Special: Year End Collective Haul! (New Look, Charles & Keith, Laniege, Threadless, Addiction cosmetics)

My year end collective haul! Hey ladies! Hope December has been a fruitful month for everyone! So many people are busy traveling to be with their friends and family and some are only just done with celebrating Christmas! I know December is a big deal to many people but for most of us in South East Asia or at least in Singapore, Christmas isn't celebrated like in Europe with more religious/traditional meaning but more because it's something internationally recognized and an event everyone can make money from!

If you ask me what I like about December/Christmas, I'll honestly tell you I love this time of year because of the food and tons of sales! I've been purchasing and hauling lots of bits and bobs the last two months or so and here is my big fat collective haul to end the year with!

Continue below for the details of my haul!

Special: Year End Collective Haul! (New Look, Charles & Keith, Laniege, Threadless.com, Addiction cosmetics)

Review: Memebox Special #37 Wake Up Makeup!

Wake Up Makeup! For those who are fans of or have seen K-pop or just korean style make up, it's all about bright clear skin, fresh complexions with pinches of color on the cheeks, bright doe eyes and clean looking make up. This box I've received recently from Memebox called the "Wake Up Makeup" box is full of products to achieve this bright awake look!

"Flawless skin, brighter eyes, plus 10 more minutes of sleep? No, you’re not dreaming. It’s just your morning beauty routine, updated. If mornings are not your best friends, and spending hours in front of the mirror is not an option, we’ve got ways to streamline your morning beauty routine so that you can look good, and feel good, every morning. Here, a simple makeup box with a selection of all products that will put yourself together in a flash, at home, or on the go."  

-Memebox's summary of the Special #37 Wake Up Makeup!

Continue below for my full review of the box!

Memebox Special #37 Wake Up Makeup!

Home made: Brown Sugar Cinnamon rolls and Apple Sauce!

Want some BUNS HUN? Hahaha...yeah...I can't help but to hear some of Nicki Minaj's song in my head every time I heard the word 'buns' now! I'm no fan of hers but she is legitimately talented. Something which is plenty popular this time of year are home made rolls/buns! I've seen sooo many bloggers show their beautifully made cinnamon, apple butter, peanut butter, chocolate and cream rolls and now it's my turn!

This recipe is from the famous Alton Brown which my boyfriend pulled for us to use! The recipe is a simple cinnamon sugar, so I made my own homemade apple sauce to be served on the side!

Continue below for my yummy rolls and sauce!

Brown sugar cinnamon rolls and apple sauce!

Review: Boots Lavender & Lilac Body Scrub!

Therapeutic scrub! For those who like relaxing aromatic soaps, perfumes, lotions, skincare and oils...lavender is one of the most popular ingredients. My first memories of lavender is of Pamolive's body wash which is a mix of lavender and ylang ylang which is so incredibly soothing and muscle relaxing. When in the shower and using it, I'd take in deep breaths and all my muscles would just relax and my body would just feel so comfortable. I don't use many aromatic products but Lavender ones definitely work for almost everyone I know!

Boots products as of last year this time can be found at selected Guardian pharmacies all over Singapore. Only a small selection of their products are being sold and I was quite happy when I saw that their tea tree witch hazel line was here! This scrub was so affordable that I had to pick it up!

Continue below for the quick review!

Boots Lavender & Lilac Body Scrub!

Festive Golden Gradient look! (Maybelline Big Eyes 360 products)

Festive Golden eyes! When most ladies think of holiday and New Year's make up, gold is the color of choice! I personally also love gold especially on the inner and center of the eyelid. Gold either pale, medium, yellow or antique are all great variants for this festive and celebratory time of the year!

I'm not sure about in the US/UK but in Singapore when Maybelline released their Big Eyes line of products we have 4 eyeshadow quads and when I swatched all the testers in store, this gold quad was such a stunner I just had to get it! I don't own many gold shadows and I can't resist small palettes!

Continue below for the look!

A Festive Golden Gradient look! Using Maybelline's Big Eyes 360 eyeshadow palette and mascara!

Rave Review: Yves Saint Laurent Rouge Volupte Shine lipstick in 16 Orange Impertinent and 6 Pink in Devotion!

Rouge Volupte Shine Lipsticks! For all those who are already fans and maybe are a bit over these YSL lippies...I am sooo not. They aren't something I use all the time but after my experience with my first two Radiant lipsticks from them I just had to go and get more from the line. Do check out my review of my first two Rouge Volupte Radiant lipsticks in nude beige and fetish pink here!

Once again these two lipsticks were picked up at Singapore Changi Airport while I was at duty free! The price difference of this in store and at duty free here is about $13 SGD so it's a great save! I swatched plenty of shades but many were sold out. I ended up getting one for me and one for mom!

Continue below for the full review!

Yves Saint Laurent Rouge Volupte Shine lipstick shade 16 and 6! (Orange Impertinent and Pink in Devotion)

Haul: Year End Sephora Haul 2014!

Year End Sephora Haul! For many ladies in the US all I've been seeing on blogs and youtube are the huge Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales which are not sales that occur in Asia and our Sephoras. You will never see such amazing sales in Singapore in most fashion/beauty retail stores, it's rare, the most discount I've seen in our drugstore is 30% and only for a few brands in store!

I rarely...RARELY go to Sephora. The prices here are a bit hiked up and I try to avoid Sephora as a plague as $100 SGD barely gets you 3 things. Only recently did I treat myself to a mini Sephora haul and although it's small it was a splurge to me!

Continue below for my haul!

End of Year Sephora Haul 2014!  (Urban Decay and Marc Jacobs)

Icy pink cat eyes and hot fuchsia lip! (1028 Macaron palette)

Shimmery icy pink cat eyes! Many girls tend to shy away from pinks and reds on the eyes but I personally love pink tones. I find that pale, light pinks make the best inner corner shadow and also are great with browns for an everyday super easy pretty eye look! This look was created with the 1028 Macaron eyeshadow kit which has a gorgeous array of light-medium toned shadows. 

Continue below for my look!

Icy pink cat eyes and hot fuchsia lip! (1028 Macaron palette)

Home made: Banana Muffins and Banana Cream Custard Pies!

From Tree to Table! Yes, you read that right! The two banana products you will be seeing today were made from bananas from my family's banana tree! We have banana trees at both our current and old house (which is still ours) and recently both trees had bananas but the bunch at our old house was soooo fruitful that even after using about 2 kilos of bananas we still had so much left over I froze them for future baking needs!

Continue below for my home made banana goodies!

Home made banana muffins using home grown bananas!

Rave review: MAC Mineralize Blush in Gentle!

Mineralize blush in Gentle! For those who aren't aware I've owned very few MAC products! I have owned a total of 3 single eyeshadows, lost the one that I loved the most, didn't get much use of one because it wasn't that good and then forgot about the third one at the back of my stash! Believe it or not I've never owned a foundation, powder, blush or LIPSTICK...Yes I said I've never owned a MAC lipstick before! AHHHH!

Hence as I was on my way to Bandung Indonesia for a relaxing long getaway (see my holiday post here) I had to drop by the Mac store inside Singapore Changi Airport for a quick shop and decided I was going to spoil myself with some mineralize blushes that I was secretly lusting for! I swatched all in store, picked two and we headed straight to the gate for our flight!

Continue below for the review!

MAC Mineralize Blush in Gentle!

Review: Hada Labo Super Hyaluronic Acid Hydrating Milk!

Super Hyaluronic Acid moisturizer! For those who aren't aware, a very popular and now very common ingredient in asian skin care is hyaluronic acid. The japanese brand Hada Labo uses this ingredient in their moisturizing milk/lotion products! I've tried their whitening version of this moisturizing milk (see my review here) and decided after finishing it to try this version!

Hada labo has a few lines of product, one primarily for hydrating, one for whitening and one for anti-aging. Expect all the textures of their products to be mainly thin, moist and very lightweight. Do check them out, they are an affordable line of japanese skincare to try!

Continue below for the full review!

Hada Labo Super Hyaluronic Acid Hydrating Milk!

Rave Review: 1028 Visual Therapy Macaron Eyeshadow Kit!

Macaron Eyes! For those who aren't aware, the brand 1028 is a Taiwanese drugstore brand that sells gorgeous, high quality make up products that can be found in Singapore at Watsons! I've swatched all their eyeshadows and they are all so amazing that the first beauty product I bought from them was a beautiful varied neutral palette called the Brownie Eyes palette (see my review here)!

I knew that I would eventually go back and buy more shadows from them as they are very nicely packaged and seriously have the quality of shadows like from Urban Decay! This is the Macaron palette which surprisingly aren't soft pastel colorful shades like the name might suggest.

Continue below for the rave review and looks!

1028 Macaron Eyeshadow Kit!

Blackened green smokey eyes, rose bronze cheek and a nude lip!

Wearable duochrome smokey eyes! Whenever I see the most beautiful dark smokey eyes I know that I won't be wearing them on a daily basis or for work or just for a day out. However I love the smokey quality of dark gradient looks and I love duochrome browns and hence I decided to create my version of a dark look but for wearing during the day!

For this look I used my Urban Decay Smoked palette which is a stunning small collection of rich jewel tones, some gorgeous mattes which includes everything you need for a simple clean nude eye to a rich smokey jewel toned eye look.

Continue below for my full look!

Blackened green smokey eyes, rose bronze cheek and a nude lip!

Rave review: L'oreal Le Teint True Match in shade R2 Apricot Ivory!

Le Teint True Match! For many many women for many years L'oreal True Match has been a famous drugstore product and a staple for women around the world! Having a huge range of shades (in major parts of the world), suitable for most skin types and with great coverage that leaves the skin looking real and yet flawless I'm won't be surprised if this product forever has a section in store!

Years ago I had helped my mother pick out her shade of L'oreal True Match and on hindsight we some how got her the wrong shade...TWICE. I then purchased one for myself 4 years ago and it was one of my first foundations. In the end although it wasn't the right match at the time it was amazing and I can never forget or speak less about this product!

Continue below for the full review!

L'oreal Le Teint True Match in shade R2 Apricot Ivory!

Review: MUA (Makeup Academy) Eyeshadow Palette Dusk til Dawn!

Dusk til Dawn! For those who are aware of MUA's 12 pan eyeshadow palettes, they are not only such a great steal but they have a great range of colors and pretty great pigmentation! For those who love shimmery and satin shades these palettes seriously do have a great pay off and for those who question the Undressed palette as being a Naked palette dupe, it pretty much almost is!

This beautiful palette was gifted to me in a swap with Pam from Jade in the Palace beauty blog which I did a swap with last year! I had received the Undressed palette from her before and it was such a winner I had to ask her to help me get another MUA palette to try!

Continue below for the review!

MUA (Makeup Academy) Eyeshadow Palette Dusk til Dawn!

Haul: My first Innisfree beauty haul (Nov 2014)!

INNISFREE ME! Yes, as of November the popular super affordable brand Innisfree has been in Singapore for one year! I wasn't aware of this until I left the shop and noticed the free gift I was given in my bag. Innisfree is like  Skin Food and The Face Shop in the sense that they have a wide range of products with lots of fruit/vegetable ingredients. However Innisfree is the most popular of these three brands and is also the most affordable too!

There are two giant Innisfree shops in singapore, one in the basement of Ngee Ann City and the other in Dhouby Ghaut Atrium. Both sell everything from eyeshadows, foundation, BB cushions, lipsticks, face masks, skincare, nail polishes and more! Be warned, everything is really affordable you'll go insane once you see the price tags!

Continue below for the haul!

My first Innisfree beauty haul! (cleansing oil, eyeshadow, lipgloss, face masks)

Review: Biore UV Aqua Rich Whitening Cream SPF 50 pa++!

Biore's UV protection time! As we all know sun protection is essential in a skincare routine. We all need to somehow get sunscreen in some part of our skincare or make up routine in order to protect our skin from deep and future sun damage. I've never like sunscreen. It's never made sense to me to purely wear sunscreen on my bare face and go out. 

For two reasons as my skin is super sensitive and all kinds of sunscreens sting and I used to have oilier skin which combined with the hot and humid weather in south east asia is crazy! In recent years I've discovered using sunscreen below my bases and powders and more importantly getting it in my make up too. I've already tried, used up and loved Biore's mousse version of this sunscreen, do check out my review here!

Continue below for the full review!

Biore UV Aqua Rich Whitening Cream SPF 50 pa++!

Shades of berry jam eye look!

Yummy berry jam! I'm sorry but my attempt of coming up with names for my eye looks really suck at times! I tend to go very simple and name them by the colors I used but I thought looking at this one a bit longer that it reminds me of a mix of berry jams! I love love jams made from berries...strawberry, blackberry, blueberry...all of those purple, reddish and bluish berries make my day!

This look was for work and I wanted color, something purple but not too dark and more pink...hence I got into my Z palette with all my brights and put together this all berry toned look!

Continue below for the look!

Pinky, purple, cranberry berry jam eye look!

Rave review:Bourjois Healthy Mix in shade 52 Vanilla! (New packaging)

Give me my Healthy Mix! I'm one of the biggest fan of Bourjois Healthy Mix. I used to buy this when they had the older plastic packaging (my review here) and since they're repackaged this line more than a year ago I had to pick up a new bottle! This foundation is best for those with yellower undertones and have a light-medium complexion. There are not many shades in this line and if you're pink toned, super pale or darker you won't find a good match.

For those who aren't aware, Chanel is currently owned by Bourjois and hence many ladies have claimed that this foundation is just as good and some say even better than Chanel's Aqualumiere foundations! Many of Bourjois's products have the same texture and scents as Chanel. Plenty of make up artists love it too and it's super affordable!

Continue below for my full review!

New Reformulated/Packaged Bourjois Healthy Mix in shade 52 Vanilla!

Special: Beauty and Food Haul from my holiday in Bandung Indonesia 2014!

Indonesian Beauty and Food haul! For those who aren't aware I went on a really nice extended holiday with my boyfriend to his hometown city of Bandung Indonesia a few months ago! We stayed both in the city and in his grandparent's flower farm! To check out what we did during our holiday see here!

During my time in Bandung I couldn't help but to buy plenty of beauty/skincare/food goodies! For those who aren't aware, the price of things in general are not only so much cheaper in Indonesia compared to Singapore but there is soooo much more variety and they have lots of sizes of products!

Continue below for my huge holiday haul!

Special: Beauty and Food Haul from my holiday in Bandung Indonesia 2014!

Review: Institut Arnaud Paris Youthful Radiance Day Cream and Night Cream!

Youthful Radiance! In a day and age when youthful and young skin usually equates to bouncy, plump, hydrated, glowing skin and from what I've seen from older ladies in the blogsphere it is very possible! Moisturizing as we all should know is essential and everyone no matter what age and skin type should own a moisturizer that suits them! I've didn't take moisturizing seriously until about 4 years ago and since then I've been trying out lots of different types!

In Singapore and south east asia, it's usually always hot, humid and sometimes rainy. We always have air-conditioning running inside and even a fan running too hence drier air inside. Plus most people suffer from oily skin hence slapping a cream doesn't usually sound appealing! I was lucky enough to have a local company send me these two face creams from Institut Arnaud Paris and after 3 months of use I'm ready to speak about them!

Continue below for the review!

 Institut Arnaud Paris Youthful Radiance Day Cream and Night Cream!

Review: Memebox Special #42 OMG 3!

OMG 3! Cheers to another memebox! I've been lucky enough to have memebox providing me boxes to review and this is the third one I've received, the last one being the Special #33 K-Style 2 (see my review here!) which was my favorite of the two boxes I've tried so far. My first memebox was the OMG 2 which was all skincare (see my review here!) The OMG 3 like the other OMG boxes are suppose to bring the cool, weird, trendy and inventive products to us!

This box definitely has some great products! I've been testing everything the last 10 days and some products have really been beyond awesome, I did have trouble with one product otherwise this is a really interesting and worth while box! I've summarized all descriptions and usage info but you can see the full details on the card included in the box!

Continue below for my review!

Memebox Special #42 OMG 3!

Rave Review: Queen Helene Oatmeal 'n Honey Natural Facial Scrub!

Oatmeal 'n Honey Scrub! For those who love a good rough scrub, like the very popular and super effective St. Ives Apricot scrub this is a total competitor! I've been using various versions of St. Ives Apricot scrubs and other apricot scrubs but after so many of the same type of product and scent I thought it's time to try something different! 

Queen Helene finally arrived in singapore drugstores more than a year ago and I when I smelled how good the Oatmeal and Honey was I had to get it! More importantly I could see and feel that the scrub was a rough texture that I really love!

Continue below for my review!

Queen Helene Oatmeal 'n Honey Natural Facial Scrub!