western skin care : cellnique intensive silk hydrating mask review

I've had the pleasure of trying out one of these masks from a very generous friend. She gave me one of these expensive masks. For a box of five pieces, it costs RM125, making it RM26 per piece. Of course, it's not as
expensive as SK2 facial treatment mask. But i'd say it works very well, if not even better!....heheh, well that's because my skin reacts to SK2 products.


Description:
This multi-property sheet masque intensely hydrates, moisturizes and regenerates skin from within, leaving it dewy-soft, youthful and supple. It is also fortified with anti-aging properties to reduce the appearance of fine lines. Enjoy a truly pampering experience after single application.

Benefits 

• Retains and holds moisture 

• Reduces fine lines and wrinkles depth 

• Stimulates collagen synthesis 

• Restores skin natural radiance

Sodium PCA •   A natural hydrating factor that penetrates deep into the skin and readily to be absorbed by the skin. It helps retains water and increases the capacity of skin to hold moisture.
	Acetyl Hexapeptide-8  •   This powerful relaxing agent works within few minutes of application to reduce overall wrinkle depth, and to minimize the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles.
	Acerola Fruit Extract  •   Rich in vitamin C and antioxidants, helps in increasing collagen synthesis which not only aids in reducing the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles, but also helps in the restoring of skin natural radiance.

Full Ingredients List

Purified Water (Aqua), 1, 3 – Butylene Glycol, Glyceryl Polyacrylate, Sodium PCA (Sodium 1-Pyrrolidonecarboxylate Solution), Propylene Glycol, Lemon (Citrus medica limonum) Fruit Extract, Sour Milk (Lactic Acid), Mandelic Acid, Xanthan Gum, Sodium Carboxymethyl Beta-Glucan, Chamomile (Matricaria recutita) Flower Extract, Algae Extract, Acetyl Hexapeptide-8, Sodium Hyaluronate, Co-enzyme Q10 (Ubiquinone), Hydrogenated Egg Yolk Phosphlipids, Acerola (Malpighia punicifolia) Fruit Extract, Alcohol Denat., Glycerin, Lecithin, Guar Hydroxypropyltrimonium Chloride, Fragrance, PPG-26-Buteth-26, PEG-40 Hydrogenated Castor Oil, BHA (Salicylic Acid), Diazolidinyl Urea, Methylparaben, Propylparaben, Imidazolidinyl Urea, Phenoxyethanol, Butylparaben, Ethylparaben, Isobutylparaben, Sulisobenzone (Benzophenone-4).


My thoughts:
i must say i'm loving this very much. It left my skin bouncier than ever with ample moisture. My dehydrated skin's saviour! It even brightens skin tone with added acerola , lemon, sour milk extracts for exfoliation and brightening. Furthermore, with added anti-aging properties, i think this mask is value for money. It's so good it left my skin hydrated for days after. If i'm willing to invest, i think once to, at most twice, a week of this intensive facial treatment will do wonders for dehydrated skin types like mine.
The mask can be left on for longer than the usual 20mins as this mask does not dry up easily. I think you can even leave it for up to 45 mins and it still stays wet.

beware though, it may cause irritation for those with very sensitive skin. I had this slight stinging sensation for the first 5 mins or so and then the stinging dwindled away. Cellnique products do not agree with my sensitive skin so i would only use this mask from their array of products.


rating: very good 4/5
i find it's rather pricey though.

---

korean drama review: New Tales of Gisaeng

** There are spoilers ahead, do beware.

This one is considered a long drama comprising of 52 episodes altogether.
I'm totally blown out by this one, because it's so good!
I've never watched drama more than 16 episodes that captures my attention so much. I bulldozed the entire 52 episodes within a week of nightly marathons. I just could not stop watching.


Main leads:
Im Soo Hyang as Dan Sa Ran

She's born in 1990! but hah, she looks like she's in her mid twenties already. Matured look.



Sung Hoon as Ah Da Mo

This guy is new and its his first drama. But hey, considering his first job, i'd give him a pat on the back and wish him "well done"!. He's certainly not a pro yet, but i think he did very well throughout. Plus, he looks delicious. His physique is highly admirable!~~~



What's it about?
Well, don't be put off by the description given in the internet:
"new Tales of Gisaeng depicts the love, sadness and pain of people surrounding a gisaeng house, where only VIPs can enter".......... i read this and was very hesitant because i thought it'd be boring just watching gisaengs in a gisaeng house.
It turns out it's got nothing to do with gisaeng in a gisaeng house. 


It's more of a very difficult and painful romance between the two leads. Really difficult and painful, especially for Dan Sa Ran. The amount of pain she goes through is enormous and heart wrenching.


It's not too smooth for Ah Da Mo either. A bit on his background: He's obnoxious and is aware of his good looks and charm. As he comes from a well-to-do family as an only child, he is even more arrogant and on the spoilt side. 


When he first saw Dan Sa Ran, he is immediately enraptured by her beauty. Fate makes their paths cross again and he is very much aware of how attracted he is to her. So much so that he could not understand why he kept thinking of her. Sa Ran is also attracted to Ah Da Mo. They did try to go out but Ah Da Mo only wants to bed her. In his mind, he keeps thinking that he is only attracted to her because of her beauty. Once he beds her his desire would be satisfied. Or if they had gone out for a month or two, he would start losing interest in her. Little did he know that he is already tied soul and spirit to Sa Ran when he first laid eyes on her.


 Sa Ran on the other hand, does not have any desire to engage in a fling relationship. She views a love relationship as something valuable and treasured. She does not understand when Ah Da Mo tried to break off with her time and again when their relationship had been going well. He hurt her many times and the final round came when Ah Da Mo could not get ahold of his feelings for Sa Ran. He became fearful of how important and heavy a role she played in his heart, how much he needed her. His fear made him reject her and he broke off abruptly with Sa Ran hurting her very badly.


At the same time Ah Da Mo could not go by a day without a strong dose of Sa Ran. He badly needed to see her , to be by her side. And he comes up with this crazy idea of having his rich father adopt Sa Ran as a daughter. That way, he can help Sa Ran financially (as she's poor and her family needs financial support badly) and also get the excuse of having her by his side everyday. Ah Da Mo's denial of his love for her is very strong yet he could not bare to go by a day without her. Such conflict tears as his heart. Poor Ah Da Mo.


Of course Sa Ran rejects the absurd idea. She glares at him with tearful eyes and retorts with "you want me to be a sister to the man i love??? with the man whom i loved dearly and broke off with me???". Really, what and absurd suggestion from Ah Da Mo. Terrible.


Ah Da Mo continues to pester her, going to neighbourhood to meet her and threatening to come to her house and meet her family if she fails to come to meet him. He just could not stop himself. He pestered her each time with the same absurd idea of being his sister! 


Finally, Ah Da Mo could not take it and disappeared for a month or so, leaving poor Sa Ran to suffer from all the hurt and after-effects of the pestering. Sa Ran's life is a bag of resentful twists and turns. The hurt from her love life made her resent men and she vowed never again to be so stupid to fall for men. Then when her stepmother cunningly weaves her web of kicking Sa Ran to a gisaeng house, the stepmother revealed to Sa Ran that she was adopted. The stepmother makes Sa Ran feel guilt. She implied to Sa Ran that Sa Ran needs to pay back her once-thought-of-as-biological father for all the years he has taken care of her. The stepmother wants Sa Ran to enter the gisaeng house and pay back.
This final blow on her fate makes Sa Ran falter terribly. She falls into a deep hole and deluded herself that she's a nobody with no parents , no love and she's  just a piece of thrash. Finally, with these thoughts and a ton of grief on her shoulders, she enters the gisaeng house thinking it's her fate.


Hah, and the story goes on with Ah Da Mo not being able to let Sa Ran go. When he learns that she became a gisaeng, he went crazy! He caused havoc frequently at the gisaeng house trying to make Sa Ran leave the place. He confesses his love for her and sincerely wants to marry her. He even confessed that she's like rice to him. He cannot go by without eating rice, that's how much he needed her. Back then he did not know the value of rice, he did not know that rice was part of his life and took things for granted. When all things failed, he comes up with an absurd solution. Since Sa Ran won't leave the place, he will enter the place. He will enter as male worker there and keep his eye on her! ahhaha, Ah Da Mo always has absurd ideas.


And the story goes on with how he tries to win her heart all over again. Ah Da Mo finally understands that he cannot live without Sa Ran and that he needed her badly. Not as a sister but as a lover forever. Once he understood and acknowledged this fact, he went all out to try and win back the heart he crushed and threw away back then. It was a very very difficult journey for him as Sa Ran is biting with bulldog tenacity on her ill fate and will not give in to any love. Many times he wanted to give up but in the end he always comes back again to Sa Ran.


I've never cried so emotionally watching a drama. Episode 33 was the star of emotions. My heart was in such pain watching Ep 33. ........................ you should watch it!~~


Hurdle upon hurdle the two leads go through. Each hurdle tougher than the next. Really, by the end of the drama you will feel such great immense relief that all hardship has ended and at last bliss arrives. 


Well, from ep 40 or so onwards, it's more about Ah Da Mo's father and his fated encounters with ghostly ancestors. From here onwards, its quite comical and funny. Not bad.


All in all, i really really enjoyed this long drama and highly recommend it.


rating: 8.5/10

Gmarket haul 12

Gmarket haul 12~~!! tadah.....
i had so much i wanted to purchase but i could not purchase them all.
**Please note that i got this haul almost at the same time as haul 11 .


Gmarket EMS box, crushed down again! Such soft board material.

From coreana , eco36.9 nokdu pure mask, 5 sheets. I've used this before and found it quite good for me. It has a neck area mask sheet too.

These masks are not for those with oily skin/combi-oily skin types. It is highly sticky but i find it very moisturising, great for my dehydrated skin. Skin feels more plumped and lubricated after each use. Not bad.
However, the manufacturing date on these seem to backdate till 2009!!! i wonder if i've been scammed!
but when i opened one sheet of mask to use, it feels fine, looks fine, smells fine, and works fine too! so i'll quickly get these 5 sheets over and done with.




I got some su:m 37 wrinkle correctors, a large bunch of 'em.

The texture is very very creamy . Colour is yellowish like retinol creams. I tried to search for active ingredients, but found none. So i wonder is this has retinol in it.

This one is not for oily skin types. It is very creamy in texture! it even feels a little on the heavy side and leaves a greasy look. So only for dry and normal skin types.




More from sooryehan. The bichaek pure whitening essence:

A pearly white serum :

Feels pretty on my skin. No adverse irritation of drying out of skin. i'm liking it. Let's see if this works like whoo's jinaek program...........




History of whoo's Hwanyugo. 2 pretty gold embossed boxes. they have this look of stature and luxury........ aren't they pretty?

Texture is as expected, highly luxurious!

Samples from the seller, actually, i got them mixed up so i'm not sure which seller these came from.

This seller had a cute sense when sending samples. She stapled one ohui sunscience sunblock on a piece of pink paper. The sad thing is i did not understand the writing on it at all.

Sooryehan's Soo's chunsam sanghwang set:

Very pretty packaging, and makes me feel all high-classed. The essence, eye cream and face cream.

Manufacturing date of 2011 may, that's great! very recently manufactured.

This is a view on the essence, both pic taken at different times of the day with different amounts pumped out:
1. day time small amount pumped out.

 2. night time larger amount pumped out:

The colour of the essence is yellow with a cream texture. The texture is very very rich and it even proved a little too rich for my dehydrated skin type. I could not use the serum and the cream together. The serum is more like a cream for me so i can entirely skip the face cream.
The face cream is very rich too. I find it too rich for me. Perhaps this line is more for those in their 40s and above.


Here's the chunsam sanghwang cream. Looks like a paste and is yellow beige in colour. This one must be melted in your palm or between your fingers before you can apply it. If not you'll look like a grease ball in no time.

A box of collagen hydrogel eye patches. comes in a set of 5.

This doesn't work very well. Will not repurchase.




Stuff from Re:nk. I've just tried these and have now fallen in love with re:nk!! i'm definitely gonna get more re:nk products to try, the texture and absorbality is great.

Their Face up lifting line. The serum in samples of 5ml tubes.

Texture is a transparent serum, easy to spread, quite light and its absorb-ability is good.

Re:nk's face up lifting cream in 3 tubes of 5ml.

The texture of the cream is light and easily absorbed. Very nice cream. Feels good on the face. It's light weight and more for my less dehydrated days.

20ml sized Re:nk time lab softerner. The toner from the time lab series. Very good texture and provides ample moisturisation, perfect for my dehydrated skin. It's almost like the hadalabo toner where the texture is thicker than normal toners and not as liquid. It takes awhile to be absorbed thought. and the fragrance is a little strong. I did not like the smell of it.

From sidmool: another bottle of their Gold Lift Mela Bye SVC 20.
It's a vitamin C serum with gold powder in it.

you can see the gold powder in the dropper:

20% Vitamin C serum with gold and CoQ10 added. This is not for oily skin as the texture can be sticky. But i find it pretty good as it makes skin bouncier.





Sidmool is very generous with samples and i got a whole lot of it. The bad thing is that their samples are written only in Korean so i have a hard time trying to know what is what.

 sidmool Mask sheets, 5 of them from sidmool, all free.

A whole load of other sidmool samples and even a full sized tube of product , all Free! So very generous of them.

The full sized tube is a water gel: Nano platinum mineral water/aloe. For all skin types . 100ml

Nicely sealed for hygiene purposes:

Texture is a clear gel, like aloevera gel.

These samples are from a different seller, i think the one from Re:nk. Again, i have no idea what these are as the packages have no english for me to decipher the contents.

This one is a sample from the sooryehan seller. Camellia body cleanser.

Well that's all for now.............. til the next time of gmarket hauls........toodles.

Gmarket haul 11

More skin care from gmarket! whoopee............



Surprise.....an uncrushed, rather sturdy EMS parcel box:

Yup, this time the box was sturdy and kept all my goodies intact.




More Charmzone's NewCon cream, with 10 sample sachets.

I've been looking high and low for this type of cloth type headband with those velcro-like stick-on fasterners. So glad i found it on gmarket.

More from OHUI:
I'm done with my Hera Aquabolic range, so decided to go for OHUI now.


Cell Power No.1 essence in press down, non-messy 10ml tubes. I got 2 tubes this time.
The seller gave me a free gift which is the navy blue box on the right. I have no idea at all what it is as i can't read Korean at all. I guess it'll have to go into the bin.

I also got OHUI's newly launched call power no. 1 eye cream. Can't wait to try this out. Hopefully it'll improve those under-eye fine lines!

More Cell power no.1 essence in sachets. Messy as it'll be, still more economical to get it in sachets!

Ohuit's age recovery cell-lab wrinklephlamine for those pesky wrinkles!~

Ohui's hydra formula treatment ampoule777.

Comes in this glass-like tube 7ml with screw on dropper head. It also has labelled on the bottle volume to be used each day for up to 7 days.

Ohui's age recovery cell-lab cream. 2 tubs of 10ml.

A yellowish cream consistency. Easy to spread and feels lovely on the skin!

History of Whoo's HwanYu range:
Got more from the hwanyu range. In fact, the full range all with  essence, cream and eye cream. Here's the little black and sleek boxes embossed with whoo's gold label:

Taken out from the boxes are these smaller dishes each containing a measly 0.6ml of the precious hwanyu products.

Hwanyu Essence:

Hwanyu Cream:

HwanYu Eye cream: the only products that does not come in pairs. The essence and cream came in joint pairs.

I managed to extract some essence out into a transparent dish. The texture is like exotic cream-like serum with tons of gold specks in it. Very luxurious indeed!!

Snatched up some tub sized Hwanyu products. These tub sized items are so rare and hard to get on gmarket. You really need to act fast and quick once it becomes available because they get snatched up so quickly and it is only released in very limited quantities.

Pretty gold and purple tubs:

Here's a shot on the luxurious Hwanyu Cream. Beautiful texture isn't it?

The back of the boxes. The words are gold embossed. oh, it makes it feel so high class and all luxurious.

History of Whoo's infamous whitening range: Jinaek Program sample sachets.

It's a white cream! not at all like a serum, more like a cream:

Multi free gifts from the sellers:

I also bought a new sunscreen that contains EGF for anti-aging. BLP3 cell repair splendid magice sun Protect cream.
For all skin types. Composed of highly concentrated and active ingredients - EGF etc. Helps cellular enhancement and rejuvenation.

Comes in a slightly pink tone. And this suncream smells exactly like a suncream. Those banana boat coppertone suncreams, don't really fancy the scent. However, this proves to be a rather good sunscreen and i kind of like it. It creates a smooth canvas for makeup application and evens out skin tone nicely. It provides a soft matte finish, more for combination skin types. I 'll only use this on days my skin feels oilier or more normal as i tend to have drier dehydrated skin.

Ryeo's anti-hair loss shampoo set. 400ml+100ml set.

It's a thick syrup in brown colour. This stuff is potent and i tend to use very little of it the product as compared to normal shampoos. It foams up nicely and easily spreadable over the head.