Tuesday, September 12, 2017

[Swanicoco Review] Swanicoco A.C Control Care Skin Toner (For Acne & Sensitive Skin)

(received from Swanicoco in exchange for an honest review)
Verdict: 9/10
Repurchase: Maybe

Product & Packaging


Swanicoco is a South Korean cosmetic company that has been around since 2005 and prides itself for it's patented raw component and nano-fermented formulations, using natural extracts in it's products. They launched in Malaysia Watson store recently and I was so lucky as to get to try some of the products prior to the launch.

In addition, they matched me with May from the Swanicoco team, who worked with my skincare issues in order to choose some products that would match my skin type better. Seeing as acne is one of my problems, she recommended the A.C. Control line, including the Toner and Emulsion. 

The A.C. Care line specializes in acne treatment and it's special formula balances out water and oil on the skin, leaving the skin fully moisturized afterwards. It is made with natural and organic ingredients. 

I have been using this for more than five months now and actually enjoy this enough to have backup ready already. ^^ The A.C. Control Care skin Toner is aimed for people with easily irritated skin, dealing with redness and spot, or teenagers first starting their skincare. 

The packaging is really good! Personally, I love these pump designs bottles since it keeps the product sanitary. The glass bottle design does tend to be a little heavy, but kind of adds to the luxury of the product, making me feel extra fancy when I'm using it. :P There's 120ml of product, which isn't much when I first looked at it, but seeing as the bottle is probably going to last me about 7-8 months with twice a day of usage, it's well worth it! 

Ingredients


Full ingredients list: Melaleuca Alternifolia (Tea Tree) Leaf Water, Hydrolyzed Algin, Zinc Sulfate, Butylene Glycol, Sodium Hyaluronate, Glycerin, Erythritol, Azelamide Mea, 4-terpineol, Biosaccharide Gum-1, Beta-Glucan, Punica Granatum Fruit Extract, (Pomegranate), Ficus Carica Fruit (Fig) Extract, Morus Alba Fruit Extract, Ginkgo Biloba Nut Extract, Artemisia Annua Extract, Calendula Officinalis Flower Extract, Helichrysum Italicum Extract, Azadirachta Indica Leaf Extract, Paeonia Suffruticosa Root Extract, Scutellaria Baicalensis Root Extract, Allantoin, Dipotassium Glycyrrhizate, Polysorbate 80, Citrus Nobilis (Mandarin Orange) Peel Oil, Citrus Aurantium Dulcis (Orange) Peel Oil, Arginine, Carbomer, 1,2-Hexanediol

Cosnda has hydrolyzed algin on a  4 as possible acne trigger and irritant. It's actually one of the star ingredients in the toner as well! It's a seaweed (algae) water binding agent that can help condition and hydrate the skin. It contains rich minerals and fatty acids and according to swanicoco, is a gentle exfoliant that can remove dead skin cells and encourage skin regeneration.

Tea tree is a naturally healing ingredient that is widely used to calm troubled skin. I enjoy the smell of tea tree in my products and the inclusion of tea tree in general just calms my acne-prone skin greatly! Tea tree has antiseptic and anti-fungal properties that helps to treat blemish-prone skin. It is also able to reduce oil and sebum production. The product uses tea tree leaf water instead of purified water. 

There's nothing else jarring that shows up on cosdna, which is great. ^^ I see lots of plant extracts which can act as anti-inflammatory and anti-allergic ingredients, such as helichrysum italicum extract and scutellaria root extract. Sodium hyaluronate is added as a humectant and is hydrating for the skin. 

Swanicoco A.C. Control Care Skintoner & Emulsion Clinical Tests
Image Credit: Swanicoco
Swanicoco did some tests to study the product's effectiveness and found that 50-68% of the subjects (it doens't say out of how many subjects. :( ) answered that it effectively decreased new acne production, sebum control, and decrease greasy skin. In addition, tests found that the skin condition for subjects did not worsen after using the product (which is good, I suppose? XD ) while sebum control improved by 23%. I really like how they mention sebum control, cause that's the biggest difference from using the product that I've seen! 


Performance


As I mentioned, I've been using this for more than five months and honestly, I'm a fan! It smells wonderfully of tea tree and soaks into my skin without leaving a sticky residue. It is very watery, sliding off my skin and dripping a little in my palm if I use too much. I use about 1 - 2 pumps for my face, rubbing it between my palms and then pat-pat-ing on my face afterwards. Even my generous use of the product is allowing me plenty of use for the bottle! I predict about 1-2 more months before I run out, which means this bottle can last for about 7-8 months, which is really pretty amazing!

The toner doesn't evaporate on my skin either, leaving a sort of protective layer that's just the right amount of moisturizing without being sticky, as some toners kind of does. This Swanicoco Toner is one of the few products that has remained on my routine even through breakouts and painful pimples. This doesn't sting my skin, even when I'm breaking out actively. T.T

As I mentioned, the product does great at sebum control and also helps keep my skin hydrated without causing additional breakouts. On the other hand, I will have to admit that through no fault of this, my skin condition has worsened. It's a combination of stress and lack of sleep that's causing more breakouts on my cheeks and while this doesn't worsen my skin, it doesn't really help in the healing process either. Still looking for something to help with that, but in the meantime, I'm grateful for the toner nevertheless. ^^

I've actually gotten a backup bottle of this already, thanks to the Althea Trouble Breaker Box. That box was a great value and I hope they'd return, but Althea boxes are sold out once they're gone and are never replenished (sobs).
I'm reluctant to give it a HG status, if only because of the hefty price tag on the 120ml bottle. It's a whooping RM118.90 in Watsons Malaysia, available online and in select Watson stores. However, this is a case of, it's not Swanicoco, it's my broke-ass self, so I can't really blame it. ^^ I will be keeping my eye out on deals though, since Watson does pretty good deals occasionally and will likely restock then! Hehe. 

(received from Swanicoco in exchange for an honest review)
Verdict: 9/10
Repurchase: Maybe

I also do quick, short reviews on my instagram so if you're up for it, do follow me here too! :D https://www.instagram.com/peachy_amy/

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Monday, September 4, 2017

[Rant] Shopee Phone Purchasing And Returning Experience / Review

First and foremost, I need to precede this with the fact that most of the sellers I've dealt with on shopee are perfectly nice human beings. My experience with them overall is absolutely wonderful and I have purchased and sold plenty through the platform.

Unfortunately, this entire experience has really soured my opinion on them. It really only takes one apple.

I've been dealing with this with restraint and patience, but today's the last straw. I just got an email from shopee telling me they needed my entire month's credit card statement after I've sent them my transaction history to confirm something and I just want to ask them if they're like my account id and password while they're at it.

I need to write about this or my head will explode.

Since July, I've been dealing with a spectacularly bad seller who sold me a phone and a phone screen cover that literally doesn't fit the phone. The only reason why I got it from the seller in the first place was because he said they also sold screens and I wanted to make sure I had something that fits. The same seller actually pulled this with another buyer as well. 

Here's the picture I attached as proof of non-fitting screen cover. It's tempered glass and this particular phone is slightly curved, which means a random tempered glass for a different phone will not fit it at all. In addition to the halo effect around the phone, the sides of the screen is not covered completely. The screen cover is literally too small.

I requested they attached the screen cover prior to shipping since I make lots of air bubbles, but they didn't, so I ended up making do on my own. I paid RM15 for this screen on top of RM800+ for the phone, so I didn't think the seller would make a fuss. Wrong.

Like a good buyer, I tried to reason with the seller, letting them know they've probably sent me something wrong. No big deal. Just send me the right one.

In return, I got a sob story about lack of stock, how the phone screen covers distributors are overcharging him, the decline of trust amongst people along with a blatant lie that none of the screen covers for this particular phone would fit anyways. It's a Xiaomi Note 4. My friend just bought this phone and she had a screen cover, tempered glass, that fits perfectly.

I've removed the store's name because I'm sibeh coward and dunwan drama, but if you want to know, pm me on instagram (@peachy_amy) since I'm fairly active there. Or you can keep scrolling till the picture with the invoice. 
After spending way too much time trying to talk sense into the seller, I finally realized I wasn't getting through with reason and just suggested opening a dispute so I can return the cover. Even that was troublesome. The seller insisted Shopee would cover shipping costs and I wouldn't have to make payments via pos laju, which is another blatant lie. I spent some time reading through the rules on shopee and it clearly states the seller needs to bear the cost in circumstances such as this, where the seller has provided me with a wrong item.

Seller denies responsibility and tells me I should contact Shopee.

This is where Shopee started being the middleman.

At this point, I considered dropping everything. It's only RM15 and my time is worth more than that. I've already wasted too much time being upset with this. The level-headed cs on shopee's facebook page insisted I take this up to them, since it's not my fault and I should be allowed to keep my hard-earned money.

I shit you not, there's been more than 25 messages exchanged from Shopee with instructions on what to do with returning this because it's needlessly complicated.
For your information, I have included all these conversation and pictures to the dispute team so these aren't like, behind the scenes action going on. I've actually deleted the pictures from my laptop and am getting these from conversations with shopee, so everything you see here, I've emailed shopee.

After a tedious negotiation, shopee informed me that the seller will refund me the money and bear the return shipping fee for the wrong item. In addition, they also require the receipt of purchase, receipt from the pos laju transaction, and the tempered glass be in pristine condition (or no refund).

I took a picture of everything before sending it to them since I have zero trust in them now.

By early August, however, the seller miraculously refunded the cost of the item, RM15. I asked shopee if they still required the item to be returned and they confirmed that the seller does, indeed, want the item back. I double checked shipping would be covered and yes, shopee said they would.
Oddly enough, I wasn't charged GST for this purchase despite what the receipt suggests.
The address was emailed to me in August and I returned the item in mid august. the receipt from pos laju tallied up to RM11.55. I also needed to send shopee a receipt of them. Even the lady at the post office who made sure to include a copy of the receipt of the return was like, 'why is this so troublesome?' You and me both, lady.

This was especially frustrating because the pos office that has receipts properly printed is also the place to pay bills, send parcels, renew licenses, and about a million and one things, so this is more time spent.
The item arrived on August 15, 2017 and the shipping cost has not been processed and refunded to me.

I brought this up to them on August 23rd because I believe in people like that. They told me to wait until the end of the month and if it still haven't been banked in, I should let the team know.

And mind you, I've talked to at least 3 different shopee cs I get a new cs on the other end of the email chain. I feel the need to explain things all over again because I don't know if they do have access to any of this unncessary drama. This blog rant is as much to keep them informed so I don't need to explain myself to them all over again as it is to remind myself that shitty human beings exist and sometimes, we suffer needlessly for it.

Anyways, here's where I started getting really annoyed.
Well, that's easy enough to check. It's completed on the 27th? Let me give you the screenshot of my bank transactions from the 24th August. Mind you, I'm already annoyed by having to do this because my bank transactions should be private and are you really implying that I'm lying about being refunded? Wtf.

And then I get another email.


At this point I've had enough of this shit. Like, what the actual fuck. WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK. IT'S FUCKING RM11. WHY WOULD I LIE ABOUT BEING PAID FOR THIS WHEN I'VE DONE LITERALLY EVERYTHING ELSE RIGHT?

I said as much, but with much less capslock involved, and in addition requested shopee provide me with the seller's proof of payment, because fuck this shit. Fuck that I have to do this shit to begin with. Fuck lying sellers and fuck shopee for covering their asses and adding more work on my end because a seller thought it would be easy to scam RM15 off a buyer by deliberately sending a wrong phone screen cover and knowing it would be too much hassle to return it.

At some point, it turned into a major headache that's really so much more trouble than it's worth (probably at that point where I had to proof that I wasn't lying about the cover not fitting).

I'm sharing this because I'm annoyed as fuck and this is quite helpful is making me relax so I can get back to work tomorrow without worrying about this fucking shitpile of bullshit over a phone screen cover that's literally, only RM15.

Update September 5:
I promptly replied asking for proof that the seller banked in the payment, because isn't that so much easier than giving Shopee my entire banking history? And here's where things start making sense.

Despite my explanation in the original email, pulling out old dispute ticket numbers and an explanation of how this is a shipping fee return that should come from the seller, this particular shopee customer service representative has NO CLUE what he's dealing with and has pretty much not been reading my replies and is probably just sending copy-pasted responses. Because he sent this:

I went nuclear and asked if he had any idea what dispute he's dealing with. Then I sent him this link (see, I told you this isn't just a useless rant).

 Update September 7:
Finally, we're on the same page.

Saturday, September 2, 2017

[Lifestyle] Malaysia Subscription Box: Cubecrate August Box Featuring Alys The Bakerland, Elizabeth Arden, Tinkerberry, Je'taime, and Wunderbeath

Price: RM35/RM44 for Sabah/Sarawak
(Given a free in exchange for an honest review by cubecrate.com) 
Verdict: 8/10

Repurchase: NA

Cubecrate is a surprise subscription box that costs RM35 per month and includes a variety of locally sourced products ranging from beauty to decor and handmade items that you wouldn't think to try out on your own. For three months, the subscription is RM90. They also have a wine subscription if you're into fine wine, personalized boxes for a loved one, or an entire team of people, and many other options. ^^


Disclaimer: I received this box in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own, as usual. ^^ You can also check out: 


August's Box
This month's Cubecrate Box is mini themed and has an extra small box with all the small offerings to math it's name. ^^ That does not detract from the value of the box, since the items are pretty good. They've managed to fit a good number of items in the box.
Tinkerberry: Chocolate Lip Balm
Tinkerberry is a Dessert-inspired range of bath and body products. Each product is carefully crafted with the finest organic ingredients and hand-made in small batches. I've tried their chocolate face scrub back in May's box and their chocolate lip balm in July's Box and have been pretty happy with their items, so I'm curious to see another one of their sample packs. 

This is a Spiced Apple Detox that is a deep-cleansing clay masque that can de-congest scalp and reduce dandruff. In addition, it can also aid in preventing hairfall. I've never tried nothing like this for my scalp before so I'm really looking forward to trying this. Instructions says to mix Scalp Detox with a little water/apple cider vinegar and apply onto dry scalp, then massage well and wash off after 30 minutes - 2 hours.

Tinkerberry: Website | Instagram

Wunderbath: Kuih Soaps
The next item is a diamond-shaped soap from Wunderbath. I've tried their soaps before and they're mild and quite nice to use. 

The soap is made from coconut oil, palm oil, castor oil, stearic acid, glycerin, sucrose, sodium hydroxide, decyl glucoside, cocoamide ket, propylne glycol, sorbitol, citric acid, titanium diogixde, fragrance oil, and soap color. 

Wunderbath: Website | Instagram
Granola from Alys The Bakerland
As usual, food caught my eye.The Old Skool Granola from Alys The Bakerland is delicious in milk. I had this for lunch. It's delicious, healthy and deceivingly filling.

I really appreciate that it came with nutrition facts. There's 237 calories in this granola, which is really low. XD There's no added preservatives or flavors and no refined sugar added. I really loved this. ^^

Alys The Bakerland: WebsiteInstagram 
Slimming Tea from Jetaime Flower Tea
Je t'aime Flower tea means 'I love you' in French. It contains a variety of  pure/mixed flower tea in the tea. The tea included here is slimming tea, which I enjoyed with warm water. It gave the tea a reddish tint and the flavor reminded me of Roselle plants. 

There's a sweet scent to the tea that I really enjoyed. ^^

Je t'aime Flower Tea: Facebook ; Instagram 
Mist & Perfume from Elizabeth Arden
My mom had an eye on these the moment she saw them! XD Included are Elizabeth Arden White Tea EDT, a fragrance that is soft enough to not feel overbearing. I accidentally sprayed this on my face out of habit of spraying lots of face mists, so I got a full face of this fragrance. Even then, it was still nice and not too much. ^^

In addition to the perfume, there's a mist and a RM50 voucher for purchases over RM350 in stores.

Elizabeth Arden: Website ; Instagram

Overall Impression
Last but not least is a set of fun, fancy nail stickers that reminds me that I need to get my hands on some transparent nail polish.

The whole box is pretty impressive for the theme. I'm surprised by the variety of items included in the box, from food, to perfume, and hair goodies!

For the unitiated, Cubecrate also carter to custom favors, birthday boxes, wedding favors, and events!


Price: RM35/RM44 for Sabah/Sarawak
(Given a free in exchange for an honest review by cubecrate.com) 
Verdict: 10/10

Repurchase: NA

I also do quick, short reviews on my instagram so if you're up for it, do follow me here too! :D https://www.instagram.com/peachy_amy/

And like my Facebook page? :D https://www.facebook.com/MalaysianBeautyHaul/