New Year Resolutions on beauty and life

It's finally that time of the year... the last day of the year. The year where we stop and reflect on the past year, and I start to feel guilty about the money and time I've spent on beauty, particularly makeup. Last year I was on a skincare kick, and accumulated a heck load of skincare products, so in that sense I fared no worse this year. The only problem is that skincare will gradually get depleted (in lieu of special circumstances) since you can use it daily but whether I put on makeup depends on how lazy I am and it does have an expiry date so I have to throw it out after a certain time. The miser and aunty in me can't bear to do that to unfinished products, so my new resolutions generally centre around finishing products. Here are my 10 ambitious resolutions for the year 2012 (long post ahead)

1. No more lip products until Sephora Friends and Family Sale 2012

This is a huge, HUGE problem of mine, my addiction to lip products. More than 70 lipsticks (since I last counted)? Check. More than 20 lipglosses (I'm actually not very sure about this!)? Check. More than 10 lipbalms? Check. Lip concealor? Check. Tinted lip conditioners? Check. 6 Lip liners that I never touch? Check. And when did I accumulate them all?

Within this year!

That means I have about 1 year to finish all my lip glosses and about 2 to 3 years for my lipsticks. Chances that I can actually accomplish this? >1%

This is a race. A race to finish my lip product collection. Oh the stress and problems that consumerism gives me! I will stop the no buy at the Sephora sale since it is a steep discount and by then I will probably know what are the colours that suit me best and invest appropriately.

2. No more new makeup till 1 May 2012

This is a 4 month strict no buy. Up till now, I've given myself the leeway of buying products but only opening $50 worth of makeup after finishing every 10 makeup products. I've been too kind to myself, and my 'pound' the place where I consign all my to-be-opened products have been getting bigger and bigger. I really have a lot more than 1 product for each category so there is really no need to buy anymore makeup until then. The only category that I have one of is a mascara base, which is the Shiseido Nourishing Mascara Base. It does work well but because it lengthens your own lashes so much, it gives a fake, I can tell you have mascara one look, which is nice if you want really defined and open lashes but it is the opposite of natural, which I favour. I've realized that I do enjoy the natural look the most, so most of my bright eyeshadows, blushes and lip products are not being utilized. My second favourite look are the smoky eyes though, so I'll try to use up more of my non-neutral eyeshadows, lipsticks and fake eyelashes (I have tons of that) for night outings as well.

My semester ends at the end of April, so I do think that May would be a good time to evaluate my progress and see if I can continue the no-buy for the rest of the year :)

3. No more fast food

Now we start the health related part. As we all know, fast food is really bad for health, but I always choose to eat it because of a) convenience and b) I can't decide to eat anything else. After eating it every time, I always feel guilty and repulsed at myself for consuming such junk. All my hard work exercising goes to waste!

4. Eating at a restaurant at most 2 times a month

Evaluating my finances has shown that not only do I have poor self-control issues (all the makeup buying impulses) but I also like to live the high life and eat at restaurants. Granted these restaurants are not high end ones, they are at most low to mid-tier restaurants, but patronising them so frequently accumulates over time. Spending $20-30 each trip, 1-4 times a week does add up to a lot, especially for someone that is still studying. I should be doing so much more with my money than blowing it all on food and makeup! So now I would rather save the money and learn a viable skill like cooking. Which means I need to get more motivated about cleaning (the biggest pain in the butt about cooking) and more organised especially since some foods like meat needs to be defrosted, and planning meals in advance for weekly grocery shopping. This all sounds so responsible and grown up! :P A healthier way to live and hopefully a healthier body in return would be a great gift in the new year.

5. Reading a book every 2 weeks

I used to be a really avid reader growing up, I could read a 500 page book in a day and I had a wonderful grasp of the English language thanks to that. After entering junior college (or after age 16), I started to get really into comics and forums, where language can be garbled to say the least. Now I find my grasp of english deteroriating year on year and that's bad considering that I'm a native English speaker and my knowledge of the Chinese language needs to be worked on to say the least.

I still love fantasy books, especially ones by Terry Pratchett, but I should read more classics and 'serious' books too. I guess I've just found other people and the Internet to be so much more interesting, but now and then I can still find books that bring me back to that escapist fantasy world that I loved so much.

Good thing public libraries membership never expires in Singapore!

6. Doing something mentally challenging everyday

Now I confess, after entering university 3 years ago, I feel like my brain has rotted. Literally. Everyday I spent my time reading on reviews of skincare/makeup/sunscreen, shopping for clothes, watching youtube videos... things that are generally content intensive and that is handed on a platter to me. Do I need to think when watching youtube reviews? Only to judge whether I already own the shade shown and if the reviewer has some bias towards the product. This acceptance of information is dangerous and I shouldn't be so accepting , especially since I am studying Philosophy, which is a critique of commonly accepted thinking (you can tell what a 'good' student I am). I still love makeup despite all that and I doubt I will ever swear off makeup claiming that it is a tool for subjudication of the common woman according to society's standards or something, (there might be people who do believe this, and it might be true... to a degree) but I just want to feel like I have actually accomplished something each day!

I'm sure this is not a problem for highly motivated successful people, but for anyone that struggles to get out of bed and spends free days lazing about doing nothing, this is a huge challenge. I do want to value-add my life and live it out as much as possible. I am now in a club that makes me quite physically active, which I like and I want to enrich the mental side of it.

For now, the goal is to improve the limited chinese that I know and maybe even learn a new language. The beautiful thing about language is that you don't have to learn a lot at a time, but learning it over an extended period reaps the most benefits.

7. Doing a good/kind deed a day

This is so cliché, but I want to at least try this. After contemplating for a while, I do believe that true kindness and grace is something innate and one that you actively do without thinking "Oh I will look good/kind/nice in front of others if I do this" *confesses to such a shallow and ugly thought*

Thankfully for the non-kind and graceless folks out there, this can be developed into a habit and what is a habit eventually becomes innate (I hope). Being kind to others, holding my tongue when I know the other party might be hurt and taking the extra step to be caring, something that certainly doesn't come naturally to me, so that hopefully when I look back at the end of next year, I can think that at least I've been quite a decent person. And related to that is...

8. Keeping a smile on

I have a really unfriendly and intimidating face when I don't smile, sadly this appears to be a family trait. At every new setting or gathering, I always have to muster up the courage and make the first move to be friendly towards others because otherwise they would never approach me. This is something that is probably something that I have to do for the rest of my life.

The positive thing is that people always say that those who age well are those who think positive, and I hope this is true! I don't cope well with stress and trouble, I tend to ball it up inside of me and/or explode to others (happens very rarely and usually in the solitude of my room), once again this appears to be a family trait (hence the distaste of me exploding in front of others, I've experienced it more times than I care for). Thankfully, during recent stressful times, I have been able to smile at myself and think of the ridiculous worrying that I agonise over the problem. Stress and worry is really something that you give yourself and I'm slowing learning and trying to deal with it and just putting it aside. Being able to smile and laugh at the situation will hopefully make things a bit easier.

9. Buy higher quality clothing that can last longer

I've recently gone to a flea market to sell some clothes and it's heart wrenching to see clothes that I've bought online, that I've never worn, go for as low as $2. Clothes have a really low re-sale value, but I have so many pieces of clothing that I will never wear because it either a) looks terribly different from the online photo (in a terrible way) or b) does not fit me at all. I'm not slim like most Asian girls are, I'm thick with boobs and hips.

Cheap clothes at markets are generally cut too small and tight for me. Clothes that fit me at western brands like Topshop and River Island, have necklines that are too low in clothes that are my size (I wear US size 6 or UK size 10 and I'm only 163cm or 5'4, according to standard clothes sizing, I'm too short for my size :X)

Actually, now I look at the cut and fabric of the pieces most often and it almost seems that most affordable pieces do not fit me well. Looking at my closet, those that look great on me consist of at most 10% of my wardrobe. I'll probably try to sell my clothes at the flea market more often, and maybe end up with a much more compact wardrobe that has the same cost value as what I own now, but is infinitely more wearable and flattering.

10. Blog more often!

I have committed the cardinal sin of blogging, which is disappearing and not blogging when I should. In this new year, I want to blog frequently at 3 times a week, preferably Monday, Wednesday and Fridays. Over the course of the year, my writing style and the look of this blog will hopefully improve!

Right now, I plan to blog about my Christmas haul, my new makeup obsessions, emergency buys and a makeup or maybe even skincare inventory post (this will have to be done in many, many parts). So stay tuned for updates!

Love,
Tabby

What I got for Christmas!

I'm finally back! Been itching to get another post up ever since I came back but Christmas and Cleaning totally got in the way. Yep, I have so much junk in my room that I need to spring clean way before the end of the year and I'm still not done yet! *panics*

Before all that, let me show you what my lovely family got me for Christmas!

A makeup bag (now they know how addicted I am to makeup), a cute coin purse (to save more money) and the crown jewel of them all, the Kat Von D holiday 2011 palette!!

So goth, so nice :)

Love the design at the bottom

Some ramblings about love

At first glance

I love this palette already. The eyeshadows are soft and easy to blend and the colours, just look at them! Half of it are wearable neutrals with the usual sparkly colours and beautiful matte highlights and best friend shades. In the more colourful half, most of them are darker shades that are so much easier to wear than bright BRIGHT shades. I'm in love with the purple shade, the red is surprisingly wearable layered over another shade but the two black seem pretty similar though.

All in all a wonderful palette and one that will certainly feed my makeup urge for the next few months (I hope!)

Short posting hiatsu

Alright so I'm off for travelling once again :D I still have no idea how to use blogger's scheduled posting, which seems to not work for me

I'll be back on the 20th so posting will resume then. I'll finally do my inventory check and clearing out all my junk (believe me, I have stacks of them)

So have a great month!

Love,
Tabby

Review: Coastal Scents contouring palette

A review on the Coastal scents contouring palette, one of my P10 pan items. Summary: It is trash, do not waste your money.

So why is it so bad?

Looks alright, just a bit plain. It is a pain to open sometimes, as it can snap shut quite tightly.

Top row: white, yellow, pink

Bottom row: Peach, brown and pink

Swatches in that order. As you can see the peach and yellow do not show up on my skin at all. The primary problem with all of them is that they are chalky to the core and hard to blend out. Moreover, the blushes are simply indistinguishable from one another!

 My P10 Pan product was the contouring brown shade right? So what's wrong with it?

This is what wrong with it. Just look at it, I tried to blend it out but the most concentrated part is still the intial point of contact when my powder covered finger touched the skin. All my brushes, no matter how soft or whether they are stippling brushes, encounter this problem as the intial part where the powder was deposited will always be darker than the surrounding area. So there have been days where my cheeks or the sides of my faces are much darker than the other coutoured part. No one likes a line running across their face but this was the effect that it gave! No amount of blending worked, so for such a crappy product, it deserves the bin. The other powders has no effect on me (yellow and peach) or are too crappy (white, the 2 pinks) to salvage this palette. Cheap palette and cheap product. Absolute waste of money

Summary: Don't waste your money on this. Give it to charity rather than to own this palette.

Rating: 1/5 Toss! (and with pleasure) 

Love,

Tabby

Last official haul! Sephora friends & family, allwholesalecosmetics, selfridges (Suqqu)

Woops, I apologise for the lack of updates, was quashed between exams and after-exams preparations, so I simply didn't have the mindset to type about anything beauty related. Hopefully I can figure out how to use Blogger's staggered posting properties so that I can at least try to have semi-frequent updates...even if I don't feel like it that day :D

So onto the main topic, my last official haul before project pan started!

Package 1 & 2

Package 3 & 4

Package 5

After investing in pricy brushes, I wanted to try out this highly hyped brush guard. At best it will prolong the lifespan of my brushes, at worst, I wasted US$8.50 on several pieces of plastic

From allwholesalecosmetics.com. They recently revamped their website but I decided to just order since I was using a concierge service anyway. However, their domestic shipping is only a little cheaper than their international shipping fee!

Loads of lovely lipsticks, and I get to try the hyped dream mousse blush

The highlight has got to be this, Paula Dorf's lip brush as recommended by Lisa eldridge. The only place I could find it was at allwholesalecosmetics and it's less than US$10! Go get it quick!

Two boxes from Sephora but seriously....

What is this? The box is huge and there are only free samples, a sephora deluxe mascara that came free with a code and one FusionBeauty lip plumping gloss. FusionBeauty was at 50-70% discount on Sephora one week before the friends and family sale so I quickly ordered it. I ordered using comgateway's concierge service but it takes them more than 24 hours to actually place the order so I only managed to grab one of their lip plumpers.

My haul from the Sephora F&F 20% sale this year. I was pretty worried that the concierge service won't be able to use the discount code since there is a limitation on the number of times that you can apply the code per computer *sigh of relieve*

All the products are recommendations and I love almost all of them (except you Peter Thomas Roth sunblock!)

The true star of this haul :) I ordered using Vposteurope's UK address. The UK address is ridiculously long and there was a word limitation for the address on the Selfridges website. I had to contact customer service since I was quite worried whether my package will reach the right hands or not, and they were so efficient that the package was shipped out before customer service got back to me! Thankfully they noted who received the package and I duly forwarded it to VpostEurope.

The Suqqu cheek brush. Originally, I called the Suqqu counter in Selfridges as I wanted to ship directly to Singapore but it's 50 pounds to do so. 50 pounds?! That's like S$100! Concierge service for the win

Such an investment

Like kitten's paws :D

Truly, my last offical haul was wonderful and it should satisfy me for a while. Or can it?

Love,

Tabby

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]