Milani : 01 Sweet Nectar

left: blended/smudged with finger.  right: two coats of swatch. 

Milani | 01 Sweet Nectar (Cream)  

First of all, I want to thank Amelia(The Non Brit) for a little photography tip! It made my pictures crispy clear. Please go check Amelia's amazing photos & reviews on her blog :)

 

I am a huge drugstore lover and love affordable products that have great quality. Well, who doesn't? The other day I went to the mart to get some berries- technically my boyfriend wanted it. While my boyfriend was picking some fruits, I wondered around the beauty section (just like always.) I picked several products. This Milani's Sweet Nectar Lipstick is one of them.

Milani's 'Sweet Nectar' is a  bright orange-red(more orange-ish), with subtle yellow undertones. It is super creamy, very opaque color looks might be better on darker or more olive skin tones, paired with winged liner and heavy black mascara. If you are looking for something wearable orange color lipstick, this might be perfect for you. It also has like bubble gum kind of smell which I really like it. 

Like : Pigmentation, It's very creamy but still doesn't go into every single lip cracks. I also do like the smell of it and its affordable price.

Dislike: Little too easy to get smudged. It doesn't seem like a 'long lasting' product.

Product Description : Make a statement without saying a word!  True Instant Color. One stroke, full coverage application. This next generation lipstick gives the ultimate in color, texture and finish.  The lightweight creamy formula contains Vitamins A, C, & E to moisturize and nourish lips. Paraben-free.

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Adios blackheads!

 The Body Shop | Seaweed pore-cleansing facial exfoliator 75ml, 2.5 US fl oz. - $15

 Benefit |  'Honey...snap out of it' scrub 150ml, 5.0 US fl oz.- $28

Murad |  AHA/BHA Exfoliating Cleanser 200ml, 6.75 US fl oz. - $36

Philosophy | the micro-delivery exfoliating wash 236.6ml, 8 US fl oz. ~ 473.1ml, 16 US fl oz. - $26~39

Cosmedicine | Medi-morphosis Self-Adjusting Exfoliator 75ml, 2.5 US fl oz. - $24.99

 Dermalogica | daily microfoliant 75g, 2.6 oz. - $52

Nobody, unless you are doing some science experiment with your body, wants to have or keep those ugly blackheads on their nose.  I recently notice some of my pore is getting bigger and attracts more unpleasant stuffs into my nose- such as makeup residue, dust, and oil etc. So I thought maybe it's time for me to get a good exfoliating wash that will help me to achieve flawless/porcelain skin by getting rid of some of the unpleasant stuff!

I've researched some products and found so many. So, I tried to  narrowed it down a bit to six products that have higher stars/positive comments. I personally think that great skin makes all the difference when you wear makeup. So, I don't know if any of you tried any of these products but even if you haven't, I would definitely love to here from you for any recommendations. It's always hard to get some quality skin care products since I don't know much about skin care ( barely into it. )

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Have you ever tried any of these products? What's your current skin care products that you love?

Please let me know if there's any great products for normal to little oily skin!

The Body Shop - White Musk : eau de parfum

The Body Shop | White Musk : eau de parfum 30ml (1.0 US fl oz.) - $24 

* This product was personally gifted to me.

Product Description : A soft and velvety signature scent for every woman, every moment. Forever sensual. The premium eau de parfum format is the most concentrated, strongest and longest lasting form of fragrance spray.

Full Ingredients : Alcohol Denat., Water, Fragrance, Hydroxyisohexyl 3-Cyclohexene Carboxaldehyde, t-Butyl Alcohol, Linalool, Alpha-Isomethyl Ionone, Hydroxycitronellal, Coumarin, Hexyl Cinnamal, Benzyl Benzoate, Isoeugenol, Benzyl Salicylate, Geraniol, Evernia Prunastri (Oak Moss) Extract, Benzyl Alcohol, Denatonium Benzoate, Butylphenyl Methylpropional, Citronellol, Eugenol, Amyl Cinnamal, Benzyl Cinnamate, Limonene, Farnesol, Cinnamyl Alcohol, Cinnamal, Citral.

How to use : Spray onto the neck and pulse points, as often as required.

The Body Shop's White Musk is one of my all time favorites. I've gotten the back up one already- means I must love it so much! I also enjoy using the White Musk body lotion which I also own several of'em as well. To start off, I get so many compliments when I wear/ spray this one. I have had an experience working at a super busy Japanese hibachi restaurant and I always sweated like crazy. Which was surprised to me because I normally don't sweat unless I climbed a mountain. Anyways, I brought this in my bag one day, had quick spray before the restaurant got busy. I'm not kidding. Many customers really liked the scents and even chief's too, said I smells good ( ' you don't smell like fish today' ).  I usually prefer soft scent over strong scent like Chanel's :S So, it was just perfect for me. Even though, it's called MUSK, it has very soft musk scents and very long lasting product. It is always hard to describe the smell of perfumes, isn't it? I absolutely can ramble on how great it smells like but it's better for you to experience! Yes, it's that good if you like soft musk.

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Will you be having a sniff of White Musk : eau de parfum ?
and what is your favorite spring perfume? :) Be sure to let me know in the comment below!

Birthday Card for Him

As I mentioned on Twitter yesterday, I literally forgot about my boyfriend's birthday. I didn't realized that it was his birthday until one in the afternoon. Of course, I didn't have any present for him and even worse, I ignored him in the morning just because I was in a sleep. I felt really really bad. Yeah, you can say it out loud - I'm the worst girlfriend ever(sigh.) Some of you might ask why haven't i went to some place to get his present. Well apparently, one of my car tires got flat and I was waiting for my boyfriend to fix it for me(basically I was trapped in the house.) Bake some cake? I really wanted to but currently we don't have proper kitchen due to updating our whole kitchen. isn't it sucks or what?  Anyways, only thing I could do for him in the little house was make some little birthday card, clean up the house,  be pretty and wait for him to come home. The card I made it for him isn't so great but I could managed to finish it in a such short time!Anyways, he really thought that I forgot his birthday because I didn't text him say 'Happy Birthday!' He came home, looked all down. I was like 'You've got mail, I put it on top of the kitchen table.' He went there, looked at it and looked at me back with happy face, saying " I thought you forgot about my birthday!" :) I loved how he got so happy with a little card. We went out to eat, and went to another bookstore that's little far away from the house. Yes, literally, we did went to the bookstore instead of movie. I hope next year will be a better birthday for him.

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Random Recent Purchase

Last night, I was getting a headache so my boyfriend and I went out to the bookstore to see if there's anything new. The bookstore is in the mall area, bunch little stores are there and apparently we went to somewhere else than a bookstore. I am a sucker for good scents especially the rose. My boyfriend found this amazing handmade soaps that has rose scent and carved roses! I had to get it even though I don't normally use bar soap. Since I am almost out of rose Yankee Candle, I got two candles this time. One is called Natural Cotton and another one is Lilac. I know it might sounds little weird but I can't relax without my candle on. Also, I got Home and Body co. Shampoo. The reason why I got it was my hair is currently color treated and after I bleached once, it got super damaged. My mom always loved jojoba/olive oil stuff so this time I purchased with trust in my mom. Those items were in very good prices- definitely will make another trip to this store in the future.

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What's your favorite candle(s)/scent? 

Any good homegood/deco store online or offline?

FOTD | Double winged eyeliner

I do love to create double winged liner(s) and do this every makeup look of mine. There are several reasons why I do this. First, I have really short eye lashes so most of the time I wear false lashes. Many of them are longer than my eyes and I am too lazy to cut them to fit my eyes, I just simply extended my eye line for more natural look when I wear false lashes. Another reason is that double liner(s) just looks cute to me. Don't I look like have big long lashes? In my opinion, yes. Every person do their makeup that's suit their face and so do I. I figured that double winged is better than single winged for my eyes. :) Anyways, here is the list of products I used to create this look. I used very affordable ones! *I forgot to put my lippy in the picture but I will make sure write on the list. 

No7 Dual Action Tinted Moisturizer -medium | e.l.f Baked Eyeshadow Palette - nyc | Maybelline Ultra-brow - light brown | e.l.f Contouring Blush & Bronzer - St. Lucia | e.l.f Complete Coverage Consealer - medium | Decorative Eyelash - Play Cute #3 | e.l.f Stipple Brush | e.l.f Flawless Concealer Brush | Physicians Formula Eye Definer Felt-Tip Eye Marker - ultra black | Mac Viva Glam Nicki | Physicians Formula Mineral Face Powder - creamy natural

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Contouring Blush & Bronzing Powder

 e.l.f | Contouring Blush & Bronzing Power - St. Lucia - $3

Hello lovelies! Sorry for constant massive reviews about e.l.f products. To be honest, I am a person that try 'one' things until I get tired of. For example, I'm a pasta girl, I eat all kinds of pasta for a week until i get tired of it and then don't touch or eat pasta for few months- of course after few months, start eating pasta again. Anyways, after I had such a good impression with e.l.f's nail polishes I bought quite a lot of e.l.f products from their website. I purchased this particular one just because I heard it is a dupe of NARS Orgasm/Laguna duo. Unfortunately, I don't own NARS Orgasm/Laguna duo so I can't compare it on this post as of right now but soon I will compare both! Essentially, there are two products to review - the blush and the bronzer.

Product description : Create a healthy and natural glow all year long with the Contouring Blush & Bronzing Powder. The Blush highlights the cheeks to add a flush of color, while the Bronzer accents and contours cheekbones for beautiful definition. This convenient compact has just what you need to achieve a gorgeous glow anytime, anywhere.

Ingredients : Talc, Mica, Magnesium Stearate, Ethylhexyl Methoxycinnamate, Paraffinium Liquidum (Mineral Oil), Hydrogenated Polyisobutene, Sodium Dehydroacetate, Iron Oxides (CI 77491 CI 77492 CI 77499), Titanium Dioxide (CI 77981), Red No.40 Lake (CI 16035), Ultramarine Blue (CI 77007)

The blush : The blush has little shimmery peach/pink color. It has a good pigmentation when you swatch but also very powdery. When I first used it, I was bit having a hard time getting the color on my chick - the blush is very light color and I have darker skin tone. But after applying few layers, the color came perfect and gave subtle peach/pink glow. Very easy to blend with brush.

The bronzer : Medium tan color. I really enjoy using a good bronzer to give a definition to my face since I have roundy shape. I was surprised how pigmented it is. Even I have a little darker/medium morena skin tone, bronzer shows up perfectly. It wasn't too dark nor too light on my face. It is also very easy to blend with brush so after I blended around, it defined my face without giving me a fake look. The bronzer doesn't have any glitter in it, and it doesn't have any orange or yellow undertone.

Packaging : The case is very simple and sturdy. It contains mirror so good to use it on the go. It does not contain brush. 

Likes: I love the color of the blush and the bronzer. Blush makes my skin glow. Bronzer has no wierd undertone. No weird smell. worth more than its price.

Dislikes: Too powdery therefore I had to apply several times. Blush is hard to pick up the color.

No7 | Dual Action Tinted Moisturiser - Medium

 №7 Dual Action Tinted Moisturiser Medium Color 50ml - $11.99  £9.20

I've wanted to get Tinted Moisturizer because recently I get blemishes and little troubles around my face. So, I really didn't want to use thick & heavy foundation. I want my skin to be able to breath better even though I put  make up on. Anyways, the other day when I went to Target to get my pup's food, I picked up Sonia Kashuk Lip Crayon and this No7 Dual Action Tinted Moisturiser. I remember it only has three shades - fair, medium, dark. ( I picked Medium) 

*My skin type is normal but sometimes it gets little oily around T-zone.

Beauty 101 | How to Apply Concealer Like a Pro

*original source from here

 Picture this: You arrive at a restaurant to meet your best friend for brunch and as you lean in for a hug, you spot a crusted, muddy-looking blotch of concealer on her cheek. As she starts filling you in on her latest news all you're thinking is: Her concealer is doing nothing but making that zit look worse -- how do I tell her?

That's the thing about concealer. We do everything we can to use it to camouflage our flaws yet all too often, we end up accentuating them. And that's why, despite the fact that breaking down the details of how to apply concealer correctly sounds like the most boring makeup topic ever, it’s an important skill to hone.

And while applying concealer properly may not be rocket science, it's not necessarily an intuitive process either. In fact, celebrity makeup artist Mario Dedivanovic (the guy responsible for making Kim Kardashian's complexion look flawless, even when it's not), says the most common mistake he sees women make with concealer is the most basic: We don't match it to our skin tone.

"When the concealer is too dark, setting it with powder will only make it darker, which makes the spot you're trying to cover look like a muddy patch of skin," Dedivanovic says.

But he also maintains that's not where the big fail ends. When we set the concealer with powder, we're using the wrong shade of powder. "You have to use a powder that's a shade lighter than your skin tone, because when dry powder touches wet concealer, it'll get darker." Who knew? Another life-changing tip from Dedivanovic: Apply your loose powder with a velour puff brush; using a natural bristle brush can leave streaks on your skin.

e.l.f | Lip Exfoliator Clear

 e.l.f | Lip Exfoliator Clear .15oz/4.4g - $3.00  £2.30

As I mentioned on twitter the other day, E.L.F had 40% sale so I purchased bunch of their products online and finally got it today! I always have dry and flaky lips. When I use lip balm, seems like it only make my lips calm & smoother for several hours and goes back to dry and flaky.  So when I saw this item on their website, I was thinking I should try it since their products are worth more than its cost and I had such good impressions with e.l.f's nail polishes that I bought.

Sonia Kashuk : Velvety Matte Lip Crayon

 Sonia Kashuk Velvety Matte Lip Crayon : Rosey Nude 10 - $7.59

Available at Target

Finally got a red lip color! Yay for me. I was always scared of trying red lips. However, yesterday I went to get Leia's food at Target and saw Sonia Kashuk section. The red lip crayon was talking to me  like -'take me! take me!' - that's why I brought it home with me. I never tried lip crayons so I can't compare to other products but I can tell it's really smooth. I was little worried because it's matte, and my lips are dry. Surprisingly, It glides on my dry lips and the pigmentation is great. What I most like about this lip crayon is that it's not tooooo red-in your face- color. Very pretty rosey color and I thought it's perfect for me since I don't like strong lipsticks/or crayons. Talking about package, It does look like the NARS lip crayons but more affordable version. 

Spring clean up: My desk

I usually check comments right away and reply as much as i can. These few days, I couldn't speand more time on blogging since I was little busy cleaning the house. My boyfriend and I have so much stuff that we don't need/use at all so we decided to throw some stuff out and re-organize. Well, I started to re-arrange whole furniture in the office/bed room and couldn't finish it. The house is still messy and a lot to clean.I hope I can finish it in few days and spend more time on fun blogging :)! My desk area isn't interesting nor special but it is my favorite space to spend time in the house. I'm thinking to get a little picture frame for the wall (in between two big frames.) What do you think? should i get it or just leave it? Also trying to find little stuff for the shelves. I'm not good at decorating the shelves so throw some ideas for me please!

Sigma | Notre Dame

Sigma Beauty | Eyeshadow - Notre Dame* - $11

 Kindly gifted to me by Sigma Beauty

I've never tried Sigma Beauty products before and when I think of Sigma, the first image that comes in my mind was their makeup brushes. Today, fortunately, I got a chance to try this beauty. 

Favorite Color of the week | #1 Peach-Pink

From left to right : Avon-Be blushed cheek color(Tropical peach B102), Mac-Lipstick Satin(Viva Glam Nicki), Maybelline-Baby Lips(25.Pink Punch), Victoria's Secret-Perpect Lipstick(Wish)

Pink and Peach are one of my favorite colors. When it comes to pick colors for my lips and cheek, I don't know why but always put my hands on pink or peach. I don't have a lot of red lipsticks nor nude beige blush. So, I was thinking that If i do posts by colors, then I clearly know which colors I need to get next time! (or I don't need.) So today, I want to share these lovely peach-pink colors that I own.

From left to right : Avon-Be blushed cheek color(Tropical peach B102), Mac-Lipstick Satin(Viva Glam Nicki), Maybelline-Baby Lips(25.Pink Punch), Victoria's Secret-Perpect Lipstick(Wish)

e.l.f nail polishes Review

Mint cream | Lavender mist | Skinny jeans | Metalic elegance | Nude

March Favorites

I know , I'm behind with this post. In this month, I have a few/simple items that I really really liked and enjoyed! 

First, Maybelline's Color Whispers. I can not say enough how much I love this product and raving about it over several posts on my blog. I just love the color, texture, formula and appearance!I really like to buy lip colors and even though I have plenty of choice, I always reach my hand to this ones. I personally like 'A Plum Prospect,' it has a nice wine color but sometimes it looks like cherry red. Since I don't wear red lips(I think it's too bold for me), this is perfect color for me. Its plum/purplish red color doesn't appear as bold as red lip colors and it's more like balm type so I really enjoy using this color.

Elizabeth Arden's Moisture Cream is magic. I've been using it for a month and it still has a lot left. It smooths and moisturizing my skin really well with tiny amount.  I got it for really cheap price at the Costco and that makes even better. It's definitely one of items that I am going to re-purchase after when i finish up. 

Another Maybelline's product! I guess I really like Maybelline. This Baby Lips lip balm has a cute packaging with nice color. I like pink and when I have bare face, I just grab this and put it on. I re-purchased this item fourth times now and still loving it. 

 Last of all, e.l.f's nail polish. I didn't have any expectation with e.l.f's product when I first purchased. However, after I actually used it, I couldn't believe that it has great quality. I've never seen nail polish that covers and even out whole nails in one coat except Revlon's nail polish. I have more and more polishes from e.l.f and I can't wait to try them!

Influences of the Internet TAG

  A beautiful lady named Imogen (@Be Beautiful ) tagged me on this lovely post. Thank you!  

THE RULES:

1) You must state this tag was created by Megan at TheBeautyPier.

2) You must tag at least one person to do this. However, the more the merrier!
3) Let the person know you tagged them with a comment on their blog. 
4)Title this post 'Influences of the Internet TAG!'
5) Enjoy!

e.l.f | Studio Baked Eyeshadow Palette (nyc)

I purchased this product about a week ago and finally got to do a review about it! I got this palette just because it has a good balance between light and dark colors. Above pictures are heavy swatches. It's blend-able , and I think the palette is already arranged as a pair (top-bottom). 

Colors

#1 - Shimmery Pink  #2 - Shimmery Beige #3 - Shimmery Ivory/White #4 - Shimmery Sand  #5 - Silver #6 - Matt Dark Brown #7 - Matte Warm Brown #8 - Shimmery Black #9 - Shimmery Yello/Black #10 - Matte Blue

Quality

A lot of shimmery colors are in this e.l.f Studio Baked eyeshadow (nyc) Palette. When I wear it on my eyes, it just look great. Not too shimmery nor flat/matte. Not a lot of fallout when you wear it without primer. It's quite pigmented and blend-able than what i've expected.

Overall

Overall, I like the packaging of the palette and colors. It is very 'everyday' type of color but little darker or bit stronger than neutral colors. There are some colors that I probably won't wear but still, think of its 'low' price range, it has a good quality.