Merry Christmas

Hope everyone has a great holiday and throws themselves in a pit of gluttony for this holiday. I recently made a small purchase at cherryculture for mostly Nyx products. I can't find Nyx in my neighborhood, so the only way that I'll get some is through the internet. Most of what I had bought was really good, with the exception of these two products. One is the Jordana stick concealer in Light/Medium and the other is Nyx's cream blush in Boho Chic. Something to note is that while the blush looks like a brighter pink. in reality it looks like a muted peachy pink when blended into the skin. I swatched the concealer on top, then the blush, and then the blush blended on the bottom.

The concealer is a dead ringer for my skin color and when blended in, it was perfect. However, when I did let it sit, it slipped off and didn't stay. The reason why it blended so well was because it was so oily, that it spread nicely for a stick concealer but it was too oily to stay on. Plus the stick isn't really hygienic for reapplying purposes, so no repurchasing for me.
Isn't the bush so pretty? The only downside is the amount of sparkle that goes onto my cheeks when I blend this in. Its not the subtle sparkle that catches in the sun but the do you have glitter on your face look. The sparkles aren't chunky like glitter but they are still very bright and noticeable on the skin and it stays for a long time. Long after your blush has faded, the sparkles remain. I tried layering it under powder, but nope, still there. Its much more noticeable in the picture below so take a gander at it.
Once again, hope everyone has a happy holiday and enjoys their days off school or work.

Way Past Due Post

Sorry for the late Thanksgiving post, but hope everyone had a great holiday and now its time to get things started for one of the best holidays of all time. But before that let me tell you that this thanksgiving, I had a great time with family, but the food was blah. Technically, its all my fault, because I'm in charge of the food, but I just don't know what happened.

I'm notoriously known around friends and family for my inability to cook. After copious amounts of begging, groveling and doing demeaning favors, the family allowed me to cook for the holiday. Honestly, I think that they were too lazy to do anything on that day and just said screw it you can slave over a hot stove this year. So I started weeks before, researching simple recipes that we would like and even got a porn magazine for food aka Food Network Magazine to help me out. I have a tendency to fudge a bit on the ingredients, for instance if 1cup of sugar is too much I'll only put 2/3cup. Not this year I went all out but...

Only the ham and the baklava came out good, the rest were...

Dinner Rolls. My goodness the magazine screwed me over something fierce in this lie of a recipe.

A pretzel batter that didn't hold shape.
Store bought apple pie because some things shouldn't be left in my hands.
My famed and successful baklava.

Geez. I don't think that I'll ever make it in the cooking or food styling industry, but this year no one got food poisoning and for that I am ever so grateful. Next year I'm giving up.

I am going on a family vacation, minus the dad who conveniently forgot we had a planned vacation six months in advance and said that he has to work, to Orlando. I've been there several time so I don't know what to even do there but at least its a vacation. Yay!

Lip Products Galore

I finally managed to dig up the camera from the dusty corners of my room and took some pictures and came back with a giant overall review. I mentioned previously about my Etude House order and while I did get a couple of products, my main purchase were on lip products. I really don't know the name of the colors because it isn't printed on the label from my poor interpretation of the Korean language. Oh, I also included a picture of my Loreal lip gloss from a previous review as well. On top of the Loreal lip shine in tenacious, then the lower left is the Etude House Juicy Pop tube, then the 55 Lip Chu, and finally the Peach Water Gloss in Strawberry Milk. I love all of these, each for a different reason. None of these have a offensive scent, but they all smell sweet. Now on to the explanations.

As you can see the Loreal Hip is pigmented as hell and on the side of it I dabbed a spot of it, then rubbed it out. It is still bright and pigmented. The Juicy Pop is a bit glossy and watery, a light glossy red but not really shiny. None of these glosses are really sticky but last a reasonable amount of time. The Lip Chu is brighter, more of a stain, not really glossy and when blended out, it just brightens up the natural shade of my lips. Finally, the Peach Gloss, once again tastes like the 2% Korean peach beverage. I don't know if the default smell of peach is this, but almost all of the peach products I have come across in Korea smells just like this. This gloss has tiny fine glitter mixed but is really unnoticeable and doesn't feel gritty. I have fairly pigmented lips but this covered them nicely. It feels light on the lips and I love this gloss.

I use these lip products for different things, like on a normal day I would just out a tiny bit of the Lip Chu, but when going for a glossy but sheer look, I would pick up the Juicy Pop. These would last me a long time, so I don't think I'll ever get the chance to repurchase before my attention wanders off to a different product.

Whenever I mention a peach 2% drink, this is the product that I am talking about. Try it out and tell me that this isn't the default scent for all peach type products coming from Korea. If you say that it isn't, I'll blatantly call you a liar.

Hip Shine Lipcolor

Picture courtesy of drugstore.com
My camera has done a disappearing act so no pictures until I can find it, but as you may know, some Loreal products are on 75% at Cvs. So where did my normal walking routine take me? Damn straight to Cvs. I didn't get much especially in the lip department. Why the hell doesn't Loreal seal their lip products. Guaranteed 100% of the lipsticks wrer tampered with. The only treasure I found was the Hip lip colors. Don't mistake these for the tube squeeze glosses. They come in tube with a doe foot applicator and it is a lipstick in a bottle. I managed to get turbulent, which is a deep, rich cherry red, and I thought that this gloss was going to be sheer. I love the light just ate a cherry pop look on my lips and was totally blown away by how wrong I was. It looks like Nyx's lipstick Electra, but a deeper red with a high shine. Don't let the crappy photo fool you this is a intensely pigmented with only a little bit needed for color. No need for slathering on like you would a lip gloss. Best part is that this could also act as a stain, because it leaves a rosy color or lightly applied for a rosy tint.

I'm a bit behind on reviews because I still haven't shown the Sephora stuff or a lot of the Etude House stuff that I got from last time. Honestly, I feel that I have too much and just might start downgrading and just stop. Argh, too much. Hi, my name is ___, and I have a makeup addiction.

Nars Silent Night

During the Sephora Friends and Family Sale, I managed to get Cheyenne eyeshadow duo and I absolutely love it. That was the only thing that I made me feel like I got a good deal. That reminded me of a different Nars shadow that I also got for $10 , but felt the complete opposite, until recently.Nars Silent Night in the pan is so pretty just a bright yellowish gold that would look great on me. I got this when I was just starting out and didn't know much about makeup.

Maybe that the problem because I knew nothing about primers or dark bases. The problem with this as you can see are the big pieces of gold flecks that appear in random chunks. You can see it all around the rim of the eyeshadow cover and on parts of my finger. When applies without a base, this thing sucks, the yellow base color does not show up all all I got were random chunks of gold on my eye, with fallout all over my cheek. I cursed Nars and shoved this back into the always neglected pile.

I was throwing away some makeup and came across this again. Tried it over Tarte's bronze cream shadow and guess what, it looked decent.

My eye looks so tired but if I close them all the way, you can't see the color. Still not in love with this one but it gets a just okay rating. Not worth the $22 dollar price tag now. Honestly, I don't really see myself using this one a lot, but I think I may put on this color a lot during the holidays since I love golds and dark browns whenever I go out but this is going to be on rotation and won't take it into my everyday pile.

Winter Skin

Winter means alligator skin for me. Except for my face, which happens to have three acne cystic bumps, I have a fairly dry skin combo from the neck down. Right after I jump out of the shower I immediately put on Cetaphil body creme in the winter and Cetaphil lotion in the summer. My hands still need that extra love, and I love this this product. Honestly, all I remember about this is that I got it at Sasa.com for maybe $6. No other creme will compare to this.
No scent, oily but moisturizing and it makes my hands shine. Now when I do my jazz hands they'll be extra bright. The creme is thick and has some pearlescent sheen to it. It may feel oily at first but if you leave it on, it settles into your skin. I just advise not touching anything until it does.

Look at my dry skin above, then look at my hand now. Is it me or does my hand look really...meaty? Gosh that's a gross image. You don't need a lot of product and honestly I don't know if they still have it at Sasa, but I am going to try my best to hunt it down.

I feel better that I've been posting a bit more often. I was a bit worried that I would have nothing to really write about but then realized that I can write whatever I want. If I want to rant about my breakfast, then so be it. But luckily I have purchased from the Sephora sale and won't have to.

Kleancolor Palette

Whoo, It's been a crazy Halloween. My grandmother's 80th birthday happened to be on that day and two days later, I finally finished off the leftovers and have gained two pounds despite exercising daily. I have officially become a schlub.

As you may know, I love to try different things, and I saw this makeup store closing at my local mall. I loved my Amuse brand palette, so I decided to pick up a similar looking palette that was on sale for around $2.50. It is the Kleancolor Double Rainbow Palette. I had high expectations, and it had the potential to be one of my favorite palette in the bunch. It came with 8 colors, 4 being in the purple family, and the others being in the neutral brown family along with two blushes.
This is the purple side along with a peach bluish with gold shimmer. The colors look different here, but I guarantee that they are all purple in color. Doesn't the second one from the left remind you of Fishnet, and the one nest to it remind you of Ransom by Urban Decay?

The other side is the more neutral side with beautifully colored neutrals along with a rosy silver speckled blush.

So how did these fair? Piss poorly. When used with a dense brush with primer, you barely get any color. I had to rub vigorously with my finger in each of the pockets in order to get the colors you see here today. The only good things are the blushes, they came out decently pigmented, but everything else was a total fail.

My hands are incredibly dry so you can clearly see the cut on my hand. Ouch. I have to start breaking you my winter creams. I hate this cold weather.

Hair Color

I really can't stand the cold weather. My feet and hand get especially cold and I hate it. I have my electric blanket plugged and warm, on 24/7. According to my mother, she once cold hands and feet but they started to get warm once she got pregnant. So the solution for my cold hands and feet, according to mom, is pregnancy. Yea... Not going to happen.

I mentioned earlier about dying my hair with this squid ink dye, but didn't have the balls to do it then. A month ago, I got really bored and decided to do it. Now, you can search for the pictures from before, but look at it now. No flash in a room with no natural sunlight. It just seems a tad bit redder with no visible difference. However in the sun, my hair looks like its orange red.

The picture came out quite dark, but I assure you that it is indeed flaming. I am used to American dying products, because if I pick a dark red color, my hair turns out just tinted red and not as pictured. But with this one, I got exactly what the box pictured.

I wouldn't get this again only because the coloring is in consistent and my hair feels like crap afterwards. For instance, my hair always was rough in the back end base of my scalp, because it would get tangled. Now, I have tangles starting from the mid length portion of my hair everywhere. Not good.

My sister also did this, and we have the same texture and put it on for the same thime, but Oh Dear Lord. Her hair is tomato red, on fire, ultra bright. It's sad to say that I got off easy with the color. Luckily my hair grows fast, supposedly because I have perverted thoughts, so hopefully I can grow this hair color out because it doesn't look like its fading anytime soon.

Pixi Palettes

Whenever I visit Target and look through the cosmetics aisle, I always dismiss Pixi for being too expensive and never really pick anything up. Around Christmas time I noticed that these two palettes were on sale for around $5 each and pick it up to try. They are the Pixi's Softly Smoking Eyes and the Sensual Smoking Eyes. Wasn't too impressed at first, but after trying them for a bit, I love them.
The colors on each palette range from wearable to dramatic. Except for one matte black, all of them are shimmery and fairly pigmented. They can get a bit chalky but that really isn't too distracting.

The swatching came out a bit weird so bear with me. First off is the Sensual Smoky palette (the green boxed one). All of these were done without a primer and swatched on my arm with my finger with flash. For me, this wasn't my favorite range of colors and didn't really match with each other. All the colors here have some sort of glitter that you really can't catch. The flash really didn't capture the shimmer in each of the colors.

For instance, can you see the red shimmer in the dark blue? Not really. The darker colors were harder to blend and work with but were still pretty.

After swatching the second bunch and getting the colors all over my arm, I decided to get smart and stack the swatches. This is the second palette (the blue one) photographed with all of the same conditions listed above. For me, this palette works, blends and matches much better that the one above. There are a great mix of colors, and I would only need this one palette when going on vacation.

The only downside to this palette is the packaging. The colors are housed in a cardboard with only a magnetic closing on the lids. So this can open by itself and get damaged easily. What I usually do is tie a rubber band around this so that it won't accidentally open. I also don't know if you can still get this around Target though. However, if I do see some Pixi stuff on sale, I won't hesitate to buy some. I still wouldn't get anything from the line at full price though. Maybe I'm a bit biased about purchasing expensive, makeup at a drugstore and I almost never buy drugstore makeup until it goes on sale. I have to start changing that habit.

Etude House Baking Soda Scrub

My acne has been out of control for the past couple of months and its finally settling down. I've been toiling away trying to find a remedy for it while hitting rock bottom of my concealer trying to cover them up. I heard that Etude House's Baking Soda Scrub would help, since I've heard whisperings around the Internet that this stuff is magic. I didn't want a full size because, well I have a lot of scrubs and didn't want one if it didn't work. Luckily I won the sample lottery when buying from Etude House because I managed to get a small sized sample of this.

It is a crunch pore scrub... a crunchy pore scrub.. I don't know why they would put the crunch in there. The smell is light but has a little hint of citrus but didn't bother me. This scrub came out a wet white mixture, but when rubbed into the skin, it quickly went dry making it hard to spread around my face.

If you look closely you can see the baking soda crystals in there. It was a bit harsh, but if you want a good scrubbing, its not bad. But here's the part that would stop me from repurchasing this. After washing my face, my skin felt like it had a thin film of oil on top. For a girl with really oily skin like mine, this was a no no. I always had to rewash my face with a cleanser, when I normally don't do that after using other scrubs.

Unfortunately, this is ok, but not something I would repurchase. Luckily I only got a sample of this and didn't buy a full tub.

Sorry if the review seems a bit off. I'm still trying to get back into doing this again and hopefully do better next time.

Hello...?

Tap. Tap. Is this thing on? Yeah. I totally haven't had the time or patience to keep writing, so I went on hiatus. Does this mean that I'm back. Not necessarily. I am pretty busy, but I have a feeling that thing will just get worse. Just a quick update, I found out that etude house has an american website. Can you believe it? A legit website that I ordered from that came in three days. No more ebay for me. One down side is that there aren't a lot of products, but there is a fairly good amount of products that you can peruse.

I would like to get thing blog back on track, so a new camera charger was ordered, my camera is fixed, my stash is lined up and I am ready to go. Now its time to wait. Brb.

Revisiting Older Products

I'm planning to look again at some products that I have lying around. I always tend to use whatever is on top of my drawer, so whatever I have in the back, have become neglected. One thing that I bought in order to have my opinion changed was the Eos lip balm. I hated the first one so much but heard that people loved it, so I decided that I may try it again. This time I managed to get my hands on the red one. I think that its some sort of passion fruit flavor but all I can smell is artificial peach mixed with plastic. It doesn't feel as plastic on the lips as before, and it hydrated the lips just a bit but not enough for me to change my mind. Maybe I'm just biased but I still hate it. Don't waste your money on this.

Maine Trip

Who! I'm finally back and have shaken off the vacation laziness. I've been in Maine starting from Monday night, all the way to Friday morning. Technically, I stayed there for three days, since Monday and Friday don't count. It was a fun trip filled with laughter and food, and while I may not visit Maine again, I will definitely go on an another trip.

Sorry for the lack of clear pictures, but I broke the camera at the airport before I got to Maine. So most of the pictures were taken by my phone or a disposable camera. On Tuesday, we had decided to travel to all the tourist traps in Maine and drive around aimlessly. We visited to the lighthouse, which was beautiful and so picturesque. Look at that picture, it belongs on some kind of postcard. We ended up taking a lot of pictures, and everything was so beautiful.

Afterwards, we drove to Lenny the Chocolate Moose. Goodness, I was about to attack that Moose and just start munching on the horns. Instead I settled on taking way too many pictures of the moose and the bears around it.

So to settle my sweet tooth, I ended up getting a variety of chocolate. I hate having too many varieties because I can't choose and ended up just staring at the cases of chocolate. In the end, I settled on taking a pound of chocolates. Truffles, pralines, with flavorings such as almonds, white chocolate, and lord knows what else.

There was an another layer on the bottom, and yes, everyone of them were delicious.

While in Maine, I decided that I would eat lobster at least once a day everyday. Usually I ended up eating nothing but lobster rolls whenever I ordered. Ah, I have to stop writing about it. It makes me want lobster and lobsters are expensive in NY. They were so good and sweet, with not a lot of mayo, so that you can still taste the lobster. Ah no more.

The next day was spent in Lobster Festival. It was a two hour drive in order to get there from our hotel. Honestly, it was just like a regular street festival. The only difference was that they sold lobster. Luckily, I love street food, but anyone looking for something different, would be disappointed.

Lobster eaten outside in a tent with a group of people with the water right next to you made the lobsters even more delicious. I think we paid around $36 for three lobsters. We ordered blueberry cobblers, which were so warm and sweet, and was a perfect dessert for our meal.

Look at those lobsters. Look at them. They will suck out your soul and taste buds. It was a beautiful day and I loved my trips except for a couple of things, but those were minor details. I left out a good portion of my trip, because I am too lazy to write about it. Sorry for the ramble hopefully, the nest post will be better. Doubt it though.

BRB

Hey, if you haven't guessed, I'm on my way to Maine. Why Maine? Well, the main reason is because of one event, which is called Lobster Fest. Yes I have a horrible allergy to seafood, mostly shellfish, which causes my throat and lips to swell uncontrollably, but who cares. I love seafood and will not be stopped. I think that I have packed more makeup and clothes enough to last me a month, when I will be there for one week. I can't help it, I am a heavy packer with always the fear of what if something goes wrong.

So I am here way before my flight is due to board and am typing away while I have some free time. Don't really know what is going to happen but all I know is that I am majorly excited. Hopefully I don't have to visit the doctor because of my allergies and damned if I don't eat seafood for breakfast, lunch and dinner. I don't understand people who go somewhere exotic and end up eating McDonald. No go out and explore and if you end up getting food poisoning, chalk it up to experience and try to have a good time. I will try to blog while I am there but would probably be lying to you. See you in one week.

As you may or may not know, my skin is extremely temperamental. If it doesn't like a product, give me three days and I will break out in cystic acne all over my t-zone and cheeks. That's why I'm always careful to use the same products for my face. I've decided that most Korean skincare products don 't match well with my skin, especially any Missha, Innisfree and Etude House skincare items. The makeup works well but skincare, not so much. But one thing that I love, which isn't Korean, but that's where I got it, is the Body Shop's Tea Tree Oil Facial Toner. Sorry for not flipping the picture. I managed to get this is Korea, but found out that they sell this in the US as well. Foolish of me but I also bought the foaming cleanser in Korea as well. The cleanser is ok, but the toner is something special. Every time I break out, I wipe this over my face after washing, and no more new pimples. The existing ones don't look as bad, and sometimes decrease in size. I don't know if there is a difference between the one in Korea and the one in the US, but I am willing to give it a try whenever I run out. Yes this has a strong scent, but it doesn't tighten my face or dry it out so if you are sensitive to scents, this may not be for you.

Nail Polish Rave

Quite the boring title, huh. I've been changing my nail polishes like crazy, and trying out how to make the old ones look interesting again. So going through my stash, I found a gem. This will brighten up any polish and give it a bright shiny sheen, and make dark polishes look almost, unable to find the right adjective, futuristic and metallic. On pinks an neutrals, it looks nice, but when paired with a darker color, that's when you feel like ah.. got my $8 dollars worth.

As a base I applied skin food in GR901, and it does look nice in the bottle, and the colors looks the same when applied.
Then add a light coat of Happy Anniversary by OPI. Yes this is the magic stuff. It is fine silver sparkles.

And now BAM. It instantly makes this look more silver then grey and adds more of a sheen to the color. I love this stuff.

By the way, I'm going on a vacation, guess where based on first photo, and may not do as much. It's not like I do much now, but ok...

Hair Dye Part 2

After the non existent hair color incident that happened last time, it was time for round two. But guess what, it never happened. My mom had some extra hair dye boxes lying around and I decided to steal it from her. She got it from her hair stylist friend, who swears by this stuff. Lucky for me, she got the wrong shade for herself, but lucky for me, it was my kind of color. So I'm sneaking it out of the house when my dad sees this and goes, hey you know your going to go blind using that stuff. I just say okay dad and run off. I go to a corner and eye it calling it my precious. I look at the wonky eyed squid and threatened "if my hair comes out messed up, I will stab your beady little eyes straight out of the box". I don't know if he listened, but I think I got through. Since I can't dye and reach all of my hair, I enlisted the help of my private hair stylist, called my sister. She has been home dying my hair for years. I mentioned dad said as I was leaving and she tells me that his little joke is actually true. I look at her and aww snap, she is not joking. If you don't know, I have thick lenses for my glasses even after I press them, so the thought of getting thicker ones really did not appeal to me. So I slowly put the dye down and in the end, did not dye my hair.
But seriously, look at the color, and its promises to not damage my hair. It states,(sorry for the busted Korean translation) that is is a manicure for the hair. My mother uses this and tells me that it really isn't as damaging as boxed drugstore dyes, but shes moved on to henna. Sorry for the long unnecessary post, and it feels like talked a lot to say nothing. But I'll get back on track for the next one, promise.

Cargo

Whee! Freedom. I've been stuck with an unwelcome house guest that has overstayed their welcome and she is now gone. I mentioned previously about the camping trip, well luckily it got cut short. Picturesque, huh? Nope it was a little slice of hell. Not only did I get a stomach virus that had me lurching over the communal toilet, but my sister got pink eye and no one left happy. Enough about that, lets get to the makeup.

This is the Cargo color palette that retails for Sephora for $10. With 3g of eyeshadow a piece, it is double the size of a MAC shadow, and the outiside packaging is sturdy and heavy. But wait, as soon as I tipped it over to read the back, BAM! The palette falls out of its case.

All that's holding these shadows in, is a minuscule amount of glue right in the center. OK, break out the crazy glue, and plug these back in.

As for the eyeshadows themselves,(sorry for the crappy paint numbering that I did) they are soft well pigmented but honestly, I wasn't impressed by the colors. Number3, the yellowish white one, is a blatantly ugly color and none of these really stand out for me. Only the last number 4 (the lighter brown) looked good. The others looked like something that I already have.

Maybe it's just me, but there was nothing impressive about these. Sure the coppery color looks nice, but I know that on my skin tone, coppery red tinged browns do not look good one me. So, yeah they are a good bargain, but if you really don't need it, or it looks like something you have, then skip. Go buy yourself a nice iced coffee and ice cream treat instead.

Brushes

I never really interested in makeup brushes as much as the makeup itself. I only have two MAC brushes that I rarely use, and since I'm not really a professional or do much heavier looks, I never thought that they were very important. I still would rather prefer buying an eyeshadow over buying a brush. However, there is one brush that I recently fell in love with. It is one from the Sonia Kashuk line that looks like a pencil brush. TADA! It doesn't look like much, but to me this brush has so many functions. It is a bit longer and thinner than some pencil brushes, yet sturdy and still so that it still retains its shape when I use it.

I use this to smudge eyeliner, put some color on the inner tear duct and can even use this to place color into the crease. Since I have smaller eyes, and a lot less lid space, this brush is really useful since it's not that wide. I've really been using this brush a lot, and when on the go, I only use a shader brush and this brush for my eye makeup. SO convenient. If you see one and in the market for a decently priced brush, try it.

I hope everyone will enjoy their July 4 weekend and to let you know, I will be camping with family for three days and four nights in a tent with no water or electricity nearby. I've tried pleading, begging and even bribing people to let me out, but have not succeeded. Let's see if I come back home sane.