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

This item is a really big thing for me, primarily as it's the very first Urban Decay I've bought for myself (my Urban Decay "Midnight Cowboy" eyeshadow was kindly given by Crazy4mac) and it's such a cool set!

AND also, I've finally gotten my hands on the super famous Urban Decay Primer Potion!  In XL size! *squeals and runs off in hysteria*

Seriously, I mean, this is a darn good set. And it cannot be found in SG - Sephora doesn't even import the XL UDPP. I imported it from Urban Decay's website through a spree and it only costed me S$37 inclusive of shipping, everything. Super worth it, since Sephora here sells the normal UDPP for S$32. I've been lemming for it ever since I set eyes on it on the website. So exciting! And I wanna share my enthusiasm for it with you guys! :D

The stuff of all legendary stuffs!

The set includes a XL size of the UDPP, and 4 other samples - the Skyscraper mascara, Midnight Cowboy lipstick, 24/7 Eyeliner in Zero and Pocket Rocket in TImothy.

The back with its description.

The side of the box, stating where each item in the set was made. Look at that cute pink dinosaur with a black star for its eye! Ultimate kawaii-ness~

All the stuff, with the samples the size of my index finger.

First up, featuring the extra large UDPP (60% more)~

Next is the 24/7 Eyeliner in "Zero" sample...

The sample Skyscraper mascara...

Urban Decay's lipstick in Midnight Cowboy...

Is that the smallest lipstick you've ever seen or what? So irresistibly cute! And a nice shade too. :)

Lastly, Pocket Rocket lipgloss sample in "Timothy". Yayness for naked men on lipgloss tubes~

Here are the swatches of the 24/7 liner , the lipstick and the lip gloss.

I swear, you'll feel like eating the lipgloss after smelling it. You know the smell of the Honey Bunches of Oats cereal by Post? Yes, it smells exactly like that, all honey-ish and oat-ish! I'm sorely tempted to just suck the lipgloss out of the tube and drink it, but it'll be such a waste. :D

As for now, I'm storing the set in my cosmetic cabinet, just setting it prettily behind the glass door. I'll have to use up my current cosmetics (e.l.f eyelid primer, my MM mascara and NYX lipsticks and lipgloss) before I break out this set. It's almost to pretty to touch.

Hope you guys enjoyed this entry and shared my excitement! Wheee~

Warning: Image intensive, do not load if your computer is easily combustible.

Okay, I'm took a whole afternoon swatching and taking the pictures of all the NYX stuff that i got from their US $1 sale 2.5 months back. I ordered them through a spree website and they took an amazing long time to arrive, even though NYX did warn us that they will be slow in sending the items out. But it took them, like, 2 months to package the stuff to VpostUSA, who sent over the stuff really quickly (in less than 1 week the package reached the spree organizer in SG).

Anyhoo, I still received my stuff. I've almost forgotten about them. Some items went OOS when NYX packed the orders so instead of the original 14 items I ordered, I got 11. Enough to entertain me for a few months~ All in all, I paid S$30.80 for these, so that comes up to S$2.80 each. That's like freaking cheap!

First up, I got 1 duo-sided eye pencil (Black and Gold) and 1 eyeshadow trio (T26A Dune)!

Oh my gosh, the trio compact looks really good. I like the long narrow mirror on the lid and how they even shielded it with some plastic wrap. Actually, I ordered the T26 trio with a white highlight, a light blue and a dark blue pan but I think that was before NYX cleared out their stock and reorganized their inventory. Apparently, they gave me their new T26A trio, which is this "Dune" palette. Not complaining though, cos one can never have enough neutrals.

Pigmentation is not bad, though I feel that NYX products are often powdery. My blush in "Mauve" is powdery and so are these eyeshadows. So you've gotta tap the excess off if you don't want fall-outs. However, I'm pretty impressed with the eyeliner pencil. I've read reviews that said they were hard and difficult to go onto the eyelid but this pencil feels soft to me. The gold colour went on beautifully, didn't have to apply my pressure when swatching. The black was a bit more resistant though, think I'll have to 'break it in'.

Then the 5 single eyeshadows that I got...

Top, left to right: Jazzy Bronze, Snow Cone and 24 Karet.

Bottom: Peach and Salmon

Swatches, left to right: Jazzy Bronze, Peach, Salmon, 24 Karet, Snow Cone

Swatches, left to right: Snow cone, 24 Karet, Salmon, Peach, Jazzy Bronze

I know. I should organize my swatching, but I'm messy in person, cannot be helped. And what the reviewers said seems to be true; the singles are better in quality than the trio. These are less powdery and they feel really smooth and silky. Pigmentation is amazing, as in the pictures. I especially like Jazzy Bronze, cause it's such a nice rusty red colour to wear out. 24 Karet is a true copperish gold, I kinda wish i got this before Everbluec's gold contest ended! Snow Cone and Salmon make really good highlights, due to their amazing shimmer.

Last but not least, my 4 Chrome pigments!

Top is Penny and bottom is Nymph

Left is Beanie, right is Chaotic.

Swatches, left to right: Penny, Beanie, Chaotic and Nymph

Swatches, left to right: Beanie (wet), beanie (dry), Penny (wet) and Penny (dry)

Swatches, left to right: Nymph (wet), Nymph (dry), Chaotic (wet) and Chaotic (dry)

6 words. I have never regretted getting these.

These things are AMAZING! The pigmentation, when wet, is crazy. It's so intense and shimmery. Beanie has got some chunky glitter though, so gotta beware of fall-outs. Now I only need to learn how to apply these... I've got this morbid feeling that they will fly right off my eyelids when I'm outside.

Hah, sorry for the long rant and all the pictures. I hope these helped if you're planning to get some NYX stuff -they're seriously worth it- and hope you enjoyed the post! Cheers!

Apologies for not updating at all through out this week. I've mentioned before that I stay out during week days because of school so my camera and haul stuff are not with me. But I have a ton of stuff to update though!

First up, my current NOTD. I'm going out for a gathering tomorrow so I'm super excited at sporting pretty nails when I meet all my friends.

Seriously, I hate the lighting in my room and how my camera isn't able to capture the colour of the nail polish properly. I'm using China Glaze's Emerald Sparkle which I got last week, and it's a beautiful deep green colour with small green sparkles. So glittery and pretty but these pictures... argh! They do the nail polish no justice! I whipped out my m63 plate and did some simple konading. :)

And if my fingers are pretty, so must my toes!

I used L.A. Girl's Groupie in the Rockster collection. The purple is really nice, with fine duochrome sparkles of blue, pink and yellow. Unfortunately, it doesn't show here. I also did the same Konad design on my toes. Thought my colour combi this time was a bit weird though, purple on my toes and green on my fingers...? Was I turning into a certain "I-love-you-you-love-me" dinosaur?

And a sneak preview!

Yesh!!! My NYX haul came, and look at all the items. I will snap pictures of the swatches and give details about the products as soon as I free up some spare time this weekend, hopefully.

Thanks for reading, cheers!

I should really just put Nail-Of-The-Week (NOTW) instead of NOTD since I don't switch nail varnishes on a daily basis. No time and not enough creative ideas. But anyway, I received the 2 China Glaze nail polishes I bought from Lacquer Haven over the weekend. This blog shop offers one of the cheapest prices on OPI, Orly and ChG varnishes and the seller was so prompt in replying to my order and sending out the items. Though the range of polishes they're selling is quite limited now, I was told that they'll be bringing more of the upcoming collections e.g. Orly Sweet, ChG Shrek series.

Note: I wasn't told/paid to write about this blog shop; just thought of mentioning them since their services were pretty good and their prices even better!  The polishes were bought with my own cash. :)

2 heavily bubble-wrapped bottles. I was kinda surprised at how much bubble wrap and scotch tape they used.

More protective measures came in the form of white spongy stuff in the envelop. I LOL-ed when I ripped the envelop open and these jumped out at me.

And I got China Glaze's Re-fresh Mint (from the Up & Away collection) and Emerald Sparkle (I think it was from the Holiday Wishes collection).

These 2 bottles cost me S$17.80 altogether, with each bottle priced at S$8.50 and postage for both at S$0.80. Cheap right? Emerald Sparkle is soooooo pretty! I swatched it on one finger and I really liked how deep green but glittery it is. But that being said, I was tired of having design motifs and dark colours on my nails (1 week of the previous Konadicure made me a bit sian of those colours) so I immediately reached for Re-fresh Mint for this week's fix!

Re-fresh Mint is indeed a very refreshing colour. This is the first time I'm sporting such a nice cool creme green colour on my nails and I'm pretty psyched over it. After 1 week of fanciful nails, it's so relaxing to see your nails a pale shade of creamy mint-iness. :} Application was not too bad, it was quite streaky on the 1st coat but after the 2nd coat, it spreads out evenly. For me, I applied my 2nd coat quite thickly (slap on the goop!) so the finish was smooth, sans streaks and opaque. Of course, topped off with Seche Vite top coat.

I was trying to give a contrast of my nails against the dark background of Mocha! See, she's still sulking in my room. She got even more annoyed when I shoved my freshly lacquered hands (the smell was still quite strong) onto her furry body, ha ha, can see her twitching in irritation!

The nails look great on my black laptop!

Thanks for reading, take care everyone.

Here's my eye makeup that I wore to school yesterday:

I've been digging the black-rimmed, smokey eye look the past few days.

It's ok to leave the house without any (coloured) eyeshadow on, but it's a  must to rim my eyes thickly with eye liner and smudge it out with some black eyeshadow. If time permits, add a little highlight at the brow bone, and I'm set for school. I feel rimming our eyes always defines them nicely, especially for those with monolids, and it certainly brings out a certain mysterious/bad-girl quality. Hah, I almost always do feel more confident after I line my eyes! And since I had more time yesterday, I coloured my eyes in with some brown eyeshadow. Nah, screw that, I was actually 10 mins late for my laboratory session but oh well.

Case in point, when I visited my optometrist yesterday evening, she remarked "Ohh, you look different with makeup aye?". To which I shyly muttered something about putting some colour into my zombified face. But the point is, even with the simplest of makeup such as eyeliner, a bit of brown eyeshadow and blush can make a difference and people do notice it. But come to think of it, she didn't say if it's a good difference or a bad difference... I'll just give her the benefit of the doubt. I mean, she didn't give me a gross look when she said that, hah!

SO here's the whole face. Ignore the zit there, it mars my face. =___= Didn't want to put a full pic because of that zit, but I think this corny smile of mine shows how effective lining our eyes can be. My nose and cheeks seemed to be glowing a bit because I powdered on some e.l.f. highlighter - the stuff is quite good! Gives you the dewy effect.

Anyway, I came back home to find my cat like this in a corner of my room (on a cardboard box).

She seemed to be sulking a bit, cos normally she wouldn't choose that spot to sleep. And here's the reason why!

I've got a new kitty in the house. My mom picked her up from some random void deck and she's so tiny and cute - she fits into the palm of my hand snugly! And definitely, she's not those shy kitties who always run into a corner and hide; this kitty is perfectly comfortable with streaking across the living room at top speed, pouncing onto our feet for some toe-play and then mewing pitifully every few hours for food. Little tyke, when did she become so at home..?

Here's her playfully dangling off my dad's guitar strap. Thank god my father wasn't around to witness this. =___= As for my other cat Mocha, I predict she'll be sulking in the corner of my room for a few days, cos she's one jealous cat. Very territorial so she gets amazingly jealous and grumpy whenever another cat is in our house.

It'll be an interesting weekend for me. Enjoy your weekend too, cheers!

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 =___=

My very first Konadicure~

Using L.A. Girl's Matte Nail Varnish in "Twilight" and Konad Special Polish in "Pearly White". Finished with a coat of Seche Vite Top Coat.

Not bad for a first attempt I must say. Hopefully this will last me for the whole week until next week, when I get some new China Glaze polishes~

And I'm going to wax lyrical about the Seche Vite Top Coat again. It is an AMAZING top coat; it dries like nobody's business! Even faster than Flash from Justice league (sorry, my nerdiness coming out) and it doesn't smudge the Konad prints. What's with all that stuff I heard about needing to get the Konad top coat to prevent smudging, all tosh I tell' ya! Just let the designs dry for about 5 mins, slap on the Seche Vite top coat, count 10 sheep in your head and you're good to go!

Woots, hope everyone like the konadicure! Take care~

Aye, they do! Here's prove! :D

I imported these through drugstore.com, they're forever having their BOGO promotions. Have always been curious if Garnier hair products are really good.

And I got these pretty things in a pretty plastic bag! *sounds bimbotic for a moment*

My Konad Basic Set. I got an image plate (M63), the stamper and scraper and 2 Konad special polishes (5ml, they're friggin' small but oh so cute~)  for S$19.90. After receiving my China Glaze nail polish, I was surfing the net for more nail colours and  designs, and got tempted after seeing so many bloggers post their beautiful Konad art.

Self-control is certainly no virtue of mine.

Lack of mentioned self-control led to me trying the set once I got home. Here's one of the prettier swirly designs I managed to stamp out successfully - the other were a bit smudged and my camera couldn't pick out the small designs. Apparently, my macro is not good enough. =x

But ignore that, isn't the swirly design pretty??? :D

And the Seche Vite Top Coat is really really good. Here's how my nails are like after 1 week:

Nothing chipped. Like wow... and I'm very rough with my hands. I use them to wash all sorts of things, mentionable (e.g. test tubes, beakers, plates) to the unmentionable. It's really amazing that there isn't a chip off the edges at all. But one problem that I'm still facing is slight peeling from the bottom of the nail, especially my index finger. I have got no idea why this happens; it occurs whether I'm using branded polishes or cheapo ones.

Seriously, I need to control this hauling habit of mine. I mean, I'm happy half the time when I get the stuff I want, but the other half I'm disgusted with myself at spending the money so frivolously when I should be saving up for rainy days. Like I'm expecting my giant NYX haul to arrive soon. I bought quite a few items (understatement) during their US$1 sale and they're super slow on shipping this time round, but it's coming. And I'll have to face the reality of how much I spent on those stuff soon too.

But having said that, I'm still planning to buy some more China Glaze nail polishes; I saw some really awesome colours and every ounce of my being is craving to slap those onto these nails of mine. I'm being honest - I will succumb to it. Maybe I'll live on instant mee for the next week or so, or maybe use less toilet paper. =____=

Thanks for reading, and sorry for the nonsensical rant. Take care everyone!

First of all, I would like to wish Liana a BIG HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!

Ngeh, you don't always see me using pink font, but this time's specially for her, heh heh! It almost seems yesterday when I took part in her 50 followers giveaway and then suddenly, it's her 100 followeres giveaway already. That's really fast and I congratulate her on gaining so many followers in such short time. Congrats Liana.

So just head over to her blog and take part in this fantastic giveaway if you haven't yet. I know I'm kinda late in joining it, but better late than never.

All the best everyone! :D

Another first!

I got my first bottle of China Glaze nail polish and Seche Vite top coat through a Transdesign spree 2 days back. Previously, all the nail polishes that I've been using were S$2 Rainbow polishes, some random cheapo brands from those neighbourhood beauty shops or most recently, L.A. Girls which is a drugstore brand. China Glaze, OPI and ORLY were considered branded to me, since they are easily sold for S$20 a bottle here.

After shipping and handling charges, these came up to about S$10 each. I got FYI, in the China Glaze holographic OMG collection.

Since I got the Valentine's Day edition of Seche Vite Fast Drying Top Coat, it came with a free sheet of nail decals.

Close up of the CG nail polish. Not sure if you can see the holographic effect in the bottle..?

Maybe a bit more obvious on my nails.

Argh, my lighting is really bad, the camera can't pick up the effect much. If you look at my nails from far or under normal lighting, it looks like a neutral taupe colour, almost like mannequin's hands. But if you look more closely, you'll see a slight greenish sheen and very fine silver glitter particles. It's really pretty. And my gosh, the Seche Vote Top Coat dries like PLASTIC on your nails! I was awe-struck at the finish - spent the whole day rubbing the smooth surface of my nails, so addictive! Ha ha, it's really good too!

I am sorely tempted to get the Konad Nail Stamps now...

I painted my troll-like toes too. :D Holographic toes, nice~

And my HOTD for yesterday:

I went all Sailor Moon with the freakishly hot weather - fried my brains, it did.

Thanks for reading, cheers!