Meishoku Detclear Bright & Peel Fruits Peeling Jelly

Every now and then, I buy products that I don't really understand or need purely because I am intrigued by its name. Mr. Nunu calls this "the power of advertising", a.k.a. "a fool and her money are soon parted". I merely compare it to his want for a 3D TV.
It was as a result of one of these occasions that I came to own the Meishoku Bright & Peel Jelly.

Promises to:
"MEISHOKU Delclear Bright & Peel Fruits Peeling Jelly is a rinse-off exfoliator empowered various berries. Blended with fruit extracts, it loosens burdened skin by removing cuticles hacked by melanin. Therefore, it reveals skin’s natural white and translucent complexion. It also optimizes the benefits of later skin care products. The appearance of black-heads and acne is reduced while sebum secretion is controlled."

Damage:
$12.50 for 180ml from Sasa.com

Ingredients:
water,glycerin,carbomer,steartrimonium chloride,glycosyl trehalose,hydrogenated starch hydrolysate,fragrance,lactobacillus/pear juice ferment filtrate,butylene glycol,citrus aurantium dulcis (orange) oil,vaccinium myrtillus extract,salix nigra (willow) bark extract,saccharum officinarum (sugarcane) extract,malic acid,tartaric acid,glycolic acid,citrus aurantium dulcis (orange) fruit extract,citrus medica limonum (lemon) fruit extract,acer saccharum (sugarmaple) extract,salicylic acid,pyrus malus (apple) fruit extract,rubus idaeus (raspberry) fruit extract

Review:
Honestly? I doubt the efficiency of any product that has such a short contact period with your skin. 
I think the idea behind this gel is that the various fruit extracts added together gives your skin a very light chemical peel? I have no idea.
You're to apply this a clean dry face, upon application, the gel turns into a weird clumpy jelly. This supposedly means it is removing the loose and dead skin cells on your face. I tend to use this in the mornings after a hot shower on days when I don't use any cleanser.
There is a smell, a fruity chemicals mix, it's not strong and it doesn't linger so it doesn't bother me.
I don't really see less blackheads or sebum and when I do breakout it's mostly hormonal so I can't really speak to this peel's intended effects. My face is a bit brighter after the peel but this effect doesn't last.
I recommend you save your money, use a cheap scrub and rub leftover watermelon rind on your face.

troll booger

Before:

After:

Go Smile Smile Whitening System review

Included in my bag of swag from the ebeauty.ca event was this interesting little kit:

It promised to turn me from this:

to this:

The method of application amuses me to no end; first you have to remove the tube from its cardboard sleeve, flip it around, and reinsert it back into the sleeve with the sponge tip exposed...

...then you have to squeeze the tube to break the inner glass vial which contains the whitening gel.
Basically, I was about to paint my teeth with a tiny glow stick.

Once you have broken the glass vial, you squeeze the tube until the sponge tip becomes soaked with the whitening gel (excuse my flakey lips and yes my top and my bottom teeth don't align):

Then you paint the gel onto your not-so pearly whites:

Then you run around the house with your lips peeled back like an angry primate while flapping your hands furiously in front of your mouth.
That last step might or might not be necessary.
Day 1:

Day 7:

Can you see a difference between Day 1 and Day 7? Can you see ANY difference never mind 86 frikken dollars worth of difference??!! Because dear god that is what they are selling this kit for at Sephora.

In addition to not whitening my teeth, it also stung like a b!tch wherever the gel got onto my gums. Not surprising since one of its main ingredients is hydrogen peroxide...as in the stuff you used to turn your hair a nice crispy orange back in high school before you knew what toner was.
The application, while amusing, is actually highly impractical. The sponge tip is way too big to use on the narrower bottom teeth, even if I just used the edge of it, I had to risk the gel getting onto my gums and bringing pain and profanity.
Another flaw of the system's design is that it is impossible to get the gel onto the back teeth so even if this did whiten your teeth, you'll have white teeth in the front and ogre teeth in the back.
This product was a complete fail for me and I would advise that you keep your hard earned money.

Sephora x Hello Kitty swatches.

We interrupt my regular procrastination to bring you swatches of the recently release (released today in fact if you're Canadian) Sephora x Hello Kitty collection.
Please take into consideration these photos were taken with my beloved Blackberry in artificial light. I tried my best to photograph everything clearly though and even used my macro feature!!
Sorry no swatches of the Charmmy eyeshadow sticks as my Sephora did not seem to have them in yet! Also absent were the blinged out products and the liquid liner.
The collection is available at the Pacific Centre Sephora in Downtown Vancouver. It sits on a tiny display near the mall entrance.
p.s. I received a lot of stank eye for taking these photos.
p.p.s. Now that I think about it, I probably received the above due to the fact that I was hogging the display.
p.p.p.s. I'm sorry if I was in your way.

 Nail polishes:

 Swatches of the nail polishes in order of display:

Apple cheeks:

 Swatches of Apple cheeks in order of display. There was also a highlighter which I neglected to swatch.

 Charmmy pencil swatches:

 Say Hello palette:

 Say Hello palette swatches. I swatched the glosses underneath the shadows. They do not show up. At. All.

 Big Fun palette:

 Big Fun palette swatches. As with the Say Hello palette, the lipglosses for the Big Fun palette is so sheer it is invisible.

Big Smile gloss:

 Big Smile gloss swatches:

 Sweet Gloss part 1:

 Sweet Gloss part 1 swatches:

 Sweet Gloss part 2:

 Sweet Gloss part 2 swatches:

Apple Balm swatches:

 

 Handheld Mirror and brush set:

 Eyeshadow palettes, compact mirror, Charmmy Pencil with Apple Balm and Apple Cheeks in background:

 Perfumes and Body Splash:

Some thoughts on the collection:

The nail polishes are absolutely adorable, if you get nothing else from the collection at least get a bottle of the nail polish. I skipped on a lot of the colours because I feel they're easily duped by others in my collection (Purple Sprinkles remind me a lot of China Glaze's Electric Lilac) and at $13 a pop before tax, they're outside of my nail polish price comfort zone. The bottles ARE quite small but maybe the width of the bottle makes up for it. Besides it's not like I'd ever finish a bottle of nail polish.

The Apple Cheeks might more aptly be called cheek tints. Almost ALL of them are sheer with the most pigmented of them being Charmmy and Blushing and Peachy being the most sheer. Their finishes seem to vary, Cherry Blossom has a very glossy, gel like texture and on the face would probably appear very dewy (oily people beware!) while Charmmy was almost a matte.

The Charmmy pencils were very pigmented and creamy but did smudge quite easily.

The Big Smile glosses are very...gloopy, there's no other word to describe them. The formula is extremely thick and I wonder if it'll spread evenly on the lips. However, they are quite pigmented, at least they were on my hand.

The Sweet gloss is more like a tinted lipbalm. None of them really imparted much colour but do feel quite moisturising.

Of the eyeshadow palettes, I would say Say Hello is the more pigmented out of the two. It does run a tad chalky though as the colours are matte. Big Fun has more of a shimmery finish and is less pigmented. I HATE how sheer the glosses are, but rest assured those of you who dislike powder and gloss in the same container, the two products are separated quite securely and there's not much chance of mixing.

The Apple balm has a lovely texture and appears rather pigmented, I'd imagine it to give lips a very juicy look. However, I hate that it's got a very finicky screw on lid - I can imagine getting extremely irritated closing it after use.

The perfumes were a huge disappointment for me, I don't really know how to describe it, it is kinda fruity and dries down to a floral finish. It is rather subtle and after 2 hours I can barely smell it on myself anymore. Absolutely not worth the $72 unless you really REALLY want it just for the bottle.

The Body Splash just smelled so strongly of alcohol when I opened it that I immediately closed it so nothing to comment there.

Surprisingly the hand-held mirror is rather sturdy and if I was 10 years younger I'd totally want it. Heck I want it now.

I also HATE how overpriced the collection is compared to American prices. Just because we're Canadian it doesn't mean we're THAT nice.

My Recommendations:

The nail polishes; Big Smile gloss in Watermelon; Say Hello palette; Apple Cheeks in Blushing and Charmmy and that damn mirror!!

My latest obsession

I've never been a nail girl, and I honestly don't know what set off this new addiction but lately I've just been buying bottles and bottles of nail polish. My friends haven't been helping either, instead they've been encouraging this addiction by sending me oodles of polish. A prime example being Rasilla, a fellow Canadian beauty blogger and dare I say friend sent me a GIGANTIC box stuffed with nail polish including the elusive Sally Hansen Hidden Treasure. I have yet to thank her properly but rest assured my dear, it will come back 3 folds. At least xD.
So in the space of one month I have gone from 5 bottles of nail polish to just over 50 bottles.
Yeeeah......
Anyway! moving on!
I promised my friend Jaq that I'll take photos of my stash once my 8ty8 Beauty order came in, so here it is, in all its glory.
I've previously received some flack for showing photos of my vanity collection, but Jaq taught me a great come back in the event that I receive more of those "you have too much stuff" comments.

It all fits nicely inside this wooden box xD

Yup, so there it is. It's not the biggest collection by a long shot but I'm sure it's a lot more than what most "normal" people have xD
For the Canadian girls, if you're wondering where I got all the China Glaze, I got it from an online shop called 8ty8Beauty. Prices range from $2.88 to $3.58 a bottle, shipping to Canada is $15 for 1 to 6 bottles of polish, $30 for 7 to 12 bottles, and $36 for 13 to 24 bottles via USPS Global Priority shipping. There is no sales tax and the seller is willing to mark the package as "gift" so you MIGHT not be charged customs.
This means if you order 24 bottles, you'll be paying $1.50 shipping for each bottle. This might sound rather hefty but considering  that a bottle of China Glaze from Sally's Beauty sells for $5.99 plus tax, you'll only be paying $4.50 a bottle. Obviously if you're only going to be buying 1 or 2 bottles, it's cheaper to go to Sally's. Keep in mind though that Canadian Sally's don't really stock much of the LE or special polishes.
In addition to 8ty8Beauty, there's also TransDesign (they still stock OPI polishes) and Head2toebeauty. Of the two, I've heard that TransDesign is the kindest in terms of Canadian shipping, although I haven't tried it out personally yet.
Expect to see lots of NOTDs in the future! and let me know if you'd like a swatch of anything you see in my stash xD

Extra NOTD pic:

O.P.I. At your Quebec and Call. This was part of Rasilla's gigantic gift package xD. It's a gorgeous shimmery golden olive which flashes more golden in the sunlight with dark olive corners. Formula was on the thin side, total opacity requires 4 coats. Brush is a wide flat brush which was very easy to control and required no clean-up.

Warning: cute kitteh photos ahead.

I'm a terrible blogger.

A couple of MONTHS ago, CSN sent me one of their products for review, and I'm only getting around to it now 

-__-". Ah well, better late than never no?

So what did I get?

Go Pet Club 62" Cat Tree

Usually I'm the guinea pig on this blog when it comes to testing out new things, however, this time...

Oh, hai!

*sniff sniff* is it nommies?

Wot are you doings? I helps?

Oh look a camera! I do maneki neko pose?

Follow the ball...

OMG!Pucky you didn't clean properly after doing your business!

I come up there too ok?

See! we fits! we are not fats!

*swat swat*

Ooooeh...lookit all the upside down people!

I'm shy now

I go hides.

Verdict:

As you can see, the kids clearly love it. From my perspective, shipping took quite a while, around 3 weeks for it to get from Boston to Vancouver. I also had a bit of a snag when making my order, CSN wanted to charge me $41 for "international fees", however their customer service was absolutely amazing, one phone call to their call centre and they had everything sorted out for me.

The post came in a box and assembly is required, the boy had no problem putting it together following the Chinglish manual using some basic tools.

We'd seen a lot of posts where the base was poorly made and resulted in a wobbly post, thankfully this post was nice and stable.

The only complaint I have about the post is that the platforms are a little too small, my cats are only 7 month old kittens but 1/3rd of the their body would dangle off the platforms. This is definitely not suitable for bigger cats. In addition, the basket at the top of the post is pretty much useless as there is no way they can get up there.

The price of this cat tree is just under $80, for those of you who have shopped for cat trees will realise this is a very good price for a cat tree of this size. This item also came with free international shipping, which makes it an even better deal.

In conclusion, this is a solidly built cat tree suitable for kittens/smaller cats. 

For those of you who are interested in trying out CSN Stores, keep an eye on this blog! I will be hosting another giveaway from them sometime this week!