Project $10 5 Pan Lips

So the final project pan I'll be doing is the Project $10 5 Pan Lips.

Like the name suggests, the rules of the game are:

1) I have to finish 5 lip products of my choice before I get any new lip products

2) After finishing the allocated amount, I get a budget of $10 to spend on only lip products

3) This low-buy is going to continue until Dec 31, 2012

4) If I can finish other lip items first (which I highly doubt), they will be counted in too

I just have so many lipsticks! I need containers and a bag just to contain them, so I must just get rid of these things and find the balance between what I like and what fits my face.

So without further ado, here are the 5 lip items I want to finish

(L-R, Body Shop Hi-shine treatment in this mauve-pink colour, NYX Lips in Love Angel, Morgana Cryptoria Lip Balm in Coventry, Mac Satin finish lipstick in Mocha, NYX round lipstick in Doll)

I got this as part of a set years ago, and this is the only remaining lipgloss that I found. The rest have been thrown away or lost, as I'm not really a lipgloss person.

Got this at a blog sale, I thought it was the round lipstick, I didn't even know that this range of NYX lipsticks existed till I received it.

Dented at the side because it is so soft and creamy that when you apply directly to your lips, it bends the lipstick a little. So now I use a lip brush to apply it. This is how much that is left.

It looks so new because it is new! The most wearable shade of the lip balms that I got from Morgana Cryptoria frankly. Sadly she has discontinued the line of lip balms.

My third mac lipstick ever. It came out with the Surf Baby collection, the first mac collection that I purchased from, but I didn't want to spend that much as it's a permanent item. So I got my friend to custom purchase it from the airport where it's much cheaper ($21 vs $30 for surf baby packaging)

I got this based on the recommendation of emilynoel83, as she touted it as an easy wearable red. Personally, I find it the shade to be more of a rose colour. I've realized that I'm pretty conservative when it comes to makeup and I'm slowly trying to get myself to wear bolder shades.

Such a cute name

L-R, Swatches of Body Shop Hi-shine treatment in this mauve-pink colour, NYX Lips in Love Angel, Morgana Cryptoria Lip Balm in Coventry, Mac Satin finish lipstick in Mocha, NYX round lipstick in Doll)

I like Coventry the most since it's a sheer mauve brown shade, very close to my lips but better (MLBB), Mocha is a bit too much of a cream for me, Doll is a rose brown, but the biggest problem is Love Angel and the body shop lip gloss since they are so blue toned which pops and looks very unnatural on my warm skintone.

Surprisingly, my tan has helped the most in this aspect, when I wear such baby pink lips, I look less like a badly made up corpse, and more like a badly made up woman. Dead -> alive, vast improvement of a sort! The sheerer and warmer baby pink Body Shop lipgloss also looks nicer against my current NC40 skintone than my old NC25 skintone. So I'm trying to use this opportunity to get as much use as possible from my lighter lipsticks.

Love,

Tabby

Review: Silk Naturals Cream Eyeliner in Amethyst

My first review ever but that doesn't mean I'm going to give it a free ride.
Silk Naturals is a mineral makeup company and besides their star products, the face and lip products, they also offer skincare and haircare items.

Today's review is on their cream eyeliner in Amethyst.

Amethyst is billed as a deep purple shimmer cream liner that can last for 2 years. First off, the packaging looks pretty cheap, housed in this plastic container. However, since it's a small mineral company, i suppose you can't expect too much.

I originally wanted a purple liner as I've heard that they make brown eyes pop.

This is with one stroke of the liner. No shimmers spotted but very creamy.

After lightly brushing my hand over the line. Look at it bleed!

After vigourous rubbing.

This eyeliner transfer really easily which is the biggest no-no for me since I have:

a) oily skin

b) tapered eyelid on one eye and a hooded monolid on the other

So essentially my monolid rubs against the fold covering it when I blink and then I have a racoon eye on one side, so it looks like I have serious dark circle on one eye. Definitely not pretty. Tightlining alsoseem to lead to smudging on the lower lid so I'm giving up on this eyeliner.

Bottom line: Transfers easily which is not suitable for me.

Verdict: Toss 1/5 [I know I don't really have much to say but I just really dislike this eyeliner, that's all]

Project $50 10 Pan - Makeup

Let's just get this one out since I'm feeling determined to stay on this no buy.

The rules for this is:

1) After using 10 products, a reward of $50 for makeup will be allowed. This can be accumulated for purchases later in the year. Until the 10 products are used up, I will not purchase any beauty product.

2) This applies to skincare and makeup items. For lipsticks, I have to use finish the allocated 5 lip products before I can purchase another one, for which a budget of $10 is given.

3) I will aim to use finish the items stated but if another item is used up, that also counts as part of the products.

The aim of this project is to:

1) Save money

2) Use the makeup that I have accumulated in a short span of time and finish them before they expire

So here are the 10 items in question,

Item 1: The bronzer in this Coastal Scents contouring palette that I bought 2 years ago (eek!). It's a bit orange but since I'm pretty tanned now it's not so obvious so I'll try to use this as much as I can.

Item 2: Za 2 way foundation cake 22

My first foundation ever. Used this until I bought into the hype about BB creams

Usually I apply using a wet sponge but I've been using a powder brush which makes it go down soooo slowly.

Actually I won't be using this for a while because when I went to the Mac counter, I realised that through un-intended tanning, I have gone from NC25 to NC40! So I'll be using the Studio Sculpt foundation in NC40 until I fade back to my normal colour. Then I'll go back to this

Item 3: NARS Concealor Duo in Vanilla/Honey

Insanely pale on me right now, so I'll probably try to mix it around to get close to my skintone.

Not much of a dent huh?

Item 4: UD Primer Potion that came with my Naked palette

Item 5: Heroine Make long and curl mascara. Number 1 in a Japanese cosmetic user-review website, someone needs to tell me why!

Item 6 and 7: Loreal HIP pencil in Gold Charge and Silkygirl Funky Eyelights Pencil in Metallic Bronze

Item 8: A palette of 4 eyeshadow colours that I pulled together from my depotted shadows as I'm trying to finish my unwanted shadows before I start on my precious palettes. The shades are easy and wearable except for the purple shade, which I'm a bit adverse towards

Item 9: La Femme blush in Satin Rose. I chose this shade to be my staple blush as it's in the same bluish-pink tones as my most hated lip products in my Project 5 lip pan, so hopefully having a similar colour on my cheek will make me look less dead/freaky. La Femme blushes are so pigmented and you need so little that I wonder if I will ever hit pan on this =(

Last but not least: Etude House LuciDarling Eyeliner pen.

In order to keep to this makeup ban, I shall no longer visit Musings of a muse or Temptalia, sites that I visit practically everyday and are huge enablers for buying makeup, at least not until I finish 10 products first!

Wish me luck,

Tabby

[Edit: I forgot to stipulate that this is until Dec 31 2012, so I have a year to re-organize my makeup and skincare collection]

Why do I spend so much on makeup/shopping?

Today I hauled. I was already trying and struggling to stay on my project 10 Pan but in a wave of negativity, temptation and self-loathing, I bought so much stuff.

What kicked started it was reading on temptalia that Chanel Rouge Allure Laques were being discountinued! I quite like this formulation and today was the 12% Tangs rebate, so I hustled my ass to Tangs. On the way there I kept questioning myself and asking "What are you doing? You should be studying not buying more makeup that you don't absolutely need" I asked this on my way there, up till when I was buying the items.

"Since I'm buying this, I might as well buy some other stuff too"

So this led to a downward spiral of me buying an item, loathing (yes seriously loathing) myself for buying it, and attempting to assuage the guilt by buying even more things.

Are the random urges that propel me to splurge on makeup nothing more than the shopoholic's version of binge eating?

Absolutely.

Introspection has unearthed that the times when I give in to the call of makeup is when I feel like crap, usually from the time of the month, or just general moodiness. I feel lethargic, unmotivated and buying stuff simply takes my mind off the wrenching-heartache-from-I-don't-know-what. It's when I'm motivated that and up to the challenge of life, that everything stays on track. Shows what a half-arsed life I lead. Oh quarter life crisis, I need to solve you!

The tried and proven solutions to get out of this emotional rut are:
1) Being very busy
2) Exercise
3) Sleep

Option 1 usually result in a relapse when the lull period comes but option 3 can result in me sleeping 12-16 hours a day! Perhaps that I've been on holiday and have stopped exercising for 2 weeks is a contributing factor to my current malaise.

So what to do? This problem needs to be solved, I can't spend all my life struggling with motivational issues (or can I? eeek!) and I must try to solve this problem to the best of my ability, since as a student, I don't have the budget for emotional shopping.

I think I need to enjoy life more. Sometimes thinking too much about a problem envelops you and makes it's presence felt so much stronger (like stop thinking about a white elephant). Everything takes time to change and I need to accept that. I can't be a better person immediately, but I can try and chip my way into carving out to be the person I want to be.

Love,
Tabby

Clearing out the graveyard of doom (i.e my bathroom cabinet)

I can't believe it's been 17 days since I last posted. I was on an adventurous trip: diving, trekking, jet-skiing, etc. Of course I was willing to miss school just to make myself available! My resolution led to humoungous pile of to-do-lists since there was work to be done for all the time that I was missing...which I only realized in November.

In times of great stress I like to take a time-out and de-clutter my room. Usually I tidy up my table before the start of focused studying, but this time around I decided to clear out the area that I only dare to take a small glimpse at before I hurridly throw more things inside. Yes it is the graveyard where beauty products are chucked in and left to grow cobwebs (oh how I wish this was rhetorical).

After 4(!) years of moving into my current abode, I finally decided to check what I have and do a clear out. I resolutely prepared a big black trashbag that could hide a body and started cleaning.

I found moisturizers that I can't even remember where or when I bought, big tubes of conditioners and small travel size products that I've never used that promptly went into the bin. Then I discovered a small white box, what could be inside?

You have got to be kidding me. 12 lipbalms of the same kind. I have yet to even finish 1 lipbalm in my life. At least the lipbalms feel pretty good and are supposed to be fantastic in cold weather *grumbles at my past self that bought this*

It can't be any worse right? Then I came across this

What on earth, I don't use body sprays or perfume, how did these things get in my cabinet?! The Biotherm body spray was so old that the plastic wrapped around the bottle had turned a nasty shade of yellow/brown and the silver rim of the bottle is flaking off. At least these scented water should still be usable...I think. I can count the number of times that I have used a fragrance simply because:

1) most of them are so overpowering to my nose

 2) I can't stand smelling perfume on myself.

BUT

I am such a cheapskate that I will make myself use these things *cries*

Then came the cherry on the topping

A lifting cream by Estee Lauder, a Silk Naturals Vitamin C serum that is to be used within 3 months of purchase which I bought 7 months ago, and 2 Clarins cream (do they even make them in this packaging anymore?!)

My Silk Naturals Green Tea and Oatmeal serum was smelling a bit sour so I trashed it and replaced it with the Estee Laude lifting cream, that I am using exclusively for my neck. My rule is when in doubt of a product, never use it on my face. The Estee Lauder bottle states that it can be used 24 months after opening, so it might still be good.

I persisted with the SN Vitamin C serum for a while, convincing myself that the serum is yellow, not brown and still usable. Alas, my face broke out during my diving trip and I decided to ditch this serum when I concluded that it's not worth risking the condition of my face. Oh the pain I felt at throwing money away. That truly made me resolute to finish as much of my products as possible.

The Clarins creams turned out to be a joke. The day cream smelled like vomit after squeezing it out, and the night one, while smelling fine intially, coagulated with oil in the joints of my body so I removed it with cleansing wipes. Thankfully, I never paid any money for these items. My mom had some extra Clarins product so she just passed them onto me...years ago.

Cleaning my cabinet has been eye-opening and depressing at the same time. I have so many hair products for long hair, many moisturizers and toners and it seems like it will take forever to get through any of it. In faith and hope, I shall turn to Project $50 10 pan, which will be discussed tomorrow.

P.S. The graveyard is also where I store all my BB creams. There isn't much space for them in an orderly cabinet, so I placed them into a shoe box.

Yep, it's all BB creams and related products. It's filled to the brim, I'm missing 2 other BB creams that are not at home with me and I gave my big bottle of BRTC Jasmine Water to a friend. I'm not kidding when I say I have a lot of something.