This month's addiction: BB Cream - Skin79 review

**Disclaimer - I purchased these items with my own money, they were not promotional gifts. Product links below are affiliate links.

Ok, I know BB creams are old news in Asia where they have been favorites for years now, but we don't see many of them here in the States. I think Clinique just came out with one, and Boots No7 has a "beauty balm" which isn't quite the same thing as its Asian cousin.

After receiving a sample with an eBay item I ordered, I am *completely hooked* on this Skin79 Super+ Beblesh Balm:

It's from Korea and totally reasonably priced on Amazon.com: 

At first when you pump out some of the product it looks kind of greyish, but once you rub it into your skin, it seems to adapt to your skin tone. I would recommend this for lighter skin tones only. I'm not sure if they make a product for darker skin, but I suspect this product would look ashy or chalky. Did I mention it comes in a pump? I *love* that. I hate dipping my fingers into jars or bottles to get the product out. Pumps are just so much more sanitary, in my opinion.

What else I adore about this product is the texture and the coverage. It's not quite foundation, but it's more than a tinted moisturizer, and it wears all day without getting shiny or cakey. Add to that an SPF of 25 and it's now my everyday go-to product for my face. I admit, since my skin is so dry, I do apply moisturizer before using the balm, but if you had normal, oily or combination skin, you could skip that step. 

The balm has ingredients to control oil on your face and does a great job at doing so. It also says it has whitening properties  -"whitening" being the equivalent of "brightening" here in the states since we are so obsessed with tanning - and anti-aging properties. I haven't been using it long enough to see any results for either of those claims, and quite frankly I'm not sure how much whiter my skin can get! (I'm pretty darn pale: NW15)

I also got a sample set of 4 different creams from the same maker: 

One of them was a duplicate of the larger size I already had, but the other three were different. The three new ones were:

• Diamond Collection Prestige Beblesh Balm
• Diamond Collection Pearl Luminous Beblesh Balm
• VIP Gold Collection Super Beblesh Balm

I honestly couldn't tell any difference between the Diamond Prestige and the VIP Gold Super balms, but the Pearl one definitely was different. It was very shimmery, almost bordering on glittery. I can't see using it all over your whole face (except maybe as a primer underneath foundation?), but it works great as a highlighter on your cheekbones, browbones and inner corner of your eyes if you are going for a "no-makeup" look.

It also bears mentioning that the packaging has some really grade-A Engrish on the back:

• "it make your skin light, soft and dry all day without that skin gooey"
• "use it proper quantity on the area of your face like patting at the last step of skin care"
• "protect your skin exposed from the sun more thoroughly"
• "wrinkles improvement"

*giggle* I just love that :)

Any questions, please feel free to ask in the comments below and thanks for reading!

UPDATE: How funny, I just noticed that one of my fave YouTube gurus posted a review on "western BB creams" yesterday. You can see it here.