Brush Egg Dupe For $2: Daiso Egg Laundry Board

You might have heard of the Brush Egg, which is "a texturized, high-grade silicone finger glove" to "help with the deep cleaning process of makeup brushes" (quotes taken from US and Canada Brush Egg site). It's been getting some traction, particularly on Instagram. It's US$8 on their website, which I guess makes it fairly affordable. But, I've managed to find an even cheaper dupe - this little baby was found at Daiso for just SGD$2!

A Brush Egg dupe for just $2 at Daiso: The Egg Laundry Board!

Before you think, "No way, a Brush Egg dupe for just $2? Surely they can't be that dupe-y!", let me show you a photo of the original Brush Egg (in the photo below along with some makeup brushes and other purple coloured props). They really are identical!

Definitely looks like the actual Brush Egg (Source)

Believe me yet? Anyway this humble Brush Egg dupe is actually an Egg Laundry Board that Daiso sells. Basically it's a small, handheld laundry board that you can use to remove a spot from an article of clothing, without having to throw it into the wash. So say if you get a food stain onto your blouse, you could, instead of putting the blouse into the washing machine, just use the Egg Laundry Board and some detergent, and manually wash out the stain in your sink. Pretty nifty, huh?


The Brush Egg Dupe/Egg Laundry Board now does double duty as a mini-laundry board and a brush cleaning tool
For those who are just looking for a dupe of the Brush Egg - now you know the dupe, and now you know where to get it! For those interested to know how I use this brush and what I think the best way to use it is, I thought I'd do a more in-depth review and a quick demo to show you how this little Brush Egg dupe works!

Sigma Spa Brush Cleaning Glove Dupe: Daiso Silicone Mat/Pot Holder

Sigma's Spa Brush Cleaning Glove has been making its rounds in the blogosphere/beauty-guru-sphere, and naturally, being the avid beauty fan I am, I had to check it out. I though the concept was a good one, but I had my doubts over whether a simple silicone glove was worth US$35 or not. Then, I realized - all it really brought to the table was just a textured silicone surface to more effectively dislodge makeup and dirt from the brushes during use. And certainly, this was something dupe-able, right?

A cheap alternative to the Sigma Spa Brush Cleaning Glove: A $2 silicone mat from Daiso

I had also seen other bloggers suggesting various dupes for the Sigma Brush Cleaning Glove - all the way from simple silicone textured place mats, pot holders, laundry scrubbers, and even silicone pet care gloves for pet hair! Of course, this prompted me to make a trip to my nearest Daiso, where I came across this


A cheap alternative to the Sigma Spa Brush Cleaning Glove: US$35 vs SGD$2, worth a shot!
I'm sure you're wondering, how does it perform? Does it really work? So I gave it a go, and I think it does work!

Valentine's Day Nails: Purple Holo Hearts!

February would not be complete without a Valentine's Day manicure - I mean, without fail, V-day is one of the biggest highlights of the month - not just for us as individuals, but also, I'm sure, for the companies and retailers that bastardize the occasion every year in order to hawk their cheesy, red-and-pink-hearts-and-roses-bedecked wares, haha. Well, you know how I feel about crass commercialism, but a little (or a lot of) money-making never stopped us from enjoying the season!

This year, my Valentine's Day nails are purple! and holo! and they have hearts on them! and the hearts are holo too! So, what's not to like? For the base polish, I used Color Club Fashion Addict, which is a gorgeous lilac polish with a holographic finish. Unfortunately, the holographic effect in this isn't that strong (in a super old KOTD I've tried and failed to capture this lilac holographic finish). I then added on these cheap purple holographic hearts I got from Daiso. And then I was set!


For this look, I just added the hearts in a more or less random fashion. As long as they looked good, I didn't really bother where they landed. Each nail had three, except for my tiny last nail which only had two. Also, as you can see from the photos, I had trouble capturing the holo-ness of both the hearts and the polish in my photos. Bah, humbug!


So that's it - this one is really easy to do, and not even all that much work! And I think it looks fab in real life - purple holo hearts on purple holo polish is like, totally hawt! What are you guys doing for V-Day?

P.S. Want to see my older Valentine's Day nail art from past years? I get inspired in all kinds of ways, so I have a Valentine's Day nail look with no pink at all, an obnoxiously over-flowered V-Day mani, a V-Day mani that was hot pink and black, and an annoying-looking red-and-pink nail look, so you guys know this year's is already one of the "better" ones. I even have an Anti-Valentine's Day manicure!

Haul: Daiso Nail Art Glitter Set Purple: Holo Hearts!

The other day I went to Daiso for a little bit of budget rummaging. If you follow me on Twitter, you would have seen me laughing at their tiny nail polish holders, which are obviously not meant for nail polish-holics like me! Anyway, I did find something I ended up getting at Daiso - a set of nail art glitters!

I believe this is called the Glitter Set Purple (No 75). They also had them in other colours, I saw blue and yellow. But I picked the purple, because you know I have a thing for purple, right? It's my absolute favourite colour! The set comes with some diagrams and instructions. Basically the 3 jars in the set are stackable. You have to remove the lids, and screw the bases of one jar onto the top of the other jar.



There are 3 pots of glitter. One is your averge fuschia glitter powder. Not bad. The next is a bunch of small light lilac stars. Also not too bad. Both are things i like and will use. But the thing I really bought this set for was the hearts. They're like, purple holographic hearts!



You know I love me some holo bling, so I'm going to just give you another close up shot of the purple hearts. When seen from different angles, they have this holographic sheen which is absolutely awesome! I love it, and I definitely can't wait to use it. This was also the key reason why I picked purple over the other sets - for some reason, only the purple set had holographic hearts. The hearts in the other coloured sets were just plain plastic hearts.



I paid a whopping S$2 for this set, and I'm happy. Yay for cheap goodies! Anyway, I don't know if your Daiso carries this, but if you do see it, remember to get it! Holo hearts aren't all that easy to come by cheap!

Kawaii Budget Beauty: Daiso Shiny Powder in Brown

Isn't this cute? It's so round and bulbous and just generally kawaii. It's Daiso's Shiny Powder in Brown, and it was a little cheapie I came across while trawling through Daiso.



For the uninitiated, Daiso is the Asian equivalent of Poundland or the Dollar Store. It originated in Japan, but its stores can be found elsewhere throughout Asia. Much like Poundland or the Dollar Store, it sells a mishmash of random products - everything from stationary to household items - but for a beauty addict like me, it also carries a line of super-cheap makeup and nail polish. And when I say super-cheap, I mean it - the items are just a couple of dollars. And I'm talking about Singapore dollars here, not pounds or USD. Awesome!

The Daiso Shiny Powder is a loose powder that's billed as being multipurpose, but in this colour, Brown, it's really more of a loose eyeshadow. The packaging is cute - there is a round twist-off cap, and under that there's another flip-top lid. Its sturdy and powder doesn't fall out of the packaging (unlike the Superdrug MUA line - the powder leaks like nobody's business).



So cheap it is, and kawaii it is. But is the Daiso Shiny Powder really worth it? This is the part where I have to confess - not really, but I wouldn't complain for the price. And, I've seen makeup of similar quality go for higher prices.

Here's a swatch of the Shiny Powder in Brown.



The brown colour itself is a pretty nice colour - it's a light fawn brown that leans warm, with a medium amount of shimmer. But while I like the colour, I have to say pigmentation wasn't that great. And I thought it would improve if I foiled the colour, but for some reason there wasn't that much of a difference. But then again, in my laziness, I simply foiled the eyeshadow with water, which might not have been sufficient for foiling. Still, you'd think that for purposes of a swatch, even water would have helped more.

Here's a shot of the Brown Shiny Powder on my eye:



As evidenced by the swatches, pigmentation is rather light. To be fair, it's not so sheer that it doesn't show up, because you can definitely see the colour on my eyes. But it's a very light shade. On my eye, it also pulls a little bronze, although not in a bad way. It's a nice shade, really. Pity about the pigmentation.

Here's a shot with my eyes closed:



So, do you need this? You probably don't, but if you happen to be in Asia and are looking for cheap makeup, this is definitely something worth checking out. And as I've mentioned before, makeup lousier than this has gone for higher prices, so it's not like it's that awful. I personally wouldn't complain given the price, but I'm just pointing out that if you're willing to spend, there is better out there. But if nothing else, there's always the adorable, kawaii packaging to induce your buying tendencies.