Sweet magazine June 2011 & Rilakkuma Fan 2 mook

This has almost become a monthly ritual for me, buying a pile of magazines from Books.com.tw. They offer really fast international shipping (at quite reasonble prices in comparison to other stores) via either DHL or Fedex; my order was sent out on the 3rd from Taiwan and arrived today :D

* Rilakkuma Fan 2 mook
* Sweet June 2011
* Popteen (Taiwan edition) July 2011 - I really like Popteen for its detailed makeup tips, but I haven't had a flick through this issue yet.
* Queen 女人我最大 Summer 2011
* Best好用 森林系無添加保養品 - puts a lot of emphasis on its featured natural skincare products, but I was very disappointed with the content as most of the brands/products mentioned are European. I'm not at all interested in the likes of L'Occitane, Crabtree & Evelyn, Origins, The Body Shop and Lush (where most products contain parabens). The descriptions are also rather vague and feels more like a product catalogue than an independent publication. A big let down & I certainly won't be trying any more books in this series!

Sweet June 2011
I'd been eyeing up the June issue of Sweet prior to its release date but it was always out of stock since the freebies seem to be very sought after. This month's freebies are an 18ct gold plated Jupiter heart bracelet with pink tourmaline, and a pink Jupiter pouch. They're a special Jupiter x Rinka (the cover model) collaboration for Juipter's 5 year anniversary, exclusive to Sweet magazine.

I mainly purchased Sweet for its freebies, but I have enjoyed flicking through it looking at the pictures.

The freebies are packed separately and very well protected.

I don't think gold is my color but I do like this kawaii bracelet, worn in pic below.

I like the pink pouch too, I'm not sure what it's made of but it feels soft to the touch and not plasticky. Best of all it's such an awesome shade of pink!

Even the lining is pink :D

Definitely my favorite Japanese magazine freebies to date. I highly recommend picking up a copy if you can before it sells out or is discontinued!

Rilakkuma Fan 2 mook
I'm a huuuge fan of Rilakkuma and unfortunately missed last year's Rilakkuma Fan, so when I discovered this year's mook I had to snap it up. The mook comes with a 25 page booklet of kawaii Rilakkuma products ranging from bags to kitchen utensils, a Rilakkuma Honey tote and file holder/calendar.

The tote material is polyester, and it's sturdy and of good quality, though I may perfer the look of last year's Rilakkuma Fan tote which looks like it's cotton. I will probably use this to store some of my skincare products.

This file holder is cute but pretty useless for me since it can't hold a lot of paper, and I don't see the point of the calendar at the back either.

Who doesn't like these kawaii Rilakkuma stickers?

The summer 2011 issue of Queen 女人我最大 came with a transparent tote bag and while its various cat designs are cute, I can't see this being very useful because I don't want to have the contents of my bag on display when I'm out. However, it's pretty handy for toting magazines around in the house :P

And here are some pics of a few pages in the Rilakkuma booklet for you to enjoy/drool over.

(If I ever go to Japan I will want to bring back this extra large Rilakkuma plush...don't think it's practical to send through the post :P)