Current: On the Go Makeup bag

I was shopping the other day and I thought 'Wow, boy does my purse feel light today!' Turns out, I had left my makeup bag at home. That's when I realized that perhaps I may be carrying too much 'On the Go.' I need to use a smaller makeup bag and reduce the amount of products. So, I down sized to a little clear bag and the rest is history~ Here's what in my makeup bag now~

• Anastasia Beverly Hills Clear Waterproof Top Coat: I might decide to not bring this around anymore since I haven't used it once in the past two weeks~ 
• BareMinerals READY Touch Up Veil in Translucent: I've been using this for a while and I am on the fence with how I feel about this product. 
• blinc mascara in black: a backup I had in my stash for a while that I decide to carry around, it doesn't do much for my short lashes, but it's still better than no mascara and the great thing about it is that it doesn't smudge
• Chanel Rouge Coco Shine in 54 Boy: this is my current fave MLBB lippy! So creamy and moisturizing, I make sure it's in my bag everywhere I go
• Clarins Instant Light Natural Lip Perfector in 01: the current balmish lippy I'm carrying, it smells nice and is moisturizing
• Dior Diorsnow UV Shield BB Creme SPF 50 - PA +++ : If I'm in a hurry and have to leave the house without makeup, at least I have some coverage and spf protection 
• ELF Shine Eraser: although the summer season is over (booooh!) it's still necessary to have around when your T zone gets oily!
• Estee Lauder Double Wear Stay-in-Place Flawless Wear Concealer in 02 Light Medium: I find that whatever concealer I've been using lately, touch up for my undereye is always a necessity, curse those dark eyes circles.
• Revlon tweezers: for emergency, and for cuteness~~ the penguins on these always puts a smile on my face
• Sasatinnie Extra Precise Eyebrow Liner in 02 Gray: I cannot leave my house without my brows, if I do I need to fix it asap, so this is my security...
• Sasatinnie Waterproof Retractable Eye Definer with sharpener in 05 Metallic Green: I could technically leave this at home since I discovered...
• Shu Uemura lasting soft gel pencil in 02 M brown: did I say that I don't have a fave liner? Well, I changed my mind after using this... It smudges a little bit (what eyeliner doesn't on these oily lids???) but it's very minimal, and oh so easy to use! Blog post coming up on this awesome find (maybe when I get the black one ;)
• Stila Convertible Colour in Peony: I like this colour for everyday, the colour you see in the pan is not the same as after you apply to your cheeks.
• plus: little Lancome pouch that houses a hair tie, bandaids, mini lip brush and soft picks

When I first started this post... I didn't expect to write so much :|

Here's my makeup bag in the wild! aka on my desk at work

Oops, I just noticed that my Clarins lippy isn't in the pictures... but I assure you, it does all fit into the bag! :)

Yet another Haul~

Quick post! Some bloggers say, the easiest post is a NOTD, but for a shopaholic like myself, I feel the haul posts are the easiest~~ This is me cheating after neglecting my blog for almost a month XD

I was in Atlanta for an entire week with family, but I still managed to squeeze in some time for shopping :) majority of these stuff were purchase at the outlet, the rest were at Wal-Mart, Costco and well... Sephora and L'Occitane~

I flipped my thumb nail before my trip so I had to stock up on some more bandaids... I got the Johnson & Johnson Water block plus, however, they were not that great. They were not that waterproof, and I had lost one in the shower~ I think I will stay with Nexcare Bright Comfort Fabric :) More realiable and more fun!

Hauled:

Aldo clutch in lilac

Benefit cosmetics's Ultra Plush Lip Gloss in Coralista
Big Bang Theory Kitty keychain

Cetaphil Gentle skin cleanser

CK Fedora, leather cuffs and camera bag for men

Clarins Moisture replenishing lip balm and Natural lip perfector

Cute penguin (we named Rocky) from Khols

Dove Dry Shampoo

ELF powder brush (as backup since the one I have wants to fall apart)

Essie nail polish in Gold as Gold

Justice League boys Tee from Walmart

Kielh's superbly restorative argan dry oil

Lancome eyeshadows (they were on sale for 5$ each! could not resist)

L'Occitane Lippies (Fleur Cherie Handcream and lipbalm, and Lip Shine gloss)

2 x Puma shoes on sale for 60% off

Maybelline Color Tattoo in Tough as Taupe

Neutragena makeup remover cleansing towelettes

Phyto Phytopolleine universal scalp elixir

Too Faced Primed and Poreless

Let me know if you want more info/swatches :) Until next time~

MU Challenge: Day 2

Day 2: Two makeup products you would not recommend - Is it bad that I'm struggling on day 2? I don't always remember the bad~

Cargo eye pencil - for people who have oily lids, this really takes the black and runs....
ELF Mineral face primer - I was not too fond of the smell of this product, although as a primer it did a decent job keeping the foundation on, it had clogged up my pores... boo!!

Love it or Leave it

Haro! 

It's been a while since I did a Love it or Leave it post, so here are some that I'd like to share with you:

Cargo - Voyages makeup bag - This got me into my summer mode. It helped me lighten up my purse since the compact size really reduced the amount of makeup I carry around daily. It is very cheery and I just really enjoy carrying it around with me :) Love it! 

ELF shine eraser - this is an essential for these extremely humid hot days. At an affordable price of $1 for 50 sheets, you can't go wrong! Love it! 

J.R. Watkins Hand and body lotion - It's a great hand moisturizer if I can get over the overwhelming lavender smell... Leave it!

JUJU Cosmetics AQUAMOIST Hyaluronic Acid Moisturizing Cleansing Oil (150 ml) - this just does its job very well, and my face feels clean and oh so soft! My only complaint is the strong tangy scent, otherwise I completely Love it! 

Kiehl's - Ultra Protection Water Based Sunscreen SPF25 - It's suppose to be a light weight water based sunscreen... It feels a bit sticky when you first apply it, however it absorbs pretty quickly. There is a very distinct smell that is almost like white glue. I have to admit that this is a pretty good 'light' weight sunscreen, however, it was not really that great for my oily skin. Oil pools starts forming in the T-zone a few hours after application and it had also caused me to break out. I won't be using this on my face anymore, but will be applying it onto my arms before I leave work... At almost $30 a bottle I'd say, Leave it!

Korres's Lip Butter - I went to Sephora looking for a good lip treatment for dry/chapped lips and the SA recommended this one to me saying that it is very moisturizing and gives off a very nice tint... I love the colour but unfortunately, it did not hydrate my lips... At $16 a pop, I'd have to say Leave it!  I know I said leave it, but after trying it out again when my lip is normal, I'm actually quite enjoying this. The colour is lovely :) and hasn't been drying out my lips, but I still find it lacking in the moisturizing department. I just have to use a gloss over and it's all good :) Love it! [this part is updated Aug 14, 2012]

Klorane Oil-suppressing dry shampoo - Within an hour or two my hair feels greasy again... and I used the bottle maybe 5 times max? This shampoo also doesn't smell that great, double fail? Leave it!

La Roche Posay Thermal Spring Water (50g) It has been quite humid recently and this baby really helped me stay cool. This sample size is also perfect to carry around in my purse (which is getting pretty packed!) Love it! 

OPI Turquoise Shatter - I tried this on when I went on a weekend trip with a girlfriend. I regret not painting it on all my nails! This lovely turquoise nail polish has little shimmers on it and with the combo I had on reminds me very much of the ocean~It also crackled very nicely! Love it! 

Pandora's Bague Entortillée en argent aka twisted silver ring - this is a simple piece of accessory that I've worn a lot recently. It looks nice on any fingers, but I mainly wear it as a thumb ring or on my index finger. It's one on of those rings that adds a nice accent on your hand without going overboard :) This ring can be worn as part of a stackable, but is lovely on its own. Can't say that I'm not into brands, but I thought 35$ was not bad for this ring. Love it!

Foldable water bottle - Yes this last product is out of sequence, but I want it to be memorable. It's going to be a hot summer (yay) so remember to keep hydrated and drink plenty of water. I found this collapsible/ foldable water bottle amazing. It is light, compact and environmentally friendly and when it's empty I can just put it in my bag without it taking up so much room. Love it!

Thanks for reading this, sorry it is so long, I guess it has been a while since I did one :) I shared mainly my love it as I find them more useful, but I also wanted to share my 2 cents on products that I did not enjoy as much~ Hope you have a great day!

Eyeshadow Primer: Lasting power test

I was bored so I decided to play with some e/s primers that I have and find out how they compared to each other. The 4 subjects are: Too Faced Shadow Insurance, MAC pot paint in Painterly, Estee Lauder's touch base for eyes in Canvas Deep and ELF eyelid primer (can't rmb if it's from the regular line or studio line...) Let's take a look at my playful experiment!

Just the primer on my inner arm: Too Faced(it's clear, can't see or describe... my arm colour?), MAC(light pink), EL(gold shimmer), ELF (slightly peachy)

I didn't realize that there were colours for all the primers... except for the Too Faced one which dried to be colourless.

For this experiment I used the MAC e/s in Prussian and swatched it as evenly as possible on my arm with an e/s brush... the GAPS really surprised me as I was not expecting bare skin to pick up so little products... It was also interesting to see how the different colours of the primer affected the look of the e/s...

At 6pm

at 1am

After 7 hours, the colour was gone from the EL primer, followed by the ELF... MAC was able to retain very little colour (although the pink itself was still obvious... Even though the colours faded for all 4 products, the e/s on the Too Faced primer was still there after after I showered (and I scrubbed that arm!)

This concludes my little experiment, thanks for reading!!~ ^_^ have a great weekend~

Feeding my E.L.F. addiction!

Harro!

So here's my recent E.L.F. hauls... I got this first haul when ELF was having their 50% off Studio line... They short shipped me the makeup remover cloths, so I contacted customer service, within 24 hours they had an order in the system and I received the missing part a week later in the mail. So far, I have not had any problems with their customer service... :) 

From this mini order, I've tried the cream liner in Teal Tease and really enjoyed it. Lovely colour, easy to apply and glides on smoothly... I'm glad I also got it in black and punk purple (which I gave to my friend cuz she loves eyeliners and the colour purple.) It was my first exposure to cream liner and I found it even easier to use than my CG liquid liner. <3

Onto my second haul...

ELF had their 7 year anniversary sale in the month of July and for 70 minutes on July 7th, there was a 70% off sale sitewide.... I could not resist... so here's my haul (that I finally received on July 25...)

I bought mostly things that I wanted to try out but haven't got around to or wouldn't want to pay full price for (ie false lashes...) The discount was quite sweet, I got everything above for less $20 USD (plus crazy Canadian shipping of $14.95...) Still... I think I'm ELFed-out for the year... :)

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ahh.... I must note... the blending wedges were awful... I didn't even get to try it out because they reeked so badly... wished I got something else as a filler.. haha...

E.L.F. 60% off site wide!

It's E.L.F.'s 7th birthday and they are having a 60% sitewide sale... Doesn't happen too often so check it out!


Use code BEST on orders of $25 and up...


I'm online shopping again!! (be warned, the website is ubber slow)


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Update: After all my recent splurges I decided against buying the 32 items in my shopping bag... It was fun while I browsed through the [extremely] slow website and added things to my shopping bag... the total after the discount and the shipping was $34.95... ahhh... what a steal...


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Another Update: ELF has another sale today between 1 to 2:10PM for 70% off sitewide... I cannot resist...

Face Powder

Review: Philosophy - the color of grace (shimmering face powder)

First thing you'll notice about this product is that it smells awesome but is not overwhelming. The scent just makes me smile =)

This powder gives a nice glow over my foundation and softens my face. I know that most people only use it to highlight their cheeks/eyes and wouldn't use it all over their face, but I didn't have this problem. I use my E.L.F. kabuki to gently go all over my face and I love the subtle shimmers. With that being said, I have used this as a high lighter and it is a quite nice accent.

Overall Rating **** / 5 (1 = worst 5 = best)  
Price */5 (1 = soooo cheap! 5 = pricey!) I got this on sale for $10USD at Sephora in one of my haul in the states, however I cannot find the regular price for it on their site. So I checked it at http://www.philosophy.com/ and it is $29.50USD there... my rating is based on sale price, however, for the beautiful finish that this product gives me, it will still get a 3 stars at regular price because even though I really like the feminine effect I'm not sure if I want to pay regular price for it.
Packaging Quality ****/5 (1 = worst 5 = best) Beautiful, but I would be worried about getting scratches on the cover of the compact.
Scent? Yep, this product is scented, but the smell is lovely and subtle.
Would you buy this product again? It is very pretty, but it doesn't seem to absorb oil as well as other powder. I might buy it for it's prettiness.

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

2 e.l.f. hauls in a row!!

:D So glad that I got the first haul the week of Halloween because it helped me create my Halloween look for work!

The first and most exiciting thing was that I got the 100 piece eyeshadow palette from E.L.F.!! Yay!! I got to use some of the shades, such as two different shades of light blue to create the ghostly blueish face of the corpse's bride! Plus the indigo blue and a darker shade of blue to get my eyes and cheekbone the right definition. Although I noticed quite a bit of fallout while using the shadows, I find it is still a decent palette to have (especially at such a good price!!)

I tried the clarifying pressed powder in rosy beige and it seems to match my complexion. It did not cause me to breakout which is so good. Though there is little product, so I will be using it sparsingly (cuz i'm just that wierd... haha)

I got two blushes, one in Glow, from the regular line and 1 in Candid Coral from the studio line. I like both colours because they look very natural on my complexion.

I don't normally use lipsticks because 1) I usually eat them before I get to really wear them and 2) my boyfriend wants to kiss me but not eat my lipstick.... Anyhow... I still end up getting one out of curiousity. I got the "Seductive" lipstick from the regular e.l.f. line and really liked the colour. It is close to my natural lip colour but gives it a more 3D look to it, as well as a more healthy colouring...

I just got this on Nov 2nd, so no comments on the products yet. Though I did use the eyelid primer stick and the purple eyeshadow from the makeup set and was quite happy with it :) Another thing.. the eyeliner from the regular line was awesome! it goes on so smoothly :) really really liked it :) Yeps... really went all out last month... must avoid e.l.f. website... I'm tooo addicted!! haha...

mini E.L.F.haul... big disappointment...

I got my 2nd haul from E.L.F. yesterday and I must say... I was quite disappointed...

In this haul, I got the Studio line brush set (11 pieces) , e.l.f. mineral booster (in large), shine eraser and the zit zapper... plus a sample of shimmering facial whip...

Although I haven't used any of the products yet... When I was washing my brushes last night I noticed that the quality were not as expected.. I had originally purchased the 'complexion brush' separately... and I realized that the quality for the new one that I got was different, the new brush was less dense and more hair fall-out... I also noticed that when comparing the eyeshadow brush (from regular line) with the studio line I noticed no increase in quality even though there is an increase in price.. well still.. for less than 3$ per brush what should one expect? Now I've accumulated some brushes that I will never use (ikes!!) I'm sticking to ordering individuals in the future!

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:

E.L.F. Makeup Remover Cleansing Cloths vs M.A.C. Wipe

I recently finished my MAC Wipes and got to try my new E.L.F. Studio Makeup Remover Cleansing Cloths.

The E.L.F. product is in a sleek black packaging with a lid that opens in the middle and unlike the one from MAC, this second layer is resealable and therefore it acts as extra protection to help prevent the cloth from drying too quickly (the last few sheets from M.A.C. were kind of dry)

I was not too sure what to expect since it was only $3 for the pack, to my surprise, I really liked it! I found that they were both good at removing makeup off my face at the end of the day, but ELF is more gentle on the skin and smells really nice... kind of like Aloe Vera (it's one of the ingredient...) It is also very refreshing and not at all sticky. The E.L.F cleansing cloth is a lot less oily than the M.A.C. one and unlike the one from MAC, it did not sting / irritate my skin when I was removing my makeup with it.

With such great quality at 15 cents a sheet compared to 40 cents a sheet at M.A.C. I would definitely recommend trying. It's painless to save!! ^_^