Guess what I found in Ginza the other day? A Holika Holika counter *gasp*….I tweaked the photo in Instagram to capture the “witchy” theme of this Korean brand.

I had a quick lunch stop at shopping mall Chanti and spotted the counter at Rosemary, a beauty store.

By the way, I love discovering stand alone beauty shops that are not drugstores and not part of the department store beauty section machine because of the unique brands they bring in from overseas. They also sell selected Japanese drugstore brands which is convenient if you have a number of things you want to pick up at the same time. The prices look similar to me, too, and each shop has a point card or stamp system to get discounts on future buys.

Other such shops I frequent are MS Style at Omotesando station and Cosme Kitchen at Daikanyama station. Please let me know if there are others that are similar to what I just described!

I spent a long time lingering over the Holika Holika counter and they also had two full shelves of the Holika Holika skincare range.

To be honest, I was very skeptical when I first set eyes on this Korean brand in blogs and Youtube. The Aqua Petit Jelly BB Cream looked so weird and clunky that I dismissed it as cheap and nasty. And those egg soaps…bizarro….

But the raves kept going on in the blogosphere plus I saw a dedicated boutique in Singapore with a huge poster of CN Blue, the boy band that is the face of this cosmetics brand for girls – what?! So I had to check it out for myself.

I was tempted to get their cream shadows and blush as I love the sheen and smooth application but since I had such a big haul recently, I decided to get something limited edition instead and maybe get the others later on. The Magic Pole mascara is intriguing as well…(Dottilicious has a video tutorial/review here).

Introducing the Hello Holika Breeze Kitten compact….It’s flashy, isn’t it?

The feel of the compact is a little cheap and plasticky to put it bluntly but I still find the whole witch theme kind of cute and I’m a die hard Harry Potter fan, so…

I’m more used to sleek compacts like Lunasol and Jill Stuart but it’s not fair at all to compare Holika Holika to these brands. In fact, the price point falls more into the category of Esprique, Coffret D’Or and Maquillage — and their compacts are light and plastic as well but the designs are more mature of course.

Awww……look at this amazing palette with the cat and swirl of colours.

It’s a sheer blush so I had to really try hard to get some colour to show up on camera. In person, you actually don’t need that much on your cheeks and I love the gentle coral tone it gives. I might give up on using my Majolica Majorca Apricot Macaroon because it’s way too orange for me on hindsight. Another plus point is the compact may look like a glitter bomb but it really doesn’t show up on your skin so the shiny stuff is probably brightening than sparkly.

Unfortunately, there was quite a bit of fallout when I swatched this product. I was a wee bit rough but it shouldn’t be the case if it were more buttery soft. It doesn’t bother me too much but it definitely feels like a non-luxury cosmetic item. It’s fun to have and all but at the price tag of 3,100JPY (SGD46; USD38), it’s probably more worth it to get it in Korea.

I know this is targeted at very young girls but there’s something about Korean brands (and Japanese) that make me forget my age when I explore them. But at the same time, I’m very drawn to Chanel, Estee Lauder, Clarins, Dior, too…Do you feel that way, too?

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