Repurchased Japanese Beauty Products

At the beginning of the year we spent three weeks in Japan and it was flipping glorious. I have so many blog posts planned to share my tips and experiences but the most pressing for me was the ones focusing on beauty… mainly because I can’t use the products until I’ve photographed them! So let’s kick off proceedings with a post all about my repurchased Japanese beauty products.

We first went to Japan three years ago and completely fell in love with the place. My brother-in-law lives in Tokyo so we had a built-in tour guide, pointing out the best places to eat, drink, and visit. But when it came to beauty shopping, he wasn’t much use! Before our first visit I did a ridiculous amount of research: reading blogs, searching on Pinterest, scouring countless ‘best of’ articles, poring over the Cosme website. I ended up with a secret Pinterest board wishlist that I used as a guide as I wandered around the incredible and baffling beauty shops. So when we decided to go back to Tokyo I knew there would be a lot of repurchased Japanese beauty (along with lots of brand spanking new beauty bits!) so here they are: the things I was desperate to replace.

Starting with skincare, I picked up the Hada Labo Hydrating Lotion Light. I first tried this in 2014 when my husband went to Japan (without me…) and I sent him off with a huge shopping list (obviously!). This whole skincare range comes up all the time when researching Japanese skincare recommendations but this particular product seems to be the most popular item. The UK hasn’t really caught on to the idea of lotions, but they are halfway between a serum and a toner. You pour a small amount into your palms, rub your hands together and press onto the face. It’s a great way to boost your skin’s hydration either before or in place of a moisturiser. I wouldn’t say a lotion is a ‘must-have’ but I love the way my skin looks and feels when I use this.

The DHC Lip Cream is widely available in the UK but is cheaper in Japan so I stocked up. It’s a standard balm in a twist up stick but who doesn’t need a back up of handbag-friendly lipbalms?

I have incredibly dry eyes (thanks ocular rosacea!) and so I rely on eye drops on those days when my eyes are red and irritated. The Rohto Lycée eye drops are a little bit ‘minty-feeling’ on the eyes but leave them looking and feeling much less irritated – plus they are suitable for contact lens wearers.

I’ve spoken about the Heroine Make Mineral BB Cream on the blog before as it was probably the greatest thing I discovered on my last trip to Japan. I expected a light coverage product, akin to a tinted moisturiser, but this is wonderful at covering my rosacea. It feels light on the skin, contains SPF50, and lasts very well on my oily skin. There are only two shades, of which I am ’01’. I will be doing a video on it for my #RosaceaReview series on YouTube as I think you will all be amazed at the coverage.

In the corner of the photo above, you can see the K-Palette Lasting 3-way Eyebrow Pencil. This is an almost repurchase – I planned to rebuy the K-Palette Real Lasting Eyebrow Pen but after searching high and low, I think it must be discontinued which is so frustrating. Even more frustratingly, I thought I’d picked the pen-pencil duo product, but a closer look confirmed that I’ve accidentally bought the pencil-powder product. Curses! Luckily the pencil product is very good so although it’s not technically a repurchased Japanese beauty product, it’s not too much of a loss! The whole K-Palette ‘Lasting’ range is pretty great, especially their liquid eyeliners.

The Dolly Wink liquid eyeliner was my chosen wedding day eyeliner which is huge vote of confidence in my book – I’m a big crier and so I knew I needed a product that would last the entire day without ending up all over my face. This is a very affordable liner that is intensely black, easy to use, with a tiny and precise nib. I was originally planning to pick up the pink packaging version but was swayed by the promise of ‘super black’ in this new version (for some reason it’s really pricey on Amazon at the moment, but that might be because it’s so new… hopefully the price will come down in the coming months). We’ll see how it compares to the original!

The Canmake Cream Cheeks blushers are so good and ridiculously cheap (this was about £3.30!) so I picked up another colour. The make up trends in Japan are much more focused on looking youthful and healthy, with dewy skin, glowy highlight, and just-pinched cheeks. While I was over there I found myself reaching for more liquid and cream products to help me achieve this beautiful look and I’ve definitely continued that now I’m back in the UK.

And finally, the last of my repurchased Japanese beauty bits was the Shiseido Sponge Cleaner which sounds like the most boring beauty buy of all time! But as soon as I used a few drops of this to clean my Beauty Blender, I was a convert. It gets rid of all make up in no time at all, doesn’t fill your sponge with suds, and doesn’t have a horrible strong soapy smell. It’s flipping wonderful. I can’t find it on Amazon but you may have better luck with eBay (but, as always, be careful to keep your eye out for fakes!)

I hope you enjoyed seeing my repurchased Japanese beauty bits. I am quite surprised that there weren’t more, but I made up for it with lots of brand new additions to my stash (post coming soon!)

If you want to see some photos of what we got up to in Japan, I used the hashtag #talontedtravels on instagram so click the link to have a nosey.

Lex

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