Best Things in Beauty : Tokyo Day 1 Part 1

I arrived in Tokyo yesterday and as always, it felt like coming home. Weather was chilly but not so cold that it's painful. After a good night's sleep, I hit the shops today and checked out all my favourite makeup stores like Plaza Style, Matsumoto Kiyoshi, Ainz Tulpe, Seibu department store and the Loft. This trip for me is really just to chill out rather than run around sightseeing. The only things on my agenda are shopping and eating :-)

It turned out to be a good time as several big Japanese brands have just launched their Spring '09 collections and there are also still all the Christmas collections on display.

Esprique Precious Xmas coffret

Esprique Precious True Impact Eyes. These actually look quite attractive in person and I would pick these over the Coffret D'Or spring palettes in a heartbeat. The texture is quite soft and velvety without being too powdery. The finish is a smooth pearl finish, which seems to be the trend among Japanese drugstore brands these days instead of the more metallic or intensely sparkly finish like Testimo or Aube Jewellery Shower Eyes.

Coffret D'Or Xmas palettes display

Coffret D'Or Shine Accent Eyes and the rest of the spring '09 collection just arrived in the drugstores. I swatched the new palettes and the texture is decent with a pearly shimmer rather than the bling-bling metallic finish of T'estimo eyeshadows. The metallic gel liners are terrible although they look very appealing and shiny in the palette. It proved to be almost impossible to get any payoff with these when I tried to swatch them with my finger but perhaps the result may be different with a liner brush.

The new palettes packaged with a free brush set (usually poor quality) and a Coffret D'Or mirror compact.

Coffret D'Or's new mascaras packaged with some freebies.

Gransenbon blushes

I'd been looking forward to checking out Gran Blush #14 Maple Nuts. This is a super pigmented orangish brown shade that would be great on medium to dark skin tones. If you go too heavy on this, it looks too orange but with a light hand, it gives a nice coral flush of color. Definitely the most pigmented shade out of all the Gransenbon blushes.

Gransenbon Gel Stay Liner

Gransenbon Premium Pore Cover Powder and High Tension Curl Mascara which are available exclusively at Plaza Style.

Rimmel Xmas collection display.

I was especially impressed by the gold Glitter On Cream Shadow which had a nice smooth texture that was not too greasy with just enough slip for easy application and dries down nicely to a powder finish. It has a gorgeous shimmery bright gold finish without chunky glitter like the NYX glitter cream palettes. And it cost only 630yen!

Kiss Xmas collection display. Both the Body Milk and highlight powder turned out to be lovely in person so I'm definitely getting these too!

Susie NY Xmas collection display. The Jewel On Multi Powder was just blah.

K-Palette limited edition Shiny Start Eyes #5 (purple), a lovely palette of smokey purples. This has also been added to my shopping list!

Excel Xmas collection display with the new pink eyelash curler.

NYX display of glitter cream palettes.

Loose face powder in a Tinkerbell case.

Bourjois display of the four new baked eyeshadows.

These were a total disappointment as the texture was rough and very dry to touch. I could get hardly any color payoff when swatching with my finger. Perhaps it is easier to apply with a wet brush but it's just not worth the effort when there are so many other better options at the store!

Lavshuca Xmas collection display and eyeshadow duos

Visee display. I was surprised to find that the Aqua Shining Eyes had been discontinued!

Majolica Majorca holiday collection display

Majolooks display

The Ainz Tulpe drugstore in Harajuku is a great place for buying prestige fragrances as it often has fragrances from brands such as Ferragamo, J. Lo, Elizabeth Arden etc discounted around 40% or more. This Lanvin Eclat D'Arpege (30ml) was only 1974yen (about S$32) and the 50ml size was about 2600yen!