Shop Review: Pretty & Cute (revisit)

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Greetings Fanatics!

It's been a minute since we last spoke about Pretty&Cute, the independent shop based in Oregon that imports sought after Asian cosmetics and skin care. Since our last review with Pretty&Cute, Korean brands have exploded in popularity with the mainstream skin care consumers. with popular retailers such as Target and Walgreens carrying products that have been a staple in Asian skin care regimens, such as micellar cleansing water, I thought it was time to recommend Pretty&Cute's services again.

Even though you can sometimes find brands like Tony Moly in stores such as ULTA, it's a hard search to find a physical shop that specializes in a large variety of brands without venturing into your city's International District or going to a specific brand store, like Houston's Lioele shop. Pretty&Cute takes the stress of the search away and consolidates your order so that you can shop from a variety of brands and products at your leisure and have it delivered to your home.

I recently got in a small order from Pretty&Cute: 2 masks, a variety of cleansers, and some BB cream that I'm excited to try and I'll be doing a short review of the products I got under the cut.

I like that Pretty & Cute carries sample sizes so that I don't have to commit to the full sized product before I decide that I love it. Each order also comes with a free sample of a product you want to try; I got a tiny packet of Lioele's Waterdrop Sleeping Pack which I tried first. It had the consistency of a gel when I squeezed it out of the packet, but when I started applying it to my face it seemed to turn into a watery serum instantly. It was very refreshing and made my skin seem smoother and brighter in the morning.

While writing this post, I decided to try the Black Charcoal Chin Patch by Etude house. It's like a Biore nose strip but infused with charcoal and for your chin. It kind of looks like a little beard, so here's me as the Devil. It's a pretty average pore cleansing strip, although it's novel for me to use it on my chin rather than my nose.

We recently ventured out to City Centre to hang out and catch an outdoor showing of Inside Out, so I decided to put my fake human face on and trick people into thinking I wasn't exhausted like we all actually are. I used one of my samples of Skin79 Super Plus BB Cream which promises a "triple function" of whitening, wrinkle improvement, and UV protection. It hid the darkness under my eyes pretty well, along with some blemishes I got from eating dairy. It worked as well as any other BB cream and didn't smudge, although I don't know how well it delivered on the triple function front.

This BB cream has some intense staying power, so I decided to use my Vita Capsule Cleanser by  ElishaCoy to get off the makeup that remained after my usual plain coconut oil remover. I was surprised when I tore open the packet to find a thick cream with orange apricot kernels in it. There was no way I was rubbing it on my face as is, so I wet my hands and tried to turn it into something resembling a cleanser and lo and behold, it foamed into a rich lather; enough for two washes. Serves me right for not looking up the directions. It certainly got all of the remaining dirt, makeup, and oil off but it tightened my skin unpleasantly and smelled like cheap rose soap. I wouldn't recommend it as a daily cleanser, as it seems quite harsh.

I needed to moisturize after washing my face twice. Skin Food products can be kind of pricey, so a 3 pack of  Peach Sake Pore Serum samples is a great deal for trying it out. I was desperate to get some sort of moisture on my face, but it turned out that even after using the Pore Serum, I felt the need to apply my usual almond oil over it. For me, the lotion felt quite heavy on my face for a few minutes after I applied it, but my skin did feel smooth (if a bit tight). It has a nice, subtle peach scent. I guess that it is more meant to "shrink" your pores rather than moisturize your face.

Last but not least are the masks. I first tried the Character Mask from The Face Shop. They were out of pigs and raccoons, so I settled for a dragon because I thought it'd be the scariest. I was right. OFF my face it looks like a kind of cute dragon cartoon, but ON my face it looks like a caricature of a frog. It's very cool feeling which is nice since we've had a heat advisory of 105 degrees for the past couple of days. It's a little... slimier than other masks I've tried. I felt the sticky residue on my face long after I patted all the serum left on after the mask was removed. The cartoon idea is cute, although I'm sure there's someone out there that could make the dragon look better than I could.

After a long day shopping for Isaac's upcoming birthday in 95% humidity, I decided to refresh my face with Holika Holika's Ceramide+Honey face mask. I again used my Elisha Coy Capsule cleaner to get my BB cream and sweat residue off of my face then swiped my face with Neutrogena Alcohol Free Toner. I put the cloth mask over my face and spent the next 10-15 minutes watching a rerun of Law and Order: SVU. The mask liquid was very lotion-y and smelled a bit like cheap moisturizer. It worked as well as any other mask, but I wasn't a fan of how much of the product was on my face after I removed the cloth component of the mask.

In black and white because I thought it was creepy looking.

Individual products aside, I'm always excited to try new things from Pretty&Cute. I will definitely be ordering a full sized Water Drop Sleeping Pack. Be sure to check out Pretty&Cute through the links on this article or the sidebar banner!