CandyDoll Powder Foundation review and some beauty magazines!

I've always felt Japanese beauty magazines blow the likes of Glamour/Cosmopolitan out of the water, but not being able to read Japanese other than kanji it's a bit pointless for me to buy magazines to look at pictures. Having said that, I do buy Ageha now and again for the pretty makeup photos :P Plus Japanese magazines have far more actual content unlike Glamour & Cosmo which consist of ≈60% adverts on flimsy paper.

So when I discovered some Japanese magazines had been translated into Chinese, I couldn't pass up the opportunity to try them. I'm sure there must be some content lost in translation and the Chinese versions are always a month behind, but they're still better for me than the originals.

I think these will keep me entertained for the rest of the month! It's great that they're all individually wrapped in cellophane to keep them pristine, because I can't stand creased up magazines or books (I'm odd like that lol)

Quisy April 2011 (quarterly Taiwanese beauty magazine)
S Cawaii June 2011
Popteen June 2011
Body May 2011 - not really a beauty magazine but it has some diet/exercise tips :P and comes with a bunch of freebies.

I ordered from Books.com.tw on the 3rd, and they arrived today via Fedex - if that's not speedy international delivery I don't know what is! I used to buy from Kingstone but had to wait 2-3 days before my order was even sent out, however Kingstone's shipping charge to the UK is a bit cheaper for 3 magazines or less.

P.S. If you know of any other good beauty magazines, please leave a comment!

And now for the powder foundation...

CandyDoll Powder Foundation 01
I previously reviewed CandyDoll Liquid Foundation and to summarize, it is a little too yellow/dark for me and gives quite a light coverage.

The CandyDoll Powder Foundation comes in a little pink compact with black stripes and is only available in shade 01. I personally like the pink compact, but not those black stripes.

The powder itself is velvety smooth, but the quality of the included sponge isn't great and can make some areas look blotchy, so a decent brush or sponge applicator is a must. Using my egg shaped SUQQU foundation sponge gives a much more even result.

What I really like about this foundation is that I can either use a powder brush for a very light coverage, or a sponge when I want more coverage. One sweep and blend (with SUQQU sponge) covers up my pores, reduces the appearance of blemishes/any redness and gives a perfectly smooth "my skin but better" poreless finish. It doesn't make my skin look powdery or dry it out, and hasn't given me any breakouts so far.

It's a bit lighter compared with the CandyDoll Liquid Foundation, and is therefore a much better match for my skin tone (swatch below). As for the shade depth I think it's suitable for NC15-NC20, maybe NC25 but I'm not sure how good of a match it will be.

I must say this is possibly my favorite (paraben free too, hooray!) powder foundation to date, and one I fully recommend. One minor annoyance is that when worn on its own after a few hours my tzone area (particularly around my nose) can look a bit shiny as I have combination skin, but this is easily fixed with some touching up.

Retail price is ¥2100 (≈$26) for 10g and I got mine through FromJapan.

List of ingredients from the official product page.