Anticipating Shu Uemura's Tokyo Kamon Girls Collection

I got this teaser in my email yesterday about the upcoming Shu Uemura collection!

The Shu Uemura Powers collaborated with manga artist Moyoco Anno to design the limited edition Tokyo Kamon Girls Collection.


This is Moyoco herself - Isn't she lovely? I love her kimono! The colors and patterns are sooo gorgeous! Reminds me of origami paper.


The main focus of this collection are the Shu Cleansing Oils packaged with the Tokyo Kamon Girls motif. Each bottle is 450ml and represents an individual Kamon Girl with her own personality and an accompanying mini-story. From top to bottom:

TAMAKI(orange)
High Performance Balancing Cleansing Oil
Strong willed and energetic, she has straight long hair and a fringe that is reminiscent of traditional images of Japanese female beauty. She lives in a luxurious mansion in one of Tokyo's most exclusive residential areas, Den-en-Chofu.

SAKURAKO(pink)
High Performance Balancing Cleansing Oil Fresh
She is a blossom of charm and purity. She sits in Tokyo's Ueno Park on her way back from her frend's wedding dressed in her best kimono and enjoying the stylish springtime tradition of viewing bursts of cherry blossoms at night. Moyocco Anno designed her to encapsulate all that is cute.

MATSUNO(green)
Cleansing Beauty Oil Premium A/O
Reserved and elegant, she represents the subtle power of this design. A mature Japanese woman, she adores nature but is shy.

KATSURA(purple)
White Recovery EX+ Brightening Cleansing Oil
A coquettish women with side parted hair, she is flirtatious and is intent on stealing hearts from inside the kamon. She is mysterious and alluring.

TSURUHA(golden bottle)
High Performance Cleansing Oil Advanced Formula
A serene girl with bobbed hair, she represents happiness and fulfillment. She sparkles as she drifts through the streets of Tokyo attending a Kabuki performance with her mother and enjoying an afternoon of shopping in the Ginza district.


Personally, I could care less how these are packaged. The brush set and the train case are what I'm really looking forward to in this collection - Scroll down to take a peek!



I love the brushes themselves but I'm not feeling the color on the outside of the case or the lining on the inside. Now if they had designed the case with the lotus/gold foil look on the background of the teaser email and if they had lined it with the magenta-accent on Moyoco's kimono - I'd be drooling all over it.



What a beautiful train case~ I'm so addicted to them but it's so hard for me to commit to purchasing one. I'm always let down either by the look of the case, the construction quality, or how the shelves are on the inside. O and how could I forget the price. Train cases are hella-expensive!

I'm not feeling the way the shelves are only on 1-side of this train and I'm on the fence about the overall look of the case. I love the white on the outside - no problem with that, but white again on the inside? I wish there was more color. More color! Again I'm gonna have to see this baby in person.

Korres Love Your Lips Collection $29

I don't know why but I just couldn't resist this gift set when I saw it at Sephora! I'm such a sucker for gift sets! I'm also a known Ziploc packer - that's right. I pack any and everything using Ziploc baggies. You have no idea how excited I was when they came out with Ziploc Big Bags! Korres seems to always put their gift sets in ziplock packaging and it always catches my attention - I have a problem, I know.

Korres beauty products are dermatologist-tested and all-natural. They're made without parabens, sulfates, and phthalates. The lip products are also silicone, mineral oil, propylene glycol and ethanolamine-free.

The set comes with all full-sized products: 1 Pomegranate Lip Butter and 3 Cherry Full Color Lip Glosses. If you were to purchase all 4 items separately it would cost $57 ($9 for the lip butter and $16 each for the lipgloss), so I think this is a fairly good bargain.

The Verdict - Pomegranate Lip Butter: A

This lip butter contains shea butter and rice wax (whaaa?) to hydrate lips and make them softer. The color of this lip butter is a sheer coral but I think it really gives my lips a nice POP! It's so rich and goes on very creamy. There is no cool feeling and no sticky feeling. The butter really does melt into lips and give them a very nice tint. My lips are pretty pigmented and even this showed up. It's not very shiny but it gives a very natural sheen which I really like. I don't like that I have to dip into the pot but other than that I have no complaints. This can be worn alone or under the glosses too!

Came with a sturdy plastic seal.

The Verdict - Korres Cherry Full Color Glosses: A-

These glosses smell fantastic! They have that good cherry smell as opposed to cough syrup cherry smell. The glosses really do smell like a basket of fresh cherries and are rich in cherry oil for moisturization.

I love the colors of the glosses! They are neutral shades that range from light to dark.

#11 Light Pink is a milky pink that is sheer when applied and blended but I was pleasantly surprised because it actually lightened my lip color rather than disappearing completely.

#32 Beige Pink is a glittery pink champagne. When I say glittery, I mean Glittery! When applied the gold shimmer in this really comes out and it's pretty dramatic on me. I've layered this on top of the other glosses for a more subtle effect. I only dab a little bit in the middle of my bottom lip.

#33 Nude is a maroon beige. It looks dark but after applying and blending it becomes a bit sheer and has a rich color to it.

The best part about these glosses is that they are absolutely NON-sticky! I'm not a fan of sticky glosses (think MAC dazzleglasses) but I can live with them, no problem. I do however appreciate when I find a gloss that is non-sticky.

The gloss looks fine when its capped but when the cap is removed, I find that the bottle of gloss itself is really small. I think the handle of the cap could be made smaller, as it's pretty chunky making the wand fairly short. Also the applicator of the gloss is more slanted than I'm used to. I have to be careful when I applying to make sure I'm only putting the gloss on my lips and not around my lips too. Aside from these 2 quirks, I'm really happy with this purchase. It's so hard for lip colors to show on me and the fact that these are natural and actually retain their color when applied makes me a HUGE fan!

Diorshow Iconic Review $27

I was really intrigued by this mascara as it's gotten some pretty decent reviews. I really wanted to try this out because of the unique stubby brush. The more commonly seen bristle brush never felt like I was appying mascara. It felt more like I was dabbing on mascara cause the bristles are so long by time I think I'm near my lashes, I've poked my eye out. This mascara's not cheap so when I found this as a gift set at Sephora (for a limited time only) I decided to try it out.


The wand is slightly spiraled with short stubby, comb-like bristles. If you look closely at the picture you can see the bristles are actually plastic and have rounded tips so it doesn't prick if I accidently poke my eye.

The Verdict
I do like how easy it is to apply mascara to my bottom lashes due to the short bristles. The mascara doesn't clump when it's applied and it's easily layered. I find that I need at least 2 layers to fill out my sparse lashes. Although this doesn't do anything to help curl my super straight asian lashes, the formula doesn't completely undo my shu-made curl either.

Although I love the natural "look" it gives my lashes, I won't re-purchase this because the mascara takes at least 30 min to dry. While it's drying each time I blink I get a gummy feeling when my top and bottom lashes touch. Also my eyes are sensitive and when this mascara does finally dry, it dries out my eyes too.

Gift Set


With the purchase of the full-size mascara you get a zippered carrying case and a sample size of Dior Addict High Shine in Catwalk Mauve #680.


The carrying case has a mirror on the inside and is very well made. The cover of the carrying case has a soft leather feel to it. The zipper is sewn very well and zips up seamlessy from the outside. The down side is that the mirror gives a funhouse reflection and the 2 bands in the case only fit the mascara and the sample size lipstick. I tried putting a NARS lipgloss and MAC lipglass in the band but the items were too small. The full size Dior lipsticks are too big for the band.

Freebies


I also got this envelope of samples from cosmedic lines that make products from natural ingredients. I haven't had a chance to try all these yet but I'm excited because I really like to try the all-natural lines out first to see if they smell alright and if they're effective.

NARS The Love Set $49

So I stopped by Sephora for some window shopping and they had this cute set on display. From Top to bottom the set includes: Blush in Orgasm, Lip Pencil in Sex Machine and Lip Gloss in Pillow Talk.

I was really sucked in by the color of the lip gloss and the fact that it came with the blush was all the reason I needed to buy it! I guess I may be a prude but I really think the names to NARS products are really racy! I guess I feel tat way because I see a lot of teeny bops and pre-teen girls checking out the products and I get queasy thinking about it.

The Verdict
I really love this set! The colors go perfectly together and pairs well with a dark smoky eye. I knew I would love the lip pencil and gloss but what really surprised me was the blush. It's a peachey pink with gold flecks in it. It looks so good and natural on me. I have that asian yellow toned skin and this really compliments it so well. You can add as much color as you want without it looking caked on. Check out the pics below of some close-ups of the blush.