All The Things I Can't Live Without...

It's technically not a haul, since I didn't buy the items but it feels like a haul cos I love playing with new stuff! A few weeks back, The Sample Store put up some retail size Sasatinnie Super Dolly Mascara for grabs and I immediately redeemed it along with a few other samples.

Did I ever mention that having monolids gives me an unhealthy obsession with eyeliners and mascaras?

Anyway, the items I redeemed were the Quick Touch 1 Minute Hair Dye (for my dad to try), the Sasatinnie mascara, La Roche Posay's SPF 50 Sunblock and Bio-Essence's Deep Nourishing Toner.

Such cute packaging~

After reading through the description on the back of the packaging, I immediately ripped out the mascara and tried it!

The applicator is actually a plastic comb (something like the Majolica one) that was suppose to be revolutionary in having teeth all 360 degrees around it. Not sure if you can see it in the pic above. For me, I find that more gimmicky than useful; I'll explain that in a while.

Here are on-eye swatches:

It's actually the mascara I used in my previous LOTD, the one with the orange lip. Looks ridonk-culously good here but I don't really like it.

Here's a few reasons after trying it for a few times:

1) The comb with 360 degrees of teeth does nothing at all. I don't actually use the other teethed sides, just the one with the main grooves.

2) The formula is super wet. Like takes-10 minutes-to-dry, smudge-everywhere kind of wet. ): It's so bad that I need a mascara guard every time I use it, or it's bye bye to my eye makeup.

3) I find it clumps for me, even if many other reviews claim it doesn't clump. Worse still, because it's such a wet formula, you can't even comb and separate out the clumps.

4) Don't bother using it for the lower lashes, it's too wet for that. It just smudges everywhere.

5) When it finally dries, it's kinda...rubbery?? LOL!

In a nutshell, unless it's the last mascara left in my arsenal, I won't reach for it again. It's just too messy to use.

As for the other samples, I haven't tried them yet. Except for the Bio-essence toner, which I find not bad. :) But not all that fantastic either. Now that school has started and I'll be rushing about once again, I guess the frequency of my posts will decrease. But still, thanks for reading this mini review on the Sasatinnie mascara!

Ha ha, my bank account is dwindling (hi-5, Michelle!) and yet, I still can't resist buying stuff so I've been sneaking a few small new items here and there into my stash. Just a round up of what I've gotten~

Mascara and eyeliners, who can resist~~~

The Urban Decay eyeliners, Mildew and Covet, are the travel sized ones and I got them from sg_beauty, for a super reasonable price of S$5.00 each. Also, I bought the Smashbox Lash DNA mascara off Jennifer (lillgoddess) and she was kind enough to give me a small discount for it! So happy, cos I don't know if you remember, I was raving about this mascara when I was working in Sephora. And it's currently sold out in the GWC branch (I wanted to get it with my staff's discount), so imagine how happy I was able to get this!

Here's how its very unique brush looks like:

From these 2 pics, you can probably tell the mascara has got a big-ass brush! That'll be one of the few cons of this mascara - you'll have to be careful/get use to using such a big brush as it may accidently smear mascara onto your eyelid.

It's kinda rectangular in shape, not like the conventional narrow-end, fat base kind of brushes - which means that getting to the lashes at the inner corners may be difficult. However the few times I've used in Sephora, it wasn't so at all. In fact, I found it reached my inner corner lashes and coated them more effectively than those tapered wands.

Also in the pic above, you can see its double-helix shape, where the bristles are arranged - long, short, long, short - in the manner of a spiral staircase. There's a special way to using this unique mascara but unfortunately, I'm not starting on this one yet - have to finish up my Covergirl Lash Blast first! Will do a review when I use this in the near future.

And also, this was something I had ordered 2 weeks back and it finally came yesterday! So exciting!

Bella V2 Pro Hair Iron, specially imported from Korea! I've tried it this morning and it's not bad at all~ Next post will be on the details and results of this hair iron! ^__^

Ohh yah, I almost forgot. Just wanna show you guys the goodies I got from my boss before I left Sephora.

I've never seen the Too Faced concealer sold instore before, so I'm guessing it's either an older, discontinued product or it's from the Ion store...? I'm not sure, but I have not used it yet cos I've still got other concealers opened. The Bliss Triple Oxygen mask, on the other hand, I've tried and it's GOOD! :D

Ha ha, these 2 Urban Decay products! There's a small story behind these - we were having a mini game between us colleagues and our supervisor, as to who can sell the most UD products at one go, and the target was S$500 in 1 receipt. Which is crazy really, cos 1 UD product is about S$30+, so S$500 would mean about 15 items? How to sell so many UD items at one go to one customer?! But we all tried our best and in the end, I won the game by selling 5 items for S$210+. So I got these 2 stuff for my reward, lol! I know it's super cheapo, but it's something! I guess I was prouder of my sales persuasion skills than anything else~

So yeah, thanks for reading and look forward to the hair iron review up next!

Well, I was hoping to haul more from Malaysia but after getting a few things here and there, it became quite a big haul afterall, lol! Just here to share with you some stuff I bought and the huge savings I made. :)

First up, 5 Silkygirl Funky Eyelights Pencil Liners!

Lol, I know I went a bit overboard buying so many at one go, but I got these at RM$11.88 (they were having their mid year sale too) which converts to about S$5.20 each! So cheap, you can't even get them at this price in John Little. As you can see, I got the blues, a purple, a dark green and a silver. The others didn't really appeal to me.

Next, mascaras!

I got the Silkygirl Double Intense as a backup, come on, it was selling for S$9.10 after conversion. And also the In2It Lengthening mascara (S$7.40 after conversion) to try out, since I was impressed with the fibres when I saw the tester. So far I've only tried it once to see it's effect, not much I can say yet about it - have to try some more. I was so tempted to get the Rimmel Glam Eyes cos they were selling it at such a low price... but gah, self-control.

On the 1st day when I was in Malacca, I got to go to a Daiso and I picked these up for RM$5 a pop.

I love the small smudge brush to bits. I've been using my older one for 1/2 a year and it's really good for putting eyeshadow on my lower lash line, or at the inner corners and tear duct. Currently, I'm using it to fill in my eyebrows but I've been searching frantically at every Daiso in SG for another one for my tear duct and lower lash line, and no luck so far. Until I found the last piece in Malacca's Daiso and I grabbed it without hesitation! Lol, and so goes the dramatic story behind my small $2 smudge brush. The green eyeshadow palette was bought on a wimp, and I haven't had the time to even open and swatch it yet!

And not forgetting my other love, nail varnishes~ I popped into Etude House - they were having a up-to-50%-off sale - and got these.

2 Darling-something-I-can't-remember-the-corny-name polishes at RM$9.52 after discount = S$ 4.14 each, and 1 petite-I-really-can't-remember-the-name polish at RM$ 4.72 = S$2.05. I just know I got 2 really nice big bottles and 1 beautiful small green bottle of polish at dirt cheap prices, and the colour payoff is extremely gorgeous.

Look at the holographic-ness of the silver glittery polish!

You'll see them soon enough, cos I'll be featuring some NOTDs using them. The colours are too beautiful, I'm sorely tempted to use them!

And of course I had to get an ass-load full of hair products. But it's totally justifiable, cos I finally found TRESemme!

Ha ha, enough shampoo and conditioner to wash my hair with for a lifetime and a half! And the TRESemme volume and lift mousse really works. I'm in awe, cos virtually nothing works on my limpy hair. Either that or I hate the texture/itchyness/smell/price but this really works and I've got nothing to complain about. This whole lot costed around RM$80 (S$35) which is really cheap, since I haven't found TRESemme in SG yet and the only way is to import them in (expensive shipping).

Last but not least, I've gotten stuff for my face and my hair... how can I forget about my body??? Ha ha, I didn't!

Lovely long white skirt for RM$30 (S$13) - it looks really boho with a black tank top. I'm planning to wear it out as a tube dress too!

Just a few more things... 2 items from sg_beauty!

Heh, 1 more Silkygirl Funky Eyelight pencil (got it for S$3) and the infamous Covergirl Lash Blast for S$9. Lol, I think I have to go on a mascara and eyeliner ban but there's so many more out there to try! I'm trying to reassure myself that I'm actually earning my keep now... but I should really save the money... ahh heck! STAGE sale, here I come! :D

Hey guys, I'm back!!!

Well, sorta... cos I've been so busy lately. I've actually been back for about 6 days already, but immediately after arriving back from Malaysia, I had to work for 5 days straight. That's like... 50 hrs at work, I'm not kidding when I say it's friggin' tiring. Whatsmore, I was suffering from a slight flu cos the weather in Cameron was simply too cold!

Although I didn't spend a lot of time in shopable places (there's only that many strawberries and packets of tea you can buy in Cameron), I got a few exciting stuff, which I will share with you some time soon...hopefully, when I have the time to snap pics of them. Maybe tomorrow, when I finally have my off day!

Anyway, just wanna post up a look I wore last last week, before I went on my leave.

This was during the week, when we still had our red-lips-winged-eyeliner theme. On the last day of that week, all of us promptly wiped the red lipstick away right after the shop closed. LOL, cannot stand looking at the 'orh biang' red lips anymore, all of us!

But the main focus here is actually my eyelashes - cos I was using MUFE's volumizing mascara and it was hella' good!!!

Case in point:

It's the waterproof one I think, I can't really remember cos it was a while back, but the mascara is really good! At the first coat/swipe, you can really see your lashes thickening and it also lengthened and curled my lashes to some extent. But the volumizing power is really awesome! No clumping even after 3 coats. Ha ha, a few of my buddies at work and I were marveling and happily layering on the mascara during those few days!

Too bad MUFE cosmetics are so expensive, cos they really are good products. Should really get them when the MUFE makeup artist is willing to give me staff discount!

And here's a pouty picture featuring the amazing MUFE plumping lip gloss!

Oh gawd, I love that stuff. I need that stuff! But it's like S$45 a small, itty bitty tube... Gahh! Should use more of it while I'm slaving in Sephora.

Anyway, thanks guys for all the lovely comments, and so sorry I haven't had the time to reply much. Hopefully, now I'll have a bit more time to update a few stuff and to reply some tags/messages! Cheers everyone!

Okay, so in my previous post I was happily bashing Dejavu's mascara and how I've stopped using it. And now, I've found my temporary replacement!

It's Silkygirl's Lash Prism~ I know a few onsugarettes (Diana from adorebeauty and Mya from heavenlygorgeous)  have already raved about the product but whenever I swatched it in Watsons, I'm not really impressed by it. However, this time there was an exception.

I got these...

... at S$9.00 for 2 pieces! Like how cheap is that?!?

Seriously, this is enough reason to go down to the John Little Expo sale this time round. It's more or less the same as the previous sales but this! So totally worth it!! And they're having Lioele (Korean BB cream brand) products on sale too, which is a first!!! (See, I can't stop using exclamation marks). Ohh, and not forgetting, the Silkygirl lip glosses and duo eye shadows are going for 3 for S$9 and 2 for S$9 respectively, if I'm not wrong.

In the end, I got 4 tubes, LOL! I know, mascara overload but it's sooo cheap and sooo worth it! 2 dark browns, 1 purple and 1 blue (cos they ran out of black). I've already opened 1 brown and 1 purple and kept the other 2 as back-ups. One advice to remember when (mass) buying sale items is always to check the manufacturing date. I saw that my purple piece was actually manufactured more than 2 years back and when I opened it, surely as predicted, it was all dried up and clumpy. So I went back to do an exchange and the manager kindly did it for me without any questions. John Little service = thumbs up from me~

That said, I've been using the dark brown piece for the whole of this week and it's a huge improvement to the Dejavu Knockout mascara. Unsightly pics for proof!

Me without any makeup on my off day, the left is with the mascara and the right without.

Can see the big difference right? The mascara both volumizes and lengthens quite nicely, but it will start clumping after the 3 - 4 coats. However, the clumping is not as bad is Dejavu's though. And the best thing? It comes off easily with my L'oreal eye makeup remover! I'm so pleased with that bit - every night when I remove my makeup after a hard day of work, I'll be gushing to myself how easily it removes with my other eye makeup. To hell with warm water/cold water/no water/whatever removal!!! I don't need all that unnecessary technology, old school is the way to go, bahhh! xP

Thanks for reading, I'll be updating on some Sephora stuff later!

About 2 weeks back, I received an email from sasa.com (I have got no idea how they got my email add, cos I don't remember signing up for anything) and it was about this exchange-old-for-new promotion thingy going on. Basically, I'll just have to go down to Wisma's Sasa and turn in one of my old mascaras for a new Dejavu mascara, FOC! And this is only available for the 1st 100 visitors only.

So knowing my schedule fits nicely and with this thick skin of mine, I went for it! Here's what I got in place of my Silkygirl Double Intense mascara (was almost done with it after 2 months, my 1st time nearly finishing a mascara).

Look at that hot pink tube with its metallic pink cap. Seriously, I've never used such a pink-pink cosmetic item before. =x

And the brush.

It's the conventional bristle kind of brush, with wide troughs in between layer of bristles. The tip is narrowed and pointed and the wand is pretty short.

Here's some pictures to see if it works~

Yep, I wore it on the day I did the multi-coloured glitter eyeliner look.  So from the pics, you'll be the judge and see if it creates the oodles of volume it promised.

Personally for me, I didn't really like it - I much prefer my Silkygirl Double Intense. The formula was drier so it didn't go on that smoothly, and it starts clumping after 2 1/2 - 3 coats. Also, the large and stumpy bristle brush actually didn't impress me. It was much harder to control, it didn't deposit much of the dry formula on my lashes (which means I'd have to do 3 coats at least = clumps galore) and I found the shape of the brush impractical for coating the lower and outer side lashes.

Also, though it said to be easier to remove with warm water only, honestly I found it a hassle. Who keeps warm water in her room? And once you dab a cotton pad in the water, it will cool to room temperature water almost immediately. Removing it with eye makeup remover wasn't any easier. I did try removing it with the suggested warm water though - the water effectively removed all my eye makeup, including my waterproof stage eyeliner. So to say that it removes with warm water when most makeup will come off with water of that temperature is a bit off, I'd say.

Good points would have to be it lengthens just a little, really doesn't smudge = no panda eyes, and if you adore that clumpy, doll-like look, this will be great for you. For me, nah... I found myself turning to my other mascara after 2-3 uses. But it's a good experience though, thanks goodness it's free.

Item: SilkyGirl Double Intense Waterproof Mascara

Brush Close-up

On-eyelash shots

Price: S$14.90

-I got it at John Little for S$10.50 after a 30% discount. You can also get it cheap when Watsons is having its 20% storewide discount, or on special offer weeks e.g. 1 week back it was going for S$9.90.

Pro:

1) It significantly lengthens and separates lashes.

2) The black pigmentation is impressively intense (double intense, gotta live up to its name yarh?). Because of this, if your lashes are sparse, they will really stand out after application.

3) Personally, I feel it is extremely suitable for my lower lashes because of the intense black pigmentation and the shorter bristles at one end of the brush.

4) Reasonably easy to remove. A definite plus point after using Marjorca Majolica's (unremovable) mascaras. :)

5) Cheap!

Con:

1) It doesn't really volumize. There are times when I apply many coats to get thicker lashes, and it seems to work.. only to...

2) Clump a little. Yeah, if you wanna volumize your lashes with this mascara, you gotta risk a little clumping.

3) Not really waterproof. Yeah, I tried - I bathed with it, I cried with it (school causes meltdowns sometimes) and I purposely sprayed water on it before. The mascara doesn't dissolve but it seems to slip off my lashes. Kinda like a casing, it comes off in weird, black mascara worms... if that even makes sense .__.

4) AND the worst con! It doesn't hold a curl at all. I curled my lashes and layered the mascara on, only to find them flopping down a minute later. I haven't yet come across a mascara that can hold a curl with asian eyelashes, except for the permanent-for-a-lifetime Marjoca mascaras.

Rating: 3.8 / 5 (I've decided to change the rating from 3.5 to 3.8, cos I really like its intense pigmentation and it works brilliant for my lower lashes :D)

Would I buy it again? Err, there are many other mascaras I'm itching to try for now. Not a must-have. :)

Hope this review helped, thanks for reading~

Alright, so you wanna get a new mascara and you've got all these wonderfu--nah, strike that. You've got all these icky-looking, half-dried up testers so how are you going to test them to find out which one suits you? No way you're going to try them on your eyes right? (Though I know some people out there do). Unless you wanna risk getting conjunctivitis or something.

There's this guy, Petrilude, who does amazing makeup videos on YouTube and he has a video on exactly how to test the mascaras out. Shoudl really check out his drag queen makeup looks, they make me flabbergasted.

Here's his vid on mascara testing:

Well, I never knew my arm hair was of any good use at all but today, I finally appreciated having them around. I did my own mascara testing because I'm out on a hunt for a new mascara again. My MM Frameplus mascara is still working fine, but it's a pain in the ar*e to remove and I'm looking for a volumizing mascara.

It's gonna get visual and if blackened coils of arm hair freaks you out, please don't read further. :]

But if you're curious to know, please go ahead! :D

Ha ha, on my arm here, you can see 5 distinct patches of 'enhanced' arm hair. It's good that I've got so many hairs to swatch and so much arm space - haven't even used the other arm yet.

First up is Maybelline's Magnum. It was ok I guess, wasn't really impressed with it. I thought it was a bit clumpy.

The upper patch you see at the edge of my arm is Silkygirl's Double Intense mascara (the lower patch is the Magnum). Now this one impressed me a lot! It not only lengthened my arm hairs crazily well, it also coated each hair thickly with its formula so that the hairs look really thick and black. I was like "Wuoh..." when I was brushing this mascara on my arm.

I mean, look at how "qiu" and long my arm hair is! "Qiu" mean springy/curly in dialect, btw. :D

This patch is Silkygirl's Lash Prism mascara. It was ok I guess, better than the Magnum cos it didn't have any clumpy-ness. The Double Intense beat this hands down though.

This is MM's Lash Enamel Glamour Volume On. I was definitely not impressed with this. The stubby end of the wand meant that I lost control when I was applying it, which resulted in that giant smudge at the bottom. The lengthening and volumizing part was meh...

Last but not least is Maybelline's Hyper Curl mascara. It did nothing for my arm hair, though my friend claims it curls and volumizes her lashes perfectly. For me, it just left a lot of smudges.

I had lots of fun trying out the different mascaras and seeing what they would do to my arm hair and after this simple experiment, I felt like going out tomorrow to get Silkygirl's Double Intense mascara. I'm like super impressed by it. Anyone have tried it and have any thoughts to share?

And this was what happened after I got home and tried to wash my arm! All the mascara-ed hairs fell flat and stuck onto my skin. :D

I was super amused at how Silkygirl's Double Intense mascara reacted. See what I mean by thickly-coated arm hairs? As compared to the Magnum's flat and smudged hairs at the bottom, the Silkygirl's hairs became thick fat hair worms! Ha ha ha, I was staring and picking the hairs for a whole 5 mins!

Anyway, I hope my experiment was useful or entertaining to you all. Next time you go Watsons, do try this trick! Better than getting conjunctivitis, cheers!

EDIT: I realized the preview thingy in onsugar's Tracker featured my mascara-ed arm. So much for my warning =___=