All posts tagged: beauty

Nosy Beauty Vol. 34: Mikka

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Hey everyone! For today’s Nosy Beauty, I’ve got my friend, Mikka. Although we went to the same university and belonged to the same batch, we didn’t meet until after we graduated… all because of our mutual friend Karen, and a love for Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Game. 🙂 Read on to see what’s inside her makeup bag! Mikka Wee, Managing Editor of Pepper.ph, travel writer at mikkawee.com where I go by “The Tiny Traveler”. Aside from eating and traveling, I love books (that’s how we connected, Carina!). I like holing myself up in coffee shops and read. I’ve also gotten into surfing lately—can’t get enough of it. I guess it’s partly responsible for the drastic change in my skin color, hahaha. I used to be on the fairer side, but now, people describe my skin tone as kayumanggi, and I absolutely love it. Here’s my Kikay Kit from Too Cool for School. I know it’s pretty tiny, so I just dump everything I can in there. Trust me, I knew what I was getting into …

4 Skin Care Items I’ve Been Enjoying Lately

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I have a bad habit of toying around with my skin care quite a bit, but along with my mainstays (Human Nature Nourishing Facial Wash, Aesop Parsley Seed Cleansing Masque, some type of scrub), I’ve been using these bits quite a lot in the past month or so and enjoying them quite a lot. LUSH TEA TREE WATER I’ve mentioned this before and it is just a really great spray to follow up cleansing with. Tea Tree Water is one of the main ingredients of this toner water. It’s made by “dispersing the essential oil in water,” and is included because of its clarifying and antibacterial properties. I quite like this, even though it’s meant for oily or spot-prone skin—I notice a big difference in the clarity of my skin. And we all want that! LE MÉTIER DE BEAUTÉ DAILY REFRESH TONIC This is something I received in the Beauty Vault VIP Subscription, and it is basically something you use to prep the skin to “receive topical restorative treatments” such as creams, moisturizers, serums, etc, …

My Eyeshadow Diagram

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So, Tellie asked me to make a quick diagram of my “eye makeup” because she was confuddled about where to put what color. I was kind of surprised she asked me because I don’t think my technique (lol) has evolved that much, but here is a general sketch of how I do things ‘round these parts. Here are my eyes. As you can see, I have just a little bit of lid space. It’s pretty fun to add different shades and levels of haziness (more on that later) right above the crease, but for the lid space, I observe the rule of thirds. By the way—I tried so many times to make a video demonstration of this. It was really hard, and I had to wash my right eye three times before I gave up trying because it was itching so damn much from all the soap. So, I did it some other day. YER WELCOME. When I was starting out, I would shade in the inner third with a darker color as well, but …

Quickie: Mattify Your Lipsticks with MAKE by We See Beauty

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I wasn’t planning on talking about this just yet but when something great compels you, you tell the world about it. By ‘world,’ I mean my readership. Heh. Anyway, matte lipsticks… are kind of a tricky subject, I feel. I personally love matte lips, but a lot of people have said that they can be drying etc. Sometimes, I’ll even find a color I like that would be perfect, save for the glossy shininess. Anyway, I was looking at We See Beauty’s site, mainly for their cosmetics line, MAKE. I posted about them a long time ago but never got around to purchasing because they don’t accept credit cards outside the US. One night, my hankering for a palette led me to order from a third-party~ and now we are here. In case you were wondering, I picked up two other items, which I’ll talk about later, maybe. So back to the pencil. I have a MAKE Colour Super Matte Lip Pencil, which is basically “the ultimate lip adjuster.” It turns your lipsticks matte… or, …

5 Product Face No. 2

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BareMinerals Prime Time in Bronzed Twig // Illamasqua Cream Blusher in Dixie // K-Palette 24H Real Lasting 2-Way Eyebrow Liner // KATE Super Sharp Liquid Liner // Kjaer Weis Cream Foundation in Just Sheer A nice trick when looking for products for a 5-product face is to consider application. The ones I used for this particular look, I could use without brushes. For my base, I’ve got the Kjaer Weis Cream Foundation, which I sometimes apply with a flat foundation brush but works just as well when applied with fingers. Then, I’ve got the K-Palette 24H Real Lasting 2-Way Eyebrow Liner* for my brows. I appreciate it when my eyes are defined, so for that, I went with this gorgeous cream shadow (in atrocious packaging) from bareMinerals and a very thin, very slight wing using a liquid liner by KATE. I rounded out everything by using one of my favorite multi-use products—Illamasqua Cream Blusher—on my lips and cheeks. * PR Sample Follow me: Bloglovin' • Twitter • Instagram • YouTube • Facebook

5 Things Friday: Five Things I Wish I Knew

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I thought this would be fun to kind of look back into this hole of doom (i.e. makeup obsession) and think of five things I wish I knew before I took the plunge. Research is your best friend. Trawling the WWW in the dead of the night and reading reviews without taking much in is not research. Take note of colors that work well on you—don’t be happy with “it swatches well” as a criteria. Think of what you, as a person, would like to wear on a daily basis and then take it from there. Hype fades away. Refrain from letting yourself being swept away by the newest fad or product. Sometimes, you’ll run into a few gems—ahem, Hourglass Ambient Lighting Powder—but hyped products are usually things you can live without. Be smart and level-headed about your purchases and consumption. Don’t always just base your opinions on a collection. I know, I know. This is your favorite thing about makeup—when the collections make sense and look whole and well thought-out. The problem is that …

Feelin’ Fancy

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I’m not really that fussy or picky with my things—usually—but I do recognize the power that something fancy holds. When I put on something just a little fancier than my normal wares, I feel my mood perk up a little bit. Call it superficial, but it’s the truth! (Perhaps I am just a superficial person? Cue another existential crisis for Carina.) I don’t really rely on much makeup for pick-me-ups, though I do have to hand it to Guerlain Rouge G L’Extrait in Orgueil for making me feel like the HBIC and not a tiny, awkward mouse. I also feel a little bit better about myself when I pull out the Dior Addict Lip Glow to moisturize my lips, which was given to me by Laala from our swap! Recently, I’ve taken it upon myself to spritz on some perfume, something I used to do a lot in high school, but have outgrown now that I’m actually at an age when perfuming yourself is the norm. For extra fancy fumes, I use Diptyque’s Vetyverio. Normally, …