If you haven’t read my previous post, I was recently in Tokyo. Whilst there, I picked up a couple of beauty products. And by a couple, I literally mean a couple. Sadly only two items. It’s a bit of a spoiler, but if I had known how they work, I would have bought sooooooooo much more! Doing a whole review on just two products may be a little excessive, but I think both deserve to be written about.
The first product is the Shiseido eyelash curler. Now, if you are somewhat familiar with the beauty community on the internet (blogs, youtube, etc.), you’ve probably heard about this eyelash curler before.
Little Tangent Review: Previously, I used a Revlon one which was pretty decent and I recently, on July 1st, bought one from Brilliant Beauty which really shocked me. If you’ve seen their rating, you might think it’s the best eyelash curler out there at 4.3 stars, over 6,000 reviews, “Amazon Choice,” and only $9.99. But let me tell you, I have some brutally honest opinions about that product. (Sorry! Rant Incoming!) It did not work for me at all. I don’t know why this is like the first option that comes up when you search ‘eyelash curler.’ I bought it and the packaging was actually pretty nice. It comes in a box, and within the box, the eyelash curler is inside a satin black cloth bag. But the product itself; I was not so impressed with. I found the pad to be incredibly stiff and I had to firmly use both hands to press down. I’m pretty sure putting that much pressure on my eyelashes was not good for them. I would’ve used even more pressure, but I really didn’t feel like losing any lashes. And when I did use a decent amount of pressure, the end product was a really sad excuse for a curl. It’s was slightly lifted, but in a couple of minutes, it pretty much fell back to its initial straight state (I have very straight Asian eye lashes that are hard to curl). And there might be some people out there that say, just give it some time and after a while the pad should soften; but I’ve used it for each day for 3 weeks and it’s still the same. So essentially the eyelash curler didn’t do anything for my lashes and I would not recommend. I probably shouldn’t include a link, but if you want to read any of the reviews and, like me, be befuddled about all the top reviews, here you go!
Okay, end of rant, let’s get back to the original review! While in Tokyo, I was looking at beauty products you should get while in Japan and the Shiseido eyelash curler was mentioned quite often. I wasn’t too interested as Shiseido eyelash curlers are actually pretty acquirable in the States, but the price is the real difference. In Tokyo, they are about 800 YEN (7.54 USD). That’s like half the price of ones you can get in the States and even cheaper than the previously mentioned Brilliant Beauty eyelash curler. Additionally, you can get a refill 2-pad pack for 100 YEN (0.94 USD) which is a pretty amazing deal. I read about it, but I didn’t have any intention of going out of my way to buy it. Luckily my mom wasted to go in to a beauty store to find some beauty products for herself, so I went in too and whilst in there I spotted the Shiseido eyelash curler (thanks Mom!)
Getting to the point quickly, this eyelash curler is amazing! I can use one hand, press down once (with not that much effort), and my lashes are pointing up to the sky! Initially I was actually quite skeptical, because I’ve experience a curled lash right away, but in a couple of seconds, they fall quite a bit. I decided to move to other parts of my makeup and when I had returned to my eye to apply mascara, I was taken aback. They were still curled upward! Now they don’t stay as perfectly curled as they are in the morning; they do fall a smidgen. But as I’m writing this, it’s 9:36pm and my lashes still are pretty curled.
I’m pretty sure you know my overall conclusion about the Shiseido eyelash curler, so you can clearly tell that I love it! It’s easy to use, effortless, and long-lasting. It is pretty widely accessible and you can probably find it in a beauty store nearby, but if you happen to be in Tokyo, they are much cheaper and you should probably stock up!
Shiseido Eyelash Curler + Refill Set (US link)
Random Side Comment: How does the Shiseido eyelash curler only have a 3.8 rating compared to the 4.3 of Brilliant Beauty? I don’t agree with this at all. You hear makeup products work on people differently because everyone has different types of skin and such, but I don’t believe that about beauty tools. Something is fishy here…
On to product #2! Similarly, I was looking at blogs about Japanese beauty products and one product that caught my eye was the Heroine Make mascaras. I was at Loft looking for cute stationary and didn’t know that they have higher floors of more random items. But I happened to find myself in the beauty section and quickly found these mascaras. The whole packaging is in Japanese, so I wasn’t really sure which one to pick up, but I grabbed the pink one because the blogs I read made it sound like pink one was the original. However, if I had done more research, I probably should have picked up the purple one. (Pink is for Length + Curl and Purple is for Volume + Curl) I don’t have incredible long lashes, but my stronger preference is for volume rather than length. This was recommended as beauty items to get, but also I wanted to try a curling mascara formulated for people like me with straight Asian eyelashes. I wanted to see if it would actually work on me, because all the mascaras I’ve tried have just weighed my lashes down and get straighter as the day goes on.
Not to harp on American beauty products, but a lot of them claim amazing results and when you try them they are mediocre or even bad. It kinda feels like false advertisement. But this product is advertised 100% correct. It lengthens your lashes and keeps a curl. I don’t know if it can curl your lashes by itself, but this product combined with my eyelash curler is the ultimate duo for the best curled lashes that I’ve ever experienced.
My sole reason for recommending this product is for the keeping a curl part. There are a couple of things I do have to say about this mascara though. It does lengthen as advertised, but it doesn’t give much separation between the individual hairs. To me it subtly clumps a couple of lashes together. I think I might try out the volume + curl one because that seems to be more of what I want out of a mascara. But if length’s your game, try the length + curl mascara out! Another thing is that these mascaras are waterproof. I’m not actually a fan of waterproof mascaras, because I take showers at night and I usually like to reserve a bit of time in the shower to take off my makeup. But because they are waterproof, I have to add another step of removing makeup into my night routine. But those are my only concerns. Everything else is great and I do recommend.
I bought mine for 1000 YEN (9.42 USD), but you can currently get them for only a couple dollars more (12.97 USD for length + curl and 10.48 USD for volume + curl)
Heroine Make Long and Curl Mascara (US link)
Heroine Make Volume and Curl (US link)
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