Hi all, I was originally going to continue my project X pan posts but it took me 2 days to upload my second video and when it finally did, I found out the freaking video got cut in half, and this was at 2am! *blood pressure rising* So now I have to redo this video, but I only have the time to do it on the weekend, so there's a change in schedule for my blog posts :)
I actually have a lot of skincare products lying about, so I've been on a no-buy since 20 Dec 2011 and I want to continue it for as long as I can, unless I run out of something like eye-cream. These are the empties that I finished in December so I won't include them in the count for 2012, where my dream is to finish 100 empties! (fat hope of that happening)
Makeup removers
1. L'oreal Gentle Eye Makeup remover: Usual bi-phase eye remover, with the usual problems of removing Japanese mascara.
2. Clarins Cleansing Milk: My mom passed it to me, and it does work to remove makeup, but don't ever use it on your eyes! They stung so badly even after washing them out :(
3. Maybelline Eye Makeup remover: See above.
Moisturizers
4. Complex 15 Therapeutic Moisturizing Face Cream: Bought this because of all the rave reviews on Amazon. Absorbs quickly on your face, so much so that I sometimes wonder if I need to apply more moisturizer. Had a weird smell towards the end though.
5. The Body Shop Tea Tree Skin Clearing Lotion: This was so old that there was dust on it. Hesitated to apply this on my face, so instead I applied to my chest and my back where zits occasionally popped up. Didn't feel any difference really.
6. Unkown moisturizer: Found this when I cleaned my bathroom cabinet. I have totally no idea when or where I bought this moisturizer, so I just used it on my body. Smelled like chemically constructed aloe vera, like what you would think aloe vera should smell like, and it actually felt quite greasy on my skin. Glad that it's gone.
Randoms
7. The Body Shop Olive Body Scrub: The second tub I ever bought, and I quite enjoy it but I have a few body bars that have scrubby bits so I'll just use those for my exfoliating needs.
8. Shokobutsu Green Tea Facial foam: I used this for a short while but then I started on my dermatologist recommended cleanser so I delegated this to body. Lathers up to a nice slip but it's almost too smooth for me *shrugs*
9. DHC Deep Cleansing Oil: Finally finished this after leaving it at home and only using it on the weekends for 8 months! I kept trying to determine if this was breaking me out the entire time I was using it. Up to now I still have not figured it out so I might rebuy this after a while thanks to all the hype online about this.
10. Silk Naturals Fire-Cinnamon Lip Balm: Hated the taste and smell of it, a very spicy taste, not of the chili variety but of herbs. Moreover, it got really soft and gross after a while so when I apply it, I occasionally get a headache from the smell and thick feel of it on my lips. It was used only at night and I jumped for joy when it finally finished!
What I redeemed
Since I used up 10 products, I got to redeem $50 worth of skincare products that I had bought but not used (i.e anything I bought from November 2011 onwards) My chosen products are the Pond's Cleansing Cream, Ecotools retractable brush and the Cleansing express eye makeup remover. Hope to finish another 10 products soon!
Hi all, I decided that for 2012, I will try something new and I made a video on youtube! Never imagined that I will join the hordes on youtube, but here I am with my Singapore-accented voice. Finally managed to upload it after trying all day yesterday and today.
Now, I accidentally deleted the real first part to this video, so the video starts with the second part, the face portion. I even left out a few things *shift eyes away in guilt* but to make up for it, here are some better quality photos of the things!
Face Primers and BB Creams
1. Missha BB Boomer: Very pink toned primer. I honestly don't have much of an opinion of it now as I have not used enough of it to have any notion of how good or bad it is!
2. Lóreal true match Moist Up Makeup Base: Read that it's a good primer, but I got it on sale and it's for dry skin, which is the furthest thing possible from me.
3. Skinfood Mushroom Multi BB Cream: The best thing about this BB cream is that it smells wonderful, and when I put it on, most unobservant people don't think I have makeup one because it is a) very natural looking (yay!) and b) very low coverage (boo!) Using it as a makeup base since it is so sheer.
4. Missha Perfect Cover M BB Cream: One of the few medium coverage BB creams. If I put foundation over it, the whole thing looks super cakey. Pink toned as usual.
Powder, cream and liquid foundations
5. Za True White Foundation refill in 21: I bought it because it was cheap, but this range actually runs a fair bit lighter than the original range. It's supposed to give a whitening effect but I really can't tell because it is too light for me to wear this foundation at all. Planning to use it as a highlighter or in the centre of my face.
6. Graftobian Hi-Def Glamour Creme in Temptress: This was quite a nice colour match to me a few months ago, so hopefully it still matches me! I love it because it gives a full coverage flawless look when used with a damp sponge, like how Gossmakeupartist recommends it to be used. It does contain Silica and when you use it as much as I do, since my skin is pretty bad so I like a full face that gives a flawless mannequinn look, it does make my face look really white when taking flash photography. The coverage does fade after a few hours and it does get a bit oily after a few hours but I love this foundation and only use it during special occasions.
7. Za Two-Way foundation in 22: My first foundation ever, so this makes it 2 to 3 years old. A tad light for me and I like to apply it with a damp sponge to give it a more natural look. Applying with a sponge tends to emphasis my pores, and it looks the best after 2 hours, when the natural oils of my face break through the powder, to give a more natural finish. Not very good oil control though, and I probably won't repurchase this ever.
8. Franken-foundation consisting of a full bottle of Mac Studio Fix Fluid in NC40 (much too dark for me), a full bottle of Revlon Colourstay in 310 Warm Golden (too dark for me) and 2 half empty tubes of BRTC Jasmine Water BB Cream (fits NW15-20, way too light for me), which ignited my hate for BB creams, and some moisturizer: Still a bit too brown tinged for me, but I have a huge bottle to finish now. Best to sheer it out with a damp sponge.
Loose Powders and Compact Powders
9. BRTC BB Sun Pact: Meant to go with the Jasmine water BB cream, so way too light for me. Hoping to use it as a mattifying powder since most powders mattify anyway.
10, Missha Art Designing Loose Powder: An emergency loose powder that I bought on holiday and which I stopped using when the holiday was over. No real opinions yet.
11. Elf Studio Translucent Mattifying Powder: Hit Pan already and it does it's job!
12. MAC Mineralize Skin Finish Natural in Medium Plus: Too dark once again and the cover broke!
Concealers
13. Everyday Minerals Concealer in Intensive Medium: Looks a bit too brown toned on my yellowish face. My first concealer I believe, which means it needs to be finished soon.
14. NARS Concealer Duo in Vanilla/Honey: Too light for me as I bought it wearing the Jasmine water BB cream, which made me a highly unnatural NC20, when I am NC25-30 by nature. Trying to finish it fast!
15. NYX Concealer in Orange: Seriously. What was I thinking?! An orange concealer?? I was so into salmon based concealers when I bought this from NYX, and then when it came in the mail, "Hold on, I don't even have bad dark circles!".
16. & 17. Maybelline AngelFit Concealer in Light Beige and Natural Beige: Light is too light for me and Natural is too brown
Highlighters, Cream blushes, Powder Blushes and Blotting sheets
18. Benefit Moon Beam: Bought this because I thought this will fit Asian skintones better than the silvery High Beam... and it's a pink toned highlighter *dies as a truly yellow-skinned gal* It's only here because I barely touch it and it needs to be used up soon.
19. NYX Cream Blush in Natural: Nice natural rosey shade, definitely not too pigmented which I like since I'm pretty heavy handed, so being able to slowly build up colour is a nice luxury. However, it does fade on me after a few hours so I probably need to touch up then. Does it bother me? No, not now when I'm trying to finish it!
20. Canmake Cream Blush in 02 and 06: 02 is a very sheer bright pink that has more sparkle than colour really. I could probably even use it as a highlighter. The intention in buying 06 was to use it as a bronzer *stop laughing, I was a true makeup novince back then! This led to possibly (and hopefully) the worse makeup day in school ever* but though it looks brown in the pan, it actually applies as an orange-brown, which goes splendidly with my skintone. Corals and oranges are definitely the most natural shades for me.
23. Canmake Powder Cheek in PW05: Bought it out of a whim, when I couldn't find the shade that I wanted to buy originally. Turned out to be a surprisingly uncommon colour, as its a coral with very strong yellow tones, and shimmers in it. Planning to use this with my coral lipstick for an awesome retro face!
Wow, 23 products and this is just on the face section alone! I still have lips and eyes to go through, so stay tuned. This is Project X pan week :)
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]
So last night in the spirit of adventure and restlessness, I decided to depot all my small eyeshadow palettes and put them into the same container. This saves time and allows you to see shadows from palettes that you don't usually use. Seeing = higher chance of using that shadow. For me it was a chance to destroy and poke palettes that I don't really like :P
There are a few ways to depot shadows, one is by cutting the plastic around it and pry it out, another is the heat method by either melting the glue with a flat iron or a microwave. I didn't want to risk the chance of cutting/burning myself so I decided to use the alcohol method to dissolve the glue, courtesy of watching Jen's video The idea is to drop rubbing alcohol onto the sides of the pan to dissolve the glue around it. I bought my alcohol from Guardian a while back, so I started cracking them out!
Literally. Good thing most bloggers recommend starting out with a shadow that is your least favourite. I really don't like this silvery blue, way too frosty on my warm toned skin.
And it's out! Look at all the pretty light blue dusts and holes gouged in *whistles*
One of my first 2 palettes that was given to me. Way too frosty on my eyes. Turned me away from blue shimmery eyeshadow for a long long time. Even till now, I have quite an aversion for light blue eyeshadow and it didn't help that my eyeshadow application skill was non-existent at the time!
The other palette that I received along with the Cyber Shine eyes. The missing palette is the pink shadow, I forgot that I have not taken a photo till after I was done! Through Google, I finally figured out that my palette is the Michelle Yeoh palette. Just by looking at the photo, you can already tell what my problem with this palette is. She looks like she has an eye infection on her top lid for goodness sake.
The back. Manufactured in 2007?!
The shadows are placed really tightly with into their slots, so I really had to dig to get them out.
Finally, after trying out on various eyeshadows, I lifted my chin up and decided to depot my NYX shadows, which were my favourite singles out of them all
Nude is the same colour as my lid and Brown when used with a damp brush is a little darker than my natural eye contour colour
They were really easy to depot though, lots of loose spaces in the corners :D
So pretty. So bulky.
I think this shade is in the theBalm shady lady volume 3?
So much product, how will I ever finish this. It's also a red tinted brown and knowing how I feel about red eyeshadows... I guess its time for me to experience applying eyeshadow as lipstick
My other small and pretty palettes! Should I? Why shouldn't I?! (spot the odd palette out, no prizes for guessing right)
I was in the midst of trying to depot this Kate palette when I realised that the cream eyeshadow on the extreme right cannot be removed :O So my kate palettes get to stay in one piece thanks to the cream eyeshadow
This palette popped out without any alcohol at all! Bought this from another person's stash. Honestly, I haven't even tried it yet
RD?! Another red palette?! This one looks a bit closer to pink tones though
You can tell how cheap makeup is when the metal container bends so easily
Honestly, these are pretty colours but they are so sparkly and not in a nice way
Fruits of my labour
My Unii palette is holding my La Femme blushes so I found an old abacus container from when I was 8 (!) and organized them there. Hopefully now that I can see most of them, they can be used more often.
Project 10 pan update: I walked into Watsons today and walked out without buying anything even though there was a sale on Silkygirl's lipgloss. So proud of myself. So this is day 3 without buying any makeup
A short introduction to project 10 pan: a scheme for hoarders of makeup/skincare like myself to use up the products on our list before we can buy new ones. A skincare/makeup diet of sorts. In its original form, it only applies to makeup, but it can be adapted for skincare as well. The goal is to save money, explore your stash and play around with makeup by limiting choices (how ironic). Most of my money is drained by makeup but I do have occasional skincare crazes so I decided to do use up some of them before I invest into even more skincare! I'm not including sunscreen or makeup removers since these are essentials but I need to slim down my skincare collection from those crazy moments where I believed the marketing schtick of slimming/clear skin/whitening/wrinkle free.
I was supposed to update a few days ago but my laptop died and I forgot to bring my charger from home. So here's the overdue skincare 10 pan!
(sorry for the messy table and poor Iphone 3G pics, trying to get a camera soon!)
My lips and eyes products! The Silk Naturals lipbalm is finishing soon, but I have a long long way to go for the Burt's Bees Lipbalm. I can't really comment on the Clarins or Lóreal eye cream since I don't have fine lines near my eyes, but this could be due to age or my use of differin. Either way, the cream are more for preventive care, so reviews will probably focus on whether they are too thick and give milia or pimples around the area.
(L-R, Silk Naturals Green Tea & Aloe serum, Physiogel Cream, St. Ives Collagen Elastin Facial Moisturizer, Missha Cool Fitting Body Gel, Clarins Hand and Nail Treatment Cream and Missha Time Revolution White Cure Dark Control Cream)
I bought the Silk Naturals serum when I was trying to combat my oily skin, and the Physiogel when my skin was peeling! My skin crazy, I know. The St Ives Facial moisturizer is a hard one for me, I bought it because of all the reviews on Amazon.com but I was a little freaked out by the high mineral oil content in the jar. So instead I'm using this moisturizer as a part time makeup remover, I'll double cleanse with it, followed by my cleanser in the shower. Since mineral oil is used for makeup removal and moisturizers are meant to be used and left on the face, it can't be too bad right?
The Missha items were bought in South Korea when I was shopping at Incheon airport. It was before the duty free section, outside the departure gate that I saw Etude House and Missha having a 50% sale! Barely saw any tourists or locals there but spotted many air stewardess in their airline's trademark uniforms :D Most of the items were gone, especially from the White Cure line so I grabbed what was left. Some people buy 'holiday clothes', clothes that you think are nice overseas, but when you go back to your native country, you can't figure out when or where to wear them. I buy 'holiday skincare', I'm really not into whitening (I'm yellowish tone by nature) and I find most slimming products to be a bit of a hoax. The Clarins handcream was a gift but my (fussy/picky) mom loves this product. All of them are definitely interesting items that I'll be reviewing in the future! Thinking about it 4 of the above items are 'holiday skincare' and 2 others are online buys. Oh the ways that I've been spending my money...
Total cost of this project 10 pan = ~SGD$200? Can't remember most of the prices since I bought them a long time ago and I need to finish up before they expire!
