IMATS 2010 - What I got

Here's what I picked up from IMATS:



Face Atelier foundation in #4, pro size




NYX blending brush
NYX Jumbo Lip Pencil in Soft Fuchsia
NYX Mosaic blush in Pink
NYX blushes in Natural, Taupe




MUFE #92 eyeshadow
MUFE HD blushes in #14 and #6








Crown Brushes




Will be reviewing these once I've tried them out!

EOTD + some lemmings

Question from Anonymous:

can u tell me the address for the whole food store in toronto???

thanks!

The Whole Foods store I go to is at Hazelton Lanes in the Bloor-Yorkville area downtown, 87 Avenue Rd.

They have pretty nice long opening hours and free customer parking if you spend over $25, check out the details here :)

***

I'm pretty happy that the upcoming collections for MAC aren't that exciting. I was a little excited for Naughty Nauticals after seeing the promo pics, but then Specktra just posted some swatches of the products and they don't look so good anymore. Only the sea green Mutiny pigment and blue eyeshadow is calling out to me. But I'm gonna try waiting until end of May to get them when my makeup ban ends.

Neo Sci-Fi on the other hand made me laugh. Orange packaging?? What is MAC thinking? LOL I'm pretty happy about that because I know it won't tempt me at all. Its like a failed follow up to last year's Moonbathe.

Cool Heat is probably the only upcoming collection that I'm excited about so far. In fact its the first MAC collection which I want almost everything, though that'll probably change because the products never look as good as the promo pictures. Right now I really want all the blue, violet, and green eyeshadows, plus 2 of the slimshines. Anyway if you haven't already, check out the pictures and details from Temptalia.

Did you hear about that Dress Camp collection being sold out on MAC Online within a matter of hours? I wasn't excited about it from the preview pictures, until I saw the lipglasses on Specktra Beauty Blog last night, but by then it was too late. Oh well, more money for other things :)


Moving on...

Here's a EOTD I did for fun. I was trying to go for a look similar to this one, but failed. But its still a more colourful look than my usual. Constructive feedback welcome :)














What I used:

Urban Decay Primer Potion
NYX Aquamarine trio - lightest blue shade all over mobile lid up to crease
NYX Spring Leaf on middle of lid
MAC New Vegas MSF on inner corner
NYX Aquamarine trio - darkest blue shade - very lightly blended on outer V
Lorac Greatest Hits CD2 white shade on browbone
Blinc Kiss Me Mascara


***

I'm getting tired of my Freshlook amethyst contacts. I still like how they look, but they can get uncomfortable after wearing them a few hours. And even though I bought them soon after my eye exam a year ago, I got my eyes tested again at the end of that same year and my prescription had changed for the better... Meaning these are too strong for my eyes now, wth :( And I still have 4 more monthly pairs to get through.

I'm thinking of getting some circle lenses now since they seem to be more comfortable than Freshlooks. I already have circle lenses, kind of - the Acuvue Define ones, which I like but I only have a 30 day supply of them as they are the daily disposables.

Anyway, I want to get 2 colours, brown and black so they're not too obvious. I was considering these ones:

BT02 Brown
Dali Brown
DM23 Brown

BT01 Black
Magic Black

What do you guys think? Any other suggestions? I'm looking for natural looking ones that won't make me look too spaced out. And for the browns, I don't want something thats too light brown because my eyes are more on the dark brown side. Although the BT02s do look kinda light....Its sorta hard to tell from those website pictures though, which is why a lot of my choices are the ones I've seen on fellow bloggers :)

today was playday.

I'm so tired...I'm heading to bed after this, I hope. Am so glad tomorrow is a statutory holiday :D

Nothing much was accomplished this weekend. I've become such a procrastinator now even though I'm no longer a student and don't have homework anymore :S

However, I was motivated enough to play with some makeup :P Decided to try replicating some looks I've seen online:

Gold-reddish brown look



Me:

I didn't really like how it turned out. I think the colour payoff sucked because I went cheap and used concealer as a base instead of UDPP. Should've foiled the NYX yellow-gold pigment as well, but I'm so lazy...



I find that using concealer on my naturally reddish lips makes me look sick...





I used MAC Sketch eyeshadow to get a reddish brown, but I ended up using too much Brun as well, and killed the red tones :S Oh well.




I don't know why in this picture the inner corner of the eyeshadow looks blocky? but at least the yellow-gold colour comes out better here.

Thinking about it, the colours ended up looking more like this bumblebee look...

What I used:

[Eyes]

Rimmel concealer as base, since I didn't want to waste UDPP
NYX Shangri-la trio - the yellow shade on inner 1/2 of lid
NYX Yellow gold Ultra Pearl Mania loose eyeshadow over the previous
MAC Sketch eyeshadow on outer 1/2 of lid
MAC Brun eyeshadow to darken outer V
ELF Luminous highlighter on browbone
Curled lashes and applied Blinc Kiss Me mascara lightly on upper and lower lashes.

[Face]

Everyday Minerals concealer in Intensive Light all over face
MAC Emote to contour nose and cheekbones
ELF Luminous highlighter on top of cheekbones

[Lips]

Rimmel Recover concealer to mute lipcolour
A bit of Nivea Labello lipbalm to provide a hint of glossiness



Clarins Colour Fizz look
(saw this on Nessa's blog awhile back)



Me:



I need a more pigmented yellow to pull this off. Perhaps MAC Chrome Yellow would've been good.







I like this one better than the first look. I was surprised by how wearable it looked. Only thing I would change is to not bring up the yellow shade as high, if I wear this out. I'd bring it up to only the crease, where the orange is now, and use a more subtle highlight on the browbone.




Lips were a bit off, I'd use a darker blue-pink next time like MAC Mattene 40s Pink with the Cult Fave lipglass instead of NYC.

What I used:

[Eyes]

Rimmel concealer as base
NYX Shangri-la trio - yellow shade all over lid up to browbone
NYX Shangri-la trio - orange shade on outer V
NYX Purple on lower lashline, outer half
NYX Shangri-la yellow and orange on lower lashline, inner half
Curled lashes and applied Blinc Kiss Me mascara lightly on upper and lower lashes.

[Face]

Everyday Minerals concealer in Intensive Light all over face
MAC Emote blush to contour slightly
Everyday Minerals B&B blush

[Lips]

NYC Fragile Pink lipstick
MAC Cult Fave lipglass


Oh and I did these looks on one eye each, so don't mind the other mismatched eye in the full face pictures please? :D

NYX swatches for ABB *edit3*

I finally got around to doing proper swatches of some of my NYX stuff for the NYX swatch collection on ABB. Didn't post any of my trios though because most of them have already been covered by other people. I did actually do the trio swatches ages ago, but never got around to editing and submitting them.

*edit* After looking through the ABB entry again today I realised I have two trios that aren't covered there yet, so I'll be editing and posting those too :)

*edit2* Shangri-la eyeshadow trio:



*edit3* Lakemoss eyeshadow trio:



I know they all look the same...:( This trio disappointed me. The colours are clearly different in the pan but they look black when swatched. I included that swatch of MAC Fertile to show that it looks kinda similar to the purple-black shade, in case anyone wants a dupe of Fertile.


NYX singles:




Comparison of Prune single eyeshadow with the Prune from the trio:

For some reason the colour of Prune is pinker in the trio, and more purple in the single...I don't know why. I initially bought the single, then found that I wanted the other two colours in the trio so i have both....which look nothing alike after all.




NYX Ultra Pearl Mania loose eyeshadows:

The yellow gold is a bit more yellow than what this picture shows.




NYX Jumbo eye pencils, lip pencil, liquid liner:



As I've mentioned before the liquid liner really sucks, so I'd advise against getting it. The lip pencil I found is too shimmery, but I might be able to make it work as a base and layering a light, non shimmery colour over it.

recent acquisitions

don't mind the title, i'm just bored with using the word 'haul' all the time lol. I guess that means I buy too much stuff.

***

i borrowed a whole stack of animes from my bf in case I got bored:



Anyway we didn't really celebrate V-day because he had to pack for his trip that night. But on Wednesday we did have dinner. Also before that, we stopped by the mall because I had already mentioned to him I wanted to get something from MAC that day. He was nice enough to pay for it too :)



I got the Sassed-up iridescent powder, and Cult Fave lipglass.



Originally I was going to get the Rollickin Paint pot instead of the lipglass, but the texture felt drier than I had thought. It also didn't look as wearable for me when swatched on my skin. The lipglass on the other hand was really pretty colour so I decided to get it anyway despite the disappointing packaging.

You can see here the design is a label that goes around the lipglass cap:



The top part of the label even sticks out a bit :S



Not good, because I'm the type that picks at stuff like that. But I guess even if I end up ruining the sticker, the MAC logo is still somewhat unique compared to the ones on the permanent products.

Besides MAC, I also hauled some drugtore items over the past few weeks:

• Castor oil (to try the oil cleansing method featured on Mrs Lynne's blog)
• Glycerine (to make homemade mixing medium)
• Jamieson's Vitamin E cream, 30,000 IU, For dry to very dry skin
• NYX Pearl Mania pigment in Yellow gold
• Bonnebelle eye liners in Indigo and Stonewashed
• Nivea LaBello Hydrocare lipbalm

Also pictured is the sample of Calamine soap I received from Northwest Orca Soaps, haven't tried that out yet though.

The drugstore close to where I live was clearing out its stock of Valentine's day chocolate. I saw these and had to have 'em :)





Among all the Marvel heroes, I like Spider-Man the best :)

I have this in my shower:



The shower in my apt is the crappiest, but this usually helps cheer me up, haha :P

Shiseido commercial look - my attempt

I was feeling inspired by this commercial about 2 weeks ago, and decided to try it out last week. Unfortunately my limited skills with liquid liner got the better of me. I could have used pencil but I didn't have a blue pencil liner in my collection.

Also I don't know what to do about the lipcolour. My lips are very pigmented so I couldn't get the light colour to show up pale on me...and when I used concealer to mute my natural lipcolour, it washed me out so I looked ghostly :S

Not a very successful attempt, but since I promised I would do this look here it is:

The makeup look I wanted to replicate -







I am sooooooo jealous of her lips. They actually have a nice shape to them. Mine look thick and just there. :(




And my unworthy version -







And if you look closely below you can see here that my liner is flaking ! grrr...:(



Do not buy NYX liquid liner! It flaked like crazy. Unless there's some trick with liquid liner that I don't know about? I don't usually use liquid liner so that might be why?



So if anyone's interested the stuff I used was:

• Everday Minerals Intensive Light concealer + Silk Naturals foundation
• Everyday Minerals Theme Park blush
• NYX Electric Blue liquid liner
• MAC Indianwood Paint Pot on outer 1/3 of lower lashline + some Annabelle gold shadow on top to make it look more yellow gold
• Annabelle gold shadow + Everyday Minerals Baby Bath shadow on lids
• Blinc Kiss Me mascara
• Lips were some combo of MAC Sandy B + NYC Cameo + Rimmel Tiramisu liner - I tried all sorts of combos to get my lips to look peach-pink like the model but obviously failed :S

I think I'll just stick with gel liners after this...if I wanted to do this look again I'd use MAC Fluidline in Wave probably. Unless there's a L'oreal HIP gel liner available in dark blue? Alternatively, I could look for a cheap blue pencil liner.

By the way, is it just me or does the angle of this picture look like the angle used in mascara ads?



Yay for Blinc mascara!

Later note: Forgot to add that i would use blue mascara if I had it, but I didn't want to buy another tube when I still have a lot of Blinc left.

winter tangerine

Yesterday's look - shades of light gold, bronze, and orange

(Edit: my previous title for this was an indian summer in winter...but then i looked back at the published post and realised this looks more like tangerine...)

[Face]

- Everyday Minerals makeup in Light, Original-glo formula
- Everyday Minerals concealer in Multitasking
- LORAC blush in Plum from Greatest Hits CD2 palette
- MAC blush in Emote - to contour

[Eyes]

- Urban Decay Primer Potion
- Maybelline quad in Amber Adventure - lightest gold shade on inner corners
- MAC Mineralize Skinfinish in Global Glow - centre of lid to blend
- NYX eyeshadow in Tropical - outer corners
- Blinc Kiss Me mascara
- MAC Shadowy Lady eyeshadow - fill brows

[Lips]

- Blistex Ultra Protection SPF30 lipbalm
- Dior Addict Ultra-Reflect gloss in Raffia Orange




(ignore the 2 zits btw....or at least try to ? I think EM is great for evening out skintone but not actually covering up really red areas)






***

Also,

Blinc mascara I like :)

Pros: Keeps a curl nicely and removes easily with water / facial wash without getting onto undereye area. Appears to lengthen because the lashes stay curled -> thus they look longer.

Cons: Doesn't do much for volume, actual lengthening is only a little bit. Lashes do look longer, but its because they are kept curled up thus creating the illusion of length.






Conclusion:
Great everyday mascara, especially since it supposedly is waterproof. It should come off lashes only when water + pressure are both applied to lashes. Comes off cleanly - no need to remove dark smudges from undereye area unlike regular mascaras.
Doesn't lengthen a whole lot, and fails to thicken lashes, but thats why its a great natural looking, everyday mascara. If you want the whole fake lashes look, then use L'oreal Voluminous instead.