Beautilicious – New Malaysian Cosmetics Brand

Update: Beautilicious Cosmetics is no longer available 

I came across the launch of a new local Malaysian cosmetics brand in the newspapers some time this week. The name Beautilicious stuck in my mind because it reminded me of Tine of Beautyholics Anonymous! 🙂 But that aside, I was quite intrigued to see how a new local brand fares with all that competition out there.

Beautilicious is the brainchild of a local makeup artist who decided to come up with her own brand. I googled it and it turned up a website. www.beautilicious.com.my (defunct). If you are keen to read my thoughts about this (I tested it at the counter just yesterday) please continue reading after the jump.

The website is a flash site which I noticed rightaway is reminiscent of Japanese brand cosmetics sites. Try going to Kate or Majolica Majorca and you’ll know what I mean. It is cute but I have one gripe with the scrolling scenery. Gives me a bit of a headache and it would be nice if the link to the products were placed on the same page instead of having us “go upstairs” to another page.

The other thing I noticed was how similar that girl in the opening picture looks as compared to the Stila girls. I seem to recall Stila having a Parisian girl once but I can’t find the picture anywhere. The look and feel of the cartoon and the products is very Stila. I think it would be more individual if they had come up with something more unique.

What about the products then? I’m linking to the products page so you don’t have to go searching for it.

The products page opens at the Makeup Kits available under the Beautilicious brand. I couldn’t help thinking that they looked very familiar. A quick search online confirmed my suspicions that the makeup palettes looked similar to those from other brands I’ve seen before. These were 2 that I picked out:-

This tells us that makeup brands are rather more similar than we previously thought. The Beautilicious Eye Opener Kit has the same items that Benefit Big Beautiful Eyes has – Concealer and 3 powder eyeshadows. The Beautilicious Quick Liquid Eyes Kit is a set that turns powder eyeshadows into eyeliner. It is rather similar to a set from Too Faced (A brand unavailable in Malaysia at this time).

I checked out this collection at Watsons in Midvalley Megamall yesterday (more on that later). I found that the cardboard packaging was very sturdy with magnetic closure. The colors in the picture on the website looks more vibrant than that in real life and although I don’t particularly like cardboard packaging (its a reason I don’t do Stila palettes much) I don’t have anything bad to say about the packaging.

Product wise, I swiped the Eye Opener Kit and I surprisingly liked the texture of the powder shadows. It was soft and creamy and went on smoothly on the back of my hand. The shimmer is understated and not glittery. So, that’s a thumbs up for texture. I tested a corner of the concealer too but the color was too dark for me. I do not advocate concealer being placed into a palette because it is not meant to suit universal skin tones.

Other than the makeup kits, Beautilicious has eyeshadow singles and the gimmicky Eye Majic style instant eyeshadow. I have done a review on the Eye Majic Instant Eyeshadows and I’m afraid that I just find it too much of a gimmick to merit much. But I guess whatever rocks your boat.

The eyeshadow singles and blushes are sold separately in individual pans. You can buy a palette to place it into. I liked the palette case. It is white and of sturdy plastic. I prefer this to Elianto’s cases because Elianto’s inserts were sponge cut outs. The Beautilicious palette is of sturdy plastic and comes with double sided tape to hold down your eyeshadow or blush pans. I reckon the Elianto pans might fit into this palette but since I own neither I can’t be sure. I tested the texture of the eyeshadow pans and I found that those with shimmer felt softer and went on smoother than those without shimmer. I did not test the blushes because there were no testers. The Beautilicious eyeshadows and blushes are printed with the Beautilicious logo which is that of a ribbon (most unfortunately, it reminds me of the Anya Hindmarch logo) and very cute. I can imagine this brand appealing to the young.

Another thing Beautilicious has are brushes. Very cute brushes with sweet pink handles. I can just see people buying it only because its pink. I however, did not like the brushes. I found them too scratchy, sorry! I’ve seen similar brushes or brush sets at beauty supply stores too.

That in a nutshell, is my experience with the Beautilicious brand. I did not try the cream products for reasons you will see below. If anyone wants to try it, I’d recommend the Eye Opener Kit for the eyeshadows only because they are lovely neutral colors and nice and smooth. If the concealer suits your skin, its a bonus. The rest of the eyeshadows are also worth looking at if you like something quite sheer with shimmer and at RM15.90 a pan, they aren’t going to break your budget at any time. They feel nicer than Elianto eyeshadows too which are only RM5 a pan but feel more gritty. Also, if you have been wanting to try Eye Majic instant eyeshadows that you wipe on your lids, Beautilicious has them.

Now, the bad thing I have to say. The display at Watsons in MidValley Megamall is really really bad. I’m really sorry to say this because the set up is nicely lighted and is cute. However, it was very very dirty, with lots of colored dust all over the display and the testers were in an appalling condition. Each tester had a color or two that had crumbled and all the colours were mixed together. There was one palette where ALL the colours had crumbled and had mixed into one big mess. Cream products were gouged out and everything was smeared everywhere. I couldn’t tell which were for sale or which were testers – they were all dirty and horrid. There were also very few products for sale so the counter looked empty and sad. It was like a scene from a nightmare.

I was thinking of getting a palette to see how the shadows hold up under everyday wear but I couldn’t bring myself to. I only deigned to touch the colours for texture because I knew I was going to write about this brand, else I would never have gone near it.

I wrote a previous article about why dirty testers turn buyers off and it is definitely a point to note for beauty companies. In fact, just next to me were a group of young girls who were looking to buy Silkygirl makeup. These would be the target group of buyers for Beautilicious but they would be put off by the state of the display as I’m sure the girls were. They were staring at me as I tested the Beautilicious products, probably wondering why I would play with dirty looking testers.

So, if I have one piece of advice for Beautilicious it will be to make sure that their display counters are clean. If the counter is clean people will come and look at what there is to offer because the packaging is cute and the products seem decent and have an attractive pricetag.

Beautilicious is presently available at Jusco stores and selected Watsons. I hope the other counters are cleaner than the one at Watson’s Midvalley. If you do see a clean counter, its worth stopping a while to look at the products.

Stay beautiful,