Thursday, March 31, 2011

My Make Up Collection^^

Well, this is not my entire make up collection, just the more frequently used items. I was tagged by Jie Jie to do my make up collection post. Unlike Jie Jie, I need a minimum of 20 minutes for the quick natural look make up, and usually it takes me 30 minutes, haha!


Moving on...


FACE


Primer/Base: 
Missha BB Boomer - paired with Missha M Signature Real Complete BB Cream),
Lancome Pure Focus T-zone mattifier - used mainly in summer time 
Sofina Rise UV cut milk - also used mainly in summer time 
Laura Mercier oil-free primer - I am almost done with this tube. Will be switching to NARS primer with SPF after this.




Foundation:
MAC Moistureblend SPF 15, NW 30 - Its creamy texture works best for me in drier winter months
DiorSkin Extreme Fit Moist-Compact SPF 25, 020 - A little to cakey on me, will be getting something else next time.
Bobbi Brown Skin Foundation SPF 15, Warm Beige 3.5 - I love this lightweight texture for summer.
Missha M Signature Real Complete BB Cream SPF 15, No.23 - The texture is ok, but the color is a little too pale/gray for me. I have another tube of brand new Missha BB cream and BB boomer that I may swap it away later... too bad the color doesn't work for me.
Laura Mercier Finishing Powder, #1 - Love the flawless look it gives when setting my foundation
Guerlain Meteorites Holiday Edition in Gold Temptation - Gives a nice glow on my face.

I am seriously considering getting Japanese foundation to try on, such as Lunasol water-gel foundation for summer. Based on what Fuz recommends, I think I am an OC-03 in Japanese foundation... But since I am banned from hauling more Japanese makeup for a little bit, I may have to pass on that!!! Sob...



Concealer:
NARS smoothing Face Prep - This should be listed under Primer/Base section instead. It's a nice primer to smooth out fine lines under my eye area and diminish appearance of pores around the nose area.
Laura Mercier Undercover Pot Shade #3 - This came from the flawless face kit and I am already finished the setting powder (and hence bought the full size finishing powder!) and the concealer is already hitting the pan. I am tempted to try either the new Bobbi Brown concealer kit or Amazing Cosmetics concealer after this.



Cheeks:
Jill Stuart Blossom Dual Cheeks 06 little anemone - This was recently acquired, has a slight sweet floral fragrance that doesn't bug me. Overall the texture is nice and smooth, and the powder is really pigmented. A little goes a long way.
NARS blush in Orgasm - This was much raved by a lot of beauty bloggers. I had a hard time deciding between this Orgasm or the Super Orgasm before, but I prefer non shimmers for everyday use so I picked Orgasm in the end.
Shu Uemura blush in Antique Pink & Antique Orange (limited edition) - The pink one is a little too pink for my skintone and it would work best with fairer skintones.
Canmake Cream Cheek 05 Sweet Apricot - This is my favorite blush of the all with the best color that works for me and the best price (retails for 580yen, but I paid about $62hkd)



EYES



This is just part of my eye makeup collection in my makeup vanity table. Of all make up items, I like eye make up the most, which explains the huge amount of eyeshadow palettes I own.

I love to be organized so I used a plastic box with compartments from IKEA to organize my goodies.

Eyeshadow:
The following are the frequently used items out of the batch:


My top picks, usually neutral colors as my significant other half doesn't like me in all sorts of eye colors.

T'estimo Single Eyeshadow in BE-13 - I love this eyeshadow as a great base, it's hitting the pan and I am almost done with it. As T'estimo has been discontinued by Kanebo, I am not sure where to get as a replacement.
Canmake Jewelstar Eyes 07 Gold Stone - a cheap replacement for Jill Stuart Jelly Eye color, very sparkly, but not as long lasting as JS...
B&C Laboratories Makemania single eyeshadow in Bronze Gold - I love love love the shimmers and sparkles of this eyeshadow, and this is a lovely color for autumn/winter. It's already hitting the pan. Given to me by my uncle's wife, who is a Japanese...
Bobbi Brown Chrome Eye Shadow in Pewter 3, limited edition - a nice shimmer gray for everyday look
Bobbi Brown Metallic Eye Shadow in Brownstone, GWP
Bobbi Brown Shimmer Wash Eye Shadow in Heather Mauve, GWP



Mascara:


I don't have a lot of mascaras, as I have found my love, which is Majolica Majorca mascara, the lengthening kind. I prefer lenthening over volumizing because I usually go for the natural look. (I heard MJ's volumizing mascara has tons of fibers that is like pulling hairs out of the mascara tube, and according to my friend, it's absolutely disgusting!!)


The MJ Diamond Lash mascara is just for fun for some party nights out. It's a mascara top coat with silver glitters so I rarely use it for day time...


And I have 3 eyelash curlers.
1. National heated eyelash curler Matsugenkurun EH234P - it's a dual headed heated lash curler that allows you to precisely crimp inner or outer corners of eyelash. I acquired this a few years ago when stopping over in Narita Airport, and when the airport baggage staff destroyed my entire baggage at NY's Laguardia Airport, I have searched high and low to replace my unusable National heated lash curler.
2. Shu Uemura lash curler
3. Koji Curving Eyelash Curler 38mm - perfect for a "sunflower" looking eyelashes.
Unlike other eyelash curlers, Koji Curving Eyelash Curler is of brand new design. 38mm size curler curls up all eyelashes. Its lightly-curved shape covers the roots of eyelashes, bringing radial eyelashes. 


1 and 3 is my favorite, but I have not been using 1 for sometime already because I don't usually keep spare AAA batteries around.





Eyeliner:


I forgot to include my latest addition to my eyeliner family, which is the Dolly Wink liquid eyeliner.


Gel Eyeliners: Bobbi Brown Long Wear Gel Eyeliner in Black Mauve Shimmer Ink 23 and Black Ink 1. I have shaky hands so gel eyeliner works best for me.
Liquid Eyeliners: NARS Eyeliner Stylo in Nuits Blanches. It was ok in the beginning but recently I found out that the tip of the brush becomes dry even the pen still have ink in it. It's quite frustrating for me and I will be switching to Dolly Wink as DW does not give me this problem
Pencil Eyeliners: Majolica Majorca Cream Pencil Liner in BK 999 and BR 611, Majolica Majorca Jeweling Pencil in BK 901 and 71 - The cream pencil liner is by far my favorite for lower lashline tightlining as there is no smudging and stays put.






Brows:


VOV Auto Eyebrow Pencil in Brown - introduced to my by my mom, but it's a little to red on me.
Anastasia Beverly Hill Brow Powder Duo in Medium Ash/Medium Brown - This color works great for naturally dark brown/black hair color.






LIPS


Of all make up products, I am the least enthusiastic on lip products. Part of the reason being lippies end up in your stomach after each meal or drink... but with the new Maquillage lippies that can withstand eating and drinking as shown by Fuz and Jie Jie, I have asked my friend in HK to pick up 2 colors PK 744 and RD 733 for me to try out in a few week's time.


The other reason is I have sensitive and dry lips and some lip products will cause blisters on my lips, so I have been very careful with selecting lipsticks/lip glosses/lip balms...


Regardless, I have always been into nude colored lips, because I want the focus of my makeup to be set on my eyes (that explains why I have an excessive amount of eyeshadows!)


I only have a few lip products to show here:


Lancome Juicy Tube in Orange Juice - it was a GWP from somewhere??
Sofina AUBE lipstick in OR110
Sofina AUBE lipstick in OR503
DIOR Addict lipstick in 384 Rose Scenario
DIOR Addict Lip Glow SPF 10 - I love this natural soft pink on my lips :)
DIOR Addict Ultra-Gloss in 151
Canmake Lip Concealer Moist In - Great as a lip base product for concealing redness on lips
Canmake Melty Nude Lip in 04 Peach Beige - this lipstick is non-drying and can also works as a base for other darker colored lipsticks.
Canmake Nudy Glow Rouge in 05 Honey Latte - The most worn lip gloss lately. Non sticky and fragrance free. I started using it since a month ago and I think I am almost 40% done!!




That's it for now. What's in your makeup stash?

Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Baby Patrick!


We have a chance to visit Baby Patrick 2 weekends ago^^

Baby Patrick is just a mere 2 weeks old in this picture, and the Chinese golden lock that we prepared for him as his first present looks soooo big on him! (well, if Patrick is a girl, probably she will get a diamond? just kidding...)

He is quite a good boy, no cranky boo-boos or overwhelming crying during our visit :)

Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Verdict of my intensive blackheads/oil sebum treatment


Almost 3 weeks ago, I started an intensive regime of treating blackheads/oil sebum in the pores around my nose area. Detailed information of the products itself can be located in my earlier blog entry here.


As a quick recap, I used 3 products in this following order:


After cleansing -> toner -> Dr. Wu Serum -> Synergie exfoliating serum -> Botani Olive skin serum squalene


I have been using this treatment every other day and 3 weeks have passed and here's the result so far:


Before
After
Notice how the acne scars on my cheeks have faded?

Now, moving on to my nose area:

Before
After
Pore size have siginificantly reduced, and so as the amount of noticeable blackheads. Since pore size diminishes, I can apply less foundation to cover them up! Yippee!

Does these product work? I think so, though it require loads of work and persistence, I think it's worth it. The Synergie exfoliating serum has a mere 10ml fluids in it, but I manage to use less than half a drop with each application. I think this can last for at least 6 months, so overall a great investment!

Monday, March 28, 2011

Wedding Mascots^^

Eversince I went back to Hong Kong in mid-April last year, I have been looking for my dream wedding mascots for our big day on May 8th, 2010. I have been to shopping centers specializes in wedding accessories, and not only the pricing shocked me, but more importantly, I cannot settle on a pair of wedding dolls that best represent us. So in the end, in about 1 week to our wedding, I decided to MAKE MY OWN wedding mascots!!!




First of all, I will need an idea for the dolls I am going to make. So I roughly sketch out the templates for the dolls, and with this blog article, I will use Mascot Groom as my example.
After cutting out the fabric parts for the doll, I get started with the head, and I stuffed a little AAA grade cotton into the head for a preview.







Then it's the body part, haha Mascot now looks like a little monk from Shaolin.





Signature of the real Groom, a spiky hair is attached to the doll.



After stuffing the body and stitching down the spiky hair to the head, I started on the outfit process. I began with making the bow-tie. The Sumo outfit is just for fun, well, we didn't want to see Mascot Groom lying around naked!!!!



Mascot Groom's tuxedo outfit. This part is harder than the making of the doll in my opinion.



Unfortunately, I ran out of time before the big day. I was able to complete only the pants and bow-tie of Mascot Groom, and 90% of Mascot Bride's costume so the set was not fully completed. 
[Note: Mascot Bride's gown was modeled after my first fitting of my actual wedding gown, inspired by Vera Wang's "Bouquet" Wedding gown]

Thanks to my mom, she quickly did a fix up so Mascot Groom will not look as naked.


After the banquet, I had more time in completing Mascot Groom's suit before heading back to the US. And over the weekend, since the weather has been so nice, we headed out to the beach and staged the wedding mascots for photographing:


Friday, March 25, 2011

Tickle My Heart Earrings


Tickle My Heart is named after I encounter MisoJenny's blog: http://ticklemyheartpink.blogspot.com/

I find this name quite interesting and matches the heart-shaped rose quartz strand that I have been making earrings with. I absolutely love the translucent pink of the rose quartz and the way the bead dangles with your body movement.




And the pink color from rose quartz is particularly gorgeous under sunlight, with a lovely glow:




And in terms of scale, this is how it will look when wearing the earrings:



This pair of earrings is listed here at my Etsy store. Proceeds will go to donation for the Japan Red Cross to relieve disaster victims in Japan.

Thursday, March 24, 2011

Lily of the Valley Earrings - SOLD!!


This is my first customer referred by Fuzkittie's introduction of my Etsy store on her youtube channel and facebook fans page.


Caty contacted me through facebook that she would like a pair of earrings for her, with her choice of swarovski crystal colors. She also told me that she is not that much of a silver girl, so she would like a pair made out of gold-filled materials with light peach AB swarovski crystals. In addition, she wanted an extra pair made of sterling silver findings and violet AB swarovski crystals.


Of course I am more than happy to create customized order for my customers, so I went straight to order some more materials online and once I received my materials, I made these earrings on the same day for Caty.


Click here for the Etsy page for Caty's earrings.


Thanks Caty for your purchase, and thanks Fuz for introducing my Etsy store^^

Wednesday, March 23, 2011

EOTD - Kose Visee Glam Shade Eyes GY-6 - Swatches and Reviews


Along with the neutral gray Lunasol palette, I have also another gray palette from Visee, Glam Shade Eyes in GY-6.

Visee is a drugstore brand made by the brand Kose. However I feel that Visee cost a little more than other drugstore brand like Kate, Majolica Majorca, and Lavshuca, etc... I paid about $22usd for this Visee palette.



This palette is cased inside a rather glam silver toned compact with some pebble stone like details on it, and it is because of this, I have less issues with fingerprinting all over the case because of the pebble texture.

Now, moving on to the colors offered by the eyeshadow itself.


From left to right, a shimmery beige-white highlight, a light taup-ish brown, a deeper charcoal brown, an almost black for eye lining, and a silvery shimmer white for highlighting the inner corners of the eyes.

Now, swatches on my arm:
Under direct sunlight


Under indoor lighting



Moving on to the EOTD, under direct sunlight:




And under indoor lighting, where shimmers are more pronounced:




The colors and effect is quite similar as my Lunasol palette that I have reviewed yesterday. Though the texture isn't as smooth and creamy as Lunasol's, I am ok with given it's more than half the price Lunasol palette. 

There are no significant fall-out that I have noticed, and to my surprise, I don't need an additional eyeliner as the black shade in the palette works as a great eyeliner at the outer corners of my eyes. (and this black eyeshadow has hardly any fall out at all which makes things a lot easier!)

I would say this is a great substitute for Lunasol to those who would like to try out Japanese brand eyeshadows!

Another blogger friend of mine raved about BL-8, and according to her, it is a very pretty blue palette. I have always been cautious with bright blue eye makeup as they are usually not flattering for my skintone. But she said she has a similar skin color to me (NC-30) and it has work great on her. Em, I may think about it if I should get it in my next haul... haha! (yes, I stressed that I need to save up yesterday!)

Tuesday, March 22, 2011

EOTD - Kanebo Lunasol Ocean Scene Eyes 04 Smoky Ocean -Swatches and Reviews


Of one of the recent hauls is this gorgeous Lunasol Ocean Scene Eyes quad palette in 04 color, Smoky Ocean. Lunasol is a makeup line by maker Kanebo and they are sold exclusively in Japanese department store counters (yep, no Matsu-Kiyo drugstore deals/coupons for this brand, sadly). This is priced around the Jill Stuart eyeshadow palettes, so it has a mid range price tag to it (I paid close to $60usd for this palette)

While the Ocean Scene Eyes comes with a range of vivid blue colors appropriate for spring time, I picked out the most neutral palette out of the 5 colors available. With more expensive eyeshadow quads, I usually like to get neutral colors because I want to get the most everyday wear out of it, rather than a dramatic colorful look that I may only wear once or twice during the year.



04 Smoky Ocean is composed of cool gray neutrals, my description of the four shades are golden beige (top left) ,baby blue/ice blue (top right), light taupe-ish tan/beige (bottom left), dark cool toned charcoal (bottom right)

Swatches on my hand:

Under direct sunlight
Under indoor lighting


As you can see, the light beige and light blue are very similar when swatched on the hands, it only has a very very subtle difference. In terms of the texture when I swatched the colors, I absolutely love it. It glides on smooth, silky and creamy, and even more so than my Jill Stuart palettes. There are no noticeable fall-outs and the color are easily blendable. I love the texture, but not the price, lol!!!



The casing for the palette is within a sleek bronzed colored compact that has a rather modern feel to it. It's very different from the fancy princessy cases I owned for Jill Stuart. The only complain I have is the fingerprints all over the shiny surface... but that's about it.

Now, moving on to the EOTD, under direct sunlight:




And under indoor lighting, which shows the shimmers of the eyeshadow clearly:



Overall this is a very nice palette with great texture, and the color 04 is perfect for a everyday professional look. It's a cool gray neutral palette that is quite different from other warm brown neutral palettes that I own. It's nice to have a change sometimes, right?

If budget allows, I would like to try other palettes with a different color range from Lunasol some other time. (well, been hauling too much and I gotta learn to limit my spending!)

And along with this Lunasol palette, I have also acquired Visee's Glam Shade Eyes in GY-6 (gray tone) which I will be reviewing and comparing with Lunasol shortly. Stay tuned!