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, I like my title this time!

Anyway, finally have some time to update - I'm currently slacking at home since school had stopped yesterday. Suppose to complete my last lab report and start revision but I'm nursing a baby flu that's threatening to blow up in my face. Gah, excuses, whatever~ :)

This week, I've decided to use the S$1 nail polish I got during the Sasa sale a while back. It's this pearly-blue, semi-translucent one here.

And voila, on my nails!

First of all, I have no idea why this nail polish should be going for such a cheap price. Because I think it's such a fantastic nail polish! On par with China Glaze and OPI even.

1) The texture. No streaking and no gooping up on you after 5 mins (we know glitter or matte polishes tend to do that). The formula was silky smooth through the whole application.

2) The shine. It's awesome even without a top coat! But I had to slap on some Poshe cos I didn't want it chipping.

3) The effect. It had this crazily cool pearl-esque effect going on. The polish was a medium periwinkle blue, but it flashed pink and orange depending on the lighting. I mean, it's not even duochrome; it's just this mother-of-pearl thing going on. I compared it to Paddle Pop (you guys have surely eaten the ice cream before right?) and the colour combi is pretty much like that.

Granted it looks grey when instead of blue on my fingers...

.. but you can see the flash of pink just at the center of the nails.

4) The longevity. I admit i'm wearing the polish with a coat of Poshe Top Coat over, but it's comparable to those times when I wore my OPIs or China Glazes with Poshe over too. I've had this polish on for a week now, and there is no tip wear at all. The only signs that can hint to you that it's been a week old is the growing border of naked nail at the cuticle/nail base, and the slight decrease in shine. But it still looks good enough to last for another week!

The only con? It's translucent, yeah, so don't expect it to cover your nail fully. I had 3 coats on here, and you can still see my nail tips. But I was expecting that when I bought it.

All in all, I'm so glad I got the polish during the Sasa sale. I was looking for a mother-of-pearl reflux kind of polish, and I grabbed this bottle once I laid eyes on it. And I'm really happy with its quality and pretty effect~ Too bad I can't seem to find this brand of polish anymore. Maybe I shall poke around in Sasa once my exams are over.

Anyway, thanks for reading once again. I'll be holding a giveaway soon, so stay tuned!

I've been quite good to my wallet lately, because ever since school started, my temp job income has stopped and my pocket money isn't exactly haul-friendly. Not that I'm lambasting my parents or anything, cos I really dislike to still be depending on them for money. Hmph... But anyway, the only downfall to my stringent allowance control are sales. If there's anything going cheap, I'll be the first one down to sniffle out the goodies.

This explains the items I got from the recent Sasa sale at JP, and a Threadless spree I joined (who can resist cute $10 T-shirts?!). The other items I deem as necessities. :) Nice word, I gotta use it more often.

Thanks to Diana's tip, I got the lashes super cheap (2 boxes for S$1.99 vs retail price of S$12.90 each).

Close-ups of the lashes. I'm so digging the bottom pair with the crystals and black stars!

And of course, I couldn't resist the bottle of nail polish with its unique mother-of-pearl colour (S$1 a bottle).

Necessity No.1, sunscreen! Thought the texture wasn't too bad, so I decided to give it a go. Didn't want to continue with the Biore series after Charlene alerted me to the alcohol content.

And necessity No.2, base and top coats! What will we, nail polish junkies, do without them? *sigh*

Decided to give Poshe a whizz after finishing up my Seche Vite. Shall compare these most popular top coats soon!

Necessi And my OPI Burlesque (The Show Must Go On & Sparkle-iscious) and Man Glaze (Matte Is Murder) polishes arrived, courtesy of Pris from teaplayground!

Gahh!! *spazzes* They're downright, in-out BEAUTIFUL!!! Sparkly sparkly~

And I simply adore the design on the Man Glaze label! Veiny-hands, so chic, who can resist?!

And being super excited as I was then, I swatched all the polishes immediately!

Well, I wiped off Sparkle-iscious off the 3rd finger after gawping at it cos glitter polishes are a PITA to get off once they set. And I painted 1 coat of Poshe Top Coat on the Matte Is Murder finger...

Yeah, ok, I know I mutilated the swatches, sue me. :p

Ha ha, I have a few more items to post up, but for now this haul post shall end here. Thanks for sharing my money-spending moment, everyone!