cc cream Archives - Kirei Makeup

I’m skipping this week’s installment of Product of the Week, in return, I’m posting this review. As you guys know, I received a CC cream and BB cream from Etude House Indonesia. The CC Cream is their latest product, and it’s the first CC Cream ever launched in Indonesia. You probably already know what BB cream is, right? So what is CC Cream? What’s the big deal?

CC Cream is a sister of BB cream. CC (for Etude House) stands for Correct and Care. The main purpose of a CC cream is to color correct the skin. I guess, it’s like a primer for the BB cream. It is colorless and it has SPF. The CC cream from Etude House also provides hydration, it has anti-aging and stress relieving property, it gives the skin luminosity and smooth the texture of the skin.

At first look, the packaging is really nice. I actually love this type of packaging. It’s made of a squeeze tube, but instead of squeezing it, there’s a pump for the product to be released. One or two squirts are enough for the whole face. The cream is white with a lot of fine golden particles in it (can’t be seen in picture).

The consistency of this cream is like a sunscreen. Very thick and creamy. It has quite a strong scent to it too. I’m not a fan of anything with strong scent, because that means it has perfume in it. The scent isn’t too bad, it actually smells pretty good, kinda floral-y.

I applied the CC cream on my right side of the face (left on the picture). What do you guys think? I think it causes a slight white cast on my face. Let me also say I’m not a big fan of whitening product. I know a lot of Asians are quite obsessed with skin whitening, but I’m not of one of them.

Let me also mentioned that I feel that this cream seems to make my pores look bigger. On a positive note, it is very moisturizing, and the fact that it has SPF 30 means you can throw this product on your face and go. There’s no need for a separate sunscreen. I don’t like how it doesn’t actually “correct” anything on my face. You can still see the redness, and my skin texture doesn’t seem to have much of a difference.

It doesn’t really have much glow either. I’m not sure about the anti-aging property, but definitely doesn’t feel like it’s firming or tightening the skin either. It’s more like a sunscreen, really.

Now, let’s move on to the BB cream. The one that I received is called Precious Mineral BB Cream Cotton Fit. The shade that I received is Honey Beige W24. This one also comes in a squeeze tube, but with a pump! I love the packaging. I mean, it’s genius! I don’t have to worry about the product breaking when traveling, and it’s so convenient with the pump to get the cream out.

The BB cream contains SPF 30, it is also a whitening and anti-wrinkle, as well anti-darkening product. Again, I’m not a big fan of those anti-whitening, anti-darkening stuff. Like I said, there’s an obsession with being fair-skin here in Asia. I guess I wouldn’t mind if it brightens up my face using light-reflecting particle. However, anything that has to do with whitening, I’m quite wary.

Be very careful when you pump out the product, might squeezed a bit too much (like me..-__-lll)…Anyways, with the amount of product you see on the picture below, I can cover my entire face, neck plus chest. The BB cream is very thick, which is quite unusual since most of the BB creams that I’ve used are pretty runny and light.

It has a fragrance similar to baby-powder, which I don’t really mind. The BB cream has a somewhat yellow undertone, but it does have a slight pink to it as well. I thought it was quite a good match for my skin (yes…i thought..continue reading to find out why). I believe this BB cream comes in 3 colors, Honey Beige being the darkest. So, if you are darker than me (I’m NC27-30), you might not be able to get a match. Just FYI, I didn’t get to pick the shade, it was picked for me by Etude House.

Ok, so I tested the BB cream on my right side of the face (left in the photo), and can you see how cray cray I looked like? I mean, I dotted the BB cream in certain area of my face, and blended it outwards (from center of the face) using my finger, and HOLY GUACAMOLE! I look ghastly! This BB cream is like a full on foundation. It has a medium to full coverage.

What surprised me even more is that the more I rubbed this to my face, the “whiter” it gets. I mean, yea it looks like it matches my chest perfectly, but let me tell you that my face actually looks a lot paler and did not match my chest and neck at all. It has a grey cast on my face, which means that this product is the wrong color.

I’m not sure why it looks very white on my face since it looks quite ok when you squirted the product out. I think it might be due to the SPF 30 ingredient in it. You know how when you use sunscreen your face might look like it has some whitish layer on it? It’s similar to what happened to my face here. If you follow me on twitter, I posted a picture of my makeup during the event, and you can see how much paler my face was compared to the neck.

The BB cream itself is not that easy to blend since it’s quite thick. If you use your fingers to blend, make sure you work it in. I find that using my fingers help to spread the product better. If you use a foundation brush, make sure there’s no streak on the face. It also sinks into the pores. If you have fine lines under the eyes, it will crease.

Another thing I have to mention is that even though I wore this product for a good 3-hour, I had to say I felt like I’m wearing a mask. It’s quite heavy on the skin, definitely different than other foundation/bb cream I’ve worn before.

I’m not sure if these 2 products were targeted for any specific audience. I think if you have dry skin, you might have a hard time using the BB Cream, and if you have oily skin the CC Cream might be too slippery for you. If you have sensitive skin, you might want to do a test patch first before applying it all over your face. The reason I said this is because I broke out! Not as bad as I thought it might be, but I have several new breakouts on my jawline, near my ears and chin area. I’m not sure which product caused it, but it might be both. The CC and BB creams were the only new products that I put on my face before the breakout occurred.

Now, for the price, I wasn’t told any numbers by them so I don’t know.

How do I feel about these 2 products? If you’ve been following me for a while, you should know that I feel BB and CC creams are just a big marketing hype. Asian BB and CC creams don’t really carry a large range of color, so more often than not you’ll always end up with the wrong color. Not to mention, a lot of these Asian BB creams are too beige or too pink for our skin-tone.

I do, however like the fact that it contains higher SPF than the Western BB creams, but this also means that you’ll end up with a flash-back if you get your pictures taken.

I’m not sold at all about this idea of BB and CC creams in Asia. I say don’t waste your money, and go get a foundation that perfectly match your skin. Mix it with your moisturizer or primer to thin it out, so it’s not too thick. If you have a Western BB cream, or several like me, you’ll probably find that they are more like a tinted moisturizer which works great for the Summer or if you are traveling. I find that Asian BB creams are still a bit icky, esp. with the shade range and fragrance.

What do you guys think? Have you had any good experience with Asian BB Creams?

For other BB creams product review, please visit:

Smashbox vs FaceShop BB creams
Bobbi Brown BB cream
Tarte Amazonian Clay BB tinted moisturizer

Who might benefit from the CC and BB creams?

To be honest, I’m not sure. I wouldn’t even recommend this product to anyone with sensitive skin. May be if you are a big fan of Korean makeup, and you are quite fair, looking for a medium coverage BB cream, the Etude House BB cream cotton fit might work for you.

For the CC cream, I guess it might work for anyone looking for a sunscreen. I don’t quite actually mind the CC cream, I just don’t see the big hype about it.

Again, those with sensitive skin please do a test patch before purchasing it. What’s a test patch? You apply the product in a certain area of the skin, like behind the ear or on the jaw to see if you have any reaction towards it.

If you guys followed my twitter account, you would know that I was kindly invited to join the Etude House Healthy Face Movement event last Saturday at Mall Taman Anggrek, Jakarta. I was happy to see the other beauty bloggers, especially since I met familiar faces as well as new bloggers. I was quite surprised to see that some of these bloggers actually know my face and my name.

For those who were there, and have been reading my blog, a big hug and thank you. I’m not one that’s good with faces and names, so a big apology!!! I know I kept asking some people their names, ’cause I can’t remember. Sorry sorry sorry..I’m just really really bad with memorizing names and faces in big events, esp. because there’s way too much things going on (i.e. loud music and people chattering). If you see me next time, just come up and say hi to me. I’d probably ask for your name again, but I promise I’ll try to remember! Or say hi to me on Twitter 😀

Back to the event itself. So, Etude House Indonesia created an Etude Carnival in the atrium of Mall Taman Anggrek. Pretty much, they’ve turned the mall Pink! Pink is the main colour of Etude House. They even have pink makeup case! Cute much? Not only they turned the atrium into a Pink Carnival, they organized makeover booth, cosmetics stand, manicure stalls, photo booth and a big centre stage.

All bloggers were directed to the Beauty Workshop area where we were introduced to Yohanna and Ivonne. Yohanna, as the media relations staff, explained to us what Healthy Face Movement is. She mentioned about 3Me – my skincare, my makeup application and my makeup removal. This campaign is directed towards Indonesia women to care and give extra attention to their skin using those 3 steps mentioned – cleaning face with skin care, using moisturizer or light primer and cleansing the skin after activity.

For this Healthy Face Movement Campaign, Etude House created a Video Competition for everyone! All you have to do is to create a video testimony and tutorial of the 3Me activity that you have done, and a Daily Makeup Look. For more info please visit Etude House Indonesia Facebook fan page.

Besides that Healthy Face Movement campaign, the event itself was created to officially released the first Korean CC Cream in Indonesia. More on the CC cream on the next post.

So after Yohanna talked to us a little about the Healthy Face Movement, she introduced Ivonne who is an Etude House Indonesia makeup artist. She talked to us about the little makeup competition that we had to do using Etude’s products. She introduced Michin, Etude House Korea makeup artist, and Michin performed a demo to a model. We were supposed to create a similar look on ourselves using products provided to us on our table.

I just want to say this was the only time in the event that I felt grossed out. First of all, the products given to us were used testers. I’m not sure if these testers were well cleaned with alcohol or not, but the eyeshadows look quite dirty. If you guys don’t know me personally, let me just mention that I hate using testers on my own face. I think it’s nasty! Not to mention products like mascara should NEVER be shared around! Second of all, we were given no brushes, and some of the eyeshadow sponges were dirty, like used dirty with brown stuffs on it. Next, the products like the compact powder does not even match our skin tone. It was my worst nightmare!!! Ok, fine may be I was being a big baby, but anything that’s going to come close to my eyes better be clean! I do not want any eye infections! So I used the clean Q-tips given to us and my fingers to apply my makeup.

Nevertheless, I wanted to be a good sport and not a party pooper. Thank goodness I brought my own baby wipes. Ladies, please, regardless whether you have a baby or not, always carry baby wipes in your handbag, you never know how useful these things are. I used the wipes to wipe down some of the products, and cleaned my face with it. I was glad I had worn my own mascara before the event, so I avoided using mascara provided by them.

During this time, I get the chance to try on their CC and BB cream. I’m not sure how I feel about these 2 products just yet. You guys should know by now that I think CC and BB creams are just a big marketing hype. I’ll talk more about these 2 products this week.

The event ended when Michin chose 2 winners and that’s it. After our blogger event, the area was used for makeup classes. I walked around the atrium for a while and man, it was PACKED! I, especially, loved the nail corner. Since I had to go and meet a friend, I didn’t get the chance to shop around. Nevertheless, it was quite awesome.

Kirei Makeup

Tag: cc cream

Etude House CC & BB Creams Review

Healthy Face Movement with Etude House Indonesia