#8: Anna Sui (“Blooms of Fascinations” Collection)
The Look: It is all about lips for Anna Sui this season, with a collection full of cute lipglosses and lipsticks in a variety of color palettes (pink, orange, red, and beige). The packaging is adorably girlie as always.
Key Items: Sui Lip Gloss. 19 sweet fruity colors of varying pigmentations. Mix and match them up!
#7: Aube by Sofina (“Splash Beauty” Collection)
The Look: Ultra-shiny and ultra-glossy, this collection brings a watery transparency and a burst of radiance. All five eye palettes feature a glittery eye gloss that can work as a base or a top coat, giving a wet-look effect. The lipsticks impart a gloss-like finish, and the shimmery powder is great for face as well as body.
Key Items: Jewelry Shower Eyes palettes. The name says it all. Apart from the eye gloss, there are gradations of pink, purple, blue, and brown in each palette. The shades are relatively muted, but reasonably so due to the high shine of the eye gloss.
Related posts:
PJ’s Top Ten: Spring 2007 Makeup Round-Up (#10, #9)
(Pictured: my Raycious stash)
Raycious updated its website today to feature the latest additions, due out in February.
I love Raycious. It is more or less the only reason why Sofina is one of my favorite brands. (See my post about Sofina here, which is mostly about Raycious.)
This spring, there are three new products. The Glamorous Skin Powder will be the 8th-generation Raycious powder foundation. (The 7th-generation is the one with the three-way mirror. The link just above has a photo of it.) Again, the case looks so lovely and will definitely be added to my collection.
Along with the foundation, there are a primer and a double-tipped highlighting/shading pen.
The Crystal Skin Base is a primer that will impart a sheer luminosity. But it might look greasy on my skin after a couple of hours.
The Face Trick Duo is an interesting product. It has a highlighting cream on one end and a beige/brown contour shading cream on the other. It is for creating defined facial features and contour. Because of its creamy texture (but lighter than the usual creamy concealer), it is used before a powder foundation or after a liquid/cream foundation.
This and the Glamorous Face Powder are what I look forward to trying!
After months of anticipation, Raycious seems to have delivered products that are worth the wait. But I will pass my final judgment when I get my hands on these new products.
(pictured: part of my collection)
Sofina, part of the Kao Group, is a major cosmetics brand (along with Shiseido, Kanebo, and Kose). It has an efficient and no-nonsense concept of skincare and makeup with a sense of fun and enjoyment. It mostly appeals to the 20-something generation.
One of the two Sofina’s foundation lines, Raycious, is probably more popular than the skincare and the color makeup lines. The debut of the 1st-generation Raycious powder foundation in 2000 was a sensation. It was said to have sold 1 million in its first year in Japan.
The innovation of Raycious lies in the ultra-fine luminous pale-blue particles (which the blue packaging represents). It counteracts the dark orange undertone (which makes skin look dull and lifeless) and keeps the face bright (not shiny) and fresh-looking throughout the day. The color of the foundation does not fade or turn dull when the face gets oily.
When I tried it for the first time, I was amazed. All the advertising claims were lived up to. No wonder it sold so well. The color does not darken over time, unlike what usually happens with a lot of other foundations. And the foundation stays fresh throughout the day and my face actually looks more luminous (not greasy!) by the end of the day.
Each year the packaging and the formulation of the foundation change, so we’re in the 7th-generation in 2006. But the fine blue-based particles have always been the main feature of Raycious. This year, the new formulation is all about defining the facial contour, and the foundation case became as much of a talking point as the foundation itself when it features a three-way mirror (for seeing exactly how the foundation defines the contour of our faces from multiple angles).
Aube, Sofina’s color makeup collection, offers all the good basics for daily makeup. The packaging changes entirely every two years or so. New products replace existing ones season after season and we end up with a completely new line every two years, in line with the revamped packaging. The Spring 2007 Collection is mentioned in a previous post.
The daytime moisturizers with proper sunscreen ingredients are the most popular items in the skincare line. They are fresh and still great as a makeup base.
Packaging-wise, Sofina is the most down-to-earth one among all my favorite brands, but it consistently offers great and innovative products. I will always be its loyal customers.
Sofina is part of Kao, one of the largest cosmetics companies in Japan. It has a very youthful image. Their makeup line Aube radiates youthful elegance and the foundation line Raycious is one of the best foundation collections in Japan.
The new Aube collection includes 13 lipsticks and 5 4-color eyeshadow palettes. Similar to Kanebo Testimo‘s upcoming collection (discussed here on a previous post), the eyeshadow palettes feature tone-on-tone color selections, except for a limited edition palette, which features olive, pastel green, and soft orange.
The collection also includes mascaras, a lip base, and a loose powder. More details will be added to the Aube website later about these products.
The collection will be launched on December 13th.
Sofina is among my favorite Japanese brands as well. I will review it (especially the Raycious foundation line) on Sunday.
