snail cream on behalf review: Secret Key set

As previously mentioned, i could not adapt well with snail creams. As such, i've given away my set of Secret Key's snail products to a male friend of mine. He does not mind trying new products especially those from Korea.

So after a three~four month intensive nightly use, i've gotten his permission to ramble on his findings and results from Secret Key's snail set.

What he's been using:
Toner, Emulsion and Repairing Cream.

The set consists of snail mucus and EGF ingredients.

Alas, but i did not take before and after pictures of his skin if not i could post it up here.

The snail set worked great on him!!


I could see a clear visible difference. His skin is now not as "dirty" which means skin tone has evened out. He even looks "whiter" and more radiant. The best thing is, there is radiance. Radiance from skin becoming more elastic and resilient. He is in his early 30s and with such improved skin texture, i can say it is amazing!

Considering he only uses it at night and not even with the essence, he is getting good results from the set. He is not as keen as us ladies in putting on too many products on the face and this three step skin care routine is more than enough for him to handle. If he had the option, he'd much prefer a one-step skin care! haha, guys being guys. He also spreads it to his neck and eye area as he's not fan of having a different cream for that.

Well, snail creams do work after all. Maybe not for me, but it really works having seen the improved texture on my friend's skin. It's anti-aging and makes skin more firm and elastic, whitens and evens out skin tone, provides regenerative and repairing properties to enhance skin  texture. This is really good stuff! Oh ya, this one has EGF ingredients in it, not only snail mucin, so it must be this plus factor that helps skin improve so much.


Affordability:
 very affordable compared with many other snail creams. The whole full sized set of toner, emulsion and cream is about 40000 wons only. And it sure lasts. After three/four months of usage there is still a lot going. So it is economical and affordable.


Secret Key has since came up with a new gel-cream for those of us living in the tropical with humid hot weather:

And now has release an upgraded version of the snail cream: Prestige snail cream at 47000 wons!

Wow, the prestige version looks great. With the pictures of the changes and skin improvement at the bottom, i'm so tempted to try this!! Smooths out blotchiness and whitens skin, it even helps those nasty nasolabial folds!
Apparently this is in preparation for the upcoming cold winter weather in Korea so i guess it may be quite heavy. This is just released and a very new product so i could not find any reviews on this new upgraded prestige snail cream.




So what are you waiting for? go give secret key's snail products a go, you'll be in for a lovely surprise!

K drama rambling: 9 ends 2 outs

Warning: spoilers ahead!!

Starring: Soo Ae (female lead), Lee Jung Jin (male lead)
Broadcast period: 2007-Jul-14 to 2007-Sep-09

• Lee jung Jin as Byun Hyung Tae
• Soo Ae as Hong Nan Hee

What's it about?

 i thought the drama is about baseball, however, it's got nothing to do with baseball at all. It's more on the life of Nan Hee (throughout the entire drama, i hear "NaaNee" as the pronunciation), a female entering her 30s and still unmarried.
She's concerned and uptight about her being unmarried at that age. She feels her wrinkles are showing and that she is not attractive any longer. She is desperate to be hooked up and get married, not to mention the pressure her mother gives her, always nagging at her "singleness".
Although she has a so-called boyfriend whom she shares hot and wet kisses and naughty moments with, she feels highly insecure at their relationship. Her boyfriend is only in his early 20s while she is in her 30s already. Furthermore, there is the issue of age gap between them. On the one hand she wants this to be her last love and get married with him, on the other hand, she feels the age gap difference and winces at the difficulties and ridiculing from others.
Nan Hee tries hard to maintain this toy boy relationship having breaking up and reconciling a few times. They even reached the point of marriage and surpassed the difficulties of having to parental acceptance from either side. Buckets of tears pass...................... In the end, she gave up the relationship and resorted to being single.

Throughout, we have Hyung Tae standing by her side, encouraging and holding her hand all the way through. Hyung Tae is in his 30s too, but as a guy, there's no worries about age (how lucky for guys! really!!) He's her long time friend and they treat each other like buddies. They emphasized a no female-male relationship at all as they see each other as the same gender as themselves. They are such buddies with each other that they can share a bathroom while one does his business at the toilet bowl and the other continues brushing her teeth in nonchalance. that's how close and comfortable they are with each other.

However, the story goes on with a buried deep down secret love that both have for each other. They both actually have feelings for each other suppressed by their highly comfortable friendship. Both do not want to step out of their comfort zone with fear of losing the cherished friendship being the number one enemy.

So there you go, how did they overcome their fear to reach out to each other?




My thoughts:
It's enjoyable and funny. Those awkward moments when Hyung Tae and Nan Hee try to suppress their feelings for each other.
I find Hyung Tae pretty good as he is able to bring out his character and yes, there's chemistry with Nan Hee.

I first watched Lee Jung Jin in Fugitive Plan B and he did catch my eye there. Pretty natural acting. Hah, he was way more "meatier" in Fugitive Plan B and his face was round and round. In this drama, Lee Jung Jin is so thin in comparison. His face instead of round, is all sunken in with no meat. He looked long and lanky in here. I supposed he pumped himself up for the role in fugitive Plan B.
All in all, pretty good actor.

As for Soo Ae, i first watched her in Athena, and found her intriguing. Her beauty is not the typical one with those big large luminous eyes, tall slim nose. She has this natural beauty in her. Her features are not outstanding nor are they beautiful, but she has an air about her that makes her celeb quality.
However, in this drama, she lacked that beauty. Not sure why though, maybe it's her dressing/fashion sense that highly differs from that in Athena. She looked more drab here and her skin is not that good too.

Overall rating: 7/10

pretty good i would say, nice drama.

Gmarket haul 10

Belated Gmarket haul................ received nearing end of August............


Here we go. As usual, the EMS Korea Post cardboard box:

First off, i needed sheet masks, so i bought plenty.
Leaders - collagen wrinkle masks with 30% hydrolyzed collagen. Each box contains 4 pieces, so i had 8 pieces of these sheet masks in total.

Then i went to test out IOPE's whitegen clear mask. I bought 5 pieces of these in total, and had a free gift - beauty friends mask sheet.

So in total i had 8+5+1 = 14 pieces of mask sheets altogether. All spread in below, my entire mask sheet haul for the day:

I also bought some items for body> hair care, body care.

Hair care: Ryeo brand for hair loss - shampoo (left) and scalp care (right). These two i bought as a set. The scalp care is supposed to be used once a week for deep cleansing of oily scalp. The shampoo is anti-hairloss for oily scalp. Both smell very "herbal-ly" and i'm liking the strong herbal smell. It makes me feel like i'm using a lot of good nourishing herbs....

I also bought Happy Bath's rose essence bath cream. 900 ml large bottle, and states 90% natural ingredients. The cream is pink in colour and it smells heavenly. After a shower, i would smell of roses and my clothes would also smell of the roses!! Pretty strongly fragrant i would say but this strong scent does not bug me. In fact, i'm loving how it clothes my skin and shirts with the strong rose scent.

I like sidmool. So here's more from sidmool. This time i got a vitamin C serum. It claims to have 20% vitamin C with gold flakes and CoQ10 for anti-aging.

The full name is: Gold lift Mela Bye SVC20. Vitamin C serum is for whitening and this one has gold and CoQ10 to combat aging and impart skin with a glow!!

It comes in a brown bottle with a dropper for convenient use. The serum is gold in colour as can be seen below:

the serum is transparent gold and, i must mention this, it's pretty sticky! definitely not for those with oily skin.

More sample skin care: Ohui cell power no. 1 essence, history of whoo ginseng ampoule oil, History of whoo hwanyu essence, Hera Retinol LX.

Also bought sooryehan's pure whitening spot treatment to treat those nasty pigmentation spots! This is a 7ml tub. I like the texture!

It's an opaque white cream and to my surprise, it spreads so easily and leaves a nice a cooling minty feel on the skin. Unlike Whoo's whitening intensive which is a very thick paste balm that i find hard to spread and it somewhat clogged my pores.
I'm not sure of the efficacy of this though. I sure hope it works well as i'm loving the feel of it on my skin as compared to Whoo's.

Close up shot on Hwanyu Essence: 0.6ml in each small dish. Very little and oh-so-expensive. I'm just trying it out. It's way too expensive to upkeep. Not to mention very difficult to use in the dishes it comes in. Once opened, u can't close up the dish and the essence dries up and becomes hard to melt down. Very messy too.

Whoo's ginseng ampoule oil. Argh, the opening on the bottle was so huge i poured out a lot on my first usage and wasted so much! Very poor packaging.
First impression: not for me! it gave my skin redness and itchiness! i stopped using after the first trial.

Closer look at Hera's Retinol LX and Ohui's cell power no. 1 essence. I bought sample packs of them.

Texture of Hera's Retinol: It's a cream-like yellow paste. It spreads easily too.

Ohui's cell power no.1 essence: Very watery pinkish tint liquid. With the sachets, it gets messy as you try to control the amount poured out. Better off getting the bottled samples instead as it can be a waste each time pouring from the sachets. I must say, this is very very good stuff. It hydrates superbly. You can feel the immediate relief from dehydration upon the liquid touching your skin. Plumps up the skin nicely too. Love this!

Bought a Navy Blue tee for casual wear. The material is not very good. It feels hot and stuffy while wearing this tee. I thought it was the weather at first. then i started perspiring ........which felt strange because i was in a cool room with no sun. I quickly changed into my own cotton tee and wow, i feel my body could breathe. It was definitely the Gmarket Tee shirt making me feel so stuffy and sweaty inside. Not good at all.

Gmarket hauls comin' up

Gmarket hauls post will be upcoming..............

It's belated though, cos the haul arrived one to weeks ago.

hehe, my camera has been acting wonky lately, so the pics aren't that good as i used an oldie camera.

see ya~