Review: Spa moisturizing gel gloves and socks

I wouldn't say I have very dry hands but I definitely don't have baby skin on my hands. I tend to over wash my hands. I do moisture them but sometimes hand creams are not enough. I've heard about gel gloves for a while but I find them most of them rather expensive. The Talika one is $69, Sephora store brand is $44, UNT is priced at $31. I wanted to try the UNT one the most since I heard a lot of good products from this brand but I will definitely be charged with duties and it's not something I want. I never had a chance to try the gel gloves until I found these at Rexall. The original price was $19.99 but it seemed that they are always on sale. I noticed that they are always selling them at $14.99 at my local Rexall. They also sell the gel socks at the same price. I also picked them up but I threw out the box before I took a picture. 

I know you can always wear cotton gloves after putting on hand cream. But I don't like putting on cotton gloves as I find the sizes of cotton gloves running a little small. They are often too short and doesn't cover up much of my wrist causing them to fall off rather quick in my sleep. 

These gel gloves are on the bigger side. I do find it too big for me but I don't care about the size as long as it works. 

ingredient list: It's infused with different kinds of botanical oils. I've tried just using them. They are moisturizing but I do enjoy adding a little oil onto my skin before I use these gloves. I've tried using the gloves and socks with argan oil, vitamin e oil and baby oil. They all work the same so I've just been using them with baby oil as it's the cheapest. 

I hope you can see the gel. Both socks and gloves are covered in gel. 

These gloves and socks have to be tossed out after using them for 50 times as the oil in the gel will be absorbed by your skin. As I'm adding my own oil before I use them so they might last longer than 50 times. 

I don't see a big difference on my hands but I do see a difference on my feet. I don't have cracked heels but they are kinda dry and after using the socks for a week, it feels a lot softer and more moisturized. These are definitely worth trying. 

Restaurant Review: Naruto Sushi & Hibachi

When it comes to food I try to keep things positive and don't really want to complain about a restaurant unless it's a huge disappointment. I don't normally complain about AYCE restaurants because for the price and amount of food you get. But this one is wrong in every single way. I do go to AYCE Japanese restaurants so I do know what to expect from AYCE. This is one of the worst AYCE restaurants I've been to.

First of all the price is 20.95 for weekday AYCE, that is actually higher than average AYCE price for a week night. Most Japanese AYCE are priced ay 18.99 on a week night so charging more means you better provide me with better food.

When you give me an AYCE menu it means everything on the menu is AYCE and I can order them and do not tell me I need to pay extra when I want to order the item and making excuses about that's their normal menu and things I want to order is not included in the AYCE price. If you want to charge extra on the items make a separate menu. Or if you don't want people to order the items again make a note and tell people they can only order once.

The cooked food are either overcooked or it didn't taste good. For sashimi not all of them are fresh. I didn't feel well after I got home.

shrimp tempura. the only decent food cooked by them. It was at least freshly made and was served hot.

negi beef roll and enoki beef roll. too small and too much sauce to actually taste the food.

mussel- no taste at all. I hate adding mayo to my food so it made it taste worse. 

deep fried scallop, no taste at all. you can only taste the thousand island sauce.

just from the picture you can tell the saba and tako sashimi aren't fresh. they look watery and the color didn't look right.

salmon was alright. Well no matter how bad a Japanese restaurant is, you can't really screw up salmon sashimi. 

The squid sashimi in this picture are a lot bigger compared to the second plate we got. 

the chips in the middle is their so called fusion hawaii sashimi. it's mixing canned fruit and fish with mayo and serving it on a piece of Pringles. This is not called sashimi. 

Again what's with the carrot. 

beef tataki. Um.. I've never had beef tataki served on a pile of carrot. beef tataki are paired with turnip not carrots. The dipping sauce didn't taste right. 

special roll and spider roll. The rolls were so loosely rolled up. The spider rolls were literally falling apart. 

squid sashimi and salmon sashimi. They didn't want you to order the squid sashimi again so some pieces were chopped into super tiny pieces that you will have problem picking them with your chopsticks. 

pork cutlet, overcooked and it's too dry

assorted skewers. everything is overcooked. never had yakitori that tasted so bad. 

grilled squid. The teriyaki sauce is too sweet. 

steak teriyaki. steak overcooked and the sauce being too sweet

Fried ice cream also known as tempura ice cream. Not a lot of places have it so I was surprised they offered it BUT this is not authentic. Fried ice cream means deep fried ice cream and it doesn't mean you're wrapping the ice cream in a piece of cake and deep frying the cake. The Ice cream tasted bad and the cake taste horrible and it's not even cooked properly. 

Review: Myeonghan Miindo Yeon Chajin Moisturizing Sleeping Pack

I love Korean skin care, I always get good results from using Korean products. Most of them are relatively affordable. There are expensive ones but I do find most Korean products affordable and the quality are usually pretty good.

The Face Shop, one of the popular mass product skincare brands in Korea. I've only tried their Chinese herbal line because I love herbal formulated skin care products. I've tried a few brands and they all gave me amazing results. I don't normally change skin care brands as I'm quite loyal to the products I'm normally using so I when I try out new brands I normally try out serums or special treatment products. As if the serums and masks don't provide me with amazing results, I'm not going to bother trying out their other products as this is just a waste of time and money.

I heard good things about the Myeonghan Miindo line as some of my friends in Hong Kong love Miindo more than Sulwhasoo claiming that Miindo gave them better results than Sulwhasoo. I love Sulwhasoo products so this got me curious about this brand. I already have a lot of serums at home so I didn't want to add a new serum to my skin care regimen so I chose to try the sleeping mask.

The product I tried from Myeonghan Miindo is their sleeping mask. From what I remember they have two sleeping masks from the Miindo line. I'm not sure do they have more as just from Miindo there should be four sub-lines  One is anti aging plus moisturizing and the other is purely for moisturizing. I chose the anti aging one as it's never too early to start using anti aging products. Once you have lines on your face, they stay on your face forever.

I got this from the local My Face Shop store at Pacific Mall. I remember paying around $30 for it. This is a premium line from the Face Shop so at $30 I do find it an amazing value comparing to the price of Whoo or Sulwhasoo. 

This is a thick cream mask which is something I prefer. it absorbs quickly and doesn't leave my skin sticky like gel based sleeping masks. It does an amazing job in moisturizing my skin. I actually leave this at work and use it when my skin looks dull and tired. After applying it, it gives my skin a healthier glow and doesn't look as tired. The mask is lightly scented. There is a light floral scent to it. I personally prefer herbal smells of Sulwhasoo and Whoo but this does have an amazing smell and does an amazing job at a much lower price. 

What is your favourite sleeping mask? 

Restaurant Review: Miyabi

This is the restaurant I normally go to when I crave for good Japanese food on a weeknight. This is one of the better Japanese restaurants that is close to home. There are closer ones but they are just not as good. With their winter promotion during the last few months, I was there once a week. With the buy 1 get 1 half off promotion, I find it worth going. Even without the promotion, I still go there once or twice a month.

They always have fresh sashimi and this is what I order a lot. Sashimi moriwasa. There are normally 6-7 kinds of sashimi on the platter. Unlike most places stuffing you up with salmon and butterfish. The tuna they serve is fresh and doesn't have the fishy taste where you find in a lot of restaurants. I avoid tuna sashimi cause most places offer fishy tuna aka it's not fresh. 

The sushi deluxe is also an item I order a lot. They have a wide variety of sushi including my favourite uni and ikura. They have a cheaper sushi platter that doesn't include the uni and ikura. So if you don't like uni and ikura you can definitely pick the cheaper set. 

Their handrolls are also amazing. The seaweed is very crispy and the size is just right. I normally get the spicy salmon and neigihama handroll. The seaweed might not be too crispy during the weekend but on a weekday, the seaweed is perfect. 

If you don't like raw food, they also have great cooked food. They have one of the best katsu don in the uptown area. everything in the rice bowl is cooked right. The pork cutlet won't be too dry or overcooked. 

Tempura Udon is also good. The batter on the tempura isn't very thick! But I would still recommend solo sushi ya for their tempura for the uptown area.

Do you love Japanese food? What is your favourite Japanese restaurant?

Spring cleaning

I love doing cleanings and sharing products with my friends. The things I share with them most are sheet masks as this allows me to try out different kinds of masks.

Mascara is just something I don't use up quickly. With all the samples I've been getting, I haven't bought a single mascara in three years. Since I don't use mascaras on a daily basis there is no way I can finish up all the mascaras I have before they spoil. So it's better for me to find them a new home so they wouldn't go to waste. These are most of the mascara samples I cleared out the other day for my mascara junkie friend. There is also the benefit they're real mascara that isn't in the picture. After gifting her 8 masacras, I still have 5-6 at home.

These are the other products I included in the goodie bag. 

Josie Maran Agan Oil, she ran out of face oil and this is just lying around in the house not getting much used.

Jurlique face oil. I have two of these at home when I got two sets of Jurlique skincare products at a great price off the shopping channel. Just think my friend would love to try it and it will take me forever to use up a bottle of face oil.

Give & Give venus all in one skin care lotion. I love products from Give & Give. They are natural without mineral oil and paraben. They are preservative free skin care products and I think my friend will enjoy trying it. 

Jo Malone Sugar and Spice collection

These were picked up by me last Friday on their launch day. I normally go to the Bloor Store since Mark is very generous when it comes to giving out samples but going downtown on a weeknight is just impossible for me. So I went to Yorkdale to pick up this limited edition cologne set. As I expected I didn't come home with all 5 cologne. 

 

This is one of the not so great shopping experiences at Jo Malone. I only picked up three cologne and the BA fitted all three in a small Jo Malone box. I would prefer her to put them in one of the medium sized boxes instead of stuffing everything in a small box. She didn't offer me any samples. I had to ask for them. She didn't even give me the samples I specifically asked for. The ribbon isn't normally tied like that. 

This set also came with a not attractive gift with purchase which is in the envelope. I'm normally excited about the Jo Malone gift with purchase events as they consists of miniature 9ml cologne samples, body cream, hand treatment and other random samples. But this time all we got was a recipe set. I found out about the recipe a few days before the launch but I still feel a little disappointed. 

  A set of 5 dessert recipes that follow the theme of this collection.

As mentioned earlier I didn't buy all 5 cologne in the set. I just couldn't bring myself into buying all 5. I only picked 3 this time and I have to say I'm impressed with the Bitter Orange and Chocolate cologne. It makes me smell like chocolate. I find this the best cologne in the collection. Even my boyfriend that doesn't seem interested in my perfume collection likes it. He even offered to buy me an extra one so I will have a back up at home! 

The second one I got is the Ginger biscuit. I always wanted to buy a cologne that is on the spicier side but I find the nutmeg and ginger cologne a little too spicy for me. This one is spicy but lighter so I would be using it for mixing. 

The last one I picked up was the Elderflower and Gooseberry cologne. This is a lighter floral cologne that I find quite refreshing for me. 

The two I didn't pick up were the redcurrant and cream and the lemon tart. First for the lemon tart, as I expected, it smelled quite similar to the sweet lemon I have at home. I like the sweet lemon cologne a lot better than the lemon tart so I didn't get it. For the redcurrant and cream, when I first read about it I thought I would love it but once I tried it, I found it not sweet enough for my taste and it didn't seem like a cologne I would use on its own. I don't even know will I like mixing it with other cologne. 

Do you use Jo Malone cologne? Have you checked out the limited collection cologne?

Foundation Brushes

I have a few foundation brushes but I always go back to the same brush. I have always loved my Shiseido 131 foundation brush aka the Shiseido perfect foundation brush that is sold in the international markets. I have this for over a year and I have abandoned my other foundation brushes. This is a small flat top foundation brush that gives you the perfect flawless look. You can use it with liquid, cream or powder foundation. I even use it for applying my blushes as this feels super soft on my skin and doesn't scratch or poke my skin. It's the perfect brush but it's so small so it takes forever to apply the make up so I only use the brush during the weekend. I normally use those Korean auto patting foundation device during weekdays as they are the fastest. They allow me to finish my base make up in 2 minutes. 

I find the Shiseido 131 being the perfect foundation brush for me so when I heard that Kose Esqprique came out with a similar brush I had to get it. When I got it, the only thing I can say is this is even better than the Shiseido brush. 

   

From the comparison pictures you can see that the Kose brush is bigger than the Shiseido one. They are both flat top angled foundation brush. I use circular motions for applying my base with both brushes and they  give me the perfect flawless look. The Kose one is bigger so you can finish your make up in less time. The handle for the Kose brush is also a little longer so this might be preferred by some people. The Kose one even comes with a little plastic pouch for storing the brush. 

Price wise, they are both reasonably priced. The Shiseido 131 cost 1890 yen and the Kose one cost 1260 yen. I picked up the Kose one off ebay at $15. The Shiseido Perfect Foundation brush costs 38 CAD at Shiseido counters in Canada. The only difference between the Shiseido 131 and  Shiseido Perfect Foundation brush is the material used on the brush handle. 131 has a plastic handle and the Perfect foundation brush has a wooden handle. Otherwise it's completely the same. So Shiseido 131 is definitely a better choice between the two Shiseido brushes. 

They are both made from synthetic materials and because the brush is so dense, it takes a longer time to dry. They both take around a day to dry and since the bristles are very dense so it does take time to wash it completely. 

If you are thinking of getting an flat head angled foundation brush, I would recommend getting the Kose one because it's cheaper and the brush is just bigger so it takes less time to apply your foundation.  

Do you own these brushes? What's your favourite foundation brush?