (always found powder ones to be far less pore-clogging for me no matter which brand).

A good powder foundation application is often got to do with what sponge you use. A good sponge can last for a good while with regular cleaning (most of the sponges that come with Japanese pressed powders of powder foundations are quite good, especially the department store brands, however they do cost like 5-10USD each so using them as disposables is a bit out of the questions.)

Following my last bottle of the Sofina Kao Sponge Cleaner reviewed previously, during my trip in Japan I thought I would try something new. I got this from just regular drugstore in Japan for about 6USD.

It's 55ml and a good sized portable bottle.

Everything's in Japanese, I assume I just use it as normal, wet the sponge, squirt a bit, work through the sponge and rinse thoroughly.

Here's the dirty sponge before: 

I poured a small drop on it (sponge was still dry). It worked out quite hard to work through the sponge since the sponge absorbed it all so quickly, so later on I find the best way to use this was to squirt a few drops on my palm, then massage through the wet sponge. This way cleans the best.

Sponge good as new afterwards! And I've had this sponge for like 2 months. (I have 3 or 4 good sponges that I rotate around while the others are being cleaned or dried.). I do not use any sponge for more than 2 days in a row. This is an Albion sponge which is probably one of the best sponges I've used. It's dense and soft and applies powder foundation like a dream, especially the Albion's own foundation.

And here's a quick look at the bottle- just flip-top bottle.

Overall 4/5 for this . I think the Sofina version is superior since it seemed to clean quicker. Both cleaners do not have a very obvious scent to it (smells a bit clinical but quickly dissipates once rinsed off).

Highly recommend anyone who use powder sponges (or powder puffs) regularly to get a bottle of either Sofina or Kanebo sponge cleaners. They are really cheap, and cleans like a dream. I use them to clean my synthetic makeup brushes too. You will not be going back to trying to use your face wash or normal makeup cleaner after trying this.

Kanebo Prettia Elegant Ash Bubble Hair Dye swatch/ review

It's very interesting when you read the blog statistics, seems like I get a few hits because people were searching for the Kanebo Prettia Elegant Ash hair color reviews.

Well here it goes- I won't bother with reviewing the kit because it's impossible to take photos when there are all these bubble dyes on my hair and there are plenty of bloggers who reviewed already.

Here's what the Elegant Ash shade looks like on my hair after dying immediately. My hair looks really silky because I really slapped on a lot of hair masque after washing off the hair dye (Kerastase nutri-thermique hair masque).  Otherwise the bubble hair dye will still leave hair a tad dry after application.

There isn't much point in showing the before photos because everyone really gets different fading with their previous hair dye. Mine was prettia ash brown but faded a whole 1.5 shades lighter and started to look a bit orange brown.

As with hair colors it can look like a multitude of shades after coloring, so here it is under slight different light.

Overall I LOVE the finish of the Elegant Ash shade. I've tried Ash Brown (which looked nice for about 2 weeks afterwards but fades really quickly and turn orange), also the Royal Chocolate and Dark Brown from Liese shade. After all the tries I always go back to Prettia's Elegant Ash.

It dyes my black hair into a natural deep cool brown. I hate too much orange or yellow or red tones in my hair, so this is the true perfect balance.

However as with all bubble dye (or at home hair colors), they tend to fade a bit after 4-5 weeks. I probably re-do it after 6-10 weeks.  I've been using at home hair dye for a good year or two, and I find while the ends will require more regular trimming to reduce split ends or brittle ends, the overall hair structure is still reasonable in tact.

(I used to have those super good natural hair, I could literally run a fine toothcomb through my long hair when it's still wet, and not get any tangles). However as you turn past 25 and have recklessly done bad things to your hair like perming or hot curlers, the hair condition will deteriorate gradually).

Overall 5/5 for this shade. I wish it would fade slower though, and also wish it covers grey hair. (I have a few grey hair and this does not cover it much, so I alternate between the Salon de Pro bubble hair dye in 4A which is called Ash but still looks like natural Asian black hair once you apply!). The salon de pro one will cover my grey slightly better, while elegant ash is my desired color later.

Salon de pro covers grey hairs better, but you will not get full grey hair coverage still. However I find using Salon de pro then re-dye it with Prettia Elegant Ash maybe 3-4 weeks later gives great color results, because the Elegant Ash can have a good black canvas to go over.

A final close up- this is about as dark as it would look under any light.