Love Package from Momo-chan^^ (pics heavy!)

Momo-chan has been my very resourceful buddy from Japan and have been helping me to source different Japan exclusive items and ship them to me. We have been exchanging swaps for quite sometime now. However, since she has been volunteering in her kid's kindergarten, she has been extremely busy and had pushed off sending things to me for quite sometime.

Then out of the blue I received her package!!!

As usual, Momo-chan's package has been full of surprises. A quick peek as I open up the box:

Inside the box there lay a pretty shopping bag with some lovely hand-written notes. She mentioned earlier that she got me some yummy chocolate lucky bags (福袋) and here it is... so cute!

Full line up of the items in the parcel:

From the cosmetic department, these are the long awaited CP loot!

From SUQQU, the fall 2011 face powder and a discontinued palette from Japan Yahoo Auctions, along with generous foundation samples from the counter:

ADDICTION blush in Gorgeous and cream cheek stick (can be double up as a lipstick as well) in African Sunset, heard a lot of great things about this line that is so similar to NARS.   ADDICTION (a JP department store brand, not a drugstore brand) was started by Miss Ayako who used to work for NARS as their international makeup director. This is probably one of the main reasons there are a lot of NARS similarities amongst the offerings from this brand. Though NARS has decent color payoff in their lineup, I don't really like their rubbery finishes to all of their packaging. I like ADDICTION because it has a sleeker design, well, all things Japanese to me always sound better!) Can't wait to try them:

Albion makeup pouch packed full of samples:

From the drugstore makeup loot:

Various mascaras and eyeliners from Kiss Me Heroine Make, Dejavu Fiberwig, and K-palette:

Mascara, eyeshadow and eyeliner from Kanebo Kate, and a couple of eyeshadows from Visee. I have been loving the packaging and the color pay off from Visee and in particular I am very fond of their limited edition range, for this round I am getting the limted edition range from Visee X Allia Alla, Visee X Smacky Glam, and Visee meets blondy:

And a lipstick from Lavchusa (BE-6, a beige tone, my favorite lip color!), L'oreal eye contour Revitalift (I think we have a similar range in the US, but interesting to see the JP version and see if the JP version is better...) and the SANA Hadanomy facial mist in a limited heart shape bottle edition (I have been loving this mist and woot for the limited edition!) and a Country Stream Eau de Toilette in Muscat note, a very refreshing scent for summer months:

Now moving to the sweets section, Mary Chocolate lucky bag, it was highly recommended to me, as Momo-chan said it's absolutely delicious:

Then there is a bag of lovely Valentine's day chocolate presents, too cute to be unpacked:

Momo-chan's mama was also very nice to send me a very pretty chirimen coin purse with my favorite Sakura print:

It's a very lovely cherry pink color with pretty sakura patterns all over:

I totally adore the level of details with Japanese products. Even the inside is lined with Sakura print cotton fabric:

And take a look at the charm piece! A mini purse charm with a Sakura logo:

"Made in Japan," always ensure quality!

Then there is this orange bag from Kiddy Land. I have been to Kiddy Land when I visited Tokyo and I absolutely love this store as they have plenty of cute toys and stationery and even I am a grown up I still love these things!

Much of the items in this bag was from Momo-chan's previous stationary haul for me in one of her recent trips at Uemeda, as I have blogged about it here. She added the neko (kitty) calender in, as I had a 2011 baby kitty calender before and I absolutely enjoy watching cute kitties on my desk everyday!

How can you pass this cute nutrition facts label? Only I wish kitty items are much cuter in this country and less retarded...

Hello Kitty collagen wash! Cuteness+skin care in one, awesome!

Finally, a pressed powder by Love Clover. I can't wait to try this as well as I have heard great things from my beauty pals. (At the same time, I wish I am not hooked with it, because it will be a hassle to ask for a CP from Japan again!)

I hope all of you have enjoyed my sharing for a recent love package from Momo-chan! If any of you have used any of the products mentioned above, please let me know how you think about those products! Thank you for reading!

Love Package from Singapore!

Woot! I received a note from the PO yesterday that I received an incoming package from overseas!

It's a love package from Miss Elain-nio and Trinkets of Love!!

As everyone know that Singapore is a "Fine City" so there are lots of things you cannot do in Singapore, and in this case, things you cannot send!

Based on previous failing postal service, this time I gotta sign for this package!

And I was shocked to see Elaine's passport number on the parcel's packing slip. Why is such personal information needed????!

Wow, the box is packed of goodies! And pretty pink tapes (I saved most of this tape for reuse. It's too pretty to be thrown away!)

Terrific scene! Loads of unwrapping done!

Full layout of love package:

But in reality, this is what I have ordered, just 1/3 of the box! The rest are swaps and presents from Elaine and Lynn!

Swappies and pressies from Elaine. She pass me the Guerlain cherry blossom blusher. She knows my love for cherry blossom, so she decided to give me that (brand new too!) Thank you and I love you Elaine!!!

More sheet masks from Elaine:

And more items from Elaine and shared blusher pigments (slight spillage here....):

Presents from Lynn! I love Canmake! Thank you! Thank you!

Thank you girls, I don't know what to say, I am so touched when I see all of these! (slightly tearing up...)

It's a massive haul (and I just finished reorganizing my Muji makeup drawers... looks like I have to haul more drawers next time I am in NY)

As you can see, that's quite some items, it will take sometime to use them one by one.... please stay tuned for more reviews coming up!

Beauty Haul for Momo-chan^^

Momo-chan's love package full of yummy goodies had surely came to me as a surprise.


I have been hauling lately for her as well and I think it's time to return the favor to her :)


She has specifically asked me to get some Bobbi Brown's limited edition items when they had their 20% friends and family event a while ago. And with the deal hunter strikes again, I got her some free GWP (gift with purchase) from BB, the lip gloss and gel eyeliner :)


And of course, her favorite drugstore cosmetics (Maybelline, Almay, Revlon, and Covergirl) and a ton of OPI nail polishes (hope it will make it to Japan!)


Then it's some Crayola coloring kit for her kids too, some stickers with US characters (like Sesame Stret and Snoopy) and some dried cranberry and Peeps chocolate :)


And it's US magazines, like Vogue!


So it seems like postage will be crazy with so much heavy items! The total weight of the items in the picture is almost 10 lbs!!! But I discovered USPS actually offer a Priority International Flat Rate shipping using its own USPS boxes, the postage is a flat fee and you can stuff as much as you want into their box up to a 20 lbs limit. Pretty neat right? I will be using this flat rate service more often when sending love packages out!

Delicious love package from momo-chan!!

The postman buzzed my telecom earlier today. Emm, I didn't order anything online lately, so what will it be?

Oh, it's a big parcel from Japan! It must be Momo-chan!

On the item description, she wrote "Foods (Sweets)"... oh what will it be?

Opening the box:

Wow, it's stuffed with goodies, oh yum!!! And laying the items out, wow!!!

That is quite a scene. A lot of Japanese snacks, cup/bowl noodles, and some pasta sauce. YUMMY!

She even sent me my favorite chocolate snack from Meji:

How did she know I have been buying this snack here in the US as well???

She has also sent me some non-snack items. She said she and her family visited Kyoto during Golden Week. Kyoto is famous for chirimen, and she knows that I love Japanese chirimen so she got me some chirimen goods. And she knows I like sakura and usagi (rabbits)

A small chirimen display with usagi, sakura, and Japanese sweets. It's so delicate and intricate!

And also, there is a cute chirimen bunny, they look so much better than American bunny decoration:

She also got me a "Handki"... that's how Japanese call handkerchieves. It's my favorite sakura pattern! It even has my name embroidered on it!

At one corner, it has some rhinestones too, how cute and pretty:

Along with that, is some limited items from Yojiya. Yojiya is a Kyoto brand specializing in face blotting paper, and Momo-chan got me 2 of their limited edition items (meaning that I will have a hard time trying to use them because they are too precious to use!)

At first I thought this is an oil blotting rice paper. But when I flipped the back side of it, it says it's a paper soap. It will foam up with water. Think about it, it's quite convenient for travel because of the liquid restrictions traveling by air.

This is the oil blotting paper that comes in 2 books. Each book has 20 sheets (that's not a lot! I really find it too precious to use!) It's a limited edition oil blotting paper using sakura pale pink color, hence it's called "Sakura". From the description, I think this sakura pink color is hand dyed, and hence it's limited. Emmmmm!!!!! A collectible item!

Yet another love package off to Japan^^

Luca-chan is another friend of mine who lives in Hime-ji in the Kansai area of Japan. Like Momo-chan that I met from my daily iphone games (Nightclub Story, Fashion Story, etc), Luca-chan is like an elder sister to me and we have been emailing each other for sometime.

Apparently mineral foundation has been a great hit in Japan and when Luca-chan mentioned mineral foundation to me for the first time, I thought, "Ah, it must be Bare Essentuals!" But in reality, it's not BE!! Youngblood is the hottest mineral foundation in Japan these days and Luca-chan told me that this brand has been particular popular with a lot of actresses and models in Japan.

As with most import goods, Youngblood is quite expensive in Japan. This time, she has asked me to get her a Youngblood mineral primer for her (actually I have also bought a mineral powder starter kit to try out as well, and I will see if Youngblood is better than Bare Essentuals or not).

Though she asked me to get her just the primer, I have included other "American specialities."

She mentioned that she loves dried fruit and so I got her some cranberries. Craisins is a local Massachusetts brand and I think Japanese may not have heard of cranberries. Peeps (marshmallows) are also included because I think it's genuinely American... and these I believe are Easter edition too! 

Luca-chan once told me that OPI nail polishes are 1890 yen each in Japan.... What? $19 for a single nail polish??! I made use of the buy 2 get 1 special at Ulta and got her 3 OPI's.

She is not really into make up, but I remembered her saying she does use fake lashes. Once of the brands I love is the Taiwanese brand "Princess Lee" fake lashes and so I sent her 2 to try. I also sent her samples of skincare and 2 sheets of My Beauty Diary masks for her to try out. Along with those are the Carmex lip balm and Burt's Bee lip balm, and a Maybelline mascara that is ridiculously expensive in their Sony Plaza (a mall that sells primarily US goods)... and of course the Physician's Formula Happy Booster Blush because it's just so cute!

And finally there is the special handmade "Weeping Cherry" necklace made especially for her!