makeup – GINGERLY POLISHED

Ever since my fiancé and I traveled to Japan last year, Asian beauty has absolutely captured my attention – specifically from Korean, Japanese, and Chinese brands. They all have such innovative products overall, and their style and formulas are completely different from anything in the American market – so much so that we’re starting to see Western companies release products that are very obviously inspired by these same Asian beauty trends.

So while in Japan, I was dragging my fiancé along to so many stores (specifically a lot of Don Quijotes, iykyk) after watching various YouTube videos discussing top products and recommendations. I then walked into a WONDERLAND, I’m talking AISLES and AISLES of affordable products and gorgeous packaging and I just needed it all. Because of this, I was an absolute gremlin and came home with a suitcase almost full to bursting of new beauty products (you gotta save on shipping when you can). I’m not promising I’m now going to become the expert on Asian beauty – we’ll still have plenty of American brands to review – but I hope to feature it on the blog more and more because I’m won’t be stopping my purchases anytime soon.

So okay yes, I introduce this post by talking about traveling to Japan, and now I’m going to talk about a Korean brand – hear me out, it makes sense. While Japanese beauty is of course it’s own thing, K-Beauty is absolutely massive, with whole stores dedicated to it (many brands have their own dedicated stores in multiple Japanese locations, and then there are also places gathering multiple brands under one roof like Olive Young). K-beauty is HUGE and it’s starting to get more and more traction over here in the states as well.

After browsing all the products in person and loving my new purchases, I had then been perusing online and keeping up with more new releases while back home here in Chicago. I had found my way onto YesStyle – another site that sells a huge range of Asian beauty, not just K-Beauty (though the stock of Chinese brands has now been put into limbo because of the new tariffs) (if you’ve been questioning at all, I’ll say it outright here – I absolutely do not support anything about this current administration). Once you start browsing that site, it’s dangerous and you can just lose yourself in a rabbit hole of interesting products, filling up carts and wishlists. (I do have a little rewards code, M2JQ8E that if you enter when checking out allows me to get rewards points to use on their site for future orders! No pressure, I’m just here to give you some little discounts to try out and enjoy Asian beauty like I do. I do also love that as you shop more on the site, you steadily get more of a discount.) Each product will have an estimated shipping time underneath it – some can take up to a month since they’re shipping from overseas, while others are fully “in stock” and can ship within 24 hours – allowing you to always know when you’ll get your products. It’s normal that ordering any sort of Asian beauty comes with longer shipping times, but so far it’s always been worth the wait.

Hopping back in, I was scrolling Instagram when I saw the first hints and teasers drop for this collection we’re looking at today. This is from a brand called ‘Rom&nd’ (I believe pronounced Romand) in collaboration with the company INAPSquare. From what I’ve read INAPSquare is a lifestyle brand, and their signature style features black and white with fun little illustrations all throughout.

Now everyone got excited from these teasers–black packaging–and we were all asking “are we actually getting black colored products from a Korean brand?? From K-Beauty that’s famously known for softer, neutral, pinky tones? Black lip products??” I’ll spoil this for you right now, we did not get actual black lip products. We have mainly neutrals here, just wrapped up in that black packaging with cute little illustrations on them. We do get a quad of gorgeous black and white shades, but overall we’re neutral.

And if you were a touch disappointed from that lack of black, I will say all of those comments and requests did lead to Rom&nd actually creating a trio of black lip products, which you can purchase on YesStyle now! It does currently say limited edition, but maybe we can bully them again into making it permanent.

Alright, we’re not talking about those, let’s dive on into these swatches already.

That’s not nail polish, you’re correct! Today we’re looking at makeup! Gasp!

If you’ve been following this blog for a while now – shoutout to you – you’ll remember a couple that I dabbled in adding makeup reviews as well, that would pop up here and there in between all of the nail collections. But eventually they petered out and we were back to only nails.

Now I’ll be honest, I’m definitely not wearing makeup as often as I did before. Like a lot of others, my working from home status has continued past Covid, so without the push of going into an office every weekday, my wear of makeup has significantly decreased. But that definitely hasn’t stopped my purchasing of makeup. (It’s obviously from the money I’ve saved on train passes). Therefore I just need a little push to wear and test out all of these beautiful and interesting products I’ve been collecting up like a little squirrel. I must give them the light of day, and THUS, I want to bring makeup posts back to the blog.

Makeup has always been up there as a love for me, just as much as nail polish – in fact even before nail polish. I was caking it on (to cover teenage acne) and testing out wild eyeshadow combinations way back in high school. This blog already contains so much of me and my interests, it only makes sense to expand to a new set of drawers.

And I feel like there’s a little niche I can slot on into with this blog in the makeup world as well. I’ve always chosen to focus on more affordable products, both drugstore and more indie brands, mainly because of budget. Yes, it was definitely more rough to find something good, but with where the drugstore is now, it deserves far more coverage. Affordable brands are always coming out with interesting products and fun releases, and there’s room for more coverage of them! I always talk about how I want this blog to be a nail reference, so it’s time I expand out to a makeup reference I’ve been wanting myself.

Yes, I’m rambling, and there’s this whole novel before we even get into the swatches themselves. It’s just a “new” chapter for this blog, and we all know how much I love to ramble and explain. It won’t be happening every time, I promise. So let’s do it, on into the makeup.

GINGERLY POLISHED

Category: makeup

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