Month: November 2013

Favorite Fall Lipsticks: Berries & Reds

Published by

Here are some of my favorite fall lipsticks. Whenever I think of autumn & the holidays, my mind reverts to the vampy and the berry shades that I have. These are a bit on the pricier side, but if you don’t want to spring for a darker lip that you don’t know you can wear everyday, I’m sure you can get ideas and search for dupes if you find one that tickles your fancy. 🙂 L-R: MAC Plumful, NARS Vendanges, Chanel Rouge Coco Shine in Antigone, Snoe Beauty Plum Crazy, shu uemura x Karl Lagerfeld Luxe Burgundy (LE), Guerlain Rouge G L’Extrait M69 Orgueil, Addiction by Ayako Lady of the Lake, Le Métier de Beauté Hydra-Crème in Signature, Chanel Rouge Allure in Envoutante Here they are on the lips, for a better idea of how they wear: Ol’ Reliables are Orgueil, Vendanges, Lady of the Lake, Signature, and Envoutante. Plumful is also pretty reliable, though I find that I have to be in a certain mood to wear it. Luxe Burgundy pulls too red on …

Unboxing: Le Métier de Beauté Beauty Vault VIP November 2013

Published by

Hey everyone! Here’s a quick post on the Le Métier de Beauté Beauty Vault VIP November 2013 box, which arrived here a few days ago. The LMdB Beauty Vault VIP is a one-year subscription box that opened last July. Sign-ups for the next round will open back up next year. As always, it comes elegantly packaged along with a sweet, handwritten note. The first item was the Dualistic Eye Pencil in Tamarack, which I had been wanting to get for the longest time. It retails for $36. Product Description: “Whether it’s a defined line or a subtle smudged sultry effect, this velvety-soft formula delivers rich pigmented color and allows easy application for versatile, sophisticated looks.” Anyway, when I swatched, I was smitten but I also thought it looked a lot like a MAC eye kohl called Teddy, swatched on the right. This photo is a bit of a disservice to both colors, because they are beautiful and have a warm bronzey sheen to them. Teddy is a little bit deeper, but otherwise they are pretty …

Open Season: Mascaras in Rotation

Published by

Hello, everyone. I hope you’re doing well. While the typhoon, Haiyan/Yolanda, has been on its way out of the Philippines, it has left devastation in its wake. If you feel like you want to help out affected families and regions, click here for the post I made earlier. I’ll be making it a sticky post for about a week or so, for easy access. Buttons for donations to various organizations are on my sidebar as well. Eula, Shari, Eliza, Julia, and Liz also have posts on how to help. Bea has a nice post on the iffiness of blogging during these times, which is helpful to read before passing judgment on others. I hope you don’t think it callous of me to be posting during this tragedy. Most of these posts are pre-planned/pre-written, so I am not writing them on the spot. I have been doing all I can, as of now, to help out. Anyway, thank you for reading this little announcement. Every little bit helps, and we need all the help we can …

#YolandaPH

Published by

(image via, credits to Agence France-Presse) Hello everyone. Just announcing a quick pause in regular posting. As you may or may not have heard, a typhoon called “Haiyan” (“Yolanda” is its local name here) swept through certain regions of my country, the Philippines. My hometown is considerably far from where Haiyan/Yolanda hit the strongest, which is the Visayas region. Tacloban experienced a storm surge, where the waters rose to about 15 feet, leaving death and destruction in its wake. Currently, the death toll is in the hundreds (reportedly about a thousand in total, but I can’t confirm) and there are a lot of structural damage in certain parts of the Visayas. Haiyan/Yolanda is on its way out of the Philippine area of responsibility, but we are left with entire cities to take care of and help out. Please consider making a donation (I’ll leave the info below) or sparing a thought or two for those who have lost a lot. Haiyan/Yolanda has been reported to have slowed down as it exits, but please be vigilant …

Hands On: Hands Only Makeup Look

Published by

Who needs brushes when you have hands? I was thinking of a “challenge” for myself that I could do and I thought about going tool-less for a full face of makeup, which seems timely since I dropped quite a bit of cash on some brushes recently. I enjoy great tools, but it doesn’t mean that you are essentially powerless if you don’t have high-end brushes or eyelash curlers. This is a pretty simple look I came up with, applied using only my hands, and I think it looks quite good. 🙂 At the very least, it’s functional for everyday. All hands on deck! FACE: — y.e.t. cosmetics Fill it Up Primer (review) — Benefit Hello Flawless Oxygen Wow Foundation (review) — BECCA Beach Tint in Raspberry (review) — Benefit Watt’s Up! Highlighter (review) LIPS: — MAC Lipstick in Twig (review) EYES: — K-Palette Real Lasting Eyebrow 24H in 01 — BECCA Eye Tint in Baroque (review) — NARS Eyeshadow Duo in Grand Palais (review) — K-Palette Real Lasting Eyeliner 24H in Black — Eye of …

Beauty 911: Cracked Powder

Published by

Has this ever happened to you? My sister was toting her shu uemura powder compact, despite its brokenness and inconvenience, because she didn’t want to spring for a new one. These things are a bit on the expensive side, and as you can see from the photo, there’s still a substantial amount left in there for her to use. The compact first cracked when a stranger caught her bag and caused it to slide off the back of her chair. Since then, it’s been on its way to a place beyond repair. I volunteered to try and fix it because it was getting way too messy in her makeup bag. First, you want to grind the pieces into an actual loose powder instead of just the chunks. I poured the contents in a Ziploc bag and ground the pieces into fine powder. The Ziploc bag is a good idea to keep everything neat and also so that you can clean the compact first. If you apply foundation with a brush, you can actually just pour …

Unboxing: November 2013 BDJ Box*

Published by

I got a surprise yesterday—the November BDJ Box! It was pretty heavy, so I assumed there was some type of body lotion or shampoo in there, but I was wrong. Turns out, it was a bath cream! Let me show you what is in the BDJ Box this month. 🙂 The Cream Factory Bath Cream, Php 699 (26 fl. oz.) — This is made from real goat’s milk (from the Netherlands!) and 100% active botanical extracts, and they call it “dessert for the skin.” I’m super excited to try this out since I love a good bath cream, and apparently this product is not tested on animals. (No word on the ingredients, though.) My variant is the one with jojoba, and it smells quite fresh! ZA Perfect Solution Restoring Collagen Cream, Php 345 (3.5 oz.) — This apparently has “7 trillion collagen capsules,” which is hard for me to believe but OK. It targets wrinkles and overall skin condition with an “Intensive Triangle Technology” that works on three levels—promoting firmness, translucence, and moisture retention. I …