Guess What!

Etude House, a Korean skincare/makeup/beauty brand, has recently landed on Malaysian shores! I didn't know it either, until I went to Sunway Pyramid today with my sweetheart. It was quite packed with people, and fresh flowers still outside told me that it had just recently opened! I was quite excited, because I've heard about it before on LowYat.NET forums and there was a post about how their BB cream (Or Blemish Balm cream) was recently voted the number one BB cream in some Chinese or Taiwanese magazine or something (I can't read Chinese... I'm a banana :P)

In case you didn't know, BB creams are the hottest and latest Asian beauty trend right now. It all started in Germany, where it was actually formulated by dermatologists for post-surgery skin (Where it is super sensitive) to soothe and regenerate the skin. But it got popularised by Korean artistes. It can be described as a moisturiser/foundation/foundation base, and, depending on what types you buy, anti-wrinkle/whitening/sun protecting/anti-blemish/pore minimising solution as well, and can even heal acne scars. All in one tube!



These are what I bought. Their BB cream, an emery board and some crystals, but I don't intend to use them for nails. I want to bejewel something... just not sure what yet though. Their BB cream costs RM 45.90, the emery board is RM 6.90 and their crystals are RM 4.90 per packet, but I'm not sure how many are in a packet. The BB cream is cheaper than Missha's (RM 60+ if I remember correctly), and about the same price as Skinfood (RM 44+ I think)!

If I am not mistaken, there are two types for this BB cream, one for oil control and one for moisturising. I didn't know which was which since the packaging was alike and there was no English on the front of the box to indicate that... plus all the sales people were busy. It was when I came back only then I realised that there's an English label at the back and it indicates what type the BB cream is (As well as ingredients), and luckily I got the moisturising one! Silly silly me :( I don't think oil control would have suited me due to my current skin condition- which is oily on the outside and dry on the inside. Face mapping by a Dermalogica representative some time ago told me my oil control was due to dehydration, so I need more hydration and moisturising properties, personally I want hydrating/moisturing and pore minimising :P I'm worried oil control will aggravate my skin condition and make me pop up more instead, although sometimes I do have a tendency to have a shiny nose area later in the day- but it isn't that noticeable and I just blot it away with tissue or Johnson & Johnson's Clean & Clear Oil Control Films.

There's also another BB cream with added SPF and/or UV protection (The tube is blue in colour- the oil control and moisturising one is pinkish-purple), but when I tried the tester for it it felt quite sticky and left quite a sticky feeling compared to the normal ones, so I decided to give it a pass and settled for the normal one. I tried all the three tester tubes there- and the moisturising one was the by far the best for me. The oil control one felt a bit dry-ish in a way, a little but not too sticky as well. I tried them all on my jawline, of course. I have yet to fully try and test run it though, so stay tuned for reviews on it!

Oh yeah, and they gave me this pretty free comb as well!



I didn't look around much as I mentioned, it was quite packed, but they do seem to quite have a wide range of makeup and skincare products, and the concept is much more like Skinfood's, although it is mostly pink and white in decor and frilly and stuff. I personally shun pink AND frilly. Pink is acceptable at time, depending on situation and all, but both combinations of pink and frills are not. The BB cream section was surprisingly empty (Thankfully for me so I had time to test out their BB creams anyway :P), and I saw they had various other types of makeup bases too.

Although that said... Sunway Pyramid is problematic to go to with the traffic jams and all, even though it's not far from where I stay. So restocking (Shall I need to) might pose a bit of a problem to me :( Open an Etude House somewhere nearby please? XD