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Wednesday, September 28, 2011

The Face Shop holos

I'm about halfway through swatching my haul. I thought I would start off with posting The Face Shop holos I got! I'm not sure if these are available in the US stores and I'm also not sure if I got all of them. They came in pretty silver boxes, and I think cost about 6000 won (~$6USD). After a certain point, I stopped calculating how much I was spending in Korea... O_O

My experience at The Face Shop in Korea was much better than my experience at both the Manhattan and San Jose stores. I always feel unwelcome in the US stores and the SAs seem snobby, but they were so friendly and nice in all the Korean stores I went to (I went into about 5 stores). The girls at Tony Moly were the complete opposite, but I will save that story for when I post those swatches :)

The holo is actually a bit stronger than they appear in these photos, but not by much. As you know, I rarely take the time to photograph in real sunlight (my main defence is that in real life, I almost never see the light of day) so keep that in mind! :) Pictured are 2 coats and I quite like the bottles and brushes (wider than a ChG brush, but narrower than CND).

The Face Shop - RD301 - A real red holo? I guess so! It's a warmer red, leaning towards the orange side. This was the least holo out of the three.

The Face Shop - PP401

The Face Shop - BK901 - More charcoal-y than black. Somehow, I bought two polishes at TFS both with the "name" BK901. Not only are they too lazy to come up with real names, but they even re-use codes in Asia??? WTF?!

About a week before going on vacation, DBF and I decided we should watch some Korean dramas to get used to the sound of the language and maybe pick up a few words (as this is how we have come to know our Japanese vocab... tons of anime when we were in high school / college!!). We started watching Boys Over Flowers because I was familiar with the manga and it was available on Netflix. By the time we got to Seoul, we had watched the complete series.

The Face Shop was one of the first "road shops" I went to in Seoul on my trip. DBF and I were on our way to the Nfu Oh HQ and we stopped in here first. I hauled the polishes here and also picked up some black head removing clay. When I was checking out, DBF noticed a poster behind the cash register and said, "Isn't that Jihoo?" (one of the male leads in Boys Over Flowers). I said, "Oh my god, it is!" and the cashier turned around to see what we were looking at it. She went "Ohhh, Kim Hyun-joong!" and then said something in Korean (I only recognized the English word "poster". There were posters at the entrance, but we couldn't figure out if they were free). On the way out of the store, we looked up at the facade and noticed his huge face plastered everywhere! I kind of furrowed my eyebrows that a guy was advertising a cosmetics company... and that his skin looked amazing.

This isn't the exact store I went to, but I took a picture of another store later during the trip. Observe:

Anyways, I'm sad to be back, but vacation can't last forever, right?

24 comments:

  1. They are so pretty. Too bad the holo effect isn't as strong as other polishes I have seen.

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  2. The first one is so pretty!

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  3. Oh man... I need these.

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  4. I really like the second polish!
    And side note, I'm watching Boys Over Flowers right now, and it's hilariously adorable.  Kim Hyun-joong looks so much better with dark hair in my opinion.

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  5. The black one is amazing!!!

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  6. love the black one too! :)

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  7. LOLOLOL "Boys Over Flowers." My ex-roommate was OBSESSED with that series ... she would try explaining it to me as she went along but we would both die laughing before she'd finish describing the episode. Amazing!

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  8. lol the show really was ridiculous. Every ep, I would say to my boyfriend "I wonder what ridiculous, far-fetched plot and misunderstanding will be in today's episode!" For a while there, I was convinced there would be an attempted rape in every episode. 

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  9. I agree! The orange hair really didn't do anything for me! Plus, I really dislike his slight haircut halfway through the series!

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  10. Hey girl thanks for the swatches!!! I think I *have* seen these in the NYC store but didn't know what to think of them lol. Now I will totally take a second look when I build up the courage to visit midtown again :)

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  11. These are awesome polishes!

    And I have to laugh, I don't get many daylight pics ether, since I don't see much daylight ether! lol

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  12. These are all gorgeous! I can't decide which one I like the best. I'm going to have to check out The Face Shop in NY....these polishes might be worth the snotty attitudes. I hope I can get these here in the states!!

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  13. O.O  Wow.  These are absolutely gorgeous!!!  *drools*  And I have to concur, it is difficult for me to get sunlight photos also - I'm always outside at between 4:00-5:00p.m., holding my nails up trying to catch the last drop of light, LOL!  That or I'm up at dawn trying to get the first rays.  XD

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  14. I am loving all of these colors! I want them all!

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  15. Polishes are amazing, especially the first one, but Kim Hyung Joon is simply... Wow, as always! *__*

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  16. You kind of read my mind.  I have a friend in Korea looking for polishes for me next week.  I think I'll send him your post :) 

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  17. I have the other "version" of BK 901. black base with multichrome glitters. flashes purple, teal, green, etc. kinda disappointed bec the multichrome glitters are hard to capture and not that visible to the naked eye. it's also a dupe of Etude House WH004. same issue with the glitters. I'm thinking that maybe the problem is my camera or my application. IDK. I'll wait for your post on that one. :)


    Re: Boys Over Flowers, I think they dressed better than their Taiwanese counterparts. But I looove the Taiwanese version (Meteor Garden) more! These Korean boys look more effeminate. I blame the orange hair. LOL!

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  18. I swatched the other BK901 on a single nail and I had the same feeling (glitters basically got hidden by the dark base) :(  It looked so exciting in th ebottle!!

    lol, the hairrrr!

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  19. haha, luckily these road shops are literally all over the place. He won't be able to avoid these!!

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  20. Hahaha XD Ever had a neighbour catch you in the act?!

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  21. That's exactly what I thought too! It was soo promising! Even the purple one (PP405) is a bit of a disappointment. BUT. GR502. Ohhh, soooo pretty!

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  22. YES!  XD  Lol!!!  I live in a city/in an apartment building so I go outside and the first time my neighbor caught me he was like, "Whaaaat are you doing?"  Lol!

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