CC Cream

8 beauty products you may want to save your Lunar New Year ‘ang pow’ money for

January 27, 2017 Paris B 18 Comments

The Chinese Lunar New Year festivities are upon us once again, with the Rooster cock-a-doodle-dooing its way in this year. It’s quite early this time around, coming hot on the heels of a brand new year and the year end festivities that ensued. I’m not even sure most of us (and our wallets) have recovered yet!

It is during the Chinese New Year that, as kids, we stood to make a little money LOL It’s tradition to give out lucky red packets (or what we call ‘ang pow’ or in Mandarin ‘hong bao’) with cash it in, for good luck. Chinese, luck, prosperity and money always go hand in hand LOL!

While most of us will be on the giving end, as opposed to the receiving end by now, I nevertheless thought I’d share with you 8 things you could spend your ang pow money on. Not all on once, naturally, but if you’re looking for a little treat to kick off the year, or to welcome in the Year of the Fire Rooster (or what I’d call Roast Chicken Year LOL! 😀 ) here are some personal favourites.

Some are new and coming soon, I got them as a preview, and some I’ve had a while, but are now available here. So, just quickly (because I don’t want to take you away from family time – or perhaps you relish this little time away eh? 😉 ) here are the 8 items I picked. Chinese like the number 8 ok – it’s lucky LOL! 😀

Do I need a separate sunscreen or can I just use cushion foundation?

August 2, 2016 Paris B 26 Comments

You know what? You will not believe the number of times I’m asked this very question. Do I need a separate sunscreen or sunblock if my cushion foundation or foundation is already SPF50? Goodness peeps, please don’t fall for the damn makeup-as-skincare hype!

As much as I risk repeating myself, having written about this about 3 years ago (I foresaw problems LOL!) I thought a refresher course was in order.

Also, I recently did a little experiment (reluctantly) where for some reason, I ended up not carrying my usual skincare arsenal with me. I had some random bits and bobs of cleanser and moisturiser on hand but when I dug around desperately the next morning for sunscreen, I had none. No sunscreen! HORRORS!

I’m afraid to say that toiletries pouches aren’t a Mary Poppins magic bag of tricks 🙁 No matter how hard I rooted, I couldn’t unearth any sunscreen! I was very reluctant to head out anywhere without any sun protection so I did the next best thing – I used cushion foundation which had SPF50. How did that work?

Paris Picks! The CC Cream Edition – 3 CC Creams I’ve been using recently

October 20, 2014 Paris B 22 Comments

You know, it took me a long while to warm up to BB Creams and it wasn’t until I eventually found some that actually worked for me that I actually warmed up to the idea of using them. By that time, CC Creams had come on the scene and I had a headdesk moment. I was going to have to re-learn the whole notion of alphabet creams again!

CC Creams, or Colour Correcting creams claimed to be an improvement on BB Creams. They boasted a lighter texture, and colour correcting pigments instead of mere tint. If you ask me however, barring some truly colour correcting creams that are basically primers to correct sallowness or redness in skintone, there is very little to distinguish BB or CC Creams. So you know what? Don’t bother. Just use whatever you like, whatever it may be called. Even if it be a GG (Glamorously Gorgeous) Cream which isn’t yet invented but which just might be 😛 Remember however, it is first and foremost a makeup item, not skincare so please clean it off accordingly and please do not attempt to sleep in it.

But because everyone loves labels, I thought I’d share with you 3 CC Creams I’ve tried that I actually like and use pretty often. It might surprise you that a popular CC Cream that was said to have started the whole trend isn’t here in my list, but you know, that’s life 🙂 I just found myself preferring these. So let me quickly share them with you because I’ve never reviewed them individually before this and I’ve got a tip for making these CC Creams work better for me! 😀

See! See! Bobbi Brown now has a CC Cream too!

May 7, 2014 Paris B 28 Comments

With CC Creams now being the norm, it ought to come as no surprise when the big brands start releasing their own versions of what is popularly termed “colour correcting” creams. To be honest, with some products, there is scant difference between a BB Cream and a CC Cream. Both are tinted, both are used all over and while brands try their utmost to tell us that they’re different, lets face it, they’re basically the same thing.

So when Bobbi Brown released their CC Cream, I raised a sceptical brow. I do like the Bobbi Brown BB Cream. It’s one of the better versions I’ve tried out there (I don’t use Korean brands, it’s a personal quirk because I dislike that grey cast that makes me a relation to a decaying zombie) But CC Cream?!

Well Bobbi Brown takes great pains to tell us that their CC Cream, which comes in 3 shades globally and 2 shades locally, is more of a colour correcting PRIMER than a face base. Now, that sort of honesty I can live with. There are 3 shades available – 01 Pale Nude (pink for fairer skintones) 02 Warm Nude (yellow for medium-darker skintones) and 03 Golden Nude (brown for dark skintones). In Malaysia, we only get Pale Nude and Warm Nude.

The thing is, to be perfectly honest, unless you already are compelled to use a makeup primer daily, I don’t quite see the point of this product. There, said it 😛 I have found a use for it, but I can’t say in all honesty that it’s a must have.

CC Cream

The fun and previews happen on Instagram @parisbmws