Sunday, August 16, 2015

Mishibox August 2015 Review

This is my second Mishibox, and the second "official" Mishibox (not counting the pre-launch one). I reviewed the first one here and was quite excited to see what box #2 was going to offer up. I'm sorry that the photos aren't all snazzy, I'm not a photographer and usually limited to using my camera phone.

Happy pink box arrives!


Lovely information card



Products #1-3
Yadah Mask Pack, Anti-T Toner, and Anti-T Emulsion




These three are all from the same brand, a less well-known one called Yadah. Their brand is all about using more plant-derived ingredients, which is pretty cool. They're a paraben, alcohol, fragrance, and artificial colorant free company, I read on the sheet mask packaging. I'm not anti-paraben and I dislike when people are all about not using "chemicals" (btw, water is technically a chemical...), but I'm cool with going more natural and plant-based for my skincare from time to time, and very cool with being alcohol- and fragrance-free!

I received the Vitalizing Mask Pack, which has the key ingredient of pomegranate extract. The ingredients look pretty nice! No alcohol, lots of plant extracts, a bit of niacinamide and the Sodium Ascorbyl Phosphate form of vitamin C. I'm very excited to try this mask and will keep Yadah in mind when looking for future alcohol-free masks!

Usually I would balk at there being three products from the same brand in the box, but I think Mishibox did it in a good way. The sheet mask combined with the sample sizes of the Anti-T Toner and Emulsion provide a nice introduction to the brand. The deluxe sample bottles are cute and sturdy, with the brand logo and product name printed on them. Their English website says that they are based around rubus coreanus root extract, a common ingredient in traditional Korean medicine which they say has been shown in clinical trials to reduce inflammation and control excess sebum. I did a quick google search and didn't find the studies on them, but I really didn't look all that hard.

The Anti-T Toner has a relatively short ingredient list without alcohol, artificial colors, or any real cosDNA skin triggers. The Anti-T Emulsion has a bit longer ingredient list with a few potential acne triggers (not that they'd trigger everyone, of course), no alcohol, and some decent light moisturizing ingredients. I wouldn't have picked either to try on my own, but I am actually quite excited to give them a shot sometime.

Products #4 & #5
Tonymoly Panda's Dream White Hand Cream & Tony Tint Delight




These two are also from the same brand, which is a bit ehhh but not really that bad considering I like the selection. Last Mishibox also had a hand cream, but it was a more traditional tube type. This month has your classic cutesy shaped K-beauty product in the form of Panda's Dream, a whitening/brightening hand cream inside a panda-shaped container. The cream is fairly thick and rich, with shea butter being one of the top ingredients. It does contain some niacinamide, so the cream can technically help even out your skin tone over time.

The TonyMoly Tony Tint Delight is my second lip tint. I bought two Innisfree tints awhile ago during a BOGO sale and found them quite unimpressive. I received the 01 color of Cherry, which is a nice pinky-red color. I think tints are a nice product to include in K-beauty boxes, but I'm also fairly new to the makeup side of K-beauty. Someone who has been into K-beauty longer than me might groan and go "ugh, another tony tint!", but I'm not them.

Product #6
The Face Shop Rice Ceramide Moisture Emulsion




This final full-sized product came well-sealed in plastic, and I've left that on for the picture. Sorry! I usually only open things right as I'm going to use them and I haven't played with this product yet. While I am very happy to get a full-sized bottle of emulsion, there has been an issue of what the ingredients are!

Mishibox has a link printed on their information card that you can type into your browser window and see all the ingredients for the products in the box. Well, the ingredients given on Mishibox's website are here, but these are the ingredients on the back of the Rice Ceramide Moisture Emulsion bottle. Biggest difference (to me) is that one contains alcohol, whereas the ingredients on the bottle do not. I messaged Mishibox over instagram and they told me that, even though they got that ingredient list from The Face Shop's website, that they would probably go with the one's that are printed directly onto the emulsion bottle. I pulled up the ingredients in my Korean skincare ingredient app, Hwahae, and they list the same ingredients that Mishibox originally told me, rather than the ones on the bottle. I think there is a possibility that maybe the recipe for the emulsion was recently updated, but the Face Shop's website and the app haven't caught up with that yet. While I much prefer the ingredient list without alcohol, as printed on the bottle, even if it did contain it I would still be happy to try this product.

Final Thoughts: I really like this box. I think Mishibox selected good products to introduce us to the Yadah brand, and their skincare/not-skincare divide was pretty nice. I do wish they would have picked a different Face Shop product rather than having two emulsions (the full sized + sample sized) in the box. I have until the 28th to decide if I'm getting a box next month. I can say that I'm not cancelling my subscription yet, but I might skip a month. It all depends on how money goes for me, as I don't exactly have the cash rolling in (my illness makes having a job nearly impossible right now, I do odd jobs for money).

I'd like to be able to set three consecutive boxes beside each other to really organize my thoughts on how I feel about Mishibox so far, so I really hope to get September's box. And I hope that there are no more hand creams or emulsions in it, as two months in a row with a hand cream has given me all I need to survive for awhile on that front and we got two emulsions in this box.  I can say I liked this box better than the last one.

1 comment:

  1. Thank you for such a detailed review! As for the TFS rice emulsion, I'm pretty sure there is indeed alcohol in it. I work at TFS, and there's a distinct alcohol smell to it, in the testers that we have in the store.
    However, recently some of the products in TFS have been modified slightly, and some of the products now do not have parabens in them, or alcohol denat. If you're curious I can always call up head office and ask. ^_^
    Junniku blog!

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