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

The past week was actually my last week with Sephora as a temp staff, and that kind of tipped me into a crazy, adrenaline-filled mode, so unknowingly, my LOTDs were full of mad fun colours!

They're a bit reminiscent of the makeup Johnny Depp had on as the Mad Hatter in the film "Alice In Wonderland"...

... but maybe not quite as crazy, ha ha!

Here's the first LOTD:

Close-up of the eyes:

I went with a peach shade all over the lids, pass the crease and then concentrating a pink shade on the lid area nearer to the lash line. For the lower lash line, I used the pink shade again but this time adding a bit of purple. A blue-purple eyeliner and lots of mascara completed the Mad Hatter inspired look.

I had on a pure pink blush that day, which is a rarity for me since I favour peaches and corals more. Then, I played around with Too Faced Mood Swings lip gloss, which gave me a true barbie pink lip!

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For the second LOTD, I was still in the whimsical mood, so I drew inspiration from paddle pops and this video by Michelle Phan:

And this is my version:

Close-up of the eyes:

Ha ha, I really enjoyed doing this look! It makes me so happy when I was applying these bright colours~ A customer, this young caucasian teenager, came over to ask me a question and kept staring at my eyes. Then as she was about to leave, she complimented me on the colours.

Anyway, it's a pastel yellow, pink and blue on the upper lids while I did yellow, pink and purple on the lower lash line. I used the blue-purple eyeliner once again, and applied mascara generously.

You can hardly see my coral-pink blush here, cos the lighting washes it out, but you can still see the colourful eyes and very pink lips!

I definitely had lots of fun doing these two looks, and they abated my fears of using bright colours on our eyes. Who says asian monolidders can't play with colours? Ha ha ha, hope you enjoyed this LOTD post and thanks for looking!

So I've been playing with my newly purchased MAC "Warmth of Coral" blush the past few days, and this is how it looks like:

Now, I'm not too proud of this LOTD as the eye makeup did not come out the way I wanted, hence I felt that the colour of the blush wasn't contrasted properly.

My eye makeup looked too bland and silvery...

..when I was trying to aim for something like this:

But anyway, I tried a second LOTD with the blush and this came out a lot better!

I especially do prefer this eye makeup, as the brown and the gold warmed up the blush and complimented it more. Plus, who doesn't like gold glitter? *pfft*

Threw on my orange-coloured specs to matchy matchy the LOTD!

So, what do I have to say about the blush? Well, it does take a bit of layering for "Warmth of Coral" to be seen on me, though I am already quite fair. For normal day use, it's an easy enough blush to apply. You don't need to worry about having pikachu cheeks or the nedd to blend crazily to sheer the blush out. I had trouble getting it to show up in Sephora though, cos the lighting there is horrible and it makes makeup vanish almost completely.

But I'm still glad I got the blush, as it's an unique product in my collection and I love orange/coral blushes!

Thanks for reading, guys!

I've known this online shop for a while now, due to several posts from Verlyn, and they really do sell their asian cosmetics and face masks very cheaply! Plus, it's a super easy site to use and their customer service is VERY good. Frequent updates, quick processing and good mailing service makes me a very satisfied customer indeed!

Click here to browse the website --> Secretive.sg

So here's what I got; I didn't buy much, cos I'm still scrimping on money for my exchange trip.

On the left is Lioele's Real Crystal Foundation in "Shade 2", on the right is Lioele's Water Drop BB Cream and at the bottom is Lioele's 3D Enamel Lip Gloss in #1 Tangerine Peach.

Yeah, you can guess from the purchase that I'm quite a fan of the brand.

It started with me buying their Water Drop BB Cream last year to try, and I've gotten tons of compliments on my skin whenever I've worn the BB cream out. Hence, it's my Holy Grail foundation. My current tube lasted me slightly over a year; I recently realized it was running out and it sent me into panic mode! Then I realized John Little stopped stocking Lioele (WTF! Shhhh*****ttttt), so I was desperately trying to buy a back-up, when Secretive.sg notified me they had restocked this BB cream in their inventory!

YES! Score! Lucky me...

... and I got it at S$11.40 only. Look at the original price! A year back, I got mine at S$28++ at John Little, due to some discounts and rebates. This year, the price I got it off Secretive.sg can't be beat, I tell ya'. I think Sasa and John Little stopped stocking Lioele though. *is sad*

I was browsing through the website looking for things to buy, when I spotted this and bought it since it was only going for S$5.00.

No harm trying a new foundation, and it was so heavily discounted too.

Here are swatches of the two face products:

The BB cream still is a little light on me, so I mix in a few drops of my darker tinted moisturizer to correct the shade. I really dislike having a mismatching face and neck/body. Even if it's only a slight discrepancy. It's one of those pet peeves of mine I simply can't stand and I feel like telling women off whenever I see their faces like that. Come on, people! Don't go out when you're two-toned and all, PLEASE.

The foundation, however, I found a little too dark for me. You can see in the swatch it's a bit too orangey. To solve the problem, I only need to mix in a bit of my lighter BB cream or my Bourjois foundation in No. 52.

Here's the 3D Enamel lip gloss I got. I super super adore the packaging, holographic awesomeness!

The wand is reminiscent of the Bare Minerals Pretty Amazing Lip Color wand - both are rectangular in shape and flat on one side. The only difference is that the Bare Mineral's wand is more flexible and you can bend it to your lip's contour. Lioele's is a lot stiffer.

Swatch of the pretty lip gloss for you! It's a bright neon orange, me loves~

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Anyway, I tried wearing the Real Crystal Foundation out the next day. Here's out I look with it on:

Texture-wise, it sets to a slightly tacky-dry feel but its finish is dewy. It's an interesting combi. Coverage is medium, I'd say. Better than the Lioele Water Drop BB cream and Bourjois' Healthy Mix Foundation. It's waterproof, cos I had to use the bi-phase makeup remover to get it off my fingers. And it also has an SPF of 10.

My face doesn't really get oily but you can see the slight oil sheen here. That's the foundation settling into my nose crevices. I also noticed it becoming cakey around my larger pores at my nose and lip area.

But I kinda resolved the problem. Solution: Use a foundation or stippling brush to apply the foundation. I used my fingers here to apply, which gave me a heavier coverage and made my nose area cakey. Using a stippling brush gives a much lighter and natural coverage! Wonders!

Strangely enough, the foundation still looks a little lighter than my normal skin tone. Given that I did mix in some of my BB cream, but... I shall try it neat one day. See how it goes. :)

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Last but not least, My Beauty Diary face masks bargain!! Omg, I got this box of 5 Moroccan Rose masks for S$4.90 only! That's less than S$1 a piece. I bought it a week back at Guardian pharmacy, don't know if there's still stock left or not.

According to my very noob understanding of mandarin, I think this mask is for moisturizing and hydration purposes..?

Should be lah. And it's not bad too, cos I've already used 2 pieces. I'm currently very into maintaining my face, as the date to my exchange trip and the 22-hour flight draws closer. I don't want to break out there, or even on the way there.

Ha ha, one of my first draggy posts these few days! So happy to regurgitate everything out. :3 Hope you guys enjoy reading this post as much as I enjoyed writing it!

Once again, a very back-dated LOTD but do enjoy the post, nonetheless!

I super love the blush I had on here! It's a warm peachy-orange shade, a mixture of 2 Make Up For Ever blushes that I used. I thought it complimented the look very well, definitely very hawaii-like!

Close-up of the eyes:

I also super like this colour combi! If I could (and if I had the time and patience), I would do this eye look everyday!

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Additionally, I was messing around with the OPI Shatter polishes.

And I finally found a shatter combi that I like!

I think white shatter over sparkling silver polish is so cool! It doesn't look so..."slipshod", in fact, I think it looks a tad classy! I'd love to pair nails like these with a white chronograph watch! My colleague digs the turquoise shatter-over-yellow combi though. Shall consider getting the white shatter when I'm in the States next month.

Anyway, thanks for looking people!

Okay, I admit it's not a huge haul, but there weren't many items that caught my attention for this collection. I told myself to pick up something from it as I had a $50 MAC voucher to use.

So I got the mineralized blush in "Warmth of Coral" and the lustre lipstick in "Gem of Roses".

"Warmth of Coral" has this really nice marbling of pink and brown with an orangey base. Plus, the blush is so finely milled and silky to the touch. It's nicely pigmented too, not powdery at all.

And "Gem of Roses" looks oddly familiar no?

Why? Tell you in a minute, here are swatches of the two products first. "WoC" on the left and "GoR" on the right.

Here's a comparison to the other coral-orange blushes I own, and to a total "GoR" dupe!

Yes! "GoR" is soooo similar to MAC's "Fanfare" lipstick!!! Oh mai gawd!

Just that with "Fanfare" being a cremesheen, it's more opaque and stickier, whereas "GoR" is just slightly sheerer and thinner in consistancy. If you look closely, 'Fanfare" is also a tiny bit more pink, while "GoR" is more reddish. But seriously, both of them look the same on my lips. -___-

The only good thing about getting "GoR"  was that I liked how it went on sheerer on my lips, with it being a lustre. I'm still hesitant about  wearing "Fanfare" out sometimes, as I find it's too bright. But with "GoR", it's definitely more wearable for me! Plus, I've had a more than a few people complimenting on the lip colour when I wore it during work, so I can be sure it's a good colour for me. Doesn't hurt to have two tubes of the similar colour then, I guess.

But I'm really satisfied with "WoC", cos I own nothing like that in my small collection of cosmetics. Both "Peachy Keen" and "Stereo Rose" look quite different from "WoC". Also, I absolutely love its bright pure orange colour and it having a matte finish!

See the difference in the sheen? "Stereo Rose" is the most shimmery, "WoC" is matte while "Peachy Keen" is in the middle.

You're probably surprised at why I didn't pick up any MSF despite declaring my undying love and devotion to them. I really wanted to pick up the MSF in "Pearl", but somehow the MAC counters didn't bring them into SG! ARGH! I checked the MAC outlets at Tangs, Ion Orchard and Ngee Ann City and "Pearl" was sadly MIA. The other MSFs I felt were too glittery and the colours were just meh.

Anyway, thanks for viewing this 'haul' post, I'll be posting up some LOTDs in which I wore "WoC". I'm really looking forward to MAC's "MAC Me Over" collection in late August - September though; I'm currently eyeing a few of the lipstick, paint pots and gel liners. I may get my grubby hands on them if I'm still in New York! Stay tuned!!

Sephora updates:

1) Tweezerman is instores! Tweezers are going from S$10 - S$35+ (crappy expensive, but I heard the quality is really good and worth investing)

2) Benefit's Cha Cha Tint has been instores for quite a while, retailing for S$62 per bottle.

3) Urban Decay will be bringing in its Fall collection and the legendary 15th anniversary eyeshadow palette, somewhere in late September or October! The palette will retail for S$80 (as of current info now, may be subjected to adjustments).

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Alright, let's cut to the chase and take a look at the (very belated) LOTD!

Close-up of the eyes:

I wanted to do the bat wing liner so badly, but it would look strange on my single eyelids (the YouTube gurus who taught that all have beautiful creases/double eyelids), hence my modification to this cut-crease version.

In the words of my colleague: "Cheryl, you made a good decision to draw this kind of liner today. Even if you're sleepy, you look damn awake can?!"

Like so. :}

And flaunting the Bare Escentuals T-shirt that we have been wearing for  nearly a month now.

"Try. Believe. Love." What if I try and don't believe, or don't love leh? How??? xD

Ha ha ha, I think I much prefer the more chic Sephora top that we normally wear. :3 Thanks for looking, everyone!

I was really into greens last week, not a colour you see me often spotting on my lids, but here's 2 LOTDs featuring it!

LOTD #1) Smokey green with Wet 'N' Wild's Comfort Zone palette

Close-ups of the eye makeup:

Though this is a green smokey eye, I love how there's this overall hint of gold through out all the colours I used. Definitely complimentary with our warm asian skin tones!

This picture of my eye is just to let you see my very visible lower lashes, all thanks to Clinique's Bottom Lash mascara! The wand is SO tiny, but it coats and thickens each and every lower lash very well! The down side would probably be that it takes much longer to put on mascara that way, but I'm still digging the product!

And... a smile for you~

LOTD #2) CHEAP Aqua-gold look

Why do I say that? Because that beautiful teal shade is actually Daiso's S$2 pigment. Which is the price for 1 big bottle and I only used a smidgen here. All it needs is a good base, which will make the colour really pop. The gold shade is from my very first eyeshadow palette, which is the copper L'oreal Open Eyes palette that has been with me since Nov 2009.

Close-ups of the eye makeup:

Well okay, maybe it's not that cheap, cos I forgot to mention the sky blue eyeliner, which is Urban Decay's 24/7 eye pencil in "Deviant". But I got that for free, so it's still considered 'cheap'!

Pouty face~

Ha ha, but I really like this look a lot. It's very summery and ocean-y! And who doesn't like it when cheap products give you as good a result as high end products? xD

Once again, thanks for looking at this post, people!

Back in end May, my family and I made our bi-annual vacation trip into Malaysia (where I hauled the stuff in the previous post). This time we went to a different place instead of our usual Malacca-KL haunts. We climbed up the highland where Genting is at and turned off at another side, which is Berjaya Hills. There, we stayed at a resort hotel called Colmar Tropicale. I shall let the pictures do the talking, aye?

On the way to the highlands, where we stopped over at an A & W restaurant for food. It's sitting atop an overhead bridge across the expressway!

My daddy and his waffle!

At the foot of the highland, where the weather got really cool and the air refreshing.

At the resort itself!

That's my little sister.

The entrance of the hotel, modeled after a medieval castle.

There were suits of armor in the lobby! My parents had a jolly time 'toying' with them, ha ha!

The castle hotel was surrounded by a huge moat pond, which had swans paddling in it! There were 2 white ones...

... and 2 black ones.

We checked into our room, and here's the really rustic and olden view from the window!

Ha ha, your skirt poofs up if you stand by the window, cause there's this really gentle, cooling breeze coming in.

The huge full-length mirror in our room.

The bathroom is pretty spanking too, with the blue and white tiled theme.

Pictures of the resort at night, that really mimicked the feel of a medieval village in the olden days.

There was this Cinderella-esque carriage on display, which I happily posed beside. :)

The next morning, we made a trip to the animal farm. They had a huge rabbit pen!

With huge rabbits in it. Look at the size of my mom's hand and that rabbit, and you'll get the idea how big they are.

They had deers there too.

Male deer.

And female (hungry) deer!

Then my mom, sis and I went for horse riding. My sister, being a typical 10 year old girl, was beside herself with excitement when she saw the horses, and she started jabbering nonstop about horses and how to care for them.

The horses were really quite big, I was a little apprehensive when riding mine. What if it got pissed and decided to throw me off..? At that point of time, I was incredibly awed at how people of the past could race so swiftly on their horses, when I constantly felt like slipping off mine on a mere 10 minute ride. Thank goodness my grey speckled horse (it's name was Turner) was patient and had a good temperament.

Highland doggies accompanying the horses on a short walk.

So after the morning activities, we packed up, checked out of the hotel and went down the highland. It was a really refreshing experience, and I enjoyed every bit of it! Ha ha, of course, I enjoyed the shopping part too in KL, but it was nice while we were up at Colmar Tropicale. If you're thinking of a new place to visit in Malaysia the next time you go in for a holiday, you can try out it out!

Hope you enjoyed this entry, thanks for reading!

By now, if you've been a loyal reader of my blog, you'd know that I take bi-annual trips into Malaysia for holidays. And this time is no different. Before the trip starts, I'll always roughly plan what items I want to get there, just because makeup, nail polishes and a whole ton of stuff are so cheap there.

So here's what I bought this time:

Not a lot huh? Hah, that's because I spent a day and night in one of the highlands, where there's no shopping and only scenery. Which was really relaxing, I'll show you guys in the next post.

But my target items this time was:

1) Cleansing oil = got it!

2) Rimmel lipsticks = got only one, but still got it!

3) Keeping to my nail polish ban...which I obviously failed. But I have a valid reason, you'll see in a while!

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So first up, I dutifully got my cleansing oil. I was looking for one that was affordable, since this is my first time trying the stuff out, and this Biore one costs RM$17.50 only! It retails for $12-14+ in SG I believe, but I got it for half the price. *thumbs up* And I got the Sunkiller BB Perfect Strong sunscreen on a wimp, just because it's not available in SG and I'm forever looking for a HG sunscreen. This costs RM$33, if I remember correctly.

Here's the product description on the back of the packaging.

I like it that the fluid is very lightweight and yet, it isn't mostly made up of alcohol (which a lot of Japanese lightweight sunscreens are). And of course, how they tell you how much to use each time and how many applications the bottle can last, ha ha!

Then I also dutifully got myself a Rimmel lipstick, in the shade "Undressed".

I wanted to really haul on the lipsticks but after swatching all the shades, I only really liked this colour. It's really cheap in Malaysia (RM$17), but maybe the colour selection wasn't all that fantastic. Many shades were frosty, which I don't like.

Then, lo and behold, I discovered essence cosmetics in a Watsons at Sungei Wang, KL! If you guys haven't heard of the brand, it's a budget cosmetics brand in UK (like really budget, everything only costs 1-2 pounds there). Quite elusive in Asia I think, cause this is the first time I've seen it in Malaysia despite holidaying there every year.

I grabbed 2 eyeliners and 2 lip liners. The skin-toned one is a Stila kajal liner rip-off, the shade "Almost Famous" in the Long Lasting eye pencil range (RM$7); the white one is a pearly, shimmery white pencil called "White Divine" in the Metallic range (RM$8); and the bottom 2 are the lip liners in "Nude Coral" and "Red Blush" (RM$6 each). All 4 pencils are made in Germany, the land of both branded and budget eyeliners.

I've always wanted a shimmery skin-toned eyeliner to get that wide-eyed look, and the white metallic one reminded me of the Lancome eyeliner that Michelle Phan always uses in her videos for her brow bone and inner corners of her eyes, so I grabbed them both. And they're so affordable too! Also, I've been meaning to get a red lip liner to do a bold red lip, so in goes the 2 lip liners (corals and peach are always my colour weakness).

Here's a swatch of all the products mentioned so far:

On the top and bottom most left is the Sunkiller Perfect Strong BB, both unblended and blended out. This gives a good amount of coverage, isn't too pale or pink-toned and it sets to a matte, powdery finish. Next to that is the Rimmel lipstick swatch, a nice neutral lip colour. Then comes the lip liners in "Red Blush" and "Nude Coral", and the eyeliners in "White Divine" and "Almost Famous".

You can see the skin-toned long lasting eyeliner still sticks stubbornly to my skin despite me having wiped everything else off. Not bad!

And then I saw these. These things that made me break my perfect 6-month polish ban record!

It's because they're so special and so cheap, no one can resist them! The bronzy one was RM$10, while the other two were RM$7 each.

The polish on the left is "No. 43, Where Is The Party?" and it's a beautiful purple-green duochrome! I'm not sure if it's visible in the picture, but the sides of the bottle always shines green, then graduating into a slight murky yellow and finally a deep purple. It is amazing. The polish on the right is "No. 38, Choose Me!" (and yeah, I did choose you) and it's a dead-on dupe of OPI's "Catch Me In Your Net". Who can resist that beautiful blue-green with gold sparkles?

Now this one you've gotta see, magnetic nail polish!

Yeah, I bought the little magnet that you're suppose to use it with, which I shouldn't have cause it's quite weak. But zomg, the polish! The shade is "No. 02, Copper Rulez!", and it's a gorgeous bronzy, brown shade with golden and copper sparkles! And apparently iron too, cause it totally creates the designs you see in that little pamphlet.

Nail polish swatches~

(Zomwidqqbidubsvfffff at that teal polish with that sick gold sheen!)

You can see the waves of brown-black in that magnetic bronze polish, those are caused by holding the magnet above the wet polish for about 30 seconds.

And of course the duochrome polish, which always never fails to make me stare at my nails 24/7 and make me look like an idiot.

See, told you I had a valid reason for getting these!

Last of my haul, clothes finally. The grey cardigan costs only RM$25 and the 2800 Denier leggings only RM$17 (dead cheap or what?). Both are for my coming trip to New York and Canada, where I'm positive that I'll be freezing my butt off.

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Last but not least, I wanted to get a full mani-pedi done but by the time I got to Times Square, it was already late and most of the nail shops were closing. In the end, I only did the pedicure (for only RM$40) and this is the polish I chose for my troll toes!

Ha ha ha, so unlike me right? So purple and pink and girly! But I wanted this as it's an ORLY duochrome (and again, yes, duochromes did me in).

I don't know the shade, but I was totally suckered in by the golden sheen of the polish, when light hits it at certain angles.

I shall end this post with a shout-out:

Did you know that Max Factor can be found in KL?

I didn't know that at all and I was dumbfounded when I saw the counter in Sungei Wang's Parkson Grand. I played with a few of their products, like the foundation and mascaras, but they didn't display the price and there wasn't a sales assistant nearby so I just walked off after that. So now you know, if you desperately want to get Max Factor makeup, you can always head to Malaysia!

Hope you enjoyed reading this haul post (it's been quite a while since I did one), thanks for dropping by!