Iope Archives | My Women Stuff

Cushion Foundation Commentary: Western brands vs Korean brands

September 21, 2016 Paris B 23 Comments

After trying cushion foundations from both Western and Korean brands in recent times, I thought I’d share some quick thoughts on how I feel about how they stack up against each other. They are by no means comprehensive, as the market is quite saturated with cushion foundations and I do not claim to have tried all the brands out there. However, I believe what I’ve tried represents a reasonable cross-section of what’s on offer out there.

For a more detailed insight into the brands I tried, I’d suggest you run through Cushion Foundation Week 1 (Western brand cushions) and Week 2 (Korean brand cushions). I’ve shared in there my thoughts on each of them in greater depth and how they compare to each other.

But for those of you wondering just how similar or different the Western brands have recently approached cushion foundations, which were made popular by the Korean brands, this is what I think.

Cushion Foundation Week 2 – The K-Beauty Edition : Round up and Comparison

September 19, 2016 Paris B 18 Comments

Ok tell me now, which day of Cushion Foundation Week 2 (the K-Beauty edition) did you miss?! LOL I’m sure not everyone was following every single day, and honestly I don’t blame you. It was quite a challenge for me as well, as it does involve a lot of work, as you can imagine. But I hope you found it useful, one way or another.

A problem I faced when compiling CFW2 (the K-Beauty edition) is the lack of information. I discovered very quickly that Korean brands update their cushion foundations very often, and have confusingly similar names, and a confusing lack of clarity in their product names and description. So, I was operating with a handicap right away. This was further borne out when I realised while doing my research, that a couple of the cushions I had, had been reformulated or repackaged and even renamed by the time I featured them. It was very frustrating for me because I bought most of the cushions this time around, and I just didn’t know about the changes when I got them just a few months back.

Due to the avalanche of requests from the last Cushion Foundation Week, I focused on Korean brands this time around. I was very fortunate this time to have been gifted with the Laneige (Pore Control and Whitening), Sulwhasoo and Mamonde, which was really why I decided to do this back-to-back comparison, just to see how they all fare against each other. With these therefore, the information I have is current. With the others that I bought online, I only have whatever online information I have to go by and as it turned out, it was out of date. I found that very frustrating, and that will be your frustration when you too, try to buy online.

So, I’m done with cushion foundations for a while, but as I have received so many queries on Instagram about how they stack up next to each other, here is my round-up and final thoughts on the Korean cushion foundations that I own and that I’ve featured here on MWS. You can chime in too of course!

Cushion Foundation Week: Round-up and some final thoughts

April 9, 2016 Paris B 42 Comments

Whew! What a week it has been! These sort of posts are incredibly time-consuming to prepare, as you might imagine, but I think, ultimately helpful to see detailed comparisons back to back of the new cushion foundations out in the market.

My one caveat which I’ve repeated ad nauseum through the week is that I had only featured primarily western brand, or I’d like to think of it as mainstream brand cushions, that have just come onto the market. The primary reason is because a bunch of them landed on my desk, so what better way than to pit them against each other! 😀 As much as I’d like to feature more, I didn’t want my blog taken over by cushion foundations so maybe I’ll work on a sequel for the future if I receive more of these. If not, I’m afraid I don’t buy for review purposes anymore – my wallet forbids me to in these trying times.

The secondary reason is that I am not generally a fan of Korean cosmetics. I never had a good result with them, and while I hated my experiences with Korean BB Creams, I enjoyed using the Western brands. As for cushion foundations, I’d never been a fan before this – I still am not – but the one I did enjoy using was a Korean branded cushion.

So, with this in mind, let me take you on a quick round-up and some final thoughts on Cushion Foundation Week, and NOW you can chime in with your thoughts on cushion foundations haha! 😀

Cushion Foundation Week Day 1: Iope Air Cushion XP – 1 sold every 6 seconds!

April 4, 2016 Paris B 34 Comments

Welcome friends, to Cushion Foundation Week on My Women Stuff!

This has been the new wave of foundations to hit our counters, popularised by Korean brands and formulations, so I wanted to keep it all in one place. What I’ll be doing over the next 4 days, starting today, will be to tell you what I think of the cushion foundation from a particular brand, and suspending all other regular programmes.

I will also tell you that the cushion foundations of the next few days will be from the Western brands, because that’s what I have on hand and that’s the interesting part for me. All these western brands jumping on the cushion foundation bandwagon! I do not have all, naturally, but I will feature some of the more prominent brands. At the end of the 5 days, I’ll do a quick round up with some general thoughts, and also tell you what I think about cushion foundations in general so look out for it then.

But I wanted to kick off Cushion Foundation Week, with a Korean brand cushion which, as it happens, is my favourite. So, every other product will be measured next to this one – I can’t help it.

I was incited to pick up the Iope Air Cushion XP cushion foundation by my friend LeGeeque, who told me that she had experimented with it, and that she really liked it, and that I might too. Actually, I think she said that I would love it as much as she does hers! LOL! She knows me well 😀

Iope (I’m reliably told is pronounced ‘eye-oh-pay’ and not ‘ee-op’ as I was calling it before) is a Korean brand of skincare that sits on the slightly more premium price level. I haven’t tried anything else from the brand, but I am very keen to because I’m told that the products from the brand are well formulated. But I digress. Today, we want to focus on the cushion foundation and what I think of it.

The fun and previews happen on Instagram @parisbmws