Week 2: Eyes painted

The first week I took up this challenge I did a lippies post, and for week 2 I chose shadows. As shown in my makeup storage and collection post (here), I have a lot of eyeshadow palettes, so I will be doing more posts in the following weeks of eyeshadows. Here are the eyeshadow palettes I've used in the past week. 

For reasons I cannot really explain, this picture makes me very happy :) I love eyeshadows

Monday: Smashbox Eye Shadow Trio (Vanilla, Champagne, Brazilian Bronze.)

• This was part of a Sephora VIB 500-points perk a while back. I love carrying this in my makeup bag until the darkest brown (Brazilian Bronze) popped out of the pan... So sad~~ Anyways, this is a lovely trio with great pigmentation, easy to apply and the colours were perfectly put together, definitely a fave for this eyeshadow addict. The fact that it was free, is pure awesome :)

Tuesday: Maybelline Expert Wear Eyeshadow in Designer Chocolates

• This is my favourite drugstore palette/quad ever! I would choose this over some of my high-end palettes. The cranberry/purple/red shade is one of my favourite colour. I bring this palette to work on days I'm too lazy to put makeup at home and eventually work these colours onto my lids over the day. Quick and simple, portable and beautiful! This palette is proof that you don't have to spend a fortune for great colour payoff and lovely quality. Picked this up at the L'Oreal warehouse sale a while back, best $3 spent :)

at night: Lancome Color Design eye palette (Filigree, Tropique Glow, Island Kiss, Simmering and Lézard)

• I changed my look for our Tuesday meet, kept it simple and neutral~~ Started the week off lazy with pretty fool proof colours :) This shadow palette reminds me of the Naked 1 palette, but with some pinks. Lovely palette I got from a Lancome gift set that was on sale at DFCC. Lovely steal :)

Wednesday: Clinique Colour Surge Eye Shadow (Pink lollipop, Sugarplum duo, Crystal berry and Come Heather trio)

• This eyeshadow palette started my collection. This palette is perfect for more playful and awake look. I love the purples in this palette (especially now that I'm back in my purple phase.)

Thursday: Smashbox - Heartbreaker Eyeshadow palette in Hot Date

• Of all the palettes I used this week, this has to be my least favourite palette. The shadows are too soft and therefore hard to apply evenly, another fault was the amount of fallouts, it was particularly disappointing considering how much I enjoyed my free Smashbox trio~ Another reason this was kind of a derp buy for me is because the teal colour was not very flattering on me if it decides to show up at all~ I couldn't wait to go home to take these shadows off~

Friday: Urban Decay Naked 1 palette - (Virgin, Naked, Buck, Darkhorse and Half Baked)

• I LOVE THIS PALETTE. I lusted it from the first day I set eyes on it, and it is still one of my most reached for palettes. My only issue with this is that on a weekend trip to my in laws, this is just too big a palette to carry around (I'm also paranoid that I might break one of the shadows if I move it around too much.) In any case, I had a lot of time Friday morning so I played with a few of my favourite shadows from this palette and created another daytime smokey look~ Darkhorse is such a gorgeous dark brown~~ *drools* I will stop here because I'm sure most people have heard enough about this specific palette. :)

Sorry that this post was a little late on being posted, the swatching actually took a long time to do and then the cropping and uploading... I have a new level of appreciation for bloggers who consistently do so many swatches on their blogs! Very time consuming!

Anyways, I was thinking that I will do blushes for week 3, what do you think?? Yay or nay??? It better be yay! JK :)

Topbox January 2013

This month's topbox was Clinique themed. I was quite surprised at how much I liked this month's box. I guess I can't really unsubscribe now~ after all, my affair with makeup did start with Clinique, it can't possibly end here... :) In any case, onto the products!

• Clinique Clarifying Lotion in 3 for Combination Oily skin
• Rinse Off Eye Makeup Solvent
• Colour Surge Eye Shadow Duo in Strawberry Fudge
• Repairwear Laser Focus Wrinkle & UV Damage Corrector

I thought this was a quite nice box. I was very happy to receive a product specific for my skintone, it gave it a more personal touch.

I guess I am sticking with Topbox for another month :) What do you think about this month's box?

Estee Lauder and MAC warehouse sale September 2012

I attended a friend's b-day dinner on Saturday and made a new friend who happened to have extra tickets to the MAC warehouse sale for Sunday... and so we went the next morning~ ^_^  

The selections has decreased since I first attended this sale... However, there were still some nice stuff, ie MAC fluidline liner and Clinique gift sets~ Here's what I hauled from this Sunday~

Bobbi Brown creamy concealer and sheer finish loose powder - $12 (warm beige, pale yellow)

Clinique Color Surge eye shadow quad - $15 (01 black honey)

Clinique lash doubling mascara - $12

Clinique Moisture Surge Set - $25 (includes Superblam moisturizing gloss and All about eyes serum de-puffing eye massage and makeup bag)

Clinique take the day off makeup remover - $4

Estée Lauder Pure Color eyeshadow - $12 ( PC eye 23 Berry Burst )

MAC Cremesheen lipstick - freebie (Shy Girl)

MAC eyeshadow - $15 (Fresh Ice)

MAC eyeshadows - $12 ( Yogurt, Bisque)

MAC fluidline eye-liner gel - $12 (Blacktrack)

Smooth-365 Intensive Clarity + Smoothing Peptide Serum $25 for 2

Charity Bag - $5 MAC Body and Face lotion (did not purchase)

Did you go this past weekend? :)

Mini Sephora Haul... just so I can get the VIB gift~

Pathetic? I know... and the sad part is, the Benefit Cosmetics The POREfessional that I was looking forward to was substituted with Sephora's Anti-Shine Foundation Primer :|

Here is my impulse purchase:

I purchased two products, Laura Mercier's Tinted moisturizer in Nude and a Clinique brush-on cream liner in Black Honey. The rest were samples... VIB gift and 100-point-perk Algenist cream

Being a VIB (or simply put makeup shopaholic) has its perk, mainly detrimental to your wallet tho... for this VIB gift I needed to spend $35 at Sephora. I got 8 'deluxe' sample size products plus this shiny makeup bag~ Surprisingly, it does not make the plastic noise I thought it might :)

List of samples:

• Stella McCartney - Stella
• Smashbox - Oil-free primer
• Sephora Collection Instant Moisturizer
• Sephora Anti-Shine Foundation Primer
• Murad Intensive-C Radiance Peel
• L'Occitane Shea Hand Cream
• Algenist Overnight Restorative Cream
• Lancome Hypnose Drama Mascara

I didn't swatch the TM *** , but I did try out the cream liner. I was pleasantly surprised by it's lasting power! I have oily lids so I figured it would just be a hot mess after 30 minutes... It lasted all day! Black honey is a warm brown with small glitter in them. This brown is lovely on the eyes, and makes the eye look bigger without the harshness of black.

with flash

no flash

It did surprisingly well when I tried smudging it... and it only budged when I rubbed it really hard...

*** I had to return the Laura Mercier Tinted Moisturizer because my face started breaking out every time I used it. I think I should try to stick to oil-free products for the most part... I guess I still have oily skin despite of my dry patches~

Purple lips with MUFE 12 Flash color case

I got the MUFE 12 Flash Color Case after seeing it on one of Michelle Phan's YT video and decided that I need it... yet... almost 2 months went by and I didn't have the heart to use it, until now!

Let me start by explaining why I finally decided to use it... I'm going to FanExpo this year and I plan to dress up as Psylocke from the X-men... Last week I dyed my hair purple... This week I need to find the right costume(which I'm doing today), the right makeup (trying that throughout the week) and... the right blade... (doubtful of finding.) It was a last minute decision to dress up as Psylocke, since I previously wanted to do Alice from the game Alice: Madness Returns.

Natural look with purple + pink

After seeing how gorgeous Ronnie wore her eyeshadow I decided to try out my MAC quad in "Girlish Romp" this weekend, however I only used the 'mid-tone pink' from the quad and colours combined from my Clinique and UB eyeshadow palettes... Here's the simple pinkish purple day look I came up with.

Day look: Purple + pink

Products used:

Urban Decay - Primer + 'Gun metal' (outter corner of the eye) + 'Darkhorse' (to line bottom of the eye)
MAC - Mid-tone pink (all over lid)
Clinique - 'cutie pink shade from pink lollipop' (on the inner corner) + 'deep purple shade from come Heather trio' (on crease)
Blinc - Kiss Me mascara

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I also repeated the look, however modified for the night... here's some pictures :)

Simple eyes for Tuesday Night

I've never done this, but I wanted to post a picture of my eye makeup for my Tuesday meet this week for the simple reason that, I own the MAC Mineralize Eye Shadow Quad in "Assemblage" for over a year and have never used it, so I really want to show you how it looked! :) This particular quad consisted of the following colour; silver white, deep gray, yellow gold and black with silver glitter. I also have the quad in "Girlish Romp" which I haven't used yet but will soon... ^_^


Products used


E.L.F. Eyelid primer - from regular line
MAC Mineralize Eye Shadow Quad in "Assemblage"
Cover Girl LineExact Liquid Eyeliner in "Smoke"
Clinique - High impact curling mascara

Benefit Cosmetics - Erase Paste review

Benefit Cosmetics - Erase Paste in Medium

I really like this product, it not only provide perfect coverage for my under eye circles, but it also brightens the eye as well. This is especially perfect because I wear my glasses 70% of the time so this saves me the extra step of having to apply a highlighter under my eyes.

There are a few things I like about the product over others I have used(ie Smashbox, E.L.F. or Clinique), such as its creamy texture (the area under my eyes doesn't look cakey after application), it is very buildable (so a little bit more product means more coverage) and medium happen to be the perfect shade for me :)

Although the price is a little steep, like most people I found that only very little product is needed to do the job. It is definately worth the price :)

Overall Rating **** / 5 (1 = worst 5 = best)  
Price *****/5 (1 = soooo cheap! 5 = pricey!) 
Packaging Quality ***/5 (1 = worst 5 = best) 
Scent? Nopes
Would you buy this product again? Yes! Maybe. I changed my answer because mascara is pretty important to me and if I have to debate between the two, this concealer might lose...

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Update: I found one down side to this product, though I blame the new mascara (Too Faced - Lash Injection) I am trying out. When I use the Erase Paste, even after I set it in with powder, I get dark panda eyes after an hour of applying the mascara... however with the same mascara but a different concealer (Skinfood -Peach Sake Perfect Concealer) I don't get panda eyes... ugh... I have to choose between concealing the dark circles or having longer fuller lashes... :( Go back to Clinique for the mascara????

Haul: Eyeshadow palettes

I've been looking everywhere for the Urban Decay Naked palette with NO luck =(

So instead, this past weekend I decided to compensate by splurging a bit on different palettes I found in Sephora, the Bare Escentuals Outlet and Aerie (yes they sell make up too...)

I got the Urban Decay - Sustainable Shadow Box and the Too Faced - Natural Eyes Neutral Eye Shadow Collection from Sephora.

In Bare Escentuals I got 2 IQUAD Eye Shadow Compact one in shades of green and the other in shades of pink

@ American Eagle I got a set of eyeshadows for less that 5$!!! :D value deal and the colors were very pretty!~ I especially liked the Taupe and the Champagne colour on the palette and got complimented on it already :D :D :D

Also at The Cosmetic Company I got the Clinique - Redness Solutions Instant Relief Mineral Powder as well as the Clinique - Concealing pen in 02. I suspect that the mineral powder might be causing me to break out... but it could just be the stressful nature of the month (me getting a year older and all... haha) Will continue using it after the stress is done :)

Mid August Makeup Haul

Here's a late post for some things that happened mid August. Firstly... I got my first E.L.F. haul and also I did a small haul while I was in the States!!! :)

I've done my first 'haul' blog on my main page and here is a link for it...

Mini E.L.F. Haul

Here are the things that I got from my stop at Fashion Outlet Mall and Wal-Mart in the States: